The Cap and Tax Fiction

Democrats off-loading economics to pass climate bill exchange.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has put cap-and-trade legislation on a forced march through the House, and the bill may get a full vote as early as Friday. It looks as if the Democrats will have to destroy the discipline of economics to get it done.

Despite House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman’s many payoffs to Members, rural and Blue Dog Democrats remain wary of voting for a bill that will impose crushing costs on their home-district businesses and consumers. The leadership’s solution to this problem is to simply claim the bill defies the laws of economics.

Their gambit got a boost this week, when the Congressional Budget Office did an analysis of what has come to be known as the Waxman-Markey bill. According to the CBO, the climate legislation would cost the average household only $175 a year by 2020. Edward Markey, Mr. Waxman’s co-author, instantly set to crowing that the cost of upending the entire energy economy would be no more than a postage stamp a day for the average household. Amazing. A closer look at the CBO analysis finds that it contains so many caveats as to render it useless.

For starters, the CBO estimate is a one-year snapshot of taxes that will extend to infinity. Under a cap-and-trade system, government sets a cap on the total amount of carbon that can be emitted nationally; companies then buy or sell permits to emit CO2. The cap gets cranked down over time to reduce total carbon emissions.

To get support for his bill, Mr. Waxman was forced to water down the cap in early years to please rural Democrats, and then severely ratchet it up in later years to please liberal Democrats. The CBO’s analysis looks solely at the year 2020, before most of the tough restrictions kick in. As the cap is tightened and companies are stripped of initial opportunities to “offset” their emissions, the price of permits will skyrocket beyond the CBO estimate of $28 per ton of carbon. The corporate costs of buying these expensive permits will be passed to consumers.

The biggest doozy in the CBO analysis was its extraordinary decision to look only at the day-to-day costs of operating a trading program, rather than the wider consequences energy restriction would have on the economy. The CBO acknowledges this in a footnote: “The resource cost does not indicate the potential decrease in gross domestic product (GDP) that could result from the cap.”

The hit to GDP is the real threat in this bill. The whole point of cap and trade is to hike the price of electricity and gas so that Americans will use less. These higher prices will show up not just in electricity bills or at the gas station but in every manufactured good, from food to cars. Consumers will cut back on spending, which in turn will cut back on production, which results in fewer jobs created or higher unemployment. Some companies will instead move their operations overseas, with the same result.

When the Heritage Foundation did its analysis of Waxman-Markey, it broadly compared the economy with and without the carbon tax. Under this more comprehensive scenario, it found Waxman-Markey would cost the economy $161 billion in 2020, which is $1,870 for a family of four. As the bill’s restrictions kick in, that number rises to $6,800 for a family of four by 2035.

Note also that the CBO analysis is an average for the country as a whole. It doesn’t take into account the fact that certain regions and populations will be more severely hit than others — manufacturing states more than service states; coal producing states more than states that rely on hydro or natural gas. Low-income Americans, who devote more of their disposable income to energy, have more to lose than high-income families.

Even as Democrats have promised that this cap-and-trade legislation won’t pinch wallets, behind the scenes they’ve acknowledged the energy price tsunami that is coming. During the brief few days in which the bill was debated in the House Energy Committee, Republicans offered three amendments: one to suspend the program if gas hit $5 a gallon; one to suspend the program if electricity prices rose 10% over 2009; and one to suspend the program if unemployment rates hit 15%. Democrats defeated all of them.

The reality is that cost estimates for climate legislation are as unreliable as the models predicting climate change. What comes out of the computer is a function of what politicians type in. A better indicator might be what other countries are already experiencing. Britain’s Taxpayer Alliance estimates the average family there is paying nearly $1,300 a year in green taxes for carbon-cutting programs in effect only a few years.

Americans should know that those Members who vote for this climate bill are voting for what is likely to be the biggest tax in American history. Even Democrats can’t repeal that reality.

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I don’t think David Feherty should have apologized.

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — CBS Sports golf analyst David Feherty apologized Sunday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for a morbid joke that went bad in a Dallas magazine.

