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SHE’s Baaaack! SHE, as in Camille Paglia, who blasts ObamaCare and it’s presumptions. You’d never know she voted for the amateur.
… By foolishly trying to reduce all objections to healthcare reform to the malevolence of obstructionist Republicans, Democrats have managed to destroy the national coalition that elected Obama and that is unlikely to be repaired. If Obama fails to win reelection, let the blame be first laid at the door of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who at a pivotal point threw gasoline on the flames by comparing angry American citizens to Nazis. It is theoretically possible that Obama could turn the situation around with a strong speech on healthcare to Congress this week, but after a summer of grisly hemorrhaging, too much damage has been done. At this point, Democrats’ main hope for the 2012 presidential election is that Republicans nominate another hopelessly feeble candidate. Given the GOP’s facility for shooting itself in the foot, that may well happen.
This column has been calling for heads to roll at the White House from the get-go. Thankfully, they do seem to be falling faster — as witness the middle-of-the-night bum’s rush given to “green jobs” czar Van Jones last week — but there’s a long way to go. An example of the provincial amateurism of current White House operations was the way the president’s innocuous back-to-school pep talk got sandbagged by imbecilic support materials soliciting students to write fantasy letters to “help” the president (a coercive directive quickly withdrawn under pressure). Even worse, the entire project was stupidly scheduled to conflict with the busy opening days of class this week, when harried teachers already have their hands full. Comically, some major school districts, including New York City, were not even open yet. And this is the gang who wants to revamp national healthcare?
Why did it take so long for Democrats to realize that this year’s tea party and town hall uprisings were a genuine barometer of widespread public discontent and not simply a staged scenario by kooks and conspirators? First of all, too many political analysts still think that network and cable TV chat shows are the central forums of national debate. But the truly transformative political energy is coming from talk radio and the Web — both of which Democrat-sponsored proposals have threatened to stifle, in defiance of freedom of speech guarantees in the Bill of Rights. I rarely watch TV anymore except for cooking shows, history and science documentaries, old movies and football. Hence I was blissfully free from the retching overkill that followed the deaths of Michael Jackson and Ted Kennedy — I never saw a single minute of any of it. It was on talk radio, which I have resumed monitoring around the clock because of the healthcare fiasco, that I heard the passionate voices of callers coming directly from the town hall meetings. Hence I was alerted to the depth and intensity of national sentiment long before others who were simply watching staged, manipulated TV shows. …
Roger Simon responds to Camille Paglia’s article.
In an otherwise trenchant and amusing column, Camille Paglia evinces surprise that the Democrats, liberals, progressives, call them what you will, have made such a hash of things under Obama and have become, mirabile dictu, an elite.
‘How has “liberty” become the inspirational code word of conservatives rather than liberals? (A prominent example is radio host Mark Levin’s book “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto,” which was No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list for nearly three months without receiving major reviews, including in the Times.) I always thought that the Democratic Party is the freedom party — but I must be living in the nostalgic past. Remember Bob Dylan’s 1964 song “Chimes of Freedom,” made famous by the Byrds? And here’s Richie Havens electrifying the audience at Woodstock with “Freedom! Freedom!” Even Linda Ronstadt, in the 1967 song “A Different Drum,” with the Stone Ponys, provided a soaring motto for that decade: “All I’m saying is I’m not ready/ For any person, place or thing/ To try and pull the reins in on me.”’
Well, sure. But where were you, Camille? We’ve been living in a world-upside-down for over a decade now, even before 9-11 (when people like me started to wake up.) I know they would probably boot you out of Salon, even though you are the only thing worth reading over there, if you moved any further to the right, but c’mon, girl. Bob Dylan is less liberal than I am. Reification has set in on the Left. Don’t you be a part of it. Not to put to fine a point on it “Le gauche n’existe pas.” It’s over. It doesn’t exist. There’s no there there. We live in a world where Keith Olbermann is a “gauchiste.” What could be more square than that? Enough. …
Abby Thernstrom has interesting back story to the site of Obama’s student lecture yesterday. She thinks he missed an opportunity. It wasn’t the first he missed. His presidency is one long missed opportunity.
…The racial gap in academic achievement was closing, she said. It wasn’t true then; it isn’t true now. The College Board has just released its report on the 2009 SAT scores of college-bound high school seniors. In the six years since O’Connor’s opinion, the racial gap has widened slightly, and is substantially wider than it was two decades ago. We’re peddling backward on this front.
