Disagreement Without Being Disagreeable

Give It a Rest, Fellas.

2008-09-05T20:57:00.001-04:00

It certainly goes without saying that if Republicans had controlled both houses of the Michigan legislature, those absurd tax increases would not have passed last October. It also goes without saying that the Democrat Speaker of the House, Andy Dillon, played an instrumental role in getting the tax increases passed, but they still could not have done it without the capitulation of Senate Republicans on the issue.

On top of this, Dillon is up for reelection this November. Therefore, it makes no sense to try to recall him in the November elections. If his actions in this matter are that unpopular, he should be beatable in November. And if he isn't beatable, it is highly unlikely the recall will succeed.

Furthermore, what is gained by it? It won't prevent Dillon's participation in the budget process for the upcoming fiscal year, which begins in early October. If Dillon loses his bid for reelection, he'll be out by January, and if he somehow wins his bid for reelection but loses the recall election, he'll have gotten a two month vacation, assuming the legislature is even in session during November and December.

This recall effort serves only to stick a finger in Dillon's eye and won't have any practical impact on legislation or on the makeup of the Michigan House of Representatives. Dillon's up for reelection in two months. If you want him out, vote for his opponent, don't resort to cheap stunts.

Line I'd Like to Hear from Huckabee

2008-09-03T21:26:00.001-04:00

"Sarah Palin took up the burden of raising a child born with Down's Syndrome. Barack Obama voted to let such children be left to die in utility closets."

Mitt's Proposal for Government Regulation

2008-09-03T21:16:00.001-04:00

Take a weed-whacker to it. Palin should do him one better and propose a chainsaw.

Bush Was Right

2008-08-27T18:21:00.002-04:00

In the summer of 2001, there was a dispute over federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). Those in favor of it argued that ESCR held the promise to cure countless diseases and injuries from Alzheimer's to quadriplegia. Those opposed to it argued that it should be opposed as a matter of principle because it was (and is) necessary to destroy a human being to obtain the stem cells; that any cures from ESCR were years if not decades away; and that research into adult stem cells showed more promise. Indeed, treatments using adult stem cells are already being done.

Now comes news that regular adult cells can be reprogrammed from one type of cell into another. This means that the advantage supposedly inherent to working with embryonic stem cells, that they can become any type of cell in the body, is nullified. Indeed, this advantage was nullified when it was found that adult stem cells could be reprogrammed to behave like embryonic stem cells. These methods of reprogamming give adult stem cell research and cellular therapies using normal adult cells the same potential as embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos and without the problem of controlling what sort of cell the embryonic stem cell will become (the latter problem being the major reason no potentially viable treatments have emerged through ESCR).

All of this goes to show both the wisdom of President Bush's decision to accept federal funding of ESCR for existing stem cell lines only.* The field of medical research operates in the market, and actors in the market respond to incentives. Cures utilizing ESCR were seen as being far off, and for them to be a worthwhile investment would have required large federal subsidies.** By limiting the scope of federal funding, President Bush created an incentive for investors to look into other forms of research that offered a better chance of short-to-medium run return on investment such as adult stem cell research (pushing lots of federal money that way as well). These forms of research also avoided the moral dilemma of destroying embryos. Now this research is bearing fruit, and the need for obtaining stem cells by destroying embryos and employing human cloning to obtain usable stem cells is on the verge of being obviated if it hasn't been already.

Can there be any doubt that, if the president had given in to the pressure and accepted unrestricted federal funding for ESCR, none of this would have happened? With massive federal subsidies going to the politically popular ESCR, would researchers have bothered to try anything else? Plenty of scientists back the popular line on global warming because it gets them government funding. Why take a chance on adult stem cells or this new cellular reprogramming method if ESCR gives you guaranteed money if you only promise that cures for all sorts of diseases are right around the corner?

Given the politics at the time, President Bush made as morally right a decision as he could, and the fruit of research in fields in competition with ESCR over the intervening years have born fruit. In short, Bush got this one right.

*In theory, it would have been best for him to deny federal funding altogether, but it was seen as being a politically untenable position.

**Otherwise, people scientists, companies, and universities engaged in ESCR would have been able to find private investors to fund their research.

Hat tip: The Corner

Is New York in Play

2008-08-26T14:31:00.001-04:00

Not yet, but if this trend continues, Obama's toast.

Hat tip: The Corner

Obama May not Be a Corrupt Washington Politician

2008-08-25T15:27:00.001-04:00

But he may well be a corrupt Chicago politician.

Obama-Ayers More than Meets the Eye

2008-08-20T12:34:00.002-04:00

Obama-Ayers, collaborators in disguise. For months Obama has been attempting to minimize his relationship with unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. Now, Stanley Kurtz is being denied access to publicly available documents that could reveal the extent of Obama's connections to both the far left and Chicago's notoriously corrupt political machine.

