Michael Moore: Leftist Derangement Syndrome

Michael Moore is back. On Friday, our favorite leftist hate-monger told the Democrats how they could not only regain the initiative, but could actually pull off “the mother of all upsets” in November. What makes this post interesting, aside from the sheer idiocy of it, is that it shows us just how deranged the modern left has become. Everything Moore says is vile, hateful and stupid, and this is what has become standard thinking on their end of the spectrum. Let’s examine Moore’s five “ideas.”

1. Whine and Finger Point

Moore leads off with the thing leftists do best: whine that everything is someone else’s fault. Specifically, he wants the Democrats to run “wall-to-wall” advertising on all channels to blame Bush and the Republican. He wants them to tell the voters that Republicans “concocted and led the unnecessary invasion of two countries” and “caused the biggest collapse of our economy since the great Depression.”

Note the Trutherism in his assertion that the Afghan war was “concocted,” and note how easily he forgets that the Democrats were onboard with both wars until they became unpopular. And let’s not forget that Obama himself called Afghanistan a “good war,” or that Obama has expanded that war with 30,000 additional US troops and has expanded it into Pakistan. . . something Moore’s side called an “illegal war” and a “war crime” when Nixon did it in Cambodia. And don’t get me started on the economy garbage.

In any event, it’s funny that Moore’s first instinct is to blame the enemy. That’s a clear sign of a side bereft of ideas. Mooreover, why should this actually work? Would you accept mistreatment from your current boss or spouse just because they remind you that your prior boss/spouse was worse? Apparently, Moore would. And what does Moore think the Democrats have been doing for months now. . . they blame Bush like they talk about the weather?

As an interesting aside, Moore adds that: “I don’t know a single person in Hollywood who wouldn’t shoot and produce those spots for you for FREE.” So much for any claim that Hollywood isn’t a bastion of leftist groupthink.

2. Gestapo Tactics

Like all leftists, Moore next turns to the power of the state to punish his enemies. He wants the Democrats to announce that the Justice Department will seek indictments against “those who caused the economic collapse.” Think about this for a moment, Moore is actually suggesting that we criminalize economic failure. . . “you didn’t produce enough jobs, to the gulag with you!”

Of course, Moore doesn’t put it this way, he talks around it by pretending that such laws already exist. He says to use RICO and “basic laws that make fraud of any kind a crime.” But what fraud is he talking about? He never tells us, except to say that Democrats need to “get in the face of those who stole the billions, make them pay for it -- and the people will love you.” Right, because law is about gaining popularity and inciting the masses. So who stole the billions that caused the economy to crash? He doesn’t tell us, but he gives us a strong hint in the next section. . . observe:

3. Burn The Banks

Moore wants Obama to announce a moratorium on all home foreclosures, and by “moratorium” he really means something more permanent. Forget the rule of law, forget contract rights and property rights. And why are we justified in ignoring the rule of law? Because banks are criminals: “This week, two of the largest crime organizations who are throwing hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes (GMAC and JPMorganChase) have been forced to momentarily stop doing this.” He later adds that Bank of America has joined the “crime syndicate.”

Moore, like all leftists, sees anyone (apart from himself) with money as a criminal, and therefore not deserving of the protections of law. This is entirely consistent with how the communists treated the bourgeoisie and the Nazis treated the Jews. Hate is hate, and this is hate. This is also hypocrisy, imagine how much Moore would squeal like a pig boy if someone were to advocate letting victims take an eye for an eye in any case that doesn’t involve a rich criminal.

Mooreover, I wonder why Moore stops with homes? If we’re going to eat the rich, let’s not nibble. Why should anyone have to pay the rest of their car loans? Their student loans? Their credit card debts? Or any debt for that matter? Sure, this will wipe out credit for everyone, but it will be so satisfying to Michael’s hateful enlarged heart.

4. Hand Out Jobs

Moore next wants the Democrats to have the government hire enough people to get the unemployment rate down to 5%. That means hiring 17 million people (the government currently employs 3 million), at a likely salary cost of $1.2 trillion plus benefits plus whatever it costs to put these people in offices or get them equipment to do whatever it is Moore wants them to do. Using the old rule of thumb, that salary is 1/3 of total cost of employment, expect this to cost the taxpayer $3.6 trillion a year. . . a little more than the entire 2010 budget.

How will Moore pay for this? By taxing the top 1% of earners. Here’s the problem. These people earned $460 billion in 2008. So they are $3.2 billion short. To make Moore’s plan work, we would need to tax all income above $80,000 at 100%. Even the communists weren’t that stupid.

5. Fake Populism

Finally, Moore wants the Democrats to announce that they won’t take any more Wall Street money for the next election cycle. Instead, they will only accept donations of $2, $5 and $10. They will also pledge that they won’t take a job as a lobbyist or as a lawyer for any corporation for ten years after leaving Congress. Of course, he doesn’t want them to return the money they already collected from Wall Street, nor would he restrict anyone from spending money independently. What this really does is put the Democrats at the mercy of leftist activists like George Soros, who would need to bankroll their campaigns, and would weed out any candidate who isn’t already a millionaire. Nice Mike!

Conclusion

The Democrats should do this! Right now the public is mad as hell at the Democrats, and this would push the public to the point of actually dragging Democrats out of their cars and murdering them in the streets. That would be fun to watch, and Michael Moore could film it! It would be a win-win.

Seriously, this is an insane ramble. And what’s moore, it shows that the left has nothing to offer. Finger pointing, witch hunts, impossible and false promises do not make an ideology that anyone can get behind. Pathetic.

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The Media Understands The Coffee Baggers (Updated)

For those of you who don’t know, the brown baggers or coffee breakers or coffee baggers or whatever they call themselves held a rally yesterday in which the entire American progressive left tried to show that it could bring out more people (paid and volunteer) than Glenn Beck. They failed. More interestingly, however, the MSM didn’t seem to have any problems understanding their “message.”

After the Tea Party brought hundreds of thousands of real Americans (not professional protestors) to the Mall last year, the left became obsessed with trying to discredit those people. The professional left scoffed at the protesters and tried to denigrate them with an obscure homosexual reference. Obama pretended not to notice the 500,000 people camped out on his lawn. Pelosi saw Nazis under every sign, and a vast right wing conspiracy. She wanted these people investigated and those who funded them given the McCarthy treatment. The black lobby fabricated claims of racism. And journalists trolled the crowd looking for the one guy with the flat earth sign.

Indeed, try as they might, journalists just couldn’t bring themselves to figure out what it was that had upset this Tea Party crowd. Did they want socialized medicine? Maybe. Maybe they wanted Obama to go farther? Were they upset we had a black president? Probably. Some seemed to want a bigger stimulus, some a smaller stimulus. Some wanted Lyndon Larouche let out of jail. . . or put back in, and no doubt some of them wanted a return to slavery, the gold standard, and the monarchy. . . after all, they kept talking about something called a "Constitution"?? One thing was for sure though, this Tea Party “fad” had no message these journalists wanted to hear, and thus they were quite happy to declare that the Tea Party had no idea what it really wanted.

Armed with this self-imposed confusion, these journalists spent the next few months struggling to find the right words to marginalize the Tea Party. While ostensibly trying to solve this riddle of what these strange people wanted, journalists wrote books, commissioned polls (and recommissioned them when they didn’t like the results), hired leftist experts, and hypothesized a series of horrors and ambiguities, all with the intent of suppressing the message of the Tea Party movement. If you didn't know what the Tea Party stood for, you certainly weren't going to get infected with that knowledge from these journalists!

Yet, despite this elitist embargo on the obvious, the popularity of the Tea Party continued to grow because it was in fact sending one message, and that message resonated throughout America: government needs to be reined in.

As the progressives saw the public slipping away from their vision of utopia (a vision the public never even flirted with if we’re being honest), they set out to prove that they could be as relevant as the Tea Party. Hence they tried to form the brown baggers (later renamed the coffee party, and now one nation). And when Beck held his rally, to much lower turn out than the prior Tea Party rally, the progressives saw their chance. If they could beat Beck, they could declare themselves more important than the Tea Party! So they picked yesterday as the day for a rally. They chartered busses with union dues and arranged for paid leave for their protestors (at least the few with jobs) -- the unions even paid for the hotels for their members. And slowly, this collection of misfits made their way to the capital.

So what was the message put forth by this group of 400 different progressive groups? Pro-gay marriage, pro-green jobs, anti-global warming, pro-raising teacher pay, pro-union card check, pro-affirmative action, pro-reparations for blacks, pro-amnesty for illegals, anti-banks, anti-IMF, pro-world peace, pro-magic environmental technologies, anti-nuclear power, anti-oil, anti-corporation, pro-welfare, pro-tax hikes, pro-third world debt forgiveness, pro-world tax on banks, anti-genetically modified foods, anti-Big Pharma, pro-marijuana, anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, pro-Iranian, anti-military, anti-War, pro-abortion, anti......... You get the idea. The Communist Party USA was there, so was The War Resisters League, The Freedom Socialist Party, the NAACP, and every union you can name. You literally had 400 whiner groups, all specializing in very small single issues, without any care in the world for the other 399 groups’ causes.