That gap reflects real deficiencies in skills and knowledge that cripple the life chances of too many black and Hispanic youngsters — deficiencies that were very apparent in the New Haven firefighters promotion test that the Supreme Court upheld 5–4 in this past term — much to the consternation of civil-rights groups. The result: Test designers are reportedly scrambling to come up with assessments that do not measure cognitive skills and thus have no racially disparate impact.
Obama’s innocuous speech was actually a missed opportunity. Instead of platitudes about the importance of working hard, he could have taken on the anti-testing crowd. Standards-based tests, he might have said, are an essential tool in assessing the skills of those applying to law schools — but also in deciding who is qualified to be lieutenant in a fire department. Hostility to such assessments in the K–12 years is not a civil-rights position. It betrays a callousness and indifference to the future of disadvantaged kids. …
Ralph Peters, in the New York Post, comments on the Obama administration’s illogical and irresponsible response to the situation in Honduras. He gives us a quick recap of the events.
…Our thug-worshipping diplomats figured they’d slip it by us. With the nation focused on barbecues and the beach, they announced that, if Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’s client, Manuel Zelaya, isn’t returned to power in Honduras, the United States won’t recognize the results of that country’s upcoming free elections.
Why was former president Zelaya driven from his would-be throne in Tegucigalpa? He tried to subvert Honduras’ Constitution and set himself up as president-for-life.
In June, the elected legislators and the Honduran Supreme Court had enough. As Zelaya aligned with Chavez, the Castro regime, Nicaraguan caudillo Daniel Ortega and other extreme leftists, the Honduran government gave the would-be dictator the boot.
Acting under legal orders, the army peacefully arrested Zelaya and shipped him out of the country. No murders, no Chavez-style imprisonments.
It was not a military coup. An elected congress and interim president, not a general, run the country today.
But the Obama administration has decided that this “violation” is so dreadful that we won’t even recognize future free elections in Honduras. …
…if Obama thinks that handing over a “little” country he couldn’t find on a map is going to win him enduring applause and cooperative friends in Latin America, he’s crazy. What he’s actually doing is frightening our friends. If democratic governments south of the border can’t rely on US support, to whom can they turn? …
Sarah Palin blasted AP for printing photos of a dying marine. David Harsanyi begs to differ.
… When looking at the photo series, “The Death of a Marine,” I felt a heightened respect for the gravity of war. The pictures unquestionably added humanity and context to Bernard’s death.
Now, if I could recall a wanton penchant of the press to run photos of dead Marines, my reaction might have been very different.
It is also conceivable, of course, that I’m a callous journalist, willing to set aside all decency to quench my baser voyeuristic instincts. There is an undeniable emotional component to these pictures that can’t be disregarded. It is unfathomable to imagine the anguish the Bernard family must feel. …
… But on the debate over the substance of these pictures, the press has one overriding question to ask: Do the photos help citizens better understand the story of the war in Afghanistan?
Obviously, they do.
Jennifer Rubin comments on Elliott Abrams reply to Jimmy Carter’s latest “peace” proposal.
The Washington Post’s editors afford Elliott Abrams space to dismantle Jimmy Carter’s vile op-ed (which appeared in the Post over the weekend) accusing Israel of maintaining a “ghetto” for Palestinians and single-handedly preventing an outbreak of peace in the Middle East. Abrams explains that Carter’s anti-Israel rant ignored polling data that showed an uptick in Palestinians’ sense of personal security and also overlooked the 7 percent growth in GDP (”a rate of growth that would be far in excess of ours — or Israel’s”). In painting Israel as somehow holding Gaza hostage, Carter also ignored geography (Gaza is not an “enclave” of Israel) and all the relevant recent history, including the Israelis’ withdrawal from Gaza, which earned them only a shower of missiles and a war.
Abrams concludes:
Most inaccurate of all, and most bizarre, is Carter’s claim that “a total freeze of settlement expansion is the key” to a peace agreement. Not a halt to terrorism, not the building of Palestinian institutions, not the rule of law in the West Bank, not the end of Hamas rule in Gaza — no, the sole “key” is Israeli settlements. Such a conclusion fits with Carter’s general approach, in which there are no real Palestinians, just victims of Israel. . . . Carter fantasizes about a “nonviolent civil rights struggle” that bears no relationship to the terrorist violence that has plagued Palestinian society, and killed Israelis, for decades. Carter’s portrait demonizes Israelis and, not coincidentally, it infantilizes Palestinians, who are accorded no real responsibility for their fate or future. If this is “the Elders’ view of the Middle East,” we and our friends in that region are fortunate that this group of former officials is no longer in power.
