Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
William Butler Yeats
Podcast Rant of the Day
A female listener comments on the Pied Piper of So-Called Conservatives (my nickname for the winner of the SC GOP primary, whom I've nominated, in the spirit of the just announced Oscar nominations, as Most Likely to Play the Pillsbury Dough Boy in a Live-Action Film and Most Likely GOP Candidate to Lose to Obama). The audio clip is courtesy of the Dennis Miller Show, available as the date of this post. I made a more comprehensive critique of Gingrich in Monday's post, but (I write this primarily in the event the audio clip becomes unavailable in the future) the woman comments that she initially like Gingrich but has lately found his character and temperament troubling, particularly Gingrich's transparent thin skin and his motivation to get even. I concluded my commentary saying "I mean, what's he going to do or say if and when [a foreign leader treats him disrespectfully]? I don't want that guy within 100 yards of the red button; he can't even handle mild criticism. It comes with the territory; you need thick skin; you got to shake it off like water on a duck's back."
I just listened to the video podcast of Gregory's interview with Newt Gingrich on Sunday's Meet the Press. Among other things, Gingrich slams Romney as being an inferior debater having no alternative but to resort to ad hominem attacks, unable to win a high school debate, never mind stand up to Obama. This is coming from a career politician whom has lost almost every head-to-head poll matchup against Obama (whose approval ratings have been in the lower 40's, bad territory), openly suggested that he had the nomination wrapped up before finishing fourth and fifth in the first two contests, has net disapproval ratings himself, saw his senior campaign staff desert him early in the campaign, and has few major endorsements, even from Congressional Republicans whom have served with or under him.
In fact, I think Romney, who like Obama has a Harvard law degree, is a better debater than Gingrich, whom seems more interested in attacking moderators rather than answering questions directly and his anti-capitalist rants against Romney's role at Bain Capital verge on heresy: no real "Reagan conservative" would have ever said or did any such thing.
A lot of resistance of my fellow conservatives has to do with Romney's legendary flip-flops, particularly on the topic of abortion. Keep in mind that Romney was a novice candidate in 1994 going up against Ted Kennedy, whom had never lost a statewide election since he won his brother's Senate seat after JFK became President. Ted Kennedy, a nominal Roman Catholic, was a zealous promoter of abortion rights (the Catholic Church has always considered abortion a grave sin, even when a few theologians accepted Aristotle's flawed theory of ensoulment). Romney knew that if Ted Kennedy was allowed to turn his reelection into a litmus test of abortion in a very liberal state, Romney had little chance of winning. So he tried to co-opt Kennedy on the issue by arguing what most Catholic Democrats, almost universally for abortion rights, do: they don't want to impose their personal beliefs on public policy. Ann Coulter's current column "Re-elect Obama: Vote Gingrich" has an interesting anecdote of how the Kennedy campaign furiously attempted to prove that they were the "real" abortion choice campaign:
Nonetheless, Kennedy ran a campaign commercial against him featuring a Mormon woman complaining that Romney, as a Mormon elder, had pressured her not to have an abortion, but to give the child up for adoption. Are you getting the idea that Massachusetts is different from the rest of America, readers?...As governor of liberal, pro-choice Massachusetts, he vetoed an embryonic stem cell bill. Gingrich, who has run for office only in a small, majority Republican, undoubtedly pro-life congressional district, lobbied President Bush to support embryonic stem cell research.Ann Coulter also exposes the hypocrisy of my fellow Tea Party members upset by ObamaCare with its individual mandate position. I recently commented about the GOP's attempts to derail HillaryCare with an approach similar to what Romney faced when it looked that the Democrats were about to pass their own version of HillaryCare in Massachusetts: "For those of you who still think Romneycare is the worst possible sin a Republican candidate could commit, that doesn’t help Gingrich: He supported Romneycare..As former Senator Rick Santorum has pointed out, Gingrich supported a FEDERAL individual mandate to purchase health insurance from 1993 until a “Meet the Press” appearance just last May."
It looks like Gingrich's post-SC bounce may already be starting to recede; the last 4 polls I've seen from Florida range from a tie to up to an 8-point Romney lead. Gingrich has a 3-point lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll and a bigger lead in Rasmussen (but I have some concerns with a number of Rasmussen polls). I have confidence that GOP voters will decide that the electability argument matters, that Gingrich's lack of executive experience, his baggage, and defensive, erratic behavior are unsuitable for the nation's highest office.
US v Jones: 9-0: Thumbs UP!
A Baby Step Towards Reestablishing Privacy Rights
This basically involves a situation where a suspected drug dealer Antoine Jones was caught in part due to the use of a GPS device attached to a household car under an expired warrant. What is particularly interesting about this unanimous decision ruling that law enforcement had violated the defendant's fourth amendment rights were contrasting approaches to the decision. Justice Alito thought that the majority opinion focused too narrowly on a trespass charge. Advancements in technology have transformed traditional boundaries of privacy: sophisticated listening devices and video technology can be intrusive. There's a relevant discussion among the libertarians below which point out, for example, the issues focus around property as an unalienable right (and consider the fact that many cellphones allow for relevant tracking).
Like Justice Alito, I'm concerned about government scope creep without due process in restricting individual rights. I have made it clear in my opposition to certain provisions in the Patriot Act where individuals can find their rights compromised in "whatever it takes" in response to politically motivated, over-hyped threats to public safety.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
Queen, "You're My Best Friend"