Money quote:

Let me make one broad point today. Notice that the critical evaluation of Woods Fund grant programs I discuss in "Senator Stealth," my piece in the current issue of National Review, occurred in 1995. That was the same year the Chicago Annenberg Challenge began, with Obama as board chairman, and the same year Obama launched his first campaign for State Senate, at a political coming out party at the home of Ayers and Dohrn, among other venues. In 1995, in other words, Obama moved to increase his influence over two local foundations, each of which would disburse money to his radical political-organizer friends, and even to his future campaign ground troops. This alone raises many interesting and important questions, some of which I pursue in "Senator Stealth." But I note that, if names were to be purged from the Chicago Annenberg Collection records, it could inhibit my ability to follow critical leads on this, and other, aspects of this story.

A tree is known by its fruit, and Obama's fruit has consistently been of a most radical sort (and not in the Bill and Ted sense). Now Obama is trying to cover his tracks, and it appears some of his former political allies are only too eager to help.

Veep Speculation

2008-08-18T16:49:00.001-04:00

Needless to say, there's been a host of speculation as to who Barack Obama will name as his running mate. Currently, the conventional wisdom is that he will name his running mate sometime this week as the Democratic Convention is next week, and Obama will want to get the maximum bounce from his selection.

However, I think Obama may do something unexpected: Let the delgates decide who his running mate will be. Obama currently faces the difficulty that he has no executive experience and little foreign policy experience, and no pick he can make, with the possible exception of Evan Bayh, who was governor of Indiana before becoming its senator, can cover both of those weaknesses. Complicating matters further, he has promised Hillary Clinton a roll call vote which will only serve to highlight her strength in the party and play up the deep, if frivolous, divisions currently plaguing the Democrat party.

Allowing the delegates to vote on a vice presidential candidate blunts this challenge by Clinton. If she does nothing and allows the vote to play out, her power base will undoubtedly be torn between nominating her for the vice presidency and holding out to demontrate their power in the symbolic roll call vote, and Clinton's power is diminished. If Clinton urges her supporters to vote for her, she is effectively submitting herself to Obama's leadership of the party, and the roll call vote becomes meaningless. If she urges her supporters to hold out for the roll call vote, she will be seen as deliberately dividing the party for her own benefit and runs the risk of marginalizing herself.

Furthermore, giving the delgates a vote on his running mate shows his attentiveness to the will of the party and will likely unify the party behind him. It will also help Obama market himself as a different type of politician even as that claim is becoming more and more laughable.

That's not to say there aren't risks involved. The delegates may nominate someone who accentuates Obama's far left credentials. Clinton may win the vice presidential nomination, which introduces whole new levels of uncertainty and the potential for Clinton to cause all kinds of trouble. Or it could bring her to heel. Or tensions between the Obamas and Clintons could throw the whole campaign into dysfunction. But that may be the best Obama can hope for. By granting Clinton the roll call vote, he has allowed a massive display of disunity to go forward at a time when the party's unity is supposed to be maximized, and the only way to fix the problem may be to give Clinton a shot at the consolation prize.

Obama Supports Negligent Infanticide

2008-08-14T21:48:00.001-04:00

At least as a matter of law.

The Fundamental Absurdity of Politics

2008-08-07T23:33:00.000-04:00

So, Democrats now claim that John McCain is likening Barack Obama to the anti-Christ.

Needless to say, that's ridiculous. If the McCain campaign wanted to compare Obama to the anti-Christ, they'd have just worn the shirt.

Go Tom, Go!

2008-07-31T01:37:00.001-04:00

Tom Coburn rules.

Hat tip: Real Clear Politics

What Multiculturalism Hath Wrought

2008-07-30T22:44:00.002-04:00

A must watch video with more thoughts from Roger Kimball.

Just Because

2008-07-30T00:22:00.001-04:00

Want to live forever? This guy has the key.

Imperialism Without an Empire

2008-07-27T02:44:00.001-04:00

Both former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and Weekly Standard senior editor Andrew Ferguson do an excellent job of eviscerating Barack Obama's incredibly vacuous Berlin speech. But as moronic as Obama's "one world" rhetoric may be, it still offers an insight into the thought of Barack Obama and reveals him to be very European in his thinking.

The particular from the speech line Bolton and Ferguson analyze is "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one." Yes it's a dumb line, but what makes it interesting is that the aspiration expressed is no different from the aspirations of empires. From the Assyrians to the Persians to the Macedonians, Romans, Mongols, Aztecs, British, French, Germans, Japanese, and communists, the ultimate aim of an empire is to control the world, to secure their interests for all time by subjecting the world to their power. Traditionally, this has been accomplished by military conquest.

