Category Archives: Political Commentary

Where Has He Been?

An interesting comment from this post:

Me and my family used to be the biggest fans of Bill Clinton. Everyone in my community can’t stand to see Bill on TV anymore. I’m not sure if its his older age or maybe the lack of sleep lately, but I truly believe his lost his mind. He makes no sense anymore, cares about nothing other than attempting to get his wife elected, plucks words right out of the air while stating nothing, and now even goes against the voices of mass voters…

Bill Clinton is really not he same person I USED to respect and admire!

Sorry, he’s exactly the same person you used to (foolishly and myopically) respect and admire. He’s the same person he’s been his entire political career, going all the way back to the seventies in Arkansas. Anyone who has followed his career, or read non-hagiographic biographies of him knows this. The only thing that’s changed is that you’ve found a new empty vessel into which to pour your emotional political longings, and he’s attacked it, so now you see the Bill Clinton that the rest of us have seen all along.

As I’ve said many times, I don’t now, and never have “hated” Bill (or Hillary Rodham) Clinton. I find them far too trivial and unworthy subjects on which to expend such an intense and miserable emotion. I think that I’m in fact far more clinically objective about them than most Democrats have ever seemed to be able to be. The problem is not the “Clinton haters” (most of whom were merely pointing out the reality), but the far too many people who have loved him, far beyond reason, for decades. That was the source of his power.

And now that the scales have fallen from the eyes of many like the commenter above, the end may be very ugly, particularly if they are perceived to have stolen the nomination from Obama (something that they are surely plotting as I write this). Denver may make Chicago in 1968 look like a Sunday-school picnic.

They’ve never cared about the Democrat Party, other than as a convenient vehicle for the conveyance of their unlimited and insatiable ambition and lust for power, and they’ve been a disaster for it ever since they hit the national scene. They cost it the Congress for the first time in four decades, and the party couldn’t hold on to the White House at the end of their term, at least partly because of the stench of it in the minds of the voters in 2000. Having Bill Clinton campaign for a Democrat has generally been the kiss of death, but because of this irrational love of them, they’ve managed to keep on doing it.

When it comes to the Clintons, it’s always about them, and they always come first, and the national Democrats are finally starting to realize it, sixteen years later. If they’d been smart, and listened to Arkansas Democrats at the time, they could have had the much earlier epiphany, and spared their party a lot of corruption and embarrassment.

Oh, when the end comes, it won’t be as bad as the Ceausescus (this is America, after all), but it will certainly be as final. There will be no more comeback kids. If he’s still around in a couple decades, I suspect that Bill Clinton will be continuously enraged and deeply envious of the legacy of George W. Bush.

The Empty Suit

I frankly don’t get all the Obamamania. But then, I never got all of the talk about Bill Clinton’s charisma, either. And to be fair, I never understood what the big deal was with Ronald Reagan, the great communicator. I guess I’m more into substance than style. I’m more interested in what people say than in how they say it.

Anyway, given the nature of his career, it’s certainly a legitimate point to question his experience and qualifications as president (ignoring the minimal constitutional requirements of native born and thirty-five years old). His speeches remind me of Gertrude Stein’s comment about Oakland–there’s no there there.

So is there more to it than his speeches? Well, he’s apparently left no paper trail to discern his views on much of anything:

A simple question: Does anyone know whether Obama, while serving on the Harvard Law Review from 1989-91, published anything? The law students on the Review all have the right to publish at least one piece (typically they publish at least their third-year papers, which they have to write anyway), and many publish at least two pieces. It would seem surprising if Obama published nothing at all in the very Review over which, he has so often boasted, he presided as President.

If Obama published NOTHING, that would tend to reinforce the contemporaneous impressions of his fellow editors (at least those a year behind him) that while “likeable enough” (to borrow a phrase), he was basically lazy in carrying out his duties. See my earlier comments here and here. It would be interesting if he was so lazy he didn’t publish anything during the two years he served on the Review — not even a short case comment or book review.

(Apparently, judged by the objective results of his work (later scholarly citations to the volume which he oversaw), Obama was the worst president of the Harvard Law Review in the past 20 years — there was a huge drop in the citations to the volume he produced compared to the years just before, and just after, he served as president. See here.
In his recent interview on “60 Minutes” (see here, about 2:50 into the video), Obama conceded that other than his Review presidency he has no executive experience — that the Review is the only thing he’s ever run, setting aside his own senate office and his campaign. Analyzing his job performance on the Review thus seems like a legitimate, indeed important, task.)