So the question remains: can Carter be this ignorant? Well, it would be hard to miss so much recent history and avoid so many facts unless you were trying. …
Jennifer Rubin also gives us the blow-by-blow on Round 2 of Carter v. Abrams.
Unbelievably, Jimmy Carter returns for round two in his debate in the Washington Post with Elliott Abrams. Having already been eviscerated in round one, Carter can’t resist the urge to go back for more. He pleads that Abrams is arguing that Palestinians enjoy “halcyon days.” (He did? No, but Carter isn’t a stickler for facts.) And Carter again argues that those settlements are really Israel’s “worst mistake.” Not much of a retort, is it?
Certainly Carter should have quit while he was behind. Abrams responds that “Jimmy Carter continues his practice of assuming that his travelogues constitute evidence and dismissing data that contradict his claims. This will persuade few people. I did not suggest that life was wonderful in the West Bank, only that it is not getting worse.” Abrams then rather bluntly makes the key argument, one consistently overlooked not only by Carter but also by the J Street crowd, and at least for now by the Obama administration:
What puts Carter’s goal of a two-state solution at risk is not settlements, but terrorism. It is terrorism that prevents Israel from leaving the West Bank entirely in Palestinian hands today, for Israelis learned a lesson after leaving Gaza and South Lebanon. A negotiated settlement is still possible, and it does not require a settlement freeze; instead it requires that Palestinian terrorists stop trying to kill Israelis, or that a Palestinian government be in place that is ready, willing, and able to prevent them from succeeding. …
The Wall Street Journal reports on a surprising addition to the Russian high school curriculum.
MOSCOW — Russia has made a once-banned book recounting the brutality and despair of the Soviet Gulag required reading in the country’s schools, the Education Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
The ministry said excerpts of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s 1973 epic “The Gulag Archipelago” have been added to the curriculum for high-school students. The book was banned by Soviet censors, sparking Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s retreat into exile.
The decision announced Wednesday was taken due to “the vital historical and cultural heritage on the course of 20th-century domestic history” contained in Mr. Solzhenitsyn’s work, the ministry said.
The move comes despite Russian moves over the past decade to restore some Soviet symbols and, liberals say, glorify Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. …
The NRO staff posted Charles Krauthammer’s Take on the consequences we are seeing from Obama’s disastrous foreign policy.
…Well, I think this marks the complete collapse of Obama’s Iran policy. Let’s remember the premise was you be nice to our adversaries, you extend a hand, and you go around the world on an apology tour.
And the administration said behind the scenes, you can’t see the results now, but in time the fruits will be there. Well, let’s look at the harvest.
You get Obama saying he wants to meet unconditionally with the Iranians. He holds his tongue when demonstrators are being shot in the street as a way to keep open channels with the regime, even though it sullies America’s reputation of supporting democrats, especially oppressed democrats, around the world. …
…He does all of that, and what is his reward? The president of Iran announces oh, yes, I will speak with Obama, but it has to be in front of the world media, and it will be a debate. And incidentally, the nuclear issue is closed. It is not an issue.
So what does Obama get for that sweet handshake and exchange of books with Chavez at the summit? Chavez arrives in Iran, he makes an alliance, and he promises to supply gasoline. Why is that important? Because the one area where Iran is really weak is in refined petroleum. It has got a lot of crude.
But that’s where we would be applying our sanctions if they don’t stop their nuclear program. So what Chavez is doing is undermining in advance the only remaining economic sanction.
All of this for what the Obama administration calls “smart power.” It’s dumb diplomacy.
Jonah Goldberg posts on the writings of green fascist Thomas Friedman.
Mark beat me to it, but I must put in my two cents. Thomas Friedman writes:
“Watching both the health care and climate/energy debates in Congress, it is hard not to draw the following conclusion: There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today.
One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century. It is not an accident that China is committed to overtaking us in electric cars, solar power, energy efficiency, batteries, nuclear power and wind power. China’s leaders understand that in a world of exploding populations and rising emerging-market middle classes, demand for clean power and energy efficiency is going to soar. Beijing wants to make sure that it owns that industry and is ordering the policies to do that, including boosting gasoline prices, from the top down.”
Our one-party democracy is worse….