And how did the media see this? Let’s quote the Politico: “The ‘One Nation Coming Together’ rally at the National Mall touched on themes of immigration reform, more funding for schools and equal rights for gays. But more than anything else, the day was about jobs.”

Yep, there you have it: the Eines Volk rally was about “jobs.”

It’s funny how 500,000 Tea Parties could speak with a united voice, but the media gets confused and distracted by three guys standing on the fringe of the rally who admit they really aren’t with the Tea Partiers. Yet, the media sees these 60,000 factionalized idiots screaming about 400 different issues and somehow clearly makes out one unified message: Jobs.

This is called advocacy, not journalism. The media is carrying the water for these groups by stripping out the pedophile groups, the eco-terrorists, the pro-socialist-“anarchists,” the militant feminists, and the militant racists, and instead packaging this collection of misfits as concerned about only one issue. . . the same issue the voters say is their primary concern. Yet, simultaneously, this same media acts intentionally blind to a genuinely public movement that is expressing a clear, single idea. That is how you sell one set of ideas over another.

Of course, we didn’t really expect anything different, did we? But it's still an excellent reminder of why the media has a lower trust rating with the American public than al Qaeda.

***************

As a final aside, now that even the AP has noticed that the crowd was "visibly smaller," didn't cover as far on the Mall, and wasn't as dense, the organizers claim that this rally was not in response to Beck and that they had no intention of trying to beat his numbers. Of course, that's a lie. Here is a quote from NAACP president Ben Jealous from just before the rally: "We believe that our satellite photos will stack up nicely to his satellite photos." Think about this. . . the entire American left couldn't beat the turnout produced by one entertainer, even though they paid people to be there. How pathetic.

********************** Update ****************************

Check out this photo comparisons and then ask yourself how the MSM could describe both as "tens of thousands."




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Election Disaster Update

Let’s do a quick update on the latest election news, because it continues to look pretty darn bleak for the Democrats. . . and it’s getting bleaker. Indeed, the estimates for the number of House seats the Republicans will win keep going up, and the Democrats have begun infighting.

1. First, we have this little tidbit. Republicans are now leading in 54 Democratic House districts. In 19 more districts, the Democratic incumbent remains below 50% and the Republican challenger is within five points. Thus, some commentators are now raising their estimates to 73 seats. The modern record was 74 seats in 1922.

2. These numbers could actually be higher, but there is no polling for 160 Democratic House seats that were considered too blue to bother with. . . until now. So no one knows the full extent yet of what is going on. BUT, a ton of interest group money is pouring into what were considered “marginal” races, i.e. races where the Democrat was assumed to win with no problem. In some cases, millions of dollars in ads are being run against Democrats who last won re-election by as much at 10-15%. Money is a stronger indicator than polling of what is really happening.

3. Right now, Republican leaning independent groups are outspending Democratic leaning independent groups 4-1 in House races and 7-1 in Senate races, and large Democratic donors are holding back support.

4. In the Senate: In deep, deep blue Connecticut, Linda McMahon has pulled within 5% of the Democrat, putting that seat back into play, especially if there is a depressed Democratic turn out. New York Republican Joe DioGuardi is within 1% of Kirsten Gillibrand and has momentum, while NY Democrats seem to be imploding in scandal and infighting. And Harry Reid remains stuck in a dead heat somewhere between 44% and 48% each. This could mean a nine seat swing, which would bring the Senate to 50/50, and put Joe Biden to work.

5. Most Democrats are running away from the administration, and none are running ads defending ObamaCare, card check, the stimulus, the GM takeover, cap-and-trade, Iraq, or financial regulation. Instead, they are almost uniformly running negative ads against their Republican opponents. Most are touting their “independence” (no matter how fake) and some are actively running against their party:

• Indiana Democrat Joe Donnelly is running against “Pelosi’s energy tax on Hoosier families.”

• Alabama Democrat Bobby Bright refused to say that he would vote for Pelosi as speaker again, as did Texas Democrat Chet Edwards.

• North Dakota Democrat Earl Pomeroy is actually touting how he voted for the Bush agenda.

I don’t put any faith these assertions as Democrats always play this game. . . lying is part of their cover-up, but Democratic insiders fear this will harm Democratic turnout because it’s turned so negative.

6. As Joe Biden tells Democrats to stop whining (always a great campaign slogan), Obama is whining that the Democrats aren’t motivated to support him. Also, he’s been blasting the Republicans every day for a week or two now, but it doesn’t seem to have helped -- his polls numbers keep hitting new lows all over the place. The latest to declare a new low is CNN, which had him at 42% support.

7. The Democrats just adjourned without voting on the Bush tax cuts, giving the Republicans yet another issue: a vote to adjourn is a vote for a tax increase. The 47 Democrats who “wanted” to vote to extend the tax cuts are now exposed as lying. . . again.

8. Ethics troubles continue to catch up to the Democrats. This time it was former lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti pleading guilty to funneling more than $380,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Democrats Jim Moran (Va), Peter Visclosky (Ind.), and John Murtha (Hell), who directed $137 million in defense contracts to Magliocchetti’s defense contractor clients. Even the MSM is saying that Pelosi’s ethics pledge has failed.

9. Bob Woodward just released a book that makes Team Obama look like a collection of infighting idiots and blows away any idea that they are competent when it comes to Afghanistan. It also continues to show Obama as indecisive and without military support.

10. Word has leaked out that the rats are planning to flee the White House, led by Chief Rat Rahm Emmanuel (leaving Friday). Apparently, even David Axelrod is leaving, ostensibly to start working on Obama's re-election campaign. Pre-election staff changes are a sign of turmoil.

11. Obama has given up on Strategy 517: Demonizing John Boehner, and is now moving on to Strategy No. 518: attacking the Republican Pledge which no one knows anything about. . . or cares about. If the election doesn't come soon, they will run out of strategies.


This is what happens during a route, and it’s only going to pick up speed as the situation gets worse and the Democrats get more desperate.

33 Days to Go!

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Messiah Denied

Have I got a treat for you! What is it? It’s Grade A, prime cut leftist anguish. An anti-Obama rant crawling with conspiracies and hand-wringing. Hmm good. More interestingly though, it shows us the problem Obama and the Pelosicrats will have in this election and it possibly portends an even bigger danger for them: civil war. All of this and more from a post entitled: “Dump Obama”!

Here is the “article” in question:

Dump Obama: more urgent than ever.

After all, a movement can be built around a candidate. That is what happened in 2008. There was a vibrant Obama movement, and when he revealed himself to be a corporate hack -- most egregiously in the healthcare debacle -- the movement was left high and dry. It had no solid principles, no organizational vehicle, no tactic, that was not dependent on Obama's leadership. Evidence of this was around jobs creation. After healthcare, unemployment was to be the "next big thing." When all Obama offered was a few more tax breaks for small business, the left had nothing to offer, nowhere to go.

And now Obama thinks he can spit in our eye with impunity.

Contrast this with 1968. McCarthy lost the nomination fight in Chicago. Kennedy died. The movement did not die. The anti-war movement did run up against its own limitations, not the least of which was lacking a plan that extended beyond Nixon ending the war, and a plan on how to move away from the campuses. So it then died. It was transformed into a strictly candidate movement -- the George McGovern movement in 1972 -- and it went down with him. But it did not die with McCarthy and Kennedy.

I’m not surprised that someone noticed that the whole time the Democrats were bashing Wall Street they were simultaneously doing its bidding with a vengeance, but I am surprised anyone on the left noticed. They usually accept the Democrats’ rhetoric and assurances of “good intentions” as enough. Not anymore?

In any event, this raises some interesting questions:

First, does this confirm the Democrats have lost the left? I think so. Another post at this website (Open Left) answers the question “what is the difference between Democrats and Republicans” thusly: “Democrats don't believe in their own policies, and don't want to talk about them. Republicans do.” That’s not love.

Secondly, what does this tell us about the success of the progressive takeover of the Democratic Party? The progressives spent billions of Soros dollars trying to take over the Democratic Party, doing everything from getting their own people into leadership positions to dominating the communications outlets that support them. If you believe the post above, all of their efforts got them nothing. I think that's mistaken. They did win the party, but they put their trust in the wrong guy, a guy with no experience, no intellectual curiosity, no actual ideology except unfocused anger, and no real interest in doing anything more than enjoying the perks of office.

