ClearCommentary.com

The "Art" of Scoring the Presidential Debate

If you believe polls are a kind of electoral soothsayer, Barack Obama won last Friday's debate and John McCain is on a glidepath to defeat.  Liberal pundits were on record that McCain was slated to win the debate since he's out performed Obama in most of their verbal battles to date, so the expectations were set so lowt for Obama that anything short of a Bidenesque gaffe parade would constitute victory.

And, Obama demonstrated that he's learning on the campaign trail, improving his delivery and focus, which, of course, he would have to do were he to win the presidency--more on-the-job learning.  But scoring a debate is more than merely quoting the internals of polling data which showed women approved Obama's performance and felt he assuaged anxieties about the economy.  That's because underlying all such pronouncements is the candidates' judgment, character, and values--which is to say, the most compelling reasons to vote for, or against, either of them.

Beneath Obama's sheen and poise, which surely make him look presidential, is a man desperately running from his arch-liberal record, so much in evidence during the primary, but now having been air-brushed out of the picture.  The debate was an opportunity for Obama to demonstrate his centrist principles, but what we saw was a superficial make-over where euphemism was pressed into service to sanitize his reputation as the senate's most liberal member.

So, although he never used the words "tax increase," we did hear about "investments," which is the left's new code for income redistribution.  Economic success, in the view of liberals, is a stigma because it couldn't have been achieved save for the exploitation of the great unwashed masses who toil in the service industry, permanently shackled to under-paying jobs.  Although liberals draw a curious kind of sustenance from this kind of class warfare, moderates--including Independents--typically demand more of their president than chalkboard characterizations that gain credibility by exploiting stereotypes.

Obama touted his middle class tax cut, and here McCain should have pounced by stating that nearly forty percent of Americans pay no income tax whatsoever, and asking how Obama would propose those people receive tax cuts?  Well, of course, they'd be receiving checks, because in Obama's view, our system isn't sufficiently progressive, this despite the fact that the top five percent of income earners pay over fifty percent of all federal income taxes.

With respect to education, you won't hear the words "excellence" and "competition" in the same sentence uttered by Obama, because, as the liberal narrative goes, the only thing stopping us from reducing drop-out rates or increasing test scores is money.  Competition through vouchers and pay for performance for teachers would result in a collective whining fit by the teachers union, because unlike every other industry in America, they believe they should be exempt from the stern taskmaster called accountability.

On the foreign policy front, Obama proffered the retreaded arguments against the war in Iraq, but McCain countered that had Congress supported Obama's bill to withdraw troops by March of this year, Iraq would have descended into a maelstrom of ethnic savagery, with Iran leading the charge.  This again proves that with sufficient help from a compliant media, which has never held Obama responsible for his patently irresponsible recommendations, their pet candidates can be sheltered from the consequences of their myopic judgment.

Change, it turns out, is fraught with ambiguity and, crucially, is dependent upon character and judgment.  Hobbling the economy with hundred of billions in new spending, and pledging to schedule meetings with the world's tyrants, is not the kind of change mainstream Americans are looking for.  Once again, the Democrats have groomed a candidate for office who is far to the left of the nation.  It will be up to McCain to demonstrate how such a man would govern and to make the case that his policies would inhibit growth at home and encourage belligerents abroad.

Obama & The Politics of Rhetoric

Boldness has always been an integral part of presidential campaigns, which is why so many Democrats are beginning to understand the underwhelming nature of Barack Obama's candidacy.  Ever since he gave his oratorical introduction on the national stage back in 2004, we've been instructed that this was a man who transcended politics, a man of extraordinary vision who can instantly tap our better angels for a bipartisan goal greater than ourselves.

However, with his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Obama's narrative of dramatic change returned to earth and became the stuff of erstwhile party politics, recycled in a lofty, if predictable rhetoric.  Indeed, if you listen to his solutions to America's woes they echo the conventional platforms of modern Democrats, from Carter to Clinton, who found innovative ways to repackage the message that more government is better.  Coupled with Obama's message of a duty-free ride which asks nothing of voters in terms of sacrifice or, God forbid, a return to the time when personal responsibility and individual initiative were the twin pillars of the American formula for success.

Those virtues now seem like civic museum displays, reflecting a time when the government's role was to protect our borders and safeguard our civil liberties.  Today, for every problem, from a conflict at school to our capital markets nightmare, we habitually turn to the government for resolution.  At the core of our civic diffidence is a lack of individual courage, and the reason is that the collectivist vision of the left has been successfully instilled in us from birth.  It's modern liberalism's dream of a cradle-to-grave life-plan that provides a multi-tiered safety net to eliminate life's travails.

The problem, of course, is that when you artificially redact life's challenges you also remove the opportunities for growth by providing substantive rewards for phantom efforts.  That's the core fault with Obama's platform, it uses the power of the purse to leverage political clout in the misguided effort to provide relief for every real or imagined problem.  As such, it's a kind of cultural insult because it presupposes that we're wholly incapable of resolving our problems on our own, and it socializes our personal ills, in everything from advancing our professional careers to dealing with financial struggles.

Therefore, it's likely that at tonight's debate Obama will remain true to his parochial principles of threadbare, big government, Democratic programs, which make no demands of voters.  That's apparently what attracted so many on the left, combined with the fact that their seething hatred of President Bush finally found catharsis in a candidate who purports to take them into the political stratosphere.  But, like most journeys fueled by the power of rhetoric, they inevitably work their way back to earth, only to find that the grueling task of governing remains as vexing as ever.

McCain's Choice of Palin vs. Obama's Choice of Biden

As a diversion from the anguish of our financial woes we turn to the question of why Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate.  Much discussion, debate, and, of course, vilification, has followed John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, everything from questioning her experience and religion to her decision not to abort Trig, her child with Downs Syndrome, and even mocking her hunting prowess.

