On ABC-TV's "Good Morning America", Bill O'Reilly gave Obama a B on jobs, a D on health care, and a C on Afghanistan.
In a nutshell, this sums some of the problems I found in my college teaching experience--other teachers and professors were giving grades students didn't deserve and had low expectations, reinforcing bad study and work habits and mediocre effort and achievement. If you think I'm taking a cheap shot, let me provide an illustrative example from my unpleasant experience as a UTEP faculty member. I was teaching a database management course (and also its prerequisite course in data structures); I soon discovered almost no one in my database class knew what a linked list (a basic data structure) was. It turned out a popular lecturer whom had taught the same courses didn't require any computer programming (or cover any data structures) in his data structures course and used the database course as an internship course with his contacts in the UTEP business community (contacts I didn't have). The department chair and other faculty didn't care or alert me to what was going on. I ran into frustrated students complaining about my unfairly requiring them to do computer assignments (after all, I was taking the easy way out or got some sadistic pleasure out of devising and grading all those computer assignments), overloading them by going over remedial data structures, and not getting them internships my first semester in El Paso: what did they ever do to deserve getting punished with a professor like me? "No good deed goes unpunished."
And most universities evaluate teacher performance by subjective scales at the end of the semester; those sometimes did not work out to my benefit. (I'll never forget this one student whom angrily wrote, "I learned more in Dr. Guillemette's course than in any other class. But he doesn't deserve any of the credit, because I did it all on my own." He was clueless that he had just paid me the biggest compliment a college professor could ever hope to hear (and most never do). I really didn't care what bubble he filled in on that mark-sense form.)
Going back to Bill O'Reilly's wildly-inflated grades: giving Obama a grade of B on jobs when he failed his own benchmark for his so-called stimulus legislation of capping unemployment at 8%--2 points below the current rate? Well, maybe it's all those months when the economy gained more jobs than it lost--whoops! Maybe it's all those business tax and regulatory reforms or savings and investment incentives in the original stimulus bill--whoops! It's not like in the middle of a recession he's proposing a new energy tax or penalties to business and individuals whom don't want to participate in a rigged federal health insurance market--whoops! It's not like he's calling for raising the effective tax burden on small business owners (e.g., expiring Bush tax cuts)--whoops! It's not like he's been trying to micromanage executive salaries in the private sector or discourage corporate lending by subjugating their claims to assets over lower-standing crony union interests--whoops! Maybe it's all those job-related bills Obama has introduced over the past 6 months while unemployment has been shooting up, diligently adhering to James Carville's winning slogan in 1992: "It's the economy, stupid!"--whoops!
Health care "reform"? Oh, now we know what the Bill O'Reilly criterion is (and he repeats it during the interview several times, in case we didn't get the point the first time): he needs to understand it, and he doesn't. Now he does understand energy supply/demand "speculators", but not a 2000-page health care bill. Who cares that Tennessee, Hawaii, Oregon, Massachusetts and others have come up with their own programs, and they've typically run over budget or require some sort of filtering or rationing (maybe the main difference is that the federal Democrats can simply order the printing presses to pay for their programs...) What makes the national Democrats so confident they can do on the federal level what Democrats have failed to achieve on the state level? And with the government already spending 46% of health care dollars, we are confident government is not part of the problem? And with Medicare reserves all but gone, and Democrats rarely finding any Medicare expenses to cut over the past 40 years, we are led to believe they've suddenly had a Eureka moment, discovering billions in savings? And the motive for all this "reform" is a small proportion of people whom decide NOT to buy health insurance, even though they can (because they don't like paying the middlemen)?
You know, we don't argue that the government should be in the grocery business with a "public option" providing necessary competition to the private sector; we basically subsidize food expenses for poor people (i.e., food stamps). Yet in terms of dealing with guaranteed issue problems, we are not simply talking about subsidizing their health care insurance costs--we are talking about creating new federal bureaucracies standing between doctors and their patients.... And not a single Democrat is standing up and asking "Why?" Neither is Bill O'Reilly...
Oh, don't get me started on Afghanistan. Bill O'Reilly thinks all this talk about a withdrawal is just talk--that Obama is not really going to leave if conditions deteriorate... (Of course, being a reporter, maybe he should have done some background research on Obama and discovered that Obama similarly pushed for an unconditional withdrawal from Iraq in early 2007...) He's not an "ideologue", after all. Thanks, Bill; I've been called a lot of things, but not an "ideologue"; I've backed pragmatic Republican candidates, bipartisan efforts (e.g., immigration reform), etc. But when during the election campaign Obama was very aggressive on Afghanistan, called it the "real war", picked his own military leaders to devise a military strategy and then not only comes down on the side of a higher-risk, smaller-footprint strategy for a surge but discusses a withdrawal before a single additional soldier has been sent to Afghanistan. Does O'Reilly really believe that if the Afghanistan surge has problems, given an unpopular war, Obama is going to confront his anti-war base by reneging on a promise to withdraw? I have no doubt that Obama already has a rationale for withdrawal, starting with an allegedly corrupt Afghan government.
I myself am not a hawk on Afghanistan; but one of the reasons I supported George Will's position (on withdrawing ground forces) was the concern that Obama would politically triangulate a surge--which is exactly what he did. You either fully support the surge, or you don't do the surge; you don't stretch American troops too thin for a surge operation.
Obama Stimulus Bill II: The Sequel
Simply put: Not a chance! Yet another stimulus bill, trying to use TARP funds, backing off the originally-stated commitments to replenish the Treasury, just as credit bureaus are beginning to question the US government's credit rating because of this past year's unprecedented federal deficit? What's this about more "shovel-ready" infrastructure spending? (If there are some shovels ready, how about sending them to the White House Briefing Room?) Now I'm empathetic to legitimate infrastructure spending, but the question is, if it's legitimate, why wasn't it included in the original stimulus bill? Why not throw good money after bad? Gimmick tax incentives? Generally speaking, economists tell us consumers and businesses will not make long-term decisions based on things like limited-term (versus permanent) tax incentives, etc., and Obama typically tends to highly restrict incentives to business, which limits the potential scope of their effectiveness. When we deal with taxes, it's better to err on the side of simplicity. After all, big businesses also hire people; why should we care if the new employer is a small or a big business?
Political Cartoon
My favorite cartoonist, IBD's Michael Ramirez, does it again. After all those weeks of dithering, Obama finally places his order: "Surge lite, to go, please!"
Christmas Musical Interlude: Neil Diamond's "Morning Has Broken"
This is a fabulous version of a traditional Christian hymn popularized by Cat Stevens in the early 1970's and included years later in Neil Diamond's first Christmas album. Diamond's distinctive baritone vocals and the backing choir are magnificent. (Full disclosure: I purchased copies of both albums.) Why was this song included on a Christmas album? Some people may not realize the melody comes from a Christmas song called "Child in the Manger" (cf. lyrics below). I've included a link to Sarah Brightman's version of the song below (via lala.com) I licensed a copy of Sarah's version after hearing it one time: simply glorious!
Sarah Brightman: "Child in the Manger"
Child in the manger, Infant of Mary
Outcast and stranger, Lord of all
Child who inherits
All our transgressions
All our demerits on Him fall
Once the most holy
Child of salvation
Genlty and lowly,lived below
Now as our glorios Mighty Redeemer
See Him victorios
O'er each foe
Prophets foretold Him
Infant of wonder
Angels behold Him On His throne
Worthy our Savior
Of all our praises
Happy forever
Are His own
