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Embracing defeat

Posted by Richard on April 20, 2007

Any day now, I expect Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Shadow Secretary of State) and Sen. Harry Reid (Shadow Secretary of Defense) to announce that they're heading for an undisclosed location in the Middle East to meet with representatives of Syria, Iran, al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Mahdi Army. Their purpose? To begin negotiating the terms of surrender for the United States.

I think Rob at Say Anything has their number:

So Harry thinks the war is lost.  Today anyway.  But just three days ago Reid was still talking about giving the troops a “strategy for success” and giving the troops “every penny” they need.

Which is it?  Are we going to try to be successful in Iraq or are we just going to give up and come home?

I think the answer for the Democrats is “neither.” They aren’t interested in trying to win the war in Iraq (as evidenced by Harry’s declaration of defeat above) nor are they interested in withdrawing gracefully. …

The Democrats want nothing less than a full-scale defeat and embarrassment for the President in Iraq, because that’s what will help them the most politically.  They want that, and they don’t care how many troops have to die to get it.

Burning Zeal and Judicious Asininity thought along the same lines about the undermining of morale, comparing Reid's declaration of defeat to Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw Haw, respectively.

Engram at Back Talk has a marvelous post entitled "When al Qaeda talks…" You really need to read the whole thing, but I can't resist quoting this gem:

I wish al Qaeda would directly attach puppet strings to Harry Reid so they could make him say these things without having to kill 200 innocent Iraqis every few weeks. It would be much more efficient that way.

You ought to read Jed Babbin's new column, too. For a lighter take, you can always count on ScrappleFace: "Reid Supports the Troops Who Lost the War"

But the best counterpoint to Reid's contemptible claim comes, naturally, from a Milblogger in Iraq, SSG Thul (I'm quoting almost the whole post because it's too good to excerpt; but click the link anyway, check out his blog, and maybe leave a note of thanks in the comments):

This is the creme de la creme of what the Appeal For Courage is all about. The leader of the majority party of the United States Senate has proclaimed to the world that the war in Iraq is lost. Done. Over. So what the heck are we still doing here then? Why isn't he making plans to fly us home tomorrow?

Oh yeah, that's right, because we haven't lost the war. In point of fact, we are winning the war, though you would never know it from what the media reports. Here in my room, I have a small TV that stays perpetually on the AFN news channel. CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, and Fox are all represented. Yet from none of these news sources have I heard even a peep about the fact that the Coalition yesterday announced the transfer of security responsibilities of the 4th Iraqi province to the Iraqi government. Instead we hear about the wave of bombings in Baghdad. Not one of the anchors that are interviewing the 'live from the Green Zone' reporters has apparently taken notice of the fact that the reporters are no longer wearing body armor.

So you might ask how we can be winning the war when all you see on TV news is reports of bombings and death squads and such. The answer is simple. All of those reports come out of Baghdad itself. There are no reporters out here in the provinces. In nearly 13 months, I have seen one reporter here at Al Asad, and that was a gentleman from 60 Minutes who has been following our brigade from training through deployment to Iraq.

The name of this blog comes from the oath I swore when I enlisted in the Army. I will support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And though I don't consider Sen. Reid an enemy, he surely is not an ally. He is heading a group of politicians who are actively trying to undermine the war effort, and would prefer that we lose the war to further their own political ends. They want to set a timeline for military withdrawal to coincide with the 2008 elections. To further his political career, he is intentionally putting my soldiers and I more at risk.

According to Sen Reid's logic, we would have surrendered to the Germans in December of 1944. During the Battle of the Bulge, the German Army nearly broke the Allied front, and the US suffered one of the highest casualty counts for any battle of the war in Europe. Yet less than 6 months later, the war was over, with Germany surrendering unconditionally.

According to Sen Reid's logic, President Lincoln should have surrendered to the Confederacy in the spring of 1864. The battles of Cold Harbor and the Wilderness, on top of the costly victory at Gettysburg the summer before, were proportionally much worse than the recent suicide bombing campaign in Baghdad. Yet just a year after Cold Harbor, the Confederacy was a footnote in history.

