Joe Don't Know 03/09/2010
 
Connoisseurs of political gaffes were excited about Joe Biden's ascendency to Vice President, hoping that this promising contender could really bring the heat, gaffe-wise.  And Biden has done his best not to disappoint, though some claim that he's really not getting the media fanfare that he deserves.  But that doesn't mean that our plucky VP is going to take it easy.  That's why he came roaring into the health care mess with the beautifully confused and unsupportive statement that he isn't really sure what the American people are thinking on health care.  Yep, those public demonstrations and angry messages can be so subtle, can't they?

Fortunately, the RNC has set up a way to help Joe through his confusion.  The Tell Joe page lets you express how you feel about the health care reform efforts to Vice President Biden.  Fill out the form, and you'll get a call to your phone, where you can express your feelings on the various problems facing our country--which the RNC will then deliver Mr. Biden.  Please use short, uncomplicated words and adjectives.  And try not to use the verb "sucks" more than 3 times, unless it is also accompanied by a descriptive metaphor--preferably one involving livestock.
 
 
Not content with strong-arming the health bill through every loophole they can find, not to mention padding the legislation with succulent pork treats for cooperative Senators, it now seems that the Democrats are taking political horsetrading to an all new low.  And over the increasingly unpopular health reform bill.  Honestly, I just don't get it.  This is a piece of legislation that has been steadily losing popular support.  And we know that the American people are not fond of Congressional tricks when it comes to important issues.  And yet, the Democrats are just determined to go down with this sinking ship.  It almost makes you long for the days of Bill Clinton and some good old-fashioned  triangulation.  Mr. Clinton may have been frustrating in his ability to take credit for Republican initiatives, but at least he didn't insist on marching the country straight across No Man's Land and into the trenches of socialistic entitlement programs.  (Most of the time, anyway.)

Oh . . . right . . . I was talking about new lows.  Not old ones.  The Weekly Standard has the story on Obama's efforts to buy votes on the health care bill through judicial appointments.  Specifically, he has appointed the brother of wavering Congressman Jim Matheson (D-UT) to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals.  To be fair, nominee bro Scott is qualified from a technical perspective, but my, what a coincidence that this qualified man just so happens to be the brother of a Democratic Congressman who previously voted against the health reform bill, but has not yet indicated which way he will vote this time.

For those keeping score at home, this is approximately the 257th thing that this President has done in office that would have had the New York Times screaming for his head if he'd been a Republican.  And to think that they still try to deny the existence of media bias. 
 
 
Sick of hearing about the health care bill yet?  Me too.  And yet, here we are forced to yet again confront the Rasputin of government boondoggles.  It's pretty clear that we're going to have to sneak into its tomb in the dead of night and stab it with a stake and decapitate it if we really want to kill the Democrat's health care bill.  Especially since today, Drudge is reporting (via ABC News) that the President and Democratic leadership are planning to exercise the "nuclear option" to force a vote on the "new and improved" health care plan. 

For those who haven't been following along at home, the "new and improved" plan is indistinguishable from the old plan, but has better packaging.  All of the concerns that people have been voicing--funding for abortion, mind-boggling expense, the vast pork provisions, etc.--remain unaddressed.  The only real difference is that (faced with the possibility that they can't pass this legislation according to more traditional methods) the Dems are resorting to the same procedural trickery to ram this through that would have them screaming in indignation if it were being done by Republicans.

I love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning.  It smells like . . . french fries.

Anyway, for those who are interested in what ideas are being ignored by the President and the Dems in their rush to pretend to fix health care, you might enjoy this video:
 
Too Cold to Work 03/02/2010
 
(By the way, I'm sorry I wasn't able to blog as much as usual last week.  Alas, it was not because I won the lottery, but for more banal personal issues.)

So, according to White House economic advisor Larry Summers (yes, that Larry Summers--perhaps NOW was rescinded their fatwa against him), the blizzards that made January and February on the East Coast a splendid festival of cabin fever and emergency trips for milk, bread, and TP are responsible for "distorting" the unemployment figures this winter.  Well, that certainly is an interesting way of putting it.  In a similar vein, I am announcing today that the blue cheese dressing in which I like to dip my french fries distorts the caloric intake of my bacon cheeseburger/chocolate shake dinner.