Feherty, one of the most popular golf analysts for his sharp wit and self-deprecating humor, was among five Dallas residents who wrote for “D Magazine” on former President George W. Bush moving to Dallas.

“From my own experience visiting the troops in the Middle East, I can tell you this though,” Feherty wrote toward the end of his column.

“Despite how the conflict has been portrayed by our glorious media, if you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it, and he found himself in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden, there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.”

Feherty, a former Ryder Cup player who grew up in Northern Ireland, has gone to Iraq over Thanksgiving the past two years to visit with U.S. troops, and he created a foundation to help wounded soldiers.

“This passage was a metaphor meant to describe how American troops felt about our 43rd president,” Feherty said in a statement. “In retrospect, it was inappropriate and unacceptable, and has clearly insulted Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid, and for that, I apologize. As for our troops, they know I will continue to do as much as I can for them both at home and abroad.”

Feherty has lived in Dallas the past dozen years. Along with working for CBS Sports, he writes a monthly column for Golf magazine and has written four books, the last one titled, “An Idiot for All Season.”

CBS Sports distanced itself from Feherty’s writing, saying it was “an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned, endorsed or approved” by the network. The PGA Tour also criticized him for an attempt at humor that “went over the line.”

David shouldn’t have apologized – CBS should have stood behind his remark. Just think back over the years that the liberals and the liberal media have taken pot-shots at whom ever they wish with no fear of being censored or excoritated by the press. The democrats and liberals can get away with it but just have a Republican say the very same thing and they’re damned.  Case in point – Wanda Sykes and  B. Hussein Obama get a laugh at wishing an American dead.

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Nothing Could Be Worse – or could it?

I am more than pissed-off.  I’m livid.

For those of you who “know me”, I’m a pretty even keeled type of guy.  I used to have pretty bad temper, but have out grown that – thankfully.

But what I read a few days ago has sent me over the edge.

My father was a career military officer who served this country for 32 years. He’s now passed and I’m grateful for that – in that this administration’s activities, which are totally anti-American, would cause him pain beyond belief.

Several of my relatives, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, friends, classmates and myself  also served this country honorably. Some left their blood on the battlefields.   And those that were fortunate to come home,  they, too, would be outraged by the treasonous actions that our ‘great leader’ has perpetrated.

Obama also gave away the procedures used at Gitmo giving our enemies a blueprint of what to expect and how to over come the various methods of procuring information.  It’s always nice to give terrorists our secrets so they can be victorious the next time they invade our country and kill thousands, if not millions, of our citizens.  Obama is a fool.  Perhaps he’d like to explain his actions to those who were affected by 9/11.

The article which I speak of was published in the Wall Street Journal on April 23, 2009.

You can link to it here or read the full story below.

***

Presidential Poison

His invitation to indict Bush officials will haunt Obama’s Presidency

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama’s victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.

“Your intelligence indicates that there is currently a level of ‘chatter’ equal to that which preceded the September 11 attacks,” wrote Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, in his August 1, 2002 memo. “In light of the information you believe [detainee Abu] Zubaydah has and the high level of threat you believe now exists, you wish to move the interrogations into what you have described as an ‘increased pressure phase.'”

So the CIA requests a legal review at a moment of heightened danger, the Justice Department obliges with an exceedingly detailed analysis of the law and interrogation practices — and, seven years later, Mr. Obama says only the legal advisers who are no longer in government should be investigated. The political convenience of this distinction for Mr. Obama betrays its basic injustice. And by the way, everyone agrees that senior officials, including President Bush, approved these interrogations. Is this President going to put his predecessor in the dock too?

Mr. Obama seemed to understand the peril of such an exercise when he said, before his inauguration, that he wanted to “look forward” and beyond the antiterror debates of the Bush years. As recently as Sunday, Rahm Emanuel said no prosecutions were contemplated and now is not a time for “anger and retribution.” Two days later the President disavowed his own chief of staff. Yet nothing had changed except that Mr. Obama’s decision last week to release the interrogation memos unleashed a revenge lust on the political left that he refuses to resist.