I can only hope that the American people at home will trust the soldiers on the ground instead of the politicians trying to advance their careers. If we can hang on long enough to win the war, it will be a tough time to be a Democrat in America. Stabbing the troops in the back during a war will be hard to live down.

Bravo, Sergeant! Bless your noble heart, stay safe, and know that many here at home support you and your mission and have the utmost admiration for and confidence in our troops.

The Appeal for Courage that the Sergeant mentioned is something I blogged about last month. If you're active duty military, Reserve, or National Guard, please go there and sign up.

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The Wright precedent

Posted by Richard on April 18, 2007

At least one Democrat has already called on his party to dump Nancy Pelosi for its own good. Jerry Zeifman served as House Judiciary Committee counsel for 17 years and was its chief of staff during the Nixon impeachment. He thinks Pelosi is bad for the country and bad for his party (emphasis added):

On April 6, a Washington Post editorial aptly described Mrs. Pelosi's trip to Demascus as a "pratfall," which the dictionary defines as "a fall in which one lands on the buttocks, often regarded as comical or humiliating."

In my view that word was a discrete understatement. As a lifelong Democrat and former congressional chief counsel I regard her conduct as an unconstitutional abuse of power that warrants her removal by our Democratic caucus.

As I previously noted in my NewsMax article of April 7, she persistently fosters what Thomas Jefferson denounced as "tyranny by the majority," and violates House rules that give her the duty to maintain order, civility, and decorum, and to foster "comity" (a word rarely used these days, meaning "mutual respect").

Her trip to Damascus was more than a blunder. In denying President Bush's request as well purporting falsely to Speak for Israel it was a usurpation of presidential power.

As a result of her defiance of the president, Democrat Leon Panetta, the former chief of staff to President Clinton, cautioned in the April 2 New York Times that if the Democrats "go into total confrontation mode on other than [domestic issues] . . . that's a recipe for losing seats in the next election."

Zeifman remembered another failed Democratic Speaker of the House:

The prior history of Democratic Speaker Jim Wright is now being repeated by Nancy Pelosi.

After Wright became speaker, five South American presidents had agreed on a peace plan which the Reagan administration vigorously opposed. Anti-Sandinistas and contra hardliners became incensed when they learned that Speaker Wright had secretly sat in on a meeting between Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega and Cardinal Miguel Obando y Bravo the Catholic leader being asked to mediate the peace. Then House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich began filing numerous accusations in the Ethics Committee of malfeasance by Wright. In the end the House Democratic caucus determined that Wright had lost his effectiveness as speaker and compelled him to resign.

Zeifman may be right about Pelosi reprising the role of Wright. But who's going to play Gingrich's part?

Once again, the lack of real leadership among the Republican leadership is manifest. Decent Democrats like Zeifman have to step forward and take the stands that Republicans lack the courage, will, and sense of purpose to take. Pitiful.

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“Blood on their hands”

Posted by Richard on March 29, 2007

Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward had harsh words for the senators who voted for retreat and surrender in Iraq:

The senators who voted to undercut our troops have blood on their hands — the blood of U.S. troops who will die from attacks by terrorists who will be emboldened by the Senate's cowardice," said Melanie Morgan, Chairman of Move America Forward.

"Our troops on the ground in the middle of a war don't need to have their missions' undermined by some armchair generals in Washington, D.C. If these senators won't stand behind our men and women on the frontlines, then perhaps they would prefer to stand in front of them," Morgan said.

Senate Republicans, led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, failed in their attempt to remove a March 31, 2008 "surrender date" from a bill funding U.S. military operations.
…

"Setting a date for withdrawal is like sending a memo to our enemies that tells them to rest, refit, and re-plan until the day we leave," McConnell said during debate on the bill.

He also said the consequences of having U.S. troops "walk away" will be devastating: "a Sunni minority exposed to the whims of the Shia majority, ethnic cleansing, and regional instability."
…

The Senate vote sends a message to terrorists that they are winning and that congressional leaders "lack the will and resolve to win the war on terrorism," said Melanie Morgan of Move America Forward.

