The Illustrated Sequester

Michael Ramirez is a genius:

...Hell in a Handbasket Pt. LXVI

Andy McCarthy has it right on the vote today that confirmed Chuck Hagel as the next Secretary of Defense:

Chuck Hagel has reportedly been confirmed by a vote of 58-41. But the real action was on cloture, where — as Andrew reported — 18 Republicans voted to let a final vote on the nomination proceed. No matter how they parse it, these Republicans voted to make Hagel the secretary of defense. They will tell the folks back home that they just voted yes on the “procedural” matter but really opposed Hagel’s nomination. That will not be true. Since Democrats had the votes to confirm Hagel if the 60-vote barrier was surmounted, voting to surmount it assured that Hagel would be confirmed — and everyone knew it. 

If the roles were reversed, Democrats would never have let the nominee get confirmed. Thanks to the GOP, we have a Washington where stellar candidates like John Bolton and Miguel Estrada do not get confirmed, but a pro-Iranian anti-Israeli dolt like Chuck Hagel gets through. 

I have a question for Senator John McCain, leader of the pack that says Hagel is “not qualified” to be defense secretary but that nonetheless voted in a way that assured his confirmation. McCain opposes the sequester because, he argues, the cuts to the defense budget are “unconscionable.” So … how can it be unconscionable for a country that is well over $16 trillion in debt to cut a defense budget that exceeds half-a-trillion dollars by around 8 percent (meaning baseline defense spending will still be higher than it was in 2007), yet be conscionable to vote to place in charge of the entire defense department a man who is not qualified for the job? 

I am open to being convinced that aspects of the military cuts are irresponsible. But why would I pay any attention to doomsday predictions from people who have just knowingly made Hagel the guy responsible for setting priorities? (Emphasis added.)

Sequester Strategies

Steve Hayward from Power Line on what Republicans should do regarding the looming sequester battle, a battle by the way that first emanated from the White House:

Republicans should do more than just prepare legislation providing “flexibility” to the executive branch to administer these tiny budget cuts. They should prepare detailed budget cuts of their own department-by-department, providing exact line items of what programs can be cut or delayed under a sequester in the Dept. of Transportation, for example, so that it is not necessary to cut back on air traffic controllers in the towers, or food safety inspectors at USDA. They should announce these on a daily basis, as well as highlighting just one wasteful program in each department every day. The Pentagon should not be exempt from this, either. I’m sure the Pentagon can delay sexual harassment training programs for a few months, or can tell some colonels to drive their own cars to base instead of having a personal driver.

Hayward's colleague Paul Mirengoff takes this strategy one step further:

When the public begins to feel the bite of the sequester, House Republicans should haul the relevant cabinet members and agency heads before the applicable Committee. Because the money available to the department or agency in question even after the sequester will exceed that available to them not long ago, the official in question should explain why services provided not long ago cannot be provided now. 

The agency head presumably will say that the cuts are too indiscriminate. The question should then be whether the agency could provide better service if it had discretion to administer the cuts as it sees fit. 

If the House has passed legislation granting that discretion, the agency head will be in a box. To agree that the added discretion would help is to admit that the Senate Democrats and President Obama should have supported the Republican legislation. To deny that the added discretion would help is to (1) admit to a low level of administrative skill and (2) contradict the earlier admission that the agency isn’t running properly because, at least in part, the cuts are too indiscriminate.

Ultimately, the supposedly draconian sequester will not really accomplish all that much anyway.  From George Will, mocking the hysterical tone of Democrats who think the sequester will end life as we know it:

As in: Batten down the hatches — the sequester will cut $85 billion from this year’s $3.6 trillion budget! Or: Head for the storm cellar — spending will be cut 2.3 percent! Or: Washington chain-saw massacre — we must scrape by on 97.7 percent of current spending! Or: Chaos is coming because the sequester will cut a sum $25 billion larger than was justshoveled out the door (supposedly, but not actually) for victims of Hurricane Sandy! Or: Heaven forfend, the sequester will cut 47 percent as much as was spent on the AIG bailout! Or: Famine, pestilence and locusts will come when the sequester causes federal spending over 10 years to plummet from $46 trillion all the way down to $44.8 trillion! Or: Grass will grow in the streets of America’s cities if the domestic agencies whose budgets have increased 17 percent under President Obama must endure a 5 percent cut!

Will goes on later to suggest that the sequester really isn't even that good of an idea (the arbitrary nature of the cuts themselves, which is the reason Republicans need to step in and use the strategies stated above), and I agree.  If this is what happens when cuts are at all brought up in Washington then we have a long way to go to come up with anything that will alter our current course.

Sinking Ships

Florida Gov. Rick Scott has joined the growing number of GOP governors (including Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona)  in expanding Medicaid in his state.  But, as the WSJ shows, the move is akin to tying oneself to the anchor of a sinking ship.  Here are few of the main justifications that have been made publicly by these governors that, on closer inspection, ring hollow:

• Take the money or run. The Governors now expanding Medicaid are candid about their flight from their own fiscal principles: They want to take political credit for taking "free" money from Uncle Sugar and for appeasing the state hospitals lobbying for federal cash. The Health and Human Services Department will pay 100% of the cost of new beneficiaries, later 90%. 

