True, I've Been Slammin' Obambi, but plenty of blame on us...

That's not a bad article, and I loved this line: "Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it's rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don't know if I'm one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy." This was verified a couple of years ago in South Dakota, when the voters overturned the legislature's ban on abortion. Turns out that people weren't as rabidly pro-life when hidden behind the curtain of the voting booth.

I also agree that the Farm Bill is a disaster and that ethanol subsidies need to end. I would have liked to have seen O'Rourke take on the military industrial complex, which produces a multitude of expensive, crap weaponry that the Pentagon doesn't even want. You want to find the pork in our budgets? Look no further.

But I cringed when he talked about Hyde Park and the south side of Chicago, where I am right this moment. Leo Strauss, Friedrich von Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Allan Bloom, Scalia, Richard Posner, etc. etc. The University is about to open the Milton Friedman Institute, and let's not forget about the law, economics, and business schools.

Dohrn and Ayers are definitely quite active in neighborhood politics down here, but you know how big their institutional footprint is down here? It consists of this: Experimental Station, a single square block of offices (including The Baffler), a bike shop where inner city kids learn to repair bicycles in exchange for credit toward their own bike, a (really good) coffee shop that sells books about the Haymarket Riots, and a small farmer's market. That's it. That's O'Rourke's "radical" Hyde Park.

Dude likely hasn't been here.

 

We railed at welfare and counted it a great victory when Bill Clinton confused a few poor people by making the rules more complicated. But the "French-bread lines" for the rich, the "terrapin soup kitchens," continue their charity without stint.

The sludge and dreck of political muck-funds flowing to prosperous businesses and individuals have gotten deeper and more slippery and stink worse than ever with conservatives minding the sewage works of legislation.

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There are, unfortunately, only two parties. One of them stands for doing just this. Whatever their platitudes about 'Freedom' and 'Self Responsibility and 'Family Values' This is what the bottom line is for the Republican Party and the conservative movement. This is what Progressives have been railing against for years. This is what drove the electorate to the only alternative.

Despite all the distractions about Wright and Ayers and Messiah and all the breathless screaming of the Limbaughs of the country this is the reason the Republican Party lost. Their hidden agenda isnt so hard to see as they would like.

 

Yep. I always get a kick out of P.J. He is a funny guy.

The early part of the article focuses too much on simply keeping power and political strategies. Then he gets to the meat and potatoes. The sad truth is that Republicans had a hell of a run from 1980 to 2008. They had control of one or both houses through most of that period. They had favorable presidents, including Clinton who was possibly the most favorable democrat that republicans could hope for in terms of policy.

And yet, at the end of this run, we have a total lack of fiscal responsibility, a bloated government and now, a federal government snapping up private assets and debt obligations that truly smacks of socialism.

Power corrupts and it all went pear shaped when republicans hit on the formula for keeping power that had nothing to do with fiscal conservatism and everything to do with preventing gays from marrying or outlawing abortion or targeting the national endowment of the arts.

You can complain about liberals all you want, and rush can bloviate about how all of our problems are the fault of the democrats but the truth is that republicans have had the lion share of control in this country and they do indeed need to own their record.

As I like to say, I cast my first ballot for Ronald Reagan in 1984. I voted Perot in 1992 and was not exactly crying tears of sorrow when the contract with America was successful in 1994. I would call my self firmly independent back then. I wanted a responsible government and I would support whoever would give it to me even if that meant voting one party for president and the other for my senators and representatives.

Over the past decade, the republicans literally gave up on the notion of fiscal responsibility. I love how O'Rourke says that we shouldn't talk about tax cuts we should talk about spending. Once you have elimintated the need for additional tax dollars, then you cut taxes.

Finally, the point that he doesn't really make (although he alludes to it with the Wall Street greed discussion) is that simply being hands off on all issues won't work. Republicans trashed Hillary's health care plans in 1993 and frankly, that was probably a good thing. But then, they did nothing. Costs of health care are killing companies like GM and Ford now. Had they and the republicans embraced the need to do something (above and beyond the one talking point of tort reform) they could have been heroes to Americans who are now in a bind over health care.

Similary, industry always resists regulation, but looking back, wouldn't a little more regulation have been a good thing? For the housing market, for the auto industry, for wall street?

Again, I am not a big government guy but the problem is we need some government and the republican party quashed any voices that were not in lock step with the mantra, cut taxes and less government and less government regulation.

That is why I think Obama has the chance to be a great president. Despite the campaign rhetoric, he is not a socialist. He is a pragmatic politician. Can he pull of things like bringing more efficiency to government? I know most in here are skeptics, but my feeling is if anyone can he is the one.

