Very nice.
Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category
5 minutes later — still closed.
That’s more like it!
I guess not so much.
It sounds hip at first, but it clearly doesn’t mean anything.
Yep.
Subways are still closed.
Bummer.
With the miracles of modern technology, I can blog the trip home on the last night of the strike.
My carpool luck ran out today, and I’m determined not to pay for a cab, so I’m joining my fellow NYers and hoofing it.
From 48th and Sixth Avenue…
Too bad about that.
I’m sorry.
Some days technology just makes me weep all over my tiny PDA keyboard.
I’m just a little choked up.
Well, if this works, I can now blog via Treo.
So, uh, how about that transit strike being over?
I’ve already mentioned it, but I want to throw some love its way explicitly: Scott Adams’ Dilbert Blog.
It reads like any of his non-cartoon books, which are really his best work. Already, he’s sparked a massive Intelligent Design debate and given away his six-element humor formula.
Great stuff.
Over at Hit & Run, Jacob Sullum quotes a choice little selection by Robert Bork (from the National Review 50th anniversary issue) on how to "increase liberty" in America:
"Liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively,
restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality," writes the
former appeals court judge, now a resident scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. "Censorship as an enhancement of our liberty may
seem paradoxical. Yet it should be obvious, to all but the most
dogmatic First Amendment absolutists, that people forced to live in an
increasingly brutalized culture are, in a very real sense, not wholly
free." Bork goes on to complain that "relations between the sexes are
debased by pornography"; that "large parts of television are
unwatchable"; that "motion pictures rely upon sex, gore, and
pyrotechnics for the edification of the target audience of
14-year-olds"; and that "popular music hardly deserves the name of
music."
Got that? Freedom is slavery. This isn’t complicated. Bork is practicing textbook Orwellian language manipulation.
And just who on the right thinks it’s a tragedy that this man isn’t on the Supreme Court?
So, George Allen would stand for conservative principles like "less taxation, less litigation, greater energy independence"?
Taxes, great.
Litigation, not the biggest issue these days, but OK.
Greater energy independence, a totally bogus issue (oil is bought and sold on a world market, it would be great if we drilled more, but I doubt he’s talking about ANWR — probably wind power or some other BS).
Great. Some real stars we’ve got on the horizon in the GOP.
This is Google Video. Google Video is awesome.
Here’re videos of squirrels.
Here’s a segment Fox News did off of one of my campaign-finance stories.
Well, we should all say a big thanks to George Will.
UPDATE: In other news…
Oct 27, 2005 — By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hugh Hewitt, the conservative talk show host who has made defending an indefensible Supreme Court nominee his life’s mission over the last month, plans to tie himself to the White House fence to protest the Harriet Miers withdrawal.
“I’m going to go to Washington, D.C. and I’m going to give a speech at the White House, and after I do, I’m going to tie myself to the fence and refuse to leave until they agree to resubmit the nomination,” Hewitt said on his radio show this morning as news of the withdrawal sent shockwaves across America.
“And I’ll probably get arrested, and when I get out, I’ll go back and do the same thing,” he said.
Godspeed, Hugh.
Tom Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, takes on the rumors of a 2006 GOP Congressional wipeout in this (PDF) Landscape Memo, sent out to members of the Republican conference. People may be pissed at Congress, he acknowledges, but Republicans should be safe because of redistricting and because the Democrats are incompetent.
Now, I’ve never disputed that the Democrats aren’t offering a palatable alternative. But when your enemies’ incompetence is the only thing saving you… you’re working on borrowed time.
I’m also not entirely convinced by this point, though it is an interesting bit of history to keep in mind this year. I quote (the PDF seems to be done as an image, not text — so %$#$^$#^%#$^#$^#@$!$@! annoying — so here’s an image of the relevant passage):
Now, it is worth remembering the 1998 midterm elections — and even, to some extent the 2000 presidential election — to remind Republicans just how ineffective the hammering of Clinton’s sex life was as a political tactic.
But 1998 is the year the GOP ran against Clinton’s sex life. When they ran against him on substantive, size of government issues — as in, say, 1994 — they met with resounding success.
Similarly, the lesson Democrats should take might look something like this: If you try to win Congress based on words like “Halliburton” and “Valerie Plame,” you’ll lose, lose badly and deserve to lose badly; if you find your voice on substantive issues, perhaps even morphing into the party of fiscal discipline (Bush has left that space wide open), you have a shot.
