MayerBlog: The Web Log of
David N. Mayer

Summer 2009 in Review

“In the narrow space between the dark silhouettes of two buildings, . . . he saw the page of a gigantic calendar suspended in the sky. . . . A white rectangle hung over the city, imparting the date to the men in the streets below.  In the rusty light of this evening’s sunset, the rectangle said:  September 2.”

                                                            -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957)

            The start of Fall semester classes means, for me, the end of the summer – and time to give my take on some of the major developments in politics and popular culture over the past three months.

n    Obamanation:  America’s B.O. Problem 

            What’s the biggest problem in the USA today?   It’s not the economy, with sluggish growth, high unemployment, a shrinking private sector and an expanding government sector, plus the looming inflation crisis – all of which pose serious threats to Americans’ freedom and prosperity.   It’s not the global war against militant Islamic terrorists, which continues to endanger American national security.  Nor is it either the supposed “health care crisis” or the “climate change crisis,” the imagined fears of left-liberals, or the supposed “immigration crisis” or the “war on traditional values,” the imagined fears of some conservatives.  It’s not even the deterioration of the rule of law or the decline in personal responsibility – which, in a broader philosophical sense, can more plausibly be considered the greatest problems facing Americans today. 

            Rather, I submit, the biggest problem in the country today is that the current occupant of the White House – the huckster who fooled the American people on election day last November – is unfit to be president of the United States.  And that his policies, on virtually all major issues, are making our genuine problems far worse.  After six months in office, it’s becoming quite clear that his chief program is to concentrate more and more political power in Washington, D.C., and particularly in a dictatorial White House, destroying both the American free-market economic system and our system of constitutional checks on the power of government.  And, finally, that a large number of incredibly naïve (or stupid) Americans (many of them, unfortunately, in the news media) still fail to realize the truth about B.O., including the threat he poses to the freedoms of all Americans, by his unquenchable thirst for power – the biggest power-grab by an American president since FDR.  But now that we’re in the “dog days” of late summer, it’s getter harder and harder to ignore the stink that rising out of Washington and emanating – or should I say, “Obamanating” – all over the USA.

n    Honeymoon’s Over 

Although many Americans continue to be fooled by B.O. – especially the “B.O.-bots” (as I call them) in the “state-run” news media (as Rush Limbaugh aptly characterizes it) – there’s clear evidence that, after more than six months in office, his “honeymoon” is over.  

The Rasmussen presidential tracking poll has shown a steady decline in B.O.’s approval rating since mid- June.  The Rasmussen daily presidential tracking poll, which calculates its Presidential Approval Index by subtracting the number who “strongly disapprove” of the way he’s performing his job as president from the number who “strongly approve” began showing negative numbers on June 21 (when, with 34% strongly disapproving and only 33% strongly approving, he had an approval index rating of -1).  Since then, B.O.’s approval index number has gone steadily downhill: by July 7, it slipped to -3 and continued eroding for the next several days, to -5 by July 8, to -8 by July 9;  by July 24, his overall approval rating had fallen below 50% (to 49%) for the first time in his administration, and his approval index remained at -8; just two days later, on July 26, the index fell to a (then) all-time low of -11 (with 40% strongly disapproving).  Throughout the month of August, B.O.’s job approval numbers continued to slide downhill, with his index number staying in the negatives; by September 2, only 28% of voters strongly approved of his presidency, compared to 40% who strongly disapproved, giving him an approval index rating of -12. 

The pundits’ explanations have focused mostly on the unpopularity of B.O.’s policy agenda, particularly the massive increase in federal spending and the hemorrhaging federal budget deficit, which seem to have worsened the nation’s economic troubles.  Several commentators note that although B.O. ran for president as some kind of centrist, his real agenda is radically leftist.  Conservative commentator Ben Stein, for example, speculated that the American people “in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008” but “are starting to wake up to the truth”: “It is not hard to conclude that Obama has been caught trying to pull off a bait and switch – he ran as a moderate and is governing as a left-winger.”  

But it’s not just B.O.’s leftist policies that are turning off Americans; it’s also his character, particularly his arrogance and his narcissism.  As my friend and colleague Brad Smith noted (posting  on Politico.com on July 29), the bigger issue isn’t the economy but “freedom from an overweening, boorish, nagging, and too often nasty big government.”  Smith adds, “What I notice about growing anti-Obama sentiment is that it is not merely about the economy, but about exactly this issue.  Americans don’t want to be endlessly hectored, and that is a factor in the early onset of Obama fatigue.”   

One sign (quite literally) of the growing anti-Obama sentiment among the American people is the poster showing B.O. as “The Joker” (as portrayed by the late Heath Ledger in the Batman movie, The Dark Knight), with the word “socialism” underneath the image.  The anonymously-produced poster, a form of “guerilla art” (discussed and reproduced on the “classicalvalues.com” website on August 2), first appeared on the streets of L.A., but has spread to the heartland, as Eric Dondero has noted on his “Libertarian Republican” website.

n    “State-Run” News Media, Indeed 

            Perhaps the most glaring evidence that the major TV network news organizations (ABC, NBC and its affiliates, especially MSNBC, and CBS) are still in the pocket of B.O. is the extraordinary action taken by ABC News on the evening of June 24, when it broadcast, from inside the White House, a propaganda special for “Obamacare,” the administration’s push for nationalized health care.  Matt Drudge, on his “Drudge Report,” quoted a statement from the Republican National Committee calling the program “a glorified infomercial to promote the Democrat agenda”; and Michelle Malkin suggested that ABC, which she dubbed “The All Barack Channel,” should be required to register as a federal lobbyist.  Investor’s Business Daily, in a hard-hitting editorial on June 19, described ABC’s extraordinary shift, crossing the line from journalism to advocacy, as ABC “self-nationalizes for Obama”:    

“The all-day, White House-based coverage itself amounts to a nationalization – this one of a major media outlet in support of an administration that will return the favor for access at the cost of objectivity and the public’s right to know.  . . . This isn’t your grandfather’s propaganda. . . . Under the cover of news, ABC can present the president’s side of the health reform issue as `factual’ and leave out the real costs and concerns about government control and rationing of health care.  . . . This is a disgrace.  Much of the U.S. private sector, from banks to automakers to hospitals, have resisted a government takeover, seeking to maintain their independence.  Only the media, which should be the most independent of all, haven’t.”

            Now, as the debate over B.O.’s scheme to nationalize American health care is heating up during Congress’s August recess, both ABC and NBC have refused to air ads created by a conservative group in opposition to “Obamacare.”  (The conservative group is advised by Bill Clinton’s former political adviser, Dick Morris, whose new book, Catastrophe, details how B.O.’s scheme will destroy the U.S. health-care system, the best in the world.)   And when you consider how hostile the three networks’ evening news programs have been to conservative and libertarian protesters at “TEA parties” and town meetings (CBS’s Katie Couric stands out for her leftist partisanship here), it’s not difficult to conclude that B.O.’s the pimp and ABC, NBC, and CBS are his whores. 

n    “Hey, Big Spender!” 

The massive, $787-billion “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” (ARRA), the so-called “stimulus” bill passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress and signed into law by B.O. earlier this year, has become the biggest political mistake made by Democrats in Washington.  ARRA is a massive error – the Dems’ Achilles heel.  It has put the lie to B.O.’s  empty promises about turning Washington around, with a new kind of politics, for it represents one of the worst features of “politics as usual” in the nation’s capital: politicians rewarding the special interests who helped elect them, with porkbarrel spending that’s a massive waste of American taxpayers’ money.  It has renewed popular concern about the size of the federal deficit and the burgeoning national debt.  (It also has deprived both B.O. and Democrats in Congress of their favorite political ploy, blaming everything on George W. Bush.  B.O.’s predecessor in the White House was indeed guilty of cooperating with Congress in significantly increasing federal spending, but Democrats cannot say with a straight face that they “inherited” the deficit problem.  B.O.’s $3.6 trillion budget for 2009 more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents – from George Washington to George W. Bush – combined.  Only in 2008, his last full year in office, did the yearly deficit during Bush’s two terms as president exceed $400 billion; in 2009, B.O.’s first year in office, the yearly budget deficit is estimated at $1.75 trillion by the White House and $1.85 trillion by the Congressional Budget Office.  Government spending as a percentage of GDP is approaching the unprecented levels it set at the end of World War II.  And the B.O. White House recently conceded that it was off by a whopping 30% in its deficit projections for the next ten years:  instead of the $7 trillion it had predicted in May, it’s now projecting the ten-year deficit to be at the “historic” level of a whopping $9 trillion!) 

There are even more ways in which the Democrats’ spending spree at the start of B.O.’s presidency has been their – and his – Achilles heel.  Although they will no doubt try to claim credit for economic recovery, when the recession finally ends (in 2010, perhaps?), asserting that their “stimulus” worked, savvy economists realize that what really ends a recession is the natural process of the market system recovering as it goes through its cycle, correcting those imbalances that caused the recession in the first place.  ARRA should put the final nail in the coffin, of the well-deserved death of Keynesian economics, with its false theory that governments can create prosperity by spending more taxpayer money.  All that government spending accomplishes is to shift capital from out of the private sector (where it would be spent rationally by capitalists, in growing their businesses) and into the “public” sector (where it’s spent irrationally by politicians, in rewarding their friends).   