So, it is time for the republican party to re-group. The voices saying, "we lost because we abandoned our principles" will only lead you to a deeper hole. You need to drop the wedge issues, be the party of fiscal responsibility and embrace limited policies to make peoples lives better. In short, the republican party needs to adapt to circumstances. This is not 1980 and simply copying a successful Reagan won't work in 2010. By re-branding as a fiscally responsible party who will do limited things to improve the lives of Americans, the Republicans might be able to make in roads with African Amercians, Latinos and young voters.

If they veer hard right, they will basically be the party of the CSA.

 

One more quick example of why running a 1980 campaign makes no sense. For the better part of the last two decades, republicans have politicized climate change and have firmly supported our current oil based system.

To simply say, "let the market take care of our energy needs" by assuming everything will be peachy until alternative sources are available will cause problems on the environmental, economic and security fronts.

I found it fascinating that a good, loyal republican had to take to the airwaves in his own personal campaign for a new energy policy this year. You know T. Boone pitched his ideas to people in the party he has supported for years. And yet, there he is on tv and getting the more positive response from Obama than from McCain.

If McCain and republicans were more forward thinking, they could have embraced some modified version of the pickens plan. That would require . . . wait for it . . . . yes a large government expenditure to rebuild our grid to make it efficient for wind and solar to be transferred from the midwest outward. It would require some sort of government assistance in converting our fuel delivery and cars and trucks to natural gas. It also would have been forward thinking and presented the American people with a party that has a vision -- one that will make for a better and safer life for them AND create a ton of jobs along the way.

I do think that Romney could have been the messenger. He has the business sense to know when spending is actually an investment that will pay off in spades in the future. The problem was either with his campaign or the party. For some reason, he felt that he had to veer hard right from the moderate governor he was to try to win the nomination. With 6 other candidates running hard right, you would THINK that there was a niche for a moderate, pragmatic republican. Perhaps that is what helped John McCain.

Nevertheless, it is time for the republican party to recognize the "vision thing" that bush senior had so much trouble with. Stem cells and gay marriage are not going to carry the day anymore.

 

Obviously, I agree with you here. One of the more interesting bits of poll data from the recent Proposition 8 vote was that the division in votes was almost entirely generational. Gay marriage will become a reality as the oldest generations die off.

I'm specifically referring to pork barrel projects that the Pentagon doesn't even want. I believe the B2 bomber is one of the more famous examples. Making the defense budget a fixed proportion of the GDP is, however, and interesting idea--and one that may force Congress to eliminate the wasteful pork projects that the House loves.

Cap and trade seems to be the way to go.

I believe you're mixing up interior designers with interior decorators. With the former, you're dealing with lighting, etc. But don't quote me on that.

 

Good points all around even if I don't entirely agree. I wanted to address these two specifically.

On fourth, I think there has to be a jump start from the government. Wind and solar can produce tremendous amounts of energy but on the current grid, we can't efficiently get it to the end users. I'm not an expert, so I don't know the costs of revamping the grid and the expected benefits but the concept seems worth pursuing. Our energy grid was exposed a few years back as being antiquated and woefully inadequate, so it seems like a win win.

Second, I like what I have heard about natural gas for cars and trucks. Letting the market take care of a conversion, however, will compound our current problems with oil. Again, whether it is through tax credits or some other mechanisms, we need to provide incentives to gas stations and consumers to make the switch so that there is wide spread availability and sufficient production of the cars to run on natural gas. I would argue that this is a defense -- or at least security -- issue.

On the last point, I think we all agree. It would be nice to have our current system at half the cost. The question is how do we get there. The market is not working. I'm even willing to throw tort reform on the table as part of some larger package (even though I don't think limiting malpractice awards will make a huge difference in costs). I'm interested to hear your thoughts on how we get there. I think McCain's plan was not only woefully inadequate, it would have provided incentives for businesses to stop providing coverage.

 

Ron Paul would have been the best candidate but talking about real issues is boring to people. Have you read "On the Wealth of Nations" by O'Rourke? He pretty much agrees with Paul on everything anyway.

Chris, Democrats have now won 2 rounds of elections, it's a little early to bury the Republican party....and the first round was when the Iraq war was going badly and the second round was right after a financial crisis...people were voting against Republicans more than voting for Democrats. Polling data even suggests the Republicans lost because conservatives who voted for Bush stayed home - and not a bunch of new voters registered for Obama (I'll dig up the CNN article If you make me). Republicans thought they buried you lot for good a few years ago. If the economy doesn't improve in the next 4 years then Obama will be tossed out. People are sheep, people believe whoever the President is is entirely responsible for the economy. When people like Ron Paul talk in length about the Federal Reserve and the Inverted Yield Curve and Spending Cuts.....people turn the channel.