Indiana Governor Mike Pence spoke for the 13 Governors so far who reject this seeming windfall when he called it "the classic gift of a baby elephant," with the feds promising to buy all the hay for only the first few years. So Governors like Mr. Scott and Ohio's John Kasich are trying to inoculate themselves on the right by creating triggers or "sunsets" that would automatically rescind their participation in new Medicaid if—make that when—Washington reneges on funding. 

They're only conning themselves. HHS can simply impose a blanket "maintenance of effort" rule that prohibits opting out—or any other change. 

• The cost-shift trick. Then again, why would states want to drop out, when they claim that expanding Medicaid will lower health-care costs for businesses and individuals? So-called uncompensated care "drives up the cost of everybody's health insurance," Mr. Kasich said at a recent press conference. "When they visit these emergency rooms and cannot pay, we pay for them." 

Hmmm. This is also the justification President Obama used to impose an individual mandate to buy coverage or else pay a penalty. Does Mr. Kasich now support that too?
And do these Republicans really think that private costs will fall by expanding a government program? Unlikely, since the federal statistics put the total amount of uncompensated care due to the uninsured at $12.8 billion—or less than 0.5% of health-care spending. The Ohio Hospital Association estimates its members provide $3.2 billion in uncompensated care—but $1.3 billion is Medicaid losses, more than bad debt or charity care. Ohio price controls are so onerous that hospitals lose 17 cents for every dollar they spend treating Medicaid patients.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, however, has a plan that does not involve tying his state to the sinking ship that is Medicaid:

When Mr. Kasich is done counting his magic beans, he might look north to Wisconsin for a better Medicaid role model. Last week Scott Walker released an innovative reform that rejects the HHS bribe and will also test the department's putative "flexibility."
Under former Democratic Governor Jim Doyle, Wisconsin greatly expanded its BadgerCare Medicaid program, opening it to everyone earning up to two times the poverty line. Enrollment climbed 73% between 2003 and 2012, state spending increased 99% and proved so expensive that Mr. Doyle was forced to cap enrollment and put eligible people on a wait list. 

Mr. Walker wants to roll back Medicaid to the poverty line and use the savings to open up new BadgerCare slots so the truly poor can use the safety-net program intended for them. (Imagine that.) Wisconsin would forgo the 100% federal magic money, because ObamaCare mandates that states expand Medicaid to 138% of poverty and also in this case end the waiting list, which would grow the rolls by another 32%.
The Walker plan would dump a lot of people onto ObamaCare's subsidized insurance "exchanges," though that would happen anyway. At least he would reduce one entitlement and insulate the Wisconsin budget from Washington uncertainty.

 A lot of the talk from these governors about how times have changed, Obamacare is here to stay, and one must cast aside their principles in order to save the system reminds me of this quote by a gentleman who strangely used the same exact justifications for his purposes:

"I'm a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention," he said. But "these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence.

The speaker is none other then former President George W. Bush regarding his support of the plan to bail out the auto manufacturers.

Lessons Not Learned

Contra to some Republicans who just a day after Obama was re-elected thought that the GOP had to give in on "comprehensive immigration reform" or that Marco Rubio should be the default candidate in 2016 in order to get the Latino vote, Democratic strategist David Plouffe lays the cards on the table and shows just how foolish this line of thought was (and still is):

But, I asked Plouffe, wasn’t the G.O.P. just one postmodern presidential candidate — say, a Senator Marco Rubio — away from getting back into the game? 

Pouncing, he replied: “Let me tell you something. The Hispanic voters in Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico don’t give a damn about Marco Rubio, the Tea Party Cuban-American from Florida. You know what? We won the Cuban vote! And it’s because younger Cubans are behaving differently than their parents. It’s probably my favorite stat of the whole campaign. So this notion that Marco Rubio is going to heal their problems — it’s not even sophomoric; it’s juvenile! And by the way: the bigger problem they’ve got with Latinos isn’t immigration. It’s their economic policies and health care. The group that supported the president’s health care bill the most? Latinos.”

This is bad a sign.  Plouffe and the rest of the Democratic brain trust must be very happy to see that Republicans learned the exact opposite lessons they should have in 2012.

It's Working

You know Sen. Ted Cruz is something special when he gets this treatment by the New York Times:

WASHINGTON — As the Senate edged toward a divisive filibuster vote on Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be defense secretary, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, sat silent and satisfied in the corner of the chamber — his voice lost to laryngitis — as he absorbed what he had wrought in his mere seven weeks of Senate service. 

Mr. Hagel, a former senator from Mr. Cruz’s own party, was about to be the victim of the first filibuster of a nominee to lead the Pentagon. The blockade was due in no small part to the very junior senator’s relentless pursuit of speeches, financial records or any other documents with Mr. Hagel’s name on them going back at least five years. Some Republicans praised the work of the brash newcomer, but others joined Democrats in saying that Mr. Cruz had gone too far. 

Without naming names, Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, offered a biting label for the Texan’s accusatory crusade: McCarthyism. 

“It was really reminiscent of a different time and place, when you said, ‘I have here in my pocket a speech you made on such and such a date,’ and, of course, nothing was in the pocket,” she said, a reference to Senator Joseph R. McCarthy’s pursuit of Communists in the 1950s. “It was reminiscent of some bad times.” (Emphasis added.)

When you start getting comparisons to Joe McCarthy, you know you are getting to them.  And by the way, Sen. Boxer talks almost as if she personally witnessed some of the "bad times" of the past herself.

