The Blame Game

With respect to the Republican House behavior, I don't know what's happened to the Corner and other conservative commentary we layman rely on. The Speaker's comments just before a critical, nervous, tight vote was not only "extremely unwise and irresponsible" but incredibly stupid and incompetent in its blatant partisanship. Especially since Ms. Pelosi needed Republican votes so she could shield her own committee heads from having to vote Yes to the legislation. To her, this important legislation was nothing more than a handy way to diss the Republicans and win more seats and the Presidency this November.

In politics, as in business and every other walk of life, the personal is important, and the Democrats have routinely savaged the Republicans for partisan gain ever since Paulsen proposed the bailout. And, as John McCain attempted to help (at the request of both Democrats and Paulson), they upped their rhetoric to stratispheric levels, even to the point of telling the sitting Senator from Arizona to get out of town! Has this ever happened before? Has any Senator ever been told to get out of town by the political leadership of the opposing party just prior to one of the most important votes facing the Republic in my lifetime?

Statesmanship is important, and Republicans have always had to carry this burden due to the Democrat's congenital lack of moral fiber. But the fact is, neither conservatives nor anyone else knows whether or not this legislation would even work. Under these circumstances the argument for statesmanship is decidedly weak. When Social Security went negative in the 80's, Ronald Reagan dumped his economic and political principals and signed off on a huge increase in Social Security taxes. That's statesmanship, but statesmanship in the service of something that, whatever its problems and ramifications, would at least fix for a time the central problem facing the Government and the American people. This Bill bore no such certainty of fixing anything - it was simply audaciously hopeful.

The Democrats have spent a week now trying to gain political advantage from this crisis, and the Republicans have spent a week trying to be statesmanlike and solve the problem. Nancy Pelosi's speech was just the latest salvo in the Democrats electoral partisanship and made it plain that Republicans are expected to take a knife in the gut in the supposed patriotic protection of their country, while Democrats reap great electoral rewards.

They have the majority; this is critical legislation; the Republican President is ready to sign what they put before him. It's time for the Democrats to show statesmanship, and if they don't, it's time for National Review and other conservatives to stick the blame where it belongs: with the Democrats. This outrage against Republicans has got to stop.

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Election 2008

A Republican strategist the other day said that Republicans need to stay off the Iraq war, and focus on other issues. Dick Morris said essentially the same thing, summarizing what appears to be the popular wisdom for Presidential aspirants: the American people want to get out of the war now, and if the war is the primary issue in 2008 then the Republicans will lose. The Democrats certainly believe this as they are doing everything they can to position themselves as the party who want to get out of Iraq regardless of consequences..

This is all wrong. Number one, the Republicans cannot run away from the war, they are indissolubly linked with the war. And they can't solve this problem by changing the subject: 100,000+ troops in Iraq cannot and will not be ignored by either the Democrats or the public.

No, what Republicans need to do is what Reagan did: trust in the essential goodness and common sense of the American people. The war in Iraq is a defining moment in the most important battle of the 21st century: that between the forces of liberty and democracy and those of statist totalitarianism. That battle did not end with the fall of communism, it has just morphed into a new version of the 20th century's dream of utopia, now contained within a radical Islamic fascism. Following the lead of the radicals of Al Quaida, all around the world Muslim chauvinists are pressing liberal Western societies to cede their rights to free expression, free association, and private behavior.

The American people are aware of this on some level, and all they need is a leader who will articulate the threat and ask them to take the demanding actions necessary to preserve our freedoms for our children.

John McCain seems to have grasped this, and has apparently centered his campaign on the war -- to the bafflement of the Demcratic establishment who can only see what's happening thru a lens made of polls. But polls by definition reflect the past, they do not tell you what the people will think tomorrow when faced with new events coupled with a leader who can resolutely articulate the truth and a vision for them to follow.

Republicans supported this war from the beginning for the best of reasons, and they need to remember that those reasons are still valid. Winning this war is the right thing to do, the best hope for this country and the world. Ronald Reagan never underestimated the American people's capacity to do the right thing in the 1980's, and the Republicans should not underestimate the electorate in 2008.

