Maybe Sarah Will Be The Next President

If you're a moonbat. I'll let you have a few moments to scream into a pillow.

There. Better now? Let's begin.

If you look at the Republicans lining up to run against Barak Obama in the next election, the short list includes Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. I have never thought either of them stands a chance of beating Barak Obama and I still don't. The question is whether the GOP will nominate one of them or someone else.

Tonight there was a tragic event in Washington state where a fellow murdered four policemen. The man being sought in that crime is no stranger to the legal system, having been convicted for several crimes including one with a 48 year sentence and another for a 60 year sentence. The man is 37 years old and did not pass through a time warp. Instead, Mike Huckabee, pardoned him.

I've long thought that Mike Huckabee would make a great Pastor, maybe a good Evangelist, but was a lousy Governor and would be a bigger disaster as President than Jimmy Carter. Not to worry, he'd lose as badly against Mr. Obama as Alan Keyes did.

Mike Huckabee's greatest impact in 2008 in Republican Primaries was splitting the Evangelicals from the rest of the Republican party. However, it is entirely possible that in 2012 Evangelicals voting in the Republican primaries might find Sarah Palin on the ballot. His influence would be diminished accordingly.

What I found particularly distasteful about Mr. Huckabee's campaign in 2008 was his rather blatant identity politics: Vote for me b/c I'm Baptist. Well, I'm a Baptist and I voted against him. Sarah Palin isn't a Baptist, her faith is a prominent part of her identity, but she isn't quoting Scripture as much as she's quoting Reagan.

Tonight Mike Huckabee suffered a severe setback. Years back Mr. Huckabee pardoned someone who should be safely locked up in prison, but (if indeed he is found guilty) instead has perpetrated a murder spree. This may speak well of his willingness to forgive others their debts, but it does not speak well of his judgment. It is bad theology and it is bad politics to confuse worldly and heavenly offenses. I suspect this sort of confusion also afflicts politicians who want to grant amnesty to illegal aliens.

All Barak Obama needs to do in 2012 is dust off the Willie Horton ads that George Bush senior and Al Gore used against Michael Dukakis. And since Barak Obama is, by definition, not a racist, his photos of the pardoned cop-killer will run without criticism. Embed this instance of bad judgment into a narrative of running against someone just like George W. Bush and you've got the Obama '12 campaign.

This is a shame, because Mike Huckabee has one advantage over Mitt Romney: he didn't inherit his money. And there's one thing the Democrats have been fine tuning for the last decade: class warfare. If you run a rich scion of a prominent family, you're doomed. Ask Dick DeVos how his run for governor of Michigan worked. Jennifer Granholm's economic policies are as brain-dead as Barak Obama's. Yet she won re-election through pure class warfare. Blame the rich guy for bad economic times.

Here's another strike against Mitt Romney. He was for abortion before he was against it. Some claim that Evangelicals hold Mr. Romney's Mormon faith against him, but it is his changing positions on abortion that matter. If you go from pro-choice to pro-life, that's a Damascus Road change. Makes me kind of think he was pro-choice to get votes in Massachusetts and switched to pro-life to get votes in Republican Primaries. (Not that we haven't seen several Democrat politicians go the opposite direction.)

The third strike against Mitt Romney is RomneyCare. Mr. Romney knew that the Massachusetts legislature and electorate wanted health care reform. And he got a Health Care bill passed at a state level that is not unlike the one Mr. Obama has been pushing at a national level. It's not working out very well of late, or so I hear, but a year or two ago it was being hailed as a wonderful achievement of Mr. Romney. This'll make it hard for Mr. Romney to turn around and run against ObamaCare.

If Romney is the Republican candidate in 2012, this will take ObamaCare off the table. He'll have to find something else to run against. Given the choice between Obama and Yet Another Squish, a lot of Tea Partiers are going to vote for a 3rd Party candidate. Nevertheless, National Review and T. Coddington Van Voorhees VII is going to be pimping for Romney again.

So, name another Republican Presidential candidate? Newt Gingrich? He is the only one who thought he was presidential material, but after his endorsement of Dede Scozzafava in NY-23, he's toast. Tim Pawlenty, anybody ever heard of him outside Minnesota?

Then there's the girl everyone (if you've a Beltway Insider, or a Mainstream Media flack) loves to hate, but everyone most likely to vote in a Republican Presidential Primary treats like a rock star. I've talked to people who stayed in line overnight to get Sarah Palin's autograph on a book.

I've learned to never predict what Sarah Palin is going to do, because she has faked me out so badly when I've done so. It is altogether that Mrs. Palin is going to do nothing more than strike fear into the hearts of Democrat strategists and loathing in the hearts mainstream media Brahmans. And she could spend the rest of her days laughing happily to the bank. However, should she choose to run, she'll do very well with the demographic that's bought her book.

Don't pick on Gays

I think one of the biggest failures of the Religious Right has been that it has forgotten why it exists and this amnesia is hurting it and the Republican party to which it is enslaved.

I'm against abortion. I identify myself as a Social Conservative because I'm against abortion. I despised George W Bush first and foremost because he could not give a coherent case against abortion. He mouthed vague words about "sanctity of life" or something. Sanctity, that belongs in church, not the public forum. He got away with being squishy this way because where we going to go? Gore or Kerry?

Somehow the Religious Right has distracted itself with gays. If you're a Conservative and you think gay sex is wrong, don't do it. And if you're a member of the Religious Right, instigating against gays is bad for two reasons: 1) government has no business in the bedroom, 2) while you're lathered up about gays, you're doing nothing to stop abortion. Here's a clue: gays seldom have abortions. If someone needs an abortion, it wasn't because s/he engaged in gay sex.