This is priceless:

Last month, Mr. Cruz faced off aggressively with Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York on a Sunday talk show. When Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago wrote to the chiefs of big banks urging them not to invest in gun manufacturers, Mr. Cruz followed up with letters criticizing the “bullying” of a political “Godfather.” 

After she raised the specter of McCarthyism, Ms. McCaskill was asked if she had spoken to Mr. Cruz about her concerns. 

“I’m not sure it would do any good,” she said. “Do you?”

But when Sen. Schumer or Mayor Emanuel is "aggressive" that's a good thing because it's for the right causes.

As the article further laments, how can you deal with people who have no reason, no sense?  You just can't through to these kind of people.  Why, it's almost as bad as trying convince a certain sitting president that there actually is a spending problem....

Updating Reagan

Ramesh Ponnuru has a good piece in the NYT on how conservatives should go about achieving the same ends today that Ronald Reagan worked towards in the 1980s.  His main thesis is that conservatives, however, face very different circumstances today than they did back then.  Simply enacting the same policies the same way as Reagan did makes lawmakers blind to the circumstances of our day.  An example:

When Reagan cut rates for everyone, the top tax rate was 70 percent and the income tax was the biggest tax most people paid. Now neither of those things is true: For most of the last decade the top rate has been 35 percent, and the payroll tax is larger than the income tax for most people. Yet Republicans have treated the income tax as the same impediment to economic growth and middle-class millstone that it was in Reagan’s day. House Republicans have repeatedly voted to bring the top rate down still further, to 25 percent. 

A Republican Party attentive to today’s problems rather than yesterday’s would work to lighten the burden of the payroll tax, not just the income tax. An expanded child tax credit that offset the burden of both taxes would be the kind of broad-based middle-class tax relief that Reagan delivered. Republicans should make room for this idea in their budgets, even if it means giving up on the idea of a 25 percent top tax rate.

The means must be tailored to achieve the same ends, albeit in difference circumstances.  This does not mean that the answer is to throw Reagan's principles under the bus.  Those principles after all were mainly the principles of the Founders, Lincoln, and Calvin Coolidge (although Coolidge was perhaps the most successful in achieving them, at least economically anyway).  But what this does mean is that conservatives should have the same ends in mind but work under different circumstances to achieve those ends, which, if they see things clearly, are grounded in the law of nature and nature's God.

Calhoun's Ghost

Somewhat related to my earlier post about Lincoln, Steve Hayward had some thoughts on a long essay written by Sam Tanenhaus in The New Republic on that man who Tanenhaus thinks is behind modern conservatism:  John C. Calhoun.  Here is Hayward first on what Tanenhaus sort of gets right:

There has been quite a lot of loose and untethered talk about “secession” from some conservatives, including the otherwise good governor of Texas, whose present efforts to get some businesses to secede from California for Texas I applaud. And there are many misguided conservatives who do admire Calhoun and think his constitutional theory is worth reviving. In this they bid to commit the same error as the Left. Understanding the proper nature of majority rule—and its limits—in our democratic republic is indeed hard work, but conservatives shouldn’t imitate Tanenhaus’s slovenly habits of mind.

Surely though well-intententioned, there has been a growing chorus of Tea Partiers and the like who are preaching nullification as the answer to combat the growing powers of the federal government, e.g., Obamacare and Medicaid expansion.  But nullification and secession at bottom are grounded on the same principle:  anarchy.

Next is Hayward on the irony on Calhoun presents for liberals:

In recent decades it has been liberalism that has embraced Calhoun’s doctrine of the “concurrent majority” most robustly, in such things as the specially-carved majority-minority districts to elect minorities to Congress (mostly black) who, by the very nature of these districts, marginalize themselves. And the spirit of Calhoun was most evident in the explicit doctrines of the now largely forgotten Lani Guiner, Bill Clinton’s aborted nominee for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department 20 years ago. Go back and read her writings—the ones that allegedly “shocked” Bill Clinton when he read them (as though he had no idea what he was getting)—and the parallels to Calhoun are precise.

And ultimately, how Calhoun's political philosophy affects even the best of conservatives (quoted from Harry Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom):

In 1981 President Ronald Reagan, in his inaugural address, declared that the states had made the Union, showing that Calhounism, even at the highest levels, was still alive and well. I am confident that Reagan, a native of Illinois, had no idea that he was contradicting Lincoln. His entourage, from which the speech emerged, like the conservative movement generally, was, however, filled with disciples of Calhoun.

Happy (Belated) Birthday Mr. Lincoln!

This week, I also missed commenting on Lincoln's Birthday, which is now smashed together with the celebration of Presidents Millard Filmore, Chester A. Aurthur, William Henry Harrison, and Jimmy Carter on Monday.

Here is Julia Shaw at the Heritage Foundation on Lincoln and some of the myths that still surround him:

1. Lincoln was a tyrant. 

Fiction. 

Many who make this claim rely primarily on his decision to suspend the writ of habeas corpusat the beginning of the Civil War. As The honorable Frank J. Williams explains, Lincoln defended his decision on constitutional grounds: Since the Constitution does not specify who may suspend habeas corpus “in cases of rebellion or invasion” (Article I, Section 9), he as President did so because Congress was not in session. When Congress did reconvene, Lincoln requested it retroactively approve all the emergency measures he had taken since the commencement of the war, and Congress did.
Critics of Lincoln also fail to mention the most impressive piece of evidence against the tyranny claim: free and competitive elections were held in the midst of the war in 1864. Democrats openly campaigned on a pledge to end the war and drop the slavery issue. They were trounced at the polls. 

