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Michael Goodwin says it’s time for Spitzer to try the truth.
He tried bravado, he tried apologies and he tried silence. Sooner or later, Eliot Spitzer is going to have to try the truth.
That’s the loud-and-clear message from the latest voter survey on what New Yorkers think about the dirty tricks plot cooked up in Gov. Spitzer’s office. His Plans A, B and C about how to fudge and duck the Eliot Mess didn’t work. Big doubts about Spitzer’s honesty are sticking in voters’ throats, and they won’t go away until he raises his right hand and swears to tell the whole truth.
A whopping 70% of those responding to a new Siena College poll not only want the rookie Democrat to testify – they want him to do it publicly. A mere one in four believes he has been honest so far. That’s a resounding “NO SALE” response to the governor’s efforts to make the issue go away without first coming clean. …
Peter Wehner connects some dots.
… Let’s now connect these dots and draw some conclusions from them, shall we?
MoveOn.org—an angry, far-left, antiwar group—views the modern Democratic Party and its leadership as its cat’s-paw, and there’s little reason to dispute this judgment. The problem for many Democrats is that a Great Unmasking is taking place. For one thing, it’s difficult to say they oppose the war but support the troops when they train their fire on the commanding general of the troops, whose main transgression appears to be that he’s helping America succeed in an epic struggle against radical Islam.
Beyond that, the Democratic Party’s aversion to any (authentic) good news from Iraq, when combined with their effort to accelerate a premature withdrawal from that traumatized country, would lead to an American defeat and a victory for jihadism. This would be reckless—and it would reinforce the view among many Americans that the Democratic Party cannot be trusted on national security matters.
When MoveOn.org says jump, the Democratic Party asks, “How high?†There should be, and eventually there will be, a political price to pay for this ugly alliance.
Robert Samuelson adds a note of caution to the market’s euphoria.
… Unfortunately, disinflation’s benefits — the huge drop in interest rates, the big increases in stock and home values — can be enjoyed only once. This favorable cycle has ended. Indeed, it has left a hangover, as higher stock prices and home values both inspired damaging speculative “bubbles.” Good times often foster their own undoing. People become overly optimistic, giddy, careless, complacent. Businesses become sloppy and sometimes criminal in pursing growth and profits. Greenspan’s successor, Ben Bernanke, has inherited the hangover.
As for Greenspan, his outlook is decidedly somber. Oil prices have already soared, reversing globalization’s impact on inflation. He sees little relief. He thinks productivity growth will slow at best to 2 percent annually, down from about 3 percent from 1995-2005. He fears that inflation will gradually move to 4 percent to 5 percent and, in the process, raise interest rates and hurt stock prices. He worries that the nation hasn’t faced the costs of an aging baby boom. If he is right, the age of tranquility may slowly become his age of turbulence.
Law prof gives Yale Law the contempt it deserves.
Thomas Sowell has a part II to the column on “Mugged by Reality.”
Anne Applebaum comments on Putin’s moves.
… The identity of the next president of Russia doesn’t actually matter. Though a lot of analytical effort has already been wasted on careful pre-electoral scrutiny of the potential candidates, their opinions, views, alleged pragmatism, or alleged chauvinism are much less important than the nature of the coming presidential selection process itself.
If Zubkov (or someone else) becomes president following an orchestrated media campaign, falsified elections, and with Putin hovering constantly in the background, we’ll know he really is a place-holder. If Zubkov (or someone else) manages to garner some genuine support, both among voters and within the Kremlin, we’ll know to take his views seriously. If Putin remains president—well, we’ll know what that means too. Already, the fact that no one outside the Kremlin’s inner sanctum has any idea what the succession will look like is a bad sign. It’s hard to talk about “rule of law” in a country where power changes hands in such a thoroughly arbitrary manner. …
John Stossel continues his series on health care describing the problems with socialized care.
Last week I pointed out that Michael Moore, maker of the documentary “Sicko,” portrayed the Cuban health-care system as though it were utopia — until I hit him with some inconvenient facts. So he backed off and said, “Let’s stick to Canada and Britain because I think these are legitimate arguments that are made against the film and against the so-called idea of socialized medicine. And I think you should challenge me on these things.”
OK, here we go.
One basic problem with nationalized health care is that it makes medical services seem free. That pushes demand beyond supply. Governments deal with that by limiting what’s available.
That’s why the British National Health Service recently made the pathetic promise to reduce wait times for hospital care to four months.
The wait to see dentists is so long that some Brits pull their own teeth. Dental tools: pliers and vodka.
One hospital tried to save money by not changing bed sheets every day. British papers report that instead of washing them, nurses were encouraged to just turn them over. …
Division of Labour provides the example of member of Canadian parliament who went to LA for treatment.
Hugh Hewitt posts on the end of TimesSelect.
NY Times editors have figured out ethanol is a loser.
Slate writer tries golf.
… During my brief immersion in the world of golf, I determined that gloom is an essential golf component, as befitting a game that started on the moody moors of Scotland. When tennis players get thoroughly beaten, they come off the court sweaty and smiling. Their endorphins have shot up, and they look cute in their outfits. Even skiers being carried off the slope on a stretcher seem bizarrely thrilled about the elemental encounter between body and mountain. But golf induces despair. Take the observations in the book The Bluffer’s Guide to Golf, by Peter Gammond, “The golfer [is] a miserable wretch at the best of times.” “A golf match is designed to make as many people as possible unhappy.” There are very few golf jokes, he writes, that do not mention “death and destruction.” …