It’s a perfect model for what the great 19^th-century French economist, Frederic Bastiat, called “the broken window fallacy.”  People ignorant of basic economic principles think that, when a juvenile delinquent breaks a shopkeeper’s window, he’ll help the local economy by forcing the shopkeeper to give a job to the glazier.  They’re considering only “what is seen.”  What they’re not considering is “what is unseen”:  how the money the shopkeeper has to spend to get his window fixed would have been better spent helping his business grow.  The basic rule applies to all government spending programs:  advocates look only at “what is seen,” ignoring the hidden costs of government spending, “what is unseen,” the damage it does to the economy. 

The Detroit News, in an insightful editorial on July 14, “Obama’s stimulus plan is not working,” observed: 

“Proponents of big government spending see the failure of the stimulus package to deliver measurable results not as evidence that the strategy was wrong, but rather than not enough money was placed behind it.  They’re advocating yet another stimulus program, equal to or bigger than the last.  That would compound the mistake and drag the nation even deeper into debt.  Borrowing has already pushed beyond the reckless level – the federal deficit is now nearly 12 percent of total economic output.  Printing or borrowing even more money to fund this failed experiment would devalue the dollar and increase the likelihood of devastating inflation.

“Instead of more spending, Obama and Congress should turn to the only proven stimulus strategy: cutting taxes. . . . The president should signal that his No. 1 priority is reviving the economy and set aside those pieces of his agenda – carbon cap-and-trade and health care reform specifically – that carry the serious risk of killing jobs and raising the costs of goods and services.  Particularly, it ought to be clear to everyone in Washington that a nation that has squandered more than a trillion dollars on failed stimulus efforts can’t afford the $100 billion to $200 billion price tag for Obama’s health care proposal.  Obama has taken fiscal irresponsibility to unprecedented heights.  He can’t keep spending like this.”

By starting with their massive spending bill, which Democrats easily pushed through Congress on a virtually straight party-line vote (to their credit, House Republicans voted unanimously against the bill, while only a handful of RINOS in the Senate joined the Dems in support), the Democrats overplayed their hand.  As Michael Barone noted in a July 8 op-ed in Washington Examiner, “Americans are getting cold feet over Democratic proposals.”  “The $787 billion stimulus package, the cap-and-trade bill’s utility rate increases, the public health insurance package – all these seem to generate more apprehension than enthusiasm.  So does the prospect of doubling the national debt, as the Congressional Budget Office estimates, from about 40 percent of gross domestic product to about 80 percent,” its level at the end of World War II. 

Finally, and perhaps most important politically, passage of ARRA was a huge error for Democrats because it confirms their reputation as “tax-and-spend” politicians whose only solution to society’s problems is to throw other people’s money at it – to confiscate more of the wealth earned by productive Americans and to redistribute it to the looters – to “spread the wealth,” as B.O. admitted in a rare moment of candor during the presidential campaign.  It’s a policy that’s as bankrupt, intellectually, as it’s making our nation, economically.  So much for “change” and “new ideas.”  The joke during the presidential campaign was that the only “change” B.O. would bring Americans would be what’s left of the dollar after he implements his policies.  Sad, but true.

n    “Clunker” Economics 

The federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program gave buyers up to $4500 of taxpayer dollars (funneled through auto dealers) toward the purchase of a new car if they traded in their old cars (“junkers”) for vehicles with better gas mileage.  The program was such a “success,” according to members of Congress, that when the first $1 billion they appropriated for it had run out of money, they rushed (just before they left Washington for their August recess) to add $2 billion more to the program.  But those members of Congress, and anyone else who thinks this boondoggle was a success, are merely displaying their ignorance of basic principles of economics.  

The program really is just another illustration of the truth of Bastiat’s broken-window fallacy (discussed above), as Jonah Goldberg noted in an August 5 op-ed, “How Much Is that Clunker in the Window?”  “What is seen” by supporters of the program are only the sales of new cars.  “What is not seen” is what the program really does:  divert tax dollars to people with cheap cars so they can buy expensive ones.  As Goldberg notes, “That’s just really inefficient wealth distribution, not wealth creation.”  John Lott, author of Freedomnomics, observed in an August 3 op-ed (“Cash for Clunkers Is No Success”), “Only in Washington could a program that is spending money 13 times faster than planned be labeled a `success.’”  He describes the arbitrary standard set by the government for determining what vehicles qualified for the program –  “Replacing an 18 mpg car with one that offers 22 mpg, gets you a subsidy.  But you cannot get a subsidy if you replace a 19 mpg car with one getting 45 mpg.” – as well as other “weird details” of the program.   

Jeremy Anwyl, in an August 3 column in Wall Street Journal (“More Cash for Clunkers?”) outlined some of the hidden costs of the program.  First, “it’s not clear that cash for clunkers actually increased sales”: it just caused buyers to put their purchases on hold waiting for the program to launch, and then they “crammed three to four months of normal activity into just a few days.”  Then there’s the “ironic unintended consequence” of spot shortages in fuel-efficient cars and buyers using their cash-for-clunker dollars to purchase less-efficient models and “thus crush one of the touted environmental benefits of the program.”  Still more hidden costs have been identified by Gary North, who emphasizes that rule governing disposal of the clunkers (the engines must be destroyed), in effect, “subsidizes the scrap metal industry at the expense of the junk car industry.”  By harming the junk car industry, the program hurts poor Americans (“Hit and Run: How the Government’s Billion-Dollar Cash for Clunkers Boondoggle Hurts the Poor”).

n    “More Czars Than the Romanovs” 

Back in mid-April, David Rothkopf, a commentator on U.S. foreign policy, noted that with the appointment of “border czar” Alan Bersin, the B.O. administration “has by any reasonable reckoning passed the Romanov Dynasty in the production of czars.”  The Romanovs ruled Russia from 1613 (with the ascension of Michael I) to 1917 (when, at the beginning of the Russian Revolution, Nicholas II was forced to abdicate); during that 300-year period, they produced 18 czars.  With the appointment of Mr. Bersin, the B.O. administration, by most counts, had appointed at least 18 so-called “czars” – presidential appointees who are not subjected to Senate confirmation.  The 18 counted by Rothkopf include “energy czar” Carol Browner, “urban czar” Adolfo Carrion, Jr., “infotech czar” Vivek Kundra, “faith-based czar” Joshua DeBois, “health-reform czar” Nancy-Ann DeParle, “TARP czar” Herb Allison, “stimulus accountability czar” Earl Devaney, “non-proliferation czar” Gary Samore, “terrorism czar” John Brennan, “regulatory czar” Cass Sunstein, “drug czar” Gil Kerlikowske, and “Guantanamo closure czar” Daniel Fried, as well as several “special envoys” who fall into the “czar” category, including AfPak special envoy Richard Holbrooke, Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, and “climate special envoy” Todd Stern.  It was a “conservative estimate,” as Rothkopf noted, because he did not include the de facto “car czar” Steve Rattner (since replaced by Ron Bloom, a former United Steelworkers union official), or National Director of Intelligence Dennis Blair (often called “the intelligence czar”), or White House science advisor John Holdren, who’s been called the nation’s “science czar” (“It’s Official: Obama Creates More Czars Than the Romanovs,” April 16). (For more on the B.O. administration breaking the Romanovs’ record, see Katherine Mangu-Ward, “The Lure of the Czars,” in Reason Online, May 22.) 

B.O.’s predecessors began this unfortunate practice with the appointment of such officials as director of the White House’s office of drug policy (the chief enforcer of federal anti-drug laws, the so-called “war on drugs” czar) and other special officials, who as “advisors” to the president are not subject to Senate confirmation but who nevertheless exercise executive powers, like Cabinet members and other properly-confirmed executive branch officials.  It’s a gross abuse of executive powers, which B.O. has carried to a far greater level than all his predecessors combined.  By most counts, the number of such “czars” in the B.O. administration has now passed over three dozen – in other words, more than twice the number of czars the Romanov dynasty had. 

Back in February, following B.O.’s appointment of yet another “czar” with massive government power, answering only to him, Democratic Senator Robert Byrd – president pro tempore of the Senate and the longest-serving senator in U.S. History – wrote a letter to the president, criticizing the practice and maintaining that these appointments violate both the constitutional system of checks and balances and the constitutional separation of powers, and were clear attempts to evade congressional oversight.  As legal Ken Klukowski noted in an op-ed posted on Townhall.com (“Senior Democrat Says Obama’s Czars Unconstitutional,” June 15), Senator Byrd was “exactly correct.”  In addition to explaining how the practice of appointing “czars” violates the Constitution, Klukowski notes that, fortunately, there is a remedy:  “Any person on the receiving end of an order from any of these czars” – for example, a Wall Street CEO who finds his salary cut by “executive-pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg – would have the standing to challenge the order (filing a federal suit asserting that it’s an unconstitutional exercise of governmental power).  If the federal courts do their job in enforcing the Constitution, they should both invalidate the order and hold that the position of “czar” doesn’t legally exist. 

