Rhetorical Question

After seven years of a President whose loquacious stylings remind one of a sculptor welding a jack hammer, I think that Americans are craving a chief executive who can turn a pleasant phrase. Therefore it is no surprise that Barak Obama and Mike Huckabee appear to be currently in the lead in the race to the White House. Huckabee, a Baptist minister, has leaned on his pulpit experience to charm the primary voters and Obama seems to be a congenital orator. Most of the other candidates are wooden in comparison … notably Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton (pre tears) …and, therefore, they have suffered at the polls. But Romney seemed to be much more communicative when he prepared and gave his talk on his Mormon religion. In fact, he was downright eloquent. But, on the stump or in a debate, he is far less spontaneous. Hillary, in most of her public speaking, seems rehearsed to the point of robotics. It was because of this perceived handler over-programming that her short lachrymose lament freshened her image enough for the women of the Granite State to change their intended votes.

The real problem is -- good word-smithing is not necessarily a prerequisite for good governing. In fact, it is a little Pollyannaish that we Americans still want to have both … witness our reverence of those presidents who did have both -- Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and FDR. Also, when there is a choice between good speechifying and managerial talents, we seem to opt for the former – witness Bill Clinton and Woodrow Wilson. And there were those presidents who were good managers without oratorical powers – witness Nixon and Eisenhower. The trick is – not to confuse the two. So my question is: if we can’t have both, why would we rather have someone who speaks well extemporaneously over one who, after consultation and deliberation, more often comes up with the right answer?

(Admittedly, George W. Bush isn’t a particularly good manager either. He has chosen and kept many mediocre acolytes around him. So why do I still support him and his party? Primarily, because he has taken and kept the offensive in the war against terrorism. He also eventually chose two very good Supreme Court justices. And he has (quixotically) attempted to fix the Social Security entitlement’s conundrum. And lastly, none of his appointees have been caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. I can’t see a current Democrat doing any of these things. I realize Bush will never be thought a great president, but then again he won’t be the worst by a country mile. Sorry, Madeline Albright.)

Mitt Picking

The main-stream media has bent over backwards to find things wrong with Mitt Romney. For instance:

1) Years ago he strapped his dog to the top of his SUV to travel to New Hampshire (IN A DOG CRATE)
2) His lawn care company uses illegal immigrants (EVEN AFTER HE TOLD THEM TO DESIST)
3) He has changed his position from “Choice” to “Life” on the abortion issue, therefore he “waffles”
4) None of his five sons have joined the armed forces (NOR HAVE HUCKABEE’S SONS)
5) His religion, Mormonism, believes that Satan is Jesus Christ’s brother (NOT TRUE)
6) He “saw” his father (George Romney) “march with” Martin Luther King (ONLY VIRTUALLY)
7) His record as Massachusetts governor is checkered (A MATTER OF OPINION)
8) He may wear Mormon’s “magic underwear” (HAS REFUSED TO COMMENT ON THIS)
9) Mormons didn’t allow blacks into the their church (UNTIL 1978 … NOW ALL RESTRICTIONS REMOVED)
10) Mormons endorsed polygamy … men could take multiple wives (UNTIL 1910)

Of these ten nits, four have to do with Romney’s religion … something I thought was traditionally off-limits in presidential politics. The other six nits, four are either so silly as to be ludicrous, or, the last two (#s 3 & 7), are little different from other candidates and/or are very debatable.

Why the main-stream media is so down on Mitt Romney is a little puzzling to me … perhaps it’s a little out of fear that he could defeat anything the Dems have to offer. After all it looks to me like the 2008 contest is shaping up to be one of heart (Obama) versus head (Romney)..

I AM NOT A CROOK

(From the Drudge Report) "Sen. John McCain said yesterday that he has 'never done any favors for anybody -- lobbyist or special interest group,' as his presidential campaign issued a statement denouncing allegations of legislative favoritism as 'gutter politics.'"

Excuse me … does anyone remember the savings and loan scandal in the late 1980's? And the Keating five? See: The Keating Five Senator McCain I guess hopes that we have all lapsed into dementia. He apparently has.