Congressional elections are won on local issues … except for the cycles when they’re not.
Republican Stupidity, Democratic Opportunity
Published by October 19th, 2005 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsThe Gallup poll mentioned in my column this morning is already behind their G-ddamned subscription wall. And most news stories today are focusing on the president’s bargain-basement numbers.
But briefly:
Congressional Job Approval
Oct. 13-16, 2005
Approve: 29
Disapprove: 64
Sept. 12-15, 2005
Approve: 35
Disapprove: 59
So, there’s been a serious jump in the disapproval.
Now, onto the polling that was, in many ways, much more interesting. That data comes courtesy of Democracy Corps, a little group founded by James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Shrum. As I mention in my column, these folks seem to be thinking somewhat seriously about what a Democratic Contract With America would look like.
In their October 2005 Strategy Memo (download the PDF here), they have some data that should be of extreme interest to Republicans. Frank Luntz pointed me to this report, characterizing the numbers as shocking.
For instance, the report finds that:
* Twice as many voters are open to switching to the Democrats as are open to switching to the Republicans.
* An attack based on the idea that the Republicans have brought with them a two-fold increase in the number of corporate lobbyists, able to win tax breaks for oil companies and higher drug prices for pharmaceutical companies, tests through the roof — raising serious doubts about the Republican Party with 71 percent of voters.
* In a congressional contest where the current incumbent is named and faces a generic challenger from the opposition party, Democrats hold a 6-point advantage, 48 to 42 percent. (This is very important because, as I mentioned in my column, generic discontent with Congress is one thing; the willingness to throw your own guy out in favor of the opposing party is quite another.)
Anyway, in short, I’d advise Republicans to read this latest Democracy Corps memo (the Contract stuff starts on page 9) — and perhaps keep checking back there as the 2006 campaign gets under way.
The Republicans may deserve to lose at this point, but they don’t have to keep screwing up. Salvation lies in restoring some measure of fiscal responsibility.
“They need to demonstrate accountability,” Luntz told me. “They need to show they can hold Washington accountable for spending.”
The moderates, the Perot voters: They care about this stuff, even if the Republican establishment wants to pretend they don’t.
As Brendan Miniter notes in this column, the spending hawks in the Republican Study Committee may be receiving the royal treatment these days, but even if we implement most of their proposals, we’re still totally and utterly screwed.
The idea of trimming the fat off government is all well and good. But it’s just kittens and fur. You can shave a cat — in most jurisdictions — but it’s not going to weigh all that much less afterwards.
Devastating anti-Miers column from John Fund today. He was supportive early on (or at least thought a fight would be counterproductive) but has now changed his mind.
Basically, it seems, the more he heard from Miers’ supporters, the more worried he got. The highlight, far and away:
It was Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, who went so far as to paint Ms. Miers as virtually a tool of the man who has been her client for the past decade. “In Texas, we have two important values, courage and loyalty,” he told a conference call of conservative leaders last Thursday. “If Harriet Miers didn’t rule the way George W. Bush thought she would, he would see that as an act of betrayal and so would she.” That is an argument in her favor. It sounds more like a blood oath than a dignified nomination process aimed at finding the most qualified individual possible.
Everything about this nomination gets more disturbing every day.
Fire Miers.
Yesterday.
In this AP story, Scalia disavows ever having had designs on the office of chief justice. It may sound disingenuous — and I believe his feelings on the matter are understandably mixed — but I’ve long believed it’s a position that would ill-suit him.
I think he knows that, too, and relishes the role he plays in its stead.
In the 2003 American Spectator article after the jump, I recount a statement Scalia made a couple years ago on this subject. And I ask the question: Isn’t it already the Scalia Court anyway?
“As the Republican Party did 40 years ago, today is another time for choosing whether we are committed to the ideals of limited government, fiscal discipline and traditional moral values or whether we will continue to sacrifice those principles on the altar of preserving our governing majority.”
– Mike Pence
Young America’s Foundation
September 26, 2005
Washington, D.C.
“Another Time for Choosing”
“Ms. Miers may not be every conservative activist’s dream candidate, but there is every reason to believe that she will add to the conservative leanings of the Court, and that if the Democrats had power the alternatives would be far worse. Politics is not a one-time cause or battle. It is the long term cobbling of a strong coalition, that to be lasting must eschew extremism and embrace sane choices that, although not perfect, are better than the realistic alternatives or nothing.”