Third, could this be the beginning of a reformation for the left? The left is in trouble worldwide because it has nothing to offer except spite. Indeed, leftism once boasted an impressive (if wrong) intellectual tradition, but that ideology has given way to factionalism. The modern left consists purely of whiny, hateful, self-described victims whose sole “ideological” concerns are to punish those they despise. To compensate for surrendering in the war of ideas, they now put their faith in leaders who they hope will impose their will, even as they aren’t willing to explain what their will really is. I’ve explained this before HERE and you can see it confirmed above. If the left were to abandon hero worship and replace it with ideas, then it might once again become a thriving ideology. But I don’t see that happening. For while this leftist whines about no longer putting all of their eggs in the basket of a single leader (a wise move), their lack of ideology requires it. How else do you implement something you are afraid to discuss openly and which is little more than a collection of grievances? Moreover, the reflex to put your faith in an expert to solve your problems is a personality defect that requires more than simply getting upset at your latest savior. Thus, they may be finished with Obama, but the next messiah is just around the corner.

All in all, this paints a grim picture for the Democrats. These people won’t be placated before November and probably not by anyone currently in power. Indeed, I’m thinking this may be the opening salvo in a new civil war. And if the history of leftist civil wars has taught us anything, it is to watch for purges, some terrorist actions (political and otherwise), and an attempt to destroy the village to save it.

Get your popcorn ready!

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The New Democratic Agenda!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a sucker for lost causes. So this weekend I decided to take up the lostest causes of all: the Democratic Party. To help them, I put together an agenda that would regain the initiative for them in 2010 and beyond. Yes, I did that thing. Follow this plan my Democratic friends and you will win this election. . . guaranteed. Without further adieu, I present to you the new Democratic Agenda:

1. The Freedom From Speech Act: People hate hate speech. This act will ban any speech that anyone might consider offensive and any words that could be used to express such thoughts, no matter how such words are spelled on twitter.

2. The Random Choice Act: Discrimination is everywhere and our government has turned a sight-impaired eye for far too long. This act will ban discrimination of any kind, rational or irrational, in any kind of choice. That’s right. To end the specter of discrimination, this law will hereafter require that all decisions be made using a random decision generator, with the results posted on the internet.

3. The American Film Re-Restoration Act: Have you ever been to the movies and just found yourself so offended because of hidden messages in the films? Are you tired of seeing thinly-burqaed two hour promotions for the NRA? Does it bother you that films hide behind stereotypical bad guys when we all know who the real bad guys are but the rich white men who run studios won’t let us tell the truth? Well, we’re going to set aside $850 billion stimulus dollars to correct the film-based injustices of the past. Our first plan will be to repair Saving Private Ryan by digitally removing all the guns, by replacing these so-called “Nazis” with Republicans, and by moving these “Nazi” deathcamps to Crawford, Texas.

4. The George Bush Did It Act: From now on, by law, once a week, all editorialists will voluntarily write how something they have complained about during the week can be attributed to George Bush.

5. The Let My Voters Go Act: Prison discriminates against criminals. You don’t see non-criminals locked up. This seems like an insidious form of discrimination. This act will free all criminals unless the prison can prove that it has not unfairly targeted the convicted.

6. The Carbon Free America Act: There is an element in nature that is dangerous beyond all others. The release of this element causes the planet to warm, it can be radioactive, breathing it can kill you, and it can seriously scorch your droid. Rich Republican businessmen love this element, and they all possess it. . . carbon. It’s time we stood up to this monster to make the world safe for our children. Hence, this legislation will require the country to go 100% carbon free. That’s right, we’re going to do whatever it takes to rid our country of carbon.

That or we could just introduce a new logo.

Anything you would add?

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Republican Agenda: A Stinker

It’s fairly obvious the Republican Pledge hasn’t excited anyone. The candidates have given it lukewarm support at best, typically calling it “a good start,” and then never mentioning it again. The public pretty much ignored it. Conservative bloggers picked out a couple acceptable pieces and shook their heads at the rest and the missed opportunity. I’m feeling less charitable. I see it as sad confirmation that the Republican leadership doesn’t get it, and I see them blowing a greater historic opportunity than was handed Obama in 2008.

Here’s the good as I see it: The existence of this document shows that the Republican leadership finally understands that being the party of “Not-Obama” won’t help them once they get into leadership.

Now let’s talk about the bad:

• It’s 21 pages long. The public won’t read a document this long, you can’t incorporate it into a political message, and this demonstrates a disorganized mind that doesn’t know how to explain what it believes. Moreover, it’s oddly “talky” at times, like a drunk arguing with himself.

• The more you need to tell people that your plan is “new” and “different,” the less likely that is to be true, and saying this as often as the Pledge does sounds paranoid.

• It’s wonkish. It’s long on jargon and insider ideas and short of anything the public can relate to. When a “Pledge” starts providing specific examples of how taxes affect a family of four and it credits Deloitte Tax LLP for the example, you know the author has no idea what the purpose of a pledge should be. This pledge reads like an IRS instruction manual.

• Oh look, meaningless charts.

• It mistakes minutia for significance. For example, they’re going to rein in the “Red Tape Factory” and put an end to “the 191 regulations” that cost employers $100 million a year! Why, that’s almost 0.000007% of the American economy! Perhaps they meant "reign in"?

• They’re going to cancel the stimulus. Great. But then they say they want to cut discretionary spending to 2008. Of course, 2008 is the year the government got into the “spend like a drunken sailor” business. They should have picked 2006 if they’re serious.

Moreover, they’re excluding entitlements and defense spending from these cuts, making this promise entirely meaningless. Indeed, they’re talking about saving all of $100 billion. . . less than 0.3% of the budget. Aim high my friends.

• They continue tinkering with the tax code. For example, they propose giving a 20% tax “deduction on income” for small businesses. That’s nice, but what about reforming the system across the board rather than carving out more confusion?

• Too much of it lacks specifics. They’re going to stop “job-killing taxes,” I guess the rest are safe.

• They want to end government control over Fannie and Freddie. . . which means what exactly? Are they going to end the laws that made lenders give out bad loans too or are we just going to cut these mega-slush funds free from oversight? How about eliminating them instead?

• They’re going to root out waste and duplication in government. . . a standard, meaningless promise that usually costs taxpayers more than it saves.

• They plan to put "hard caps" on discretionary spending, which sounds great except those caps are routinely and bipartisanly raised.

• They’re going to cut the Congressional budget, which sound great but is like promising to drink one less glass of water when your house is flooded.

• They promise to take "the long term view" on entitlements, a promise they immediately break by not mentioning entitlements again except to exclude them from cuts.

• In health care, they promise to repeal ObamaCare, which is good. They will allow insurers to sell across state lines, reform medical malpractice laws and expand HSA accounts, all of which I like if the details match -- there are no details. They promise to prohibit taxpayer funding of abortion, which is about time. Then they promise to “use common sense to strengthen the doctor patient relationship.” That’s right, you will now get a free dinner for two with your doctor at the federal restaurant of your choice. Oh, and they’re going to improve your marriage by fiat and make your kids smarter and less ugly. Would someone serious about reform make this kind of nonsense promise?

• The entire plan to reform Congress is inside baseball and won’t change a thing. I’ve addressed it here: LINK.

• Their foreign policy stuff is awful. They’re going “to keep terrorists out of America.” Thank God, I thought they were going to issue invites. Actually, this cryptic statement is about keeping Gitmo open, which hasn’t been an issue since Obama decided to ignore his promise to close it. They’re opposed to foreign terrorists having “Miranda rights,” another issue that went away when the Democrats decided that fighting a war is harder than bashing Bush. They favor tough sanctions on Iran, which of course don’t work, and parroting Obama’s campaign plan is pretty ridiculous. They also plan to secure the border and enforce immigration laws. . . believe it when you see it.

Let’s be honest, this Pledge stinks. It lacks vision. . . actually, that’s not quite right: its vision is “let’s turn the clock back to 2008.” It will do nothing to stimulate the economy, free up our economy, encourage hiring or investing, cut the growth of government, rein in the expansion of government, improve health care, correct our mistaken foreign policy, bring energy independence, improve education, or anything else.

This document reads like someone focus-group tested every idea of the last 10 years and then picked all of those that scored "somewhat positive/indifferent." It’s written by people who don’t understand politics or governing, and its authors delude themselves if they think it will address voters' concerns or change anything except the direction of the public's anger.

Sorry, no sale.


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Solving The Riddle of the Tea Party

It’s taken me a long time to wrap my head around the Tea Party. What had me confused was the strangely contradictory messages it seems to keep sending. It wasn’t until I realized that there are two “Tea Parties” (one real, one fake) that all the pieces began to fall into place. And now that I understand what’s going on, I can firmly say that the Republican leadership/establishment is doomed, the Democrats are about to become a permanent minority, and the country is undergoing a seismic shift that will reshape our politics. . . and not everyone is going to like it.