Sow’s Ear

Joe Kennedy has a new radio commercial touting his Citizens Energy “non-profit” company. He extols Venezuela’s Citgo for donating million of dollars worth of oil to the poor people of Massachusetts to help them heat their homes. I know I am beating a dead horse here, but first, let me point out again … Citizens Energy is not a non-profit company. It is an energy trading company (like Enron was) which has a small eleemosynary section. Joe Kennedy pulls down hundreds of thousand dollars a year in salary from this ersatz “charity.” Secondly, Joe says in this ad that this oil was donated by Citgo which is “owned by the Venezuelan people.” This is a genteel way of saying that Citgo was nationalized by Venezuela in the 1990’s (other U.S. oil companies been nationalized there more recently) … in other words, Citgo was stolen from us. How’s that for turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse? And this is a silk purse from which the Kennedy clan extracts more of its ill-gotten lucre. (I wonder why we Bostonians insist on keeping that huge Citgo sign behind the Green Monster in Fenway Park? Is it a monument to Hugo Chavez? Or, to this Kennedy charade?)

Spanglish

Last night there was a Republican-candidate TV debate held entirely in Spanish. I couldn't find this debate on my TV but have heard excerpts of it on talk radio. I have often thought that, just like we have the SAP option on many English TV shows, we should have an ENG option on any Spanish-only TV shows. I have watched Hispanic rallies on CSPAN and wished I knew what they were saying ... especially when I kept hearing the word "gringo" punctuating their speeches.

Three Billion Penny Oprah

Oprah Winfrey went to Iowa today to attend two huge campaign rallies for Barak Obama. There she gave her enthusiastic campaign endorsement for Obama to huge cheering crowds of “her people”. Now the issue that this raises in my mind is one of campaign donation limits. My understanding is that no single individual can give any one campaign more than $1,000 in hard money (and $5,000 in soft money to PACs). But Oprah is giving a donation-in-kind that is obviously worth many millions. Plus she is obviously spending much more than $1,000 in hard dollars just to be in Iowa with her posse (make-up artist, hair dresser, body guards, pilots, drivers, etc). Is this right? Does this lie within the spirit or even the letter (can't even be construed “soft money”) of the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform bill? I think not. Will anyone object? I think not. (By the bye, I would not be unhappy if Obama were to knock off Hillary … who is obviously also getting huge donations-in-kind from her lothario husband.) But I raise this issue to show how will-o-the-wisp such attempts at “campaign finance reform” really are.

Mourning Imus

Imus is back on the air. I listened to much of his painful program yesterday morning with his wife, Deidre’s ceaselessly flacking her “green” cleaning products and mentioning the Hackensack Hospital (where she is a director) every five minutes. Imus also now has two black sidekicks, one male and one female, (assumedly as penance), so the show banter is now decidedly from the ‘hood. (Not that there is anything wrong with that.) I got up early this AM and turned on his program at 5:00. I was surprised to hear an hour-long repeat of yesterday’s 8:00 segment (in which Chris Dodd tries to rationalize his run for the presidency and to repeatedly buss Imus’s derriere.) Then, after having my morning coffee and reading the newspapers, I tuned in again to his 7:00 segment. Surprise, surprise, it was a re-repeat of this same segment! Wow!! What a rip-off. I am now listening to the 8:00 segment and it is finally original programming (with Mike Huckabee giving his born-again sermon about why to vote for him … and, in the process, dissing Mormon’s). I assume that this hour will make up the majority of tomorrow’s show.

Paying the Piper

The U.S. dollar is hovering near a new low today … $1.47 per Euro … and I’m afraid it is destined to go lower. Why? Very simply, because our balance of trade is so abysmal (running about a negative $55 billion per month!), partly traceable to the outrageously high price of oil (closing in on $100 per barrel), and this traceable primarily to an international oil cartel that has (through collusion and the politics of fear) decoupled the price of oil from what a free market would dictate (many believe that the free-market price of oil would be below $50 a barrel.) (If the UN were to ever aspire to become a world government, it would do away with international cartels of any stripe.)

What are the U.S.’s options to deal with this conundrum? Unfortunately there are only a few … and most of them are onerous:

1) Continue to lower U.S. interest rates and, as a consequence, weaken the U.S. dollar further. This, in turn, would devalue the dollar reserves held by foreign governments (often now being called “sovereign funds”) and probably cause a stock market swoon. But, this would make our exports cheaper and much more attractive to world markets and therefore should help to improve our balance of trade.
2) Install high import duties on oil and many Chinese (read Wal-Mart) items. Unfortunately this would likely cause a trade war (which many claim caused the economic depression in the 1930’s).
3) Establish a clear national priority to become energy independent within five years. This would mean increasing mileage standards for new cars and trucks, building many new nuclear power plants, reducing clean-air standards for coal-fired power plants, placing greater emphasis on bio-fuels, drilling for oil in ANWAR and in the gulf of Mexico (e.g., off-shore in Florida), and harvesting/processing the oil shale deposits in Utah. (Other talked-up alternatives such as wind power, solar power, etc. would have minimal effect.)
4) Devalue the U.S. dollar. Basically, say that our dimes are now called “dollars” with many of the same results as noted in #1.
5) Disavow our foreign debts. This could be done by declaring that only U.S. citizens or companies could redeem government debt obligations. This would force foreign governments to sell their U.S. government debt obligations to U.S. citizens/companies at pennies on the dollar.
6) Invade and take over the oil supplies of one or more Middle Eastern countries (or even Venezuela). I would suggest maybe Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. We could also directly usurp most of the Iraqi oil production to our benefit (over ¾ billion barrels per year).
7) Permit or even encourage foreign ownership of U.S. companies (e.g., Citigroup, NASDAQ, etc.) and then, at some point in the future, nationalize these companies. (Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, China, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, etc. have all done this very thing to us in the past.)

Let’s pretend you’ve just been elected President. Which one (or ones) would you choose?

Unintended Consequences

Larry Summers (the former Clinton Treasury Secretary and bounced President of Harvard) recently predicted that the odds were high that the U.S. is heading into a recession. This prediction is based on his assessment of the consequence arising from the recent sub-prime mortgage meltdown. In turn, this mortgage debacle, predicted by some to cost U.S. financial institutions as much as $300 billion, has occurred because of both greed on the part of lenders and financial naiveté on the part of borrowers. The specter of this huge financial loss has caused a tightening of monetary flows that is rippling through many other economic sectors and is the reason for Mr. Summers' gloom and doom.

Now, why has this sub-prime mortgage crisis occurred? May I suggest that politician's fingerprints are all over this misfeasance? I distinctly remember a number of years back when bank's lending practices were under the microscope and, if the number of mortgages given in depressed urban areas were not proportional to those in more affluent areas, they were castigated by solons at both the national and state level. The media had a hay day with such lurid headlines. In response, banks and other financial institutions, against their better instincts, started giving mortgages to marginal credit risks … and, in return, jiggered the terms of these mortgages to compensate them for these higher risks. They then would package these mortgages and sell them to third parties at a nice profit. The result was a paving over of the inherent risks that these mortgage packages represented.

Strutting in the background with thumbs in their suspenders were the politicians who cajoled this "best-practices" change on the part of mortgage lenders. And they obviously used this relaxation to garner many votes among those who were then getting these sub-prime loans. Now that this debacle is affecting us all, where are those politicians? May I suggest that you look under their desks? Will those home owners whose houses have been foreclosed on take it out on these same politicians? I doubt it. Most likely they will despise the banks and other mortgage lenders. And now these pols are also deflecting their own guilt by telling lenders to rejigger their rates so that home-owners are not thrown out on their ears (lowering the rate but extending the term of the mortgage). Basically, like politicians since time immemorial, they are kicking the can down the road. They are also ginning up a legal mechanism to make class-action suits easier for such mortgage borrowers. So, those financial institutions, which are not deep-sixed by this mortgage crisis, will, in the longer run, be crippled by our avaricious trial lawyers.

Soon to be Forgotten

The passing of Norman Mailer has brought to mind what a horse’s ass he really was … and how his only real claim to fame was that he used the word “fug” (instead of that other word) in the Naked and the Dead and, consequently became an antebellum infant terrible. After that, he stayed famous, in my opinion, not because of his tortured prose but because of his continued acting-up (stabbing and almost killing his wife; getting a murderer released from jail so that he could murder again; etc) and his ultra-liberal politics. This then led me into compiling the following list of prima donnas whose reputations far exceed their talents … and whose self-images exceed(ed) their reputations. I fully expect that they will slowly fade from history like Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat. My current list of imposters is:

Norman Mailer, Andy Warhol, Maya Angelou, George Lucas, Paris Hilton, Al Gore, Tom Cruise, Rush Limbaugh, Joe Biden, Miss Piggy, Bob Dylan (aka Zimmerman), Harold Pinter, Frank Lloyd Wright, Céline Dion, and Donald Trump.

I would love to be also able to put Barbara Streisand on this list, but, unfortunately, she really does (did) have quite a bit of musical talent.