I'm not saying gay sex is right or wrong, because you should look that up for yourself in the Bible. I won't change your mind either way. And while I'm talking politics, I think it's wrong for me to bring up bedroom activities. I think that kind of stuff is outside the proper role of government. (But if you're in church or some other social institution, that kind of stuff if fair game.)

Do I think gays have a right to use government de-legitimize my faith if it contains thou-shalt-nots about gay sex? NO. Do I think gays have a right to change traditions and institutions by force of political pressure and government? NO. You leave us alone; we'll leave you alone.

In yesterday's election an openly gay candidate for mayor of someplace won, but the Maine referendum stopping gay marriage won, too. (I think this exemplifies the Christian notion of "love the sinner; hate the sin." But that's too moralistic.) Rather, voters apply different criteria about gays when the question is personal or institutional. We care less about personal attacks predicated upon gay-rights, but we care more about preserving institutions and traditions in the face of gay activism.

Therefore, I think the Religious Right and the Republican party ought to take a more libertarian tack. Something that's been forgotten. Abortion is different b/c it takes a human life. That's nothing to be laissez-faire about. But sex, drugs and rock & roll. Meh.

Passing the torch

Seems the cranky old man who gave us President Barak Obama is anxious to assist in his re-election. George Bush betrayed the Reagan revolution. And the Republicans passed the torch to John McCain who, in turn is fundraising for Mitt Romney.

That John McCain's support for Mitt Romney should assure Barak Obama's re-election may seem counter-intuitive. But it bears a striking resemblance to what happened in Michigan gubernatorial politics. Ms. Granholm has run Michigan's economy into the same hole that Mr. Obama is sending the national economy. But she got re-elected.

She did so by being a class-warrior and the Michigan Republicans obliged her by putting a billionaire who inherited his wealth up against her.

You can see it by way of an analogy. Imagine you're a black man running for Governor against Lester Maddox or George Wallace. These guys made a career of exploiting hatred against people because of an accident of their birth. They had non-governmental organizations such as the KKK to fan the flames of hatred and organize direct action while maintaining plausible deniability for themselves and their political parties.

If you're a guy (of any color) who inherits billions running against a class warrior, it's like being a black guy running against a racist. It's just a different "accident" of your birth.

When Rich DeVos ran for Governor he was demonized as an exploiter of the working classes. This turned Michigan's cruddy economy to Ms. Granholm's advantage. This gave an unpopular Jennifer Granholm a second term. Should Mitt Romney run against Barak Obama, he'd lose by the same dynamic.

Mitt Romney is the son of George Romney, a successful Michigan politician and former President of American Motors Corporation. He has no doubt inherited many good things from his family. Including a pile of cash. This makes him vulnerable to accusations of being a child of privilege.

Moreover, Mr. Romney has added to his family's wealth by his successful career in Finance. Finance, that's the subject of the movie "Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story." If you think that won't be used against Mr. Romney in a general election, ask Mr. DeVos what was said about him and "outsourcing."

I'm not saying Mr. Romney is a bad man or an inept administrator. He brings several demonstrated skills that are sorely lacking in the current Chief Executive of this country. But he's vulnerable to attack from the left. Either the economy will improve: whereupon Mr. Obama will claim that Socialism works and he'll promise to tax and spend even more. Or it won't, and he'll point fingers of blame at everyone who has money and promise to punish them for their greed. That evil Romney is just another fat cat exploiter Michael Moore is telling us about. That's why Mr. Romney will be like a black man running for Governor of Alabama or Georgia against a Segregationist.

Another troubling thing about Mr. Romney is the Massachusetts health care law that he signed into law. It bears many similarities to ObamaCare that no Republican will admit to. Let's suppose Mr. Romney runs against Mr. Obama and tries to make ObamaCare an issue in the campaign. You can be confident that the Massachusetts health care law will NOT be ignored by the Obama campaign.

This will take away the sharpest weapon in the Republicans' arsenal. And I can see a couple million Tea Partiers finding no reason to vote for the Republican candidate. Like they did last time. Why vote for a Republican who promises the same big government that the Democrats are foisting upon us?

This brings us to the "Maverick" who handed the election to Mr. Obama. Disloyalty is not a good leadership trait. Mr. Romney, happily, does not share the single worst character flaw of John McCain. That he should host a fundraiser for Mr. Romney instead of his own running mate reflects his poor political judgment and his inherent disloyalty. We're well rid of him.

Where can I go to find another Ronald Reagan?

Religion For Decorative Purposes

The Ten Commandments include the 3rd commandment that says not to use the name of deity "in vain." Orthodox Jews keep this commandment by writing G-d. And I think anyone who says, "God" or "Jesus Christ" as part of an oath or curse is violating this commandment. But after reflecting on the commandment, another sense of meaning occurred to me. (If you can find anything in the Bible that contradicts this, you should believe that and not what I'm about to say.)

The Bible says not to use the name in vain. I've also heard the commandment translated not to use the name "in a useless fashion" or an "empty way." And I don't think there's any question that this is what the commandment is getting at.

But consider another use of the word "vanity" and that's the furniture or bathroom figure one uses when applying makeup. We use a vanity to maintain our outward appearance. Beauty being only skin deep and all that.

Jesus complained early and often about the Pharisees whom he called play-actors or hypocrites. He condemned the shallowness of their religion. They were all about appearances without much concern about inward attitudes. He spoke of polishing the outside of the cup while leaving the inside dirty. Whited sepulchers and all that.

