Reddest

Feb 5, 2011

2011-02-05T18:49:00.001-08:00

Norman blew into the room, talking to a young woman who was working on being haggard. "This is awful, wretched. I'd say it was crap, but crape is useful. You can put it on crops. It's fertilizer, it grows things. And it's natural." His round face was in a sort of vibrato of disgust. "There's nothing more ogranic than crap. so give me something is at least crap. Not that I haven't put crap on the air, right, Doug?"

"I think yesterday's show qualifies," said a guy with a roundish face, a doughy face, beard that didn't look likeoneof those ten-blade razors.

"I took a clip home and my wife put it on the tomato plants." Said a younger guy.

"And rememebr," Wexford said to the young woman. "I am a horrible human being. The worst in the world. Right Doug?"

"Well, I've never met Idi Amin," he said. "Or Pol Pot. Not to mention Mao."

"Or Hitler," the younger guy said. "Oh, wait a minute, you are Hitler."

Wexford slammed his heels together so violently the young woman gave a start, and she and the two men burst in laughter, edgy laughter.

"Vhat do you mean, that I am not the vurst person in the world."

"Well, that is the worst accent," I said.

"You mock das Fuher?" he said.

"You've been doing that accent for like ... " I had to do the math in my head.

"Silence, schwein!" he shouted. "Zat is de state secret! Jon, you asshole, it's so good to see you again."

The thing was, he hadn't changed much. An advantage of being round and round-faced. Thinning hair, smally, beady vicious eyes; a look of bemusement at the horror and wonder of the world; fair skin, small mouth; heavy, but the heavy of a tackle, a farm boy, a heavy that could throw you through a wall if he wanted to, or needed to; a crackle about him; there was a power substation in my neighborhood when we were growing up, a green metal shell amid some pine trees; and he exuded that. I could half-imagine the humming around him, and the voltage. You just didn't know when you were going to be shocked.

###

"Do you carry a gun?"

"Of course," He astonished my by grabbing the waistband of his pants and pulling it, reach down into his pants, and pulling up a semi-automatic pistol."

"Glock nine millimeter."

"Chrissake!"

"That's the best kind of holster," he said.

"For god's sake, keep your hand off the trigger."

"Don't worry," he said. "And ... " He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a gun so small it looked lke a toy. "North American Arms makes these. Twenty-two magnum."

"Two?"

"Gotta have backup," he said. "Always have backup."

Letterman must go?

2009-06-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

Time to fight back?

This is our line in the sand. Letterman MUST BE FIRED NOW!!!

Live long -- but not too long

2009-06-11T11:23:00.000-07:00

Kaus:

As a Boomer, I must say I find it hard to believe we will stand for it--aren't we the vainest generation in history that wants to live forever, etc.? Don't we want the full might of the American medical-industrial complex dedicated to devising expensive breakthrough treatments that will prolong the lives of our friends and us? I know I do

Of course the young have always wanted the old to shuffle off to Buffalo as soon as possible.

But I disagree that we Boomers (I'm 58) want to live forever. Our narcissism, vanity and hedonism work against our infantile desire to rule the cosmos -- and live forever.

That is, we want to live -- but as we always said, really live. Sitting in poopy diapers as we drool on our bingo cards in some nursing home that smells of disinfectant -- that's not our thing.

We want to live, but only as long as we can live well -- sky-diving, hitchhiking to Katmandu, etc., to the very end.

But that could work with the Obama vision.

Instead of cash for clunkers, the government could sponsor "Harleys for the Gray-Haired." Give everyone over 55 a motorcycle. We boomers could continue our pursuit of kicks. And it would reduce gas usage. And after awhile, it would reduce the number of people alive and qualified for Medicare.

A similar effect could be obtained by giving Boomers free skydiving and bungee-jumping lessons, etc.

For those continuing their spiritual quests, the government could give away free trips to far away lands where there's great religious ferment. The Swat Valley of Afghanistan, for instance.

Or Woodstock parties. Only now three days of sitting in the mud and rain and ingesting powerful chemicals would again reduce the Medicare rolls.

And didn't Aldous Huxley, before he got into LSD, see this very clearly?

Bad moon rising

2009-06-10T13:58:00.001-07:00

Worse than the '70s? I remember the '70s. Yoiks.

We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on output and employment not unlike the late 1970s.

Health care

2009-06-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Thus guy provides a really excellent look at what's looming.

For instance,

People in high cost areas (e.g., New York City, Boston, South Florida, Chicago, Los Angeles) would get much bigger subsidies than those in low cost areas (e.g., much of the rest of the country, especially in rural areas). The subsidies are calculated as a percentage of the “reference premium,” which is determined based on the cost of plans sold in that particular geographic area.
The House bill outline is not specific on this point. I would not expect it to be – this is something you can tell only from legislative language.

###

In other words, Utahns would subsidize people on the Upper East Side of New York, Beacon Hill in Boston, or the Gold Coast of Chicago.

2009-06-06T11:47:00.000-07:00

Also, government just can't be business.

It's like when Michael Jordan tried to be a baseball player -- they're just two different things.

Or, for those who detest sports metaphors, like when Pierce Brosnan "sang" in Mama Mia.

Every time you hear how the government is going to make a unionized automaker a success, try (if you dare) picturing Pierce Brosnan singing.

GM's Achilles heel

2009-06-06T11:43:00.000-07:00

Kaus has the best "what's wrong with this picture" insights:

Maybe all these words have meaning to insiders that's not apparent to outsiders. But it sure looks like 1) Some union locals are holdouts in GM's campaign to get rid of inefficient work rules. (The power of union locals, even in the face of the UAW national leadership, has always been a problem when it comes to streamlining work practices); 2) Under the new agreement, the work rules haven't "been removed." Rather, the parties have pledged to complete the tooth-pulling process of negotiating their demise by the end of the year. It's a target, not a fait accompli. And what happens if that target isn't reached (as, apparently, the earlier targets weren't reached)? The deal doesn't say.

ONE more point:

When, oh when, with management have more leverage? Are these autoworkers going to quit en masse and go work somewhere else?