Just as with the AIG bonuses, he is trying to co-opt his left-wing base by playing to it — only to encourage it more. Within hours of Mr. Obama’s Tuesday comments, Senator Carl Levin piled on with his own accusatory Intelligence Committee report. The demands for a “special counsel” at Justice and a Congressional show trial are louder than ever, and both Europe’s left and the U.N. are signaling their desire to file their own charges against former U.S. officials.

Those officials won’t be the only ones who suffer if all of this goes forward. Congress will face questions about what the Members knew and when, especially Nancy Pelosi when she was on the House Intelligence Committee in 2002. The Speaker now says she remembers hearing about waterboarding, though not that it would actually be used. Does anyone believe that? Porter Goss, her GOP counterpart at the time, says he knew exactly what he was hearing and that, if anything, Ms. Pelosi worried the CIA wasn’t doing enough to stop another attack. By all means, put her under oath.

Mr. Obama may think he can soar above all of this, but he’ll soon learn otherwise. The Beltway’s political energy will focus more on the spectacle of revenge, and less on his agenda. The CIA will have its reputation smeared, and its agents second-guessing themselves. And if there is another terror attack against Americans, Mr. Obama will have set himself up for the argument that his campaign against the Bush policies is partly to blame.

Above all, the exercise will only embitter Republicans, including the moderates and national-security hawks Mr. Obama may need in the next four years. As patriotic officials who acted in good faith are indicted, smeared, impeached from judgeships or stripped of their academic tenure, the partisan anger and backlash will grow. And speaking of which, when will the GOP Members of Congress begin to denounce this partisan scapegoating? Senior Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Richard Lugar, John McCain, Orrin Hatch, Pat Roberts and Arlen Specter have hardly been profiles in courage.

Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, due in part to his personal charm and his seeming goodwill. By indulging his party’s desire to criminalize policy advice, he has unleashed furies that will haunt his Presidency.

***

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Sally Quinn’s Holy Communion Abuse

by Michael Gaynor

Sally Quinn, Washington Post journalist, author, founder and co-moderator of ‘On Faith,’ a blog from the Washington Post and Newsweek, as posted in ‘On Faith’ on June 23, 2008 in ‘The Faith and Joy of Russert’: ‘Last Wednesday at Tim’s funeral mass at Trinity Church in Georgetown (Jack Kennedy’s church), communion was offered. I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started ‘On Faith’ and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Last Wednesday I was determined to take it for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I’m so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him. And it was worth it just to imagine how he would have loved it.’

Ms. Quinn, then age 67, should have known better long before June 23, 2008!

Unfortunately, people who are ineligible to receive Communion in a Catholic Church nevertheless present themselves and receive.

Ms. Quinn is noteworthy for publicly writing about her reception of Communion apparently in ignorance of her ineligibility.

On June 25, 2008, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights charged Ms. Quinn with narcissism for her receipt of Communion in this press release:

‘The funeral Mass for Tim Russert was held at Trinity Church in Georgetown a week ago today. Attending was Sally Quinn. She is a Washington Post journalist and founder and co-moderator of On Faith, a Washington Post and Newsweek blog.

‘Quinn, who was an atheist most of her life, posted on Monday why she decided to go to Communion: ‘Last Wednesday I was determined to take it [the Eucharist] for Tim, transubstantiation notwithstanding. I’m so glad I did. It made me feel closer to him. And it was worth it just to imagine how he would have loved it.’

‘Quinn also admitted the following: ‘I had only taken communion once in my life, at an evangelical church. It was soon after I had started ‘On Faith’ and I wanted to see what it was like. Oddly I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ.’

‘Catholic League president Bill Donohue had this to say:

‘Just reading what Sally Quinn said is enough to give any Christian, especially Catholics, more than a ‘slightly nauseating sensation.’ In her privileged world, life is all about experiences and feelings.

‘Moreover, Quinn’s statement not only reeks of narcissism, it shows a profound disrespect for Catholics and the beliefs they hold dear. If she really wanted to get close to Tim Russert, she should have found a way to do so without trampling on Catholic sensibilities. Like praying for him that’s what Catholics do.”