2. Lincoln didn’t really care about slavery. He was only interested in preserving the Union. 

Fiction. 

Lincoln believed that slavery was evil and absolutely incompatible with the central American truth of equality. He also believed that it was wrong for a political official to exceed the constitutional authority granted to him. In reality, Lincoln was able to abolish slavery while preserving the Union. 

As President of the United States, Lincoln had only the powers granted to him in the Constitution, and the power to abolish slavery was not one of them. Lincoln’s unwillingness as President to abolish slavery unilaterally in the states should be contrasted with his eagerness to outlaw slavery in the territories. Since the Constitution gives the national government power to govern territories—but not to govern states’ domestic policies—Lincoln adamantly opposed allowing slavery in the territories.


3. Lincoln was the father of big government. 

Fiction. 

President Obama invokes Abraham Lincoln’s legacy to support the vast expansion of the federal government. Yet by any measure, Lincoln was not the father of big government, as Allen C. Geulzo’s Special Report explains. 

Ballooning budgets? Nope. The budget expanded to cover the cost of the war, but then shrank again. 

Numerous civil servants? Not at all. The entire State Department was staffed by 33 people in 1863, including the Secretary of State, William Seward, and the department’s four security guards.  

Expansive bureaucracy? Think again. Between the 1850s and the end of the Civil War, the federal government added seven new agencies (only one of which had any sort of extensive power, and all were lightly staffed) with a total of 22 agencies (there isn’t room to list all of the agencies, commissions, boards, and departments we have now). 

If you really want to blame a president for big government, begin with number 28. It’s a Wilsonian world, regrettably. 

4. Lincoln’s greatest legacy was preserving the Constitution. 

Fact. 

Lincoln was deeply committed to the framework of limited government set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He stated that he “never had a feeling politically that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence.” Lincoln vindicated the Constitution against the twin heresies of secession and nullification. Lincoln affirmed the two central principles of the Union: divided sovereignty and equal citizenship based on the natural rights of individuals. His true legacy is therefore preserving the Constitution and the Union. 

I am loath to close, dear readers. There are too many facts and fictions to discuss. Though passion, movies, and misguided speeches may have strained our understanding of Lincoln, it must not break our bonds of affection. 

Happy birthday, Mr. Lincoln.

For many on the Left and Right unfortunately, the Civil War never ended and is still on-going today.

How Low Can You Go?

Sorry for the long lay-off but this week was extremely busy.

Anyway, I did not watch the State of the Union (I read it later, and boy, was it exciting...) or the responses to it by Sens. Rubio and Paul.  All I got out of Rubio's response was that because he took a drink of water at an awkward spot, his career may be finished.  Or so that's what CNN told me:

In light of this major gaffe, Michael Auslin at NRO has some words of wisdom for Rubio should he decide to run for president in 2016:

1. You can chew food, but don’t swallow.
2. Don’t walk too quickly. Or slowly.
3. Never sweat. And if you do, don’t wipe it away.
4. Don’t smile too widely. Never frown.
5. Avoid sitting on the edge of your chair. Don’t slouch back, either.
6. Never be seen going into a barber shop or shop of any kind, driving a car, waving to a neighbor, watching television, reading a book, unlocking a door, locking a door, putting on shoes, taking off shoes, etc.
7. Never take the stairs two at a time, but avoid using handrails, as well.
8. Try not to breathe too noticeably.

But for those lovable eggheads at CNN, why waste time talking about Rubio when you can fantasize how a murderer is just like Denzel Washington?

The Parochial Mind

Early this morning came the surprising announcement that Pope Benedict XVI will step down in late February.  Courtesy of the First Thoughts blog, here are some of the reactions to this news from liberals in the media (but I repeat myself):

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times:

Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post:

No wonder public trust in the news media is at an all time low.

And if you are interested, Robert P. George tears apart Kristof's historicist logic:

Although I ought to be used to it by now, I still find the parochialism of liberal secular elites stunning. Their small-minded preoccupation with sex and gender is, in its way, amusing. A pope abdicates for the first time in centuries, and what immediately pops into the mind of Nicholas Kristof and his ilk? Contraception, women’s ordination, and celibacy. Oy vey. 

Also amusing is his uncritical–indeed unthinking–embrace of Hegelian-Marxian certainty about the trajectory of history. “At some point, the church will [embrace the ideology of the New York Times editorial board]. It just will, you see. History is open to no other possibilities. It’s a done deal. Already determined. Kristof was no doubt prevented only by the character limit on Twitter from saying “the correlation of forces . . . .”

Signifying Nothing

From James Taranto's "Questions Nobody is Asking" department:

Don’t worry, Dick Morris isn’t going anywhere, according to Dick Morris. 

The high-profile pundit, who was dropped by the Fox New Channel this week says: “I’m not gone. I’ve been all over the place and will continue to be. I’ll be back.” 

Nor is he done making bold predictions. “My record of predictions is actually pretty good,” Morris says. “While I was certainly wrong this year, I haven’t been all that wrong in the past. . . . I’ll continue to call it as I see it. I’m not going to average the predictions [to arrive at a safe middle ground].” 