If management can't put the hammer down now, it never will. So GM (and Chrysler) will fail.

more on cars

2009-06-02T15:46:00.001-07:00

The General Motors bailout only delays an inevitable crash

Details, details

2009-06-02T10:08:00.000-07:00

Very informative post on GM. Writer is pessimistic, but sees ways deal could work.

Productivity is still lower in U.S. plants of U.S. firms that it is in U.S. plants of foreign-based firms. As a result of high compensation costs per worker and low productivity, it appears that labor cost per vehicle produced will still be uncompetitive with the transplants.

Bennett and the mood

2009-05-31T18:11:00.000-07:00

Joe Pyrah is on to some things.

But what about the assessment that Utah won't go too far right?

I can't claim to be any expert on the moods and attitudes of Utah. Still, it seems to me that Utah is not necessarily what it appears on the surface.

Look at what Marxists might call the objective situation: General Motors nationalized! The banks cowed and cowering. The health system next.

I'll just mention Iran and North Korea having/working on nuclear weapons.

So the situation, from a conservative point of view, is desperate, tea parties or not.

So is Bob Bennett a guy for such a time?

Forgive the martial metaphor, but in the military there's a time for desk generals and a time for fighting generals. Grant, Sherman, Patton, Billy Mitchell -- these guys are just trouble in peace time, and what good are they then? But in war time ...

If you don't like martial metaphors, think of the difference between entrepreneurs and managers, or inventors and technicians.

So is a "peacetime" senator right for the times?

Conservatives would say no. They might say -- so what good is dickering in D.C? So the government only owns 65 percent of GM rather than 70 would be significant? Big deal!

Hard to say what's going on, in Utah or nationally. Or whether it can get 50 percent of the vote.

Still, are we in one of those watershed times? And can Bennett or other standard-issue Republicans survive?

But, however, can Shurtleff or others beat him? Can't beat something with nothing.

Drill, Sarah, drill!

2009-05-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

We can save the economy. If we only try!

From IBD:

... it was thought that Chukchi's waters northwest of Alaska's landmass held 30 billion cubic feet of natural gas.

Today, Science magazine reports that the U.S. Geological Survey now finds it holds more than anyone thought — 1.6 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered gas, or 30% of the world's supply and 83 billion barrels of undiscovered oil, 4% of the global conventional resources.

Well, which is it?

2009-05-28T10:32:00.000-07:00

From Atlantic, on North Korea:

... Washington will have no choice but to deal with him directly, rather than merely as one party among several in the multilateral talks that have characterized negotiations with North Korea since 2003.

BUT

Now is not the time for unilateral threats. The disaster in Iraq should be foremost in our minds when dealing with North Korea. And that means, hard as it may be to swallow, working with Beijing.

Health care, the bottom line

2009-05-26T10:59:00.000-07:00

From Kausfiles:

Why don't Democrats instead push to provide everyone with health care using the argument that ... everyone needs health care? ... Just a thought

So ... everybody needs food. So have the government be in charge of providing food!

Ooops, it's been tried, with not so good results. (Google "Communism, famimes")

I hurry to add that Kaus makes good points. There's no arbitrary percentage of national income that should or should not be spent on health.

And there is huge waste -- even conservatives admit that.

But who decides? And how?

The key element is what's productive. Good health care could be productive.

Bad health care ... Like, say, Medicare ...

Painful truth on spending

2009-05-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Note more media incompetence, if not outright fraud, in reporting much-touted health care saving:

Turns out that's not what the groups said at all. In their letter to Obama, they promised to "do our part to achieve your Administration's goal of decreasing by 1.5 percentage points annual health-care spending growth rate -- saving $2 trillion or more." Of course, their part of that savings may be significantly less than the full $2 trillion. The groups offered no further specifics. And, anyway, there would be no way to enforce such a hazy commitment.

Real states rights

2009-05-21T10:15:00.001-07:00

Calling the Patrick Henry Caucus.

The climate scam

2009-05-21T10:08:00.000-07:00

Big Business wants to prey on you.

Success

2009-05-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

Just interesting:

The market seems to want C.E.O.’s to offer a clear direction for their companies. There’s a tension between being resolute and being flexible. The research suggests it’s more important to be resolute, even at the cost of some flexibility.

The second thing the market seems to want from leaders is a relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains. Charismatic C.E.O.’s and politicians always want the exciting new breakthrough — whether it is the S.U.V. or a revolutionary new car. The methodical executives at successful companies just make the same old four-door sedan, but they make it better and better.

Wat's happening?

2009-05-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

Older column, but very relevant:

Eventually, economists came to understand that vast numbers of individuals and businesses throughout the economy don't make exactly the same mistakes simultaneously unless something has changed the rules of the game. Government isn't always responsible--bubbles can occur on their own, as they have over the centuries--but systemic errors usually result from government policy.

What happened in housing

2009-05-18T13:19:00.000-07:00

Good analysis of the bust. The main culprits: the Fed and Congress.

Illustrating the Fed's failure is this graph showing the national median housing price ratio to the median annual income. For more than twenty years, this ratio moved in a narrow range between 2.9 and 3.1. This range held through several recessions, wars and expansions. Beginning In 2001, the ratio climbed to 3.3, peaking in 2006 at 4.6. This can only be described as a stunning increase for this long used indicator of housing affordability.

More on Europe's decline

2009-05-14T16:11:00.000-07:00

The bigger the state, the smaller its people.

The root of the problem

2009-05-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

A great speech:

The bailout and the stimulus and the budget and the trillion-dollar deficits are not merely massive transfers from the most dynamic and productive sector to the least dynamic and productive. When governments annex a huge chunk of the economy, they also annex a huge chunk of individual liberty. You fundamentally change the relationship between the citizen and the state into something closer to that of junkie and pusher—and you make it very difficult ever to change back. Americans face a choice: They can rediscover the animating principles of the American idea—of limited government, a self-reliant citizenry, and the opportunities to exploit your talents to the fullest—or they can join most of the rest of the Western world in terminal decline.

Right on

2009-05-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

here's what GOP should say.