Was it narcissism, or simple ignorance, or culpable ignorance?

Only God and perhaps Ms. Quinn know for sure.

But with pro-abortion so-called Catholic politicians like Senator and 2004 Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi sacrilegiously and scandalously receiving Communion, it is conceivable that Ms. Quinn thought that anyone who attends a Mass is eligible to receive Holy Communion.

That’s not so.

Commenting to The New Republic on the Catholic League’s press release, Ms. Quinn was argumentative, not apologetic, asserting: ‘Any religious people who purport to be Christians, or whatever faith you might be, would do everything they could to welcome others–in the case of Catholics, to welcome others the way Christ would welcome others. This is a perfect example of WWJD. Would Jesus have said, ‘No you don’t, Sally Quinn. You’re not going to get away with this one!”

Ms. Quinn may or may not be narcissistic, but that response was nonsensical.

Ms. Quinn was welcomed to attend the funeral mass for her friend Tim Russert.

But attendance at a Mass is not the test for eligibility to receive Communion at that Mass.

National Review Online‘s Ramesh Ponnuru was more troubled by Ms. Quinn’s response than by her reception of Communion:

“Apparently, Sally Quinn has gotten some nasty voicemails after writing about her decision to receive communion at her friend Tim Russert’s funeral Mass. That is too bad. So many people do not understand the Church’s teaching that it is best to treat this sort of thing as a well-meaning act based on a misunderstanding. It is hard to believe that Quinn was deliberately trying to register her disagreement with the Church at the Mass. That said, if she does not understand the affront she gave then perhaps regularly blogging about religion for a major news outlet is not the right job for her.

‘No doubt she has her back up. But her explanations and self-justifications compound rather than mitigate the problem. She says that Catholics should be inclusive rather than turning people down who present themselves for communion. Perhaps. She talks, quite a bit, about her feelings. But the Church does not view communion as primarily an opportunity to elicit warm feelings of community. The unity of communion is altogether deeper. The Church invites outsiders into that deeper unity by refusing a simulacrum of it.

‘Quinn invokes the vulgar phrase, ‘What Would Jesus Do?’ What Jesus would have us do is a question Christians should always ask. It is within the realm of possibility that the Church, and the current pope, whom she singles out for criticism, have given at least as much thought to the question as she has. While asking, quite rightly, for charity, she should consider extending it.’

Sound advice!

Writing for National Catholic Weekly, Father James S. Martin of the Society of Jesus criticized both Ms. Quinn and the Catholic League, offering this explanation and expectation:

‘Catholics believe in the ‘real presence,’ the actual presence of Christ in the elements of the Eucharist: the bread and the wine. It is a central element of our faith, and reception of Communion is something that a Catholic does not do lightly. Which is something of an understatement. ‘First Holy Communion’ is an important passage to adulthood; and even afterwards adults are asked to approach Communion reverently and without being conscious of any grave sin. Catholics also know that the very word ‘Communion’ means that you are in ‘communion’ with the rest of the Catholic church, and accept its beliefs.

‘Therefore, it is probably not too much to expect that the co-founder of a prestigious online blog about religion run by two of the nation’s premier journals, would understand something about the most basic practices of the Catholic church. Most intelligent people know a few facts about the Catholic church: this is one of them. And even if one doesn’t know this, one would know to act with great care when in the midst of a worshiping community not your own’.’

Remnant columnist Mark Alessio was more exacting and less excusing than Father Martin: ‘The great journalist feels the need to tell us, regarding her illicit reception of Holy Communion, ‘I had a slightly nauseated sensation after I took it, knowing that in some way it represented the body and blood of Jesus Christ.’ Why would someone say that? Better yet, why would someone writing an appreciation of a deceased Catholic colleague say that? Quinn defended her statement by saying that she was ‘grieving’ and that Russert ‘would really enjoy’ her reception of Communion. She also invokes ‘pluralism’, ‘inclusiveness’ and the popular practice among political groupies of being able to read the mind of Jesus. All to defend the indefensible. Were Quinn unsure as to the guidelines for receiving Communion, she could have inquired about them. But, of course, that sort of diligence is best reserved for political primaries, not something as frivolous as ‘religion.’ And, even given a situation of grief and uncertainty as to the reception of the Sacrament, was there any cause for an educated individual to speak about it afterwards as something nauseating? Then again, what else can be expected from someone who brags about becoming an atheist at age 13?’