SHAME ON US

NEWS:
Dozens of schoolchildren and five teachers were among those killed in a suicide attack in northern Afghanistan earlier this week — the country’s deadliest since the fall of the Taliban — the government said Friday.
The 59 schoolchildren had lined up to greet a group of lawmakers visiting a sugar factory in the northern province of Baghlan on Tuesday when a suicide bomber detonated explosives.
“The education minister has ordered that no children should be ever again be used in these sort of events,” said Zahoor Afghan, an Education Ministry spokesman. He said the children ranged in age from 8 to 18.
In all, the explosion claimed the lives at least 75 people, including several parliamentarians, and wounded 96. It was the deadliest attack in the country since the toppling of Taliban regime from power in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

All in the name of radical Islam. And we want to roll over for these barbarians. Shame on us.

GLOBAL SMARMING

By JOE McDONALD (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated PressNovember 09, 2007 4:21 AM EST

BEIJING - A Chinese official gave the clearest sign yet that Beijing will reject binding caps on greenhouse gas emissions at a global meeting next month, saying Friday developing countries must be allowed to raise emissions to fight poverty.
"Climate change is caused mainly by developed countries," Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui said. "They should have the main responsibility for climate change and to reduce emissions."
Beijing is about to overtake the United States as the world's top greenhouse-gas producer. It is under pressure from Washington to accept binding limits at a meeting in Indonesia of environment ministers from 80 nations to discuss a possible replacement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on emission reductions.


HOW DO YOU SPELL PATSY? -- "A-L G-O-R-E"

Carter’s Baby Clothes

Ex-president Jimmy Carter was recently interviewed on the BBC. Besides piously accusing (on foreign soil no less) the Bush administration of torturing prisoners, he charged Vice President Dick Chaney of being “a disaster for our country. I think he’s been overly persuasive on President George Bush [and] they all seem to be outdoing each other in who wants to go to war first with Iran.” Now, I may be wrong but who was the last American president to actually invade Iran? You’re right! It was this very same Jimmy Carter (with disastrous consequences to boot)!!

This toothsome one also has accused George W. Bush numerous times of “being the worst President in U.S. history” even though, in poll after poll, he himself usually brings up the rear in such voting. He obviously has no shame and sense of proportion or decorum. I kinda think he may be vying to be also voted the worst ex-President in U.S. history.

This then is a convenient segue way into the subject of the Nobel Peace Prize … which Jimmy Carter won a few years back. Today, Al “the planet has a fever” Gore also won this dynamite award (which, hopefully, will impel him to run for president in 2008.) Gore-ba-chef joins such other august recent winners of this prize as Mohamed ElBaradei, Yasser Arafat, Kofi Atta Annan, and Le Duc Tho. There is clearly enough prestige in this group to make Jimmy Carter and Al Gore look like a pair of mongooses in a pit of vipers.

Summers Time

As all my readers should know by now, I am a conservative. However, there is one liberal I tolerate … and even like … Larry Summers (the former Clinton Treasury Secretary and erstwhile tarred-and-feathered President of Harvard). Mr. Summers was on "KIudlow and Company" (CNBC) the other night and was asked lots of economic questions, most of which answers Larry Kudlow (a conservative) agreed with. The one that caused him some consternation was whether Larry Summers favored the lower (15%) capital gains rate currently in place. He said no, primarily because this lower rate is being corrupted by such things as hedge-fund managers using this lower rate to pay taxes on their multi-million compensation packages (as much as $500 million per year). They claim (and the IRS and most Republican presidential candidates agree) that these pay packages are "return of capital" and not ordinary income. This, of course, is bullshit.

So, the fact that the lower capital gains rate is being so grossly abused, may be the reason that it is killed by the next (Democratic) administration. Why do so many Republicans close ranks around this hedge fund manager capital-gains tax abuse? Could there be such a thing as "knee-jerk" righties?

I have a suggestion -- when President Wright is booted out of Dartmouth for incompetence and alienating the majority of Dartmouth alums, the job should be offered to Larry Summers.

Hillary Care

Last night at the Democrat Debate at Dartmouth (a fine venue), Hillary Clinton said that she would not approve of the torture of a terrorist even if it meant that a nuclear explosion would be averted in one of our major cities. (When Tim Russert pointed out that her husband, Bill Clinton, had answered the same question in the affirmative, Hillary responded’ “Well, he’s not up here on stage now.”) I’m so glad that our would-be president, values the civil liberties of one terrorist above the lives of hundreds of thousands of American citizens. What kind of upside-down, twisted, do-goody, knee-jerky, Soros-styled, bubble-headed liberal would make such an inane moral judgment? Here is the woman who expounds that “It takes a village.” to raise our children. Well, Hillary, it can’t take a village if that village is vaporized … along with all its children.