They used religion as a Decorative item. And that's what I think the 3rd Commandment is strongly condemning. Thou Shalt Not use the Name as Decoration.

This is a trap for anyone who goes to church more than twice a year. For one thing, it's easy to represent oneself as being somewhat pious while inside you're not entirely incorporating the character of Christ into your inner being. (Or if you're Jewish, internalizing the Torah.) Instead, you go to church and you act like you're not as desperately wicked as you know your heart to be.

I noticed when I was in Shipshewana, Indiana a couple weeks ago that there are many businesses run by Christians. They don't hide their Christianity. That's OK. But anyone familiar with families knows that the children can have a different relationship (or no relationship) with God than their parents. What if keeping up appearances is good for business? I worry that if the kids don't share their parents' Christianity, then after they inherit the business they'll feel a need to fake it: Keep up the facade of Christianity and use it as decoration. If that happens, and I hope it doesn't, it will be a violation of the Third Commandment.

Then there is Politics. One candidate for President last year ran in the Republican primaries on the premise, "Vote for me because I'm Baptist." I am Baptist and I like Baptists and I could probably enjoy an evening of non-alcoholic beverages and conversation with this man and have a great time. But I voted against him because I think having the same religion as me is a bad reason for me to vote for anybody. (Besides, he ran Arkansas as much like a socialist as Bill Clinton did before him.)

Politicians always like to be seen in church. Before Billy Graham got too old, every President make a point of getting a photo op with him. I think that any politician's religious display is suspect, and I look to see whether he's using God's name in the vain pursuit of political ends.

After Bill Climpton lost the governor's race he was in the choir every Sunday sitting where the TV cameras would pick him up. I don't think he did that because he wanted to sing more hymns.

Finally, take the recent behavior of the man currently holding the office of the President. Does his use of religion violate the 3rd Commandment? It depends upon how deep his rhetoric goes to his personal character. If he says one thing and does another once or twice, that's one thing. (A sinner should have the space to repent.) If it's a pattern of behavior, that's another thing.

Let's say that I tell you that we are all our brother's keeper. That's true. Though you can say that all men are brothers, I happen to have three siblings, two brothers and a sister. If I had millions and they were living on welfare or in a dirt-floor shack, I'd do something tangible for them. If Barak Obama believes "I am my brother's keeper," then why does his brother live in a shack in Kenya?

This whole moral argument for nationalized health care (yes, he is calling it something else) that the President has launched in the last few days reeks of hypocrisy and desperation. If it were anything more than cynical manipulation, he would have started with moral arguments, not trotted them out after he'd already lost the Blue Dog Democrats. The effort is so transparently hypocritical that only Democrats could possibly fall for it.

If you're running for office, don't use religion for Decorative Purposes. (This goes especially for Sarah Palin who has been endowed by her Creator with enough decoration already.) Internalize your faith and make it integral to your inner character. Then live that out. You might not win, but you'll do better than that, you'll do the right thing.

Two Revolutions

Please forward this to flag@whitehouse.org and flag it "fishy."

If you're a student of history, you may have heard of "The American Revolution" and if the scope of your historical interest is restricted to the 20th Century, you may have heard of "The Russian Revolution." If you think there is no difference between the two, you may believe recent propaganda emanating from state-run media.

A few months ago, President Obama claimed that he was the only thing standing between the bankers and the mobs. This was when the only "tea party" anybody had heard of was in Boston. Now I'm watching "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" and the perpetrator is a former Baader-Meinhof gang member fomenting Revolution through domestic terrorism. The writer had the terrorist conflate his Marxist direct-action with the tea-party rallies.

This week Democrats called Tea Partiers "Nazis," and Republicans called the government-worker union members who roughed up Tea Partiers "brown shirts." Good work guys. I call "Godwin's Law."

Once upon a time I was interviewed for a security clearance. They put me on a polygraph machine and asked if I'd ever been a communist or supported any communist cause. I had to answer, "yes" or "no." My answer then and now is, "No."

This was in 1980. Hitler and the Nazi party had died a decade before I was born. Then I was asked if I had ever been a fascist or supported a fascist political party. This question made absolutely no sense. I tried to make sense of it. I did intend to vote for Reagan and he was pretty far to the right.

So, I asked, "What's a fascist?" I had no idea what fascism meant then. My inquisitor explained that he was asking about the guys Hitler palled around with. And I answered, "No," only because "Hell, No," wasn't allowed. Apparently the boffins at the NSA had seen "The Boys From Brazil" or "They Saved Hitler's Brain."

The trouble is that almost everyone is ignorant of what fascism is. It's all that Hitler stuff, right? Presumably, National Socialism was not a form of Socialism? And those who oppose Socialism, in the form of socialized medicine at a Federal level, do not belong to that socialist heresy that competes with Stalinist Communism?

This is absurd because of the blood libel that Leftists have perpetrated against Conservatives and Libertarians for all my life. Nazis are Socialists. They're a different kind of Socialist than Communists, but they are socialists nonetheless.

If someone says William F. Buckley, or Ronald Reagan, or Rush Limbaugh is a crypto-fascist, ask yourself the question, "What Would Adolph Do?" Would he cut your taxes? Would he shrink your government? Would he RIF federal employees? Would he support the NRA? Would he treat you like a citizen not a subject? Did any of these things happen in Nazi Germany? No, all opposites happened there.

It's called "Totalitarian" government for a reason.

Here's the entire matter in a nutshell: How much government do you want? Do you want a lot more government? Or do you want less government? The American Revolution threw off the British Crown to get less government. The Russian Revolution threw off the Czar and they got a LOT more government. Same with the French Revolution. Tea partiers are engaging in political activism.