It is Ms. Quinn’s right to be an atheist, or not, but Ms. Alessio highlighted the two most important points that Ms. Quinn had continued to ignore: (1) Ms. Quinn’s reception of Communion was ‘illicit’ and (2) there are guidelines that apply to everyone, including Ms. Quinn.

On November 14, 1996, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the following guidelines on the reception of communion. These guidelines are included in missalettes and other participation aids published in the United States to remind all those who may attend Catholic liturgies of the present discipline of the Church with regard to the sharing of eucharistic communion.

‘For Catholics

‘As Catholics, we fully participate in the celebration of the Eucharist when we receive Holy Communion. We are encouraged to receive Communion devoutly and frequently. In order to be properly disposed to receive Communion, participants should not be conscious of grave sin and normally should have fasted for one hour. A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to receive the Body and Blood of the Lord without prior sacramental confession except for a grave reason where there is no opportunity for confession. In this case, the person is to be mindful of the obligation to make an act of perfect contrition, including the intention of confessing as soon as possible (canon 916). A frequent reception of the Sacrament of Penance is encouraged for all.

‘For our fellow Christians

‘We welcome our fellow Christians to this celebration of the Eucharist as our brothers and sisters. We pray that our common baptism and the action of the Holy Spirit in this Eucharist will draw us closer to one another and begin to dispel the sad divisions which separate us. We pray that these will lessen and finally disappear, in keeping with Christ’s prayer for us ‘that they may all be one’ (Jn 17:21).

‘Because Catholics believe that the celebration of the Eucharist is a sign of the reality of the oneness of faith, life, and worship, members of those churches with whom we are not yet fully united are ordinarily not admitted to Holy Communion. Eucharistic sharing in exceptional circumstances by other Christians requires permission according to the directives of the diocesan bishop and the provisions of canon law (canon 844 § 4). Members of the Orthodox Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, and the Polish National Catholic Church are urged to respect the discipline of their own Churches. According to Roman Catholic discipline, the Code of Canon Law does not object to the reception of communion by Christians of these Churches (canon 844 § 3).

‘For those not receiving Holy Communion

‘All who are not receiving Holy Communion are encouraged to express in their hearts a prayerful desire for unity with the Lord Jesus and with one another.

‘For non-Christians

‘We also welcome to this celebration those who do not share our faith in Jesus Christ. While we cannot admit them to Holy Communion, we ask them to offer their prayers for the peace and the unity of the human family.’

Perhaps Ms. Quinn forgot the outrage when President Clinton, a non-Catholic, presented himself for Communion in a Catholic Church in Africa while he was lying about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky.

I remember it.

This letter of mine appeared in The New York Daily News on April 2, 1996.:

‘President Clinton insulted Catholics throughout the world by receiving Communion during a Catholic Mass in South Africa. It was appropriate for him to attend the service (and perhaps he was moved by the sermon on adultery), but it was wrong for him as a non-Catholic to receive Communion, even if he was in a state of grace at that time.

‘Clinton may have been forgiven by the people of Arkansas for breaking his promise not to run for President in 1992, he may have been forgiven by Hillary for his dalliance with Gennifer Flowers, and he may have been forgiven by the American people for breaking his promise to provide the most ethical administration in American history. But he truly will have to repent in order to receive the forgiveness he needs for treating a Mass as a photo op.’

It does not appear that Ms. Quinn treated the Russert funeral Mass as a photo op, but it does appear that she should have known that her reception of Communion at the Mass would be illicit and she should have refrained from receiving. Then she would not have embarrassed herself by her tasteless story about receiving and her subsequent silly self-justification trying to make a virtue of her disregard of the guidelines for the reception of Holy Communion by doing as she pleased.

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‘A Servant’s Heart’

Sarah Palin killed. And more than killed.