Free-market competition will lower costs in health care just as it has every place else. It also will grow the economy. The GOP must return to this basic conservative principle and reject Obama's massive government assault.

The root of the problem

2009-05-07T10:15:00.000-07:00

A WSJ piece is also informative:

It's hard to run a safe banking system when the central bank is recklessly easy.

Sometimes renting IS better

2009-05-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

IBD gives the background:

The Times analysis exemplified our collective amnesia about Washington's repeated attempts to expand homeownership and the disasters they've caused. Each time we clean them up, then — as if under some strange compulsion — set in motion the mechanisms of the next housing calamity. That's exactly what we're doing once again.

Party on?

2009-05-07T08:54:00.000-07:00

Interesting tips for GOP:

The core values of the movement can be different from the marketing campaign. That’s the smart way to do it. It’s how the Democrats took over the government and it’s our only hope at taking it back.

Is press in tank for Obama?

2009-05-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

It's obvious!

Really obvious!

From Europe

2009-05-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

Will U.S. heed this European leader?

Profits can be made when energy is rationed or subsidized, but only within an economy operating at lower, or even negative, growth rates. This means that over the longer term, everyone will be competing for a piece of a pie that is smaller than it would have been without energy rationing.

This does not auger well either for growth or for working our way out of today's crisis.

The real green

2009-05-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

In Australia:

Yet wouldn’t you think people should know Gore is a partner in a company that has invested $1 billion of clients’ money in 40 companies set to benefit from the global warming policies he’s urging on the US?

Another warming

2009-04-22T09:09:00.000-07:00

From overseas, a view on why Obama is leading us to danger zone:

Barack Obama's decision to give the nod to Congress and his attorney general to investigate and possibly prosecute former Bush administration officials opens a Pandora's Box that could ultimately consume his presidency.

Exposing us to terrorism

2009-04-22T09:07:00.000-07:00

From a WP guy who's no raving conservative:

At the Central Intelligence Agency, it's known as "slow rolling." That's what agency officers sometimes do on politically sensitive assignments. They go through the motions; they pass cables back and forth; they take other jobs out of the danger zone; they cover their backsides.

Sad to say, it's slow roll time at Langley after the release of interrogation memos that, in the words of one veteran officer, "hit the agency like a car bomb in the driveway."

Friendly reminder: We're at war

2009-04-21T09:52:00.000-07:00

On questioning evil men:

Consider the Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005. It notes that "the CIA believes 'the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.'

Health care -- spend more?

2009-04-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

From Kausfiles:

More broadly, haven't liberals historically prospered when they promised and delivered more for the average American (more Social Security, health security, prosperity, clean air) in exchange for increased spending? Why not try the same with health care? Give pandering a chance.

The problems:

1. We're broke. We don't have more to give, or even credibly promise.

2. As Robert Samuelson's column puts it: we're at the point where more health spending -- harms our ability to spend more on health.

It's not that industry and such are better; but they remain the foundation for all funding of good things.

Choke off such productive growth, and you choke off the source of money for other good things, including health spending.

3. All health spending is rationed. We can't put an ambulance and paramedics on every block. The question is: who decides?

4. There is waste. But who decides how to appropriate?

5. The problem with generous government approvals is that political pressure will distort what should be spent.

I'm a Baby Boomer. We'll demand knee replacements so we can still dance (somewhat) as we used to.

And we have the votes to make it happen.

6. But the real question is: when do these pay back society? If a middle-aged delivery driver gets a knee replacement so he can stay on the job and not go on disability, great.

But how does society benefit if a 75-year-old retiree gets a knee replaced so his shuffleboard form remains unmarred?

7. Political pressure means LESS health care that's needed. And MORE health care for those with political clout. Those are different.

8. Of course, there are equality questions, but not the ones that usually come up. If we as a society pay for your knee replacement, do you have to keep working to pay back society?

9. So is it fair that the healthy keep on the treadmill, and the unfit get to kick back?

Equality isn't possible -- especially if politicians run it. The problem isn't how to get the maximum, for that would be 100 percent, and our economy would collapse before then.

The problem is how to get the optimum allocation of health care.

And that raises brutal questions for a democracy that aspires to equality -- but can't bear to deny anyone anything.

real explanation

2009-04-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

Here's a better explanation of the meltdown:

But then in mid to late June, along came the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy. The Democratic triumvirate’s intent to starve the nation of energy, regardless of the consequences, and newly minted presidential nominee Barack Obama’s designs on punitively taxing 5% of the nation’s most productive in the name of redistributing money to everyone else, both became crystal clear. As a result, paraphrasing what I wrote at the time, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs responded to the trio’s total lack of seriousness by battening down the hatches and preparing for the worst.

They haven’t stopped, which is why the POR economy is now the POR recession as normal people define it. It is also why tax collections have taken a dive.

Protest? or thuggery?

2009-04-15T10:14:00.000-07:00

Ominous development.

President P

2009-04-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

Watch out, France and Co, there is a new surrender monkey on the block and, over the next four years, he will spectacularly sell out the interests of the West with every kind of liberal-delusionist initiative on nuclear disarmament and sitting down to negotiate with any power freak who wants to buy time to get a good ICBM fix on San Francisco, or wherever. If you thought the world was a tad unsafe with Dubya around, just wait until President Pantywaist gets into his stride.

End of philosphy?

2009-04-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

But is it emotion, or something else?

Future of belief

2009-04-07T11:12:00.000-07:00

Is "post-transcendent" more accurate? And ominous?

The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

What kind of dog?

2009-04-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

Questions of the week: Is Jim Matheson a real Blue Dog? And what if anything does that mean?

Some of the most outspoken members of the Blue Dog Coalition also scored points with the big spenders, voting with Frank and Lee six out of nine times. They include Reps. John Barrow (Ga.), Dan Boren (Okla.), Allen Boyd (Fla.), Jim Cooper (Tenn.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Brad Ellsworth (Ind.), and Jim Matheson (Utah).

Grappling with reality

2009-04-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

But what is reality? A fair number of conservatives feel "mark to market" rules are unrealisitic.

Still, this gets at the worldview behind the bubble.