They're being regarded as Revolutionaries, but they don't realize their opposition is the one overthrowing the American government with force and violence.

People think that because Tea Partiers oppose Obama's socialism that they're Republicans. Bad news for you GOP. They're sick of your me-too socialism. There's more pent-up demand for less government than any time I've seen since the Carter years. If that pent-up demand cannot find an outlet, reread the Declaration of Independence.

Blue Man Nuke

Last night I made the mistake of rounding up the usual suspects and going to see the movie, "Watchmen." Bottom line: there is no reason for any Republican to watch this movie, and I suppose, there's no reason for any Democrat to watch this movie, either: just save your money for the next Michael Moore movie.

I suppose "Watchmen" tries to overcome some of the stereotypes and tropes of the comic book. The characters are "deeper" than comic book action heroes. Deeper characterization in the sense of having internal contradictions. Yeah right. If you look for a message in this film it may be that the immanent is corrupt and the transcendent is indifferent.

There's the latex-clad eye-candy. Her story arc goes from unhappy childhood, to stealing the blue man nuke from his first love, to dumping this god for the dork, dithering a bit between them, then settling on the dork. I figure dorkman, who inherited his fortune the old fashioned way, inheritance, was a better meal ticket than the naked blue god.

Justice is for cranks. The crank justice of the all-in-one judge, jury and executioner. Rorschach is the narrator of the film and his character has a nicely noir flair about him. He's the one who investigates the crime that serves as the inciting incident. His flawed sense of justice and morality serves as an interesting counter-point to the machinations of the oh, too, predictable villain of the piece. His reward for solving the crime is fitting of the writer's nihilism.

Then there's Dorkman. He's the guy the comic-book reader identifies with. He stumbles through this film. He's told he needs to grow up. I saw no evidence that he ever did or that don't think he even wakes up from his somnolent stumble through this narrative.

EVERY a movie that depicts the smartest man in the world is set in the same universe as Idiocracy. Let's see, smartest man in the world, accumulates the greatest fortune in the world, how does he use it? 1) surround himself with ancient Egyptian kitsch, 2) fly blimps with his name plastered on the side over Manhattan, 3) leave evidence of his crimes on a computer, 4) password-protect his secrets with a password taped to the underside of the computer keyboard, 5) reveals his plan in comic-book villain fashion then says he's not a comic-book villain.

Meanwhile a number of minor characters populate the film like the little birds and stuff in the margins of Mad Magazine: Richard Nixon, Ted Koppel, Pat Buchanan, etc. It would help if the actors they'd chosen had been made up to at least vaguely resemble these public figures. Politics casts an omnipresent, baleful stench upon this film. The ultimate political solution advanced by the film is paternalistic, which makes sense given the stupidity of everyone inhabiting this world.

Let us now turn our attention to the Blue Make Nuke. If you've seen the movie trailers, you've seen all the memorable scenes of the movie. He is endowed by a nuclear accident with godlike powers. And being a god means you can be indifferent about covering up your junk. In fact, that's one of the central themes of the book: to be transcendent is to be indifferent.

In the world of Watchmen, if there is a God, s/he/it is indifferent to the human condition. The god of Watchmen is a cerulean cgi construct. One does not love this god with all of one's heart, because he's likely to be checking email during coitus. And what, precisely, does this character do with his godhood?

C.S. Lewis wrote an essay, "Men Without Chests," and the only chest worthy of note in this film belonged to the eye-candy in latex. But in the essay, "chests" was used in a metaphorical sense of ordinate affections: loving the good and hating the evil. There is evil in this film, but only a crank would confront it and oppose it. And only a sleep-walking child would endorse the sentiment.

I walked out of the film and said, "That's two and a half hours of my life I won't get back."

Jobs: Created and Eliminated

Last night I saw the movie "New In Town." And it is a tad predictable. The hot female executive goes to someplace in Minnesota and meets the hot male union rep. The movie then proceeds to follow the romantic comedy trajectory. As you know, the romantic comedy has a darkest moment near the end of the film. In this case, the evil corporate types demand the female protagonist eliminate half the factory's jobs.

Just now I'm watching the news and learned how the hot female governor of the state of Michigan will create a passel of jobs.

So that's how things work? Corporate types eliminate jobs and politicians create them. That's a great solution to the movie plot. Let old man Potter buy up the factory, close it down and eliminate all the jobs. Then nice Mr. Smith who's gone to Washington will create new ones. Right?

Here's a question: Where do jobs come from in the first place? Are they spoils handed out by politicians to their voters? Are they annuities extorted from "the rich" by unions?

And how much should that job pay? Politicians make a big deal of raising the minimum wage. But why don't they raise it to real money: Just raise the minimum wage to $500 and everyone with a full time job will be a millionaire! You're probably thinking that your current employer can't afford to pay you that much. Not a problem, if you're job is eliminated, the politicians can just create some more.

Libertarianism vs Social Conservatism

I'm a Libertarian. And I'm a Social Conservative. There are a lot of parts of the Social Conservative bit I will die for. Other parts, I just say, "meh." And I don't think I'm the only Social Conservative who thinks this way.

1) Abortion: this is a human life in every instance and there's no chance I'll bend even a millimeter. I frame this as a human rights issue, not a moral one. The fetus is what? an animal? a tumor? a human without rights? a human with rights? Answer the question.

