Category Archives: Marketplace of ideas

Click on the links, folks

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Just got this comment on a previous post:

Does having the word "reform" in the title of this organization
blind you to what is going on? The stated purpose of Governor Sanford’s
new advocacy group is to function as a PAC, supporting candidates who
back Sanford’s agenda to "modernize" the state government by giving the
Governor more policy-making authority. You miss two important points.
So far Governor Sanford’s thrust in modernization has been to shift the
tax burden (drop top income tax rate, shift property tax on high-end
properties to sales tax) more toward middle and lower income citizens.
The other key point he has pushed is private school vouchers. His main
tool has been public deceptive bashing of the public schools laced with
Libertarian rationale and shadow groups targeting the Republican and
Democratic opponents of his scheme. The seed money for this group came
from his left-over war chest funded largely by out-of-state and local
well-heeled donors. He plans to use PAC money to threaten legislators
who don’t back his agenda as thoroughly as he wants. If it walks and
quacks like a PAC, it’s a PAC. Wake up, Brad.

Posted by: Harry Harris | Sep 27, 2007 8:26:09 AM

To which I respond:

Oh, I’ve been awake, Harry. I’m the guy who ran down the street SCREAMING THE NEWS (click on the link if you’ve forgotten).
    This post is about the fact that at least NOW he’s talking about actual
reform. To start with, his libertarian extremist agenda was all that
was being mentioned. Now at least there’s a decent goal in the mix. I take that for exactly what it’s worth, and no more.

Which brings me to my real point today: EVERYONE, PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINKS. Before you
assume that I, of all people, don’t "get it" when it comes to Sanford’s
extremism, CLICK ON THE LINKS. Everything that I write should be seen
within the context of everything else I’ve written. The wonderful thing
about writing on the Web is that you can address the point of the
moment, and link to all the context. It saves you and me both from a lot of boring
repetition.

At least, it’s boring to me.

Seriously, this ability to simply continue a dialogue without all the repetition may be the greatest charm of a blog to me. The extent to which that connectivity is interrupted — such as, when something I wrote in the paper is no longer available online — is probably one of my greatest frustrations. That’s why you’ll see me go to the trouble to imbed Word files with old columns and such — that’s my workaround, and I take the time to do it because the background is important.

Yes, I know that sometimes my links are a bit frivolous, just because I get such a kick out of playing with the device. If it will help, I’ll try to be more disciplined about it, and limit the links to the really important stuff. Let me know if you think I need to do that, and I will at least try — but only if y’all will follow the links that remain. This goes both way, you know.

Sanford’s latest money pitch

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This was shared with me by a certain person who removed the name of the source who sent it to her, because she doesn’t trust me with such information.

This is an encouraging message, because the governor is actually advocating reform in this pitch, as opposed to what I got out of the previous one from Tom Davis, which emphasized the governor’s strange belief that government in South Carolina is overly blessed with resources.

This message, paired with the promise of Reform SC to disclose its sources of income, has calmed me down a tad on this subject, for now.

Anyway, here’s the message:

From: Mark Sanford [mailto:mark@sanfordforgovernor.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 3:09 PM
To: DELETED/crs
Subject: Reform SC Fundraiser with Governor Jeb Bush

I hope the weekend treated you well.

I am writing to ask for your help.

We are now three weeks out from our one fundraising push on behalf of Reform SC, and if you could help us I would appreciate it.

From a South Carolina perspective, this is really important because there is no way our government’s structure will change until enough people are talking at a grass roots level on the need for it. I have said to a number of friends that until someone is asking their cousin in Hampton why we are the only state in the country with a Budget and Control Board – and in turn they are talking to someone else about how that drives up the cost of our state government – change will be exceedingly tough. We have a fatally flawed governmental structure that costs all of us in a variety of ways and changing it is the lynchpin to changing many of our government’s outcomes.

So all this makes our current push toward October 16th very important, and indeed its why I would ask that you join in if this currently isn’t on your radar screen – and that you redouble your efforts if it is.

If you could scrape up the $500 an individual, $1000 a couple, to attend one of the events in Spartanburg, Columbia or Charleston, it would help very much – and I think you would be in for a treat. Jeb has a very unique vantage point on the need for reform in government.

If you can’t I would still ask that you help financially at some level and talk to friends about doing the same because a little help from a lot of friends adds up. There will be plenty of additional ways to help beyond that, but again this is our one big push in trying to fill the gas tank financially so that the important work of educating on reform can begin.

In either case we need to be getting checks in so we know how many people to expect and plan for on the 16th. So if you can help us please send any checks to Reform SC, P.O. Box 123, Columbia SC 29202.

Thank you for your consideration on this – I appreciate it.

Sincerely,

Mark

P.S.  If you are interested in one of the events and need further details, please let me know.

McCain on the comeback trail

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B.J. Boling sent out a release to call attention to this piece by Dan Hoover. Here’s B.J.’s release, here’s a link to the story, and here’s an excerpt:

    John McCain was midway through his "No Surrender" bus tour last Sunday when he entered territory both familiar and friendly, that of yet another military veterans’ group.
    The tour was named for his position on Iraq, one mirroring that of the Bush White House: No withdrawal, at least not in any numbers and not now.
    It also could have been named for his second Republican presidential run.
    The Arizona senator is hanging in there, something many thought unlikely after six months of disastrously low fundraising for a major candidate by 2007 standards….
    Now the leaves are beginning to turn, there’s a chill in the morning air, donations have improved, the private jet’s back on call, and, like Mark Twain, rumors of McCain’s political death proved premature.
    His Iraq-centered performance in the recent New Hampshire Republican debate won favorable coverage.
    He’s staking his final presidential run on being the candidate most vocally supportive of an unpopular war, a guy who wanted a troop surge before the administration thought of it.
    McCain has used Gen. David Petraeus’ report on Iraq in a sort of "I told you so" context to reinvigorate his campaign, combining it with sharper criticism of the Bush administration’s initial policies. A reference to an America in dire need of leadership is the closest McCain comes to even hinting he’s running for president….

Now, talk amongst yourselves…

Privacy freaks are SO sensitive

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This morning I received this criticism from certain party who will remain nameless:

    Huh???

One of our widest divides is between me and Cindi Scoppe on privacy. She is always concerned about protecting it; my own attitude can be represented, with only slight exaggeration, as "privacy, schmeivacy."

    Where did you come up with THAT gross, wild overstatement of my position?
    Do I care about privacy? Yes. About as much as the typical American. (You, sir, are atypical.) Am I "always concerned about protecting it" — ie, the OPPOSITE of you? Absolutely not. I would come up with examples, but frankly I don’t think about it often enough to have a ready supply of examples to give you.
    One of our widest divides? I can only assume you are engaging in outrageous hyperbole for the sake of making a blog post work.

You see how touchy these privacy freaks can be?

Next thing you know, she’ll say I violated her privacy by posting this. Just watch.

A bird-brained theory about society

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While I’m on the subject of various spectra of political thought, let’s examine for a moment the communitarian-libertarian divide, with a side trip to Monty Python.

On the one side we have the communitarian notion that "We live through institutions," the organizing assertion around which Robert Bellah et al. built their book, The Good Society. "Institutions" is understood here as anything from you and somebody you just shook hands with, to the family, to the Church, or your town council.

And in this corner, we have the libertarian notion of "the Virtue of Selfishness," which has been on my mind the last few days for two reasons: The buzz about the new book from former Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan, and my having run across and reread her mini-novel Anthem. It’s a philosophy that might be summed up as "We don’ need no stinkin’ institutions."

All of which brings me to the obituary in this week’s edition of The Economist — a proudly libertarian publication that nevertheless chose, as the most interesting/important death of the week, the tale of "an ex-parrot" name of Alex.

I say nevertheless because the success of Alex — who had learned to speak with apparent meaning, not merely to "parrot" sounds — was based in a theory that the factor that promotes intelligence in animals is their social arrangements. In other words, "meaning" in the sense of intelligible communication, derives from one’s society — in other words, to the extent that we live as intelligently, we live through institutions:

The reason why primates are intelligent, according to Dr Humphrey,
is that they generally live in groups. And, just as group living
promotes intelligence, so intelligence allows larger groups to
function, providing a spur for the evolution of yet more intelligence.
If Dr Humphrey is right, only social animals can be intelligent—and so
far he has been borne out.

Flocks of, say, starlings or herds of wildebeest do not count as
real societies. They are just protective agglomerations in which
individuals do not have complex social relations with each other. But
parrots such as Alex live in societies in the wild, in the way that
monkeys and apes do, and thus Dr Pepperberg reasoned, Alex might have
evolved advanced cognitive abilities. Also like primates, parrots live
long enough to make the time-consuming process of learning worthwhile.
Combined with his ability to speak (or at least “vocalise”) words, Alex
looked a promising experimental subject.

Interesting, I thought.

Privacy, schmeivacy

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Our editorial board is a carefully constructed balancing act; we tend to be all over the place on a lot of issues, and the key to coming up with a position is to prove daily that we can work together — despite our differences — in ways that legislative bodies seem to find impossible. (Back when he was speaker, David Wilkins once said I couldn’t understand how hard it is to get people to rally around a bill — I scoffed because every morning, we go into a meeting and can’t leave the room until we’ve passed out several bills, so he does not have my sympathy.)

One of our widest divides is between me and Cindi Scoppe on privacy. She is always concerned about protecting it; my own attitude can be represented, with only slight exaggeration, as "privacy, schmeivacy."

So it was that, in an effort to probe the bounds of my extremism, Cindi copied a news story to me, topped with her question, "too un-private even for you?" An excerpt from the news story:

A COMPANY WILL MONITOR PHONE CALLS AND DEVISE ADS TO SUIT
{By LOUISE STORY}=<=
   (This article is part of TIMES EXPRESS. It is a condensed version of a story that will appear in tomorrow’s New York Times.)<
{c.2007 New York Times News Service}=<
   Companies like Google scan their e-mail users’ in-boxes to deliver ads related to those messages. Will people be as willing to let a company listen in on their phone conversations to do the same?<
   Pudding Media, a start-up based in San Jose, Calif., is introducing an Internet phone service on Monday that will be supported by advertising related to what people are talking about in their calls. The Web-based phone service is similar to Skype’s online service _ consumers plug a headset and a microphone into their computers, dial any phone number and chat away. But unlike Internet phone services that charge by the length of the calls, Pudding Media offers calling without any toll charges.<
   The trade-off is that Pudding Media is eavesdropping on phone calls in order to display ads on the screen that are related to the conversation. Voice recognition software monitors the calls, selects ads based on what it hears and pushes the ads to the subscriber’s computer screen while he or she is still talking.<
   A conversation about movies, for example, will elicit movie reviews and ads for new films that the caller will see during the conversation….

My reply to Cindi, kept brief because it was sent from my Treo, was:

No, it’s too PRIVATE for me. I prefer to leave such things to Big Brother.

You just can’t give an inch to these privacy freaks, you know.

Clark Hoyt on MoveOn.org ad

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For bud, and for anyone else who still has
trouble understanding what was wrong with the "General Betray Us" ad,
or why a fair-minded person would call it "beyond the pale," I call
attention to this ombudsman piece in The New York Times by Clark Hoyt. An excerpt:

The Public Editor
  Betraying Its Own Best Interests
By CLARK HOYT
FOR nearly two weeks, The New York Times has been defending a political advertisement that critics say was an unfair shot at the American commander in Iraq.
    But I think the ad violated The Times’s own written standards, and the paper now says that the advertiser got a price break it was not entitled to….
    Did MoveOn.org get favored treatment from The Times? And was the ad outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse?
    The answer to the first question is that MoveOn.org paid what is
known in the newspaper industry as a standby rate of $64,575 that it
should not have received under Times policies. The group should have paid $142,083. The Times
had maintained for a week that the standby rate was appropriate, but a
company spokeswoman told me late Thursday afternoon that an advertising
sales representative made a mistake.
    The answer to the second question is that the ad appears to fly in
the face of an internal advertising acceptability manual that says, “We
do not accept opinion advertisements that are attacks of a personal
nature.”….

I have known Clark Hoyt — to say "hello" to; not much more — for over
20 years, and something I have always believed is that he is a
scrupulously fair person. If you held a gun to my head and forced me to guess his political leanings, I’d say (based on next to nothing) they were somewhat left of center, and probably anti-war.
I’m probably besmirching a fine journalist saying even that, and I
would not want to insult him. But I say it to praise him, because I have been struck by the principled stands he’s taken contrary to the advantage of such a
world view.

For instance, Clark Hoyt shared a Pulitzer Prize
for destroying the Democratic Party ticket in 1972. OK, that’s a little
blunt, but basically Clark and Bob Boyd were honored for reporting on
Thomas Eagleton’s shock treatments.

So those of you who believe in the "vast right-wing conspiracy" might
say, on the basis of these two incidents, that Mr. Hoyt is — contrary
to my poorly-founded impression — a charter member of the conspiracy.
But if that’s the case, how do you explain that Clark is the guy
responsible for all that anti-war reporting at the then-Knight Ridder
(now McClatchy) Washington bureau, for which the left has practically
canonized McClatchy? He was the bureau chief in those days.

Whatever Clark is — liberal, conservative, none of the above (my own
favorite) — his actions reveal him as scrupulously fair-minded. He’s
pretty much gored everybody’s ox when he thought they deserved it.

Bottom line, for me: If Clark says it, it’s worth paying attention to. That’s no doubt what the Times was thinking when it hired him to be its "Internal Affairs" guy.

Mike Huckabee on the obligation to govern

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Huckabee1
By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
THERE’S A PRINCIPLE that I long thought was a given in American politics. As long as it held true, it didn’t matter so much if the “wrong” candidate won an election. No matter what sort of nonsense he had spouted on the stump, this stark truth would take him in its unforgiving grip, set him down and moderate him.
    Mike Huckabee, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president, made reference to this principle when he met with our editorial board Thursday:
    “One of the tough jobs of governing is, you actually have to do it.” That may sound so obvious that it’s foolish, like “One thing about water is, it’s wet.” But it can come as a cold shock.
    Think of the congressional class of 1994. Newt Gingrich’s bomb-throwers were full of radical notions when they gained power. But once they had it, and used it, however briefly, to shut down the government, they quickly realized that was not what they were elected to do.
    Or some of them realized it. More about that in a moment. Back to Mr. Huckabee.
    Mr. Huckabee is a conservative — the old-fashioned kind that believes in traditional values, and wants strong, effective institutions in our society to support and promote those values.
    Many newfangled “conservatives” seem just as likely to want to tear down as build up.
    If Mr. Huckabee was ever that way, being the governor of Arkansas made him less so. “As a governor, I’ve seen a different level of human life, maybe, than the folks who live in the protected bubble of Washington see,” he said. And as a governor who believed he must govern, he was appalled when he saw government fail to do its job. He points to the aftermath of Katrina: “It was one of the more, to me, disgusting moments of American history…. It made my blood boil….”
   Perhaps I should pause again now to remind you that Gov. Huckabee is a conservative: “I’m 100 percent pure and orthodox when it comes to the issues that matter to the evangelical or faith voter, if you will,” he says.
    “But as a governor, I spent most of my time improving education, rebuilding the highway system, reforming health care in Arkansas” — things that are not inconsistent with conservatism.
    “And for that I had the right — had earned the right, if you will — to pass some pro-life legislation,Huckabee2
and strong pro-marriage and pro-family legislation. But I didn’t spend 90 percent of my time pushing that….”
    OK, let’s review: As a conservative, he has a certain set of ideals. But he knows that being governor isn’t just about promoting an ideology, whatever it might be. Being governor, if the job is properly understood, is the most pragmatic form of life in our solar system — except for being mayor.
    People expect certain things of you, and you’ve got to do them. Successful governors realize that, whether you’re promoting ideals or paving the roads, “The wrong thing to do is to go and to try to stick your fist in the face of the Legislature that you know is not necessarily with you, and create a fight.” (Gov. Huckabee had to deal with a Democratic assembly.)
    So what’s the right way?
    “You positively share your message, you communicate it… . If you can’t do that, I don’t think you can lead. Just… quite frankly, I don’t think you have a shot at it.”
    I know someone who needs to hear that. Remember the class of ’94? The only lesson Mark Sanford learned from shutting down the federal government was that it was worth trying again. So last year, he vetoed the entire state budget when lawmakers failed to hold spending to the artificial limits he had decreed.
    Of course, they overrode him. And he knew they would. For him, it was about the gesture, not about governing. It’s about ungoverning. It’s about the agenda of the Club for Growth.
    Gov. Huckabee, being conservative fiscally as well as otherwise, has been known to turn down taxes, but that’s an area where pragmatism can outweigh ideals:
“… We had a Supreme Court case where we were forced to deal with both equity and adequacy in education,” said Mr. Huckabee. “There was no way to do that without additional revenue.”
    Still, he refused to sign the tax bill Democrats gave him.
    “I didn’t think we were getting enough reform for the amount of money. It wasn’t that I didn’t support additional revenue, because I did, so I’ll be honest about that. But… we weren’t pushing for enough efficiency out of the system.” What sort of efficiency?
    “I wanted a greater level of school consolidation in order to fund the efficiency, which was a very unpopular thing.”
    Our governor has said he’s for school district consolidation (as am I), but he’s never done anything effective to achieve it. That would require building a constructive relationship with the Legislature.
    Another time, Gov. Huckabee actually opposed a tax cut. Why? That governing thing again: “Well, I supported the elimination of the grocery tax, but not the timing, and the timing would have meant we literally would have closed nursing homes, had to slash Medicaid. I mean, it’s one thing to trim the fat off the bone, it’s another thing, you know, to start going into the bone itself.”
    That wouldn’t worry the Club for Growth, about which Gov. Huckabee says, “They hate me. I call ’em the Club for Greed. That’s part of why they don’t like me… If people don’t have the courage to run for office, they can just give money to them and they’ll do the dirty work for you.”
    “I think it’s a sleazy way to do politics.”
    The Club for Growth loves Mark Sanford.
    I don’t know what sort of president Mike Huckabee would make, but I wonder whether he’d do another stint as governor….

For video, go to http://blogs.thestate.com/bradwarthensblog/.

Huckabee3

Sunday column video preview

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This video is an amalgam of clips that contain pretty much all of the quotes from Mike Huckabee that you will find in my Sunday column, which is headlined "Mike Huckabee on the obligation to govern." You’ll also find some context for the quotes — as much as I could jam into YouTube’s 5-minute limit.

Please excuse the spots where I didn’t have video, and had to use sound from my little digital recorder. The quality isn’t as good as what I have on the video footage, and the splicing is a little rough — OK, really rough.

Bear with me; I’m self-taught. As Ferris Bueller said about the clarinet — "Never had one lesson."

My own libertarian impulse kicks in

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Regulars will know that I seldom find common ground with libertarian sentiment. I have even asked for guidance in helping me understand the "libertarian impulse," because it seems to be an emotion or drive that I utterly lack — possibly some difference in brain chemistry.

When libertarians fulminate about how "high" their taxes are, or fret about their loss of privacy because the government screens telecommunications for signs of terrorist traffic, I am left cold. I simply do not feel whatever it is that gets these folks worked up.

But finally, I can embrace my libertarian brothers, even though, being the rugged individualists that they are, they aren’t into that sort of thing. Perhaps my libertarian sisters will allow it. I’d prefer that anyway.

Where was I? Ah, yes.

When I read about this in yesterday’s WSJ, I was immediately afire with the violation of our fundamental rights. Under the headline "The Right to Dry:A Green Movement Is Roiling America," was a story that stirred me the way (some) libertarians are stirred by the Patriot Act. An excerpt:

    The regulations of the subdivision in which Ms. Taylor lives effectively prohibit outdoor clotheslines. In a move that has torn apart this otherwise tranquil community, the development’s managers have threatened legal action. To the developer and many residents, clotheslines evoke the urban blight they sought to avoid by settling in the Oregon mountains.
    "This bombards the senses," interior designer Joan Grundeman says of her neighbor’s clothesline. "It can’t possibly increase property values and make people think this is a nice neighborhood."
    Ms. Taylor and her supporters argue that clotheslines are one way to fight climate change, using the sun and wind instead of electricity. "Days like this, I can do multiple loads, and within two hours, it’s done," said Ms. Taylor. "It smells good, and it feels different than when it comes out of the dryer."

Amen I say to you, Ms. Taylor! And what, pray tell, could be the objection of her neighbors? A bit of background:

The clothesline was once a ubiquitous part of the residential landscape. But as postwar Americans embraced labor-saving appliances, clotheslines came to be associated with people who couldn’t afford a dryer. Now they are a rarity, purged from the suburban landscape by legally enforceable development restrictions.

I submit that America was a better country when our moms and grandmas decorated our backyards with a hundred highly individualized freedom flags every Monday.

In my own case, it’s not just moms and grandmas. When our older children were small and my wife was at home with them, she used to hang out their little garments in our backyard, and my memory of coming home from the office at lunch time and finding her out there in the sun and the fresh air is a warm and fond one. It was a statement of where we stood with regard to the Earth — we also used real, cotton diapers — but it was also esthetically pleasing. And no static cling.

Since then, we have wasted many a kilowatt/hour on the dryer. It’s a convenience, but one that I don’t feel good about. And you know, as founder of the Energy Party, I think it’s time that we all ran our BVDs up the clothesline pole, and said "Bring ’em on!" They don’t have to salute our undies, but they’d better not try to lower them. I mean… well, you know what I mean.

Before we join the movement at my house, I’ll have to run home and check with the Executive Committee. But whatever she says, it should be our — uh, her — decision, and not that of some busybodies.

How dare anyone suggest that I don’t have the right to do that in my own yard? And for such petty, ugly reasons as not wanting to look like you live next to someone "who couldn’t afford a dryer." That’s disgusting.

And it warms my heart to be with the libertarians for once on a property-rights issue. Normally, they’d be sticking up for the right of the individual property owner to have a factory hog farm, and I’d be for the right of the neighbors not to live next to such, if that’s their decision. I think the property values of the many outweigh the most-profitable use by the one.

But there’s a world of difference, in terms of "harm" done to the neighbor, between a lagoon of hog waste and the colorful display of jogging shorts. And the good done for the environment is reversed in the two instances.

Yeah, I know that most of these things involve private property owners’ covenants "freely" entered into, but how many of you really scrutinized your neighborhood’s esoteric rules and regs before buying the house you wanted?

Wonkish offerings from Romney, Obama

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And for all you substantive-policy freaks out there, here are two appropriately dense offerings, which came to me in back-to-back e-mails today.

First, I got this note from William Holley, a very nice young man with the Romney campaign:

Good morning everyone –

 Please take a moment to look at Governor Romney’s newly
released Strategy for a Stronger America – a compilation of  more than 50 policy
proposals covering everything from fighting radical jihad to achieving energy
independence to ending illegal immigration to controlling federal spending.  You
can even download your very own copy, absolutely free of
charge.


Introducing the Strategy for a Stronger America, Governor
Romney wrote: "Our future depends on our willingness to hold to the principles
that have guided and built our nation.  It depends on the character and
sacrifices of the American people.  And it depends on leadership to craft and
implement a Strategy for a Stronger America." 

— Will

Right next to that was another earnest release from Barack Obama, which I invite y’all to read and tell me what you think of it. I MIGHT be able to wade through the highlights of a strategic-vision document, but it’s more than I can bear to obsess over tax policy — although I have great respect for Obama for doing so, because there’s a world full of folks out there who care about such:

Obama
Announces Major Middle Class Tax Relief Plan
Embargoed
Remarks Provided Below

Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Barack Obama today announced a bold and innovative plan to reform America’s tax code so that it works for the middle class in a speech to the Tax Policy Center in Washington, DC. Obama’s plan would provide a substantial tax cut for nearly all working Americans, for homeowners, and for low- and middle-income seniors.   

Obama made the case that our current tax code reflects the wrong priorities by rewarding wealth instead of work, and he pledged to restore fairness to the tax code to strengthen the American economy.

Obama’s middle class tax relief plan would provide $80-85 billion in tax cuts to America’s workers, seniors and homeowners by:

  • Cutting taxes for 150 million Americans and their families,
    allowing them to get a tax cut of up to $1000.
  • Easing the burden on the middle class by providing a
    universal homeowner’s tax credit to those who do not itemize their deductions,
    immediately benefiting 10 million homeowners, the majority of whom make under
    $50,000 per year.
  • Eliminating the income tax for any American senior making
    less than $50,000 per year, eliminating income taxes for about 7 million
    American seniors.
  • Simplifying tax filings so millions of Americans can do
    their taxes in less than 5 minutes.

Obama would pay for his tax reform plan by closing corporate
loopholes, cracking down on international tax havens, closing the carried
interest loophole, and increasing the dividends and capital gains rate for the
top bracket.

The plan can be viewed in full HERE.

A candle is lit in the partisan darkness

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While looking for something else, I encountered this blog entry — written by someone called Ron Chusid — that provided one of those tiny lights of hope in the partisan blogosphere.

This is a person who calls his blog "Liberal Values" (and I am always suspicious of anything with "liberal" or "conservative" in the title) who starts out talking about what a awful right-winger some of his respondents had thought I must be for having said mean stuff about John Edwards, but then goes on to explain that he knows better, that it’s not about me being a beastly Republican — that maybe I’m not that at all! I like this guy.

Here’s the relevant portion of the post:

I’ve previously quoted Brad Warthen, editorial page editor of The State as showing examples of what a phony Edwards is.
Edwards supporters replied here and elsewhere that he was just a right
winger who would attack any Democrat. However this defense didn’t hold
up when I checked for his writings on Obama:

The 23-year-old who still gasps somewhere within me is
convinced that Barack Obama is completely for real when he channels JFK
via Jimmy Carter…
I first spoke to Barack Obama — very briefly, because of cell phone problems while I was traveling through mountains — a month ago. He only wanted to talk about one thing: Clean. He was unveiling his plan
for “the most sweeping ethics reform in history,” — “Closing the
Revolving Door,” “Increasing Public Access to Information,” and other Clean Government 101 stuff.

But with that overflow crowd of college kids providing better
reception than my Treo, I realized that for this candidate, such
yadda-yadda basics were more than just the talking points of that one
day.

Warthen’s writings about Edwards being a phony appear much less
partisan after seeing his comments on Obama and reading of his past
support for Jimmy Carter.

There’s no doubt that Obama has less experience than many others who
have run for president, but he has far more experience than John
Edwards. Obama has also shown that he is far more knowledgeable than
Edwards. Edwards has no business questioning whether anyone else is
qualified to be president.

Party loyalists continue to puzzle me on several levels. First, I don’t understand how intelligent people, such as this writer, can surrender their thought processes to an off-the-shelf set of values — which is what a person seems (to me) to do when he is willing to label his own value set with one brand name or the other. (Admittedly, this guy seems to have thought it out more than most — but he still commits such outrageous errors as supporting that partisan hack who tried to take down my man Joe.)

But beyond that, I really don’t understand why partisans would respond to a post such as the Edwards one by assuming — on the basis of no other evidence — that I’m part of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Excuse me, but wouldn’t it be far more likely — if you really must find ulterior motives — to think that I’m trying to help out one of the Democrats who is running against the guy? That’s who his adversaries are at this moment, people! Is that not obvious?

But no — partisans are so accustomed to spouting the nonsense that all evil comes from those people in that other party, that their conditioning keeps them from perceiving the actual tactical situation that lies before them

Why on Earth is that?

Anyway, this doc, Ron Chusid, seems to be a guy who sees beyond such things, despite the title of his blog. Or maybe I have this impression just because he sees Edwards just the way I do:

These descriptions of Edwards are hardly “right wing talking points”
Dismissing facts you don’t like as “rignt wing talking points” is not a
meaningful analysis.

A problem with the right wing is that they back people like Bush and
Cheney no matter how bad they are for the country. People who are unfit
to be President or Vice President should not be defended just because
they are members of the same party.

At some point we must look at the interests of the country over
party. John Edwards is not qualified to be President. He’s one of the
worst political phonys of either party. This has nothing to do with
ideology but about looking out for the interests of the country.

A teachable moment

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This should help anyone out there who is still confused about the standards of this blog.

Someone — actually a regular here (an anonymous regular, of course) — tried to post a comment that called the U.S. commander in Iraq "General ‘Betray Us.’" He did so without irony, and he wasn’t using it as a quotation in condemning the revolting, indefensible use of that bastardization by MoveOn.org.

Of course, the comment was not approved for publication. Nor was a gratuitous second comment from the same source that had no substance beyond a monotonously over-repeated ad hominem slap at me.

It may be that MoveOn.org did not completely place itself outside the realm of acceptable public discourse this week, but there are general indications that it did just that. It has set a new standard for "beyond the pale."

But one thing is clear — such trash rhetoric is most assuredly outside the boundaries on this blog. Those of you requiring sharper delineation of those limits might want to take note.

There might not be such a thing as "polite society" any more. But this will be a virtual version of that. Come here and argue back and forth all you like. And I urge you to have fun doing it. If I don’t find it fun, there won’t be a blog any more, because I certainly don’t have time for it otherwise. But find a more grownup way to argue other than calling those who disagree with you liars, as your default position. That won’t be accepted.

Which way does the op-ed page ‘lean?’

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There are a number of groups out there that presume to be "watchdogs" over media, and pretty much all of these dogs are watching for one reason only — so they can complain that media reports don’t slant in their direction. You can recognize which side they are on immediately — it’s the opposite side of the one that they are certain the media are not on.

Today, we received this report from a group calling itself "MediaMatters for America." I’ll let you guess which "side" they’re on. But what was intriguing this time was that the subject was the op-ed page, and the thing being measured was the one thing that (theoretically) you could use as a quick-and-dirty measurement as to whether an op-ed page "leans" one way or the other — the incidence of "liberal" vs. "conservative" syndicated columnists. Or, in the language of this report, "progressive" vs. "conservative" … oh, dang! I gave away the ideological underpinnings of this report, and I had promised to let you work it out. Sorry.

Anyway, the report concludes that (surprise!) "conservative" columnists predominate. The report is entitled "Black and White and Re(a)d All Over." A sample of the findings:

  • In a given week, nationally syndicated progressive columnists are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of 125 million. Conservative columnists, on the other hand, are published in newspapers with a combined total circulation of more than 152 million.
  • The top 10 columnists as ranked by the number of papers in which they are carried include five conservatives, two centrists, and only three progressives.

This naturally raises the question, "Who is a conservative columnist, and who is a "progressive?" And if you can answer that one to everyone’s satisfaction, I’m going to ask you to start answering my phone for me. But all that matters here is how MediaMatters defines the columnists.

Here’s how they break down those "top 10:"

"Progressive"

  1. Ellen Goodman
  2. Leonard Pitts
  3. Maureen Dowd

"Centrist"

  1. David Broder
  2. Tom Friedman

"Conservative"

  1. George Will
  2. Kathleen Parker
  3. Cal Thomas
  4. Charles Krauthammer
  5. David Brooks

Oooh. Way conservative, right? And this is particularly interesting because The State runs all of the above columnists, except Ellen Goodman (whom we dropped about 10 years ago, largely because I thought she was past her prime and seemed to writing the same column over and over). So that means we’re really conservative, right?

But let’s look at the list again. Using the popular definitions (and in some cases, the way the syndicates market these people) are these folks correctly categorized? I don’t think so. If you’re going to force everybody who even leans "conservative" into the "red" category, then you need to put Broder and Friedman into the "progressive." That makes their list even. And if you’re going to have a "centrist" category, I would balance it by including a couple of center-right types — specifically, Kathleen Parker and David Brooks — along with the two center-left writers.

Either way, you end up with a balanced top 10.

That said, I don’t think the organization’s scale is that far off, nationally speaking. It’s just not adjusted to South Carolina standards.

But even if you take my objections (and I can easily think of objections to my objections, but I’ll let y’all do that) to heart, The State still leans rightward since we don’t run Goodman, right?

Scroll down a bit in the report, and you’ll find that we don’t run ANY of the top 10 conservative writers beyond the five who show up in the top 10 overall. But we do run two of the lesser "progressives" — Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert — from time to time.

So does that balance out? You tell me — it’s always going to depend on the eye of the beholder, in any case. But let me leave you with three points. First is the fact that Mike Fitts does the op-ed page — I see the page each day after his selections are made, and I try not to second-guess him — and he would probably place some of the above columnists differently from the way I do, so my impressions don’t count for as much as you might think.

Second is the fact that our local contributors play just as big a role on the page as the syndicated columnists, and they are all over the place. If you want to try to keep score there, more power to you; I’ve never tried.

Finally, there is this: "Op-ed" is short for "opposite editorial." The idea is that it provides alternative views that complement, rather than matching, the views of the editorial board. So if left-vs.-right meant as much as MediaMatters seem to think, in a perfect world, liberal editorial pages would face conservative op-ed pages. It doesn’t work like that, but then neither does the world. It’s always more complicated.

A conservative, properly understood

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In my never-ending battle to tear down the construct that cripple’s America’s political dialogues — the whole phony conservative-vs.-liberal shtick, which sometimes presents as a morbid tendency to identify with one or the other major political party —  allow me to point out the following rather obvious truths:

  • George Will is a conservative.
  • George Will, because he is a conservative, has always viewed our involvement in Iraq with at best a jaundiced eye.
  • His column on today’s op-ed page sets out a classic conservative argument.

Folks, I’ll say it again — wanting to nation-build in Iraq is not a conservative impulse. Iraq has been, since the beginning, a liberal exercise, rooted in a great optimism about what good ol’ American know-how — set as a fulcrum between good intentions and raw military power — can accomplish in this world.

Conservatives don’t do things like this. It’s too risky. The fact that so-called liberalism got all bollixed up in America by Vietnam, to the point that it became as conservative as anything else when it came to the use of military power, doesn’t change what words mean.

Now — just to help you through the next step — this does not mean that, because I support our enterprise in Iraq, I am a liberal. Like most rational, thinking people, I embrace conservative approaches to some situations, and liberal approaches to others. It just so happens that this is one of my liberal positions.

Ever wonder why Bush has so much trouble doing Iraq right? It’s because nation-building doesn’t come natural to a "conservative."

Part of the Democratic base is in for a bitter disappointment

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Flash forward to January 2009, and what do you see? Here’s what I see — a profoundly disaffected portion of the Democratic base.

They’ll either be furious because the GOP will have won the White House for another four years, or furious because a Democrat won, and yet we still have troops in Iraq.

Now mind you, I’m basing this on my assumption that neither Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul nor Mike Gravel is president. Indulge me in this for a moment, if you will.

If you look at comments by responsible, grownup-type Democratic elected officials in response to the Petraeus testimony, you get respectful quibbling over matters of degree — maybe we should draw down a little more quickly, or some such.

It’s only among the unelected professional whack jobs out there whipping up the grass roots that you hear Let’s pull every last American in uniform out of Iraq yesterday!

This is a disconnect that could have serious repercussions, not only for the Democratic party, but for the country.

The problem is that Democratic elected officials, who know better, have thought they had to humor the more excitable antiwar folks up to now, and have never felt like they could say, Hold on, folks — what you’re asking for is completely unrealistic. Think what you want about the decision to go into Iraq — and I’m with you that that was a bad call — but now that we’re there we’re stuck with this problem on our hands for some time to come.

The only way to avoid the crash between reality and expectations that I predicted at the top of this post will be if some of the top Democrats start leveling more along those lines. If not, look for a real mess in 2009.

Fred Thompson’s values mantra, and more!

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Thompson_047

This morning, when I said something about going to Doc’s Barbecue today to see what Fred Thompson had to say, a colleague tried to save me the trouble by telling me ahead of time: "I’m for good things, and against bad things."

Sure enough, it was just about that broad and elemental. Ol’ Fred trotted out everything but Mom and Apple Pie. Not a lot of specifics, mind you, but a whole lot of empathizin’ with the folks on stuff that may not be all that fancy or original, but dadgummit, just needs to be said again and again, with fierce conviction. And he’s just the fella to say it.

The video below features the following values mantra, plus another snippet or two that give you the flavor of the kind of skate-by-on-good-feelings-and-free-media campaign that ol’ Fred is apparently gonna run just as long as we’ll all let him. Nobody asking hard questions, such as exactly how these statements separate him from the rest of the GOP pack.

But before the nit-picking begins, enjoy Fred Thompson at what I suspect is going to be his campaignin’ best. I’m glad I was there for it, even though I had to park my pickup — my actual pickup that is my actual primary means of transportation, not a lease — far enough away that I should have just walked over…

And here’s the Mantra in text so you can listen to it again, and follow along:

talkin’ about the value of being pro-life
talkin’ about the value of standing strong for the second amendment
talkin’ about the rule of law
talkin’ about the value and the rightness of lower taxes
talkin’ about a market economy; talking about the ingenuity and the inventiveness of the American people and the value of competitiveness and how we would fare well in the international marketplace. We do more things better than anybody in the world, and it works for us.

We’re talking about first principles, things this country was founded upon
the idea that there’s some things in this changing world that don’t change.
Certain things,
certain things such as human nature
and the wisdom of the Ages that led us to the declaration of independence
and led us to the Constitution of the United States,
and they are not outmoded documents to be cast aside

The Declaration reminds us that our basic rights come from God
and not from government.
The constitution of the United States tells us that government ought to be set up with divided power,
not too much power any way
not just at the federal level,
between the federal and the state level;
it’s called Federalism,
and it’s the idea that not every answer comes from Washington, D.C.

It’s all based on the concept of that universal principle and desire on which we were founded,
and that is,
Free People.
Free Markets.
and the appreciation of the things that made us great,
and the understanding that a government powerful enough to give everything to yuh,
is powerful enough to take anything from yuh.

Thank yuh. Thank yuh very much. Now go get yerself some barbecue whilst we turn up the Johnny Cash on the loudspeakers…

District 5: Good schools equal high property value

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Sorry, Doug, but I have to dig back into my video to rebut something you said in a comment back here:

It was the school board member/real estate agent in the video who
talked about lake real estate (including his own) appreciating. The
appreciation has nothing to do with the quality of schools… it has to
do with the limited supply of lake property.

There’s no way for you to know this, but in editing my hour or so of video down to less than five minutes to fit it on YouTube, I left out this elaboration by Jerry Fowler:

Clearly, he believes — as do most Realtors, from what I’ve seen — that there is a direct cause-and-effect relationship between good schools and rising property values.

Nathan Ballentine, Mr. Accessible

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Calling your attention to the new Web site launched by S.C. Rep. Nathan Ballentine, who has created a fairly spiffy interface between himself and constituents:

    “Always accessible” is the theme I had in mind when I chose to launch a new website September 5, 2007!
    For the past three years, I’ve constantly kept my constituents informed via monthly COMMUNITY UPDATE emails, annual surveys, important mailings (tax free holidays, elections, referendums, etc), civic organization talks, as well as Open Office Hours and Constituent Service Nights. Now, I want to take it even further into the “21st century” with regular blog entries, videos, and updates on what’s going on inside the State House as well as in our community.
    Please visit often – especially during the January through June session – to read my “live from the floor” blog posts of what’s going on with your tax dollars and what bills are being debated that will impact the lives of all South Carolinians….
    If you have a question/concern/advice or you would like me to speak with your neighborhood association, church, school, or civic group, please email me through the site or directly at BallentineN@scstatehouse.net.
    It’s an honor and privilege for me to represent you in Columbia!

It’s worth checking out, and — if you happen to be an elected public servant type — emulating. I call your attention in particular to the first of what he says will be monthly reports from the State House. I read this passage with particular interest as it came from someone who recently imagined himself in the Treasurer’s seat:

In the past month, we’ve seen a new Treasurer elected as well as a new Executive Director of the Budget and Control Board. Many may not know just how significant these changes are in the political landscape but it will be very interesting to see how things progress when we return in January with this new dynamic. As you know, there is a constant battle between the Governor and the House/Senate. You may have read my comment in The State last Sunday which, I think summed it up quite well, “If I’m sick of it, I know the people of South Carolina must be too.” Let’s hope we can all work together to move our state forward. Thanks for your continued prayers and support. Change does not come easy but I am one that is willing to work towards that objective for the betterment of South Carolina…

OK, so it’s not all that fascinating, but compared to graft and scandal (made you look!), good government seldom is. That’s one reason you don’t read or hear more about such in the MSM — because when you do, it bores you and you quickly forget about it.

Yet another reason why we need the draft

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A colleague just brought this to my attention:

  CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — An unflinching John McCain was told Tuesday by New Hampshire high school students he might be too old to be president and too conservative to be respected.
   McCain, the Arizona senator whose presidential bid has stumbled through the summer, countered the Concord High School students with humor.
   "Thanks for the question, you little jerk," McCain joked back to one student who asked the 71-year-old about his age. "You’re drafted."