He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
Albert Einstein
Are Progressives On Drugs?
Hillary's Paranoia About Right-Wing Conspiracy Run Amok:
The GOP Is "Sabotaging" the Economy?
The delusional progressive netroots along with mainstream media, have been advocating a preposterous, logically incoherent, totally unsupportable thesis that the GOP not only is the "Party of No" but has resorted to "sabotage" Obama, the Congressional Democrats and the economy for political purposes.
First of all, it is true that Congressional Republicans have opposed a number of initiatives by Obama and Congressional Democrats, particularly legislation such as ObamaCare and financial reform. That had to do with the nature (government expansion) and extent (cost) of the highly partisan legislation itself. There was no real attempt by the Democrats to compromise, primarily because in the 111th Congress they had the numbers to pass virtually any piece of legislation, especially after Specter defected, giving the Senate Democrats a filibuster-proof majority. Republican amendments were routinely turned down on a party-line basis. It should be noted on several major bills (including these and climate change), dozens of conservative House Democrats opposed the final bills
The fact is that the Democrats themselves point to 43 major bills passed; on several occasions (e.g., the stimulus bill, financial reform, unemployment compensation, the START treaty, federal judge appointments, and repeal of don't ask, don't tell) multiple GOP Senators broke ranks to vote with the majority, while the minority had to vote unanimously just to sustain a filibuster. We have to remember that Obama had over a 60% approval rating, Democratic pundit James Carville was talking about the GOP being out of power for two generations. There was a risk Republicans took in opposing the agenda of a popular new President: they had every reason, if for no other reason than political survival and relevance, to find some middle ground. Obama, Pelosi and Reid decided that "elections have consequences" to justify ramming partisan bills down the Republicans' throat.
The problem for the Democrats, when they marginalize the opposition like that and play games of political hardball, is that they have to accept full responsibility for their agenda, and their majority is only as strong as their next election. The Democrats never compromised on anything, beyond the divide in their own party between ideological progressives and the more centrist Blue Dogs, and the progressives had the numbers. What goes around, comes around; Obama and the Democrats were in the minority for much of the preceding decade; they made super-majorities for judicial appointments a de facto standard, not a Constitutional requirement, a gross, unconscionable minority abuse of power and privilege. By what standard of hypocrisy do they have the right to criticize the Republicans, virtually shut out of the legislative process, for using the filibuster, when it was their only real leverage to force Democrats to negotiate? In fact, the Democrats knew exactly what they were doing: they could propose whatever they wanted, knowing the GOP had no choice but to filibuster: they could put any progressive wishlist item into a bill and then tell their progressive allies they tried to pass a "better" bill, but the obstructionist Republicans got in the way.
Thus, this has always been a phony issue, and no matter how much the progressives bitch about the Republicans not capitulating to their one-sided legislation, they know it; all they are doing is political spin. I mean, this is like a heavyweight boxer fighting a flyweight and then trying to come up with an excuse for not knocking him out--"oh, he was tied up in the ropes all the time". Listen, if you are a taller, heavier, stronger fighter with a longer reach, and you can't take out the flyweight, don't go to Mommy crying that the flyweight wasn't fighting fair and square; he was simply doing his job. Democrats always have an advantage--they are always trying to tax, spend and regulate--it's the only thing they know how to do; the job of the Republicans is to limit the damage to our economic system caused by the shock of well-intended but grossly counterproductive changes of Democratic progressive initiatives.
Conservatives are NOT defenders of crony capitalists; we believe in traditional American individualism and values. My maternal grandfather, a mom-and-pop grocery owner in Massachusetts, just beyond the east Rhode Island border, was a Republican with a typical New England independent attitude (for example, he was proud of his social security checks). When we look at progressive proposals, we worry about things like moral hazard, opportunity costs, undue, unfair competition of government in funding and resources, overextended commitments to scarce tax revenues and hidden business costs (through mandates, constraints on business--how they hire people, etc.); assuming a legitimate public interest, we have to ask whether it is better, more efficiently served at the state or municipal level; and if it is a federal issue, we need to ensure, because of our limited revenues, that the criteria are tightened, the impact of any relevant government burden on business and citizens be as minimal as possible, and fairly administered, to ensure the most efficient, effective outcome. What is fairly clear to anyone whom has ever completed his or her own taxes or known that the Democrats in the 111th Congress started passing 2000-page bills, negotiated on the fly through backroom deals including the Cornhusker Kickback, Gator-Aid, and the Louisiana Purchase, it's all but impossible to measure, short of smoke and mirrors accounting.
Second, the progressives/liberals accuse us of wanting to sabotage Obama. NONSENSE! WE DON'T BELIEVE IN THROWING GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD. WE KNOW HIS POLICIES HAVEN'T WORKED (e.g., the stimulus) AND WON'T WORK IN THE FUTURE. If we thought any idea he ever came up with was a good idea for the country, that it would actually work, and be cost-effective, we would support it.
This attack seems to be motivated by a couple of poorly stated opinions by other conservatives (i.e., Rush Limbaugh) that they hope that Obama fails. Let me restate what I thought was obvious: they are not saying that they hope that passed legislation like ObamaCare or financial reform fails. We always hope for the best in new laws, but we have seen billions spent on the war of poverty over the past few decades and what have we seen come of it? Ongoing poverty, high unemployment, crime-ridden neighborhoods, single-parent homes, sky-high dropout rates, etc. (The predictable liberal response: we didn't spend quite as much as we should have.) Rather, they KNOW these programs will be ineffective and unsustainable (for some of the reasons I've discussed above). So they hoped his legislative agenda would fail for whatever political reason.