I'm not against stem cell research, either. I'm all for it unless you add the word "fetal." Fetal stem cell research by my way of looking at it is cannibalizing parts of one human for the benefit of another human. If you disagree, prove to me that a fetus isn't a human.

2) Sex, drugs, and rock & roll: meh. Who you take to bed is your business and not mine. If God says "thou shalt not," and you think otherwise, that's your problem with Him not me. Don't mess with the sacraments of any church or say what moral standards the church can't hold and we'll get along fine.

3) Prayer in school: meh. When I was a lad, my sainted mother the separatist Baptist Fundamentalist that she was thoroughly disapproved of the sort of compromised blended ecumenist prayers bandied about in public forums. That rubbed off on me.

Creationism and Intelligent Design (they are different things). I want free inquiry about questions of origins, but it's not a hill I'll die on. If you're upset that some state school wants to teach Darwinism, switch to a private school that doesn't.

Personally, I prefer the separation of school and state. Less opportunity for indoctrination or similar mischief.

So.

Can we agree on these boundaries and live together in the same party? I think so. Maybe we won't go to the same church, or maybe we'll bicker on a personal level, but as far as the civil realm of governance is concerned we've got issues of the proper role of government (minimal) that we hold in common to unite us.

What would Reagan Do?

Feminism

In the movie, "The Princess Bride," Inigo Montoya says, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." I think the national conversation about Mrs. Sarah Palin and feminism is another instance of a word being used whose meaning is in doubt.

Feminism has an appeal because it touches upon fairness and equality. People are differently abled, but nobody is better or worse just because they're a man or woman, black or white, Jew or Greek. I've always thought feminism was about this sort of equality.

Rush Limbaugh coined the term feminazi some years ago to describe "liberal, pro-abortion fanatics." It should be noted that he intends by this usage not a synonym for "feminist," but he describes a specific set of political policy aims. Can you assert equality of the sexes without asserting liberal, pro-abortion policies?

Recently, Camile Paglia has written that Mrs. Palin is "reshaping the persona of female authority." Ms. Paglia is a feminist and an intellectual who enjoys straying from the establishment group-think about what constitutes feminism.

Perhaps we need to distinguish between "feminist" and "establishment feminist" to avoid Rush's feminazi term. Certainly, Mrs. Hillary Clinton is an establishment feminist, but she is no fanatic. But Mrs. Palin is not an establishment feminist.

What prompts this outburst is an essay that I read by someone named Katie Granju who does not like Mrs. Palin. More accurately, after acknowledging Mrs. Palin's accomplishments she thinks it wrong that Mrs. Palin act "like all of these opportunities and open doors just fell into her lap because of her own good luck and hard work." Ms. Granju seems to think that Mrs. Palin owes ideological fealty to establishment feminists. (This sense of "you owe me" is a great way to live a miserable life and become a miserable person.) Presumably brave Norma Rae was out there toiling in some factory, or brave Erin Brockovich was toiling in some legal aid office, or a dozen other brave movie scripts were written so that forever after, all ambitious women would kneel and kiss the ring of establishment feminists.

Feminism's legitimacy comes from equality. However, establishment feminists seem to think that they are more equal than other women. It is fair to include or exclude people from the abortion movement based upon their pro-choice vs pro-life positions. But equality is not abortion. And equality must also be between women, too.

Establishment feminism is a postmodern phenomenon, as such it is preoccupied with power. Equality and power are often conflated in this case. Thus establishment feminism encounters an existential threat when an empowered woman does not share their policy aims. Her very existence suggests that a woman needs an establishment feminist like a fish needs a bicycle. I think this explains Palin Derangement Syndrome.

A Dangerous Lightweight?

Sometime last week the narrative reached the right wing commentator, Kathleen Parker that Sarah Palin was just Caribou Barbie: she ought not be running for Vice President and who was dragging down the McCain campaign and ought to pull an Eagleton.

Now, like Peggy Noonan before her, Ms. Parker has eaten some crow. In particular, Ms. Parker states of Mrs. Palin, "to Democrats, she’s still a dangerous lightweight..." which raises the question? If Mrs. Palin is a lightweight, how can she be dangerous?

I had a conversation with my neighbor when I put a McCain-Palin sign in my front yard. (I had foregone putting any Republican signs in my yard until I could get one with Mrs. Palin's name on it.) He announced with glee that Mr. McCain had pulled out of Michigan and thought that significant. He is probably correct at that point. But when I mentioned my support for Mrs. Palin, he said, "She knows nothing."

Very well, if she knows nothing, she should pose no threat to anyone with "D" next to their name, correct?

But my neighbor was not finished with Mrs. Palin. He said, "You know she's a Pentacostal. She supports Israel. She wants Armageddon to force the Second Coming." Now, I doubt that my neighbor recognized the naked religious bigotry in his assertion. I suppose that if Mrs. Palin's middle name were "Hussein" it might be different. But I gave him a pass, going after the sheer ignorance and falseness of this representation of premillenial eschatology. I am a premillenialist Christian and I find this canard of the left utterly ridiculous. If you think this way, you don't know what you're talking about. Christians who speak of the imminent return of Jesus Christ do so to warn that one must always be ready to meet one's maker and give account of one's life. The point is that God is in the driver's seat, not the other way around. But I digress.

I dislike this line of rhetoric: seeking not only the political defeat of someone whose opinions you contradict, but their personal destruction. I've come close to this myself, comparing Mr. Obama with Steve Urkel and contrasting him with John Shaft. I plan to vote against Mr. Obama because he advances policies I dislike and I plan to vote for Mrs. Palin because she advances policies I support.

