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Charles Krauthammer opines on the revision of US nuclear policy.

…This is quite insane. It’s like saying that if a terrorist deliberately uses his car to mow down a hundred people waiting at a bus stop, the decision as to whether he gets (a) hanged or (b) 100 hours of community service hinges entirely on whether his car had passed emissions inspections. …

…It gets worse. The administration’s Nuclear Posture Review declares U.S. determination to “continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks.” The ultimate aim is to get to a blanket doctrine of no first use.

This is deeply worrying to many small nations that for half a century relied on the extended U.S. nuclear umbrella to keep them from being attacked or overrun by far more powerful neighbors. When smaller allies see the United States determined to move inexorably away from that posture — and for them it’s not posture, but existential protection — what are they to think? …

Jonah Goldberg has a good point. If we become Europe, from what country will Europeans get their free ride?

… Europe is a free-rider. It can only afford to be Europe because we can afford to be America.

The most obvious and most cited illustration of this fact is national defense. Europe’s defense budgets have been miniscule because Europeans can count on Uncle Sam to protect them. Britain, which has the most credible military in NATO after ours, has funded its butter account with its gun account. As Mark Steyn recently noted in National Review, from 1951 to 1997 the share of British government expenditure devoted to defense fell from 24 percent to 7 percent, while the share spent on health and welfare increased from 22 percent to 53 percent. And that was before New Labour started rolling back Thatcherism. If America Europeanizes, who’s going to protect Europe? Who’s going to keep the sea lanes open? Who’s going to contain Iran — China? Okay, maybe. But then who’s going to contain China?

But that’s not the only way in which Europeans are free-riders. America invents a lot of stuff. When was the last time you used a Portuguese electronic device? How often does Europe come out with a breakthrough drug? …

Peter Wehner reminds us of the importance of civility in political discourse and commentary. He comments on an article from Michael Gerson on the topic.

My former White House colleague Michael Gerson has a very good column in the Washington Post today on civility and public discourse. It makes a very important (and too often overlooked) point:

…The opposite — questioning the legitimacy of a democratic outcome; abusing, demeaning and attempting to silence one’s opponents — is a sign of democratic decline. From the late Roman republic to Weimar Germany, these attitudes have been the prelude to thuggery. Thugs can come with clubs, with bullhorns, with Internet access.

Spirited, passionate debate is fine, and even good at times, for the country. The opposition party should offer sharp, even piercing, criticisms when appropriate. After all, politics ain’t beanbags, as Mr. Dooley said. And it’s not the place for those with delicate sensibilities. But nor should it be an arena for invective or hate. And conservatives should not repeat the tactics used by some Democrats and liberals during the Bush years. …

And here is Michael Gerson’s article from the WaPo.

…We have entered a national debate on the role and size of government, intensified by the passage of health-care-reform legislation. It is not quite Antietam, but many Americans feel that their deepest beliefs about liberty and self-government are being undermined. Passions run high. Activists slip easily into reckless talk of tyranny and revolution. …

…The most basic test of democracy is not what people do when they win; it is what people do when they lose. Citizens bring their deepest passions to a public debate — convictions they regard as morally self-evident. Yet a war goes on. Abortion remains legal. A feared health-reform law passes. Democracy means the possibility of failure. While no democratic judgment is final — and citizens should continue to work to advance their ideals — respecting the temporary outcome of a democratic process is the definition of political maturity. …

Tunku Varadarajan will miss Justice Stevens.

…Our present America is one in which all aspects of life—culture, politics, business, education—are shaped more decisively by the judiciary than by any other branch of government, and one always had the impression that Justice Stevens would have preferred things to be otherwise. He craved a lower-key role for himself and for his court, and this was plain for all to see in his dissent in Bush v. Gore—a case which, for him, was a clear example of the Court stepping onto turf where it didn’t belong—of the Court, in fact, overstepping its bounds.

It is this sense of “bounds” that marks him apart from many of his fellow judges, as does his politics, which are better described as “cultured” or “humane” than “liberal” (which is the label most frequently applied to him): His views, and his inclinations, were marked by an absence of dogma; his rulings usually reflected a private and passionate morality, which led him, more often than not, to rule as he would like the law to be. Law, for him, was a tool by which he sought to effect constant “improvement” of society. Not surprisingly, this put him squarely at odds with Justices John Roberts and Antonin Scalia, whose constitutional jurisprudence is less instinctual and arguably less “humane”—while at the same time more faithful to the Framers’ intentions than Stevens’.