PROVOCATEUR

agent pro·vo·ca·teur Etymology: French, literally, provoking agent: one employed to associate with suspected persons and by pretending sympathy with their aims to incite them to some incriminating action [Examples: Andrew “Don't Tase Me Bro” Meyer, University of Florida, also Senator John "Gengis Khan" Kerry, Massachusetts (archaic)]
Partial Source: Webster’s Dictionary

Logic is Logic

A recent critic of mine asks "Would you sacrifice YOUR son or daughter to ensure that nine 'bad guys' [in Iraq] were eliminated?" This is pretty much the same question that Michael Moore sprung on unsuspecting conservative politicians in his movie “Fahrenheit 911”. The problem is – this is a false premise. This premise should be stated: “Would you discourage your child from joining the Army (it is all-volunteer, after all) out of patriotism/career choice, when you knew that there was about a 50/50 chance (or a lower probability if he/she were to join another branch of the armed forces) that he/she would be sent to Iraq and, if that happened, there would be about a 1% chance that he/she would be killed?” This is a far different query from the false premises used by both the above mentioned fuzzy thinkers.

And yet Michael Moore was generally hailed for his perspicacity and my blog critic may be hoping that he, too, gets an Oscar. This example of lazy syllogism in our society probably stems from the fact that Logic is seldom taught in our schools anymore. Terms like “ipse dixit,” “tautology,” “ad hominem,” “ad populum,” “equivocation,” “syllogism,” “reductio ad absurdum,” “petitio principii,” “false premise,” and “apiorism” are often responded to with blank stares. Wouldn’t it be nice if our educational system did a U-turn and began teaching our children more how to think and less how to “feel?” If you want more insight into the logical process, visit:

http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/very-basic-terms-of-logic-6816.html

and others:

http://cornerstone.st/Logic%20Terms.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_logic

etc.

Body Count Calculus

On the Howie Carr radio show today (8/22/07), Col. David Hunt, his substitute host, said that he had it on good (inside) authority that we were currently killing about 250 “bad guys” in Iraq every day. (This would translate into about 90,000 “bad guys” per year if we continue these favorable “surge” statistics.) And, the way I calculate it, we are losing, on average, about three American soldiers ever day in Iraq … or about 1,000 per year. This means that, if Col. Hunt’s “inside info” is accurate, the ratio of American soldier losses to bad guy losses is 90 to 1. Now we also know that enemy body count statistics are always overblown, so, to be more realistic, let us assume that we are killing terrorists, Baathists, enemy militias, and opportunistic criminals at the rate of about 60,000 per year. Since the American surge has been going on fully for only about two months, this suggests that we have recently killed about 10,000 bad guys. From this, one can suddenly understand why so many in this country are now saying that the surge is “working.” And, if we were to continue this surge for six more months (until next spring), we should punish our collective enemies in Iraq to the tune of 30,000 additional deaths. This is a non-trivial cost for these corrosive Iraqi elements to suffer … one that hopefully might not be tolerable. Admittedly, our cost would be something like an additional 500 American soldier deaths and maybe ten times that number wounded.

The question for every American then becomes, “Would it be worth it?” I understand that there are many Americans that righteously say, “Not one more American death!” But then I also understand that we have already sacrificed almost 4,000 military men and women to this effort in Iraq … with many, many more wounded. Shall we just write these deaths and injuries off to our collective misjudgment? (Remember, most of us thought that going into Iraq was a good idea and we cannot deny or wish away our resultant responsibility.) I think I know what President Bush would and will say … and this is why having his job is not to be envied.

Elite Effete Snobs

Karl Rove went on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program yesterday and called liberals “elite, effete snobs.” This, predictably, has caused many liberals paroxysms of elite effete snobbery.

More for Moyers

Next time you are tempted to respond to PBS’s constant on-air begging (in between their ever-lengthening corporate commercials, their thanks to the many foundations who lavish them with pelf, and their Scrooge McDuck nod to the National Endowment for the Arts), be aware that Bill Moyers, that icon of the left wing of the George Soros left wing, receives over $6 million a year from the coffers of this high-minded institution to peddle his hate-America-first polemic.