She said her group is launching a national advertising campaign that will single out those who "seek to undermine support for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."

To the Democrats, emboldening the terrorists, discouraging the Middle East's advocates of freedom and modernity, and encouraging ethnic cleansing are small prices to pay for the opportunity to force a U.S. retreat just in time for the 2008 election season.

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House passes gradual retreat bill

Posted by Richard on March 23, 2007

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership's Gradual Retreat Caucus prevailed today, passing their $124 billion military spending bill by a vote of 218-212. The bill establishes a timetable for withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq by September 2008. It was opposed by Republicans and initially by the Democrats' Immediate Surrender Caucus, which wanted to cut off all funding for the Iraq conflict, presumably supposing that the troops there now could hitch rides home.

The Bush administration wanted $100 billion in military spending authorization. The remaining $24 billion is for pork projects added by the Democratic leadership to buy the Immediate Surrender Caucus votes they needed for passage. Yes, these are the same Democrats who owe their 2006 election success largely to voters' disgust with out-of-control pork-barrel spending, influence peddling, vote buying, …

Someone ought to crunch the numbers and compare the average pork per district needed to enforce party discipline on the Democratic side of the aisle versus the Republicans side. My first thought was that the Democrats' votes can probably be bought more cheaply. But then it occurred to me that Democrats spend tax dollars somewhat more freely, so the pork price might be bid up more easily. Clearly, it's a complex dynamic at work. Maybe some academic can get a government grant to look into it.

 

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Timetables are bad

Posted by Richard on March 15, 2007

At least on one issue, one Republican leader is showing a bit of spine and spunk. Sen. Mitch McConnell, speaking on the Senate floor yesterday, forcefully rejected the Reid Resolution (which calls for troop withdrawals to begin in 4 months, with all combat troops out of Iraq within a year). McConnell reminded the Democrats that they once rejected as foolish the course they now want to impose (emphasis added):

"This is the memo our enemies have been waiting for.

"Osama Bin Laden and his followers have repeatedly said that the U.S. does not have the stomach for a long fight with the terrorists. Passage of the Reid Joint Resolution will be the first concrete sign since Sept. 11, 2001, that he was right on target.

"Timetables are bad. But don't just take my word for it.

"Speaking at the National Press Club in 2005, my good friend the Majority Leader himself said this: ‘As for setting a timeline, as we learned in the Balkans, that's not a wise decision, because it only empowers those who don't want us there, and it doesn't work well to do that.'

"Six months after that, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden, said this: ‘A deadline for pulling out … will only encourage our enemies to wait us out' … it would be ‘a Lebanon in 1985. And God knows where it goes from there.' That was our friend, Joe Biden, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"And three months later, Senator Clinton made the same point when she said, ‘I don't believe it's smart to set a date for withdrawal,' said Senator Clinton. ‘I don't think you should ever telegraph your intentions to the enemy so they can await you.' "That's the Majority Leader, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and a prominent Democrat presidential candidate.

"Surely Senators Reid, Biden, and Clinton have not changed their minds about who would benefit the most if we set a date certain for withdrawal. They know just as well as I do that this is what the terrorists have been waiting for – and just what our allies in Iraq, and the entire region of the world have feared.

"Setting a date certain for withdrawal will send a chill up the spine of every Iraqi who has dared to stand with America. Millions of good men and women have helped us in this fight. Since we arrived in Iraq, nearly 120,000 Iraqis have volunteered to serve in their army. More than 8,000 Iraqis have died in uniform to defend the fledgling Democracy over there. And recently, in Anbar province, we're told that roughly 1,000 Sunnis volunteered for the police force over a period of a couple weeks.

"These brave men and women, Mr. President, are watching what we do here: They know, as we do, that chaos will engulf Iraq and the rest of the region on that day. They know they and their families will likely face a firing squad soon after we leave. And the message we send them with this resolution is this: good luck. 