– Bruce Kessler
Democracy Project
October 7, 2005
“Get over it, Republicans”
This New York Times story on the White House trying to recover among conservatives on the Miers nomination seems more than a little worrying to me. Now, not that Arlen Specter is a loyal conservative or anything, but what’s with this?:
Several Republicans, including Mr. Specter, said they steered clear of asking Ms. Miers questions about constitutional law. Mr. Specter, who said the timing of the confirmation hearings would depend in part on when Ms. Miers felt ready, said he initiated a discussion of the shifting standards the Supreme Court has applied in interpreting the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, but only to illustrate to Ms. Miers the kinds of questions she would face during her hearings.
“I did not ask her about it because I don’t think she’s ready to face it at the moment,” he said. “Look, the lady was White House counsel dealing with totally other subjects until Sunday night when the president offered her the job. And Monday she’s sitting with me. I’m not going to ask her questions which she hasn’t had a chance to study or reflect on.”
So, senators who’ve met with her are going on the assumption that Miers needs a crash course on the Constitution before she can even face the Senate.
This made me smile, though:
One conservative advocate, Sean Rushton, executive director of the Committee for Justice, said generating enthusiasm for Ms. Miers was proving difficult because “anytime we put out something positive about her it gets shot to pieces by all our allies and the blogs.”
Let’s hear it for blogs.
David Frum, for one, doesn’t seem like he’d shed a tear over the loss of the Miers nomination.
One more thing: I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the Libertarian Party.
I don’t believe the cure for what ills the Republican Party is more support for gay marriage (though that’d be nice), when it comes to winning elections. At least not for a decade or two.
What I’m saying is that while all coalitions have their trade-offs, and parties have to do what they have to do to get elected, when it comes to the point where a conservative president is expanding the government in a way that’s comparable to LBJ or FDR, it may be time to reassess.
Once again, Jonah Goldberg pens a particularly gracious response to one of my columns (title: “Poor, Poor Pitiful Me”), while addressing all of my major points.
I’m not sure what it is that so sets off Jonah about my columns, but it seems sometimes that he skims them and then fills in the blanks in his head with some sort of agglomeration of every single whiny, politically self-destructive, utopian-anarcho-capitalist thing he’s ever heard a Libertarian (that’s capital L) say. It hasn’t the faintest connection to anything I’ve ever said or written, but it serves as a useful caricature.
So, where to start…
First off, nothing I’ve ever written has been on the theme of “poor libertarians.” I’m not sure how arguing that Bush has been a disastrous president for conservatives who care about small-government as a principle is either whining or saying “poor me.” It is, as best I can tell, a simple statement of fact that not many, even at National Review, would dispute.
What’s more, my real argument has less to do (virtually nothing to do) with indicting Bush’s record on Big Government Conservatism (I don’t think anyone needs me to point out the obvious) than with asking what his record and legacy will mean for the future of the Republican Party and the conservative movement. If a Republican president can have Bush’s record on the size of government and still be beloved of conservatives, then does conservatism any longer have any meaning? There was a time when National Review senior editor Frank Meyer argued that libertarianism and traditionalism were complementary and that both sides of the conservative movement could agree on the need for small government and the fight against Communism.
Well, Communism (at least the kind we were worried about) is gone, so that leaves us with small government. If we don’t agree on that, then it’s hard to imagine conservatism isn’t facing some major problems.
And, oddly enough, for all my shrill, shrill anarcho-capitalist-poor-me-libertine whining, I don’t seem to be alone in my concerns. Just to take two high-profile souls:
* David Keene, speaking on behalf of the board of the American Conservative Union, issued a statement last week declaring: “The Republican Party has abandoned its traditional belief that the individual has supremacy over the state. Big government, in the hands of any party, threatens the rights and privacy of that individual. In the hands of the GOP, the federal government has grown bigger and faster in the last five years than during any previous five year period since The New Deal, and the GOP’s current leadership has forgotten the populist legacy of Ronald Reagan.” What a whiner.