Talking Points and the Major Media

This Post continued from here.

It is common wisdom that those who are quick to recognise the sins of others do so because they are themselves subject to those same weaknesses. And this, I think, might explain the curious charge that Fox News is following Republican talking points: because the Democrats have just this kind of a relationship with the Major Media, and cannot conceive that the Republicans aren't doing it too.

And this is born out, I think, by the political battles of the last few years. The Major Media has always been sympathetic to the Democrats political agenda, but the level of congruence b/t the editorial decisions of the Media and the Dems political strategies since 2000 can only be described as active coordination. It is not my function to go into such matters, but I would submit that a thorough review of the massive help the Major Media gave John Kerry's Presidential campaign alone would convince any reasonable person w/ an open mind. I will mention one well known example: The infamous charge by Dan Rather that Bush had received special treatment in his natioal Guard service. It has been a mystery to some as to why a news man of the stature of Dan Rather would involve himself w/ such an obviously fraudulent report. Well if we assume that he (or more likely his staff) were actively coordinating an 'October Surprise' against Bush, then it all seems to make more sense. The damning 'news' report was integral to the Kerry campaign and had to be rushed onto the evening news asap. And both the timing and the substance of this 'news'report could not have been more beneficial for the Kerry campaign if it had been produced by his own campaign staff.

I don't know exactly how the Dems and the Media commonicate and coordinate their actions but I submit that if evidence is found about this relationship that it will be a scandal of major proportion. The Major Media are entitled to support any candidate they want, but to use their media power surreptitiously for a candidate while pretending to be a standard news outlet is at a minimum a violation of campaign contribution laws, and at the maximum a betrayal of a fundamental public trust.

Progress in the Language Arts Dept

DRAFT

A friend once remarked that he was continually astonished at the low level of education these days. His latest concern was a conversation he had with a man who had graduated from a well known university, who, he discovered, had not the least knowledge of who Oscar Wilde was. It provoked in me some reflections, some of which I relayed to him.

The problem, as I see it, is not a diminution of academic standards, but a great expansion in the field of the language arts. In the 19th century, what we now call the language arts was a subset of a subset of philosophy, as was physics, mathematics and the rest of the so-called hard sciences. But shortly thereafter, in the apogee of civilization which was the 20th Century, the lqnguage arts began subsuming all other disciplines within itself, under the guise of what we now call 'lterary criticism.'

Now a literary critic is actually just an English major who has been induced to wander outside his natural boundaries, like a cow finding the gate open. As a result, you find literary critics gamboling in such widely dispersed fields as philosophy, New Testament studies, physics, biology, and others. Unfortunately, like that cow, the literary critic does not have much sustenance in these other fields, with the result being a rather thin and tasteless product.

But the bigger result of all of this is a collapse of standardization in the classic English studies. The field has become impossible because it encompasses everything. The most studious and rigorous attempt to gain an education in language arts today might never get to Oscar Wilde because there is simply not enough time.

Or to locate the problem more succintly, if something is about everything, then it is also about nothing.

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The Blacksburg Massacre

As I predicted, the political vultures have lost little time in turning the Virginia Tech tragedy into just another occasion for them to advance their agenda. In this case, of course, it’s assigning all the blame for this affair to the NRA and, of course, President Bush. Apparently, if there had been strict gun laws in place like Europe, this would not have happened.

However, this was a random, unpredictable action of senseless violence, and in an open society like the campus of Virginia Tech (and our entire country, for that matter), there is very little that can be done to prevent such actions that would not, ultimately, destroy the very open society we are trying to protect.

Except for one thing: empowering law abiding citizens with the proper training to carry guns. If there had even been one such person on the scene at Virginia Tech, the terrible death toll might have been much, much less.

But that would be too simple a solution. And further, law abiding citizens carrying guns are the very people who most frighten anti-gun advocates.

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The 2nd Amendent & Va. Tech

Do the horrible events at Va Tech raise issues of the 2nd Amendment?