As for Fox’s decision, “this business has ins and outs and ups and downs, and they were obviously upset because I was so wrong about the election, and wrong at the top of my lungs,” he says. In the end, his prediction was off, but he cites CNN and Gallup polls and adds, “I was not alone.” 

He’ll “continue to make noise,” Morris says. He plans to do it through as many media as possible — radio, TV, speeches, and his daily videos, which he e-mails to about 550,000 people. He says maybe someday he’ll be back at Fox.

The lessons Morris would have us learn from 2012:

Republicans lost the race, he says, because they made the same mistake he did when he made his famously wrong prediction about a Romney landslide: Both errors stem from a misunderstanding of America’s demographic changes. When Republicans won in 2010, it was easy to believe things had returned to normal. But the 2012 presidential election showed that the GOP’s electorate model “was wrong, and it was wrong for all times.” Latinos, women, and gays are “voters who would like to be Republican,” he says. “The Republican party just isn’t letting them.” Those groups are critical to the GOP’s future success, he says. 

Republicans don’t want to embrace immigration reform in part because they think Hispanics will vote for Democrats, he says. And Hispanics would vote Republican, except Republican resistance to immigration reform has convinced Hispanics that they’re a reviled group. Marco Rubio’s immigration bill would be “an excellent start” to break a “vicious cycle.”

I hate to even waste time with a response but I will do it anyway.  Victor Davis Hanson would disagree vehemently with Morris's "analysis" above:

Various polls suggest that immigration was not the primary reason why Latinos voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. 

When the Pew Research Center recently surveyed Latinos and asked whether they preferred high taxes and big government or low taxes and small government, they preferred high taxes and big government by a 75–19 margin. And they usually see liberal Democrats as far better stewards of redistributionist government, and Republicans more as heartless advocates of a capricious free market. 

Asian Americans, for whom illegal immigration is not really an issue, voted for Democrats by about the same margins as did Latinos — and perhaps because of similar perceptions of minority-friendly big government.

A Straight Line Back to the Founders: Obama's Rhetoric

I just finished reading yesterday Steven Hayward's great book on political greatness aptly entitled Greatness:  Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders.  I strongly encourage you to read it (it's only about 170 pages).

Anyway, this brings me to a post Steve just put up on Power Line today that begins at Machiavelli and ends with a liberal historian's agreement with Harry Jaffa of all people on how to properly see Lincoln.  In the midst of this is Hayward's analysis of the opening section of President Obama's second inaugural that in my own post about the speech, I glossed over much too quickly.  Here is what Hayward discovered on a close reading of the opening paragraphs:

Turning to Obama’s second inaugural, there is a single word that now stands out as a flare for the postmodern Left. Many have noted Obama’s fairly traditional beginning to his address:

What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

So far, so good, and, needless to say, an important departure from Woodrow Wilson’s explicit rejection of the Declaration of Independence. But note the key term in the next clause:

Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time. For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing. . . (Emphasis added.)

Hold it right there: the Declaration’s truths—based on “the laws of nature and nature’s God”—may be self-evident? For Jefferson, as for Lincoln, the “self-evidence” of the truth of the propositions of the Declaration depended upon their internal logic, which Lincoln expressed in Euclidian terms. As Lincoln put it, the self-evident truths of the Declaration are “an abstract truth, applicable to all men at all times.” For Obama to say that the truths of the Declaration “may” be self-evident is to mark himself out with the main current of postmodern relativism, which depends upon a rejection of the ideas of the Declaration because they stand in the way of the Left’s will to power. If the Declaration “may” be true, but possibly not true as is implied here, then it isn’t applicable to all men at all times. In the end, Obama doesn’t really disagree with Woodrow Wilson at all in rejecting the Declaration of Independence. As with Obama’s position on gay marriage, his superficial rhetoric is merely conforming to popular opinion, while disguising a contrary intent.

Obama as president is much in the Wilson model but he took the most important lessons from FDR as well.  The rhetorical gymnastics exhibited in this speech is exactly why FDR is a far superior politician and president than Woodrow Wilson ever was.

Scaring Into Submission

Here is a story that was somehow glossed over by the media in the past week:

[Will] Corkins pled guilty today to firearms, terrorism and assault charges in Washington, D.C. Corkins shot and wounded one man in a terrorist attack last August, but he admitted in court that he had intended to kill as many as possible. He was carrying a loaded 9 mm handgun and had in his possession two additional loaded magazines and 50 loose rounds of ammunition. So the Democrats and their media outlets should be talking up Floyd Corkins, right? 

Wrong. Because he carried out his attack on the Family Research Council’s Washington headquarters. Corkins is a left-winger who set out to murder FRC’s employees because he “didn’t like [their] politics,” specifically the fact that they oppose gay marriage. Corkins carried in his backpack, along with ammunition, 15 Chick Fil-A sandwiches in which he said he had intended to rub the faces of conservatives after he murdered them. It wasn’t just the FRC, either; Corkins had targeted three other conservative organizations whose staff he intended to murder after he was finished at the FRC.

And from where did Corkins get his targets?  From the Southern Poverty Law Center's map that shows the location of "hate groups" such as the Family Research Council.  According to the SPLC, the FRC is hate a group because it is against gay marriage.

But remember when after Jared Loughner murdered six people in Arizona and maimed former Rep, Gabby Giffords, Sarah Palin was immediately blamed because she used targets on maps to identify  places where Republicans should focus their energies.  And also remember that in the hours right after the mass shooting in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, it was reported (gleefully in some circles) that the shooter was connected to the Tea Party.  Of course this was later found to be not true.