Let’s start with the real Tea Party. When I’ve spoken with actual Tea Party people and I watched their responses to events, a clear pattern began to emerge. These people are largely new to politics and they come from across the political spectrum. They are bound together by a common set of beliefs that they feel is no longer represented in Washington: smaller government, fiscal sanity, an end to interest group politics and corruption, and the replacement of ideology with common sense principles. And most importantly, they are serious about remaking the country to reflect these views, i.e. they have no interest in being a mere protest movement. Indeed, they have set goals and then methodically gone about learning how to achieve those goals.

Moreover, unlike other interest groups, these people are not interested in power, money, fame or political theater. They resent celebrity, which they see as not serious, and anyone who tries to exploit them. Indeed, they disdain leaders entirely. We know this from several facts. First, they are loosely organized with no chain of command, an unheard of structure for a political movement. Secondly, they’ve refused to anoint a leader; indeed they reacted angrily whenever anyone tried to claim the mantle of Tea Party leader. Third, they’ve set about doing the kind of work that doesn’t require a leader. In other words, rather than rushing to the Jones campaign and demanding that Jones be made President so (s)he can impose the Tea Party agenda, they’ve set about infiltrating the Republican Party from the ground up and doing whatever they can individually to fix whatever they can reach. They are in essence a million do-it-yourselfers who have decided to renovate their portion of our political system.

All of this adds up to something fascinating and truly rare in human history: a spontaneous popular movement. Popular movements occur when a critical mass of people suddenly all get the same idea AND choose to act upon it. These are really rare and really powerful. In fact, the only ones I can think of are the Civil Rights Movement, the abolitionist movement, the fall of Eastern European communism, the French Revolution, and the creation of Protestantism.

What separates these from the way societal change normally happens historically is that most change is the result of a determined group of leaders seeking to impose change upon the population from the top down. Examples of this range from the Communist Revolution to the Inquisition to the American Revolution. By comparison, a popular movement is based on a shared set of ideas and tends to be leaderless, meaning that the movement draws its momentum and goals from the collective beliefs of its participants and it spreads person to person until it simply overwhelms the old way of doing things from the bottom up. This makes these movements impossible to combat and much more permanent because the change happens in the very belief system of the population. For example, the Civil Right Movement didn’t just make discrimination illegal, it changed the culture so that people began to view discrimination as wrong and thus turned against the practice whether or not it remained legal. Moreover, you can’t stop a popular movement by discrediting its “leaders” because they aren’t what drives the movement; they are in fact irrelevant to it.

If this is an accurate assessment of the Tea Party, and I think it is, then the future looks like this: the Tea Party represents a permanent major realignment in American thinking, from which a new Republican Party will emerge as thousands of Tea Party people flood the GOP and instill their values in it. I understand this is already quietly happening. This will take some time, but it is inevitable, and its completion will be marked by a purge of the leadership.

When completed, the New Republican Party will advocate (1) smaller government, (2) fiscal sanity, (3) an end to government-sponsored privilege, and (4) an end to the party’s cozy relationship with lobbyists. This means an end to the relationship with K-Street and Big Business. The New Republican Party also will place a lower priority on social issues and likely won’t be as ideologically strident, which probably means a rocky relationship with the Religious Right, though the two groups clearly share some views, i.e. ending government funding of abortion. (As an aside, don’t confuse the Tea Party with the Libertarians on either social or economic issues; the Tea Party is not anti-government so much as it favors a humbler government, and it’s not libertine by any stretch.)

As a result of these changes, I would envision the establishment wing leaving the party. In their place, I would look for conservative Democrats, who are finding themselves unwelcome in the increasingly far left Democratic Party, to join this New Republican Party. This should produce a strong, lasting majority.

So what took me so long to figure this out? It’s this second “Tea Party” I mentioned, which had me confused just as it’s blinded the establishment to the true nature of the real Tea Party. What the establishment sees as the “Tea Party” is a group of opportunists who spend their time trying to get headlines. These people are political and celebrity opportunists, lobbyists, armchair revolutionaries, and establishment conservatives looking to hijack political muscle. These are the people who were for the bridge to nowhere before they found it brought them more celebrity to be against it, who charged fees to speak at Tea Party events, who disclaimed leadership of the Tea Party while trying to become its national spokesman, who formed alleged-Tea Party groups using lobbyist money and put lobbyists on their board of directors, who claimed to support the Tea Party (after attacking it) while trying to redefine it to fit their own ideologies. These people are a rogues gallery of bogus-outsiders who use victimology and conspiracy theories to build a cult of personality, and who skillfully exploit a symbiotic relationship with the media to further their own fame and fortune. These people have nothing to do with the real Tea Party and are merely a distraction to a movement that does not need them.

I know some of you won’t accept this fact, but it’s true. The Tea Party has no leaders because it is not a movement that is amenable to leadership -- it is not a cult of personality sitting at home waiting for the right politician to lead it to the promised land. It is, instead, a million average people all struck by the same idea at the same time who are going quietly about achieving their individual goals. They've learned that they cannot rely on politicians to change the system, so they’ve decided to change it themselves.

Thus, put your faith in a Palin, a Bachmann, a Beck, an Armey at your own risk, for they don’t represent what is really going on. For that, put your faith in a BevfromNYC or a PittsburghEnigma and a million others like them. . . they’re the ones who are changing the world.


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Senate Races Update

You may have heard about a little thing called the 2010 election. Let’s see how things are going in the Senate. A total of 36 Senate seats are up for grabs. Of those, 18 are currently held by Republicans, the other 18 are held by Democrats. Those numbers are going to change.

Safe Republican Incumbents

Richard C. Shelby -- Alabama
John McCain -- Arizona
Johnny Isakson -- Georgia
Michael D. Crapo -- Idaho
Charles E. Grassley -- Iowa
David Vitter -- Louisiana
Tom Coburn -- Oklahoma
Richard Burr -- North Carolina
Jim DeMint -- South Carolina
John Thune -- South Dakota

Republican Seats Leaning/Safe Republican

Alaska

42% Joe Miller (R)
27% Lisa Murkowski (I)
25% Scott McAdams (D)

Florida

41% Marco Rubio (R)
30% Charlie Crist (I)
23% Kendrick Meek (D)

Kansas

61% Jerry Moran (R)
28% Lisa Johnston (D)

Kentucky

54% Rand Paul (R)
39% Jack Conway (D)

Missouri

53% Roy Blunt (R)
43% Robin Carnahan (D)

New Hampshire

51% Kelly Ayotte (R)
44% Paul Hodes (D)

Ohio

49% Rob Portman (R)
41% Lee Fisher (D)

Utah

58% Mike Lee (R)
28% Sam Granato (D)

Democratic Seats Leaning/Safe Republican

Arkansas

65% John Boozman (R)
27% Blanche Lincoln (D)

Indiana

50% Dan Coats (R)
34% Brad Ellsworth (D)

North Dakota

69% John Hoeven (R)
25% Tracy Potter (D)

Pennsylvania

49% Pat Toomey (R)
41% Joe Sestak (D)

Wisconsin

51% Ron Johnson (R)
44% Russ Feingold (D)

Democratic Toss Up/Undecided Seats

California

47% Barbara Boxer (D)
43% Carly Fiorina (R)

Colorado

49% Ken Buck (R)
45% Michael Bennet (D)

Illinois

41% Alexi Giannoulias (D)
37% Ron Kirk (R)

Nevada

48% Sharron Angle (R)
48% Harry Reid (D)

Republican Seats Leaning Democratic

None.

Democratic Seats Leaning/Safe Democratic

Connecticut

53% Richard Blumenthal (D)
44% Linda McMahon (R)

Delaware

53% Chris Coons (D)
42% Christine O’Donnell (R)

New York

49% Kirsten Gillibrand (D)
39% Joe DioGuardi (R)

Washington

51% Patty Murray (D)
46% Dino Rossi (R)

Safe Democratic Incumbents

Daniel Inouye -- Hawaii
Barbara Mikulski -- Maryland
Chuck Schumer -- New York
Ron Wyden -- Oregon
Patrick Leahy -- Vermont

The Senate currently sits at 59 Democrats to 41 Republicans. Interestingly, none of the 18 Republican seats up for grabs appear to be leaning toward the Democrats. Of the 18 Democratic seats, nine are considered safe, four remain up for grabs, and five appear all but lost. Thus, the Republicans should do no worse than 54 Democrats to 46 Republicans. Assuming that the toss ups go as they currently stand only gives the Republicans one more seat: 53 Democrats to 47 Republicans.