By moving away from the policies of the candidates to their personal attributes, we set for ourselves a trap. When we speak of policies, we can more easily remain civil in our conversations. On the other hand, when we say the other guy is an empty suit, the other guy will speak of lipstick on a pig, and the conversation goes downhill very quickly. In conversation with my neighbor, most of my replies were, "Oh really?" and "Is that so?" while believing none of it. I don't think my neighbor realizes how close his assertions came to 1930s style antisemitism, or sexism and ageism of more recent vintage. But they got past his civility filter because he'd gone past policy into the ad hominem.

This isn't new. Mrs. Palin is getting the full Ronald Reagan treatment. And the left is tacking very close to the wind while doing this. If she's a lightweight, she can't be dangerous. But if she's worthy of the vitriol we've seen since her nomination for Vice President, someone must regard her as very dangerous. She has proved articulate and she manages to say things I haven't heard from a Republican candidate since Mr. Reagan left public life.

I'm not altogether convinced that Mrs. Palin's enemies are limited to those with "D"s next to their name. This year is not completely unlike 1976 and someone who so channels Ronald Reagan will find few friends in the Nelson Rockefeller wing of the party. One wonders what would have happened had Gerald Ford made Ronald Reagan his running mate. My hopes are that Mrs. Palin is more dangerous than lightweight.

Come On. He's Just A Kid

Recently, Mrs. Sarah Palin's email was "hacked" and the contents of her email account was disclosed publicly. This is a violation of law and the perpetrator of this crime is suspected to be Mr. David Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee and the son of an elected official. Though Mr. Kernell remains innocent until proven guilty, the case against him seems strong enough to move the press to opine that the perpetrator is just a kid. The presumption is that youthful exuberance and bad judgment should excuse this act as a childish prank.

Though I am inclined toward mercy in most cases, I note that Mr. Kernell is old enough to serve in the military. At this moment, US servicemen are operating SIGINT listening posts around the world monitoring the communications of America's enemies. These servicemen are not older than Mr. Kernell (though they may be more mature). When telephone calls between foreign nationals were routed through switches located in the US, the NSA sought to intercept them using personnel no older than Mr. Kernell. This caused a great deal of angry discussion about the legality of doing so. Had any of these intercept operators disclosed the contents of these communications, they'd soon find lodging in a federal penitentiary.

Mr. G. Gordon Liddy knows something of federal penitentiaries. He was lodged therein after doing the 1970s equivalent of Mr. Kernell's hacking, bugging a telephone. If Mr. Kernell is found guilty, but only gets a wrist-slap would this give a green light to a Renaissance of Watergate-style political black ops? Worse, if the seriousness of the infraction does not rise to the level of prosecution, political operatives will take this as license to invade anyone's privacy.

Carly, You're So Vain

You probably think this essay is about you.

One of the sources of unease I've felt with the Republican Presidential candidate this season has been his association with Carly Fiorina. I don't know Ms. Fiorina and have supposed she's a nice person. However, I've noticed that the quality of Hewlett Packard has declined markedly in the last few years. When HP bought out Compaq it didn't seem like a smart move to me, but I'm far enough removed that I had no basis for that opinion.

Then there was a huge fight within HP over Ms. Fiorina's leadership. The last I'd heard of her was her forced eviction from the company. Of course, a lot of damage was already done and someone else had to clean up after. I had supposed that would be the last I'd hear from Ms. Fiorina.

So, when Ms. Fiorina insinuated herself into the McCain Campaign as some kind of economics guru, I felt a vague discomfort. Her involvement seemed like a bad move, but I couldn't definitively say why.

Yesterday I discovered why. You have to have very poor business judgment to say that your boss is unqualified to run a business. After all, he made the business decision to hire you.

This creates one of those rare situations where we can know something certainly: Either Mr. McCain is unqualified to run a business and his hiring decision of Ms. Fiorina validates that decision (making her stupid) OR Mr. McCain is indeed qualified to run a business whereupon Ms. Fiorina's assertions are false (making her a liar). We do not know whether Mr. McCain is qualified or not, but we do know Ms. Fiorina is either stupid or a liar. Hence we conclude that HP was correct to remove Ms. Fiorina from leadership.

Update: It appears that a businessman who is considerably more successful than Ms. Fiorina would be willing to hire either Mr. McCain or Mrs. Palin to run a business. It should be noted that Mr. Romney's business experience is more apropos to gauging fitness to run a business than Ms. Fiorina. This further vindicates the opinion of the HP board that fired her. Why yes, this does speak ill of Mr. McCain's judgment to associate himself with Ms. Fiorina.

Saul Alinsky vs John Boyd

Here's a lens through which to view the current political conflict. On one side is a fellow whose first job out of college was community organizer. On the other side is a fellow whose first job out of college was fighter pilot. Each appears to have brought this experience to the fight.

It is wrong to accuse Barak Obama of having no experience. He was a community organizer. I served on the board of a neighborhood association in the early 1980s and have met a few. However, my experience was insufficient to become acquainted with their guru, Saul Alinsky and his book Rules For Radicals. However, I now recognize the pattern of conflict followed by his disciples. I am confident that Mr. Obama learned Mr. Alinsky's lessons as well as did Mr. Obama's rival, Mrs. Hillary Clinton. Better, seeing as how both worked from the same playbook and Mr. Obama won.

Before that, Mr. Obama's greatest achievement was winning his Senate seat. He was quite lucky when the judge unsealed Mr. Ryan's divorce papers. Mr. Ryan was ahead in the polls at the time. But you make your luck and we'll never know exactly how this lucky break came about. Perhaps someone more familiar with Mr. Alinsky's book could say.