Then World War I and World War II devastated Europe and much of the rest of the world, leaving the United States and the Soviet Union as the dominant powers in the world. The lesson the Europeans took from the the World Wars was that militaristic imperialism was the cause of the wars and that multilateral cooperations was needed to restrain the these destructive ambitions. At the same time, Western European powers, bowing to political pressure based on the evils of imperialism, divested themselves of their colonies abroad (although the remains of the British Empire are a commonwealth with the Queen as their sovereign).* Instead of building empires through military might, Western Europe looked to political integration under the United States' military umbrella to create an empire founded not on conquest, but on cooperative treaties and institutions (e.g. the Euro, the European Commission, etc.). Given Europe's history in the twentieth century, this wasn't a bad idea, even if the result has been something of a monstrosity, but I digress.

Given that Obama apparently doesn't plan to launch massive wars of conquest, the only realistic alternative to achieving his vision of one world standing together would be something along the lines of EU model where nations cede their sovereignty to supra-national institutions. In other words, Obama is willing to cede the sovereignty of the United States (or some measure of it) in exchange for a united world. If Obama is serious about this one world nonsense, a President Obama would be bad for United States' sovereignty.

*Of course, the Soviets often supported this political pressure surreptitiously so as to make these newly independent states dependent on them.

Drawing Contrasts

2008-07-25T18:36:00.001-04:00

John McCain famously said that he'd rather lose an election than lose a war. Based on Obama's claims that even knowing what he knows now, he still would have opposed the surge, McCain should point out that Obama would rather lose a war rather than lose an election.

Obama Is Not Mocked

2008-07-25T11:35:00.001-04:00

Except when he is.

Hat tip: Drudge

Exploiting Government Reform to Seize Power

2008-07-18T14:48:00.003-04:00

There is a proposal likely to be on the Michigan ballot in the fall that would radically restructure the state government; cut many elective positions; cut pay for government figures; eliminate fifty state boards and commissions; even eliminate two departments of the state government, among other things. But these reforms, of which many would be laudable on their own, are not simply reform for the sake of improving Michigan's government.

We now know what many have long suspected: The initiative is an attempt by the Democrats to take control of all three branches of Michigan's government by sleight of hand, having failed to do so through the more conventional method of winning elections. The proposal is structured in such a way that the overwhelming number of positions cut are currently held by Republicans, especially in the Judiciary. Furthermore, adding ten seats to the lower courts (to be filled by Granholm appointees), while eliminating two Supreme Court seats and eight Appeals' Court seats will give the Democrats a net gain of sixteen judgeships in the state courts. It is less clear what the effects of eliminating legislative seats would be, but it certainly stands to reason the Democrats would not have included the cutbacks in the proposal if they did not believe they would come out ahead in the deal.

There are some good ideas in the proposal (at least in principle), but the first slide of the PowerPoint presentation on the proposal makes clear that the good ideas mask a dangerous intent: to alter the political structure of the Michigan political system so as to shield them from the will of the people and entrench themselves in power for years to come, no matter how far they run the state into the ground.

If Being a Global Warming Skeptic Is Equivalent to being a Holocaust Denier. . .

2008-07-18T14:24:00.003-04:00

Does this mean the Holocaust didn't happen? Ahmadinejad will be thrilled.

Hat tip: Planet Gore

For the record: The comparison between global warming skeptics and Holocaust deniers has been made by "serious" people.

News Flash

2008-07-11T16:32:00.001-04:00

Men and women are different.

Dude, Give the Guy a Break

2008-06-11T16:09:00.001-04:00

Drudge has posted a story claiming that Barack Obama has on occasion smoked cigarettes after quitting. How is this newsworthy? The man has been running for president for almost a year and a half and has been engaged in one of the most hotly contested presidential primary campaigns ever. He has been on the road constantly, under constant stress, maintaining a grueling schedule. Is it that unbelievable that under these conditions he might feel and possibly succumb to the urge to have a cigarette? Is it that unconscionable? There are plenty of legitimate issues to raise concerning Obama without getting into whether he occasionally engages in a legal, if socially looked-down-upon, activity.

I may not agree with him on much of anything, but at the end of the day I'd be more than happy to kick back and light one up with Barack Obama.

The Next Great Feminist Struggle

2008-05-31T15:57:00.001-04:00

The right to kill the infidel.

HT: The Corner

Wright Was Right

2008-05-20T23:10:00.001-04:00

In distancing himself from his pastor of twenty years, Barack Obama was merely doing what he had to do as a politician.

Will He or Won't He?