Coming back full circle, it is highly doubtful that the same crusaders for civility who have blamed the Right in the past will be wondering aloud over the complicity of the SPLC and the Left in Corkin's crimes.

But in exposing this glaring hypocrisy does in no way make culpable the SPLC, the Tea Party, or Rush Limbaugh in any of the acts described above.  Even if one would openly declare their allegiance to one political ideology or another before committing mass murder, it does in no way make that side complicit in the acts the murderer  that may be commited.  (To say the obvious, only if an ideology actually openly promotes violence are they the ones to blame).

Paul Mirengoff has some very sensible thoughts on the idea of blame when it comes to horrible acts like the ones described above:

I have long considered it ridiculous to report the political/social ravings of deranged murderers like Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter. The salient point about these people is their derangement, not its ideological manifestation (ideology actually being too serious a word in these cases). And publicizing the ideological manifestation gives the lunatic a forum he doesn’t deserve. 

I’ve also believed that the publication by journalists of the political ravings of murderers is opportunistic. That is, biased journalists seek political advantage by trying (often in the most attenuated way) to connect the ravings with right-wing thinking.

As does Charles Cooke at NRO:

I have been a longtime critic of the fatuous claim that those whom the nation’s madmen admire are somehow culpable for their actions. It was ridiculous when the Beatles were blamed for Charles Manson’s behavior; it was ridiculous when Sarah Palin was blamed for Jared Lee Loughner’s behavior; and it was ridiculous when the Southern Poverty Law Center was blamed for the shooting at the Family Research Council. It would be equally ridiculous to blame Piers Morgan or gun controllers or the left-leaning media or anyone else named in Christopher J. Dorner’s rambling manifesto for what he did in California.

He nails the actual problem taking place here:

There is a whole world of difference between reporting the details of a killer’s manifesto, and accepting the killer’s conceits. To quote is no more to endorse than to reference is to imply cause. Usually, this distinction serves as the media’s justification for reporting the ramblings of criminals. But not today. In the combined 3,240 words of the lead stories from the New York Times, theLos Angeles Times, and the Associated Press, there is no mention whatsoever of the political contents of Dorner’s screed. Even the BBC ignores the inconvenient bits. They all mention the manifesto, of course — just not what’s in it, even in New York Times’ specific post about the document.

There’s no mention of the extensive sections praising gun control, nor of the author’s appreciation for Piers Morgan, Dianne Feinstein, and President Obama. There’s nothing on his hatred for the NRA and Wayne LaPierre, whom Dorner calls a “a vile and inhumane piece of s***” whose defense of the right to bear arms justifies his “immediate and distant family” to “die horrific deaths in front of” him. There’s no reference to Dorner’s commendations of the “great work” of “Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper,” nor of his lionizing Ellen DeGeneres for her work in changing “the perception of your gay community.” Readers would not know that “Prop 8 supporters,” per Dorner, are “pieces of s***.” They’d have no idea that moderate Republicans are praised: George H. W. Bush, Jon Huntsman, Colin Powell are all singled out. 

None of the people that Dorner mentions are guilty of anything whatsoever. But let me ask an earnest question: Had the killer instead praised Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, President George W. Bush, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, and Proposition 8, and slammed the collection of journalists that he praised, perhaps singling out Piers Morgan for particular attention on the basis of his gun-control advocacy, what do you think the media’s reaction would have been? Ignore your first response and dig deep. What do you think the media’s reaction would have been?

It's obvious that the media's project is to use whatever they can -- e.i., blaming shootings on their political opponents -- to tell those with whom they do not agree politically to shut up and get on board with their cause.  Because, don't you know, that if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you also enjoy murder, right?

The Immigration Problem

Victor Davis Hanson details the strange case of immigration and how the both the Left and the Right deal with it in less than principled ways:

Democrats, buoyed by the two election victories of Barack Obama, now welcome large pools of new Latino citizens to vote en bloc for Democratic candidates. But if the border were actually closed and immigration were once again handled through a legal, systematic process, then in time Latinos — in the pattern of Greek, Italian, and Armenian Americans — would follow most other ethnic minorities and decouple their ethnic allegiances from politics. 

Republicans seem more confused. After needlessly bombastic talk in the 2012 presidential primaries, they have gone to the other extreme of emphasizing amnesties instead of enforcement — largely in efforts to pander to growing numbers of Latino voters.
Here, too, paradoxes abound. Various polls suggest that immigration was not the primary reason why Latinos voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. 

When the Pew Research Center recently surveyed Latinos and asked whether they preferred high taxes and big government or low taxes and small government, they preferred high taxes and big government by a 75–19 margin. And they usually see liberal Democrats as far better stewards of redistributionist government, and Republicans more as heartless advocates of a capricious free market.

So the idea that many on the Right had after Romney was beat in 2012--that Marco Rubio has to be the nominee in order to get the Latino vote or that the amnesty of 12 million illegal is both a political boon to the country and to the Republican Party--is completely wrong.  If Republicans go along with amnesty and a path to citizenship, politically this will create more Democrats.  What now Sean Hannity?  (Sorry for using a Michael Savage link, it's the only one I could find.)

The problem of "comprehensive immigration reform":

Everyone talks grandly of passing bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform as if the present system had not sprung up to serve the needs of all sorts of special interests that certainly have not gone away.