For some timely comic relief, let's examine the wisdom of choosing Biden, that charming gaffe machine who, in a recent interview with Katie Couric of CBS News said:

Part of what a leader does is to instill confidence, is demonstrate that he or she knows what they're talking about and communicates to people, if you listen to me and follow what I’m suggesting we can fix this.  When the stock market crashed Franklin Roosevelt got on television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the pictures of greed, he said, look this is what happened.  [Emphasis added, but probably not necessary.]

Since most of us aren't students of history, we might be kind and forgive the fact that the stock market crashed in 1929 when Herbert Hoover was president (Roosevelt's term began in 1933), but don't most people know that television didn't exist at that time?  It's this kind of wholesale fabrication--versus a simple misstatement of fact--that strongly suggests a character flaw.

When it became clear that Obama would win the nomination, Biden laid down a nice napalm blast with this ingenious quip:

I mean, you got the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.

And, who can forget this gem, which is Biden's ham-handed attempt to ingratiate himself with an Indian American supporter; he said that in Delaware,

...you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.

What he was trying to convey is that Indian Americans have been so successful as small business owners of convenience stores, but his delivery made it sound as though they're the only ethnicity that frequents such establishments--it takes work to come up with these contorted lines, so we shouldn't just dismiss them out of hand.  If he doesn't land the veep job, there may be a spot for him as a writer for the late-night talk shows.

He was also recently caught on tape as saying that the U.S. won't be building any more clean-coal plants, which will put the Obama-Biden campaign on solid footing with the voters in western Pennsylvania.  Add to that his remarkable admission that Hillary Clinton might well have been a better choice than himself for vice president, and his excoriation of an ad his own campaign ran that made light of McCain's computer illiteracy.

Although there is, in all of these wonder-gaffes, an element of charming cluelessness, when we wed them with his astonishingly naive recommendation to partition Iraq into its three ethnic constituencies, we come up against an insurmountable problem--stunningly bad judgment.

So as we weigh McCain's decision to draft Sarah Palin, a chief executive with a real reform record, it's only fair that we look into the process Obama followed, one that mysteriously convinced him that Biden is the superlative choice in running mates. 

The Colorado Senate Vote: Udall or Schaffer?

In the election of 2006 we saw the start of what might be called stealth liberalism.  It was the product of the political machinations of Rep. Rahm Emanual who matriculated liberal candidates into his school for moderates and ran them as such in conservative-leaning districts.  Once elected, these politicians effectively abdicated their campaign promises of fiscal moderation and voted their true colors.

In the 2008 election season we're seeing evidence of the same phenomenon.  Across the nation and here in the battleground state of Colorado, Democrats with unequivocally liberal voting records are running on platforms that tout their fiscal conservatism and concern for the working class.  However, scratch the surface and code words such as 'investment' invariably materialize, which is the left's transparent term for tax increases.

Mark Udall, who is running for the senate seat in Colorado being vacated by Senator Wayne Allard, could be poster politician for this craven practice.  Earlier this month Udall was quoted as saying "I support responsible tax cuts [emphasis added] to help Colorado working families and to create jobs" but he has consistently voted against lowering income taxes, eliminating the marriage penalty, increasing the child tax credit, and eliminating the death tax.

Demonstrating that his understanding of economics is veneer thin, Udall's own web site states "I have not supported the...continuing program of excessive tax breaks for the people who need them least."  He conveniently forgets or ignores that under President Bush, millions of low-income wage earners were taken off the tax rolls entirely, such that fully thirty-eight percent of Americans pay no income tax whatsoever.  Moreover, the top fifty percent pay ninety-six percent of income taxes.

With respect to the estate tax, otherwise known as the 'death tax,' Udall has been a staunch opponent of ending it.  It's a stunningly selfish tax for a politician to defend since those dollars have been taxed so many times it's impossible to track.  Yet, in the July 27, 2004 edition of Human Events, Udall was quoted as saying "We should keep the estate tax...".  In the same article he said he didn't believe it helps Colorado farmers or small businesses. 

He, along with his deep bench of liberal lightweights in Congress, don't seem to understand that lowering taxes increases federal receipts, while increasing employment.  In the January 21, 2004 edition of the Rocky Mountain News, Udall stated "Taxcuts have not worked to put people back to work."  Taxes, it's been perversely noted, is the lifeblood of liberals, because it sharpens their appetite for expansive government and purchases political power at the voting booth.

As we approach the November elections, voters concerned about the impact of taxes, personally, and for our economy, should be wary of this new breed of liberal, the kind who speaks tactfully about the virtues of "responsible tax cuts," but who continue to wage class warfare with schemes to tax the 'rich.'  Underlying their warped desire to tax success into submission is a political culture that mistakenly construes 'fairness' as an unlimited license to pick our pockets.

However, their message will have the ring of plausibility, of consensual concern for the common man, but with a faint, but nonetheless recognizable echo of socialism.  There are many other reasons Coloradoans should vote for Bob Schaffer, the Republican candidate, but his articulate support of low taxation and the unambiguous ways in which it creates prosperity, is one of the most powerful arguments.

Democrats: Playing the Blame Game

In following the news concerning the meltdown in our investment banking and mortgage business sectors, you've doubtless heard the mainstream media and Democratic lawmakers lecturing us that the Republicans' self-interested infatuation with de-regulation is to blame.  The truth, as is so often the case, is rather different.