Thank you, Sen. McConnell, for reminding your colleagues that there are many, many lives at stake.

If the Democrats have their way on Iraq, not only will U.S. interests and the long-term prospects for world peace be severely damaged, but — just in case it matters to the self-styled humanitarians on the left — there will likely be a bloodbath in Iraq to rival what happened in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge.

Of course, the left pretty much tried to ignore that one, too.

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Clinton chutzpah, continued

Posted by Richard on March 15, 2007

Today, Rush Limbaugh echoed practically everything I said in Clinton chutzpah, including the suggestion that Sen. Clinton pledge not to fire any U.S. Attorneys if elected President. He quoted extensively from today's excellent Wall Street Journal editorial, which argued that any inquiry into "the politicization of our prosecutorial system" should call Hillary and her good friend Web Hubbell as the star witnesses:

As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno–or Mr. Hubbell–gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.

At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.

The Journal noted the troubling connection to the Rostenkowski investigation that I mentioned, but they remembered another potential motive that I'd forgotten:

Also at the time, allegations concerning some of the Clintons' Whitewater dealings were coming to a head. By dismissing all 93 U.S. Attorneys at once, the Clintons conveniently cleared the decks to appoint "Friend of Bill" Paula Casey as the U.S. Attorney for Little Rock. Ms. Casey never did bring any big Whitewater indictments, and she rejected information from another FOB, David Hale, on the business practices of the Arkansas elite including Mr. Clinton. When it comes to "politicizing" Justice, in short, the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons.

And it may be this very amateurism that explains how the current Administration has managed to turn this routine issue of replacing Presidential appointees into a political fiasco. There was nothing wrong with replacing the eight Attorneys, all of whom serve at the President's pleasure. Prosecutors deserve supervision like any other executive branch appointees.

It's not just amateurism and ineptness. I saw Attorney General Gonzales being grilled by George Stephanopoulos, and I heard clips of him being hammered by Matt Lauer. Inept certainly describes his performance in both interviews, but there's a deeper problem, and it's endemic throughout the Republican leadership. When they're attacked by Democrats or especially the media, no matter how unfair or nasty or easily refuted the attack is, the Republicans' first impulse seems to be to cower and grovel. "Please don't hate me! I'm not a bad person, really I'm not!"

Today's Democrats are perpetually outraged. Today's Republicans are perpetually apologetic. 

The Journal went on to describe some of the background to the firings. It sounds like McKay of Washington state and Iglesias of New Mexico should have been sacked long ago. The less clear-cut cases — policy differences over the death penalty, disputed managerial skills, and the like — rate a shrug, followed by "It's the President's call."

When Democrats and the media started trying to make a fuss about these firings, Republicans should have been falling all over each other to call press conferences and get in front of microphones. They should have expressed outrage that Democrats would try to interfere with the President's prerogatives regarding these appointments. They should have been contemptuous of these absurd calls for investigations. They should have cried, "How dare you, Sen. Clinton!"

The current GOP leadership consists primarily of spineless wusses with a Rodney King approach to politics: "Can't we all just get along?" No, we can't. And nobody's going to stand by you if you won't stand up for yourselves.

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Clinton chutzpah

Posted by Richard on March 14, 2007

Shortly after Bill Clinton took office, every single U.S. Attorney was forced to resign. It's not unusual for most of them to be replaced gradually by a new administration (George H.W. Bush replaced most of Reagan's U.S. Attorneys). But the Clinton administration's sudden clean sweep was, I believe, unprecedented (but replicated by Clinton elsewhere; remember the White House Travel Office?).

There was at least some speculation at the time about the reason (from the March 24, 1993 New York Times, emphasis added):

Attorney General Janet Reno today demanded the prompt resignation of all United States Attorneys, leading the Federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia to suggest that the order could be tied to his long-running investigation of Representative Dan Rostenkowski, a crucial ally of President Clinton.

Jay B. Stephens, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, who is a Bush Administration holdover, said he had advised the Justice Department that he was within 30 days of making a "critical decision" in the Rostenkowski case when Ms. Reno directed him and other United States Attorneys to submit their resignations, effective in a matter of days.