Meanwhile, the B.O. administration continues to violate the Constitution, by having these unconfirmed “czars” exercising executive government powers.  And, in many cases, the persons B.O. has appointed to these “czar” positions have plans to pursue dangerously radical left-wing agendas that will further undermine constitutional limits on the powers of government.  Consider, for example, the administration’s appointment of Mark Lloyd, as “chief diversity officer” at the Federal Communications Commission, where Lloyd plans to implement policies that would silence conservative talk radio.  Or consider the “Green Jobs” czar, Van Jones, a self-described “rowdy [black] nationalist” and “communist” who was arrested during the Rodney King riots, then spent ten years of his life working with “revolutionary” Marxists in the group STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement).  Jones presumably would not pass the FBI background check and the scrutiny that Senate confirmation would bring, had he been nominated to a legitimate executive office rather than be appointed as a “czar.”  As one conservative commentator notes, “Perhaps only a left-wing administration incapable of recognizing irony would put a self-described communist in charge of creating jobs.”

n    A Culture of Corruption 

In an insightful op-ed in mid-June, Michael Barone has aptly described B.O.’s style of governance by outlining what he calls his “Three Rules of Obama.”  First, he notes, “Obama likes to execute long-range strategies but suffers from cognitive dissonance when new facts render them inappropriate.”  His domestic policy goals have been threatened by voter unease over the huge increases in federal spending; his foreign policy goals of “propitiating America’s enemies” have been undercut by such events as North Korea’s missile launches and demonstrations in Iran against the mullah regime’s election fraud.  Second, “he does not seem to care much about the details of policy,” in effect subcontracting the stimulus package to congressional appropriators, the cap-and-trade legislation to Henry Waxman and Edward Markeyu, and his health care program to Max Baucus, resulting in “incoherent public policy”: “indefensible pork barrel projects, a carbon emissions bill that doesn’t limit carbon emissions from politically connected industries, and a health care program priced by the Congressional Budget Office at a fiscally unfeasible $1,600,000,000,000.”  Third, and most importantly, “he does business Chicago style.” 

Barone describes B.O.’s “Chicago-style” governance as follows: “From Chicago he brings the assumption that there will always be a bounteous private sector that can be plundered endlessly on behalf of political favorites.  Hence the government takeover of General Motors and Chrysler to bail out the United Auto Workers. . . . Those who stand in the way, like the Chrysler secured creditors, are told that their reputations will be destroyed; those who expose wrongdoing by political allies, like the AmeriCorps inspector general, are fired” (“Dodge Facts, Skip Details, Govern Chicago-Style,” Washington Examiner, June 20). 

Barone’s reference to the firing of the AmeriCorps inspector general highlights perhaps the most dramatic abuse of power by B.O. – and evidence of his administration’s “Chicago-style” corrupt politics – this summer.  Gerald Walpin, as inspector general for AmeriCorps, blew the whistle on an egregious example of political corruption:  investigating a non-profit group, St. HOPE Academy, run by Kevin Johnson, the former NBA star who is now mayor of Sacramento, California (and a big B.O. supporter), Walpin discovered that Johnson “had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson, and even wash his car,” the AP reported.  In April, although the U.S. attorney declined to file any criminal charges in the matter, Johnson and St. HOPE agreed to repay about half of the $850,000 it had received from AmeriCorps.  Then the administration fired Walpin, alleging that the 77-year-old public servant was not mentally competent to do his job – in other words, by engaging in blatant character assassination.  (Walpin is not only mentally fit – not at all “confused” and “disoriented,” as the administration charged -- but also a real patriot and hero, as he demonstrated during his appearance on Glenn Beck’s TV show.)  And yet, because he blew the whistle on administration corrupt political practices, he’s being unfairly smeared, his reputation destroyed, by White House officials.  (Also see the splendid editorial, “The Smearing of Gerald Walpin,” in Investor’s Business Daily, June 19.) 

            The smearing of Gerald Walpin turns out to be just the tip of the iceberg of political corruption in the B.O. administration.  Two other inspector generals – Neil Baroksky, tasked with watching over the financial “stimulus” spending, and Judith Gwynne, acting inspector general of the International Trade Commission – were also terminated by the administration.  (Yet another important example of new ignored by the “B.O.-bots” in the news media.  As a commentator on American Thinker noted in mid-June, “We have a president and a Democrat-controlled Congress which are spending trillions of dollars as fast as they can, and simultaneously inspectors general charged with keeping the process honest are fired.  Why isn’t this the top story?  The question answers itself.” (“Not just Walpin! Three IGs fired,” June 18). 

Michelle Malkin, in a July 29 op-ed posted on Townhall.com (“Bully Boys: A Brief History of White House Thuggery”), cites the smearing of Walpin of one of several instances of “thuggery” by the B.O. administration.  Other examples include the admininstration’s strong-arming of Chrysler creditors and Chrysler dealers, attempts to intimidate Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf (just after the CBO cast ruinous doubts on the costs of the administration’s proposed health-care reforms), political attacks on fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats, and the muzzling of a veteran researcher at the Environmental Protection Agency, Alan Carlin, because he had questioned the “conventional wisdom” on global warming. She also notes that at the Justice Department, administration lawyers “are now blocking a House inquiry into the suspicion decision to dismiss default judgments against radical New Black Panther Party activists who intimidated voters and poll workers on Election Day in Philadelphia.”  Malkin sums up, noting, “six months into the Obama administration, it should now be clear to all Americans:  Hope and Change came to the White House wrapped up in brass knuckles.” 

In her fascinating new book, Culture of Corruption (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2009),  Ms. Malkin more fully describes “Obama and his team of tax cheats, crooks, and cronies,” as the subtitle of the book puts it.  Especially important are her chapters on the president’s links to the ACORN organization (Chapter 8, “ObamACORN: A Community of Organized Racketeers Nationwide”) and on the political activism of the Service Employees International Union (Chapter 7, “SEIU: Look for the Union Label”).  Although Malkin does not go so far in her book, I think the “thuggery” she uncovers gives rise to a reasonable comparison of the B.O. administration to the similarly fascist Nazi regime in Germany:  after all, just as Hitler had his “brown shirts,” B.O. has his “red shirts” from ACORN and his “purple shirts” from SEIU.

n    Gates-gate 

Earlier this year I commented on B.O.’s propensity to stick his nose into matters that are none of his damn business, matters that do not fall within the constitutional purview of the U. S. government, let alone the office of president (see “Busybody-in Chief,” in “Spring Briefs 2009,” Mar. 19).  Perhaps nothing better illustrates this trait of his than the affair that some pundits have dubbed “Gates-gate”:  the comments made by B.O. during a prime-time presidential news conference, concerning the arrest of his “friend,” black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at his own house by a Cambridge, Mass. police officer on in late July.  The white police officer, Sgt. James Crowley (who, ironically, helps train fellow police officers on avoiding “racial profiling”), responding to a call reporting a possible burglary at Gates’ house, got involved in a volatile exchange with Gates – who repeatedly accused the officer of “racism” and told the officer he “had no idea who [he] was messing with” – resulting in Gates’ arrest for disorderly conduct, a charge that was subsequently dropped (but only after Gates was removed from his house in handcuffs).  Prefacing his remarks at the news conference by admitting he “might be a little biased here” because “Skip Gates” is a friend, and by acknowledging, “I don’t know all the facts,” B.O. nevertheless accused the policeman of acting “stupidly” – and thereby alienating public-safety officers across the country (and, according to some commentators, setting back whatever progress in race relations the nation has made since the 2008 election).  

B.O. was right about the incident giving rise to a “teachable moment,” but the one who’s most in need of a lesson is B.O. himself, who needs to learn about the limitations on presidential power as well as some personal humility.  In subsequent remarks (made during a surprise appearance at White House spokesman Robert Gibbs’ press briefing), B.O. failed to apologize to Crowley, acknowledging only that he “could have calibrated those words differently” (an example of B.O.’s famous eloquence, I suppose).  As John Hinderaker commented on the “Power Line” blog (“Obama Regrets,” July 24), the lesson B.O. have drawn from the incident was “that he should keep his mouth shut when he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

n    Ponzi Schemes, Great and Small 

In mid-July disgraced financier Bernard Madoff arrived at federal prison in North Carolina, to begin serving a 150-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty in March to charges that his investment advisory business was a multimillion-dollar “Ponzi” scheme that wiped out thousands of investors.  