Repression in economic matters may not always lead to doom. But the scale of unconscious denial of the past five years amounts to a Great Repression. That is the widespread and sustained, if unconscious, denial of economic reality on a scale sufficient so that eventual reckoning spells equally widespread and sustained financial devastation—of which we should now be collectively acutely conscious.

Good summary of what's wrong

2009-04-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

David Frum:

I don’t blame him for borrowing the money to blast the U.S. and world economies out of their current rut. I blame him for accompanying his borrowing with a slew of long- discredited statist interventions. These will hugely burden those future Americans who inherit the job of paying off his debt.

Real alternatives

2009-04-01T09:42:00.001-07:00

All of a sudden, nuclear fusion is becoming an energy buzzword instead of an energy joke

Obama in perspective

2009-03-31T13:39:00.000-07:00

Once again, liberals embrace big corporations:

The so called “Food Safety Act” which would punish small farmers by putting them under a mountain of byzantine regulations that would shut them down. And punish people who try to grow their own food with million dollar fines. This will make people reliant on big agri-corporations and restrict or ban people from trying to support themselves.

Just the facts

2009-03-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

Maybe the pope was right, a writer says in Wash Post:

When Pope Benedict XVI commented this month that condom distribution isn't helping, and may be worsening, the spread of HIV/AIDS in Africa, he set off a firestorm of protest. ....

Yet, in truth, current empirical evidence supports him.

From inside the Meltdown

2009-03-30T12:16:00.000-07:00

Fascinating story:

My Manhattan Project

How I helped build the bomb that blew up Wall Street.

Liberals left clinging to past

2009-03-27T09:38:00.000-07:00

Discovered by the Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka, the method creates stem cells without using and destroying human embryos. By studying cells created from people with inherited disorders, scientists are observing, in ways never before possible, how diseases progress and react to treatments, said Doug Melton, a Harvard University researcher.

“This is the breakthrough the stem-cell field has been waiting for,” said Beth Seidenberg, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Menlo Park, California-based venture-capital firm that helped start Google Inc.

Also:

Stem cell researchers have created embryonic-cell lookalikes that don't have the cancer-causing genes found in earlier experiments.

Are bailouts worse than bankruptcy?

2009-03-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

So, yes, there’s no question that an AIG bankruptcy would have been terrible—even cataclysmic. But it’s reasonable to ask: could it have been worse than what we have now?

OK, now I'm scared

2009-03-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

David Brooks may not be reliable in some things, but ...

The president of the United States has decided to address this crisis while simultaneously tackling the four most complicated problems facing the nation: health care, energy, immigration and education. Why he has not also decided to spend his evenings mastering quantum mechanics and discovering the origins of consciousness is beyond me.

No nukes -- no power

2009-03-24T09:46:00.000-07:00

William Tucker and the insanity of snubbing nuclear power:

The one path not being pursued by the Obama administration, of course, is nuclear energy. That would be too easy. All we’d have to do is admit that the purveyors of “clean and renewable energy” are living in a fantasy world. Once that was done, we could employ current technology, use the existing electrical grid, and skip all the business of flagellating ourselves about all the harm we do to the planet. We could put tens of thousands of construction workers to work, cut through bureaucracy (we’d have to give up the five-year reviews by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission), and let Silicon Valley go back to building computers instead of thinking they can solve world energy problems.

Death and rebirth of newspapers

2009-03-24T09:42:00.000-07:00

Some harrowing yet oddly heartening insights:

The conversion to the Internet newspaper will be painful and slow, as it awaits more new technology and an almost complete reinvention of the business. But in about ten years, the greatest newspapers will be titles that are familiar now, and will publish about 10 percent of their sale in printed editions for sale at newsstands.

Sharing AIG's pain

2009-03-16T16:47:00.000-07:00

Romney on AIG:

Of course, the Obama administration was wrong to initially defend the bonuses as contractually obligated.

Big news?

2009-03-16T08:48:00.000-07:00

Let's see how much play this gets:

Dramatic advances in public attitudes are sweeping Iraq, with declining violence, rising economic well-being and improved services lifting optimism, fueling confidence in public institutions and bolstering support for democracy.

$1.3M per job

2009-03-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

Dose of reality on spending:

What the four economists found is that the Administration's estimates for stimulus growth were six times as high as they could produce under a modern Keynesian simulation. By their estimates, the stimulus would produce, at most, 600,000 jobs and add perhaps 0.6% to GDP at its peak. That's nowhere near a multiplier of 1.5 and suggests the $800 billion would have been better devoted to business tax cuts or fixing the financial system. That's $1.3 million in spending per job, for those keeping score at home.

The Obama agenda comes out.

2009-03-12T08:30:00.000-07:00

Commentators are waking up:

As Mr. Henninger points out, this is no ordinary budget: it is a morality play in which “fairness” (note the scare quotes)is pitted against “wealth.”

###

End of superpowerdom?

2009-03-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

So can the U.S. afford more F-22s? And garrisons all over? Even we hawks must wonder.

When the headline says it all:

2009-03-03T10:41:00.001-08:00

The War on Prosperity

What is needed?

2009-03-01T12:17:00.000-08:00

There's a reason Rush is so influential:

For those of you just tuning in on the Fox News Channel or C-SPAN, I'm Rush Limbaugh and I want everyone in this room and every one of you around the country to succeed. I want anyone who believes in life, liberty, pursuit of happiness to succeed.

Maybe Obama is Hoover

2009-02-27T08:49:00.000-08:00

Dick Morris on Mr. Gloom and Doom:

So, having inherited a recession, his words are creating a depression. He entered office amid a disaster and he is transforming it into a catastrophe,

What really happens

2009-02-20T13:54:00.000-08:00

Very interesting piece on why layoffs don't help companies.

While layoffs may seem like a good way to cut costs in the short-term, the direct and indirect costs of downsizing can paralyze your company’s long-term revenue-generating streams. “The books look great for two or three quarters, and then things don’t get done,” says Jonathan Phillips, managing director of Houston-based executive search firm Magellan International.

Can it be stopped?