(WSJ) – Much has been said about her speech, but a few points. “The difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull? Lipstick” is pure American and goes straight into Bartlett’s. This is the authentic sound of the American mama, of every mother you know at school who joins the board, reads the books, heads the committee, and gets the show on the road. These women make large portions of America work.

She has the power of the normal. Hillary Clinton is grim, stentorian, was born to politics and its connivances. Nancy Pelosi, another mother of five, often seems dazed and ad hoc. But this state governor and mother of a big family is a woman in a good mood. There is something so normal about her, so “You’ve met this person before and you like her,” that she broke through in a new way, as a character vividly herself, and vividly genuine.

***

Her flaws accentuated her virtues. Now and then this happens in politics, but it’s rare. An example: The very averageness of her voice, the not-wonderfulness of it, highlighted her normality: most people don’t have great voices. That normality in turn highlighted the courage she showed in being there, on that stage for the first time in her life and under trying circumstances. Her averageness accentuated her specialness. Her commonality highlighted her uniqueness.

She seemed wholly different from, and in fact seemed a refutation to, all the men of Washington at their great desks who make rules others have to live by but they don’t have to live by themselves, who mandate work rules from which they exempt Congress, for instance. They don’t live by the rules they espouse. She has lived her expressed values. She said yes to a Down Syndrome child. This too is powerful.

***

What she did in terms of the campaign itself was important. No one has ever really laid a glove on Obama before, not in this campaign and maybe not in his life. But Palin really damaged him. She took him square on, fearlessly, by which I mean in part that she showed no awkwardness connected to race, or racial history. A small town mayor is kind of like a community organizer only you have actual responsibilities. He wrote two memoirs but never authored a major bill. They’ve hauled the Styrofoam pillars back to the Hollywood lot.

This was powerful coming from Baberaham Lincoln, as she’s been called.

By the end, Democrats knew they had been dinged, and badly. After the speech they descended on cable news en masse with the dart-eyed, moist-browed look of the operative who doesn’t believe his talking points. They seemed like they were thinking, “I’ve seen this movie before and it doesn’t end well.” Actually they haven’t seen it before in that Palin is something new, but they have seen it before in terms of what she said.

Which gets me to the most important element of the speech, and that is the startlingness of the content. It was not modern conservatism, or split the difference Conservative-ish-ism. It was not a conservatism that assumes the America of 2008 is very different from the America of 1980.

It was the old-time conservatism. Government is too big, Obama will “grow it”, Congress spends too much and he’ll spend “more.” It was for low taxes, for small business, for the private sector, for less regulation, for governing with “a servant’s heart”; it was pro-small town values, and implicitly but strongly pro-life.

This was so old it seemed new, and startling. The speech was, in its way, a call so tender it made grown-ups weep on the floor. The things she spoke of were the beating heart of the old America. But as I watched I thought, I know where the people in that room are, I know their heart, for it is my heart. But this election is a wild card, because America is a wild card. It is not as it was in ’80. I know where the Republican base is, but we do not know where this country that never stops changing is.

***

It all left me wondering if this campaign is about to take on a new shape, with the old time conservatism on one side, and a smoother, evolved form of the old style liberalism on the other.

It doesn’t get more dramatic, or dramatically drawn, than that.

***

I don’t like the new media war. I don’t like what it has the potential to do to the election, and the country.

The media overstepped. The Republican party resented it. GOP strategists saw a unifying force rising: anger in the base. They too had seen this movie before. They slammed the media. The media shot back: “You’re attacking us for doing our job!”

How did the media overstep? By offending people by going so immediately and so personally into issues surrounding Mrs. Palin’s family. They did not overstep by digging, by deep reporting, by investigating Palin’s professional record.

Campbell Brown of CNN did nothing wrong for instance in pressing a campaign spokesman on Palin’s foreign policy credentials. She was unjustly criticized for following an appropriate and necessary line of inquiry. But endless front page stories connected to Mrs. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter? Cable news shows that had people insinuating Palin, whom America had not yet even met, was a bad mother, and that used her daughter’s circumstances to examine Republican views on abstinence education? That was ugly.