If you've never heard of Senate bill 190, the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, you're not on any short-list of the ignorant uninformed.  This bill would have mandated unprecedented levels of regulatory oversight for the mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and would have become law except for the fact that senate Democrats voted against it, on a party-line vote in committee.  What's even more astonishing, if not unpredictable, is that Sens. Obama, Clinton, and Dodd led the charge to run intervention in support of Mae and Mac.  Not surprising, all three have received tens of thousands of dollars from these mortgage cash machines.

Among other things, the bill would have significantly limited the financial exposure of these entities by redefining the levels of acceptable risk and recalibrating their debt-equity ratio requirements.  However, senate Democrats, whose intransigence directly contributed to the debacle we're facing, voted their financial and political conscience, not their ethical conscience, effectively socializing the risk while privatizing the profits.

The media's shameful portrayal of these failures as attributable to Republicans is hardly surprising because they and their Democrat chums in Congress are in perpetual search of justifications for their regulatory excesses, which are transparently predicated on a cynical disdain for our capitalist system.  Drilling down to yet another dark stratum, it's clear that their zeal of regulation is intended to cure what they see as the unacceptable inequities of our capitalist system.

You see, they've rewritten our traditional understanding of winners and losers, whether on Little League teams or on Wall Street, such that the former are stigmatized as exploiting the rules and the latter are victims of an oppressive and unfair "system."  So, while the rest of the world sleeps at night, they're up burning the regulatory oil, drafting reams of legislation to check our entrepreneurial spirit--e.g., their dream of limiting executive pay--and, to tax initiative into the ground. 

It's a fascinating study in the race between the Democrats' genetic predispoisiton to regulate and the universal quid pro quo which exempts political favorites, and it's particularly telling that the winner was raw political self-interest, not the supposedly vulnerable, unwashed masses, buffeted by the winds of the free market.

Something else you won't read about in the mainstream press is that Senator John McCain was one of three co-sponsors for S-190.  So, as the Democrats become incandescent, gloating that Republican greed is to blame for our financial sector woes, we would do well to remind them that they had their chance to regulate these problems while they were still Lilliputians, but chose to wait until they became Brobdingnags, which, paradoxically, makes the bipartisan case for massive government intervention.

Our Financial Woes: Who Are the Real Hypocrits?

You know the adage, that amidst a sea of fabrications there is usually one truth, and James Moore, writing in today's Huffington Post concerning our financial markets debacle, demonstrates its validity.  One of the left's most prevalent artifacts of their archaic understanding of economics is that greed is the backbone of capitalism.  Its heartiness is not only a testimony of the resilience of distortions in service to 'greater' political goal, but also to the unique way in which such myths insidiously work their way into our cultural lexicon.

Moore argues that Republicans alone have been responsible for the deregulation of the banking industry and the allegedly amorphous design of the regulatory apparatus intended to control illicit financial transactions.  We've previously stipulated a premise of regulation, which is that it's always far more blunt and belated than the capitalist instinct that drives entrepreneurs.  Bureaucrats and members of Congress may spend sleepless nights crafting regulations that rival the human genome experiment in terms of their complexity, but they're truly no match for the profit instinct that's imbued in every capitalist's mortal soul.

Since risk is inherent in any business investment or financial instrument, regulators' most fundamental charge is to define that bright line between reasonable risk and the kind of risk in the recently designed financial schemes, from derivatives to sub-prime mortgages deftly cloaked in the guise of stable investments.  That, it's now clear, was the failure of every oversight institution, from the SEC to the FDIC, as well as Congress itself. 

Liberals such as Moore may criticize the Republicans' proclivity for deregulated markets, but their vilification of them belies the fact that investment profits and losses are equal opportunity realities.  That is, the primary difference between liberals and conservatives in this regard is that the former are fair weather capitalists who gladly gorge themselves when profits are robust but who disingenuously whine when--as is inevitable--the system cleanses itself of imperfections, and they're made to suffer losses.

Republicans, in contrast, not only understand the virtues of targeted, smart regulation--versus a plethora of multi-tiered regulation that strangles the profit motive--they also intuitively recognize that every investment, regardless of its perceived risk factor, may backfire, and that, indeed, markets at the micro- and macro-level will always purge the system of imperfections, and, crucially, punish the unwise.

Moore argues that when Republicans' "greed...gets them into a fix, they are the first to cry out for rules and laws and taxpayer money to bail out their businesses."  Well, that's a bilateral political reality, and when markets turn south it's a photo-finish to see which party will be first to punish the malefactors and erect a new and more Draconian set of regulations.

Moore charges former senator Phil Gramm with opening the Pandora's Box which led a stampede of financial miscreants to exploit the common man for their greedy gain.  He argues that Gramm slid the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA) into the 2000 Bush budget, and that the result was that "neither the SEC nor the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) were able to examine financial institutions like hedge funds or investment banks to guarantee they had the assets necessary to cover losses they were guaranteeing."

Although his analysis accurate, the collateral truth, which he fails to mention, is that the legislation had bipartisan support.  The CFMA banned regulation of credit default swaps. These unregulated instruments, which are insurance policies against default on risky investments like mortgage backed securities, led to the justification for the recent government loan--not bailout--to A.I.G.  That's the one grain of truth in Moore's diatribe against the 'greedy Republicans.'

We're also hearing from the Obama campaign that Senator McCain voted for the the repeal of the provision of the Glass-Steagall Act which prohibited a bank holding company from ownership in financial investment firms, but, as always you won't get the entire story:  Senator Biden also voted for it, and it was signed into law in 1999 by President Clinton.

There are many lessons in this tragic devolution of our financial markets, and tomorrow we'll take up another.   However, as both sides jockey for political advantage, we always return to the basics:  A measure of intelligent regulation is crucial to provide predictability to financial transactions and to constrain illicit behavior.  But, no amount of regulation can eliminate risk, and those smile when their portfolios are soaring but decry the evils of capitalist greed when they're not, epitomize the very height of hypocrisy.

