Michelle Malkin takes on the Golden Boy

You know how we keep hearing about John McCain’s gaffes and mix-ups? And Hillary Clinton’s? Well, Michelle Malkin has compiled a list of some of Barack Obama’s greatest hits. I kind of like them all, but I think this is my favorite:

Earlier this month in Cape Girardeau, Mo., Mr. Obama showed off his knowledge of the war in Afghanistan by homing in on a lack of translators: “We only have a certain number of them, and if they are all in Iraq, then it’s harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.” The real reason it’s “harder for us to use them” in Afghanistan: Iraqis speak Arabic or Kurdish. The Afghanis speak Pashto, Farsi or other non-Arabic languages.

It’s too bad that John McCain isn’t an “I’ll rip my opponent to pieces with his every misstatement” kind of candidate. He could have a real field day with Obama.

Edit: I nearly forgot to mention that Thomas Sowell wrote a great column today as well.  Which I guess isn’t so much news as a simple fact of life.  Anyway, he takes a great jab at commencement speakers, something I can really appreciate:

The academic year often ends with commencement speakers who have been in government, academia, foundations or various crusading movements, who tell the graduates how much nobler it is to go into such organizations, rather than into business.

Such self-flattering talk is seldom challenged by educators. But an outstanding recent book, “The Best-Laid Plans” by Randal O’Toole, gives a richly documented account of government actions and their consequences, and shows a far from flattering side of politicians, “experts,” and environmentalists– who have ruined cities and suburbs in countries around the world.

Have I mentioned that I would love to have a Black man as president…if he were Thomas Sowell?

 

You tell ‘em, Mr. President

From the Washington Post:

“Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Bush told the Israeli lawmakers. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

One of the greatest lessons of history seems to be that people who want to kill you will continue to want to kill you no matter how nicely you talk to them.  The Democrats’ response?

Democrats angrily called the comment a veiled shot at Obama, who has advocated dialogue with Iran and Syria, but not the Palestinian group Hamas.

[...]

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, used an expletive to describe Bush’s comment. He went on to say: “For this president to leave the country and unleash a political attack on Senator Obama and the Democrats cannot go unanswered. We’re not going to tolerate this swiftboating,”

So we shouldn’t call out terrible ideas because it would be a “veiled shot” at the person who holds them?  Give me a break.

Also, I love that swiftboating has now become a verb to deride any attack that Democrats don’t like.  It doesn’t matter whether the charge is true or not, it only matters whether Democrats think it is fair or not.  And the ultimate arbiter of what is a fair attack and what isn’t is whether it hurts the Democratic candidate or not.

Note to Democratic leadership:  Please feel free to grow up.  Any day now would be great.

 

Richardson to Clinton: Let’s just be friends

Bill Richardson, former Democratic presidential candidate, just announced that he’s endorsing Barack Obama for president.  His reasons for doing so are laced with the same vapidity we’ve come to expect from Obama supporters:

“There’s something special about this guy,” Mr. Richardson said of Mr. Obama. “I’ve been trying to figure it out, but it’s very good.”

[...]

“Senator Barack Obama addressed the issue of race with the eloquence and sincerity and decency and optimism we have come to expect of him,” he said. “He did not seek to evade tough issues or to soothe us with comforting half-truths. Rather, he inspired us by reminding us of the awesome potential residing in our own responsibility.”

He’s inspiring!  He talks so nicely!  He makes me feel good!

“You will be an outstanding commander in chief,” Mr. Richardson told the Illinois senator at a rally in Portland, Ore., yesterday. “Above all, you will be a president who brings this nation together.”

Could we please get over this idea that an Obama presidency will result in a new, hand-holding, Kumbaya-singing Washington, where Democrats and Republicans work together to advance the Democratic agenda.  There’s a reason politics is divisive - people disagree on how best to run a country.  Electing a man who claims to transcend race, politics and meanness isn’t going to change that.

An ecard hilariously appropriate for the occasion:

 

The Audacity of Writing About Obama Without Referring to the Title of His Book

Look, guys, I get it.  Whether you support Obama or hate his hopeful guts, the temptation to include in your op-ed or blog a reference or play on words based on his famous phrase “the Audacity of Hope” is just too strong.

But you need to stop.  It was clever the first time you did it.  Maybe even the second.  But now that we’re on the 1,472nd reference, the whole thing is so predictable and mundane that I want to reach through the screen of my computer and box your ears for even thinking about it.

I’m looking at you, Frank Rich, or whichever lemming of an editor titled your op-ed “The Audacity of Hopelessness.”

/rant

 

Obama Discovers Solution to Health Care Crisis!

I used to doubt, but I’ve seen the light and am now a true believer.  Barack Obama is so much more a presidential candidate.  He’s so much more than a one-term Senator with a flimsy record.  He’s a font of wisdom desperately needed in this desperate times, bringing - dare I say it? - real hope back to the nation.