The other party is headed by a fellow I've written about in the past as mere media hoax. He was so out of touch with my wing of the party, so hostile toward the religious right, so prone to sell out Republican interests, and so quick to kowtow to the media elites that I thought it impossible that he could inspire loyalty in the Republican Party. Obviously, I was wrong.

Before Mr. McCain became a POW he was a fighter pilot. Fighter pilots kill Communists.

They did so over North Korea and over North Vietnam with lopsided kill-ratios thanks to the fighting doctrines taught by USAF Colonel John Boyd. The key notion in Mr. Boyd's way is the OODA loop. In any dogfight, each pilot must do the same four things: Observe, Orient, Decide and Act. The participants in a dogfight will loop through these steps, and the winner invariably manages to "get inside the other guy's OODA loop." A fighter ace kills the other guy because when he's inside his OODA loop, the other guy is always responding to a stale situation. During the "Observe and Orient" steps the pilot forms a mental picture of reality. During the "Act" step the pilot changes reality. If I'm inside your OODA loop, I'm changing the situation faster than you can decide what to do that'll save yourself and/or kill me.

It is widely documented that Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and George Bush were all "misunderestimated" by their political opponents. Though I don't think Mr. Bush was or is a Conservative, each of these politicians were never understood by their political opponents. And each of these politicians managed to run rings around their adversaries. They each had this stealth shield spell of confusion that addled their enemies' wits. It's hard to Observe and Orient when your brain can't grok who your opponent is.

Since the Friday before Labor Day it appears that Mrs. Palin has transformed Barak Obama from Emperor/Messiah into Wyle E. Coyote, Sooooper Genius. Look at all the narrative attacks that have been spun about her and none have come close to touching her. Can this mean that someone is serially faking the drive-by media elites out of their jock-straps? Has Team McCain gotten inside Team Obama's OODA loop?

Maybe, and maybe it doesn't matter. Elections are zero-sum games, just like dogfights: one guy wins and one guy loses. Except in dogfights losing is usually much worse for your health. But elections are a form of politics and I don't know whether Mr. Alinky's tactics (which are native to politics) are more effective than Mr. Boyd's tactics.

Update: for a better analysis of Team McCain's fighting strategy go here. If you happen to agree with Mr. McMain's side, you need to get your head around this:

McCain's undoing of the elite, leftist media provides a universal lesson for contending with the Left. At base, the Left's ideology, whether relating to women's rights, human rights, academic inquiry or war and peace is not universal but tribal. Moreover, when the Left is challenged on any one of its signature issues, because it cannot actually make a case for the universal applicability or even logic of its views, it tends instead to embrace the politics of personal destruction while ignoring the obvious contradictions between its stated beliefs and actual behavior.

WHY things are this way have to do with the nature of post-modernism and its notion of truth and absolutes.

Another Update: Another OODA loop analysis of the current conflict.

Democrats Without Chests

The Catholic journal "First Things" has news of recent statements by Democrat activists that give pause. Now, I would not think the remarks so significant had I not been on vacation this last weekend whereupon I had occasion to reread my copy of the C.S. Lewis novel, That Hideous Strength.

Civil discourse requires the interlocutors to put their partisan aims under something larger than themselves. The ancient Greeks of Plato's Dialogs thought that Reason, qua, Reason must be ultimate. Theists in general must put the will of God over their own will to power. Historically, American political conflicts have taken place within the framework of the Constitution. When that framework proved inadequate Civil War took a half-million lives on its battlefields.

We have recently seen low-life's who would have a hard time knowing which end the round comes out of a gun proclaiming their willingness to perpetrate any crime to bring about the "greater good" as they see it. Happily, all of the NRA members are on the other side of this debate. The First Things essay speaks of bloodshed. I don't think we've come to that.

I think that if someone publicly says that he believes the ends justify any means necessary, remember that this includes violating the Constitution, the Bible, the Koran, the laws of the land, and the rules of civil discourse. You should believe his every utterance to be a lie until someone you know to believe in absolutes confirms it and you ought to attach the maximum skepticism to it when you hear it repeated. The "big lie" theory depends upon it being repeated so widely that people lose track of its source.

That Hideous Strength is a story of how men without chests find themselves completely unprepared to handle evil. The antagonists start with things that seem good, but take this same "ends justify the means" approach. The result are a few lies to "cut the red tape" and those lies are doubled and tripled until all correspondence between words and reality is lost. What meaning is communicated grows more and more vague. In the climactic confrontation between N.I.C.E. and Merlin all meaning is lost.

There are no policy goals so valuable that lying about them is justified. There are no policy goals that destroying innocent people is justified. If you think otherwise, I will not trust you and we cannot have a civil discussion.

Check Your Premises

I'm told that Ayn Rand was wont to tell people to check their premises. With this in mind, I recently read this essay. The essayist angrily accuses a large group of people of being irrational in their response to the mishandling of a cracker. I agree that it is irrational for people to get upset about a cracker.

However, there's more to this story than just a cracker. I do not believe in the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. But I do understand the doctrine. In short, it claims that the elements of the Lord's Supper, bread and whine, are transformed by the priest's recitation of the rite into the body and blood of Christ.

It is one thing to mishandle a cracker. It is another thing to mishandle the body of Christ. Whereas the essayist signifies the flap as concerning a cracker, millions of Catholics and Orthodox Christians would claim what was once a cracker is no longer a cracker. To them, the flap is over desecration of the body of Christ. If you desecrate a cracker it is one thing, but if you desecrate the body of Christ that is another thing entirely.