E.J. Dionne: Elitism, and the Politics of Regulation

It's always fascinating to witness liberals such as E.J. Dionne as they sacrifice history at the altar of political expedience.  In an effort to exploit the recent debacle in our capital markets, he argues that the financial depredations by the financial and business 'elites' of 1930s and Roosevelt's response to them is tantamount to the regulatory--and electoral--response that Congress and Obama are about to unleash.

Proving once again that historical analogies for the left have a remarkable elasticity, Dionne's premise is that today's Wall Street titans share the same 'elitist' pedigree as those that roamed the earth in search of their next victim some eighty years ago.  Moreover, capitalism, for him is acceptable only within the stifling constraints of socialist principles:

Americans don't mind wealthy and even rapacious capitalists as long as they deliver the goods to everyone else.

We might begin by reminding Dionne that about sixty-five percent of Americans now own stock mutual funds, many producing dividends, so the argument that the "paycheck" workers, as he cynically calls them, aren't participating in the benefits of our capitalist system, is simply false on its face.  What he and his socialist pals love to vilify is 'wealth,' forgetting that these days most wealthy people made their money the old fashioned way--they earned it.  As the leftist elites discovered not long ago (i.e., the book, The Millionaire Next Door), the average millionaire is more likely to be the 55 year old owner of a concrete finishing company than the Wall Street investment banker.

But that revelation is swept under their cultural carpet because it doesn't comport with their Robber Baron view of an America where the few claw their way to the top on the backs of the defenseless working class.  Indeed, in order to provide political clout for their regulatory agenda they must produce persuasive evidence of systemic abuse, and with the assistance of a compliant media, that's precisely what they're doing.

Capitalism, when viewed through the lens of liberalism, can always bear more regulation, and so they convince themselves that they can prescribe the perfect regulatory nostrums for our ills: 

...never mind that a little more regulation might have prevented the subprime-mortgage-buying, short-term-profit-maximizing Wall Streeters from wrecking the economy.

The paradox in this sad state of affairs is that it was Congressional liberals who re-wrote the lending laws that govern the banking industry to allow those with questionable credit scores to qualify for mortgages they had no business purchasing.  What's astounding is that liberals such as Dionne have the temerity to blame "Wall Streeters," who merely leveraged the new regulations to their advantage for profit. 

As Larry Kudlow wrote in an enlightened editorial,

...George Mason economist Tyler Cowen wrote in the New York Times, one of the problems with the U.S. financial system is not a lack of regulation, but a lack of smart and effective regulation.

And, despite the sea of regulations adopted during the Bush Administration, "it turns out that neither the Fed, the FDIC, the Comptroller of the Currency, nor the SEC properly supervised high-risk leveraged borrowings and the capital-adequacy ratios necessary to safeguard against losses."  Why, we should ask Dionne, is this oversight--or myopia--the fault of "Wall Streeters," when they were merely using their capitalist instincts to maximize profits within the regulatory framework they inherited?

As the markets begin to settle down, the reflex for more onerous regulation will be unavoidable, especially during an election year.  But before they elbow one another to the podium, McCain and Obama should remember that the capitalist motivation is always more innovative than the regulatory motivation, so intelligent regulation--if that's possible--is always preferred.

Why the Left Loathes Palin

The unprecedented level of political hysteria emanating from the left clarifies that the choice of Sarah Palin has created a seismic reaction among the liberal establishment.  Once again we make the pilgrimage to the font of presumed wisdom on the left, Arianna Huffington, who fervently argues that Palin is a neoconservative, "likeable on the outside, a blank slate on the inside," just waiting to be imprinted with the neocon label.

It's clear that neoconservativism has become a reflexive tag for liberals whose intellectual curiosity is endangered, because they use it so indiscriminately that it no longer has meaning, except, of course, among the inbred left.  For those who might be interested in the true history of neoconservatism, we link to Robert Kagan's superb article in the Spring edition of World Affairs.  It's a lucid explication of that maligned term, as it cogently argues that America has always been a "neocon nation," and defines it as:

...potent moralism and idealism in world affairs, a belief in America’s exceptional role as a promoter of the principles of liberty and democracy, a belief in the preservation of American primacy and in the exercise of power, including military power, as a tool for defending and advancing moralistic and idealistic causes, as well as a suspicion of international institutions...

Beyond being insulting, for Huffington to refer to Sarah Palin a blank slate, ready to accept the neocon brand, tells us far more about her than McCain's choice for vice president.  It confirms that the left is mired in an intellectual monochronicity, a hermetic world impermeable to the light of inquiry, where all things conservative are lumped together and pejoratively referred to as 'neocon.'  Indeed, the policy of pre-emption policy that so many liberals thought President Bush founded, but which, as Kagan exhaustively argues, is an integral part of American history, is the left's transparent code for a blind and misguided policy of hegemonic imperialism.

Huffington and her ilk seem predestined to recycle the WMD argument until their generation is burning the Social Security oil in nursing facilities.  Their poll-driven policies, which make up in emotional appeal what they lack in principle, provide smug assurances that the Iraq war was a complete failure because Saddam Hussein didn't have the weapons the entire civilized world believed he did.  It's remarkable that the toppling of a savage dictator who cut the tongues out of women's mouths, who slaughtered five thousand Kurds, and whose sons tortured thousands of innocent citizens, not to mention the emancipation of twenty-five million people, are summarily discounted by Huffington.

Their savior, Barack Obama, has effectively pledged a policy of 'soft power' which means the State Department will be the first battalion he'll send to the front line against Iran, which will ensure Ahmadinejad will have a nuclear weapon within two years.  The new Democrats, freshly minted from the ranks of the hard left, are so war-averse that even the threat of military action sends shivers down their collective spine.