(Follow my link to follow the commenter’s links)

So, his only executive experience is running a law school magazine, and not with any apparently distinguishment.

Here’s something else disturbing. He hasn’t performed that well in debates. His primary accomplishment, and talent, seems to be to make vaporous but inspiring (to some) speeches, that make (supposedly) grown men swoon and get funny feelings up their legs (are you sure that wasn’t something running down your leg, Chrissie?). And when he doesn’t have a teleprompter, apparently even his speeches aren’t all that great:

…the liberal commentators have gushed their praise nearly every time Obama has opened his mouth before a Teleprompter the past few months

It was thus interesting to see Obama climb to the stage at Virginia’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner on Saturday night. As he strode to the podium, Obama clutched in his hands a pile of 3 by 5 index cards. The index cards meant only one thing–no Teleprompter.

Shorn of his Teleprompter, we saw a different Obama. His delivery was halting and unsure. He looked down at his obviously copious notes every few seconds throughout the speech. Unlike the typical Obama oration where the words flow with unparalleled fluidity, he stumbled over his phrasing repeatedly.

The prepared text for his remarks, as released on his website, sounded a lot like a typical Obama speech. All the Obama dramatis personae that we’ve come to know so well were there–the hapless family that had to put a “for sale” sign on its front lawn, the factory forced to shutter its doors and, of course, the mother who declares bankruptcy because “she cannot pay her child’s medical bills.”

The tone was also vintage Obama. The prepared text reached out to all Americans, including (gasp!) Republicans. It also evidenced Obama’s signature lack of anger. While his colleagues have happily demagogued complex issues and demonized the Bush administration, Obama always has taken pains to strike a loftier tone.

But Saturday night’s stem-winder turned out quite differently from the typical Obama speech. With no Teleprompter signaling the prepared text, Obama failed to deliver the speech in his characteristically flawless fashion. He had to rely on notes. And his memory. And he improvised.

I’d suggest reading the whole thing.

So, does he even write the speeches? If so, then he must be more aware at the time he’s writing them how important the tone is. It seems to me, though, if there’s a big difference in tone between a read speech and an extemporaneous one, that someone else, who better understands the nature of his campaign and appeal, is writing them. And when you take away the magic words, the magic candidate disappears as well, and his true voice emerges.

If this is the case, then we are on the brink of taking a cipher, with no notable accomplishments in running anything, who is persuasive and compelling as a speaker only when reading others’ words, and putting him in charge of the armed forces and other government institutions of the most powerful nation in the history of mankind.

Is this really a good idea?

As I’ve said before, the Dems grossly overestimate their chances of regaining the White House this year. Both of their remaining candidates are seriously flawed, in different ways. If you look at the last few decades of presidential elections, the Democrats have won resoundingly only once–in 1964, when the Republicans ran someone perceived to not only be, but someone who was proud to be, an extremist. Since then, the few times the Dems have won have been in very close races. Jimmy Carter might have lost in 1976 if Ford hadn’t pardoned Nixon, and made the foolish faux pas about Poland in the second debate. Bill Clinton couldn’t have gotten into the White House without the help of Ross Perot. People forget that he only got 43% of the vote in 1992. The only reason he won was because George Bush only got 39%. Even in 1996, he couldn’t muster a majority–even in beating Bob Dole, he only got 49+%.

Maybe that long jinx is about to be broken, but it sure doesn’t look to me like they have the candidates to do it this year.

[Late afternoon update]

Is Obama a liberal fascist?

I think the most obvious place to start is whether Obama is promoting something like a political religion. The messianic nature of Obama’s campaign has been noted by many for a long time now. He often sounds like he’s reviving the social gospel. There’s even a website called “Is Barack Obama the Messiah?”

Many of the tropes of a political religion/liberal fascism are evident. He exalts unity as it’s own reward. His talk of starting new and starting over often sounds like more than merely “turning the page” on the Bush-Clinton years. It sounds a bit like starting at Year Zero.

But what I find most intriguing is his rhetoric of destiny and “choseness.” He often makes it sound like he has been selected by forces of providence or God or simply history for this moment. He is, in Oprah’s words, “The One.” But even more interesting, he tells voters they are the ones. “This is it,” Obama proclaimed on Super Tuesday. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for, we are the change that we seek.” That’s pretty oracular stuff.

Well, there’s little doubt that Hillary is.

[Early evening update]

Leon Wieseltier has some related thoughts:

…into this unirenic environment strides Obama, pledging to extract us promptly from Iraq and to negotiate with our enemies. What is the role of a conciliator in an unconciliating world? You might think that in such conditions he is even more of an historical necessity-but why would you think that all that stands between the world and peace is one man? George W. Bush was not single-handedly responsible for getting us into our strategic mess and Barack Obama will not be single-handedly responsible for getting us out of it. There are autonomous countries and cultures out there. The turbulence that I have described is not caused by misunderstandings. It is caused by the interests of powers and the beliefs of peoples. Beijing, Moscow, Tehran, Pyongyang, Islamabad, Gaza City, Khartoum, Caracas-does Obama really believe that he has something to propose to these ruthless regimes that they have not already considered? Does he plan to move them, to organize them, to show them change they can believe in? With what trick of empathy, what euphoria, does he hope to join the Shia, the Sunni, and the Kurds in Iraq? Yes, he made a “muscular” speech in Chicago last spring; but I have been pondering his remarks about foreign policy in the ensuing campaign and I do not detect the hardness I seek, the disabused tone that the present world warrants. My problem is not with “day one”: nobody is perfectly prepared for the White House, though the memory of Bill Clinton’s “learning curve” is still vivid, which in Bosnia and Rwanda cost more than a million lives. My problem is that Obama’s declarations in matters of foreign policy and national security have a certain homeopathic quality. He seems averse to the hurtful, expensive, traditional, unedifying stuff.

Indeed.

Wrong Analogy

The inevitability about Hillary Clinton seems to be becoming an inevitability of her defeat in the primaries. Ron Fournier has a piece about her abandonment by her former allies/cronies/sycophants as Obama continues to build momentum:

“If (Barack) Obama continues to win …. the whole raison d’etre for her campaign falls apart and we’ll see people running from her campaign likes rats on a ship,” said Democratic strategist Jim Duffy, who is not aligned with either campaign.

Actually, I think that a better analogy would be a sinking ship abandoning a pair of rats.

But I think that he underestimates both the power and the ruthlessness of the Clintons. Perhaps after losing enough primaries, she’ll bow out, but if so, I’ll be very surprised. She’s been working for this for decades, and I don’t think that she’ll give up without a very vicious fight, including a convention fight to seat the Michigan and Florida delagates, and a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure. In addition, we don’t know how many FBI files they actually had access to back in the nineties, or whose they were, or what was in them. It’s certainly conceivable that this is a weapon that they can hold over the head of the super delegates.

And even if she ends up not getting the nomination, I suspect that the Democrats will still have an ugly election in the fall. There are many ways that Billary can sabotage Obama’s run without it being obvious that that’s their intent (just as in fact Bill may have sabotaged Hillary’s primary campaign, perhaps out of fear of being shown up by his wife as president). After all, if he wins, it makes it a lot harder for her to make another attempt in 2012. No matter who wins the nomination, I won’t be surprised, nor will I be displeased, to see the civil war within the Democrat Party (that was started by the Clintons) continue.

No Thynge Coold Plese Me Moore

…than a blogge by Sir Iowahawke on that ArchBisheoppe Of Canterbeerry:

25 Sayeth the pilgryms to Bishop Rowan,

26 “Father, we do not like howe thynges are goin’.

27 You know we are as Lefte as thee,

28 But of layte have beyn chaunced to see

29 From Edinburgh to London-towne

30 The Musslemans in burnoose gowne

31 Who beat theyr ownselfs with theyr knyves

32 Than goon home and beat theyr wyves

33 And slaye theyr daughtyrs in honour killlynge

34 Howe do we stoppe the bloode fromme spillynge?”

35 The Bishop sipped upon hys tea

36 And sayed, “an open mind must we

37 Keep, for know thee well the Mussel-man

38 Has hys own laws for hys own clan

39 So question not hys Muslim reason

40 And presaerve ye well social cohesion.”

Reade, thee, the reste.

It cood be only the product of an undhimmified English major.

A Billion Here, A Billion There

There’s an interesting post on military aircraft procurement over at Winds of Change today (interesting if you’re interested in such things, that is).

Norm Augustine, former head of Martin Marietta (now part of Lockheed Martin) wrote an amusing (and insightful) book back in the eighties called “Augustine’s Laws” (it’s now on its sixth edition, last published about a decade ago). One of the things he did was to plot the growth in cost of military fighters over the decades since the war, and extrapolate it out. He predicted that in some year of the twenty-first century, the military would be able to only afford a single multi-purpose aircraft, and the Air Force and Navy would have to share it.

One point made in comments over there is that the reason these things cost so much per unit (I was shocked to read that the Raptor is a third of a billion dollars per unit) is because it includes amortization of the development and fixed production costs–if they had decided to purchase the originally planned seven hundred, the price per aircraft would be much lower. The problem is that, though we get more bang for the buck, we never want to spend that many bucks.

We did the same thing with the Shuttle. It was about a five-billion-dollar development program, in seventies dollars, but when the fleet size was cut from seven to five during Carter-Mondale (Mondale actually wanted to completely kill the program) as a cost saving, the price per orbiter went up a good bit. It would have probably only cost an additional billion or so to get the two extra vehicles, and we’d be in a lot better shape now (all other events since being equal) with a remaining fleet of five, instead of three. Having had two more might have made us more willing to continue to press forward even in the face of the losses, because even if the president hadn’t decided to end the program next year, we’d probably have to do it anyway, particularly if we lost one more, and had only two left. In fact, one of the few smart moves made on the program in the eighties was to order “structural spares” (things like the titanium keel and spar) before the production was shut down and tooling dismantled. That allowed us to build Endeavor after Challenger, something that would not have been possible otherwise, and in the absence of that new vehicle, we’d have been down to two after the Columbia loss.

We’re not just penny-wise pound-foolish in production. The Shuttle has a similar problem in ops. If we’d had more vehicles, and made the investment in facilities for them, we could have doubled the flight rate, without that much of an increase in annual fixed costs (perhaps a billion more a year). Which would have been a better deal: four flights a year for three billion a year (a typical number), resulting in a cost of three quarters of a billion per flight, or eight flights a year for four billion, with a cost of half a billion per flight?

Neither number is attractive, but the taxpayer would have gotten a lot more for the money if the purse strings had been loosened on the program. It might have made it a lot more sustainable.

Down A Big Cup Of Duuuhhhh

Some intelligence agencies are starting to think that maybe bin Laden hasn’t been alive for a long time:

Questions about Bin Laden are being raised by intelligence officials who say that without a specific time mark with a photo of Bin Laden, his presence cannot be confirmed and the most recent statements could have been put together from older audio.

Yes, and that has been true since Tora Bora. Haven’t these people ever wondered, or speculated why bin Laden, who was second only to Senator Schumer when it came to being a camera hog, all of a sudden switched from video to audio about six years ago? Even if he said things that seemed to indicate knowledge of recent events, that could have been done by splicing and manipulating an audio tape, or finding someone to imitate his voice. Maybe they’ve been using voice prints, but I don’t know how reliable they really are. I do know that it’s a lot harder to fake a video, and when I consider the fact that we’ve heard only audios, and not seen a new video (at least one that can be shown to be from a post-2002 period) I have long thought that he’s been pushing up poppies since then.

Of course, the other reason that I’ve long thought that he’s dead is that our so-called intelligence agencies–the same ones that subverted our pressure on Iran last fall with their “intelligence” estimate that they’re not building a bomb–have continued to tell me that he’s alive. To me, the question is not whether or not he’s alive, but why so many in the so-called intelligence community have been so determined to continue to attempt to convince us that he is for the past six years.

The Cairing Party

The misspelling is deliberate:

Perhaps some members of Congress had been fooled by CAIR’s deception. But now they have no excuse. Now Sen. Barbara Mikulski, who saluted CAIR’s “important work,” and Sen. Paul Sarbanes, who applauded “CAIR’s mission,” know better.

The criminal briefing should also disabuse Rep. John Conyers, who’s trumpeted CAIR’s “long and distinguished history.” Rep. John Dingell, who said “my office door is always open” to CAIR, now has an obligation to slam it shut.

No red-blooded American lawmaker wants to do anything that would facilitate the support of terrorists, not even Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who’s gushed “CAIR has much to be proud of.”

And shame on the (much fewer) Republicans on the list as well.

Moderate American Muslims need to form and promote an organization that truly speaks for them, and not for radicals and terrorism. But if they do, will the Democrats pay any attention, or will they remain enthralled with CAIR?