Look, I'm not saying that the blizzards had no effect on unemployment.  They certainly didn't help anyone.  (With perhaps the sole exception of the Chinese restaurant near my house, which would be happy to deliver fried rice and dumplings during the apocalypse.)  Clearly--as Summers asserts--it caused slow-downs in the construction industry, as well as with the restaurant and retail sectors.  But to try to present this as a wholesale excuse for the state of unemployment in the country right now?  Please.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the Administration continues to look for ways to deflect responsibility for our economic woes.  If anything, I'm shocked that they didn't claim to have inherited the blizzards from President Bush.
 
 
So Ron Paul won the CPAC Straw Poll.  This is big news among those who enjoy anything that makes conservatives seem marginalized or out-of-touch.  Not to disparage our Libertarian-in-Chief, of course, but Rep. Paul has developed an intense (and occasionally intensely strange) following that encompasses everything from the wild-eyed Libertarians to the slightly less wild-eyed Libertarians.  It's true that Rep. Paul (and Libertarianism in general) bring a valuable and interesting perspective to the debate over the future of the country.  And I try very hard not to hold him responsible for the high numbers of 9/11-deniers among his followers.  But there's a difference between contributing to the conversation and hijacking it.  And believe me, if you had been forced to fend off the waves of Campaign for Liberty pamphleteers at CPAC, you would appreciate the importance of this.

But despite the downsides to the Rob Paul Party at CPAC, I will still defend their presence there.  (Though not all of their positions--nor the decision to hold a sumo suit wrestling competition in the middle of an exhibit aisle.) There has been a lot of talk about the resurgence of conservatism under Obama, and I am thrilled about that.  But what I'm not thrilled to see is the right side of the spectrum threatening to balkanize over their different purity tests.  During the CPAC panel for the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles (our newest APP initiative), Grover Norquist (of ATR) pointed out that what made the Reagan Republicans strong was the fact that they could recognize the different reasons that each group came to the table to support Reagan--but all through the basic wish to be left alone.  Fiscal conservatives want their businesses to be left alone, social conservatives want their schools/children/etc. to be safe from liberal social engineering.  These groups have similar interests, and (as much as they may sometimes deny it), come from the same principle--an intrusion on one threatens all.  And if we want to replace Obama rather than just complain about him, we're going to have to remember that.  
 
 
Republicans sometimes have a hard time with the immigration question.  There are those of us who feel strongly about the value of America's history as a nation of immigrants, and there are those of us who have a somewhat different perspective.  (Guess which way I go on that one.)  And then there are the pragmatists, who point out that regardless of what the law and/or current administration might be saying about our immigration policy, our actions--or lack thereof--have created a de facto policy that cannot be ignored or disregarded.  (A good point, I believe.)  And that's before you add the complexity of race and ethnicity,which tends to stir up unpleasant memories of the "No Irish Need Apply" type, and makes some of us even more uncomfortable with the hardliners.  

What is desperately needed is a realistic and principled immigration reform.  And with that, I refer you to Dr. Robert George, Founder of APIA:
 
 
As a person who is not entirely white herself, the stereotype of conservatives as old white men has always been a source of irritation for me.  For one thing, there are an abundance of old white men, and they're just as easy to find on the left side of the aisle as the right.  The main difference being that the liberal ones are much more likely to condescend to you about your "unique point of view" as a minority and are also slightly more likely to be drinking a chai latte while doing so.

Yet while the Left has created a governing philosophy out cultural relativism, Conservatives have been developing a more rigorous intellectual foundation that is founded on fundamental ideas about equality and freedom.   Which one of these do you think is more appealing to those who truly believe that people should be colorblind?  So I resent assumptions that I must be liberal because of my ethnic background--old white men don't have a monopoly on impartial reason.  And I don't need to be patronized just because I don't need sunscreen in the summer.