This is worse than our prior estimates because the Democrats have improved their changes in Nevada, Delaware and Connecticut. However, I still suspect Reid will lose in Nevada because he has yet to break the 50% mark and undecideds tend to go against the incumbent. Also, I suspect there will be a 2-3% boost for Republicans across the board based on voter enthusiasm. Even with this, however, it still appears that the Republicans will do no better than 52-48.

So let’s hope the enthusiasm stays high for 2012.

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It's Not That Simple...

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss how the Tea Party is bringing much-needed common sense back into politics. But before I do that, I want to dispel this idea that governing should be simple if we only used common sense. What I'm talking about is best illustrated in a recent commercial which asked, “what would the world be like if firemen ran it.” As the firemen sit in the legislature, the chief asks, “who wants clean water?” Everyone raises their hands, and the chief says, “easiest job in the world.” Sadly, many people believe this utopian view is how government should be and they see any suggestion that governing is more complex than that as an attempt to keep "real" people out of government. This is utter nonsense.

To explain why, let’s start with the most basic principle ensconced in law. This is one we can all agree upon and which most people view as so entirely obvious and unambiguous that they think it could be put into law “as is,” and they complain that only a lawyer could see ambiguity in it: thou shalt not kill. Unambiguous, right?

Well, let me ask: what if I kill in self-defense? Suddenly, we've found an exception and the statement is no longer as inviolate as it seemed. But this is only one exception and everyone understands what self-defense is, right? Ok, is it self-defense if I kill someone who wasn’t actually trying to kill me? Does his intent matter or how I perceived it? What if I acted preemptively, before he made the threat? What if I started the fight or if I could flee with no danger? What if I killed an innocent bystander in the process? Does it matter if the danger passed before I finished the killing? Does it matter if I was defending someone else instead of myself? What if they didn’t want my help? What if I was drunk? What if someone else made me drunk or a medication made me lose touch with reality? What if the medication was illegal? Ok, forget self-defense, what if my killing took place on a battlefield where the government instructed me to kill? Can I kill in the government's name? Anyone at any time? What if I’m violating orders? What if I kill an enemy soldier who has surrendered? What if I kill a friendly soldier by mistake? What if I kill purely by accident? What if the accident resulted from my carelessness or recklessness or indifference? What if I built a dangerous product that I knew would kill someone? What if I only suspected it might? What if they misused it, but I knew they probably would? What if the person I killed was about to die anyway? What if they were being eaten by a shark, and they asked me to shoot them to stop the suffering? Does any of this apply to animals? Should it apply to a fetus? What if the woman was on her way to get an abortion when I killed the fetus? I could go on for pages.

Do you see the problem? It sounds easy to say “this is an obvious principle and there’s no reason it should be complicated” until you stop to realize that it is complicated. This is the clearest, most agreed upon principle across the planet, but it lends itself to hundreds of pages of discussion because there are thousands of scenarios to consider. And as you get further and further along, you’ll find that opinions begin to diverge until you find scenarios where there is no clear consensus. Now imagine how much more complex this becomes with less clear issues like “respect another’s property” or with dividing up the use of river water.

You can often see that people don’t grasp that these issues are inherently complex when they start talking about the Constitution. Too many people who adopt the simplistic view will spit out a single phrase they’ve picked from the Constitution and they will assume that settles the issue. For example, gun people often say, “shall not be infringed,” to argue that the Constitution clearly forbids any regulation. But that’s an irrationally simplistic view of the Constitution, as even the “no infringers” will simultaneously agree that police should have the power to disarm you in a confrontation and that wardens can keep prisoners from buying guns. Both of these are infringements. And if you accept that the phrase “shall not be infringed” cannot be taken literally, i.e. it does allow for infringements, then you’ve interjected ambiguity, the same ambiguity the simplistic view finds so offensive.

Moreover, despite popular opinion, the Constitution is not a complete guide for government nor is it a detailed list of dos and don’t. . . it is ambiguous. For example, while the Constitution provides a list of rights and powers, that list is crawling with vague terms, such as allowing the government to impose regulations for the “health, safety and welfare” of the people. Taken literally, that would seem to grant unlimited power. It took the Supreme Court to decide that the Bill of Rights limited state governments as well as the Feds -- the Constitution is silent on that point. So should we undo that? It's the rare literalist who says we should. Even more interestingly, the Constitution doesn’t actually tell us who decides what's constitutional, the Supreme Court grabbed that power in Marbury v. Madison, yet everyone seems to accept that now.

There is also often a utopian flavor in the simplistic line of thinking. You often hear: why don’t the politicians just do what the people want? But which people? And what if the majority want to enslave the minority? We’ve asked before, should the role of representatives be to do the will of the majority in their district or should they use their judgment? None of our readers was willing to say entirely one or the other, in other words you all accepted an ambiguity in the system.

The point to all of this is that the simplistic view that governing is all about just reading the Constitution and doing the common sense thing is flawed. Simplicity is not a sign of purity of thought or wisdom, it is a sign of ignorance of reality. (The same holds true in science as well, where answers usually only seem simple when you’re missing critical details.)

Now, that said, let me state that we need a return to common sense principles in government. Too many politicians live in a world of semantics and false logic where verbal games and procedure trump substance. They see a critical difference between a fee and a tax, even though both are the same. They see a reduction in a projected rate of growth as a cut. They think they can balance a budget by taking spending “off budget” or by adding in fake future cuts that will never happen. This is where common sense is badly needed.

What we need are people who understand the complexities of making laws, but who also grasp the common sense principles about how a government should be run. We need to avoid the snake oil sellers who tell us “it’s simple, I’m just gonna lift the hood and fix it,” but we also need to avoid the snakes who think they can dance on the head of a pin.

This isn't that hard, but it's just not simple.

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Media Bias: Finding Real America

Bias is a defect in the thought process that interferes with a person’s ability to see the truth because it causes us to ignore or downplay facts we don’t agree with, to over-rely on facts we like, and to dismiss valid arguments from sources we don’t like. At its most benign, bias causes us to simply award the benefit of the doubt in favor of things we want to believe. But bias can also cause us to intentionally become dishonest in our analysis. Some people are so overcome with their own biases that they don’t even understand how blind they’ve made themselves, and how much it permeates their thinking. That brings us to Joe Klein.

Joe Klein is a liberal Democrat, though not a leftist. He probably considers himself a moderate, but what Democrat doesn’t? He’s also a journalist for Time. And like all liberal journalists, he periodically needs to assure himself that he’s not suffering from bias. Thus, like so many before him, he’s taking a trip out into “real America,” beyond the talking points, to find out what real people are thinking. But is he really or is he simply feeding his own biases? Let’s look.

He begins by assuring himself that he intends to be honest. He “doesn’t trust the things [he’s] been seeing on TV and in the papers,” and he wants to get to the truth. And what doesn't he trust? Well, he doesn't trust the "talking points" being bandied about on Fox News and MSNBC that tell us the public is angry, and he doubts the polls tell the real story. Indeed, he assures us again, he’s “not going to . . . troll for quotes that reflect the polls,” no, he’s going to “report what he sees” and “let the chips fall” where they may. In theory this sounds fair, except that he admits the polls show a "big Republican year," and it’s unsurprising that a liberal would want to find the “real” (read: contradictory) story to such polls. Indeed, it would be a lot easier to believe this was an unbiased impulse if he had the same desire in 2008, when the polls supported his view. It would also help if he hadn't defined "anger" in purely Democratic terms, which of course he does -- anger at the war and anger at the economy... nothing more.

Having set his goal of finding evidence to disprove the polls, he is surprised to immediately discover that he’s meeting “roughly equal numbers of people on both sides,” despite the polls showing only 40% support for the Democrats. He sees this as significant, but he’s wrong, this is the result of his bias. In a country of 300 million people, that 40% figure means that there are 60 million more right-leaners than left-learners this year, and those left-leaners are all concentrated in the coastal cities. So he should find an overwhelming number of conservatives in Middle America, but he doesn't. Why? Because of the route he selects. He tells us he’s going “diagonally across the country” from New York to Los Angles. A diagonal trip from New York to L.A. lets him avoid the entire conservative South. But more importantly, his diagonal claim is false, he’s actually traveling from New York to Philadelphia to Buffalo to Detroit to Wisconsin before dropping down to Kansas City. That’s not diagonal, it's a tour of big liberal cities. Thus, it’s no surprise that he’s found a large number of liberals. Moreover, everywhere he goes, he meets with local Democratic candidates, which makes finding liberals a guaranteed certainty.