While prosecutors are routinely replaced after a change in Administration, Ms. Reno's order accelerated what had been expected to be a leisurely changeover.

Says He Won't Resist

At a news conference today only hours after one by Ms. Reno, Mr. Stephens said he would not resist the Attorney General's move to force him from office, and he held back from directly accusing her of interfering with the Rostenkowski inquiry.

But Mr. Stephens left the strong impression that Ms. Reno's actions might disrupt the investigation as he moved toward a decision on whether to seek charges against the Illinois Democrat, who is chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Stephens didn't resist because he no doubt knew that U.S. Attorneys, like all political appointees, serve "at the pleasure of the President." Today, many people in the Democratic Party and its public relations arm, the mainstream media, are either unfamiliar with that phrase or believe it has a different definition when a Republican is President.

Given that bit of history from 1993, it takes some nerve for Sen. Hillary Clinton to posture like this:

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) is calling on President Bush to explain the firings of US attorneys, days after the White House admitted that White House adviser Karl Rove acted as a conduit for complaints about federal prosecutors.

"With the White House now acknowledging a direct role in the Justice Department's U.S. Attorney firings, the president must affirmatively step forward to explain what he is doing to address the politicization of our prosecutorial system and what role he and his aides played in this controversy," Clinton said in a statement sent to RAW STORY.
…

"It is imperative that the president act swiftly to explain what role the White House played in this situation, hold those who acted inappropriately accountable, and take responsibility," Clinton said.

 Since she objects to the White House and Attorney General firing U.S. Attorneys, and she decries "the politicization of our prosecutorial system," I expect Sen. Clinton will pledge not to remove any U.S. Attorneys other than for cause (independently verified) if she's elected President. 

Ha! Right after the airborne ham steaks pass overhead. 

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Paul takes plunge, Thompson touted

Posted by Richard on March 13, 2007

A couple of months ago, Representative Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican from Texas, set up an exploratory committee for a Presidential run. Apparently, the explorations unearthed quite a bit of money and support — enough to persuade him to go ahead:

HOUSTON – Ron Paul, a nine-term Texas congressman who describes himself as a lifelong libertarian, announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination Monday.

Appearing on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal," Paul said he was at first reluctant to run, but that "a lot of people want to hear my message and I'm willing to deliver it."

Paul, who formed an exploratory committee in January, said he has raised more than $500,000 in the past month "with very little effort."

If Paul's campaign message is "Let's return the GOP to its limited-government roots," I'm on board. If I hear a lot of emphasis on "ending Yankee imperialism" and "opposing the BushHitler police state," so that he's virtually indistinguishable from the MoveOn nutroots crowd — then count me out. 

Meanwhile, former Senator Fred Thompson is merely thinking about exploring, but that's got a lot of conservative Republicans excited. Check out the enthusiastic comments on Doug Mataconis' post about a Thompson candidacy. 

If talk of Thompson entering the race suggests that McCain is fading, I think it's good news. The fact that Howard Baker and Bill Frist are promoting Thompson isn't exactly a plus in my book, but they're fellow Tennesseans with long-standing personal and professional relationships. It doesn't necessarily mean much policy-wise. My recollection of Thompson as a Senator is pretty vague, but fairly positive — likewise, his work as a prosecutor and role in Watergate.

I suspect that a lot of the grass-roots enthusiasm for a Thompson candidacy stems from one simple fact: Republicans remember how well they did the last time they nominated an actor. 

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Clearing things up

Posted by Richard on March 13, 2007

The Democrats are tired of the Bush Administration's mumbling, bumbling, fumbling Iraq policy, so they're going to put a stop to it. They have a clear, direct, forthright plan for ending the Iraq conflict. Here, I'll let them explain it to you:

Any questions? 

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Who cares about Oscars?