As Robert Higgs noted on the “Liberty & Power” blog, “President Barack Obama and the sitting members of Congress have not been charged, much less convicted and sentenced, for crimes that make Bernie Madoff’s look like child’s play.”  Madoff  caused people to lose billions of dollars; in comparison, the U.S. government “has caused people to lose trillions of dollars, and it’s not finished yet.”  What is Riggs referring to?  Social Security.  “The leaders of the U.S. government have carried out their Social Security fraud – essentially a Ponzi scheme, in substance exactly the same as Madoff’s scheme – since 1935, and they have yet to confess to their crimes.”  According to one estimate, Social Security has reduced [current] GDP by 5 to 10 percent,” or approximately $1.4 trillion – or about 28 times the maximum amount Madoff is believed to have cost his clients.  Moreover, Higgs adds, Madoff “carried out his fraud in a civilized way,” misrepresenting what he was doing with people who dealt with him voluntarily.  In contrast, the U.S. government claims no prowess in investing the money it forces people to surrender to its Social Security scheme.  “Thus, the government operates its Ponzi scheme in a markedly more thuggish manner than Bernie would ever have dreamed of” (“Bernie Madoff Was Only a Petty Crook Compared with Uncle Sam,” July 14). 

            For my take on the worst Ponzi scheme of them all, see my previous blog entry, “Socialist Insecurity” (Feb. 15, 2005).

n    Sarah’s Not Palin in Comparison 

Former Alaska governor – and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate – Sarah Palin confounded political pundits with her surprise resignation from the governorship this summer.  Critics of Ms. Palin were quick to write her political obituary, but more astute commentators aren’t writing her off so fast – and indeed are crediting her for political savvy.  My colleague Brad Smith writes in a recent issue of National Review that Republicans could learn a lot from how Palin ran her gubernatorial campaign in Alaska.  He writes, “The Sarah Palin who won Alaska’s governorship in 2006 came perhaps as close as any Republican in recent memory to recapturing the Reagan formula” (“Sarah Studies,” August 24).  Palin has good policy instincts – not just common sense, but a stridently pro-liberty orientation – and she has already made important contributions to the national debate over health-care policy (calling attention to the “death panels” that, in effect, will inevitably result from government rationing) as well as “climate change” (calling attention to the devastating costs of the Waxman-Markey “cap-and-trade” bill, discussed below).  Tammy Bruce, writing (of all places) on the far-left Daily Kos blog, warns that the Left made a horrible mistake in attacking Palin so viciously that they forced her out of the governorship and into full-time political activism.  The “Palin movement” – which Ms. Bruce says will bring together a new coalition of “extremists, Libertarians, Constitution Party members, as well as GOP loyalists” – will be “unstoppable.”  And Jay Valentine, posting on American Thinker, predicts that Palin’s popularity will rise because she is so effective a spokesperson against elitism.  “Palin enters the arena where the fight is not between liberal and conservative; nor is it between Republican and Democrat.  The fight is between the elite and the common person who works every day and continually asks how Washington, D.C. under both parties is so out of control” (“Sarah Palin – All In,” July 5).

n    A Not-So-“Wise Latina” In-Justice 

As I predicted in my May 25 “Thoughts for the Summer” blog, B.O. made an “affirmative action” appointment to the Supreme Court, to fill the seat of retired Justice David Souter.  I wrote that he would nominate someone “ principally because she’s female and easily confirmable by the Democrat-controlled Senate.  The new justice, whomever she may be, no doubt also will be a left-liberal `activist,’ in the worst sense of that term.  (See my essay, “Judicial Activism, Real and Imagined,” April 4, 2005.)  I nearly missed being perfect prescient by failing to add, as I suspected at the time (when Sonia Sotomayor’s name was cited as being on the administation’s “short list” of Court candidates), that she’d be Hispanic, thereby filling both a “minority” racial quota as well as the sex quota, and that, specifically, B.O.’s pick would be Judge Sotomayor.  And, despite courageous questioning of her record and her judicial philosophy by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sotomayor was easily confirmed in early August by a largely partisan 68-31 vote (with 59 Democrats and only 9 of the 40 Republican Senators voting in favor of confirmation). 

The 31 Republican Senators who voted against confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court were right to do so:  Judge Sotomayor is not fit to be a Supreme Court justice.  It’s not just because of her infamous comment that “a wise Latina woman” would make better decisions than a white male judge, which reveals that she is both racist and sexist.  Nor is just because her decisions as an appellate court judge in controversial cases involving property rights, racial discrimination, and gun rights reveal that she truly is a left-liberal judicial activist who shares with other leftist liberals a disdain for individual freedom except for those narrow categories of rights that left-liberals favor.  After all, those qualities make her no less qualified than the three and a half left-liberal justices (Justices Breyer, Ginsberg, and Stevens all the time and Justice Kennedy about half the time) already serving on the Court.  

What really makes Judge (now Justice) Sotomayor unqualified for the Court is her intellectual mediocrity.  Even some left-liberal scholars were appalled at the shallowness of Sotomayor’s answers to questions about important Court cases and constitutional principles, as well as her disingenuousness in explaining away some of her controversial statements, including the “wise Latina woman” remark, by asserting that her philosophy of judging involved nothing more than applying the law to the facts.  Georgetown libertarian law professor Randy Barnett noted on the “Volokh Conspiracy” blog on July 14 that his leftist Geogetown Law colleague Mike Seidman (a cofounder and leader in the Critical Legal Studies movement) was “brutally candid” in giving his opinion of Judge Sotomayor’s testimony:  “If she was not perjuring herself, she is intellectually unqualified to be on the Supreme Court.  If she was perjuring herself, she is morally unqualified.”  Professor Barnett himself noted, in another post that same day, that in Sotomayor’s exchange with Senator Orrin Hatch about the Second Amendment and its potential application to the states – an issue in one of the most important cases to be decided by the Court in its next term – she “revealed remarkably little about her understanding of how the Supreme Court protects liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment.”   Ilya Somin, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review, aptly characterized Sotomayor as “an average judge who apparently gives little thought to the broad swath of law and where her rulings fit into that” (“Sotomayor Displays a Lack of Deep Thinking,” on the Townhall.com blog, July 15).   And, in the bluntest statement I’ve seen about Sotomayor’s unfitness for the job, Thomas Bowden, an analyst for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, argued that what really ought to disqualify Sotomayor from the Court is “a judicial philosophy that explicitly rejects objectivity and impartiality” (“Sotomayor Unqualified for Supreme Court,” May 27).

n    Russian Roulette 

B.O.’s policy toward the United States’ greatest enemy during the Cold War – the former Soviet Union, now almost just as dangerous as Russia, under the dictatorship of former KGB chief Vladimir Putin – apparently is, just like his policy toward militant Islamic terrorists, a policy of appeasement.  When Hillary Clinton, as B.O.’s secretary of state, pledged to help “reset” U.S.-Russian relations (using a prop “reset” button which was mislabeled, with the Russian word mistaken for “reset” really meaning “overcharge” – a Freudian slip, perhaps?), she was following the administration’s M.O. in bashing the previous Bush administration.  But B.O. has moved from appeasement to downright risk, endangering the national security of the United States, by apparently signaling to Putin his willingness to unilaterally back away from a European missile-defense system, the one effective trump card the U.S. had had in negotiating with Russian thugs.  (But B.O. apparently is either a truly naïve leftist peace-nik or really ignorant of the history of the Cold War.  His comments in early July, mischaracterizing the Cold War and utterly ignoring the vital role Ronald Reagan’s firmness played in helping to end it, demonstrate this, as noted on the “Classical Values” blog on July 9.) 

n    The Bitch Is Back! 

Speaking of H.R.C. (Her Royal Clinton-ness), the Secretary of State – who’s been generally all smiles since being confirmed a member of B.O.’s cabinet – finally revealed her true self, during a summer visit to the African nation of the Congo.  When asked about “your husband’s” views on a financial issue, her testy reply revealed a bit of the “old” Hillary.  "My husband is not secretary of state, I am," she snapped, adding, “I am not going to be channeling my husband."  Interestingly, it turned out that the question had been mistranslated and that the questioner was really asking, not about Bill Clinton’s views, but about B.O.’s.  I wonder if Hillary would have still been just as angry.  After all, B.O. isn’t secretary of state, either.

n    Birds of a Feather 

Another shameful episode in U.S. foreign policy under the B.O. administration occurred this summer when the president openly sided with Jose Manual Zelaya, the deposed leftist president of Honduras (and a Hugo Chavez wannabe), who was forced from office and into exile as a result of what most of the U.S. media, echoing the B.O. administration, has erroneously called a “coup.”  What actually happened in Honduras was not “illegal,” much less a “coup,” as several astute commentators have noted.  Indeed, it may be likened to the so-called “Glorious Revolution” of 1688-89 in England, which deposed the tyrannical king James II and replaced him with the constitutional monarchs William & Mary.  As Mona Charen noted in a column posted on Townhall.com, it was Zelaya himself who initiated an attempted coup, by seeking to unconstitutionally extend his term in office.  The Honduran military, acting on orders of the Honduran supreme court, removed Zelaya from office, enforcing a provision in the Honduran constitution – and thereby preserving constitutional governance and the rule of law.  (“Did Someone Say Coup?,” June 30; see also Hans Bader, “Will Obama Blackmail Honduras into Installing a Bullying Would-Be Dictator? Examiner.com, July 5).  Burwell Stark, further explaining how the Honduran military had “acted to defend the rule of law,” observes, “If this is a coup, then it is unlike almost any other in history” (apparently not seeing the parallel to England’s Glorious Revolution that’s apparent to me).   Also noting how, besides B.O., it has been the Castro brothers in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela who’ve been most vocal in denouncing the so-called Honduran “coup,” Stark adds that “as it stands, the only government leaders labeling this a coup are the ex-president himself and leaders of other countries, especially those with personal socialist or Marxist leanings” (“Saving Democracy in the Honduran `Coup,’” American Thjnker, June 30). 

The unhappy alliance of U.S. foreign policy (under B.O.) with that of Latin American communist thugs Castro, Chavez, and Daniel Ortega (of Nicaragua) was the subject of a hard-hitting editorial, “Banana Democrats,” in Investor’s Business Daily on June 29: 

“There was a coup all right, but it was committed by the U.S. or the Honduran court.  It was committed by Zelaya himself.  He brazenly defied the law, and Hondurans overwhelmingly supported his removal. . . . Yet the U.S. administration stood with Chavez and Castro, calling Zelaya’s lawful removal `a coup.’ Obama called the action `a terrible precedent,’ and said Zelaya remains president.  In doing this, the U.S. condemned democrats who stood up to save their democracy, a move that should have been hailed as a historic turning of the tide against the false democracies of the region.  The U.S. response has been disgraceful.”

In a cartoon accompanying the I.B.D. editorial, four parrots – labeled “Castro,” “Chavez,” “Ortega,” and “Obama” – sit on a tree branch, saying, “AAWWWWWCK!  Restore the dictator in Honduras!”

n    The “New GM”: Government Motors 

A sign that B.O. may be trying to convert the United States into a “banana republic” – and one of the most deplorable and constitutionally questionable actions the B.O. administration has taken (thus far) – has been its manipulation of the bankruptcies of two American auto companies, Chrysler and General Motors, in effect nationalizing the companies.  The formation of the “new GM,” which critics are aptly calling “Government Motors,” is a textbook example of how the B.O. administration is indeed implementing a socialist agenda (under the most basic definition of socialism, as government ownership of the means of production).  Rather than allow the free market and the legal system (through the normal process of the bankruptcy court) handle the reorganization of the failing auto maker in the normal (and lawful) way, the B.O. administrations spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to take control of the company and force the outcome it wanted.  B.O., who received millions in campaign contributions from the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, has forced a settlement that will give the UAW far more equity in the company then it comes out of bankruptcy than it was due compared to the secured debt holders (again thwarting bankruptcy law).  The result is that the vast majority of the company will be owned by the federal government and the UAW (with a similar result in the Chysler reorganization).  Despite his claim that he had no interest in running GM, B.O. called the mayor of Detroit the same day he announced the company’s nationalization to assure him that GM would be staying in its downtown headquarters; he previously had fired the old GM’s CEO, and he may have secretly ordered that whoever buys GM’s European auto maker Opel must agree not to export cars to the U.S.  As Hugh Hewitt notes in Townhall.com, “What had been a private company on the verge of bankruptcy is now a government actor competing against private sector companies and using the federal treasury as an enormous unfair advantage in the marketplace.  Even if the cost itself was not so staggering, the idea of the federal government declaring itself on the side of one of many competitors is as distasteful as it is unprecedented” (“Stopping Government Motors,” June 3).  Hewitt could have added that it’s also blatantly unconstitutional, as nothing in the Constitution gives the federal government the power to nationalize any private company – and such action is blatantly a denial of the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fifth Amendment. 

Commentators have decried the unprecedented actions taken by the B.O. administration in taking over Chrysler and GM, calling upon Americans to oppose them.  Gary Jason, an instructor in business ethics, wrote an op-ed posted on the American Thinker website earlier this summer, “The Ethical Case for Boycotting Chrysler and GM” (June 10).  Jason shows how the Chrysler and GM schemes violate four major theories of business ethics.  First, from the rights perspective, it violates the secured creditors’ right to a just settlement and unjustly enriches the UAW – a result “drenched in irony,” Jason notes, because “the UAW was a major reason why the companies hit the wall, and now the UAW will be rewarded with major control and ownership.  It is as if a rape victim were forced to marry her rapist.”  Second, under the consistency perspective, B.O.’s deal has not only forced the bankruptcy court to put aside longstanding legal principles but also benefited his supporter and benefactor, the UAW.  Third, from the virtue perspective, such nationalization of a company “will corrupt unions and businesses alike, by leading them to negotiate obviously unsustainable contracts, safe in the knowledge that by paying off the pols the federal government will step in to save them from the consequences of their dishonesty.”  Finally, from the utilitarian perspective, given the way B.O. already has exercised control over them, “the companies will be run by politicians, who will make decisions for the benefit of political agendas rather than on sound business principles.  The result will be that the auto companies and the union will not make the deep changes required to make the companies profitable, so we can anticipate many more cash infusions” – as well as possibly an attempt similarly to nationalize (and to give the UAW equity ownership of) Ford, too. 

In protest against the B.O. administration’s strong-armed actions in taking over GM, many Americans have urged their fellow citizens to boycott GM.  There’s a “boycott GM” Facebook page, and at one of the “Boycott GM” websites, the administrator writes, “Make no mistake, this is the first step toward socializing industries across multiple sectors (health care, energy, transportation), which will ultimately give the federal government absolute control over the means of production. . . . One of the most effective ways we can demonstrate our unified  objection to Obama’s policies is through our checkbooks.  Accordingly, if you are planning on buying a new vehicle in the next two years, I urge you NOT to buy a GM (Government Motors) vehicle.”  And as Hugh Hewitt argues, in the op-ed cited above, “Every dollar spent with GM is a dollar spent against free enterprise.  Every car or truck purchased from Government Motors is one not purchased from a private car company that competes fairly against all other car companies.” 

I confess a strong sentimental attachment to General Motors as well as a continued (indirect) financial interest in the company.  I was born in, and grew up in my parents’ home (property that I still own) near, Flint, Michigan – a city that was in effect the birthplace of General Motors (particularly its Buick division) and whose economic livelihood is still quite dependent on the company.  My father was a longtime salaried employee of General Motors; he owned only GM vehicles (usually either a Chevrolet or a Buick), and following his example, all the cars I’ve owned (so far) have been Buicks.  My parents owned General Motors stock, which I inherited and have continued to own, although I did follow the advice of my stockbroker – to some extent – a few years ago and sold all but a token number of shares.  And I’ve been following the financial difficulties of the company over the past several years, clipping and saving news articles in a “General Motors” file.  But my sentimental attachment was to the old GM, the real General Motors (the private company owned by its stockholders) – not to the new GM, which its critics have aptly renamed “Government Motors.”  And although it’s contrary to my financial interests (to the value of the property I own in Michigan), I must – in the greater interests of justice and integrity, for the preservation of American capitalism and the constitutional system of limited government – join in the call for boycotting the “new” GM.  I’ll continue to own and drive my Buick car (which I really like) for as long as that is practical, but my next vehicle will not be a product of Government Motors; it will be a product of one of GM’s competitors, perhaps Ford (the last remaining American private auto manufacturer) or a foreign company (one whose employees are not UAW members), and it will be a big, roomy “gas guzzler.”  And I urge all Americans who value justice and the integrity of American capitalism to join the boycott and NOT buy a GM (Government Motors) vehicle. 

n    “Green Bullshit” Update 

            There’s a growing consensus that what I’ve called “Green bullshit” – the radical environmentalists’ theory about man-made carbon dioxide endangering the Earth, whether it’s called “global warming” or “climate change” – is indeed bullshit.  A number of excellent books have been published in recent months that have shattered the myth, including Bjorn Lomborg’s Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming (2007), Patrick J. Michaels and Robert C. Balling, Jr.’s Climate of Extremes (2009), Iaian Murray’s The Really Inconvenient Truths (2008), Roy Spencer’s Climate Confusion (2008), and Christopher Horner’s Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism (2007) and Red Hot Lies 2008).  Another new book, which I recommended in my previous “Thoughts for the Summer” blog essay and which I also mention below, is Steve Milloy’s Green Hell (2009).  And, as I’ve also mentioned in my previous post, the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s excellent site, Cooler Heads Digest, links to new material on the Internet that presents the truth about so-called “climate change” and other radical environmentalist myths. 