2009-01-28T15:32:00.000-08:00

Skeptics weigh in:

Most of Washington has reached quick consensus: Government must do something big to shock the economy, and it should cost between $800 billion and $900 billion.

But dissident economists and investment professionals offer a much different take: Most of Washington is dead wrong.

Instead of fighting over what should go in the economic stimulus bill, pitting infrastructure spending against tax cuts and contractors against contraceptives, they say lawmakers should be fighting against the very idea of any economic stimulus at all. Call them the Do-Nothing Crowd.

What a mess

2009-01-16T12:15:00.000-08:00

Did we lure people in to build houses we didn't need, then buy houses they couldn't afford?

Subprime Crisis: The media have pounded President Bush for a wave of Hispanic home foreclosures. But it was Democrats who launched a drive to loosen credit for Hispanics — many of them illegals.

Taps for global warming?

2009-01-03T20:41:00.000-08:00

Huffington Post (thanks to Instapundit)

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that "the science is in." Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

Fingers crossed

2009-01-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

If we can't predict the economy -- then what?

As the estimable Robert Samuelson writes in the Washington Post, "The great lesson of the past year is how little we understand and can control the economy." The equally estimable Matthew D'Ancona puts it this way in Britain's Sunday Telegraph, "The Sibylline Books remain closed. The crystal ball yields no secrets....Almost nothing is certain about the next twelve months."

Counterattack

2008-12-31T15:12:00.000-08:00

The really new media:

On December 29th, 2008, the Israeli Defense Force launched its own YouTube Channel, and within one week it was driving all the News and Politics on YouTube. This was a brilliant Public Relations move in order to circumvent the Leftist Press. More importantly, this should be a model for Conservative and Libertarian bloggers to follow.

thoughts for GOP

2008-12-31T11:14:00.000-08:00

Notes on conservatism and Republicanism:

The Jeffersonian yeoman farmer is still a powerful archetype for conservatives. But have even they gone beyond that? Consider "The pencil" -- conservatives argue it takes thousands of people to make a pencil.

But is this close to liberalism's picture of people needing to cooperate?

###

And trust busting. Was Teddy Roosevelt on to something? Must government act to keep companies from becoming too big, thus distorting the political scene, a la GM?

####

Economists are still arguing about the causes of the Panic of 1837! Not to mention the Great Depression. And no one one knows what's going on now.

But maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe at a certain point in the growth it doesn't matter. Something will tip over the structure.

Now, that may not be a bad deal. Twenty-some good years, a couple of bad ones.

But can GOP sell that to voters?

###

And is the real Reagan the hard money guy? Were tax cuts almost a diversion, like blockers sweeping left, while quarterback runs right?

Ammo for GOP?

2008-12-29T10:02:00.000-08:00

Via Instapundit: Republicans need a message. Why not this?

Lawrence Lindsay writes that tax cuts rather than government spending will have a more immediate and long-lasting impact on the economy:

The relative advantage of tax cuts over spending is even clearer when the recession is centered on the household balance sheet. Some relatively minor changes, like making the current 15 percent tax rate on dividends and capital gains permanent, would not only help household cash flow, but also put a floor under equity prices much as their introduction did in 2003. This would help protect against further wealth destruction and balance sheet deterioration.

[T]he centerpiece of any tax cut should be employment taxes: in particular, a permanent halving of the current 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax on the first $106,800 of wages, split evenly between workers and employers.

What's next?

2008-12-28T12:25:00.000-08:00

This is a great moment for the conservatives -- if we are willing to seize the moment.

Sure, the Democrats are running the White House and Congress. But the Blagojevich scandal is just the first of many juicy issues the party will be forced to deal with. Conservatives must be nimble enough to latch on to them.

The economy is a mess. But conservatives have the only answers that will work. That's why it's so important for conservatives to shape the picture of what's happening before it calcifies into a myth.

The news media's liberal bias has never been more evident. At the same time, however, the traditional media are self-destructing. Conservatives can dominate the emerging media if we act with determination and creativity.

Liberals seem to dominate the universities. But I'll hazard a prediction that the next unsustainable bubble that will that of the universities. Their endowments are shrinking, and parents just can't keep paying a hundred grand a year for Joey or Susie to student gender issues.

But ... can conservatives define themselves?

Sure, modern liberalism is coherent and conservative. But that doesn't make it right.

Ditto for libertarianism.

Can conservatism be clear in the sound-bite age?

Harbinger of change?

2008-12-28T12:21:00.001-08:00

2008 -- year of reality?

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

All sides can't face reality

2008-12-27T11:14:00.000-08:00

Union deep in denial:

credibility, or incredible?

2008-12-26T15:34:00.001-08:00

We were just jawing about credibility of journalism. But do we as an industry have much left?

Consider this:

In our view, Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI’s control over Nixon. Woodward, Bernstein and above all, Bradlee, knew what was going on. Woodward and Bernstein might have been young and naive, but Bradlee was an old Washington hand who knew exactly who Felt was, knew the FBI playbook and understood that Felt could not have played the role he did without a focused FBI operation against the president. Bradlee knew perfectly well that Woodward and Bernstein were not breaking the story, but were having it spoon-fed to them by a master. He knew that the president of the United States, guilty or not, was being destroyed by Hoover’s jilted heir.

This was enormously important news. The Washington Post decided not to report it.

Bad harbinger?

2008-12-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

Science pick questioned by interesting commentator:

Does being spectacularly wrong about a major issue in your field of expertise hurt your chances of becoming the presidential science advisor? Apparently not, judging by reports from DotEarth and ScienceInsider that Barack Obama will name John P. Holdren as his science advisor on Saturday. [UPDATE: Mr. Obama did indeed pick Dr. Holdren.]

Bush's legacy

2008-12-23T09:28:00.001-08:00

The jury is still out; even conservatives have doubts. Still ....

Painful adjustment

2008-12-22T15:18:00.000-08:00

It's true we're in for a period of adjustment.

The Wall Street Journal points out that developers too are going broke. (That's a preview only.)

So we were making stuff we didn't need, to sell in too many malls. Now the party's over.

Here's the scary thought: what if deflation is inevitable if we're going to compete with the rest of the world?

Yet free trade is still essential.

Yikes.

Why militant unionism is a threat

2008-12-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

Mickey Kaus and Michael Barone have very revealing dialogue on auto co. woes:

Mickey Kaus, pretty much alone among the commentators I've been reading, indicts "Wagner Act unionism" for the decline and fall of the U.S. auto industry. The problem, he argues, is not just the high level of benefits that the United Auto Workers has secured for its members but the work rules—some 5,000 pages of them—it has imposed on the automakers. As Kaus points out, unionism as established by the Wagner Act is inherently adversarial. The union once certified as bargaining agent has a duty not only to negotiate wages and fringe benefits but also to negotiate work rules and to represent workers in constant disputes about work procedures.

Brilliant and frightening essay

2008-12-15T16:09:00.000-08:00

In finance, once you can have leverage, you must have leverage.

the real problem with a Detroit bailout

2008-12-12T15:37:00.000-08:00

No car czar can address the real problem, more and more observers are saying.

The bust

2008-12-03T12:52:00.000-08:00

Fascinating piece:

A former Wall Street insider explains how the financial industry got it so badly wrong, why it always will—and why all of us are to blame.

Why Gates would be hard to fire

2008-12-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

From Kausfiles:

On Warren Olney's To the Point, LAT veteran Doyle McManus says Robert Gates

is in the unusual position of not being a cabinet member who can't really be fired because if the president and the secretary of defense were to end up at loggerheads on an issue, that could be politically very damaging to the president. [E.A.]

This seems astonishingly wrong. Obama can fire Gates more easily because Gates is a Bush holdover, no? Obama won an election by opposing Bush's policies. ..

###

But .... isn't Gates hard to fire not because of political factors, but because he's widely recognized as being ... how shall I say it ... competent?

And it doesn't matter what Obama ran on. (Kennedy won on a "missile gap" that didn't exist.) He has to govern on what is, not what turns on the left. And Gates at least stands for successful policies. (Which are also Bush policies.)

Gates might be hard to fire because, for Obama to succeed as prez, he might have to listen to Gates.

Barack Obama and citizenship

2008-12-02T09:12:00.000-08:00

On the brouhaha over Obama's citizenship, one issue is his residence in Indonesia.

As one source reports:

A 2007 Associated Press photograph taken by Tatan Syuflana, an Indonesian AP reporter and photographer, surfaced last week on the Daylife.com photographic website showing an image of Obama's registration card at Indonesia's Fransiskus Assisi school, a Catholic institution.

In the picture, Obama is registered under the name Barry Soetoro by his stepfather, Lolo Soetoro. The school card lists Barry Soetoro as a Indonesian citizen born Aug. 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. His religion is listed as Muslim.

However -- I've been to Indonesia. It's a Third World country. And we're talking the early 1960s. Things are not as organized as they are here, and now.

So what if his stepfather put something down on a school record? It's Indonesia. "Official" records need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Ditto his grandmother's "recollection" he was born in Kenya. Grandmothers "remember" a lot of things.

Of course, if Obama produces the birth certificate, this goes poof.

Maybe he finds other embarrassing info on the form.

Moab, Utah and Oil

2008-11-30T17:26:00.000-08:00

I was down in Moab, Utah, for Thanksgiving.

Agreed: it's one of the most beautiful spots in America. I stayed at my father-in-law's house in Castle Valley.

No, oil wells shouldn't be put on the top of the arches, as one poster put it.

But there are thousands of square miles of land in which some oil or gas wells were be utterly inconspicuous, if you could find them at all.

Yes, drill, baby, drill.

I don't object to having spots in national parks that are off limits. But environmentalists won't accept any. Either people will see the wells -- or the land is unpolluted by humanity, so it must not have wells either.

Goodbye to the Gipper?

2008-11-23T17:24:00.001-08:00

t's time for the GOP to say goodbye to the Gipper.

Not to Ronald Reagan, the president who faced down the Soviet Union and helped revive American morale. But Republicans should turn away from the Gipper, the president's sometimes glib, sometimes misguided. sometimes reckless alter ego.

And it should perhaps turn back to other icons of its history.

For the Gipper is far different from President Reagan. Reagan accurately assessed the danger and the weaknesses of the Soviet Union. As many have noted, he stood almost alone among American leaders in believing the evil empire must be resisted and could be defeated. Its demise in 1989 is a huge achievement.

Republicans rightly exult in that legacy. But that is from Reagan, the cold-eyed yet fearless strategist. He grasped the whole historical situation and the essence of communism. He was courageous, but — despite what his critics said — he wasn't reckless. Basically, he outwaited his opponent.

Consider in contrast the Gipper's feckless venture into Lebanon. There, in contrast, he presented a bold face, but he never understood the situation. That's why he sent U.S. Marines into a stronghold of fanatics, but wouldn't let them load their weapons.

When suicide bombers killed 241 American servicemen and 58 French servicemen, The Gipper and the U.S. cut and ran, emboldening Islamic militants. The Gipper was good for stirring words, and easy promises, but not so useful when it came time to hang tough.

Reagan helped revive the U.S. economy. But he did it by backing Fed chief Paul Volcker, who jacked up interest rates to choke off inflation.

The legacy of the Gipper, however, is that financial progress can be achieved without pain. But light of the financial meltdown, it may be time to re-evalute that.

Yes, Reagan helped restore American optimism. But did The Gipper make "pessimism" -- a.k.a. caution and prudence -- taboo in political discourse?

The Republican Party needs to rethink its fixation on the Gipper.

Not all doom and gloom

2008-11-21T15:12:00.000-08:00

Don't give up just yet.

A bipartisan ticket

2008-11-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

Run this guy with Sarah Palin and they might win in a landslide.

I am a professor of molecular biology and biochemistry at UC Irvine, and I have consistently refused, on principle, to participate in the sexual harassment training that the state and my employers seem to think is so important.

(Thanks to obscurestore.com)

The Gipper vs. Ronald Reagan.

2008-11-21T11:01:00.000-08:00

The Gipper backed amnesty for illegal immigrants.