American civilization, broadly defined, will benefit from the fact that Stevens will depart under a liberal president. We are a “5-4” society—by which I mean that we are almost evenly divided, ideologically—and the Supreme Court, as presently constituted, reflects faithfully our social clefts and divisions, as well as our swings of mood and indecision. As with our electoral politics, it is better that there be no runaway majority on the Supreme Court (a perpetual 6-3, say) on the central questions of our civitas. It is better that each victory be fought for. That keeps everyone honest. …

Peter Schiff refutes Paul Krugman’s belief that inflation will help us.

…In simple terms, Krugman believes that inflation is the best cure for burdensome debt problems. To prove his arguments, he points to the course followed by the Unites States in the decade after the Second World War. In 1946, due to unprecedented military spending during the war, U.S. public debt as a percentage of GDP came in at a staggering 122 percent – which is even higher than the 113 percent currently weighing on Greece.

Krugman endorses U.S. policy at the time which, he claims, concentrated on fostering growth instead of taking measures to drastically cut the post-war debt. He notes that by the end of 1956, the federal debt had not diminished in nominal terms, but had become much easier to bear because of the decade of GDP growth that inflationary policies had created.

He neglects to mention that during the five years from 1945 to 1949, federal spending dropped by 58% and taxes fell by 12%. Meanwhile, the budget deficit fell by 66% in 1946 and was in surplus from 1947 to 1949. [i] In other words, although we did not pay down our nominal debt in the decade after the war, we did succeed in massively shrinking government and the burden that it places on society. Could it be that this had something to do with the post-war boom, or should we give all the credit to the monetary policy? …

WSJ’s Weekend Interview was with George Will who talks of baseball. Will says its a sport for democracies. Pickerhead thinks it is a sport that employs the important human skills of handling a club and throwing, with which we employed our opposable thumbs, so we can kill from a distance.

…Craft—defined by Mr. Will as the art of excellence—has fascinated the columnist for decades. Twenty springs ago, the Pulitzer Prize winner published “Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball,” and it raced up the bestseller lists. HarperCollins will re-release the book with a new introduction on Tuesday. …

…But baseball, he says, has always been the passion of his life. With “Men at Work,” “I wanted to know what was going on out there,” Mr. Will says, clasping his hands like a professor. “My theory— and being a political philosopher I had to have theory—was that more than any other sport, a fan’s enjoyment of baseball is a function of how much he understands the nuances.” Nuance—how a batter moves his hips or where a shortstop stands—makes baseball more than a contest of runs. “You don’t need to understand a thing about football to marvel at the astonishing violence or speed of that game, or in the NBA, the athleticism and grace of giants. The spectacle is its own reward,” Mr. Will tells me. “Baseball is different.” …

More about baseball today we look back at Pickings on November 5, 2008 when we said;  “Americans have much to be proud of today. The election of an African-American to the highest office in the land is an outstanding achievement. A testament to the open-minded tolerance of this country’s citizens; at least, the majority of them.

Do you think the press and the rest of the world will stop telling us how racist we are? Maybe now they’ll notice that the  American people had already moved on.

Nineteen years ago Virginia elected the first black governor in the country Then, Pickerhead was proud to vote for the Democrat Doug Wilder over the hapless Marshall Coleman. This time however, it is discouraging to see a doctrinaire leftist selected by the voters. Nothing but trouble, follows in the wake of officials who use the state’s power to compel and direct behavior.

And, this is second time the Dems have given us a president who throws a baseball like a girl. What’s with that?”

Streetwise Professor posts on opening day in DC with A Poser Who “Throws Like a Girl”*

… those who want to identify themselves as more urban, more hip, will sometimes choose to become Sox fans–or affect being Sox fans.  For such people, wearing Sox gear is an affectation, an advertisement, a statement (“I’m an edgy urbanite, not a gauche suburbanite”). (The Sox have consciously played to this, e.g., the black caps/uniforms.)

Obama is quite clearly such a person, and he all but admits it in what I quoted above.  The whole Obama White Sox thing is just another piece of a persona, deliberately chosen to convey an image, a perception.  It is, in other words, quintessential Obama.

As is his rationalization for his performance:

‘The president suggested his accuracy would have improved with a longer outing.“If I had a whole inning, I’m telling you, I would have cleaned up,” he quipped.’

Would it kill him to admit “Well, I just suck at baseball”?  Is he so invested in his own ego that he has to be great at everything? I know that politicians are narcissists, but this guy is off the charts.

More on baseball from John Kass .

…Dibble: “Who was one of your favorite White Sox players growing up?”

Obama: “You know … uh … I thought that … you know … the truth is, that a lot of the Cubs I liked too.”

Ouch. The silence between the stammers was excruciating. America’s No. 1 Sox fan couldn’t name one Sox player. …

…Don’t worry, Mr. President. This will blow over. Just look how quickly the media stopped twisting the knife into Sarah Palin. …