In the end it made Palin the underdog, and gave her the perfect platform for the perfect dive she made Wednesday night.

We have had these old press fights in the past – they were a source of constant tension when I was a child, when Barry Goldwater came forward as a conservative and the press scorned him as a flake, and later when Ronald Reagan came up and the press dismissed him as Bonzo.

But this latest fight commences on a new and wilder battlefield. The old combatants were old school gentlemen, Eric Sevareid and Walter Cronkite; the new combatants are half-crazy cable anchors, the lower lurkers of the Internet, and the anonymous posters on the comment thread on the radical website.

This new war on new turf is not good, and carries the potential of great harm. Everyone really ought to stop, breathe deep, and think.

I am worried they won’t. A friend IM’d the day after Palin’s speech, and I told him of an inexplicable sense of foreboding. He surprised me by saying he shared it. “Calling all underworlds reporting for duty!,” he wrote. “The bed is about to fly around the room, the puke is about to come out.” He meant: this campaign is going to engage unseen powers and forces. He meant: this campaign, this beautiful golden thing with two admirable men at the top and two admirable vice presidential candidates, is going to turn dark.

***

It is starting to look to me like a nation-defining election. And in this it seems almost old-fashioned. 1992 for instance didn’t seem or feel nation-defining, not as I remember it, nor did 2000. 1964 did, and ’80 did, but they both ended in landslides. Landslide is not what I’m seeing here.

Where are the Democrats going to go? I suspect to foreign policy. In politics it used to be called Tolstoy: war and peace. McCain-Palin will mean more war, Obama-Biden will mean peace.

This campaign is about to become: epic.

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The Left’s New Line On Iraq

When liberals thought it was politically expedient to declare Iraq lost, that was what they did. Liberal after liberal after liberal told us that we could not win in Iraq, that the surge was a waste of time, and that we should leave ASAP.

For example, there’s Time’s Joe Klein. Klein, like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, supported the war in Iraq initially — when it was politically popular — and then changed his position later when the political winds blew the other way.

By January of 2007 Klein was in full “cut and run mode” and writing things like this,

“Pelosi’s right, though: it’s too late for a surge. Instead of putting all its brainpower into surging, the military should be focusing on how to get our conventional forces out (and leave our unconventional forces in the neighborhood) in a way that prevents an all-out regional conflict.”

For the record, I’m outraged Bush is ignoring the election results and the reality on the ground in Iraq. I think he is sending more young American lives into an impossible situation.

Now, here’s Joe Klein yesterday at Time’s Swampland blog,

The reality is that neither Barack Obama nor Nouri al-Maliki nor most anybody else believes that the Iraq war can be “lost” at this point. The reality is that no matter who is elected President, we are looking at a residual U.S. force of 30-50,000 by 2011 (a year ahead of the previous schedule).

So initially, it was “too late” for a surge and the situation was “impossible,” so we needed to leave as quickly as possible. Now, it’s impossible to lose, so we need to leave as quickly as possible.

Incidentally, this is exactly the same line of reasoning that Barack Obama has been using. He opposed the surge and believed we should leave Iraq in 16 months because the situation was unwinnable. Now, his new line is that we should leave in 16 months because things are going so well that they won’t need us — and ironically, Klein’s post yesterday was sharply critical of John McCain for having the chutzpah to tell the truth about Barack Obama.

This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign.

If anything, McCain’s comments were too limited because they apply just as aptly to Klein and most of the other big name political pundits on the Left, who have consistently and soullessly been putting politics ahead of the good of their country and winning the war in Iraq for years.

PS: I would be thrilled if we actually could have 30,000-50,000 troops in Iraq by 2001, but that’s a decision that should be made after consultation with our generals, based on the situation on the ground, not a decision that should be made based on political calculations designed to move votes for the 2008 election.

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DEMOCRATS’ HYBRID PICKUP TRUCKS

On the very day of a special election to fill a vacated congressional seat last week in Mississippi, The New York Times accused the Republican candidate of running racist ads against his Democratic opponent.