We forget that too many employers still want the cheap labor of foreign nationals.
The Mexican government still promotes illegal immigration as a political safety valve and a valuable source of cash remittances. 

Too many ethnic activists, whose support derives from large numbers of under-assimilated Latinos, don’t want to deport anyone and do not welcome legal immigration redefined by ethnically blind, skill-based criteria. 

Democratic politicos don’t want closed borders, only to see the melting pot someday turn their loyal supporters into independent voters. And panicky Republicans simply have no idea what they want — other than to cater to as many constituencies as they can.
The present system of immigration is far too often illegal and immoral. But it is also weirdly rational in the way that it serves so well so many lobbies — and so poorly the shared public interest at large.

It's a strange case that looks to be handled just as badly in the future as it has been in the last thirty years.

Two Americas

No, I am not referring to the famous iteration of the "two Americas" that was articulated by John Edwards.  This is a reference to the two Americas exhibited in the commercials during the Super Bowl.  From Owen Strachan at The American Spectator:

The Super Bowl commercials this year gave indisputable evidence of the, shall-we-say, “liberated” version, the modern America (I’ll call it the Calvin Klein America). One minute we were watching Joe Flacco, the no-nonsense, very tough Ravens quarterback throw a deep bomb for a touchdown; the next we were watching a pompadoured man contort himself like a hairless pretzel in nothing but Calvin Klein underpants. The theme of unbridled sexuality continued apace throughout the night. A man sneaking his way out of bed following a one-night stand returned to get his t-shirt from his now-discarded paramour; women shed untold layers of clothing in countless commercials for endless iterations of CSI; and then there was the halftime show, when a talented wife and mother power-writhed her way around the stage in a performance that was half-Amazon, half-striptease. 

It was disheartening if you’re even vaguely traditional/biblical/moral in your thinking. Twitter, the new Nielsen rating, reflected this, at least in my evangelical corner of things, with people of all ages—many of them young—disconsolate over our version of Herod’s post-supper entertainment.

And the other America:

But there’s a John the Baptist in our midst, and his name is Paul Harvey. Here was the second America, the one that prizes honor and nobility, roaring to life. It’s the first and oldest America, and we’ll call it the Ram America. The “So God Made a Farmer” commercial for the Dodge Ram popped up in the lights-out halftime show and blew many circuits of its own. I’ve simply not seen a better commercial. It’s a worldview in a truck ad:

God said I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk the cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board–so God made a farmer.

First impression: Paul Harvey was an amazing writer. I know of him and respect him, but I probably speak for many in the younger crowd when I say I haven’t heard a lot of his material. His celebration of the farmer, the figure representing the heart of traditional American perseverance and virtue, moved me to my core.

I find it reassuring that there was some much outcry against some of the commercials described above and so much praised heaped on the ones featuring virtue, Godliness, and the good.

Bias 101

I was just watching about five minutes of Erin Burnett's show on CNN (I guess I like self-immolation) and perhaps the most unintended line she uttered during the was the most revealing of not only her show but of how the media typical operates today.  She was interviewing a former deputy director of the FBI regarding a kidnapping case that was just resolved today, with the kidnapper being taken out by a SWAT team.  Luckily the child, who had been the assailant's hostage for almost a week, was rescued and is now at a local hospital for treatment.  Anyway, during the course of the interview, right after the former FBI deputy director described how the SWAT team set off a device the momentarily stunned the kidnapper and then rushed in to his bunker to incapacitate him and rescue the child, Burnett, incredulously wondered aloud why the team just didn't do this on the first day.  Why did it take seven days for this to occur?  The deputy director responded that because of many factors, i.e., the size of the bunker, the instability of the kidnapper, and the overarching goal to get everyone in a hostage situation out alive, the team did the best they could considering the circumstances.  Burnett then said in an aside that she guessed it wasn't as simple as she thought and quickly moved on to the next story.

It's amazing how most of the news is shaped and presented by people who generally have some of the most simplistic and cliched views on everything.  They purport to act as though they are the authorities, without letting the public in on this secret:  the public probably knows more then them on any given subject.  A great example of this is can be seen in the current gun control debate.  Steve Hayward has a great example of this over at Power Line:

We awoke Friday to the announcement that NBC News president Steve Capus was “resigning”(that is, fired), and the only wonder is that he wasn’t fired Thursday evening after the national broadcast. I made the mistake of taking in NBC’s national news broadcast Thursday evening, and it fell below even the usual low standards for network news bias and reportorial incompetence. 

NBC essentially handed off their lead story to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. You can watch the whole broadcast at this link if you are a glutton for punishment. Brian Williams leads with the Brady Campaign’s latest death-by-firearms figures, without qualifying how many were due to gang violence, and without any mention, or curiosity, about how many crimes were prevented in the same time period by law-abiding gun owners. (In the whole segment there was only one 10-second clip from an opponent of gun control.) I suppose NBC thinks that if gun control is enacted, all those gang bangers will obey the law and turn in their guns. Like they do in Chicago. Oops. 

Actually, NBC gets around to Chicago in its story, and champions the line that Chicago police are taking 200 officers out from behind their desks and putting them out on the street to combat gun violence. Did anyone think to ask Chicago what those 200 officers were doing “behind their desks” in the first place? No; instead, the story bemoans that outlying areas don’t have gun control and hence there’s a flow of guns into Chicago. So sure, let’s enact strict nationwide gun control to stop this “loophole,” and cut off the flow of guns from Mexico just as surely as we’ve stopped the flow of illegal drugs.