That's why the choice of Palin has them seeing Cheneys everywhere they look, because she, along with McCain, believe that a nuclear-armed Iran is simply unacceptable, and they're making their case to the American people.  Despite his recent makeover, from the anti-war dove he was at the beginning of his campaign to the tough-talking quasi-hawk, Obama can't run from his record, and most Americans do understand that this remains a dangerous world.

What Sarah Palin adds to the ticket, beyond the more obvious traits, is that she recognizes that confronting evil before it becomes lethal actually limits the scope and duration of any military conflict.  Everything Obama has said convinces us that he'll take the exact opposite approach--he'll wait until it's too late. 

9/11: Reanimating Our Lost Resolve

As we cast our collective eye back seven years when a group of Islamic jihadists attacked America in an unprovoked display of savagery, it's clear that the consensus and resolve that instantly materialized has become frayed.  Indeed, beyond the agreement that it was a horrendous attack, Americans, including their presidential nominees, have widely divergent views on the matter.

In late September of 2001, ClearCommentary's editor was published in the Wall Street Journal, in a response to an editorial by the classicist and historian, Victor Davis Hanson.  Below is a transcript:

Although Victor Davis Hanson’s editorial is an eloquent antidote to the paralysis of America’s recent military leadership, and despite the unspeakable savagery of Sept. 11, there’s an undeniable risk that our steely resolve will become attenuated in the course of time (“Great Leaders Are Forged in War,” Sept. 24).

 

The requisite greatness in leaders may certainly be created in the crucible of war, but the resiliency of our prospective engagement will be calibrated by political realities which are largely defined by the cumulative impact of discrete victories and losses over time.

 

Therefore, because military momentum is crucial, it’s of profound importance that President Bush begin this campaign with a multifaceted attack that at once demonstrates a keen understanding of the rabid and omnipresent evil of this enemy and which betrays an unflinching determination to annihilate it.

 

Yet the opportunity to prevail is entirely ours if we harden our collective will with an understanding of what is at stake--the very survival of Western civilization.  Indeed, now that the freedoms that inform the substance of our Republic are being threatened in so agonizing and provocative a manner, we must prepare ourselves for the kind of battles that will fundamentally rewrite the rules of engagement and that will produce horrific losses here and abroad.

 

We must also anticipate and immunize ourselves against the inevitable temptation to justify a premature termination of engagement as a hedge against the pain of continued causalities. For unlike most wars, this one will lack the comforting finality of a single enemy applying the pen of defeat to the document of surrender.

 

In truth, this will be a war punctuated by muted victories, unpredictable onslaughts, and periods of unnerving quiet. But, with time, perseverance, and prayers, we will achieve the unambiguous hegemony of democratic principles over the malevolent forces of terrorism.

Worse than the attenuation of resolve described in this editorial, the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, doesn't use the phrase "Islamic terrorism," and, remarkably, he doesn't believe America was merely the innocent victim of an unprovoked attack.  Indeed, he euphemizes his rhetoric by arguing that those responsible are only interested in establishing a "repressive caliphate," as though they intend to create an isolated--and therefore benign--society.

Apparently neither Obama nor his legion of advisors have read Osama bin Laden's October 7, 2001 declaration, which included his statement that the attacks were in response to what happened eighty years ago--the abolition of the Caliphate after the fall of the Ottoman Empire--a vindication that bin Laden subsequently stated would include the destruction of America.

Consistent with his arch liberal view of the world, Obama believes that poverty and oppression breed radical Islamic terrorism, which conveniently overlooks the fact that the despots of Middle Eastern nations are responsible for oppressing their citizens, not the United States.  Moreover, the nineteen hijackers responsible for 9/11 were all from middle or upper-class families. 

More curious is Obama's belief that we should be compelled to learn different languages and broaden our cultural understanding of the world.  Although there's much to be gained by studying different cultures, it's the height of naivete--and it's partner in stupidity, ignorance--to suggest that deepening our knowledge of such far-flung cultures as Iran will mitigate the fiery hatred the likes of Ahmadinejad has for America.

At the core of Obama's foreign policy vis a vis radical Islam is a stunning sense of intellectual hubris, a tacit denial of the fact that every administration, from Carter's through George W. Bush's, has wrestled with Iran's hegemonic aspirations, without anything to show for it.

So, as our nation recalls the barbaric slaughter of over three thousand innocent Americans, we should never forget that despite the fact that President Bush's efforts prevent another attack have been successful to date, dealing with jihadists worldwide is not a game for Harvard elitists such as Obama.  What's required is tough diplomacy, strong international institutions, a network of powerful allies, all undergirded by the credible threat of military action.

Our best hope to continue degrading the threat of radical Islam is to reanimate the resolve we all felt in the aftermath of 9/11.  It's becoming abundantly evident to moderate Democrats and Independents alike that John McCain is uniquely qualified to defend America from this sleepless malice. 

May God continue to bless those who perished seven years ago today.

McCain-Palin: Filling the Obama Vacuum

Editor's Note:  I felt privileged to happen upon Bill Kristol, Editor of the Weekly Standard, at the Colorado Springs airport yesterday.  Our brief discussion included the wisdom of McCain's choice of Sarah Palin, and the excitement it's generated.  A thoughtful writer and commentator whose influence is felt throughout the political world, Kristol has been and remains a lucid and persausive apologist for traditional conservatism.

Nature, it's been observed, hates a vacuum, and in ways that can be unpleasant to witness, will fill it.  As Thomas Friedman of The New York Times argues, the Obama campaign has been sputtering for several weeks, as though not enough political fuel is being run through its historically muscular system.  Indeed, Obama's campaign was supposed to be about grand ideas and the kind of transcendental politics that cures the electoral fatigue that he believes is oppressing the nation.