 

...and further to my point....Obama was elected because he is a rockstar with a message of hope and Palin was thrown in there for the same shallow reasons.

When the moderator told Obama and Mccain both their plans to fix things would push the U.S. further into debt both Obama and Mccain changed the subject and didn't say a word about it.

There wasn't much substance in the debates or in either campaign. Ron Paul had alot of substance but was short on the celebrity aspect.

The problem isn't conservative idealogy, it's that people in America are sheep and don't want substance driven campaigns. They want catchy slogans and pandering to ease their fears.

 

Our Founding Fathers were very wise; good counsel to allow a couple months between presidential election and presidential inauguration so as to heavily criticize the presidential elect and all who voted for him. However, once he takes the oath of office he will be president for all and I, for one, plan to support him then and hope to God that he is half as good as what is billed or at least half as bad as I expect him to be. In the meantime there are weeks left to slam Obama so we should all indulge.

 

Allthose goofy ideas would have been supported by the majority of the framers of the constitution and I support all of them.

 

Have you been hangin' with Nancy at some seances?

Seriously, the argument regarding the intent of the framers is far too simplistic and in many ways irrelevant to the current state of our country. You will notice that the Constitution and its amendments are not a tremendously large document.

The body of the constitution is a framework for government and essentially limits the power of defined branches to certain things. The bill of rights set forth protections of individual freedoms.

It was not, however, hugs and kisses all around in Philadelphia. It was in essence a legislative process. There are provisions in the Constitution that likely did not have a majority of support, however, are included through compromise. In other words, there are parts of the Constitution that are not necessarily what the framers WANTED but rather what they would ACCEPT.

If you take the big bargaining chip of slavery out of the Constitutional convention, you likely get a different document then the one ratified.

This from Ben Franklin. A speech given within the walls of the convention and not meant for the outside world. A speech given to get those present to drop their protestations regarding certain aspects of the document and to leave the room with a united front as the ratification process would demand it.

I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them; for having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others. . . .

. . . In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.

I doubt too whether any other Convention we can obtain, may be able to make a better Constitution. For when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded like those of the Builders of Babel; and that our States are on the point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of cutting one another's throats.

Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure, that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors, I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad. Within these walls they were born, and here they shall die. If every one of us in returning to our Constituents were to report the objections he has had to it, and endeavor to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favor among foreign Nations as well as among ourselves, from our real or apparent unanimity.


http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/benfranklin1787.htm

Second, the genius of the document is its flexibility in both its ability to be amended (although and rightly a difficult process) and flexibility in its interpretation. Let's take one that conservatives and Libertarians hold dear. The Second Amendment. Not one of them in that room could have understood where weapon technology would lead or how weapons would be used in our society beyond the time they lived.

Guns held a different role at the time where the "nation" had nothing more than a loose confederation of an army and lots of citizens living in areas where guns were used to provide for families and to protect against wildlife.

That second amendment -- even with the militia language -- has properly been interpretted to mean that Americans possess a right to own guns. Like all rights, our government and our state and local governments also have the ability to regulate those rights when there is a compelling state interest to do so.

The result is that cities have some leeway to try to regulate weapons to address issues of urban violence. In Montana, those restrictions make no sense at all.

The result has been pretty good even with the controversies we often face on gun issues. As much as he screams about it, ITN has been able to go out and buy just about any kind of firearm he wishes. Yet, there is still a system of checks and balances to protect the right while governments try to protect compelling interests. We saw the process at work when the recent hand gun ban in DC was "shot" down by the Supreme Court.

The system works -- not because we ask ourselves what Thomas Jefferson would have done -- but because we have a document that allows for a natural tension between individual liberty and state interest.

 

While alot of what Ron Paul says appeals to me, the thing that troubled me the most about him was his reasoning for opposing the Iraq fiasco. On alot of the issues in the middle east, he seems to give inordinate weight to whether it makes the muslims in the middle east hate us or like us.

They hate us anyway. Changing our policies won't make them hate us significantly less. Iraq was a disaster for a number of reasons, but inflaming the natives isn't one of them. It's that aspect of Paul that made me dismiss him as a flake.

 

You might agree with our Mideast policies, but I find it hard that you can disagree with Paul that those policies are what cause tension between us and the Middle east. They don't hate other anglo nations or Christian hispanic nations. They don't hate Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, South Africa, Sweden, Ireland, Cuba, and on, and on, and on. We are the staunchest supporter of Israel. That will cause tension and even hatred with the friends of Palastine. We maintain a military presence in Saudi Arabia and a heavy Naval presence in the gulf. These things cause tension and even hatred.