Catholic ire is premised upon the mishandling of the body of Christ. The essayist chooses not to recognize the significance of Christ in the elements of the Lord's Supper.

A Catholic friend who pointed this essay out to me is greatly exercised at the essayist's insensitivity. And I sympathize with him. He also made dark hints that violence might be directed against the desecration.

I don't believe in transubstantiation. But if I did, I would not be as ired as the Catholics seem to be. Christ is either living or dead; either capable of taking care of himself or powerless beyond the activism of his Church. I happen to believe in the former.

In Old Testament times, the prophets of Ba'al contested with the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel. The contest was simple: Here's an altar with a sacrifice upon it, let the deity that really exists set it afire. As you may recall, the prophets of Ba'al got themselves into a lather to no effect, whereas Elijah poured water on the altar and made sure that only God could get the credit. And then fire came from heaven and burnt everything up. In this we see contrasted the religion of dead idols and the religion of a living God.

Thus, I see Christ as more than capable of protecting himself from, or responding forcefully to, any desecration. I think members of the Roman church are responsible to take every reasonable measure to maintain the integrity of their rites and relics. But this stops short of unethical measures. Islam is the religion of riots and murders over a rumored desecration.

This reminds me of another situation where people attach different significances objects. Consider a cluster of a few thousand cells. I've a pro-abortion friend who considers this cluster of a few thousand cells "a bit of goo." Conversely, when this cluster of cells is a fetus I regard it as constituting a human being with rights. I was pro-choice until I signified the fertilized ovum as a distinct human life whereupon I became pro-life.

I think that people who think that fetuses are humans with rights are obligated to take every reasonable measure to secure the rights of such powerless individuals. But this stops short of bombing abortion clinics or shooting abortionists. Such actions are not pro-life.

Partisan arguments about the cracker and the bit of goo are so bitter because each side starts with different premises and reasons from there to conclusions that the other side is populated by demons or madmen. For this reason, we each have to acknowledge our own premises and those of our interlocutors. Humans are by-and-large reasonable creatures. We have the ability to reason from the other fellow's premises. I think we should do so periodically to remind ourselves that the fellows on the other side are not demons.

Hubris is not Triumph

While I was vacationing last week, the junior Senator from Illinois, a fellow with less than two hundred days' worth of experience in that post, went on a tour of some foreign countries. I'm told that a lot of crowds full of people who do not vote in American elections showed enthusiastic support.

This fellow, whose press coverage is generally characterized as messianic, went to Jerusalem and the wailing wall. Though I didn't see any pictures (being on vacation) I suppose his campaign staffers plastered it with campaign posters.

One of Bill & Hillary's press tricks was to stage some phony photo op and then feign outrage. I did hear that the Lord Messiah's prayer left at the wailing wall was pilfered and published. I've every confidence it was as sincere as it was focus-group tested.

I read the New York Times claim of this trip that "even Republicans have described as politically triumphant." Though I missed the pictures of the Lord Obama riding into Jerusalem on the foal of an ass with adoring palm frond waving crowds crying Hosanna, I won't deny the New York Times its Palm Sunday.

Though I once called myself a Republican and have no reason to vote for the senior Senator from Arizona, I would characterize the junior Senator from Illinois' trip as manifesting as much hubris as anything.

Who Owns This World?

A while back a politician said this:

"We can't drive our SUVs and, you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on, you know, 72 degrees at all times, whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect every other country is going to say OK, you know, you guys go ahead keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population..."

This reminds me of the environmentalists of my youth. Back then the line was that the US had 6 percent of the world's population and we consumed a third of the world's resources. This pattern of rhetoric has an unstated premise that the world should be divided into equal parts and distributed in equal shares to each person in the world today.

This sounds reasonable until you think about it. Who owns this world? If you think this planet is owned by its 6.7 billion inhabitants in equal shares, then how is this ownership reallocated when the population of the world increases? For instance, if I were to kill my fellow-man, my shares increase. Or if I have a dozen kids, my family will have an inordinately larger share.

The people who think this way generally think having a dozen kids is a bad idea. Same goes for killing one's fellow-man.

Property and ownership doesn't work this way in a capitalist society. I happen to own the house I'm typing this from and the land it sits on. None of the world's 6.7 billion people have helped me pay the taxes, improve the property, or maintain it. If someone gets hurt on my property, none of those 6.7 billion people will accept legal liability.

There is only way to consistently understand "using 25 percent of the world's energy, even though you only account for 3 percent of the population" in 2008, and say "The U.S. has 6 percent of the world's population but consumes a third of the world's resources" in the 1970s, is to have a continuous redistribution of wealth with the ebb and flow of demographics.

This notion of property is a form of collectivism. The criteria isn't necessarily Marxist because we're not talking about a Robin Hood redistribution from rich to poor, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," but it is redistribution nonetheless.

This rhetoric has been part and parcel of the environmentalist movement for my entire life. I'm not in favor of polluted air or water, but I believe in private property. When someone owns something they take care of it. When nobody really owns something, they don't.

There's more to this world than consumption. There's production and wealth creation. People work with varying degrees of effectiveness. With capital equipment and technology, one can increase one's productivity by orders of magnitude. One of those 6.7 billion people scratching at dirt with a stick will produce much less grain than a farmer with a tractor and hybrid seeds. Few environmentalists bother to point out that Americans produce a disproportionate amount of the world's wealth.

This collectivist notion of property does not correspond to economic reality. Governments throughout the 20th century demonstrated that they could repeal the laws of economics. However that does not mean politicians can't promise this to attract voters.