The problem is that Obama's campaign thus far hasn't delivered on the promise, and it's starting to feel as though his ideas have already exceeded their shelf-life, which makes undecided voters who yearn for certitude and direction uneasy.  That can lead them to conclude that his expansive ideas and lofty rhetoric are on an earth-bound trajectory, creating the vacuum that has felled politicians of every stripe.

Friedman makes a plausible case for reanimating Obama's anemic campaign by passionately arguing for nation-building at home.  But there are obvious political fissures in his argument, as he states,  "We’re in decline.  We need to get back to work on our country.  And that is going to require strong, smart government."  Besides the frailty of the argument that we're in decline, the left's most profound challenge is making the case that increasing taxes when the economy is finally showing signs of recovering is wise.  They can, as Bill Clinton did, call it an 'investment,' but you have to strategically package your message in a time when voters are nervous about the future, and the Democrats' class warfare tactic that demonizes the rich, doesn't seem to be wearing as well as it has in the past.

Then there's the foreign policy abyss that Friedman seems to overlook, and which is yet another vacuum that voters are staring into with decidedly mixed results.  Although the economy commands center stage, Russia's incursion into Georgia, which is an exceedingly complex and delicate matter, highlights the need for a seasoned hand at the helm.  Obama's first suggestion, that the U.S. should raise the issue at the U.N. Security Council, which was largely overlooked by the mainstream media, ignores the fact that Russia has a veto on the council, which makes the first-term senator's recommendation seem daft.

Moreover, it's difficult for Obama to reconcile his evolving positions on Iraq, which included authoring a bill in the senate to have all ground forces out by March of this year, a series of condemnations about the folly of the surge, and, most recently on Bill O'Reilly's show, a strong endorsement of the surge's success, stated in a matter-of-fact way, as though he were merely repeating an established position. 

Into this mix we must add his list of questionable associates, from convicted felon Tony Rezko to domestic terrorist William Ayers, and including the combustible Rev. Wright whose anti-American rants disturbed voters across the spectrum. 

It's becoming clear that Obama's image as a champion of change, which is his campaign's slogan, is not without risks, because regardless of how passionately he argues, merely expanding the size of government or redistributing income aren't new ideas.  The reason the McCain campaign is surging in the polls is because they're connecting with voters, they've generated excitement, and it's based on challenging the status quo in Washington. 

Beyond Obama's veneer-thin resume, it's the absence of grand ideas that is putting the electorate to sleep, and that absence--also known as a vacuum--is being filled by McCain-Palin.

McCain & Palin Hit a Nerve

As we reflect on the partys' conventions, you may have noticed that when Democrats vilify and lampoon Republicans we're told they just drawing important distinctions, but when Republicans fire back, the left whines that they're being divisive.  Writing in the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne complains that "this  convention...dripped with divisive ridicule as speaker after speaker worked to aggravate the country's cultural schisms and replay worn-out harangues against weak liberals."

Although this kind of convenient complaint could laughed off the page, it's important to observe that it reflects a political insecurity, one coyly disguised as an indirect plea for political civility.  The reality is that the left has earned its reputation as a pusillanimous party when it comes to standing up for American exceptionalism on the world's stage, especially if that means diplomacy backed by the credible threat of military action.

So when McCain calls for drilling or for making the Bush tax cuts permanent, Dionne sniffs that he's reanimating the "old politics of demonization."  This, of course, is symptomatic of the liberals' habit of euphemizing their 'tax and spend' history, which they prefer to call 'investment,' and their intransigence on increasing fossil fuel capacity because they want to get us all into hybrids, or better, yet, mass transportation.

But Dionne's real nightmare is McCain's "cynical" choice of Sarah Palin for his vice president.  You can wend your way through his turgid rhetoric, but suffice it to say that when liberals go to this extent to desecrate a candidate you can be sure it's because they're terrified of her.   She's not a Beltway regular, she's not on the Georgetown cocktail party circuit, and, most damning, she's never been on Meet the Press. 

Her criticisms of Obama's plans to raise taxes, as well as his studied diffidence in dealing with Iran are apparently off limits for Dionne, who complains that she's distorting his record.  Well, Obama has stated he will raise corporate income taxes, as well as capital gains and dividend taxes, and he did say he would sit down, without pre-conditions, with the leader of Iran (as well as Cuba, North Korea and other despotic regimes).  However, not unlike his hard left positions on abortion, guns, and religion, he recast his position with respect to meeting with these tyrants, speaking in Harvard parlance to make it appear he was merely clarifying, not fundamentally changing his position.

But the American people aren't as obtuse as Obama apparently thinks.  Indeed, they know a political chameleon when they see one, and they've finally begun to smoke him out.  An editorial in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal walks us through the reasons mainstream voters are raising their collective eyebrows as the truth about Obama's domestic agenda begins sinking in.

Indeed, his vision for America has a decidedly socialist feel to it, which is condescendingly designed to soften the realities of a market based economy, which would make our already steeply progressive tax code more onerous for those who've achieved a measure of economic success, and which would mandate government sponsored health care coverage.

The American people might have more respect for liberals such as Obama, as well as his apologists such as Dionne, if they were more candid and less defensive about their recommendations.  As it is, their feigned petulance and peevish rants intended to tarnish McCain and Palin ring hollow because voters know authenticity when they see it.  Disagree if you will, but after hearing McCain's and Palin's speeches at the convention this week, the message is clear--they're going to shake up Washington.

That's music to the electorate's ears, and stands in stark contrast to Obama's prototypical platform of recycled liberalism.