Posted by Richard on February 26, 2007

Ed Driscoll borrowed Orrin Judd’s wonderful title, “The Unspeakable Toast The Unwatchable,” for his observations about last night’s Academy Awards show:

Regarding the Oscars, Orrin Judd writes, “When we were kids everyone used to watch them–they used to celebrate the movies. Know anyone who still does now that they celebrate Hollywood’s politics?”

Drudge has the early ratings:

ABC PULLS 27.4 RATING/42 SHARE IN EARLY OVERNIGHTS AT ‘OSCARS’… MORE… IF NUMBERS HOLD, WOULD BE 3RD LEAST- WATCHED OSCARS, JOINING LOW 2006, 2003… MORE…

In 2006, Hollywood switched from a mass industry serving the public to a niche market for blue/green activists. It invented a strategy that junks the Red States. But every year flyover country gets to remind Hollywood that the loss is reciprocal, at least for one Sunday.

If the Drudge numbers are correct, at some point in the future, just as C-SPAN covers the bulk of national political conventions, watch for the Oscars to move up the dial, out of the over-the-air networks and into the realm of cable. Maybe E! or HBO could host them. Or Current TV.

I remember watching the Oscars — in fact, I remember looking forward to the show and caring about who won.

But I haven’t seen it in years.

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NTU rates Congress

Posted by Richard on February 23, 2007

The National Taxpayers Union has released its Congressional fiscal ratings for 2006, and the report cards are once again dominated by Ds and Fs. Only 61 Senators and Representatives earned an A (that’s actually up from 2005), while 224 earned an F.

Mind you, NTU’s grading scale is pretty lenient (they grade on the curve and they’re dealing with chronic under-achievers, so it has to be): the minimum for an A is 84% in the Senate and just 70% in the House; the thresholds for an F are at 24% and 23%, respectively. Nonetheless, NTU is justifiably proud of their ratings, now in their 28th year (emphasis added):

Unlike those of other organizations, NTU’s annual Rating does not simplistically focus on only a handful of equally-weighted “key votes.” For this reason, it has received praise from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, including former Senator (and “Golden Fleece Award” creator) William Proxmire (D-WI). The Rating is based on every roll call vote affecting fiscal policy (199 House and 109 Senate votes for 2006), and assigns a “Taxpayer Score” to each Member of Congress that indicates his or her commitment to reducing or controlling federal spending, taxes, debt, and regulation.

The House had an average score of 39% (down 1% from 2005), giving the 109th Congress the poorest 2-year performance in 15 years. The Senate managed to hit 48%, a 4% increase from 2005, but still below 50% for the 9th year in a row. Despite the dismal averages, taxpayers still have a few good friends in Congress:

The top scorer in the House of Representatives was Arizona Republican Jeff Flake with a 92 percent rating. This is the fourth consecutive year Flake has captured the prize, a feat not exceeded in the House since Ron Paul (R-TX) racked up six first-place finishes in a row (1979-1984). South Carolina Republican Jim DeMint made his first appearance in the Senate’s winner’s circle, also at 92 percent. Bringing up the rear with the worst scores in the House and Senate were Dale Kildee (D-MI) and Tom Harkin (D-IA), with scores of 7 percent and 9 percent, respectively. Neither has ranked at the bottom before.

The Democrats and their PR arm, the MSM, have been claiming that their gains last November represented a repudiation of Bush on foreign policy, national security policy, and Iraq (even though they gained seats mainly by running more hawkish, centrist candidates). As I noted in November, the relentlessly bad news from Iraq was certainly a factor, but not the primary reason for Republican losses:

For sure, the Republicans’ wounds were largely self-inflicted. After 2002, Hastert dismantled the Contract with America’s ethics and accountability rules, and the Republicans became arrogant, fat, and lazy. They governed like Democrats, and the American people rejected that, as they usually do. Meanwhile, the Democrats recruited a bunch of candidates who sounded like Republicans, and the American people elected them.