Do we hope that Obama will be defeated for reelection? Of course. It's not personal: it's the economy, stupid. We have seen Obama's "leadership". We deserve better.
The Tony Bennett 9/11 Kerfuffle: Some Comments
Stern then asked Bennett about how America should deal with terrorists, specifically those responsible for the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.Before proceeding , let me note that Bennett later gave what I consider to be a half-apology:
“But who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Bennett said.
In a soft-spoken voice, the singer disagreed with Stern’s premise that 9/11 terrorists’ actions led to U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“They flew the plane in, but we caused it,” Bennett responded. “Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”
There is simply no excuse for terrorism and the murder of the nearly 3,000 innocent victims of the 9/11 attacks on our country. My life experiences -- ranging from the Battle of the Bulge to marching with Martin Luther King -- made me a lifelong humanist and pacifist, and reinforced my belief that violence begets violence and that war is the lowest form of human behavior I am sorry if my statements suggested anything other than an expression of my love for my country, my hope for humanity and my desire for peace throughout the world.Let me point out that his statement does not recant the provocative assertion that the US "caused 9/11" and, being a blatantly prepared statement, lacks a certain authenticity. One could easily infer a consistent restatement which says: "Even though we provoked them, they shouldn't have responded like they did, attacking innocent people: two wrongs don't make a right. I'm sorry if you were offended by how I talked about my point of view."
First of all, it is false we provoked Al Qaeda; the 1996 declaration of war against the US specifically made reference to American military bases in Saudi Arabia. Recall that Saudi Arabia during the lead up to the first Gulf War was being threatened by Saddam Hussein's forces occupying nearby Kuwait, within easy striking range of Saudi oil fields. King Fahd requested American military assistance. The deadly Khobar Tower attacks were unprovoked as well as the attacks two years later on US embassies (Kenya, Tanzania), on the anniversary of US troop arrivals in Saudi Arabia. After the bin Laden killing, there was a confiscated tape from a late May 1998 news conference where bin Laden clearly references jihad or war against the crusaders (i.e., the Western democracies, led by the US).
Yes, the US did respond to the embassy bombings with cruise missile attacks in Afghanistan and Sudan two weeks later. It is true that the cruise missile counterattacks were considered ineffective, and many international sources felt it was disproportionate and wrongly focused.
But here's the point I want to stress: there is no question that anyone who does anything wrong feels that he or she has just cause to do whatever they do. That doesn't mean we have to accept their rationale. There is no doubt many Muslims feel strongly about non-believers near their holy sites. Presumably the Clinton Administration was aware of this sensitivity. I was sharply critical in the 1990's of Clinton's use of the military which consisted primarily of the Air Force and cruise missiles. Thus, I was struck by the hypocrisy of progressive critics in claiming that Bush was creating terrorists with his occupation of Iraq: consider Clinton's own convoluted responses to the embassy bombings and the USS Cole.
I treat people like Tony Bennett the same as I do with Ron Paul. I have no problem with agreeing with them on the need to get disentangled from unnecessary places with limited strategic importance. But when Ron Paul similarly plays the devil's advocate, I lose my patience; it's enough simply to call into question the strategic relevance of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. What happened on 9/11 was a deliberate attack on innocent civilians--not collateral damage done in the pursuit of Al Qaeda.
Bennett also claims (denied by Bush personnel) that Bush admitted to him the liberation of Iraq had been a mistake. It's possible Bush admitted that he made some questionable calls during the subsequent occupation of Iraq, but I seriously doubt he ever questioned his core reasons.
I still can't explain the missing WMD. Perhaps he got rid of them before the US invasion to discredit the US, much like a junkie flushes his drugs down the toilet when he knows the police are coming. But since mustard gas and other WMD stockpiles had existed after the first Gulf War, it made no sense for Hussein to kick inspectors out of the country, when verified compliance would liberate his country from sanctions.
I will conclude with a separate observation. iTunes has an excellent Smithsonian Channel special on 9/11: Day That Changed the World, still available (as of this date) for free download. There's an interesting little clip where former counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke talks about curious exchange he had with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld. He claims by then they knew it was an Al Qaeda operation because they had identified the terrorists among flight passengers.He said that Rumsfeld started talking about bombing Iraq; why? Because there aren't that many targets in Afghanistan. Rumsfeld responds to a related question by noting that since 1998 we had had a policy encouraging regime change (the overthrow of Saddam Hussein).
I always thought that the case for the liberation of Iraq was rather weak, but I didn't have access to the intelligence that the President had. Yes, Saddam Hussein was a war criminal, but then we didn't overthrow Stalin, Pol Pot, and others. I think we need to apply the same cautions to military intervention overseas as we should to domestic economic intervention by the federal government.
In other words, I understand where Tony Bennett and Ron Paul are coming from, but I think you can make the point without serving as an apologist for America's enemies or judging our leaders given the poor state of intelligence they had access to.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Fleetwood Mac, "Say That You Love Me". Another Christine McVie classic. Perfect pop music; flawless vocal performance.