Sarah Palin & The Politics of 'Small-Town' America

After Sarah Palin's speech last evening, American voters are once again doing an end-around on the media, whose venal preoccupation with her destruction has inspired millions nationwide, many never before interested in politics, to take up her cause.  Reports from across the country called her performance stellar, and, most critically, her small-town values and big-hearted love of this nation resonated with people in dense urban settings and rural hamlets alike.

Grasping for political purchase, the left has unwisely accused Palin of being overextended, not capable of caring for her family if she assumes the daunting responsibilities of vice president.  It's a strange role reversal for aging feminists and their male acolytes who, decades ago said women can, in fact, have it all-- a family and an executive job--and handle both responsibilities well.  But it's also a testimony to the fact that the younger generation of women haven't bought the arch feminist pedagogy, which is predicated on an oblique disdain for men and a desperately misguided need to mask their femininity in feigned masculine garb.

Indeed, today's young women seem perfectly comfortable with a lovely woman, who happens to be bright and politically astute, in a position of national power, regardless of the fact that she has a family.  The truth, it's becoming clear--painfully clear to the liberal media and blogosphere--is that seeing her kids and husband on stage after her speech was the quintessential picture of gender transformation in America.  Not, of course, according to the twisted textbook of decaying feminism, but in perfect lockstep with a cultural meritocracy that rewards authenticity, especially when wedded to talent.

Besides her excoriation of the media and left-wing bloggers, her performance was an implicit criticism of the Ivy League elitists and urban sophisticates who habitually dismiss the Norman Rockwell picture of small town America as oppressive and parochial.  For them, diversity stops abruptly when it comes to diversity of ideas, in particular when those ideas involve such hallowed traditions as religion and guns.

Beyond that, Palin is a refreshing civic tonic for a presidential election cycle that had become locked in a predictably tiresome battle of liberal versus conservative ideas.  She brings the kind of spirited and agile argumentation that excites Americans across the board, because it's reform-minded in ways that seem free from partisan advantage. 

So as the debate rages in the media about whether she's truly qualified to be--as the leaden-footed phrase goes--one heartbeat away from the presidency, that broad swath of anonymous Americans who capably live their lives without any help from the cultural cognoscenti, were charmed by a woman who artfully expressed her heartfelt love for America and commitment to reforming a political system that is hostile to the common good.

Media Double Standards / Obama: Relearning The Lessons of 2004

As the mainstream media continues to marginalize itself with its serialized attacks on vice-presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin, it's instructive to examine how deeply their double standard in coverage runs.  That the media is in the thrall of Obama is a monumental understatement, but their apparent ignorance of it demonstrates their low estimation of their audience's intelligence.

There's also a glaring double standard with respect to the issue of experience.  Recall that Hillary Clinton's run for the senate was made feasible due to her marriage to a former president, as opposed to the result of a long career of public service or exemplary performance in the business world.  If you don't remember being inundated by newspaper reports and news shows questioning her qualifications for that prestigious office it's because the media blanketed the issue with a stunning silence.

With the entrance of Palin, a staunch fiscal and social conservative with a the track record of an uncompromising reformer, the media has unwittingly taken and failed one of the first tests of journalism--objectivity.  Curiously, liberals have the temerity to call this charade 'vetting the candidate,' which might be humorous were it not so transparently self-indicting.  Their fear, of course, is that with her speech tonight at the Republican National Convention, she'll brilliantly acquit herself as a competent and accomplished elected official, fully capable of being second in command.

A brief comment on last evening's speeches by Fred Thompson and Joe Lieberman is in order.  Among the many highlights in Thompson's powerful speech was his remarks concerning Obama's tax increases.  The Illinois senator has said he won't raise our income taxes, only corporate taxes.  As Thompson correctly observed, that won't impact any of us unless we purchase groceries, gas, have mortgages, or shop for clothing and the like.  It's also important to recognize that since more than half of Americans own stock mutual funds, Obama's pledge to raise capital gains and dividend taxes is yet another anti-populist tactic that is alienating him from today's version of the common folk.

One of Ronald Reagan's famous observations was that government exists to serve the people, which is the opposite of the liberals' dream of government as a Leviathan with cradle to grave power over its citizens.  This is the most fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats today, which both explains and justifies the left's insatiable desire to expand it, which is nothing but a blind desire to purchase power at the voting booth.

In his speech last evening, Lieberman once again demonstrated his allegiance to nation over party, which was a theme we'll hear more of, both at the convention and as the campaign rolls on.  As he has said, he didn't leave the Democratic Party, the party left him.  He understands, as do so very few in his former party, that ours is a dangerous world where despots and tyrants will exploit their power, and all that's stopping them is the resolve of the United States, in concert with willing allies.

This was a lesson many thought they learned in 2004 when they nominated the effete liberal, John Kerry.  But, with the nomination of Obama, they once again appear fated to repeat it.

Palin: The Liberals' 'Mainstream Nightmare'

We've often turned to Arianna Huffington for relief from the rigors of intellectual discourse, to quell the episodic fear that Obama might win the election, and today's foray into her looking glass thinking once again delivers on its promise of political entertainment.

Proving that divining the center of American politics demands more acumen than artistry, Huffington tries to argue that McCain's choice of running mates illustrates poor judgment because it reflects a misunderstanding of 'mainstream':

The Republican Party is in dire electoral straits because its ideas are outside the mainstream.  And in choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has moved his ticket even further from the center of the country.

Even stipulating that the dead center of American politics has suffered a tectonic shift in the past several years, rendering liberal notions of income redistribution and an implied trust of government as the answer to our ills more plausible, this nation remains slightly right-of-center.  As such, although it's behind the moral curve with respect to abortion--that is, a majority wants to leave it up the the woman to decide whether to slaughter her baby in the womb--most find the practice of partial-birth abortion abhorrent, not to mention 'live-birth abortion,' both of which Obama voted to keep legal.