The big deal about this whole "American Principles" thing is the fact that they're universal.  They're not the province of any demographic--even if that fact flies in the face of how they like to do things these days inside the beltway.  So in that spirit, American Principles is happy to announce the creation of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles.  Here's the website: www.latino-partnership.org.  And (of course) we have video:
 
 
A lot has been written lately about Obama's inability to sustain the excitement of his election--not least of all because campaigning and governing are such vastly different things.  He's very good at the one, but hasn't seemed to adjust to the fact that rhetoric only takes one so far.  Hence the polling problem.  At any rate, just about anyone with pretensions to political punditry has weighed in on the problem, but for a concise overview, I recommend Rich Lowry's piece about Obama's reality gap.  He really gets to the heart of the problem, and without the usual inside-the-beltway demographic-dropping.

Personally, I've always wondered whether Presidential candidates believe their own promises to end partisan bickering, create jobs, or bring peace to the Middle East.  I think we can be pretty sure that Bill Clinton didn't.  Bush 2 may have, but by his second term had largely stopped the grandiose promises.  But I begin to suspect that Obama does.  That he really did think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (to take one example) just needed his silver tongue and wise counsel to find a resolution.  If that's the case, that reality gap is worse than we dreamed.
 
 
I confess to watching the majority of Sex and the City--even in the final, unbearable seasons.  (Hey, last night, I was up past midnight watching the Sheep Herding Championship on Rural Free Delivery TV.  I'm not exactly picky about my entertainment choices.)  In the end, what disgusted me most about the SATC phenomenon had nothing to do with the show itself--it was more about the bizarre shallow, self-centered, totally unrealistic culture that grew up among certain female fans of the show.  I'm thinking here of those women who didn't seem to absorb the depth of fiction that surrounded their heroine's lives.  (Sorry to burst your bubble ladies, but it is extremely unlikely that you will finally settle down with your millionaire boyfriend in your 40s to enjoy a life full of couture fashion and moderately witty puns.)

Of course, it's unfair for me to lay these cultural changes at the feet of Sara Jessica Parker, who no doubt has a mortgage and bills to pay like the rest of us.  (More glamorous bills, perhaps, but bills nonetheless.)  Anyway, SATC is not the cause so much as a symptom of changing cultural mores regarding sex, marriage, and men and women.

For a truly detailed look at this shift, I recommend Charlotte Alan's column "The New Dating Game" in the Weekly Standard.  It's great reading for those who are looking for another reason to feel a little pessimistic about the direction our culture is taking--at least regarding sexual mores.  Of course, this isn't news to those of us who are familiar with the trends she cites.  (I've been reading Tucker Max for years now, and don't recommend him at all for the 99% of the readers of this site who may be offended by vulgar--if entertaining--descriptions of one's drunken and sexual exploits.  Heck, if you don't find him occasionally offensive, I think there is probably something a little wrong with you.  Even he finds himself offensive.)

Where was I?  Right.  Offensiveness and changing cultural mores.  Anyway, Alan is really writing of how the sexual revolution has changed courtship behaviors among young women and men, who are generally far less interested in marriage and monogamy.  She chronicles how sexual permissiveness has led to a change in female pursuit of men, and how a cult of the Player has accompanied that among young men hoping to learn how to approximate the new Alpha male that such women apparently seek.

Nothing new under the sun?  Well, perhaps in terms of base human desires and needs--but not in such numbers.  It's a very interesting look at the law of unintended consequences and the pervasive impact of pop culture.  A bummer, yes, but it does no good to close your eyes to these things just because they reveal the negatives of human nature.
 
 
Tried to escape the house today, but was defeated by the snowpocalypse.  Just getting to the door of my car would have required hours of shoveling. At least I can sit here and enjoy the fact that the White House had to push back the planned announcement of their global warming initiative.  Considering his sinking poll numbers, I think Obama should give serious thought to coming out as pro-global warming.  Speaking for those of us in the DC area, that's a position that is growing in popularity.  That, and mandating that pizza delivery remain in operation regardless of weather conditions.  Especially when the Superbowl is involved.

Anyway, wandering around on You Tube, I came across this summary of "Why I'm a Conservative Republican" that I liked.  Enjoy: