Category Archives: Marketplace of ideas

What ABOUT a McCain-Huckabee ticket?

Mccain07

This piece by David Broder, which we ran on our op-ed page, intrigued me. Broder is of course the dean of national political writers, so when he says here’s a political combo that would work, I tend to take notice. I had meant to call attention to it on the day that it ran, but got busy and forgot.

So, for the sake of y’all’s discussion, here it is now:

Principles Amid the GOP Pack
By David S. Broder
Sunday, December 2, 2007
If the Republican Party really wanted to hold on to the White House in 2009, it’s pretty clear what it would do. It would grit its teeth, swallow its doubts and nominate a ticket of John McCain for president and Mike Huckabee for vice president — and president-in-waiting.
Those two are far from front-runners. They trail Mitt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire and lag behind Rudy Giuliani in national surveys of Republican voters. But, in a series of debates, including last week’s CNN-YouTube extravaganza, McCain and Huckabee have been notable for their clarity, character and, yes, simple humanity.
From everything I have heard on the campaign trail, it’s obvious that they are the pair who have earned the widest respect among the eight Republican candidates themselves. McCain is the eldest and the most honored, not only for what he endured as a Vietnam prisoner of war but as a principled battler for what he considers essential on Iraq and other national security issues.
Huckabee, who previously was known only to those of us who cover state government and governors, has been the surprise discovery of the campaign season. His combination of religious principle, good humor, tolerance and clear passion on education and health care complements McCain’s muscular foreign policy and aversion to wasteful domestic spending.
The two of them seem often to be operating on a different — and higher — plane than the quarrelsome Giuliani and Romney, whose mutual contempt is as palpable as it is persuasive.
Fred Thompson appears perpetually grumpy — a presence hard to imagine inhabiting the Oval Office. The three House members — Ron Paul, Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter — are exercising their lungs but running for exercise, happy to be part of the proceedings but with no hope of being nominated.
What sets McCain and Huckabee apart is most evident in the way they treat the contentious issue of illegal immigration. Both of them have been burned by it — Huckabee in a losing battle with his legislature over tuition breaks for children of illegal immigrants; McCain for his sponsorship of President Bush’s comprehensive immigration reform. Both now acknowledge — as everyone must — that the failure of the federal government to secure the southern border has produced broad public outrage.
But, unlike the others, who seem to take their rhetorical cues from the rabidly anti-immigrant Tancredo, Huckabee and McCain always remember that those who struggle to reach the United States across the deserts or rivers of the Southwest are human beings drawn here by the promise of better lives for their families.
After outlining the failed Senate effort to pass a bill that included a temporary guest worker program and a pathway to earned citizenship for the illegal immigrants already living here, McCain said, "What we’ve learned is that the American people want the borders enforced. We must . . . secure the borders first. But then . . . we need to sit down as Americans and recognize these are God’s children as well, and they need some protections under the law and they need some of our love and compassion." That answer was interrupted by applause.
Huckabee was asked to defend a bill he sponsored that the questioner said "gave illegal aliens a discount for college in Arkansas by allowing them to pay lower in-state tuition rates."
The former governor corrected him. The bill, he said, "would have allowed those children who had been in our schools their entire school life the opportunity to have the same scholarship that their peers had, who had also gone to high school with them and sat in the same classrooms. . . . It wasn’t about out-of-state tuition."
Romney was not appeased. He said Huckabee sounded like a Massachusetts liberal, giving the taxpayers’ money to people who are here illegally.
To which Huckabee replied: "In all due respect, we’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did. We’re a better country than that." He, too, was applauded.
I think we are that better country. And I hope the Republicans agree.
[email protected]

Why Rusty likes Rudy

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Rusty DePass sent in an op-ed submission recently explaining why he’s a Giuliani supporter, and why he thinks Rudy can win. We did not choose it to run in our limited op-ed space, as any such unabashed advocacy piece raises questions of failure to all the other campaigns. But I thought it was interesting, and I may use it as a launching pad for a column (right now, the competitors in my mind for a Sunday column are this, the topic of Rudy’s appeal in S.C.; a piece on single-payer taking off on the meeting we had with advocates earlier this week; and something on the Romney-as-JFK speech today).

In the meantime, I share it with you for your edification (and yes, if any key supporters for other candidates have pieces that I find equally interesting, I’m open to posting them here). Those of you who know Mr. DePass will agree with me that this is classic Rusty:

Why Rudy?

The core support for Rudy Giuliani is truly amazing. It may be hard for some to believe, but I am convinced this guy is for real! I think 2008 promises to be a genuinely unique election year, and Giuliani might just pull this thing off, even in South Carolina.

Most of us, of course, particularly in South Carolina, never gave a damn about New
Yorkers, but somehow the attacks of September 11, 2001, made those people Americans again—even the ones who weren’t Americans—and the attack on this country was, and still is, unthinkable. Giuliani’s leadership in its aftermath, as we all know and observed, was stellar.

New York City, of course, is the ungovernable city, and for eight years Giuliani ran it—not perfectly, but well, the way it had never been run before—and in many ways turned it around after decades of gross mismanagement. Frederick Siegel’s The Prince of the City is a critical but generally favorable assessment of Giuliani’s effort in getting a handle on how to govern a very difficult city. I recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this incredible man.

When I decided to support Giuliani, I had to confess that I disagree with the guy on a number of issues, and they are important, though mainly social. But when I first became interested in politics, there wasn’t any such thing as “social issues.” Abortion was wrong and homosexuals weren’t trying to marry each other then. The issues were government efficiency, economics, excessive taxation, a strong defense, and governmental interference in our lives and businesses.

Our society has deteriorated a lot since then and unfortunately social issues have become the stock and trade of conservative candidates’ campaigns. Outraged citizens demanded it. I believe in freedom of choice because I believe in freedom, but I don’t believe the government has an obligation to endorse the choices you make.

I have a sneaking suspicion that 2008 is going to be the year when Republicans tire of this fascination with social issues and make their choice on other leadership qualities and policy positions. I don’t think we’re going to change our beliefs; we’re simply going to change our focus.

We need to get away from the rigid, moralistic approach to Republican campaigns and get back to basics, and this guy Giuliani has got the basics down. Not only is he a crime-fighting, Mafia busting prosecutor, he is a superb manager and leader, and on budget and taxation matters, he is as sound as they come. Moreover, he alone among the candidates for 2008, has a grasp of and commitment to the War on Terror. He knows why we are in it and why we must win it.

Frankly I’m a little weary of this “family values” thing. I’m not opposed to what is meant by “family values,” but there’s an “I’m better than you” quality in that approach that makes me uncomfortable.

Just as Jimmy Carter ruined the term “born-again Christian” for me, all the presidents since Reagan have abused “God bless America.” “Family values” needs a rest, too.

When you look at abortion, we really haven’t done so well. We can talk about opposing abortion all we want, but the facts are these: A conservative Republican president appointed the Supreme Court justice who wrote the Roe v.Wade opinion and since then we have had three conservative Republican presidents who have been staunchly “pro-life,” and Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. So I would aver presidents don’t have a whole lot of influence in this particular matter. Courts do.

And while we are speaking of courts, Giuliani has said he would appoint Supreme Court justices like Alito, Roberts, Thomas and Scalia. Friends, he is telling us something. He’s on our side. A few more like those and the social issues will take care of themselves.

It is interesting that all the major Republican candidates but one have been divorced while all the Democrats are happily married the first time—like the Clintons. Whether your marriage is a sham or the picture perfect relationship, ultimately the issue of presidential leadership ability transcends family situations. Let’s not forget that Ronald Reagan was divorced and estranged from his children.

All of the Republican candidates are preferable to any of the Democrats, but we need a candidate who can win. Again, Giuliani seems to be the best bet. I sure would hate to watch Rodham and Gomorrah being inaugurated on January 20, 2009, and think to myself, “Well, at least we nominated the most ideologically pure candidate.”

Romney vs. JFK

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Almost 50 years ago another candidate from Massachusetts explained that he was an American running for President, not a Catholic running for President. Like him, I am an American running for President. I do not define my candidacy by my religion. A person should not be elected because of his faith nor should he be rejected because of his faith.

Mitt Romney said that today, in his much-hyped, high-stakes speech about … well, he said it was about "Faith in America," but of course it was about "Faith in Mitt Romney," and whether that would be a barrier to his election. Even if he hadn’t invited the comparison to the JFK speech, it would certainly be compared — particularly since it was offered under such similar circumstances, and for nearly identical reasons.

I’ve read and watched (well, sort of watched — more like listening while working) both speeches. Having done so, I wonder whether a fair comparison is possible. I find myself much more impressed by the Kennedy speech, but a great deal of that is a matter of style. Kennedy spoke with such unabashed authority and intellectual rigor, but then he led in a time when the alpha male, take-charge style of leadership was accepted and nobody apologized for it. He came across as Yes, I’m smart as hell; isn’t that what you want in a president? There’s also a slight undertone of being righteously ticked off at having to address the matter, combined with complete confidence in the rightness of what he’s saying.

By contrast, Romney’s delivery is blander, more tentative, less threatening, using tones that you might use in speaking to a class of schoolchildren (but then, I so often think today’s politicians sound like they’re speaking to a particularly slow group of third-graders). As he talks about religion, I’m reminded of how Mr. Rogers might have spoken had he been a televangelist. But this (aside from the hair) is not anything particular to Mr. Romney, I think, so much as it is what public life seems to demand today. He seems to be a little more ingratiating in his desire to be liked — again, in the modern mode.

Beyond that, the speeches in substance have much in common. Both express a fundamental belief in the separation of church and state. Both make historical references. But there are a couple of key differences. Romney feels compelled to "witness" in the evangelical manner to his personal belief in Jesus as the son of God and Savior:

There is one fundamental question about which I often am asked. What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. My church’s beliefs about Christ may not all be the same as those of other faiths. Each religion has its own unique doctrines and history. These are not bases for criticism but rather a test of our tolerance. Religious tolerance would be a shallow principle indeed if it were reserved only for faiths with which we agree.

Kennedy in no way felt compelled to air his own faith in such specific terms.

This stands out in the Romney speech in particular in light of his assertion, immediately after he did that, that he doesn’t believe in doing such things: "There are some who would have a presidential
candidate describe and explain his church’s distinctive doctrines. To do
so would enable the very religious test the founders prohibited in the
Constitution." Yes, I know what he’s thinking: He’s thinking of polygamy and other things from Mormon history. But if there is no religious test, why did he have to say what he did about Jesus? Because there was a higher priority for him than asserting the principles that Kennedy set out: Soothing the Christian right. He was explaining that he believes just what they believe; in other words, he was acting as an apologist for the orthodoxy of his faith. And within this political context, that struck me as unseemly.

Then there was the "multicultural" passage, in which he reached out and stroked everybody and told them that their religion was very fine, too:

And in every faith I’ve come to know, there are features I wish were in my own: I love the profound ceremony of the Catholic Mass, the approachability of God in the prayers of the Evangelicals, the tenderness of spirit among the Pentecostals, the confident independence of the Lutherans, the ancient traditions of the Jews, unchanged through the ages, and the commitment to frequent prayer of the Muslims. As I travel across the country and see our towns and cities, I’m always moved by the many houses of worship with their steeples, all pointing to heaven, reminding us of the source of life’s blessings.

Kennedy didn’t bother condescending thus to other people’s faith. As for his own church, he cited it and its teachings quite specifically and not in generic pieties, but he only did so insofar as it affirmed the bright line between its magisterial authority and secular power in America:

I ask you tonight to follow in that tradition, to judge me on the basis
of my record of 14 years in Congress, on my declared stands against an
ambassador to the Vatican, against unconstitutional aid to parochial
schools, and against any boycott of the public schools (which I have
attended myself)— instead of judging me on the basis of these pamphlets
and publications we all have seen that carefully select quotations out
of context from the statements of Catholic church leaders, usually in
other countries, frequently in other centuries, and always omitting, of
course, the statement of the American Bishops in 1948, which strongly
endorsed church-state separation, and which more nearly reflects the
views of almost every American Catholic.

Overall, for what he was trying to do and his political and cultural context, I suppose Romney did all right. But I think Lloyd Bentsen would probably say that he’s no Jack Kennedy.

Here’s the text of the Romney speech as delivered, and here’s the video.

Here’s the text of the Kennedy speech, and here’s that video.

bud’s four-tiered health care system

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Just to show that I’m serious in my admiration for people who are able to articulate smart plans from scratch (rather than reacting the way I tend to do), and to further our discussion, I thought I’d give bud’s four-tiered approach to health care coverage, which first appeared as a comment back here. Compare and contrast it with Doug’s informal proposals, and with the single-payer idea I offered as a way of starting this conversation (most formally set out in HR676):

Doug, your point is well taken that funding of our health care
system is extremely complicated. I would suggest for starters a four
tiered system. These tiers would have nothing to do with age (medicare)
or income (medicaid). Instead they would focus on health care urgency
and time.

Tier 1 would be for the funding of major 1-time events. These would
include serious injuries from accidents and crime victims, heart
attacks, strokes and other narrowly defined situations. These could be
100% funded by the federal government. The list of these events would
be short and all hospitals would be required to accept the government
rate for these services.

Tier 2 would be events that are chronic such as cancer treatments,
diabetis and other longer-term illnesses. These events are more
complicated to address and hence there is likely to be some guess work
to define what ailments are included. Hospitals and doctors could
charge whatever they want depending on where they practice. Patients
could choose between the largely government-funded hospitals and those
that are mostly private (perhaps with a voucher approach). This would
allow some market incentives but would still allow everyone access to
decent care.

Tier 3 is for the preventive issues. Everyone could visit a state
clinic for shots, mammograms, colonoscopies and other screening
programs. Individuals would be required to fund a small portion of
visits beyond the basics each year. I don’t think a 100% government
funded program for tier 3 would work because some people would abuse
it. Needy folks might still be unable to afford the basics, even if
highly subsidized, but at least most people would could recieve care
without an emergency room visit.

Tier 4 would be for elective medical treatment. I see no need for
government involvement here. This would include plastic surgery,
vasectomies and liposuction.

I suspect there is a large grey area between tiers 2-4. But tier 1
should be pretty straight-forward. Some sort of blue-ribbon committee,
established by the government in a cabinet-level agency, could be
formed to place medical care into the proper category. The onurous
nature of th insurance companies profit motive would be greatly reduced
by this system.

Finding common ground on health care reform

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The dialogue on this post about single-payer started out in the predictable manner — with libertarian Doug decrying the very idea that I would want him (which is the way he reads the words "we" and "us") to be a part of what I see as the common-sense sense solution to a critical need we have in common as a society.

But you have to read past that. One of the problems Doug and I have discussing issues is that he likes the "how" of specific proposals, whereas my interest lies more in the broad concept. As an INTP, I intuitively understand his frustration, but that’s the way I approach things.

And once you do get to proposals, the ideology falls away enough for Doug to say things that I agree with. For instance, he set forth these five suggestions for taming the health-care-cost monster in America:

1) Reduce drug patent lengths to allow competition from generic makers

2) Require insurance companies to offer coverage that is portable, not revokable under any circumstance, and restricted in the percentage increases in premiums to a limited range across all policies

3) Abolish HIPAA rules that only add expensive overhead costs to the system

4) If healthcare for all is a national concern, pay for it by cutting government costs in other areas rather than simply adding another tax on top of the waste already built into the government. The money is there already to easily cover every one who doesn’t have insurance.

5) Go back to the days where drug companies could not advertise on TV, radio, or print media. All that marketing cost gets passed onto consumers. I really don’t care if I ever see another commercial for Viagra, Ambien, or any other product that has "oily discharge" as a frequent side effect.

With the exception of item No. 4, which is simply a libertarian article of faith (which is why I initially read right over it), this seems like a list I could go for. (As much as I’d like to have a clean sweep,that one is just a spoiler condition. While you or I or anyone can come up with a list of federal expenditures that we could do without, that’s not how representative democracy works — such decisions are made collaboratively, and one person’s waste is another person’s essential. This fact lies at the root of so much libertarian alienation. Anyway, the bottom line is that in the real world, if you say you’ll only agree to a national health plan if you cut an equivalent amount elsewhere, you are for practical purposes saying let’s not do it at all. But in the interests of furthering dialogue, let’s set that aside.)

I was a little surprised that Doug went for No. 1 even more wholeheartedly than I would, since it’s about property rights. And I always thought that HIPAA (which I hate) was about privacy (another libertarian priority), and specifically about trying to achieve Item No. 2 by preventing insurance companies from knowing your medical history. But fine. I’m all for it. And I prefer the more direct, regulatory way of approaching No. 2 — if you insist on still having insurance companies.

I was even more pleased and surprised when Doug, later in the dialogue, proposed that we just make the plan that federal employees are on available to everybody. I would have to study this a lot more closely (and those of you who deal intimately with that system, please weigh in), but I have to applaud Doug’s willingness to do something that bold, even if it’s not single-payer.

Of course, he threw in the caveat that we could cover the cost by cutting spending elsewhere — once again, a fine idea until you try to do it, and something that can’t be an absolute condition if we want to get anything done.

But the really cool thing is that, when we get down to such specifics, we’re no longer arguing about the need for universal coverage. We’re just haggling over the price.

Catholic tears of pride

1 Reply

Key Energy Party adviser Samuel Tenenbaum, who also does a lot to encourage serious thought about matters of faith, sent out to his e-mail list a link to this NPR piece on the JFK speech. That prompted Bud Ferillo to respond to the group as follows:

Sammy:

This speech, which I have retained in my memory bank since it was given,
moves me to tears every time I hear it.

All of us at Bishop England High School in 1960 had never dreamed a
Catholic could be elected to any office outside of the ethnic centers of Irish
or Italian America. This one speech changed the course of that campaign because
of its direct response to the spoken and unspoken anti-Catholic fervor of the
time. And that election changed the course of the country until the violence
of later years consumed all that had been won.

Thanks for sharing it.

Bud/

Can anyone say, ‘single-payer?’

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Day after day, I become more certain that we need to scrap our entire health-insurance system, and go to a single-payer national plan. It would cover everyone in a simple and straightforward manner that wouldn’t require a Ph.D. in filling out forms to navigate, it would put enough healthy (for the moment) people into the system to make it affordable for those who need care at a given moment, and would give us a gigantic bargaining bloc (forbidden in Medicare Part D, thanks to Big Pharma) for containing drug costs. In other words, it would make sense.

And here’s the really, truly amazing thing about it. Nobody, but nobody, in the political mainstream will stand up and suggest it. In fact, political candidates go to great lengths, through all kinds of gyrations, to avoid it. This is so even though I have only heard three credible reasons why not to at least suggest it, to get a conversation started:

The medical insurance industry doesn’t want it, because it does away with it’s reason to be.
Big Pharma doesn’t want it, because if we banded together, it would no longer be able to overcharge for the drugs it pays billions to advertise.
The idea of us banding together to act in our common interest offends some people’s ideology.

Yeah, I hear other objections — waits for procedures, reduction of choices — but those will be the features of ANY approach that works in lowering costs. The insurance companies have been telling what treatments we can and can’t have, and which doctors we can see, and which pharmacies and hospitals we can go to, for decades now.

Anyway, this little post isn’t about going into the details; this post is simply about the fact that we’re not even having a national conversation about whether to do this. With the exception of Dennis Kucinich, who doesn’t count because he doesn’t have a prayer of being elected, nobody is out there touting this idea, so that we can at least debate it. And rest assured, we won’t be doing anything bold in this area unless someone is elected with a mandate to do so.

There are people laboring in the field out there trying to drum up support for HR676, which would create a single-payer system, but you don’t usually hear about them. The one advocate of the approach best known to people on this blog is our regular contributor Paul DeMarco, a Marion physician, is a founding member of a group called South Carolinians for Universal Health Care that is pushing for it (I believe, and Paul will correct me if I’m wrong, that the group is affiliated with Physicians for a National Health Program. Some of his fellow single-payer advocates came to see the editorial board yesterday. The video above shows Sabra Smith, a practicing nurse and PhD student at USC School of Nursing, talking about why she got involved with Dr. DeMarco’s group.

Oh, THAT Michael Berg…

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When he emerged on this post sticking up for the Palestinians, I kept thinking, I know Michael Berg. Where do I know a Michael Berg from, but I just couldn’t picture him or put him in context.

Then he appeared on our Saturday op-ed page, and I had to slap my forehead. That’s Michael on the left end of the banner, marching against the war in New York City during the Republican National Convention in 2004.

The thing is, I don’t think I’ve seen Michael since that day. He left the country soon after, and I hear he was in Paraguay with the Peace Corps, or something like that. (Jump in and correct me if I’m wrong, Michael.)

Bradny
Anyway, I’m glad when I get things straightened out like that. I’m also glad when I get to use one of the dozens of photos I shot at the convention. That week was when I first decided I had to start a blog. There was so much to see and write about, and show people in pictures (I hadn’t started doing video yet), and my three columns and one "notebook" piece I did for the paper just weren’t enough to cram it all into. I finally started the blog the following spring.

The irony is, I haven’t been to such a perfect blogging opportunity as that since then. Just as well, I guess — everyday life seems to produce far more ideas for posts than I have time to write as it is.

Welcome_to_the_garden

Hey, Ron Paul libertarians: This is what I meant

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First, let me apologize for using "Ron Paul" in a headline for a second time this week. I realize that it’s a cheap traffic driver, like putting cheesecake photos of female celebs on your site.

But the previous time I invoked the nation’s most popular libertarian, a lot of those who were drawn hither by Google expressed puzzlement that I thought the phrase "freewheeling fun" was a hoot when applied to libertarianism.

This still doesn’t quite explain it, but it at least shows that some libertarians are fully aware of the dark, grim, foreboding side of their worldview, which tends to be the one I generally see. I’m cleaning my desk and IN box today, and I run across a copy of The Heartlander, a newsletter put out by The Heartland Institute, which describes itself as "A nonprofit organization devoted to discovering, developing, and promoting free-market solutions to social and economic problems".

The lead article in the latest newsletter is written by the organization’s president, Joseph L. Bast, and it begins:

We all have some friends and acquaintances who seem congenitally to be optimists and others who were born pessimists.
Among libertarians – for whom extremism is never a vice – the
division is especially sharp, and pessimists outnumber optimists by a
wide margin. I know plenty of libertarians who believe we are at the
gates of hell, carried there in a charred handbasket by people whose
names change over time (sometimes “Clinton,” sometimes “Bush”) but who
always walk in the same direction. Are they right?

That’s what I’m talking about. What I usually hear when libertarians speak is the cry of those "who believe we are at the
gates of hell, carried there in a charred handbasket…"

What I don’t hear is the voices of those few (according to Mr. Bast, they are indeed in the minority) sunny optimists among libertarians — although his article is an attempt to foster that attitude. And his list of things to feel good about strike me as mostly unhappy news (such as "President Bush vetoed a proposed expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program"), but then I’m not his intended audience.

I’ll keep my eyes peeled for the next issue of The Heartlander. Maybe I’ll find the "freewheeling fun" of libertarianism in that one.

Mayor Bob reports

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Our correspondent Bob Coble offers these observations on two hot city issues.

First, I got this e-mail from him today about City Finances, which, as we know, have been quite a mess lately:

Today at our City Council meeting, our auditor, Bud Addison of Webster Rogers, will present out 2005-06 audit. That will put us back on schedule. The City staff will close the books for 2006-07 by December 31st and Webster Rogers will then complete the audit. Our next steps will be to first make sure the new finance staff timely closes our books for 2006-07 and future years, and then the audits are completed timely. Secondly, the auditor’s management letter (that was presented a few weeks ago-Gina did a story and you an editorial) that outlines the deficiencies and recommendations from 2005 must be completed and implemented. The audit itself today will show the financial health of the City itself is strong.

Three minutes later, I received this addendum regarding the idea of Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott taking over the troubled Columbia Police Department:

I wanted to indicate that I have always supported consolidation of
city county services including law enforcement. State law outlines how that
could occur I believe. I think the current proposal by Kirkman and Daniel needs
to be reviewed (Council has only heard about this from Adam Beam). I do believe
there are serious issues that need to be considered. The combination of a
partisan elected official into city government should be reviewed carefully. It
has implications on the current form of government discussion. As always any
consolidation of services discussions should be divorced from the current
players and current situation and be viewed on a 20-30 year basis.

As for what I think — well, you know what I think: There should be a full-time elected mayor in charge of running the city, and that man or woman should be held accountable for all of the above. Having an unelected manager report to seven bosses — none of whom can be held accountable individually for what happens, since each has only one-seventh say — isn’t working out so hot.

If the way to get an elected person in charge of one critical city function — public safety — is to have the sheriff take over, that’s worth considering. But it’s pretty funky — a person elected by one set of people handling an entity that only serves a subset of that electorate is a very strange way to do accountability. And the mayor’s right — whatever we do on this, it shouldn’t be about current personalities.

Ron Paul, wild and crazy fun guy

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Had to laugh at this passage in this WashPost story about the Ron Paul phenomenon, which was brought to my attention by an e-mail from a libertarian organization:

More than at any other time over the past two decades, Americans are
hungering for the politics and freewheeling fun of libertarianism…

It really said that. Go look. "Freewheeling fun." Maybe that’s why I don’t get libertarianism. I look at it and see a gray, dull, monotonous, seething, dispiriting resentment. Gripe, bitch, moan, especially about taxes — that’s libertarianism to me. That is, if you don’t mind my using the "b-word" in its verb form.

I don’t go to politics looking for a good time, but if I did, I’d probably pick the liberal Democrats. If I were looking to start a business, I’d hang with the Republicans. If I were looking to be an ideologically rigid, antisocial grouch who constantly told the rest of the world to go (expletive) itself, I’d be a libertarian. Not to cast aspersions or anything, or deal in flat stereotypes. I’m sure there’s much more to libertarians than that, just as there is to everyone. But "freewheeling fun?" That cracked me up.

Christians as folk

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A bunch of stuff crossed quickly through my hands last week when I was too busy — either working on getting the week’s pages out while shorthanded, or traveling to Pennsylvania and New York and back — to take note of them, and a couple of them are blogworthy. Here’s one, which came in as e-mail all the way back last Tuesday.

Orin P. Smith of the Palmetto Family Council sent out this note to members and/or friends, taking note of my recent column in which PFC board member Hal Stevenson played a prominent part:

Columbia businessman Hal Stevenson is a
tremendous encouragement to me. Maybe that’s because I have the sense that
he "gets it." By that I mean I think he has a deep understanding of the
connection between faith and public policy and he articulates it in a winsome
way. Because that is the whole idea behind family policy councils, I
was glad to see Hal return to the board of Palmetto Family
Council a few years ago and agree to serve as
Chairman of the Board from 2004 to 2006.

The column that follows was
the featured editorial in The
State [Columbia, SC] newspaper Sunday before last. I share it with you
not for Hal’s specific impressions of particular candidates for President (which
PFC does not necessarily endorse) or any other specific content or words he has
chosen, but to show how Christians can make a difference in the public square by
being accessible, fair, principled, and just plain interesting to talk
with.

I think you will appreciate the final sentence of the article
above all.

Happy Thanksgiving.

-OPS

Here’s what strikes me about this, and not for the first time: Traditionalist Christians are not accustomed to being written about by the MSM as actual folk — real, thinking, breathing human beings — when they interact with the political sphere. They are used to being categorized, caricatured, flattened out into two dimensions at best.

Another way of putting it is that they are not accustomed to seeing themselves written about in ways that they can recognize themselves. Hal said something about this to me in reacting to the column in a conversation I blogged about, and in thanking me for getting him straight.

I say this not to brag on myself — I know I have plenty of flaws as a journalist; one of my few virtues is that my subjects usually say I get the context of what they’re saying right, and this is an example of that.

I say it to marvel at yet another example of the ways we fail in this society to engage each other as we truly are, in the realm of politics. This is another of the many flaws in our partisan, conflict-oriented, anti-intellectual way of choosing up sides so that we won’t have to think.

It’s really a pity that something as simple as what I did — show a "conservative Christian" (which in itself is an inadequate term) as a thinking person instead of a Pat Robertson cartoon — should stand out so that a couple of people who’ve been burned in the past should see it as worth remarking upon.

In other words, it’s not that what I did was so good. It’s that so much else that you see is so bad.

Audio: McCain talks to bloggers

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Here’s audio of John McCain’s conference call with bloggers today at noon. The subject that B.J. was concerned about only came up briefly — when the candidate himself mentioned it.

Topics that were discussed included Pakistan, Iraq, "medical marijuana," health care, the need for a larger military, and the gang of 14.

I basically just wanted to listen in, although I did put myself in the queue for a question. I guess all the others were more eager and got theirs in more quickly, since my turn never came up.

If it had, I would have asked why he seems settled on sticking with Musharraf, when a case can be made that he has delegitimized himself with moderate, anti-Taliban elements in the society — might we not be at a point where Mrs. Bhutto is the only workable option?

I would also have asked jokingly whether he really meant to say Gen. Musharraf is an "ethical type of individual," rather than "aesthetic type of individual."

But no big loss. Here is the audio, if you want to listen to it. It begins in the middle of Sen. McCain explaining that he is in Phoenix because his wife (shown below at an event in Aiken in September) is undergoing surgery for her knee problem…

Mccainbus_004

Reason vs. Bush hatred

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There’s a pleasingly dispassionate treatment on the WSJ op-ed page today of that modern phenomenon of passions gone wild, Bush hatred.

Specifically, he deals with the oddity of intellectuals who actually defend hatred — by that word — as a rational response. More broadly, he brushes over the fact of president hatred in general. A sample:

Hating the president is almost
as old as the republic itself. The people, or various factions among
them, have indulged in Clinton hatred, Reagan hatred, Nixon hatred, LBJ
hatred, FDR hatred, Lincoln hatred, and John Adams hatred, to mention
only the more extravagant hatreds that we Americans have conceived for
our presidents.
But Bush hatred is different. It’s
not that this time members of the intellectual class have been swept
away by passion and become votaries of anger and loathing. Alas,
intellectuals have always been prone to employ their learning and fine
words to whip up resentment and demonize the competition. Bush hatred,
however, is distinguished by the pride intellectuals have taken in
their hatred, openly endorsing it as a virtue and enthusiastically
proclaiming that their hatred is not only a rational response to the
president and his administration but a mark of good moral hygiene…

As I’ve written in the past, this business of the political opposition hating the current president really went over the line into irrational and destructive to our political life shortly after the 1992 election (as I recall, the "Don’t Blame Me — I Voted For Bush" bumper stickers showed up on late-model cars before Clinton was even sworn in), and then made a leap into greater intensity after the 2000. I pondered the first wave of this in late 1994:

There was a time when voters whose candidate lost would say let’s give the
President, as President, a chance. Now, the day after the election, they stick "Don’t blame me; I voted for Bush" on their bumpers. For his part, the
President, who ran as a centrist, immediately slaps the opposition with gays
in the military, and lifts abortion restrictions by executive fiat.

The cult of confrontation goes beyond partisan politics, worsening race
relations and escalating the war between the sexes (Will the argument over
Anita Hill vs. Clarence Thomas ever end?).

But there’s no question that, rather than getting better, this phenomenon stepped up to a new level of intensity with the election of George W. Bush. I find myself wondering whether this is because of the progression of the disease — that those who lose elections (particularly painfully close ones) are just getting angrier and less rational from one administration to the next — or whether the increase in intensity actually had something to do with Bush himself. I incline toward the latter interpretation, possibly because I can’t bear to think of this phenomenon getting worse — or even continuing — under our next president. (That, in fact, is the one thing that I worry about the most if Mrs. Clinton is elected — the hatred of her opponents is likely to know no bounds. Other candidates seem less likely to arouse such passions — but then, I could not have predicted the response to Bush that we’ve seen since the beginning of his first term.)

But that doesn’t mean I understand it. And don’t tell me it’s about the war. I remember distinctly wondering aloud about this in 2001, shortly before 9/11. I asked one of my colleagues to help me understand the intensity of the visceral reaction that Bush’s opponents had toward him. And I’m sorry, but I don’t find any of that nonsense about "stealing the election" persuasive, either. That’s a symptom, a manifestation of the disease, not a rational cause. As bitter a disappointment as it might have been for Gore supporters, you have to hate Bush to believe that his election was illegitimate.

My own theory is that it’s cultural or demographic. I think the key is in the way he talks, in his bearing — the sort of smug, smirking faux-cowboy thing, like a political version of a John Wayne wannabe. Some people just can’t stand that, whereas I just sort of shrug it off.

Anyway, I appreciated the thoughtful, careful and respectful way (the tone is not properly reflected in the headline) that this writer approached the problem of intellectuals, of all people, embracing passionate hatred as a positive thing. His conclusion:

The conflict between more
conservative and more liberal or progressive interpretations of the
Constitution is as old as the document itself, and a venerable source
of the nation’s strength. It is wonderful for citizens to bring passion
to it. Recognizing the common heritage that provides the ground for so
many of the disagreements between right and left today will encourage
both sides, if not to cherish their opponents, at least to discipline
their passions and make them an ally of their reason.

Video to go with Cindi’s health care column

Liberté, égalité, fraternité: What’s your preference, mon ami?

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Now that we’ve dissected "democracy," let’s take it another step.

Something else we say we’re fighting for, wherever we may happen to send troops in this world, is "freedom." And I guess in almost any situation, we can argue that someone’s freedom is been furthered by what’s going on, but it’s not always the best word. In the Revolution and in some ways the Civil War, yes. To some extent in World War II — although it was a lot more complicated than that — and Korea and Vietnam, in the sense that we were fighting totalitarian systems in all those cases. Sometimes, we send troops so that people can eat (Somalia), sometimes just to keep them from killing each other (Bosnia), sometimes to keep our treaty commitments and keep the oil flowing (the 1991 Gulf War).

But we always send them in the name of some value or interest we hold dear, or combination of such. We can argue all day about whether the value or interest is truly being served, but the stated reason is generally based in some cherished value or pragmatic interest. (Even when it’s a matter of national survival, we speak of surviving in order to maintain our bastion of freedom.)

The truth is that American values and interests are a lot broader than that word, "freedom," as cherished as that ideal may be. I always thought the French were onto something with their liberté, égalité, fraternité — at least it acknowledges that there is more than one concept at stake in what you want your republic to stand for.