It's also the case that while most Americans believe diplomacy should be exploited and our allies consulted, they also believe we may have to militarily confront Iran to stop it from acquiring a nuclear weapon.  They certainly do not believe that Iran is a small threat, which is what Obama has stated.

Further, if you don't recall speakers at the Democrats' recent convention talking at length about 'global warming' it's because polls show that although Americans do believe in conservation and in developing alternative forms of energy, they don't support Al Gore and his minions who would hobble our economy while giving China and India a pass. You probably haven't missed the fact that seventy-five percent of Americans want to drill for more oil to reduce prices at the pump, despite the fact that Speaker Pelosi refuses to allow a vote.

Taxes are a more challenging argument because so many Americans have been erroneously told that the economy is indifferent to higher corporate income taxes, capital gains tax increases, and increases in marginal rates.  In truth, the percent of GDP consumed by government spending impacts everything from inflation to productivity to unemployment, albeit in indirect ways which are often difficult to track.

The real reason Huffington and her ilk take issue with McCain's choice of Sarah Palin is not because of her conservative ideas--they're more or less the same as Romney's and Pawlenty's--but because she happens to be a woman, one who made her reputation fighting corruption, Republican corruption.  That's a largely populist message, one that's attractive in a bipartisan way that terrifies Huffington.

Add to that picture the fact that she's the antithesis of Beltway Biden, that she and her family look much more like average Americans--with all their imperfections--than we would think a candidate running for national office ever would, and you have a formula for electoral success that is a nightmare for liberals such as Huffington.

Indeed, the truth is that the choice of Palin is exactly in the American mainstream, which is why liberals are starting to feel the election slipping from their grasp.

McCain Or Obama: Who's the Real Reform Candidate?

There's a cyclical kind of political fever that overpowers the electorate every four years, and that is the alluring notion of 'reform.'  It's attractive because in the prior four years, our elected leaders, quite regardless of party affiliation, predictably exhibit their unprecedented aptitude for inept legislative and executive decisions.  In fairness to them, it recalls Lincoln's pronouncement about the inability to please all the people all the time--regardless of what they decide, some voters will be pleased, others irritated or outright angry.

But, no candidate can fail to genuflect at the reform altar with impunity because it implies that the status quo is just fine, which, of course begs the question of why he's running for office.  So, the potency of reform can't be overestimated, which is why it's instructive to juxtapose the presidential nominees' and their choices for vice-president.

We've all been inundated by the metaphors and analogies of Senator Obama's candidacy, from his 'post-partisan' sensibility to his 'political transcendentalism,' this is a man whose vision for America is as fresh as it is inspiring, one surely to unite us around a politics of selflessness, for a goal far greater than ourselves.  These are undeniably seductive characteristics in a candidate that have brought out the best among Obama's supporters, but the central obstacle to his platform is that nothing in his personal or legislative behavior supports his lofty rhetoric.

Indeed, when we subtract the ethereal political motifs and scrutinize the record, from his disturbing two decade attendance at a church whose pastor thundered "God damn America," and accused this nation of deliberately spreading the AIDS virus to decimate blacks, to his astonishing association with William Ayers, the unrepentant domestic terrorist who just last year said he wish he had done more, not to mention Obama's Chicago cohort, convicted felon Tony Rezko, the image of the ideal presidential candidate fails to materialize. 

Add to that mix the fact that Obama's years in the Illinois legislature were remarkable only for his faithfully liberal voting record, and his two-year stint in the senate has produced no seminal legislation, and, in particular, no legislation that could be construed as reform minded.  Now comes his choice of Senator Joseph Biden, a 36-year member of Congress whose legislative accomplishments are many, but all of which reflect a reliable fealty to the standard party line, which is Beltway parlance for a reform-free agenda.

We turn now to Senator McCain, who, to put in kindly, wasn't the conservatives' first choice, because he not only challenged the party-line, he did so in ways that, at times,took liberties with the constitutional framework of American governance.  From his untoward embrace of campaign finance 'reform' to his failure to understand--or willingness to flout--the Republican position on immigration reform, to his thoroughly misinformed views on climate change,  McCain was on no conservative's short list for the Oval Office.

However, not unlike Rep. Ron Paul, whose constitutional devotion we've championed, McCain's real reform instincts ring true when it comes to spending and earmarks, as well as ethical transgressions--we call that corruption in Chicago--that seems to have infected both parties.  Indeed, we can disagree and argue about taxes, or guns, or the proper use of military power, but when the annoyingly narrow interests of our elected officials incite them to spend like inebriated mariners, and when the kind of power that Lord Acton warned could corrupt 'absolutely' leads them to break the spirit or intent of the law, that is truly a bipartisan issue that ought to raise our collective ire.

That brings us to McCain's choice for vice-president, a candidate who's entire career has been informed by a kind of political crusade against entrenched, monied interests, almost exclusively Republican, in her home state of Alaska.  Voters are now fairly well versed in her unflinching pursuit of corruption, and it's easy to see her translating that onto the national stage, playing a leadership role in calling for stricter rules of accountability and swift justice for miscreants.  She is also an unambiguous champion of fiscal conservatism and would echo McCain's calls for restraint.

So as the nation takes inventory of these two men, as well as their running mates, the partisan debate about who will keep us safer and who is best able to rekindle our economy are surely important.  But the debate about spending, which impacts everything from inflation to long-term interest rates to productivity and gross domestic product, and the nocturnal, cowardly act called earmarks--not to mention ethics reform--are truly bipartisan issues, and based on their records, the McCain-Palin ticket is the one most likely to bring us real and meaningful reform.