But was that wise? Did it encourage millions of people to come here -- to build shopping centers, condos and McMansions it turns out we neither needed or could afford?

Or to take care of the lawns and children of Wall Street hustlers who will soon be as extinct as dinosaurs?

Is this a case where we needed Ronald Reagan, and NOT the Gipper?

So the GOP needs to rethink where it stands on this.

Hard money, hard choices

2008-11-21T10:59:00.000-08:00

And didn't Reagan -- unlike the Gipper -- take a tough stand by backing Volcker in raising rates to squeeze the crap out of the financial system in the early '80s?

And a tip of the hat to much-maligned President Grant, who vetoed inflationary legislation. Right now that sounds better than it has in years.

Goodbye to Gipper, welcome Abe back

2008-11-18T09:25:00.001-08:00

It's time for the GOP to dismiss the Gipper, but turn its attention to Abe. And maybe Ike too.

It should continue to honor the achievements of Ronald Reagan, of course. But the party must wean itself from the mythologic Gipper.

Reagan defied the Soviet Union. Along with Margaret Thatcher and John Paul the Great, he led a successful stand. Soviet Communism couldn't take it.

But is excessive spending on the military also part of his legacy? Remember President Eisenhower, who warned against the military-industrial complex.

And the Gipper cut and run in Lebanon, after putting U.S. troops in an untenable spot.

Immigration? The Gipper signed the first amnesty. This encouraged millions of people to enter the country illegally.

The mantra is that they were needed. It's now becoming evident that many came here to build houses and shopping malls that weren't needed in the first place.

Or to take care of the homes and families of stock market hustlers who -- it is now evident -- were running financial schemes they didn't understand.

Yes, Reagan helped restore American optimism. But did The Gipper make "pessimism" -- a.k.a. caution and prudence -- taboo in political discourse?

Did the Gipper's tax cuts temporarily stimulate the economy, but also ignite what now seems like growth with a faulty foundation?

And note that his tax reforms removed millions from the tax rolls. These voters now, notoriously, are unconcerned with raising taxes.

Maybe that's why the party needs to turn back to Lincoln.

Meltdown

2008-11-17T14:24:00.000-08:00

A persuasive look at the meltdown.

Well, it would be nice to have some hope for us journos too

2008-11-17T09:45:00.000-08:00

With newspapers cutting back and predictions of even worse times ahead, Rupert Murdoch said the profession may still have a bright future if it can shake free of reporters and editors who he said have forfeited the trust and loyalty of their readers.

Debunking climate change

2008-11-16T09:53:00.000-08:00

More lies ... er .... errors of global warming.

Mark Steyn on the tipping point

2008-11-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

Why govt. health care is a terrible idea:

While few electorates consciously choose to leap left, a couple more steps every election and eventually societies reach a tipping point. In much of the west, it's government health care. It changes the relationship between state and citizen into something closer to pusher and junkie. Henceforth, elections are fought over which party is proposing the shiniest government bauble

A real test for Obama

2008-11-10T11:04:00.001-08:00

Now this will be a real litmus test for Obama.

(From Kausfiles via Instapundit.)

2008-11-10T09:39:00.000-08:00

Ronald Reagan is dead.

Good. He's overblown on the right.

Dreher has excellent comments. Some of my own:

-- Social conservatism isn't dead. But it may have concede some battles are lost, or are losers. Gay marriage may be one of them. Perhaps we have to let the states experiment with it and see the results.

-- I disagree on Iraq and Afghanistan in the long run. Freedom is a practical end, as well as an idealistic one.

-- The right needs a coherent picture. "Hamilton's Curse" berates that Founding Father's legacy. But is that right?

Does any party reject? Jefferson and Jackson did not. Nor did Wilson, Lincoln, either Roosevelt, or Reagan, when it comes to that.

Others on the right take a different view, a more Hamiltonian view.

Less government, but a strong nation? How to synthesize that?

Which brings up ....

-- The Big Tent has to be rethought. The right can't be a select coterie. But beware of those Republicans who can always be counted on -- to stab Republicans in the back.

analysis

2008-11-07T10:28:00.001-08:00

What went wrong for McCain:

1. Wrong historical moment: Americans do want to get rid of the stain of racism, and this was a big and easy way to do something.

2. Obama's a great politician. The Reagan Revolution wouldn't have happened if Reagan weren't a great politician.

3. Meltdown.

4. McCain had no convincing answer, because, as he admitted, he doesn't know or care about economics. Perhaps a Third Way could have been staked out. Or, for a real gutsy move, if he'd fought the bailout, maybe it would have worked out. The bailout isn't doing much now, anyway.

5. Palin was rushed to the big leagues before she was ready. As Krauthammer notes, this took away from McCain's pitch.

6. And he shouldn't have run against Obama, but against Pelosi, Reid and Frank. Point all the things they could do to America, and how Obama couldn't or wouldn't stop them.

In a way, he's like Mr. Irrelevant, the last man drafted in the NFL: any Dem would be in the same spot.