Something that we don’t discuss overtly, although it is implicit in many of our political discussions, is the fact that these three things do not naturally coexist — or perhaps I should say, they don’t naturally flow from each other, and sometimes one militates against the others. I’ve thought about this a lot over the years, but never really set it out in writing. I was reminded of it over the weekend when I was watching a documentary series about Napoleon on DVD. Napoleon had a thing about upholding égalité, at least in principle (of course, the emperor was more equal than others), because of his own rise from humble beginnings. But he put no stock in liberté. And yet he presumed to stand for the revolution (how he got away with that pose as long as he did still surprises me).

In this country, we talk about freedom, but only some of us — the libertarians — would always put it above the other two. Others would elevate equality to the point that it overrides other concerns — from Jim Clyburn trying to use government resources to lift up his impoverished district, to the Bush administration insisting that "no child be left behind" even to the point that a school is seen as "failing" when special ed students or kids whose first language isn’t English don’t pass the same test as everyone else.

Me, I’m a fraternité man, if forced to state a preference. Being a communitarian, I’m concerned with the brotherhood of the full community. I realize that living in civilization requires marginal curtailment of some liberties (such as the liberty to swing one’s fist), and that equality of results (as opposed to inputs) are probably a bridge too far for most societies. We should balance those concerns in a way that the community as a whole is served, and bound together in a common interest, emphasizing common values. In other words, I tend to think that liberty and equality are best served when we can find a way to do so that underlines our commonalities — our brotherhood. Brotherhood, of course (as libertarians will tell you) can’t be legislated. But if we construct our policies and legislation (on the limited range of things that can be legislated, that is) in a way that emphasizes our common American values and interests, we’re most likely to achieve something that respects and furthers freedom and equality as well. In other words, fraternité is less something one creates than something one builds upon.

That’s my model, anyway, and it occurs to me that this is the basis for an interesting discussion. I propose that we agree that all three republican values — freedom, equality and brotherhood — are essential, and that we’d love to see all three enshrined to the maximum degree possible. But recognizing that almost any specific policy will emphasize one of these more than the others, which do you lean toward? If there has to be an imbalance, which would you consider best — or perhaps I should say, the least bad?

The essence of “democracy?” Not exactly

1 Reply

Reading proofs for today’s op-ed page, I found myself quibbling with a word choice of Thomas Friedman’s. It’s not that I didn’t understand what he meant; I was just in a quibbling mood.

It was his simplistic, not-quite-right use of the word, "democracy:"

The very essence of democracy is peaceful rotations of power, no matter whose party or tribe is in or out. But that ethic does not apply in most of the Arab-Muslim world today, where the political ethos remains “Rule or Die.” Either my group is in power or I’m dead, in prison, in exile or lying very low. But democracy is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights. If there is no culture of not simply tolerating minorities, but actually treating them with equal rights, real democracy can’t take root.

As I say, I knew what he meant. We’ve all sort of agreed amongst ourselves that the thing the Bush administration says it wants to bring to Iraq and the rest of the region (whether one agrees with that goal or not, or believe that is the true motive) is called, for convenience, "democracy." Even though democracy is not what we have in this country — or rather, it’s not what we’re supposed to have, to the extent that we respect the wishes and wisdom of the Framers who bequeathed us a specific sort of republic, defined by a constitution.

What Friedman means to say is that "the very essence" of a system like ours is peaceful rotation of power — or at least it was a goal of the Framers, though it wasn’t achieved until the election of 1800. That year marked the real American revolution, seen from that perspective. A peaceful transition was by no means guaranteed before that.

The truth is that "democracy" can occur without such peaceful transitions, and certainly without respect for other factions or tribes. (I could also point out that "Rule or Die" sounds a lot like the rhetoric of political partisans in this country, although fortunately they have not yet backed it up with civil bloodshed.)

He’s also wrong when he says democracy "is not about majority rule; it is about minority rights." No, democracy IS about majority rule, which is why it is so messy in so many parts of the world, and why Madison, Jay, Hamilton and the rest rejected it in favor of a republic with minority rights guaranteed by way of a carefully balanced constitutional form of government. Those guys were very worried about the passions of the mob, which is why our government is composed of various parts with differing constituencies and loads of checks and balances.

Again, I knew what he meant; but sometimes it helps us to think more clearly about these things when we examine the terms more closely.

Soul-searching in the secular realm of politics

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Hal1

By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
A reader recently told me she enjoys my columns because she likes to follow my “soul-searching” as I try to work through an issue. I suggested she keep reading — who knows; someday I might actually find something.
But I knew what she meant, and took it kindly. That’s the kind of commentary I value, too. That’s why I called Hal Stevenson on Friday to talk about the upcoming presidential primaries.
Hal is a political activist of the Christian conservative variety. He’s a board member and former chairman of the Palmetto Family Council, which has its offices in a building he owns on Gervais Street. He’s also one of the most soberly thoughtful and fair-minded people I know, which to the national media probably constitutes an oxymoron: The thoughtful Christian conservative.
When last I saw Hal, he had brought Sen. Sam Brownback in for an editorial board interview regarding his quest for the GOP presidential nomination.
Since then, several things have happened:

Sen. Brownback dropped out.
Mitt Romney made a splash by lining up the support of Bob Jones III, he of the fundamentalist Upstate university of the same name (without the III, of course).
Rudy Giuliani made a bigger, more surprising, splash by gaining the endorsement Wednesday of televangelist and former presidential candidate Pat Robertson.
Former Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, with somewhat less fanfare, picked up the backing Thursday of Donald E. Wildmon, founder of the American Family Association.
On the same day as the Giuliani-Robertson announcement, and overshadowed by it, Sen. Brownback threw his support to John McCain.