I pointed out then how well Club for Growth candidates did. Now, the NTU has confirmed that fiscal responsibility — more precisely, lack thereof — was a big factor in Republican election losses:

According to Berthoud, the 2006 Rating results strongly indicate that Republican lawmakers who changed their voting patterns (and earned lower pro-taxpayer scores) tended to fare worse at the polls than those who continued their records of supporting limited government. Just two of the 22 House GOP incumbents who lost their seats in 2006 were “Taxpayers’ Friends,” while the remainder posted an average score of 52 percent – well below the overall GOP average of 60 percent.

Can you guess in what year Congress got the highest marks from the NTU? It was 1995 — the year of the Contract with America, when reform-minded, limited-government Republicans took over the House with broad support from the American people. If Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, and their cronies hadn’t gotten arrogant and smug, hadn’t discarded the Gingrich Revolution reforms, hadn’t forgotten that they need to at least credibly pretend to work for limited government and fiscal responsibility, the 2006 elections might have turned out quite differently.

One of NTU’s A-rated Friends of the Taxpayer, Rep. Ron Paul, is "exploring" a run for the Republican presidential nomination. I like almost everything about Paul except his blindness to the threat of Islamofascism (like most libertarians, he ignores the fact that they’re waging war on us, whether we choose to fight back or not). On fiscal and regulatory matters, he’s outstanding. Maybe he can help remind Republicans what they ought to represent — the principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility that have brought them success in the past.
 

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A World Without America

Posted by Richard on February 22, 2007

Just in case you haven’t seen or heard the British TV ad, "A World Without America," I’ve embedded it below. Please watch. The ad is sponsored by the British politics TV web site, 18DoughtyStreet.com ("Politics for Adults"), and its project, BritainAndAmerica.com, which said this about the ad:

… It is impossible to make detailed arguments inside two minutes but the advert points to the many political, economic and technological benefits of an outward-looking America. This website is a passionate believer in the special transatlantic relationship and will continue to fill these pages with arguments against the anti-Americanism that is sweeping too much of Europe.

Bravo.
 

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Geffen changes tune

Posted by Richard on February 22, 2007

Several hundred glitterati attended a fundraiser at the Beverly Hilton Tuesday night to meet Sen. Barack Obama and donate $1.3 million to his presidential campaign. Hollywood mogul David Geffen helped organize the event, and the former big-time Clinton supporter had some rather unkind words for Bill and Hillary:

Geffen also alluded to possible campaign distractions caused by Bill Clinton’s personal life should his wife secure the Democratic nomination, saying, "Everybody in politics lies, but [the Clintons] do it with such ease, it’s troubling."

Now Geffen is troubled by the Clintons’ lying. Funny — it didn’t trouble him when he raised $20 million for Bill and enjoyed sleepovers in the Lincoln bedroom. It didn’t trouble him as long as the lying helped to further his ideological agenda. What a hypocrite! He deserves the infamous Wrath of Hillary, and he’d better hope to God she doesn’t become President. It’s not good to be on her enemies list under any circumstances, but if she had the reins of government in her hands… <shudder>
 

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Insurance scam

Posted by Richard on February 20, 2007

I’m no insurance expert, but I know that flood insurance is a special case. Some time back, the feds effectively preempted the field, and if you want flood insurance, you get it at a federally subsidized rate. Because of that situation, no ordinary property insurance policy covers flood-water damage. You’d think people who live in a highly flood-prone area, such as a Gulf Coast state subject to hurricanes, would know this and gratefully avail themselves of the subsidized, low-cost flood insurance, right? And you’d think those who didn’t bother could expect little sympathy from the courts and public officials, right?

Wrong. And wrong again. In Mississippi, the courts and Attorney General Jim Hood have fallen all over themselves with sympathy for the (voluntarily) uninsured victims of Katrina’s flood waters. As a consequence of some jury awards and coerced settlements negotiated with the AG, State Farm has decided the climate in Mississippi is so hostile that they can’t continue offering homeowner insurance in the state. The future risk is too great.