more thoughts on The One

2008-11-03T12:39:00.001-08:00

Voting will finish up today, and may present us with an American first: A president who has flouted the spirit of the law, proclaimed his intentions to undermine the Constitution and our notions of the law, and shown his disdain for the moral awareness that must undergird any genuine law.
First, all the lawbooks, judges and courts are useless if people aren’t willing to respect both the letter and the spirit of the law. One telling example of this is Obama’s ruthless switch on campaign-finance laws. For liberals have long bewailed the supposed evil influence of money in politics, and backed strict campaign-finance laws. Obama sang in the same choir — until it became clear he could raise far more money that the $84 million he could get from the federal system.
He opted out of that law as fast as he could. So he has raised $640 million. Sen. John McCain, who sponsored the key campaign-financing law, has stuck to the $84 million limit, and has been clobbered by a deluge of Obama ads.
Beyond that, moreover, Obama has shown his contempt for all that campaign finance laws tried to address. Legally, donors under $200 don’t have to be disclosed. Obama’s campaign has kept those donors’ names under wraps — and they have given at least $218 million. Think about it: Obama has gotten two-and-a-half times as much from secret donors as McCain has gotten in total.
It gets worse. Obama accepts donations from prepaid credit cards, so the real payers may never be known. Some of the names that have come to light are obviously phony, such as “Doodad Pro” or “Es Esh.”
What other laws will he hold in contempt once he takes the oath of office? For the above is not a fluke. He has made it plain that he cares little about keeping the legal system fair for all people. He’s clearly stated that if he gains the White House, he wants to name judges with “the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old.”
Many people seem to think that sounds good. But only when the laws are clear and firm are people are free, because they can act accordingly. When the law becomes pliable, however, they can no longer predict what the judges will say; they must therefore shuffle meekly into court, and beg their black-robed rules for mercy. Arbitrary rulings from the bench, no matter how well intended, enslave us all.
This attitude goes as far as our nation’s fundamentals. In a radio interview that has recently surfaced, Obama lamented the “tragedy” that even the liberal Supreme Court of the early 1960s stuck to the traditional notion that “the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted.”
First, it shows an utter ignorance of the power and rightfulness of “negative liberty.” For that is real liberty: having a sphere into which government can’t intrude. If there are things government must do for you, then there are things it can do to you.
For example, the First Amendment forbids the government from infringing on your freedom of speech. Consider, however, what might happen if President Obama appoints Supreme Court justices and federal judges who believe with him that the Constitution must say what the government must do for us. Will that require the government buy books and newspapers for you?
Maybe to some folks that sounds like a good deal. But beware: When the government buys, the government selects. Landing on front doorsteps each morning may be the Obama Times. Turn on the TV, and all the channels might be showing “Good Morning, America,” with its new hosts — Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank. Flip on the radio, and you might find that Rush Limbaugh has been replaced, permanently, by Joe Biden.
If this above is a bit satirical, history paints of much sadder picture of what happens when a government expropriates too much power.
More troubling than all that, however, are the signs that Obama lacks a fervent sense right and wrong are basic realities of the universe — that we are truly “endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.”
The most revealing act is that as an Illinois state senator he fought against legislation to protect babies who survived late-term abortions because he did not want to concede that living infants, outside their mothers’ wombs, were in fact “persons.” When an identical bill came up in the U.S. Senate, it passed 98-0. Even zealous liberals in the Senate couldn’t stomach the picture of babies born alive being allowed to die in a hospital. But Obama could.
A human being who won’t act to protect babies lacks something more important that the recall of statutes or the ability to recite flowery phrases. He lacks some basic sense of right and wrong — of the moral law that must support humanity.
In all these ways, Barack Obama has showed his disdain for the law on all levels. By tonight, he may be set to become, as Abraham Lincoln used to say, the chief magistrate of the United States; in a few months, he may take an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
That’s as disturbing as anything else that faces our nation in these troubled times.

A good, if bitter, laugh

2008-10-31T08:35:00.000-07:00

Obama and the dictators

Obama's intent, then and now

2008-10-30T16:20:00.000-07:00

Re Kausfiles:

[T]he supreme court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society and to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the warren court it wasnt that radical ... it didnt break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the constituion at least as it has been interpreted and the warren court interpreted it generally in the same way that the constitution is a document of negative liberties

Since Obama is rejecting the idea of pursuing "redistributive change" through the courts, what difference does it make whether this change was narrow and procedural (Reich) or dramatic and substantive (Michelman)

###

But is he rejecting the idea? I read him as simply saying the Warren Court would not. It’s a pragmatic analysis of history, not a call to action in the future.

I don’t see any indication in this quote he thinks an Obama court shouldn’t or wouldn’t.

And I see plenty in other places that he would expect such action by justices he would name.

There he goes again

2008-10-30T11:21:00.000-07:00

Somebody needs to tell Curt Bramble: "Senator, it's 2008. There are cameras everywhere. Deal with it!"

Why govt. health care is deadly

2008-10-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Beware Obamacare:

Federal bureaucrats have announced that, as of this month, the Medicare program will no longer provide financial rewards to doctors and hospitals who harm patients.

That is not a typo. For more than 40 years, Medicare has provided financial rewards to providers when a patient requires follow-up care following a medical error.

Medicare is America’s experiment with universal coverage. Operated by the federal government, it provides health insurance to more than 40 million elderly and disabled Americans.

Chicago, Chicago

2008-10-22T08:48:00.000-07:00

Kausfiles: What is it with Chicago? Is it Australia? Do they have to take anybody they can get there? I always thought L.A. was Australia.. ... 2:54 A.M.

####

I grew up, went to school, worked in suburbs of Chicago for 28 of the first 30 years of my life.

What’s really astonishing is that the national media haven’t pointed out that Obama is a tool of the Chicago political machine, the most corrupt and ruthless political organization in the country. (With all due respect to New Jersey and Louisiana.)

He has never even claimed to be a reformer. Not even his staunchest backers say he was a reformer, or even helped them. He is totally a machine hack.

The problem isn’t JUST Ayers or JUST Rezko or JUST Rev. Wright. It’s that Chicago is such a festering scab of moral and intellectual rot that in Chicaog they seem ordinary. Remember, Obama lived in Hawaii, Indonesia, and then elite collegiate enclaves: Occidental College, Columbia, Harvard, then he lived in Hyde Park, which is basically the U. of Chicago campus. He’s never seen real life, except in Chicago. He thinks far-left professors, wacko preachers and sleazy politicians are perfectly ordinary!

And why hasn’t anyone pointed out that Boss Daley would’ve been proud of the campaign Obama is running: with bucks flowing in from Doodad Pro and lefty thugs from ACORN registering anyone they can.

Maybe not.

2008-10-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

Some hope:

McCain is not as good on television as Obama is. So the immediate impact of the debate was to help Obama.

But the tax-and-spend issue is the one that Republicans want at the center of the race, and McCain put it there.

So this may turn out to have been a turning point for McCain, after all.

This sums it up

2008-10-16T09:45:00.000-07:00

Already the obits are coming in:

If John McCain fails in the next 19 days to catch Barack Obama, his slow response to the financial hurricane of 2008 will be Exhibit A.