Of all those, the nod I would have valued the most was that of Sen. Brownback — like me, a convert to Catholicism. When he spoke of the impact of faith on his approach to leadership, it actually seemed to have something to do with Judeo-Christian beliefs: He spoke of acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly.
By contrast, Pat Robertson’s explanation as to why he was endorsing the one Republican least in tune with religious conservatives seemed to have little to do with spiritual matters, and everything to do with secular ideology and partisan strategy: He spoke of defeating terrorism, fiscal discipline and the selection of federal judges. The first two concerns are secular; the third seemed the least likely of reasons for him to back Mr. Giuliani.
The ways in which “values voters” interact with the sin-stained realities of power politics have long mystified me, and I wondered: Does a guy like Pat Robertson, with all his baggage (wanting to whack Hugo Chavez, suggesting 9/11 happened because America had it coming), actually deliver more votes than he chases away?
So I called Hal to help me sort it out. As of lunchtime Friday, when we spoke, he was up in the air about the presidential contest himself, now that his man Brownback was out of it. But he’s sorting through it, and has had face-to-face talks with the candidates he considers most likely.
“My heart says Huckabee,” he said. “He’s much more like me, I suppose, than the other guys.” But that’s not his final answer. He said when he asked Sen. Brownback why he didn’t get behind Gov. Huckabee, he said “it’d be like endorsing himself, so he might as well stay in himself.” He was looking for someone who offered what he couldn’t, and chose McCain.
As for Hal, “I did meet with McCain,” who is “certainly a real patriot,” but he’s trying to decide whether the Arizonan’s position on stem cell research — he charts a middle course — “is going to be a deal-killer for me.” (Brownback has told him that McCain says he wouldn’t make such research a high priority as president.)
He hasn’t decided yet about Mitt Romney. He’s talked with him, and sees him as “a very capable executive… he’s proven that.” But he cites “Sam’s words” about the former Massachusetts governor: “He’s a technocrat, running as an ideologue.”
While noting that “we don’t look to Bob Jones III for a lot of stuff,” there are “some very credible Christian activists out there supporting Romney.” He mentions state lawmakers Nathan Ballentine and Kevin Bryant, and cites his respect for U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint.
He says he’s not bothered by Mr. Romney’s flip-flopping on abortion, since he “takes the right position now.” But he worries it could hurt him in the general election, when Democrats could use old video clips to great effect.
“I am going through a methodical process,” he said, “and I have been impressed with McCain, Huckabee, Romney….”
He has not, however, met with Fred Thompson, “and I probably wouldn’t waste Giuliani’s time.”
“I respect him for being straightforward and not trying to B.S. us,” he said of the former mayor, but he does not relish having to choose between two pro-choice candidates next November.
As for the host of “The 700 Club,” “I really don’t much care what Pat Robertson does.”
“Robertson lost credibility with most thinking evangelicals a long time ago.” Hal said he was turned off back during Mr. Robertson’s own run for the presidency in 1988: “It was all about acquiring political power in the Republican Party,” and that “wasn’t what many of us thought the Christian Coalition was about.”
While Hal himself is still seeking the answer, “I’ve got good evangelical friends who are working for every campaign.”
Every Republican campaign, that is. Nothing against Democrats per se, Hal says; it’s just that “A pro-life Democrat doesn’t have a chance in the Democratic primary,” and that is a deal-killer.
Hal still doesn’t know which of the candidates that leaves please him the most, but in the end, that’s not the point: “The only person ultimately I’m trying to please is the Lord.”

Hal2

Now here’s a ‘religious conservative’ I WOULD want on my side

Hey! Romney! Leave them kids alone!

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One thing I never ask presidential candidates about is education. I’m a big believer in subsidiarity, and I basically hold that K-12 public schools are none of the federal government’s business.

But that doesn’t keep some of these candidates from telling us what they want to do to — uh, I mean, for — our schools. Interestingly, more and more these days, the candidates we hear from most on the subject is the ones who want to position themselves as "conservatives." Of course, these days that usually means they will be pushing something that is in no way conservative, but a classically liberal idea — the diversion of funds from the public schools under the guise of our governor’s cause, "school choice." Just so you can keep it straight, folks: Undermining core institutions — of which public schools would be one of the most fundamental, in this country — is pretty much the opposite of conservatism.

And sure enough, this Mitt Romney release, detailing the proposals he unveiled right here in capital city today, is true to that form. Ironically, the very first thing Mr. Romney — shown above at Columbia’s Edventure this morning — says about schools is this:

Governor Romney Believes Our Education System Works Best When We Have More Local Control Of Our Schools. While there is a proper role for the federal government to play in education, it is not in telling parents, teachers, kids and local authorities what to teach or how to run their schools.

To which I say, OK, so why don’t you butt out? Excuse me, but you are running for president, right — not another term as governor of Massachusetts?

Then, the very first item under the heading, "Governor Romney’s Conservative Strategy To Raise The Bar In Education" is that most anti-public school agenda that we’ve all heard more about than we ever need to hear:

Governor Romney Will Promote School Choice. He believes that when parents and kids are free to choose their school, everyone benefits. That’s because competition and choice in educational opportunities – whether it comes from private schools, charter schools, or home schooling – makes traditional public schools better and improves the quality of education for all of America’s kids. Governor Romney believes that it is especially important that students in failing schools be able to exercise school choice so that they can get access to the resources and opportunities they need to succeed.

That said, I’ll give the governor snaps for promoting merit pay for teachers, and for understanding that NCLB is flawed. But the solution to that is to ditch NCLB, not try to "fix" it. And you can ditch the U.S. Department of Education while you’re at it, if you’re so inclined.

But my bottom line for Mr. Romney and anyone else seeking the presidency is this:

Hey! Candidate! Leave them kids alone!

bradwarthen.com

All The News That Gives You Fits

Category Archives: Marketplace of ideas

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Audio: McCain talks to bloggers

Reason vs. Bush hatred

Video to go with Cindi’s health care column

Liberté, égalité, fraternité: What’s your preference, mon ami?

The essence of “democracy?” Not exactly

Soul-searching in the secular realm of politics

Now here’s a ‘religious conservative’ I WOULD want on my side

Hey! Romney! Leave them kids alone!