* Peggy Noonan, writing on OpinionJournal.com, had this to say: “I never understood compassionate conservatism to mean, and I don’t know anyone who understood it to mean, a return to the pork-laden legislation of the 1970s. We did not understand it to mean never vetoing a spending bill. We did not understand it to mean a historic level of spending. We did not understand it to be a step back toward old ways that were bad ways. I for one feel we need to go back to conservatism 101.” Another damn malcontent libertarian complainer.
So, though I wish I could claim some special status as a seer (it would certainly be a nice way to sell books, John Edward seems to get a lot of mileage out of it), I really don’t think I’m the only one who sees some major problems with the status quo.
Make no mistake. I supported Bush in 2000 (though unenthusiastically) and I voted to reelect him (with even more apprehension) in 2004. I wouldn’t change either vote — for various reasons, mostly related to the War on Terror — and I admit that. In fact, I do more than admit it: I state it proudly.
But the now-standard defense of Bush, “Gee, he’s still better than Gore or Kerry,” just isn’t an answer anymore to the questions being asked. The conservative movement didn’t used to say, “Gee, Eisenhower is better than Adlai Stevenson, he never promised us a rose garden, guess everything’s hunky dory.” They got angry. They looked to the future. They prepared for a fight.
For the bomb scare here in NYC, CNN’s got Anderson Cooper out in Times Square. Fair enough. The problem is that when you put a reporter in the middle of Times Square, what you’ll get is a bunch of Hip-Hop-cell-phone-ring-tone-having jerk-offs hooting and hollering in the background trying to get in the shot and calling their buds to see them on … CNN, the world’s most trusted network for news (or whatever the hell their slogan is). Watching poor Anderson try to deliver somber warnings about stroller bombs and CIA raids in Iraq under these conditions was — well, something to watch. All the b-roll was pretty discordant from the Times Square stuff, to say the least.
Anyway…
There’s nothing like riding the subway with the Stroller of Damocles hanging over your head. On the subway around 8:00 p.m., I figured most — if not all — of my fellow riders on the 2/3 train had heard about the terrorism alert. I kind of wanted to break the ice. You know, something like: “Well, here goes nothing!” But I didn’t think it’d be well received. Instead, we all just sat their quietly racially profiling each other. Couple Asians, some blacks, some whites… so, we all pretty much figured we had nothing to worry about.
More amusing, to me at least, was the elevator ride out of News Corp.’s Sixth Avenue Fortress of Doom. Two ladies on the elevator with me chatted somewhat nonchalantly about the alert:
#1: You hear ‘bout this terror alert?
#2: Oh yeah, I guess I’m gonna walk a little bit … Damn, I wish I’d worn more comfortable shoes.
#1: Is it raining out?
#2: No, I think we missed that.
#1: Oh, thank God.
I was pretty relieved about the rain, myself. Wouldn’t want to get wet…
My mother called, worried, thought I should take a cab. I sympathize. I really do. But, what? $30 for a cab tonight? Another $30 tomorrow morning, and then again in the evening? Don’t go out on the weekend? Sure, the money’s worth it to save your life. But this is New York City. The threat is constant. You either live with it or you don’t and you move … where? Not to D.C., not to L.A. Maybe Chicago. Yeah … Chicago’s where it’s at. Ain’t no one gonna bomb Chicago.
Out there, I could just chill. Hear it’s kind of windy, though.
Neither Sen. Schumer’s credibility nor mine is bolstered by this:
In The New York Post, the paper I don’t always agree with, today there’s an article by one of their leading columnists, very conservative man. “Question the court. Sorry Republicans, Senator Schumer’s got a point.”
My more partisan friends are not happy with me appearing in enemy propaganda broadcasts.
Call me Jane Fonda.
Ramesh Ponnuru takes a stand similar to mine on the question of questions in the latest NR on dead tree.
Randy Barnett also has some questions for Roberts over at Legal Times, but it seems you need a subscription for that.
Here’s a clip:
John Roberts Jr.’s credentials and legal ability are beyond question. But there is one added qualification a Supreme Court nominee requires: a judicial philosophy of respect for the rule of law provided by the Constitution as written.
No matter how otherwise qualified, if a nominee favors a method of interpretation that calls for a bit of text, a dash of history, a dollop of precedent, and a pinch of pragmatism, he can reach almost any result. We must then fall back on the nominee’s political preferences to predict the type of justice he will make. That is a bad idea. Far better to choose candidates whose approach to the text is both constraining and predictable, while independent of ideology.
Barnett also has been following the debate over at Volokh.
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