How he discusses these Democrats further exposes his bias. In each case, he starts by personalizing them, something he does not do with the Republicans he meets. Further, anything the Democrats say, he immediately confirms with a quote by some "neutral" person, whereas he immediately contradicts any quote given by a Republican. For example, his first stop is with a Democratic House candidate in Philadelphia. This Democrat is a former paratrooper and prosecutor, and we learn that this guy had the genius idea to make his pamphlets black and white because this would save money AND because people are more interested in reading black and white material. How do we know? Because Klein immediately confirms that “all along the train platform, people were reading” this material. He also points out that this candidate did this over the objections of his staff. Thus, we have a brave, maverick genius.

It takes five more paragraphs before he mentions the Republican (Meehan), whom he does not personalize in any way. Instead, he introduces Meehan by telling us that Meehan claims that people are complaining about the stimulus. But in the next sentence, Klein shoots this down by uncritically quoting a steel worker who says, “don’t let anyone tell you the stimulus isn’t working.” He also points out that the Republican is handing out glossy, color pamphlets, something that would be irrelevant if he hadn’t already pointed out the heroic brilliance of using black and white pamphlets.

And that’s just the beginning. Over the next several entries he:

• Meets with a handful of “model Muslim immigrants” in Detroit (all born in the US and all small business owners), who were Republicans until recently until Bush and Gingrich (who they once met) started talking about Muslims like they are “Nazis.” He then uses a quasi-joke to chide Christians for not getting the “don’t judge others thing.”

• He talks to a UAW couple who hate Palin and love Obama and the UAW.

• He assures us that Wisconsin Democrat Russ Feingold is a great man.

• He tries to tell us that Missouri Democrat Robin Carnahan has real Tea Party credentials.

• In Iowa, he delivers an ugly attack on a Sarah Palin speech. Actually, he hides behind “quotes” from his wife so he can pretend he’s not doing the savaging.

And what about the Republicans he meets?

• In Wisconsin, he meets a “deeply conservative” man who doesn’t like the Republicans because they aren’t conservative enough for him. Oddly, this “conservative” stresses that he’s pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and he thinks Obama’s “doing what he can,” he just suffers from inexperience.

• And in Ohio, he meets with Senate candidate Rob Portman, who he describes as “a conservative, no question, but not one of the lunatics--he's solid, sane and civil.”

I think Klein is being genuine in his belief that he’s looking for an honest assessment of America. But his biases blind him. He seeks out big, rustbelt cities and avoids conservative areas, he seeks out Democratic candidates wherever he goes, he humanizes the Democrats he meets because he likes them, and he defines away any conservative he meets who doesn't share his views as a “lunatic” or cynical. These are classic examples of bias, and they blind him to the truth that he hasn't found real America, he's set out to confirm his prejudices.

And he’s not alone. The Economist has a guy who does the same “road trip” thing. His route is from New York City to upstate New York, and his view into “real America” comes from his talks with a New York City lawyer with whom he travels to the lawyer's villa in Italy twice a year. I’ve seen reporters go to Maryland, suburban Los Angeles or suburban San Francisco/Oakland to find “real America.” When they venture to places like the South, it’s usually inner city Atlanta or the only Democratic districts in Texas. And whenever they meet someone who expresses things they don't like, they simply dismiss them as unrepresentative crazies. It's easy to confirm your own views when you go where people like you hang out and when you dismiss anyone who doesn't fit your views.

But attacking Joe Klein isn't my only point. Conservatives are equally guilty of this type of bias too. Too many have blinded themselves to the "real world" because they hang out with people who think like they do, they only listen to people who tell them what they want to hear, and they pick out the things they want to believe. Ignorance is never a plus, and bias-induced ignorance only sets you up for disaster. We should all ask ourselves at all times, am I really considering the evidence, or am I just reinforcing my own biases?


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GOP Leadership Continues To Flail

“The people to fear are not those who disagree with you, but those who disagree with you and are too cowardly to let you know.” -- Napoleon Bonaparte

I think we’re getting to the point where John Boehner and Eric Cantor should resign from the leadership. The latest incidence of cowardice and stupidity involves earmarks.

Earmarks are a problem. They aren’t the be-all-end-all problem that John McCain envisioned because they are only a minor percentage of the total budget (about 0.8% of the budget -- $20 billion out of $2.4 trillion), but their effect is corrosive. Earmarks are the tool individual Congress members use to bribe the people in their districts with their neighbor’s money. This is how the government gets involved in building bridges to nowhere and studying whether pornography excites hummingbirds, and this is why West Virginia has become a ward of the Federal Government.

The problem with earmarks is that they represent a corrupt system that judges the success or failure of individual members on their ability to score pork, rather than their effect on the government as a whole. If a member doesn't bring home enough projects to the district, then others stand ready to replace them. Thus, the incentive is to keep grabbing. And even if a particular district decides against getting its share of the plunder, other districts stand ready to take up what they've left on the table. Consequently, the system is set up where the rational choice for all concerned is to keep plundering and thereby always expand the size and scope of government.

And as if this were not bad enough, a system like this encourages dirty dealing, as we've seen repeatedly when Congress members and lobbyists have been arrested for trading campaign contributions for earmarks. Interesting, as the Washington Examiner reminded us this weekend, earmarks also are what allowed the Democrats to buy the votes of Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu and Bill Nelson to secure the passage of ObamaCare.

Thus, I was heartened in March when every single House Republican voted to ban earmarks. Said Mike Pence at the time: “Now House Republicans are going to the American people and saying we want a clean break from the runaway spending in the past. And that's going to be quite a contrast from this Congress and the administration.”

But that was then and this is now, and these are career politicians we are talking about. According to the Politico, both John Boehner and Eric Cantor “are leaving the door open to allowing earmarks after a one-year party-imposed moratorium.” Yep. Nothing says "principled stand" quite like agreeing to stop for only a short period of time, does it?

There is no excuse for this unprincipled cowardice, and this is fast becoming a pattern. All summer long, Boehner and Cantor remained silent as the rank and file of the party and the public rose up and demanded a new way, a way that should be entirely consistent with Republican principle. When they did speak, Boehner talked about procedures and Cantor whimpered about being careful not to be too extreme or too offensive. They have failed to embrace Paul Ryan’s plans, they failed to embrace the spirit of the Tea Party, they failed to embrace the 60% of the public that says Obama's way is the wrong way, they failed to see the need to put forth an agenda, and the agenda they finally put together appears to be nothing more than tinkering, gimmickry, and form over substance. And now we hear that they can’t even make a simple stand on principle like this. . . a stand they already agreed to take.

This is not leadership, and it's no surprise that 57% of GOP voters want a new leadership.

Jim DeMint has warned that the Republicans better deliver serious change. I agree. But I don’t think Boehner and Cantor get that, and even if they do, I don’t see that they have the courage to do it. And what makes this all the worse, we’re not even talking about needing real courage. They’re not being asked to risk their lives or even to do anything that would put them at odds with the public. They’re simply being ask to act according to the principles that they supposedly represent, principles that the vast majority of the public and their party want them to act upon.

If they can’t do that, then they should resign.


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House Republicans To Issue Lousy Agenda. . . Slowly

No film discussion today because I’m suffering from the flu. And because of this near death experience, I don’t have the mental clarity to talk about anything interesting or thoughtful. So instead, I will address the election agenda the Republicans are about to roll out. At this point we don’t have the full agenda (or even most of it), but we have enough to know that we will need to use the word “retard” liberally in any letter we send to the “leadership.”

Now I’ve been saying for some time that the Republicans need an agenda. Without an agenda, they will have no mandate and nothing to guide their actions once they win control of the House. In fact, I’ve gone so far as to produce an agenda.... here. But the leadership has been cowardly and inept on this. So I was somewhat heartened when I heard that they were finally preparing an agenda. But of course, it’s never that easy with the Republicans and there are a great many red flags going up.

Indeed, it was a troubling sign that no one in the leadership was willing to sign on to Paul Ryan’s plan, which is quite impressive. Clearly, cowardice remains the chosen course. And it was a bad sign when Mike Pence, who I normally respect a great deal, refused to sign the Contract From America on the grounds that he didn’t want to do anything that would confuse people into think the Contract and the Republican agenda were the same. Why aren't they Mike?

Then I heard about the “rolling out.” That’s right because nothing says “policies we really believe in” like a gimmicky two week roll out. . . like an unfunny David Letterman Top 10. What’s worse, it’s apparently closer to a Top 20. . . because the public loves long, unwieldy lists. Clearly, the Republicans have learned nothing about marketing. Always keep your lists short, punchy and relevant. And to get the greatest bang for your buck, release it all at once with a grand ceremony, never dribble out the details over a couple of weeks time -- especially when you’re talking about the things you supposedly hold dear.

Then I heard that none of the non-incumbent candidates had a hand in drafting this. At a time when the voters are sending messages to Washington, the idea of excluding the voter’s representatives from preparing the agenda is arrogant and delusional. And this will lead exactly to what it appears to have led to: meaningless insider crap that isn’t even about style, much less substance.