So there you have it. If only America could drop its inefficient and antiquated system, designed in the age before globalization and modernity and, most damning of all, before the lantern of Thomas Friedman’s intellect illuminated the land. If only enlightened experts could do the hard and necessary things that the new age requires, if only we could rely on these planners to set the ship of state right. Now, of course, there are “drawbacks” to such a system: crushing of dissidents with tanks, state control of reproduction, government control of the press and the internet. Omelets and broken eggs, as they say. More to the point, Friedman insists, these “drawbacks” pale in comparison to the system we have today here in America. …
Kenneth Anderson, at the Volokh Conspiracy, also comments on the Friedman article.
…There is only one thing worse than one-party autocracy, and that is one-party democracy, which is what we have in America today … Our one-party democracy is worse.
It is characteristic of Thomas Friedman’s thought to move from particular issues of policy to sweeping conclusions about the Nature of Man and God and the Universe, typically based around some attractively packaged metaphor – flat earth, hot earth, etc. Rarely, however, has he been quite so clear about the directness of the connections he sees between his preferred set of substantive outcomes; his contempt for American democratic processes that have, despite all, managed to hang in there for, I don’t know, a few times the length of time between the Cultural Revolution and today; and his schoolgirl crush on autocratic elites because they are able to impose from above. …
Jack Fowler, National Review publisher, links to a Sarah Palin WSJ Op-Ed blasting ObamaCare.
Here’s Sarah! Pickerhead admits to disappointment when she resigned, but if it means she can engage like this, then maybe it was a good idea.
… President Obama argues in his op-ed that Democrats’ proposals “will provide every American with some basic consumer protections that will finally hold insurance companies accountable.” Of course consumer protection sounds like a good idea. And it’s true that insurance companies can be unaccountable and unresponsive institutions—much like the federal government. That similarity makes this shift in focus seem like nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention away from the details of the Democrats’ proposals—proposals that will increase our deficit, decrease our paychecks, and increase the power of unaccountable government technocrats.
Instead of poll-driven “solutions,” let’s talk about real health-care reform: market-oriented, patient-centered, and result-driven. As the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and others have argued, such policies include giving all individuals the same tax benefits received by those who get coverage through their employers; providing Medicare recipients with vouchers that allow them to purchase their own coverage; reforming tort laws to potentially save billions each year in wasteful spending; and changing costly state regulations to allow people to buy insurance across state lines. Rather than another top-down government plan, let’s give Americans control over their own health care.
Democrats have never seriously considered such ideas, instead rushing through their own controversial proposals. After all, they don’t need Republicans to sign on: Democrats control the House, the Senate and the presidency. But if passed, the Democrats’ proposals will significantly alter a large sector of our economy. They will not improve our health care. They will not save us money. And, despite what the president says, they will not “provide more stability and security to every American.”
We often hear such overblown promises from Washington. With first principles in mind and with the facts in hand, tell them that this time we’re not buying it.
Chris Edwards at Cato-at-Liberty.org compares federal government and private sector salaries.
The Bureau of Economic Analysis has released its annual data on compensation levels by industry (Tables 6.2D, 6.3D, and 6.6D here). The data show that the pay advantage enjoyed by federal civilian workers over private-sector workers continues to expand.
The George W. Bush years were very lucrative for federal workers. In 2000, the average compensation (wages and benefits) of federal workers was 66 percent higher than the average compensation in the U.S. private sector. The new data show that average federal compensation is now more than double the average in the private sector.
…In 2008, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, which compared to an average $49,935 for the nation’s 108 million private sector workers (measured in full-time equivalents). The figure shows that the federal pay advantage (the gap between the lines) is steadily increasing.
…the federal advantage is even more pronounced when worker benefits are included. In 2008, federal worker compensation averaged a remarkable $119,982, which was more than double the private sector average of $59,909.
What is going on here? Members of Congress who have large numbers of federal workers in their districts relentlessly push for expanding federal worker compensation. Also, the Bush administration had little interest in fiscal restraint, and it usually got rolled by the federal unions. The result has been an increasingly overpaid elite of government workers, who are insulated from the economic reality of recessions and from the tough competitive climate of the private sector.
It’s time to put a stop to this. Federal wages should be frozen for a period of years, at least until the private-sector economy has recovered and average workers start seeing some wage gains of their own. At the same time, gold-plated federal benefit packages should be scaled back as unaffordable given today’s massive budget deficits. There are many qualitative benefits of government work—such as extremely high job security—so taxpayers should not have to pay for such lavish government pay packages.