Among the encouraging signs that global warming “skeptics” are finally beginning to score some points in the public debate is the news, from USA Today’s “Science Fair” column, that a front line science publication, Nature Geoscience, has published a public debunking of climate models that posit human activity as the main cause of global warming.  As reported by Rick Moran in American Thinker on July 16, the significance of the article is that it shows “reducing [carbon] emissions won’t do a damn thing to reduce warming – which makes cap and trade obsolete.”  He adds, “Of course, that won’t stop Democrats from trying to pass it.  That’s because it has never been about saving the planet.  It’s always been about aggrandizing power into the hands of the government at the expense of the rest of us.”

n    “Cap-and-Tax,” Indeed 

Arguably the worst bill passed by either house of Congress in its 220-year history – at least until House Democrats push through their health-care nationalization bill this fall – was the massive pile of steaming shit passed by the House of Representatives on June 25.  Known as the Waxman-Markey bill (named after its two chief sponsors, Reps. Henry Waxman (D.-Calif.) and  Edward Markey (D.-Mass.)), the bill is better known as the “cap-and-trade” legislation because it purports to implement the B.O. administration’s policy for reducing carbon dioxide emissions under a so-called “cap and trade” scheme.  Under the scheme, the government creates a commodity (carbon allowances) where none previously existed and then monopolizes that commodity, mandating its purchase (creating demand) and then limiting its supply (raising its price).  The federal government then regulates the new market and, over time, reduces the supply of allowances to reach artificial allowance caps.  In theory, the scheme aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 20 percent by 2020, 42 percent by 2030, and 83 percent by 2050.  But, as even radical environmentalist supporters of the “cap-and-trade” concept now concede, the Waxman-Markey bill will get nowhere near those goals.  That’s in part because a key part of the plan, mandating allowance purchases, was given up by Waxman-Markey, giving away 85 percent of them free – a massive windfall to agribusiness and other special interests that even B.O.’s budget director Peter Orszag has admitted to be “the largest corporate-welfare program that has ever been enacted in the history of the United States.”  Indeed, one leftist policy group, the Breakthrough Insitute, has claimed that because of the bill’s offset provisions, by 2030 carbon dioxide emissions actually will increase by 9 percent (Justin Danhof, “Cap-and-trade legislation is spinning out of control,” Columbus Dispatch, August 12). 

Many of the original supporters are now joining critics in acknowledging that what the bill will really do is raise the price for generating electricity significantly, amounting to a “massive energy tax.”  The more Americans discover about Waxman-Markey, the more they dislike the bill.  The bill’s true high costs are detailed in a comprehensive article by Stephen Spruiell and Kevin Williamson, entitled “A Garden of Piggish Delights,” listing 50 reasons why the legislation ought to be stopped (National Review.com, July 2).  In addition to all the special-interest “sops,” the article notes that the bill would further encourage use of ethanol and other bio-fuels (thereby raising the cost of food), provide an excuse for trade protectionism, and more fully entrench Davis-Bacon union-wage rules (making it not only harder for non-union firms to compete for projects receiving grants and financing under the bill but also ensuring that these “investments” pay out inflated union wages).  The “renewable electricity” standard the bill would create would require utilities to rely increasingly on expensive (and unreliable) sources of “alternate” energy like wind and solar (but not nuclear or “clean” coal, with are equally taboo with oil and natural gas, under the bill’s “green” mandates), and it would require companies to invest huge amounts of money into “carbon-capture” technologies – again, increased costs that would be passed on to customers’ bills.  In addition, the bill regulates “every light fixture under the sun” (“Actually, the sun might be the only light source that isn’t specifically regulated in this legislation,” the article notes), as well as all kinds of appliances – including clothes washers, dishwashers, and televisions – and require the EPA to establish environmental standards for residences, “which means a federally dictated one-size-fits-all policy for greening every home in America,” plus a “national energy efficiency building code” that will require 50 percent reductions in energy use in all buildings (commercial buildings as well as residences) by 2018, followed by 5 percent reductions in energy use every three years after that through 2030.  As other commentators have noted, ominously, this provision of the bill creates in effect a single national housing code for the United States – one that will add to the cost of every building. “Businesses and homeowners will pay twice – once to retrofit their roosts and again when the energy bill arrives.” 

I’ve summarized a few of only the first 25 “delights” listed in the article.  Other deplorable provisions include yet another handout to the auto industry (to help establish large-scale “vehicle electrification” programs), more handouts for “alternate” energy companies (like GE, owner of NBC and the biggest manufacturer of wind turbines), as well as grants to various left-wing constituencies, including billions in funding from the Department of Energy for “community development organizations” (like ACORN) to “improve energy efficiency.”   

A report by the CBO issued early in August reports that the bill would cost nearly $8 billion over the next decade, just to pay for the expanded federal bureaucracy it would mandate.  One can only hope that the supposedly less-hasty U.S. Senate will see this bill for the massive piece of crap that it is and allow it to get the death it so richly deserves.

n    Cap-and-Tr8tors 

The best political slang expression coined in the summer of 2009 was “Cap-and-Tr8tors,” the apt phrase used to describe the eight so-called Republican members of the House who voted for the cap-and-trade bill on June 25.   They are: Mary Bono Mack (CA), Mike Castle (DW), Mark Steven Kirk (IL), Leonard Lance (NJ), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), John McHugh (NY), Dave Reicheert (WA), and Chris Smith (NJ).   

If there’s any justice in the world – and if voters are as alert and outraged next year as they are this year – these eight RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) will be successfully challenged in the GOP primary elections by real Republicans who’ll win their seats in the 2010 elections.  (And the Democrat “cap and traitors” too – all those Democratic members of Congress from heartland states, particularly the so-called “Blue Dog” Democrats like Zack Space (Ohio), who sold their constituents down the river by supporting the bill, deserve a similar fate.)

n    TEA’d Off 

One encouraging sign that the American people still value their freedom, and are not yet ready to become totally dependent wards of the welfare state, is the so-called “Tea Party” movement.  Inspired by Revolutionary-era Americans’ protests against the British Parliament’s tax on tea – and also deriving their name from the acronym used by some organizers to describe themselves (Americans who are TEA – Taxed Enough Already) – the movement held several TEA parties across the USA on April 15, Tax Day.  Building on that success, still more TEA parties were held this summer, mostly on Independence Day.  (Here in Columbus, Ohio, a large crowd gathered at the Statehouse on August 1, to protest a proposed increase in the city income tax.  The featured speaker, Judge Andrew Napolitano, author and Fox News commentator, led the crowd in a “freedom” chant, noting “Remember, the government hates freedom.  It is an obstacle to what everyone there desires.”)  (For more coverage of various TEA party events this spring and summer – including photos from many of the events – scroll through Glenn Reynolds’ “Instapundit” blogsite.)   

The “silent majority” of Americans are silent no more; like Peter Finch’s character in the classic movie Network, they’re “mad as hell” and aren’t “gonna take it any more.”  What has really ticked them off is the loss of their freedom – not only their economic freedom but also (with regard to the various “townhall” meetings being held by members of Congress on the proposed “health-care reform” legislation), freedom to control their own health and lives.   As David Bernstein noted, posting to the “Volokh Conspiracy” blog on August 6, one of the best comments made at one of these so-called townhalls was to Congressman Steny Hoyer:  “Why are you guys trying to stuff a health care bill down our throats in three or four weeks when the President took six months to pick out a dog for his kids?”

n    Undemocratic Democrats 

Democrat politicians have been whining about the tough questions and protesters they’ve faced at their “townhall meetings” during Congress’ August recess.  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrat Leader Steny Hoyer, in a USA Today op-ed, called opponents of the health-care nationalization scheme “un-American,” and the Democrats’ shills in the news media have been repeating Dem “talking points” about the supposed “misinformation” and “mayhem” generated by protesters at the townhalls.  Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid called the protesters “evil-mongers.” 

What upsets Congressional Democrats most is that, instead of silently listening to their propaganda efforts, constituents are daring to ask tough questions and, yes, speak out in opposition to them.   Longtime Detroit-area Rep. John Dingell, for example, a key player in the House health care plan, had said, “I am eager to talk about the bill with anyone who wants to discuss it,” but then he added that “doesn’t open the door” to constituents who “want to demagogue the discussion” (talk about the pot calling the kettle black!)  Dingell found himself shouted down and booed in one of his town halls, where police escorted out two men, including one who said he feared the Dems’ plan wouldn’t cover his son with cerebral palsy.  A constituent from Dearborn, who attended one of Dingell’s town halls, said Dingell and other Democrats are to blame for the backlash.  “The problem is they don’t listen, they lecture,” he said.  “Congressman Dingell told us what they were going to do with health care.  The attitude was pretty much that he knows what’s best, so sit down and shut up” (“Debate gets testy over proposed health care overhaul,” Detroit News, September 8). 