Indeed, the first known proposal will require that each bill include a specific citation to the constitutional authority under which the bill is being passed. Wow! If a member questions whether the House has that authority, the challenge would receive debate and a vote! Double wow! And this will do what about the debt, about the unchecked growth of government, about the intrusion on our rights, about the abuses of federal power? This sounds all constitutionally, but it’s nothing more than smoke and mirrors. At a practical level, all this means is that every bill will now have the words “Commerce Clause” printed on the top, and nothing else will change. Indeed, they already have the power to question their authority and the only people who use it are Ron Paul and his space cadets. This is pointless. We might as well require them to certify that the draft they read on the floor was written on legal size paper or that they washed their hands before they voted.

The second proposal is even worse. This one is a watered-down proposal stolen from Pelosi. From now on, they will “encourage” (but not require) that members read each bill before they vote on it, and they will require that the text be put on line for three days before the House votes on it. Again, so what? How does this change the content of these bills? And what does this do to change the culture in DC, the deficit, the crappy Obamaconomy, or the corruption? Moreover, as the Democrats discovered, this is not a practical rule because of the number of votes and the time constraints on those votes. Thus, once again, the GOP is choosing to steal an idea from the Democrats that has been proven not to work, and then promising to do it half as much. . . old habits apparently are hard to break. Maybe we should change our logo to a circle with a small case “d” in it? Further, talk about handing the Democrats an issue to ridicule us with: “the GOP doesn’t believe that its members need to read each bill they vote on, they only encourage it.”

These two proposals are what is called “inside baseball,” meaning they don’t matter to anyone except a handful of insiders. I’m sure the staffers are home right now touching themselves in inappropriate places as they read these policies and feeling that their life’s work is complete. But the rest of us know better. Those of us who don’t live our lives in a bubble know that this is all a meaningless gesture that will not change one letter of substance in any of the bills that get passed.

The rest of the proposals supposedly deal with tax proposals, health reform proposals and job-related measures. Ok, let me just say. . . no duh. What else were they going to deal with? Pest control? Decorating national parks? Criminalizing Dutch Subways?

But before you get excited that they may have stumbled upon something, let me caution you that they’ve leaked out that they don’t plan to do anything “grandiose.” Said one leadership aid, “we’re not re-creating the wheel.” In other words, don’t expect anything you haven’t already seen, i.e. it’s business as usual.

I will give this “agenda” a chance, but let me be clear. This is their last chance. The American people have tossed a softball across the plate, and if Boehner and his collection of idiots can’t find their way to the plate, then it’s time to be rid of them.



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Can A New Logo Save The Democrats?

By now, talking about the Democrats being in trouble is like discussing the weather. But that doesn’t mean the Democrats have given up. . . well, not all of them. Yesterday, in what was billed as "a major announcement for the Democratic Party," party boss Tim Kaine unveiled their latest strategy: they’ve changed the logo of the DNC. That’s it (on the left, of course).

Now call me crazy, but I’m not entirely thrilled with this logo. Indeed, if I were a Democrat, I would be pretty angry. But then, if I were a Democrat, I’d have to yank out large chunks of my brain and I probably wouldn’t know the difference. Look. . . drool.

When I see this new logo, one thing comes to mind: Dunkin Donuts. Or maybe a defective bullseye? Or maybe a Dutch subway (which is probably a euphemism for something. . . "hey sexy, how much for a Dutch Subway? Forty euros? Are you kidding? Pelosi gives them for free behind the Capitol!"). Hey, that's three thoughts, which is two more than Obama's ever had. I guess I'm over-qualified to be a Democratic Messiah now.

I wonder what happened to the “NC” in DNC? Did they lose it? Did the union guys just get lazy and leave it off? Is this some slight at North Carolina? Maybe they just wanted to end all the “Does Not Compute” or the "Dipsticks, Nuts and Crackpots" jokes by dropping the NC? Maybe the “D” is the grade they've given themselves. . . it's certainly higher than I would give them.

And why did they hire a five year old to draw the font for the word "Democrat"? Oh, that was Biden? I see. At least he spell checked.

Interestingly, they apparently stole the logo from a pizza restaurant from St. Louis. Typical Democrats, stealing from small business to support their habits. Still, it is better than the other logo they were considering, which was intended to convey a sense of how modern and tech savvy they are. Here’s that logo:

Oh, and do you see the new slogan too? “Change that matters.” Talk about lousy, but I guess it’s better than their prior slogan: “Bend over America,” or the alternate "It's Bush's Fault." Still, I don’t think the implication is very good. Are they saying they spent the last two years working on change that doesn’t matter?

In any event, we at Commentarama like to help the Democrats whenever we can. . . we have a soft spot for the criminally insane. So I’ve put together a new logo that they are free to use, just pay shipping and handling. But unlike their brain trust, I didn’t drive by any pizza places. No, siree. I brain my used instead. And I decided what better symbol than one that represents the various wings of their party! So here it is, with each of their major tribes represented: gay militants, militant feminists, black militants, militant environmental whackos, blood sucking lawyers, and. . . well, there would be a union sign, but they went on strike and then never finished the job. I've also left off the word "Democrat" because so many Democrats like to do that in their ads already.



What do you think? Kind of brings a tear to your eye doesn't it? So what kind of slogan would you suggest for these new-old Democrats . . . we can run it across the bottom?

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The Delaware Disaster

If there is one thing Republicans excel at, it’s losing elections they should win. In fact, they’ve made it into an art form. Last night’s selection of Christine O’Donnell in Delaware’s Republican primary is virtually a case study in this. They did everything wrong in this primary, and there’s plenty of blame to go around.

Let’s start with the obvious. Many of you won’t want to admit this, but O’Donnell has no chance of winning. Every election tracking specialist from Michael Barone to Karl Rove agrees with this, and the polls confirm it. Most polls (including Rasmussen) show her around 11% behind the Democratic nominee and falling as moderate Republicans abandon her.

And in her loss, we are all but guaranteed that we will not retake the Senate. More importantly, we are going to lose an historic opportunity to take a seat that hasn’t swung Republican since 1972 and which could have easily gone Republican this time. This will haunt us in 2012 and beyond.

So who is to blame? Everyone involved.

The Conservatives. Too many conservatives underestimate the importance of winning. Indeed, the importance of having a Republican in a seat cannot be over-stated, and it goes way beyond how they will vote on individual pieces of legislation. The House and Senate are set up to give disproportionate power to the party in the majority. The majority party controls the schedule, controls what can and will be debated, and under what terms these bills will be debated. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have single-handedly decided the fate of this country through this power; nothing they did not like ever made it to the floor.

Yet, many Republican favor pointless stands on purity that achieve nothing except defeat. They don't understand that it is better to get half of what you want (or more in this case because control of the leadership is worth much more than half) than nothing except smug satisfaction. That is how the Democrats have pushed this country to the left and how Ronald Reagan pushed us back to the right. . . a little at a time, taking what they could get from any allies they could get it from. They understood that politics is about convincing people to come around to your way of thinking and is ill-suited for the all or nothing approach. . . the public always selects nothing. They also understood that not every state was going to cooperate and that it was better to take what you could get in some states than spite yourself to hold out for the perfect.

Now, this is not to say that conservatives should always vote for the most electable candidate. I don’t believe that. But there must be a blending of the issues of how electable a candidate is in a particular state with how they are likely to perform in Washington. Thus, tossing out Lisa Murkowski in Alaska makes sense, as does the selection of Paul Rand in Kentucky and Ken Buck in Colorado. But in a state like Delaware, where conservatives are a rare breed, and where one candidate would be a clear winner in the general election (and has a proven track record of being elected repeatedly), while the other is so far behind in the polls as to be a sure loser (and has a record of repeatedly losing elections), it is simply stupid to go with the loser.

But I'm not saying that I think Castle should be the nominee in Delaware. What I'm really saying is that the voters never should have been put in a position where voting for Mike Castle was the smart choice. Indeed, the real problem with conservatives in this instance was not in thinking that someone more conservative than Castle could win in Delaware, it was in accepting O’Donnell as that someone. Consider this. O’Donnell ran in the Republican primary in 2006. When she lost, she tried to run independently as a write-in candidate (disloyalty). She ran again and lost in 2008, this time by 30% (unelectability). In 2008, her mortgage went into foreclosure and her house was scheduled to be sold off at a sheriff’s auction until her campaign counsel stepped in to buy the house (corruption). In 2009, she began paying her rent with campaign contributions. She never paid her staff from the 2008 campaign. In 2010, the IRS put a lien on her property for taxes she owed from 2005. In 2004, she sued the Inter-Collegiate Studies Institute for gender discrimination (seeking $7 million, mostly in pain and suffering and punitive damages). And she made a series of false statements about her college degrees and on her FEC financial disclosures. None of this is consistent with her conservative rhetoric.