This is what happens when the media for all intents and purposes becomes just another arm of the Democratic party.

Despicable

Regarding the murder of Chris Kyle, decorated war hero who as a SEAL sniper killed over 150 enemies while stationed in Iraq, former Rep. Ron Paul had this to say:

Despicable.

Hagelized

The Weekly Standard has Hagelized (an update on "bowdlerize" no doubt) so to speak some of the best quotes in world history, starting off with Chuck himself:

And, in the same vein, please take time to read Mark Steyn's hilarious and penetrating take-down on the absolute disaster that was the Hagel confirmation hearings.  I think some humor is definitely in order right now.

Clinging to His Guns

The White House has a released a photo of President Obama going skeet shooing at Camp David, likely in response to a recent interview Obama did with The New Republic in which he stated that he regularly goes shooting at Camp David.  Questions then came out because no one had seen any photos of this before.  The picture itself, curiously dated August 12, 2012, is below:

A sentence from the AP's report gives us this description, just in case one had trouble putting together all of those confusing shapes and images:

The rifle is cocked in Obama's left shoulder, his left index finger is on the trigger and smoke is coming from the barrel.

But I think they unknowingly stumbled on the reason for all this in the opening sentence:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has released a photo of President Barack Obama firing a gun, two days before he heads to Minnesota to discuss gun control.

So now we know that the president clings to his guns.

Hagel the Horrible

I just finished watching Sen. Ted Cruz's (who is getting more impressive by the day it seems) questioning of Chuck Hagel during the nomination hearings.  Hagel looks worse and worse with every passing minute, and even some members from the Obama administration are questioning his performance thus far.

Today Cruz laid bare Hagel's past agreements with a couple of callers on Al Jazeera  (now Al Gore approved) during an interview in 2009.  One caller called the U.S. "the world's bully" and the other called Israel's self-defense a "sickening slaughter."

Please watch:

In what is becoming typical in these hearings, it seems that Hagel's answers consist either of lies, misleading or contradictory statements seemingly intended to confuse the committee members, or non-answers that don't clarify anything.

Again, this is the man who President Obama thinks is best suited to be secretary of defense.

There Are a Lot of Things I Don't Know

In case you're behind on following the hearings for the nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, here is all you need to know in 80 seconds:

Scott Johnson from Power Line notes this statement by Hagel, which didn't make it in the highlights above:

A number of questions were asked of me today about specific programs, submarine programs, different areas of technology and acquisitions, and our superior technology. I’ve said I do not know enough about it. I don’t. There are a lot of things I don’t know about. If confirmed, I intend to know a lot more than I do.

Sounds like a perfect Sec. of Defense to me.

Rejecting Reason

Jay Nordlinger has some thoughts that relate to a recent post of mine on the Democrats' seeming rejection of all rationality in public policy.  As seen in the current debate over guns, just pushing for an "assault weapons" ban or universal background checks seems to suffice for actual argument.  Nevermind the question of whether or not those policies even achieve their implied ends of actually lessening gun violence. 

And Jay agrees:

One of the things Democrats frequently accuse Republicans of is having no respect for science or facts. Funny, but I make a similar accusation about them. Do they care about the results of their policies? No, they like the feel-good nature of those policies. 

How about soaking the rich? Does that bring in more revenue to the government? Or does the lowering of marginal tax rates bring in more revenue? Do higher taxes aid the economy or retard it? Who cares? The point is to feel good, about sticking it to the rich, or requiring that they pay their “fair share.” 

So it is with gun control. These gun-control laws: Do they reduce gun violence? Or do they have the opposite effect? Does the disarming of a population make them safer or less safe? Who cares? We feel better because we have “done something.” 

One fine day, I’d like to hear someone say, “I used to support gun control, but now I see that such control does not bring my desired results. On the contrary. Therefore, I’ve changed my mind.” 

That would be a beautiful thing.

For example, just look at Chicago, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation (they don't even allow concealed carry in the state) but whose crime rates are sky high.  First from the AP:

CHICAGO — They are counting the dead from gunfire again in Chicago, a city awash in weapons despite having one of the strictest gun-control ordinances in the nation. 

After a year in which Chicago's death toll surpassed 500, the bloodshed has continued in 2013 at a rate of more than one killing a day. It was the city's deadliest January in more than a decade. 

Now with this week's death of a 15-year-old drum majorette who had just returned from performing at President Barack Obama's inauguration, the mounting losses have put Obama's hometown at the center of the intensifying national debate over guns.

And from The New York Times:

CHICAGO — Not a single gun shop can be found in this city because they are outlawed. Handguns were banned in Chicago for decades, too, until 2010, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that was going too far, leading city leaders to settle for restrictions some describe as the closest they could get legally to a ban without a ban. Despite a continuing legal fight, Illinois remains the only state in the nation with no provision to let private citizens carry guns in public. 

And yet Chicago, a city with no civilian gun ranges and bans on both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, finds itself laboring to stem a flood of gun violence that contributed to more than 500 homicides last year and at least 40 killings already in 2013, including a fatal shooting of a 15-year-old girl on Tuesday.

Looks like actually stemming gun violence is a little harder than what most Democrats make it seem.  That's what happens when you keep reason out of politics.