Especially disingenuous and hypocritical are the Democrats’ attempts to portray the opposition to their health-care plan as well-funded and organized by insurance companies and other special-interest groups – denying that they’re truly grass-roots protests, calling them instead “Astroturf” groups.  A look at any photo of any townhall meeting, or of protesters outside the meeting, will quickly reveal who the real “Astroturf” groups are:  the Democrats’ supporters (often consisting of ACORN activists or activists from SEIU or other labor unions) typically have professionally-lettered signs; the hand-painted signs are carried by their opponents and protesters, who are truly members of citizen grass-roots groups or individuals who are justifiably angry and concerned about their government’s efforts to grab more and more control over their lives.  In an important op-ed, Michelle Malkin wrote about “Who’s Funding the Obamacare campaign?” (RealClearPolitics, June 24).  As she notes, most of the funding in support of “Obamacare” comes from a left-wing coalition called Health Care for America Now (HCAN), headquartered at 1825 K Street in Washington, D.C. – “smack dab in the middle of Beltway lobby land” – which is richly funded by left-liberal philanthropist/activists like George Soros and Soros acolyte Gara LaMarche, Herb and Marion Sandler, and billionaire Peter Lewis of Progressive Insurance.  HCAN has formed alliances with at least two other left-wing heavyweight organizations, the “corruption plagued” SEIU and “Obama’s old chums at fraud-riddled ACORN.”  (Consider, for example, one incident – well-publicized on Fox News but basically ignored by the “state-run” news media – involving a black conservative protester, Kenneth Gladley, who was beaten up by  SEIU thugs outside a town hall meeting in the St. Louis area.  His offense?  Handing out “Don’t Tread on Me” flags.) 

It should not be surprising that Democrat politicians have such strong disregard for the views of the American people:  like their ideological ancestors in the so-called “Progressive” movement of the early 20^th century, they’re basically elitists, as noted above.  As John Stossel succinctly puts it, in a column aptly titled “Arrogance,” “A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system” (Townhall.com, July 22).

n    “The Most Unkindest Cut of All” 

Given the propensity of so-called “progressives” to attempt to control every detail of Americans’ lives – as well as their desire for to impose one-size-fits-all national government mandates – it should come as no surprise that under the B.O. administration, the federal Center for Disease Control (CDC) is considering the promotion of “universal circumcision” for all baby boys born in the USA.  Supposedly aiming at reducing the spread of HIV, the virus believed to cause AIDs, the proposal comes after officials analyzed the results of studies showing that in African countries hard hit by HIV, men who were circumcised reduced their infection rate in half.  Never mind that HIV infection in Africa (where heterosexual transmission to men from infected female partners is a big problem) is entirely different from the pattern of infection in the USA, or that one of the most effective ways to protect against transmission of HIV – use of a condom – makes circumcision irrelevant.  To these “progressive” folks at the CDC or in the B.O. administration, a statistically irrelevant gain in “public health” is apparently more than sufficient rationale for imposing what critics say is “medically unnecessary” surgery (and which in fact is nothing but genital mutilation) on millions of American infant boys – and to deprive the boys’ parents of yet another aspect of their freedom of choice. 

So when is B.O. going to appoint his circumcision “czar”? 

n    Presti-digital-elation – Not! 

On  June 12 U.S. TV broadcast stations were forced by federal law to convert from analog to digital signals.  As I noted in my March 19 “Spring Briefs” and my May 25 “Thoughts for Summer 2009” entries (scroll down to “Presti-digital-delaytion” and “More Presti-digital-delaytion”), the Congressionally-mandated national switch represents in microcosm many of the failures of government paternalism, of the federal “Nanny State.”  It’s not just the principal folly – the erroneous belief that a free market in broadcasting would not better adapt to new technologies, and hence, the rationalization for government control over broadcasting through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – but also the various ways that Congress allegedly has “helped” American consumers weather the transition that it forced upon the market.  As with other government-mandated programs, the folly of this program again reinforced the truth of the saying that one of the most frightening phrases anyone can hear is, “We’re from the government – and we’re here to help you”!   

When the deadline for the switch passed in mid-June, TV viewers – who had been forced to buy digital converter boxes, the prices of which were inflated thanks to the government’s “free” $40 coupons, and then to scan and to re-scan for available local digital signals – found that, if they were lucky, they did indeed have improved video quality.  But if they weren’t lucky (as many Americans, especially viewers in rural areas, discovered), they also found that they could no longer receive the signals of some of their favorite local broadcast stations, because the reception window for digital signals is much narrower than it was for the older analog signals.  Eventually, as antenna technology improves, they may be able to receive those tricky digital signals – or, rather than waiting to buy those expensive new digital-reception antennas, they might spend more money buying a digital-ready TV or subscribing to cable or some other (expensive) alternative to over-the-air broadcast TV.   If the government had just let the market alone – if there were no FCC to regulate broadcasting (that is, if the federal government took seriously the limitations on its powers imposed by the Constitution, including the First Amendment, forbidding Congress from passing any law abridging freedom of speech), broadcast TV’s transition to superior digital technology would have happened – but only when consumer demand and improved technologies made the market ready for the change, not when some politicians arbitrarily decided to forcibly impose it.   

n    The Summer of Atlas Shrugged – Yes!

            The summer of 2009 indeed was, as I predicted in my May 25 “Thoughts for Summer,” the ideal time for millions of Americans to discover, or rediscover, the relevance of Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s magnificent philosophical novel.  52 years after it was first published, Atlas is selling more copies now than ever, as the horrors of the part-capitalist, part-socialist “mixed economy” that Rand portrayed in her novel seem to be coming true.  Indeed, just as the heroes of the novel, led by John Galt, went on strike against the injustices of a moral and legal code that demanded their sacrifice, there is mounting evidence that more and more Americans today are “going Galt.” As described by Ed Hudgins, director of advocacy for the Atlas Society, the phenomenon means, among other things, that many Americans are: 

n      having righteous indignation at the injustice of a political system that bails out individuals and institutions for irresponsible behavior at the expense of those of us who are productive and responsible; 

n      asking, in the face of new taxes and government controls, “Why work at all?” and “For whom am I working?”; 

n      realizing that productive individuals are being punished, not for their vices, but for their virtues; 

n      recognizing that they have a moral right to their own life, the pursuit of their own happiness, and to the rewards they’ve earned with their productive work – and that the supposed “needs” of others do not give them a claim to one’s time, effort, and achievements; and, of course,  

n      shrugging off unearned guilt, refusing to support their own destroyers, and giving them what Rand called “the sanction of the victim.”

            In an interesting commentary piece posted on Bloomberg.com (“Rand’s Atlas Is Shrugging with a Growing Load,” June 2), Amity Shlaes noted the correlation between the rising tax burden on upper-income Americans and the sales of Atlas Shrugged.  In 1986, a year when Atlas sold between 60,000 and 80,000 copies, the top 1 percent of earners paid 26 percent of total federal income tax revenues.  By 2000, that 1 percent was paying 37 percent, and Atlas sales were at 120,000.  By 2006 the top 1 percent carried 40 percent of the burden.  Last year, sales of Atlas Shrugged were about 200,000, higher than any year before that, including 1957, the year the book was first published.  And this year, with a president (and a Democrat-controlled Congress) threatening to further increase the tax burden on the most productive Americans, the book is selling at a faster rate than it did last year.  

            Two friends of mine this summer had the tremendous life-changing experience of reading the novel for the first time, and I used my conversations with them as an excuse (as if I needed one!) for rereading it again (something I like to do every other year or so).  Once again, I was impressed by Rand’s profound insights into not only the worlds of politics and economics but also into human nature, at both its best and its worst, as embodied respectively in the heroes and villains of the novel.  As my friend Justin remarked, it is truly a work of “profound genius.”

n    In Defense of Jefferson and Other Noteworthy Books 

            A new book published in June, In Defense of Thomas Jefferson: The Sally Hemings Sex Scandal, by William G. Hyland, Jr. (New York: Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, 2009), helps set straight the historical record by shattering the myth that Thomas Jefferson fathered the children of his slave Sally Hemings.  Hyland is a trial lawyer, a former prosecutor with more than 25 years of litigation experience; he brings his legal experience to bear upon the Jefferson-Hemings allegation, demonstrating that the evidence fails to establish the paternity thesis.  Hyland is especially critical of the flawed scholarship of Annette Gordon-Reed, the leading proponent of the paternity thesis, whose latest book, The Hemingses of Monticello, is wholly based on imaginative speculation; in other words, Gordon-Reed’s book is fiction masquerading as history.  (In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Hyland gives due credit to the report of the Scholars Commission on the Jefferson-Hemings matter, which in 2001 concluded that the paternity thesis was without merit.  He cites and quotes from my own concurring report for the Scholars Commission, “The Thomas Jefferson – Sally Hemings Myth and the Politicization of American History” (April 9, 2001), including my own critique of Gordon-Reed. The Scholars Commission report finally will be published this fall, in the book edited by the Commission’s chairman, Robert F. Turner, The Jefferson - Hemings Controversy (Durham. N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, forthcoming in November 2009.)) 