No - notwithstanding what you will hear from all Major and Minor Media and Politicians over the next few weeks.

The events at Va Tech raise simply and solely issues of the crime of murder. Murder bears the same relationship to the 2nd Amendment as speeding bears to vehicle registration statutes, that is, none.

But that won't stop the demagogues and political opportunists from seeking to co-opt these tragic events for their own vain purposes.

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Talking Points and the Major Media

I note a charge against Fox News leveled by Democrats recently: that it routinely regurgitates Republican talking points as news.

Now this is curious on 2 levels:

(1) Republicans don't use talking points. Talking points are memos issued by the Democrats to the troops so that whenever an issue comes up the main Democratic points will be repeated almost verbatim by every Democrat who can get themselves quoted in the Major Media. The idea is that if the public keeps hearing the same thing over and over from many different media sources, then through sheer volume and repetition, it will come to be believed as true (e.g. the phrase 'Bush lied us into war,' a patently and demonstrably false accusation that is believed by large segments of the public simply because the Democrats have repeated the phrase over and over and over and over ... ).

The disarray of the Republican party the last few years by itself shows that the Republicans do not use this talking points tactic. But further, it is just a fact that there is no concerted effort among the GOP to dictate what all Republicans must say on any given issue. At most, there are conservative think tanks, magazines and commentators promulgating position papers, articles and opinions on any given issue, and some of these can be quite influential among Republicans. But there is certainly nothing like a single mandated script that every Republican must follow.

(2) If there is no script for the party faithful to follow, it is beyond silly to suppose that Fox News is taking its marching orders from Republicans.

Now if all this is true, then why would the Democrats make such a charge?

To be continued

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The Dems Debate or Lack Thereof

First John Edwards, then Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, have refused to debate because the debates were being sponsored by Fox News. Why? Well, certainly because their left wing contributor base demanded it. But I think the reason is more fundamental than that.

The fact is that Fox News is the network that can deliver the largest audience of people who describe themselves as independent or moderate. You would think that this is precisely the audience the Dems want to reach. And it is. But they don't want these voters to see them in these debates because to win the Dem nomination they must run as liberals. And if their severe liberality were known, they would lose these voters and hence the geneal election.

The best thing for them then is to debate on networks with low numbers of these voters, and then to filter their positions thru the Major Media who will obligingly tone down the rhetoric.

This is just another example of how the Dems cannot win on their true positions, but must instead obscure those positions from the voters. Republican candidates, PLEASE take note.

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Negative Advertising

Let's be real clear about this: IT IS NOT NEGATIVE ADVERTISING IF YOU CALL A POLITICIAN LIBERAL WHEN HE IS IN FACT LIBERAL.

A mud slinging negative campaign is one where misrepresentations about someones character or associations are made, suggested or alluded to, e.g. calling someone a 'blackguard' or a thief or a philanderer. In addition to being fabrications, such tactics are always irrelevant & immaterial to the issues at hand, generally falling into the logical fallacy of the 'ad hominem' variety.

What we want in our politics is not personal attacks but a true discussion of the issues. But a persons political sympathies, including how he has voted on similar issues in the past, is quite germane to the issues. After all, what is more telling about how a person might behave in office, what he tells you or how he has actually voted in the past? Clearly the latter.

But in every election since 1975 or so, the Dem's have always succeeded in labeling entirely appropriate points as 'negative campaigning' or a 'refusal to discuss the issues.'

John Kerry was a rich northeastern anti-military liberal. Why was it not appropriate to call him such? Because in a time of war, John Kerry could never win election to the presidency if such was commonly known to the public. So the Democrats had to keep the Republicans from talking about it, & they were very effective at doing so.

But only b/c the Republicans let them do it. It's time for the Republicans to step forward on this issue. The Democrats have not won a national election running on what they truly believe since before Jimmy Carter - who ran as a Southern conservative for goodness sakes!

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Aloha

Imus didn't say anything that others haven't said. Just yesterday it seemed like an orgy of use of the 'Ho' word - as the reports of Don Ho's death rolled in.

Just kidding.

Aloha Don. May you go with grace.