In between jabs at McCain’s ties with lobbyists, this reincarnation of JFK/Abraham Lincoln actually discovered a way to prevent illness in children:

“If we just cut out soda pop,” it would make a difference, he said.

Asked at a later news conference about the issue, he said he hopes schools will “re-examine how easily they make soda available.”

Citing an increase in childhood obesity and diabetes, he said if children “are consuming vast amounts of soft drinks chock full of corn syrup, then we should, you know, consider whether we want to maybe have at least some zones like schools where they have to drink water once in a while.”

You can relax now, America.  Obama is a man with a plan.  I mean, if we can stop kids from consuming vast amounts of soft drinks, what can’t we do?  This is the change we’ve been waiting for.

 

Obama tries to scoop up Edwards’ endorsement, voters

By sounding more like John Edwards.  Nothing like a grab at the left wing of an increasingly leftist party to make a candidate sound like Huey Long.  From the Washington Post:

In his speech, Mr. Obama quoted Mr. Edwards approvingly; he then echoed him in implying that he could pay for new domestic programs with an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and in exaggerating the “millions” of job losses attributable to trade agreements. Mr. Obama even seemed to draw a line connecting the current subprime mortgage crunch to “decades of trade deals like NAFTA and China.”

You’ll notice, if you visit his campaign website, that practically everything he plans to do for the economy requires more federal spending and regulation.  That’s not a bipartisan, centrist agenda - that’s a liberal agenda.

 

Women shouldn’t have to choose: The Remix

John Edwards, desperate to prove that he is at least the poor man’s Barack Obama, wrote a guest blog for Glamocracy in which he echoes Obama’s sentiment that women shouldn’t have to make hard choices:

My grandmother and my mother instilled in me a strong belief in the value of hard work. I believe we need to honor hard work by making sure no woman has to choose between taking care of her children and earning a living. That’s why I’ll make it easier for working mothers by raising the minimum wage, offering seven paid sick days a year, expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act and making child care more affordable.

Wait, you mean you want to honor hard work by raising unemployment for the lowest earners, reducing the flexibility of businesses and taxing everyone else to pay for childcare for those women who shouldn’t have to choose?  I’m going to have to give Edwards the non-sequitur of the week award.

As I noted before, freedom means that you make hard choices and you live with the consequences.  Families can choose for themselves which arrangement of work and family time is best for them, whether that be two incomes, a parent at home, or some combination of the above.  Government should not give preference to one choice over another by, say, funding daycare at the expense of families who choose to have a family at home.

And an astute reader (and fellow former GSO columnist) passed along an eye-opening article about the failure of so-called “family-friendly” policies in Sweden.  Something to consider, before we start entertaining the idea of trying out such an experiment in our country.

 

Two smart guys, and a feminist’s look at 2008

Up first is Thomas Sowell commenting on the presidential race:

By far the best presentation as a candidate, among all the candidates in both parties, is that of Barack Obama. But if he actually believes even half of the irresponsible nonsense he talks, he would be an utter disaster in the White House.

Among the Democrats, the choice between John Edwards and Barack Obama depends on whether you prefer glib demagoguery in its plain vanilla form or spiced with a little style and color.

The choice between both of them and Hillary Clinton depends on whether you prefer male or female demagoguery.

Yikes.  And demagoguery it has been, this entire primary.  Liberal commentators love to pull out the “Republicans run on fear” card whenever an opportunity presents itself.  Is it really more honorable to run on class envy, as the Democrats all seem to be doing?  None of them could be called anything approaching moderate when it comes to economic issues: without fail, they embrace higher taxes on the “wealthy,” protectionist trade policies and more government hand-outs.

The second smart guy is Arnold Kling, who compares the FairTax, which Huckabee has endorsed, to a consumption tax that he described about 4 years ago as an alternative to our current tax system.

Kling also puts forth the idea of a “semi-Fair” tax system, which would include elements of both an income tax and a sales tax:

The idea of freezing the income tax while leaving the sales tax up for grabs politically is to try to increase the public’s sensitivity to the cost of Federal programs. Right now, politicians can treat high-earners as an ATM machine, always there to dispense cash for “targeted tax cuts” or foolish spending programs.

Instead, the idea would be to fix the amount of “soak-the-rich” taxation permanently, with all of the variation at the margin coming in the sales tax. Thus, if a politician wants to raise spending or institute some form of “targeted” tax cut, the sales tax rate has to rise, and everybody has to feel it.

Compared with the FairTax, the semi-Fair tax would not reduce taxes on high earners–some of them might even face higher taxes. However, it would reduce taxes on work and increase taxes on consumption. That combination might encourage more saving. In addition, if the rules about keeping the income tax invariant and paying for new spending with sales tax increases could be made to stick, the bias toward higher government spending might be greatly reduced.

Now the question is how to get America to buy it.  As a self-described Huckabe-hater, I get the feeling that Huckabee endorses the FairTax as a way of winning over fiscal conservatives, not because he actually believes it’s good policy.  After all, the results of such a tax don’t really match up to his populist rhetoric.

And finally, Gloria Steinem opines that if Barack Obama were a woman, he/she would never be considered a contender for the nomination, because sexism is still more deeply rooted than racism.  In one sense, I agree.  If you wander around the liberal blogosphere enough, you notice that the same liberal men who hold themselves and others to the highest standards of racial political correctness are often blithely sexist, remarking on female commentators appearances rather than their ideas, and the like.

On the other hand, I don’t think that she’s asking the right question, or even using the right example.  I don’t think Barack Obama would be considered a serious contender if it hadn’t been for one good speech that thrust him into the spotlight, and a talent for crowd-pleasing rhetoric that has kept him there.  He is an anomaly in the process, not the sign of any real trend.

I  also think that Steinem seriously overstates Clinton’s qualifications:

I’m supporting Senator Clinton because like Senator Obama she has community organizing experience, but she also has more years in the Senate, an unprecedented eight years of on-the-job training in the White House, no masculinity to prove, the potential to tap a huge reservoir of this country’s talent by her example, and now even the courage to break the no-tears rule.

I’m not convinced that being First Lady is the equivalent of having real executive experience. Nor do I think it’s a particularly great example if she manages to win the presidency considering the fact that her success has been so dependent on her husband’s name and career.   It’s not a particularly compelling argument to say that men get a free pass on being unqualified while women have to prove more.  Liddy Dole managed to become a senator, for God’s sake, and was at one point a serious presidential contender.

 

“Women shouldn’t have to choose”: a quick note on the politics of trade-offs

In honor of the election season, Glamour magazine started a “Glamocracy” blog, with 5 regular bloggers from a range of positions on the political spectrum (including CBLPI speaker and writer Amanda Carpenter), as well as guest blogs by the candidates and voters in early primary states.

While I’m sure I’ll find time later to comment on the lack of meaningful political analysis, or the fact that conservative Amanda Carpenter has been getting a lot of negative feedback from the entitled liberal set, I’m short on blogging time today, and this little gem from Obama’s guest post jumped out at me (emphasis mine):

My wife, Michelle, radiates beauty, strength and integrity, and continues to make me a better person every day of our lives. Michelle has done an extraordinary job balancing her role as a mother with her responsibilities at work. But I know it’s not easy, and I also know that many other working moms are having an even harder time. That’s wrong. Women shouldn’t have to choose between their children and their careers in the United States of America. That’s why as president, I’ll make sure that employers provide their workers with seven paid sick days a year, and I’ll encourage all 50 states to offer paid leave.

Unsurprisingly, I take a somewhat different stance. In a free society, people are allowed to make choices about their lives. The corollary to this right is the sometimes unpleasant fact that people will be forced to make choices. Sure, it would be nice if no one ever had to make trade-offs. But that’s not how life works in a free society. Once you accept that it is the government’s responsibility to keep people from having to make trade-offs (like more time at work versus more time with children), it’s a very short step to government limiting the range of choices available.

What’s funny is that Obama’s proposal here, while moving down the path of greater government interference, is hardly extreme. So why does he use such extreme rhetoric?

As Thomas Sowell points out, Democrats (and unfortunately, an increasing number of Republicans) seek power through “Santa Claus politics”: the promise of something for nothing. Here, Obama is playing to an audience of Americans trained to believe that the government exists to make everybody’s lives easier and eliminate tough choices. He makes a run-of-the-mill life experience sound like a moral crisis: mothers having to choose between careers and children.

As with most rhetorically-created crisis situations, the answers are predictably big-government: mandates on sick leave and/or parental leave, optional flex-time, taxpayer-funded daycare (a perennial favorite of moral crusaders), or a larger refundable childcare tax deduction.

But these options tend to restrict rather than expand choice, especially the latter two. When government preferentially funds childcare, whether through tax deductions or public daycare, it reduces the ability of a family to choose to have a parent at home (increased tax burden=fewer options). And mandates on paid leave tend to hurt the competitiveness and productivity of a business, especially small businesses that lack the personnel and resources to provide flexible leave.

But what does that matter to big-government advocates? As long as you get to feel morally superior because of the goodies you hand out, who cares whether you’re hurting small businesses, or increasing the tax burden on families?

Side note: I do like the fact that Mr. Obama says he will “encourage all 50 states” to offer paid leave. It’s probably too much to hope that he has the disposition of a federalist, but at least he doesn’t jump right to “I will force everyone.”