Attorney General Hood objected to this business decision, and he’s proposed a law to force insurance companies who sell auto insurance in the state to also sell homeowner insurance. Dan Melson took umbrage at this anti-capitalist move:

State Farm is not a charitable organization. They are entitled to charge enough to make a profit – otherwise there is no reason to be in business. If they decide they cannot do that within the environment in a given state, they are entitled to decide to leave. If they can’t do it at all, the correct decision is to go out of business.

Add hefty punitive fines for not wanting to pay out claims for things which weren’t insured, and it’s a miracle that anyone is willing to issue homeowner’s insurance in Mississippi. Make them write homeowner’s insurance in order to write automobile insurance, and some insurers might do it – but others will cancel their policies of automobile insurance. Exactly how bad does the state of Mississippi want their insurance situation to get?

Dan’s right, of course. Hood’s populist grandstanding is both immoral and stupid. The state’s deputy insurance commissioner noted that a similar, but less onerous, law in Florida is driving insurers out of the state already, even though it won’t take effect until 2008. Robert Hartwig, chief economist for the Insurance Institute, doesn’t think such a law will have the desired effect:

Automobile insurance isn’t profitable enough to offset losses in the sale of homeowner insurance in a hurricane-vulnerable region so the company may be inclined to stop selling auto policies if they also must sell homeowner policies there, Hartwig said.

"The only losers in this situation are consumers facing fewer options for automobile insurance," Hartwig said.

I’m pleasantly surprised that Republican Governor Haley Barbour, despite an upcoming re-election campaign, resisted the urge to pander or cave and rejected Democrat Jim Hood’s call for an executive order:

"Having considered my statutory and constitutional emergency powers including the statute you cited in your letter, I have no authority to force a private company to sell its products in the State of Mississippi," Barbour responded in a letter to Hood.

After the epidemic of invertebrateness among Republicans recently, that statement — as cautious as it is — is a breath of fresh air. Bravo, Gov. Barbour!
 

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Curious pledge demographics

Posted by Richard on January 30, 2007

Last Thursday, I wrote about The NRSC Pledge, a grass-roots online protest — with teeth! — against the vertebrae-challenged Senate Republicans. The pledge is a promise not to contribute to any Republican senator who votes for a resolution disapproving the Iraq "troop surge" plan and not to contribute to the NRSC if it supports such a senator. Over 30,000 people have electronically signed it in the past five days, and this nice map shows the number of signers in each state. I’m amazed by some of the numbers.

California (population 36 million*) has by far the largest number of signers — over 6,000. Second is Texas (pop. 23 million) with about 2,500. Colorado (pop. 4.5 million) takes third place with over 2,200. Arizona (6 million), Florida (18 million), and Minnesota (5 million) all have around 1,300 signers — and no other state has over 1,000!

Look at some of the other big states — Illinois (13 million) has under 1,000, New York (20 million) and Pennsylvania (12.5 million) have fewer than 800 each, and New Jersey (8.7 million) has just over 400.

It’s not just a red state / blue state thing, either. Alabama is a decidedly red state with about the same population as Colorado, but one-tenth as many signers. North Carolina has twice Colorado’s population, but one-fourth the signers. The numbers for the smaller-population western states are pitiful: Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas have about 50 signers each, Idaho about 100, and Utah about 200.

So, how does Colorado end up hot on the heels of Texas, which has over five times our population, and far ahead of any comparable-population state? Are we that much more internet-oriented? That much more politically aware? That much less tolerant of hypocrisy and self-serving posturing? You got me.

And, yes, I most certainly do think these resolutions are self-serving posturing. The Senate just unanimously approved Gen. Petraeus. That so many senators are eager to go on record against what ought to be called the Petraeus Plan (he helped formulate it and strongly endorsed it in his Senate testimony) is an indication of how unserious and inconsistent they are. That they’re ignoring warnings by Petraeus and others about the harm their posturing does is an indication of how craven and contemptible they are.

So, have you signed the pledge yet? Why not do it right now? Oh, and if you have any theories about the participation rate differences, especially Colorado’s stand-out performance, drop them in the comments.

* All population numbers are rounded off from the 2005 figures at Infoplease.com.
 

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