If we had almost zero contact with the region, would they hate us? The biggest lie we were told -- okay, ONE of the biggest lies we were told -- by the bush administration and neocons everywhere is that they hate us for our freedom. It's our democracy they can't stand. Bullshit. There are huge democratic Islamic nations like Indonesia. If we weren't sticking our noses into the region, they wouldn't care if the US was communist, socialist, democratic or any other form of government.

 

I truly believe that they would still hate us. If we were as impotent as Belgium, they would hate us but regard us as unimportant. However, we can't just stick our heads back into the crowd and hide with the rest of the unimportant infidels and hope that they target somebody else. They need a villain to blame for their pathetic lot in life, and we're it.

I'm not a big fan of Israel, but throwing them to the jackals at this point wouldn't be very wise, and it would be an amoral, cowardly thing to do. I don't even have optimism that Israel can survive long-term in that sea of barbarism, but I don't see how we can throw them overboard and let the savages win.

 

Nope. We maintained a pretty consistent level of troops from the draw down of the Gulf war through 2003 when most of our troops were redeployed.

That may be true but is kind of irrelevant. They do get whipped into a frenzy and the target is often Israel, so the underlying reasons don't really matter.

Yes it is and will remain unstable but I couldn't disagree more with the rest of your point. Iraq is far, far from stable and will remain that way, with our without us. Just in the last few days we have seen increased violence. I guess that happens when a colonial power creates an artificial country with factions that don't really like each other. While it may have sucked for Shiite Iraqis, Saddam actually gave us a more stable middle east. He was the one natural foil for Iran. We also had him contained quite well and he was clearly decades away from a nuclear program.

Well, I do think that Obama was constrained by the parameters of an election on what he could say about the surge. McCain was actually pretty successful in shifting any talk away from his horrendous support for the war from the beginning to focus on a last ditch strategy that was nothing more than what we should have been doing five years earlier.

Still, Obama is correct in saying that we don't know what would have happened without the increased troop levels. McCain then wanted to expand the definition of "surge" to include the key elements in the better security situation -- the Sunni awakening and the stand down of al sadr's militia. Without those two things, the extra US troops would have been but a pimple on the big butt that was violence in Iraq. The best example is in Anbar. Even with the surge of troops, the number dedicated to Anbar would have resulted in only about 2,000 extra troops in the entire region (given the need for them to do things like sleep). If those insurgents didn't stop focusing their guns on us of their own free will through a political, negotiated agreement with them, then our extra troops would have simply been a couple thousand extra targets.

As to Baghdad, we had already tried a surge a few years earlier, it just wasn't called a surge. We increased troops with a strategy to take, clear and hold neighborhoods. We would do the first two but with the Madi Army still operating at will, we were unable to hold any neighborhoods and keep them safe.

While I don't think the extra troops hurt anything, there is a perception among the less informed voters here that the increase in troops was the sole cause of reduced violence. For the purposes of the campaign, there was no way for Obama to reduce his argument to a sound bite because it takes some understanding of all the factors in play.

Overall, the strategies of David Patreus -- all of them -- are what contributed to a reduction in violence. We are all happy for that. Still, the amount of violence to be experienced in the future rests in the hands of those groups of former insurgents and followers of al sadr who have an uneasy agreement. If either or both decide to reengage us and the Iraqi government, there is not that much we will do with even 200,000 troops there.

One final note on "stability." Even if we except your premise of greater stability without Saddam, it has come at the expense of stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- and area that may have us longing for the good old days of 2005 Iraq. It of course also comes at the expense of $10 billion a month which I think was a number too large for most voters to wrap their minds around and that is why it was only a tangential argument when it deserved front and center status.

 

More on Iraq and Afghanistan, from a source that actually knows what is going on:

The Iraq war is over. Barring the unforeseen, the darkest days are behind, though we are still losing soldiers to low-level fighting with enemies that are true “dead-enders.” Last month we lost seven Americans in combat in Iraq. Peace, however, is not upon us. Another thirty or so Iraqis died today in suicide attacks. Nobody suffers more at the hands of Islamic terrorists than other Muslims.

A new President will soon begin to make critical decisions about Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic crisis at home, and countless other matters. While the Iraq war began, then boiled and finally cooled before President-elect Obama will be sworn into office on January 20th, 2009, the Afghanistan-Pakistan spectacle is just getting started. He was always a fierce opponent of our involvement in Iraq. And, as with so many Democrats in the Senate, he argued frequently, during the campaign, that we should have been focused on Afghanistan all along, because it is the real incubator of the international terrorist threat. Timing being everything, our new President will get his wish. Afghanistan now moves to center stage. The conflicts in Afghanistan and between Afghanistan and Pakistan have the simmering potential to overshadow anything we’ve seen in Iraq. Here are a few things I hope he understands:

read the rest

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Oh come on Karl, no war is ever competently prosecuted.