2008-05-20T13:14:00.001-04:00

The Jerusalem Post has an article reporting the Bush administration's denial of a report that the United States will attack Iran's nuclear program before President Bush leaves office in January. This story, and the subsequent denial of its veracity, is just the latest in a long line of stories that the President will not leave the problem of Iran's program to his successor. For my part, I suspect that had it not been for our setbacks in securing and stabilizing Iraq, the issue would have been long on its way to resolution, but Iran's disruptive activities in Iraq have forced the United States to concentrate on using its military resources to fight al Qaeda and the Shiite militias, both backed by Iran. Now, as time runs out for President Bush, he is faced with a question, does he take action in the waning months of his presidency, or does he let the diplomatic process continue to play out and hand the problem to his successor?

In an ideal world, I think the president would have liked to have dealt with Iran by the end of his second term, but now he doesn't believe the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan leave him in a position to take action without potentially compromising the gains in Iraq, and making the situation worse in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Israel/Palestine, all countries where Iran is highly active in undermining security. Thus, he would like to wait as long as he can before taking action in the hope that the situation on the ground will improve. Unfortunately, the only place where things are likely to improve in the remaining months of the Bush presidency is Iraq, where the al Qaeda in Iraq is nearly defeated. This means that an attack on Iran is likely to lead to a regional war launched by Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, and ultimately involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and possibly Egypt. That is the meaning of Hamas' activity in Gaza and Hezbollah's brief uprising in Lebanon. It is also why the United States and Israel are propping up Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party in the West Bank, not because Fatah is interested in a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So, what will happen? This depends on the political developments in Israel and the United States. If Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert falls, he is likely to be replaced by the hawkish Binjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu will likely pursue a much more aggressive policy in dealing with Hamas and will be unafraid to retaliate viciously to any attack on Israel by Hezbollah, where Olmert has proved weak and feckless.

The other key event will be the presidential elections in the United States this fall. President Bush trusts Senator John McCain's instincts on issues of national defense, and if McCain is elected, Bush would most likely be comfortable handing the problem over to him. The same cannot be said for Senator Barack Obama, as the dust-up over who wants to appease whom illustrates. Bush believes Obama's plans for dealing with Iran are dangerously naive, and should Obama win the election in November, Bush would be unlikely to trust him with the task of eliminating Iran's nuclear program. Therefore, he would almost certainly take action to resolve the issue, or at least retard Iran's progress enough to push the final confrontation either past the end of an Obama presidency or far enough down the road for Obama to be disabused of his supreme belief in his ability to persuade nations to act contrary to what they perceive to be their own self-interest by dint of his winning personality.

Liking McCain in Spite of Myself

2008-03-25T23:33:00.001-04:00

I still have serious reservations about John McCain as president, but things seem to keep happening that make me like him more and more.

Hat tip: Drudge

More on Obama's Speech

2008-03-24T21:35:00.002-04:00

Mark Goldblatt defends Obama, while Christopher Hitchens takes issue.* Meanwhile, Doug Kmiec, "a former constitutional legal counsel to two Republican presidents," endorses* Obama. I come down somewhere between Goldblatt and Hitchens, in large part because I think Goldblatt is wrong to dismiss Obama's policy prescriptions as "Obama being Obama", but right to be understanding toward Obama's refusal to disavow Wright (though Hitchens does make some compelling points).

If Obama is correct that federal education spending, economic protectionism, universal health care, and withdrawal from Iraq are the keys to racial reconciliation, then opposition to these policies are racist (unless there is some non-racist reason to oppose racial reconciliation that I'm missing). It follows from this that conservatives who want decreased government involvement in education and health care, support free trade, and believe it to be in the national interest to maintain our presence in Iraq are racists.

This is patently absurd. What's more, I don't think Obama believes this. But it does indicate, again, the discrepancy between Obama's rhetoric and his politics. Obama declares time and again that he wants to transcend our differences, to transcend not only race, but fundamental political and philosophical divisions as well, but his policies are of a decidedly left-wing bent. As I've said before, something has to give. Obama doesn't seem to think so:

"What I'm certain about is that people are disenchanted with a highly ideological Republican Party that believes tax cuts are the answer to every problem, and lack of regulation and oversight is always going to generate economic growth, and unilateral intervention around the world is the best approach to foreign policy. So there's no doubt the pendulum is swinging."

It is certainly true that the Republicans dropped the ball when they were in power on a whole host of issues, and they deserved to lose in 2006. It does not follow from this that conservatives are looking to abandon their belief in limited government and muscular foreign policy just because the Bush administration and Republican Congress were inept at implementing these conservative principles. Kmiec himself makes this point when he points out that his endorsement of Obama does not imply an abandonment of his conservative principles. He has made the bet that Obama's rhetoric will trump his policy proposals (except on the war in Iraq, where Kmiec and Obama are in agreement). I hope he's right, but I refuse to abandon my principles for Obama's dreams, no matter how audaciously he may hope otherwise.

*Hat tip: The Corner
**Hat tip: Drudge