Conservatives bear the blame for not fielding a better candidate, i.e. one who was both conservative and electable. To have selected O’Donnell and chosen her over Castle was an act of political suicide that basically ensured the Democrats could keep a seat they would have lost. We are likely to pay for this for years to come as we try to repeal what the Democrats have done.

The Establishment. An even greater share of the blame for this debacle falls on the Republican establishment. Mike Castle is a RINO. He has held elective office since 1966 and is considered one of the most liberal Republicans in Congress. He voted for the TARP, cap and trade, and the DISCLOSE Act which limits freedom of speech. He also favors gun control and earned a 100% score from pro-abortion groups like NARAL. This is not a man who should ever have been fielded as a Republican candidate, and he should never have received any support from the establishment in a primary.

Since it’s naive to argue that the establishment should sit out primaries (and I don’t believe this anyway), I say very firmly that the establishment should have scoured the countryside for someone more electable. By failing to do that, the establishment surrendered the chance of fielding a candidate who was both conservative and capable of winning election, and left the voters with a choice of the lesser of two evil lesser. This is where most of the blame lies, and it’s the same blame they earned in allowing Dede Scozzafava to be the nominee in New York. It’s time that the establishment stopped looking for cozy insiders and careerists and began looking for talented conservatives.

All of Them. Finally, it is time that Republicans and conservatives learned to stop spitting venom at each other in the primaries. Ronald Reagan said the Eleventh Commandment was to never speak ill of another Republican, and he was right. This election cycle in particular has seen Republican after Republican savage each other in some of the sleaziest, nastiest campaigning I’ve ever seen in my life. What good does that do for the party? Primaries should not be bloodbaths, they should be about ideas and goals.

Once again, Delaware provides the perfect example of this. Castle and his allies in the establishment have spent the last week calling O’Donnell everything but a crazed child molester. They have made it virtually impossible to work with her following her win, and (more importantly) have raised the level of hate so much among moderate Republicans that she can expect none of them to vote for her, i.e. they guaranteed that she would lose. This was called scorched earth when Hitler did it, and it was no more successful then than it will be now. But the establishment wasn’t alone in this. O’Donnell accused Castle supporters of breaking into her home (though oddly, she filed no police report). Her supporters also put out an ad suggesting that Castle (who is married) engaged in a homosexual affair.

This sh~t must stop.

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An Insight Into Why Democrats Have Soured On Obama

Maureen Dowd, a smug lefty New York Times hack, wrote an interesting article this weekend. It was interesting because it shows us two perspectives on why the Democrats have soured on Obama. Those perspectives are from the left wing of her party and the liberal wing (they are different). Commentarama readers will find her reasoning strangely familiar.

The article begins with Dowd’s own views on Obama. Dowd represents the left wing of the Democratic Party, as her views are in lockstep with Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos et al. These are the party shock troops and opinion makers. Without them, the liberal wing would meander around cluelessly looking for something to whine about. Indeed, losing these people will sap the party of its energy, its financial strength, and the people it needs to get the sheep to the polls. And lose them Obama has.

How do we know? Well, Dowd’s tone more than anything. Indeed, the article is snotty if not downright nasty about Obama. For example, Dowd begins by taking digs at his race: “How did the first president of color become so colorless?” and by slipping in a basketball metaphor about him being in “buzzer-beating mode.” To you and me, these comments may not sound like a big deal, but to a leftist like Dowd, these would normally be considered “racists” comments if made by a conservative, and I think her use of them is no accident. I think she’s looking for a way to insult Obama on a personal level, and she’s opting to begin her article with a “you were supposed to be exotic, a noble savage, but you turned out to be just like everyone else,” and the basketball reference is usually considered an attempt to denigrate a black target as stupid.

I think this is Dowd’s intent because of what she writes next. Check out this quote:

“‘You know, are there, you know, things that I might have done during the course of 18 months that would, you know, at the margins have improved some of the tone in Washington?’ Obama asked. ‘Probably.’ Uncharacteristically valley girl, the usually eloquent president must have, you know, had a hard time acknowledging that.”

Note that not only does she not clean up his quote, as she and the rest of the MSM usually do, but she actively points out how poorly he speaks. Indeed, she mocks him by equating him to a valley girl, another object of derision for feminists and a way to attack his manhood -- just like her first comment was a way to attack his “blackhood” (see Spike’s Lees’ comment on Obama needing “to act like a black man.”). She even throws in her own “you know” for good measure, indicating that she thinks she’s a superior speaker.

She then attacks his strategy in a very dismissive and condescending way. First, she frames the problem: “Obama has been bleeding independents.” She then makes him sound stupid by creating a disconnect by saying that Obama’s plan for dealing with the independent problem is to ignore independents so he can focus on the base. In other words, she’s saying “he doesn’t get it” without actually using those words. Then she presents Obama’s reasoning: he thinks he has time to recapture female independents after the election because of his support for abortion rights and health care reform. But she dismisses this by telling us about her sister Peggy, who Dowd identifies as one of those independents, and by giving us a quote from Peggy that contradicts every one of Obama’s assumptions. Finally, she finishes with a blanket statement that Obama better rethink his plans: “While Obama’s out in the country trying to save Congressional Democrats, he should also think about how he’s going to save himself.” In other words, his plan stinks.

But even more interesting is Dowd’s story about her sister, Peggy. Peggy supposedly is one of the “independents” that Dowd thinks Obama needs. In truth, Peggy is your standard liberal Democrat who likes to think of herself as an independent despite her consistent liberal/left views. Indeed, Peggy claims that she was a Republican who fell out of love with Bush. But check out her reasons: she hated Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, and she hated Bush’s “disdain for bipartisanship.” Moreover, she was a fan of Teddy Kennedy, and she has nothing but disdain for the Republicans and for how ObamaCare was “watered down.” Also, “she lights up at the mention of his vice president, Joe Biden.” Those views are entirely consistent with a liberal Democrat who has deluded themselves into thinking that they’re an independent. That’s the sheep portion of the Democratic base. These are the people the wolves like Dowd push around.

And what does Peggy think of Obama now?

Peggy believed that Obama was a "dazzling young newcomer who could change Washington." Now she’s considering voting for Mitt Romney. She thinks Obama has done a good job of “managing W’s messes in Iraq and Afghanistan,” but this hasn’t swayed her to stay with him. And what’s really bothering her? Let’s let Peggy tell you herself:

“He promised us everything, saying he would turn the country around, and he did nothing the first year. He piddled around when he had 60 votes. He could have pushed through the health care bill but spent months haggling on it because he wanted to bring some Republicans on board. He was trying too hard to compromise when he didn’t need the Republicans and they were never going to like him. Any idiot could see that. . . and then the bill was watered down.”

Sounds like little Markos from the Daily Kos doesn’t it. . . “he was too bipartisan!” (And here I thought she hated Bush for disdaining bipartisanship?) And wait a minute, haven't we been told by the MSM that Obama has accomplished more than any other president ever? Doesn't she realize how much he's done? And to compare the smartest man ever to "any idiot"? Hmmm. She continues:

“He hasn’t saved the economy, and now he’s admitting he’s made very little progress. You can’t for four years blame the person who used to be president. Obama tries to compromise too much, and he doesn’t look like a strong leader. I don’t watch him anymore. I’m turned off by him. I think he’s an elitist. He went down to the gulf, telling everyone to take a vacation down there, and then he goes to Martha’s Vineyard. He does what he wants but then he tells us to do other things.”

So what does this tell us about liberals, i.e. the center-left? They have stopped listening to Obama, as I’ve said several times. They no longer see him as “cool,” they see him as elitist, aloof, stupid and weak. The vacation issue struck a chord, even with them. They do blame him for not fixing the economy and they no longer buy the “it’s Bush’s fault” line or the “it would have been so much worse” argument. Moreover, they don’t credit him with health care reform, they see it as a betrayal. There is no mention of financial regulation, any jobs bills, his attempts to give back-door amnesty to illegals, his appointments of women to the Supreme Court, or anything else the Democrats have tried in vain to tout as achievements. . . as we predicted. Nor is there any distinction between “good Democrats” and “bad Democrats,” or any credit for “trying.”

For Dowd to get this snotty and dismissive at Obama and to treat his assertions with such disdain is a clear sign of a relationship that’s entered the final phase of the breakup stage, and is evidence the Democrats have lost the far-left. For Peggy to tell us that she sees him as a failure and that she's now turned off by him, tells us she’s already broken up with him and is looking to move on to her next crush, and is evidence the Democrats have lost the center-left.

What a shame.


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