Talk about dirty tricks! By The New York Times, that is.

The Republican thus accused of racism narrowly lost the election the night the Times article appeared, so I guess the Times can proclaim: “Mission Accomplished.”

The ad in question, on behalf of Republican Greg Davis, pointed out that Barack Obama had endorsed Davis’ opponent, Travis Childers — another in a long line of fake-American goobers claiming to be “conservative Democrats,” but who get to Congress and promptly vote to ban guns, surrender in Iraq and fund full-term abortions.

These days, I guess you can call yourself a “conservative Democrat” if you refrain from being sworn into Congress with your hand on a Quran.

The ad showed a clip of Obama’s pastor g-damning America and mentioned Obama’s recent remarks ridiculing rural folks for clinging to guns. It then concluded that Childers “took Obama’s endorsement over our conservative values.”

The Republicans had also run ads connecting Childers with other Washington liberals, such as Nancy Pelosi and John Kerry. (Times editors are still looking for the racist angle to those ads.)

To call that ad racist is a monstrous libel. Greg Davis and the Mississippi Republicans should bring a defamation action against The New York Times — although such an action might be perceived as “racist” because some black people work at the Times.

Republicans are constantly linking the local hayseed Democrat to national liberals like John Kerry. The technique goes back at least to Michael Dukakis in 1988.

It is beyond outrageous for liberals to complain about the practice of linking Democrats to the national party when their calculated strategy in race after race in the red states has been to run Democratic candidates who appear to be Americans. They’re not Americans. They’re liberals! I don’t care how much hay is sticking out of their straw hats.

In the 2006 midterm elections, Sen. Chuck Schumer and erstwhile ballerina Rep. Rahm Emanuel (now there’s a couple of raw-boned Americans for you!) famously rounded up yokels from the local square dance contests to run as “macho Dems” — as the Times admiringly called them. Schumer and the ballerina were hailed for their brilliant strategy to fool the hayseeds.

The phony blue-collar Democrats won their elections by driving around in pickup trucks and shooting guns, then moved to Washington and began voting against war in Iraq and in favor of taxpayer-funded abortions.

One of the Democrats’ paragons of regular guy-ness that year was Jon Tester of Montana, who wore cowboy boots and had a buzz cut. The crew cut absolutely transfixed liberals in places like Manhattan. Search “Jon Tester and crew cut” on Google, and you’ll get more than 200,000 hits. Even this tonsorial affectation was a liberal fake-out, inasmuch as Tester has no military service.

After campaigning throughout Montana in a pickup truck, Tester got to Washington and compiled a voting record more liberal than Chuck Schumer’s, according to the liberal Americans for Democratic Action (Tester: 95 percent; Schumer: 90 percent). Tester also has a 100 percent rating from the pro-abortion group NARAL. There’s your truck driving, gun-totin’ Democrat.

Sen. Bob Casey Jr. was another consumer fraud perpetrated on voters in 2006 by the Democrats. Casey ran for office on the strength of his father’s name and his alleged pro-life position. It was the pro-life position of his father — the popular Democratic governor of Pennsylvania — that disqualified Casey Sr. from speaking at the Democratic National Convention in 1992.

Despite rumors that Schumer had assured Hillary Clinton that Casey was not really pro-life, the good people of Pennsylvania made him their senator, throwing out Rick Santorum, the kind of pro-lifer who actually opposes abortion.

In Casey’s first year in office, he voted in favor of an amendment to a foreign appropriations bill introduced by the fanatically pro-abortion Barbara Boxer that overturned U.S. policy against providing taxpayer money to groups that perform abortions overseas. It also granted overseas abortion providers taxpayer money. There’s a “pro-life Democrat” for you.

In elections in the patriotic parts of the country, Democrats keep producing candidates that look like they’re out of a Norman Rockwell painting but vote like Karl Marx — which is to say, they vote like the typical member of the Democratic Party. Naturally, Republicans respond to this tactic by linking the local phonies to the national party.

As soon as the Democrats stop running these mountebanks, Republicans will stop exposing them as lickspittles for their liberal masters in Washington.

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