            Another important book published this year, and among my recommended reading for this summer, is Steven Milloy’s Green Hell (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2009).  As I wrote in my “Thoughts for the Summer” entry, the subtitle of the book describes its thesis:  “How Environmentalist Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them.”  Milloy’s book is a comprehensive takedown of the entire radical environmental movement, the movement “to make America “Green,” which he reveals to be an authoritarian crusade aiming to dictate the very parameters of our daily lives – where we can live, what transportation we can use, what we can eat, how we heat and power our homes, and even how many children we can have.  As the Senate this fall considers following the House in passing some version of an abominable “energy” bill based on the faulty “global warming” or “climate change” premise, Milloy’s book gives Americans the intellectual ammunition they’ll need to help convince their senators that such legislation would only further ruin the U.S. economy.  

            Radio talk show host Glenn Beck (who now calls himself a “libertarian”) authored the surprise hit of the summer, his book Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government (New York: Mutual Radio Arts/Threshold Editions, 2009).  Beck alerts Americans to the true size of our federal government’s debt, which includes nearly $100 trillion dollars in unfunded liability for Social Security and Medicare obligations alone – a “$100 trillion bipartisan betrayal” of future generations of Americans.  He expresses justifiable outrage at the way politicians from both major parties have made the financial crisis even worse by spending trillions of more dollars in borrowed funds.  And he traces the historical origins of the modern welfare state to its ideological roots in the so-called “Progressive” movement of the early 20^th century.  Notwithstanding the frightening message Beck’s book delivers, the fact that his book took the No. 1 spot on USA Today’s Best-Selling Books list on June 25 and has remained a best-seller throughout the summer is an encouraging sign that the American people are waking up from the apathy to which a century of “welfare state” policies had reduced them.  Like the book that inspired it, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense (1776) – the text of which is reprinted at the back of the book – Glenn Beck’s Common Sense just may help ignite a revolution.  (By the way, Glenn Beck’s TV show on Fox News (weekdays at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time) is superb – one of the best news shows on TV, especially for coverage of the abuses of power by the B.O. administration.) 

Finally, I’d like to note some of the fictional books that I read this summer, for my pleasure reading:  several of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe novels and short stories (true classics in the modern mystery genre), as well as Charlene Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse novels (tales of vampires and other supernatural creatures interacting with humans in north Louisiana, a series of books that are more entertaining – and certainly far more humorous – than True Blood, the HBO series they inspired).  I also read two especially noteworthy new books from my favorite genre of pleasure reading, historical mystery novels:  Lindsey Davis’s Alexandria and Ruth Downie’s Persona Non Grata.  Alexandria is Davis’s latest Marcus Didius Falco novel, in which her protagonist (an “informer” in ancient Rome during the time of the emperor Vespasian) travels to Alexandria, Egypt with his family on a vacation and finds himself embroiled in a mysterious murder that takes place at the famous Library.  Persona Non Grata, Downie’s latest “Medicus” novel, takes its protagonist, Gaius Petreius Ruso (a medical doctor stationed with the Roman army in Britain at the time of the emperor Hadrian), out of Britain and back to his troubled family in southern Gaul, where as paterfamilias he tries both to save the family estate from bankruptcy and to save himself from a murder charge, when the agent of one of his family’s biggest creditors is found dead – poisoned – in his own home.  (For more on these and other novels that I recommend, see my newly-revised “Guide to Historical Mysteries.”)

n    Breaking News

            Michael Jackson is still dead.

n    Adios 

It may be hard to believe this from the media coverage, but other celebrities died this summer besides the so-called “King of Pop.” (I’ve always regarded Vernor’s ginger ale to be the true king of pop.)   Other celebrities who completed their lives in the summer of 2009 included, in the world of entertainment, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Karl Malden, and John Hughes; in the worlds of economics and free-market public policy, Rose Friedman; in the world of news reporting, Walter Cronkite and Robert Novak; and in the world of politics, Ted Kennedy.  

Ed McMahon was perhaps the best-known “sidekick” on television, superbly functioning as second banana to Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show for 30 years, from the time Carson became host in 1962 until Carson’s retirement in 1992.  Ed’s trademark opener for each show – “And now h-e-e-e-e-e-ere’s Johnny!” – is among the most famous phrases in TV history.  Farrah Fawcett will be remembered as one of the original Charlie’s Angels and for her famous pin-up poster, an iconic image of the 1970s; but perhaps her best role was in real life – as she courageously battled cancer during her final years, with her long-time love, Ryan O’Neal, by her side.  Actor Karl Malden also will be remembered for his role in a 1970s TV series, The Streets of San Francisco, but it’s his movie roles that are truly memorable.  My favorite is Dead Ringer, the 1964 mystery thriller where Malden played the policeman/boyfriend of Bette Davis, who played identical twin sisters (one of whom murdered the other).  Writer/director John Hughes created some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s:  among them, the “Brat Pack” teen angst films Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink; the original National Lampoon’s Vacation film and the hilarious John Candy comedies Uncle Buck and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles; the original Home Alone film; and my favorite John Hughes movie, 1986’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (the movie that made truancy cool and Matthew Broderick a star).  

Although her Nobel Laureate husband, the late Milton Friedman, received widespread public acclaim, Rose Friedman was in her own right and accomplished economist, author, and champion of liberty.  At her initiative, the couple created the Rose and Milton Friedman Foundation for school vouchers; and with Milton Friedman, she co-authored three major books that explained free markets in laymen’s terms:  Free to Choose (1980), Tyranny of the Status Quo (1984), and Two Lucky People (1999).  The last book, the memoir written when the Friedmans were in their 80s, “is a wonderful book that owes more to Rose than to Milton,” writes Guy Sorman in his Forbes.com commentary, “Remembering Rose Friedman” (Aug. 19).  For the Friedmans, “economics was not a `dismal science’ at all; its purpose was to make people happy.”  And thanks to the splendid work of both Milton and Rose Friedman, more and more people today realize that freedom fosters more happiness, because of the wider array of choices that free markets provide. 

Walter Cronkite, the longtime anchor of the CBS Evening News, was the last from the “golden era” of great network news anchors, which included his rivals on NBC, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley.  Cronkite reported on historic events from the early 1960s until his retirement in the early 1980s; and, ironically, he died just two days shy of the 40^th anniversary of one of his most memorable broadcasts, the Apollo 11 moon landing.  (Among those of us old enough to remember watching this extraordinary event live on television, when after the “Eagle” had successfully landed and Neil Armstrong made his “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” who could forget Cronkite’s reaction, when he lifted up his eyeglasses, wiped his brow, and said, “whew!”)  Robert Novak, a political columnist and conservative commentator for nearly four decades (spanning presidencies from J.F.K. to B.O.), was a Washington insider nevertheless known for his political independence.  Dubbed “the prince of darkness” by one journalist, Novak relished the moniker, using the phrase as the title of his 2007 memoir.  But the real “princes of darkness” were the politicians whom Novak regularly skewered in his columns and in his commentary on such shows as CNN’s Crossfire or PBS’s The McLaughlin Group (where Novak frequently was the only panelist who made sense).  “I find that politicians as a class are up to no good,” Novak once said.  His blunt honesty will be sorely missed. 

Finally, U.S. Senator Edward M. (Teddy) Kennedy (D.-Mass.) surely was one of those politicians so aptly described by Novak.  Called by some “the Lion of the Senate,” he might be more honestly dubbed “the Liar of the Senate,” except that would be insufficiently specific.  Kennedy’s infamous speech in opposition to Judge Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 1987 – describing in vitriolic, hyperbolic terms “Robert Bork’s America” as every left-liberal’s nightmare – helped usher in the bitter partisanship that has so characterized political debate in Washington, D.C. for the past two decades.  Carried on the political coattails of his popular older brothers Jack and Bobby, Teddy Kennedy was a “blue-blood” member of that class that Ayn Rand in Atlas Shrugged astutely characterized as “the aristocracy of pull.”  Although he killed Mary Jo Kopechne in a July 1969 auto accident, when after attending a party on Chappaquiddick Island, he recklessly drove his car off a bridge and into the water (he escaped but his passenger, Ms. Kopechne, drowned), Kennedy was charged only with leaving the scene of the accident, to which he plead guilty, thereby evading legal responsibility for her death.  (See Robert P. George and Dermot Quinn, “Chappaquiddick Revisited,” National Review Online, July 31.)  But Kennedy was guilty of far greater crimes, against the American people:  as a leading architect of the modern expansion of the regulatory/”welfare” state, he sponsored numerous pieces of legislation that unconstitutionally enlarged federal government powers and violated the rights of all Americans.  Now left-liberal fascists will try to exploit Kennedy’s “legacy” by using his name to push yet another piece of unconstitutional, liberty-destroying legislation, their scheme for the nationalization of health care in the United States.  Passage of the Democrats’ health-care bill would be an ironic legacy for Teddy Kennedy because, under the system of government rationing of care that will be the inevitable consequence of the law, a 77-year-old with brain cancer like Kennedy would not be given the medical care that allowed him to live as long as he did.  Thus, at its end, his life epitomized the hypocrisy of the political left.

  | Link to this Entry | Posted Wednesday,  September 2, 2009 | Copyright © David N. Mayer