Category Archives: The Nation

But verily, yon Richard be a godly man, withal…

No sooner had I posted the earlier Perry video than this one came in, and it truly boggles the mind in its simplicity. In case you have trouble watching it, here’s the script:

Gov. Perry: “When you run for president, you get a bunch of questions about your faith.”

Text: Rick Perry

“People want to know what drives you, how you make decisions.”

“Now some liberals say that faith is a sign of weakness. Well they’re wrong. I think we all need God’s help.”

“America’s greatest leaders have been people of strong faith, strong values. That makes for a strong America.”

“I’m Rick Perry, I’m not ashamed to talk about my faith, and I approve this message.”

Really? That’s it? You spend who knows how many thousands of dollars producing this and getting it aired, you have this golden opportunity to address the entire nation on the subject of God, the universe and everything, the ultimate questions, and that’s what you say? I’m one a them good folks whut believes in the Lord, and not one a them heathen lib’ruls.

That’s it?!?!?

And this is supposed to work for you?

Tell you what, Rick. Go read Matthew 6:5. In fact, read the whole chapter. Run along, now, there’s a good lad…

Perry’s “aw, shucks” approach glosses over some ominously imperial assumptions

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This aired last night in Iowa during “The Tonight Show.” The explanation, from the campaign:

“While the rest of GOP field is busy handling scandals, inconsistencies and contradictions on important issues, Gov. Perry’s appearance on Leno and his special Leno ad show he is confident enough to use the attention from last month’s Michigan debate to highlight his status as the true outsider conservative in the Republican field,” said Perry campaign communications director Ray Sullivan.

He’s walking a delicate line, between “I’m just plain folks” and “I’m dumber than a bag o’ hammers.”

Interesting that his campaign would regard going on Leno to make fun of himself as somehow more relevant and substantial than “scandals, inconsistencies and contradictions on important issues.”

One other point: He wants us to think of him a jus’ plain folks, but among the few words in his ad, he says, “a part-time Congress.” But think about that. That’s what one who would be emperor would do: Send the Congress home.

Perry’s rhetoric is redolent with such suggestions. As many times as we’ve seen the “oops” clip, how many have noticed that what he was saying was, “It’s three agencies of government, when I get there, that’re gone…” As though it would simply happen once he was elected, as though he would bring it about by fiat.

Perhaps that should attract our attention more than Perry’s folksy flubs.

Huntsman climbing out of the cellar in N.H.

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Just got a release from Jon Huntsman that says he’s going to be in SC Saturday — in Goose Creek and Florence. But what grabbed me was this part of what he had to say:

By the way, we just heard some good news from New Hampshire this week. A new poll shows our campaign is on the move. Just in the past few weeks we have risen from the bottom of the field to a virtual tie for third place.

This election is a lot like a NASCAR race. The drivers who lead the early laps may attract attention. But the lap that really counts is the last one. As we get closer to January, I’m confident our campaign will be the one surging ahead.

But this race is not just about winning the Republican nomination. It’s about electing a new President—a new leader who believes America’s greatest days are yet to come.

To do that, we need a candidate who can attract independents to our Party; a candidate who has experience being number one in job creation; and who has proven that conservative solutions like mandate-free health care are right for America.

Please take a moment to review my record, my vision, and my jobs plan, which has been praised by the Wall Street Journal.

In a world in which Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich have followed each other in rapid succession as front-runners, it’s not too late for anyone to climb out of the cellar in this pennant race.

Huntsman is right to be encouraged. Still, as this blog points out, if his national numbers don’t suddenly rise, he’s going to be left out of some key debates.

By the way, in that New Hampshire poll in which Huntsman came in third, Gingrich was first. And who was second? Ron Paul.

I’m beginning to think that if I announced for the GOP nomination, at some point I would rise, briefly, above water in the polls. Republican voters this year are like a kid in a nursery with too many new toys — they rush over and grab one, play with it for 30 seconds, throw it down, and grab another.

Graham pushes for Guard to join Joint Chiefs

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I thought this was a sort of constitutionally interesting item:

Senate Passes Graham Amendment Making National Guard Part of Joint Chiefs of Staff

WASHINGTON – The United States Senate last night approved an amendment introduced by U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) giving the National Guard a seat on the nation’s highest military council, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“I’m very pleased the Senate has voted to allow the Chief of the National Guard Bureau to become a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“Guardsmen and Reservists are citizen-soldiers,” said Graham. “Since 9/11, the National Guard and Reserves have done tremendous work at home and abroad in defense of our nation. They have been called up to duty, taken away from their work and families, and sent to far-away lands for long tours to protect our nation. They have earned a seat at the table where our most important military decisions are made.”

South Carolina Adjutant General MG Bob Livingston said, “This is a great day for our nation and our military. We face difficult times in terms of the variety and magnitude of foreign threats while dealing the reality of limited resources. The inclusion of the Chief of the National Guard Bureau on the Joint Chiefs of Staff brings the Citizen Soldier to the discussion. The Citizen Soldier has proven himself to be the innovator with civilian skills, the tie to the community and the proven hardened combat troop that is so critical in these tough times. This tradition of citizen responsibility is one of the essential threads in the fabric of our nation. It has made our nation great and will propel us into the future. The appointment of the Chief of the National Guard is a return to the basic values of our county and will pave the way to great innovation in the defense of our nation.”

The amendment, also sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) attracted 71 cosponsors, and was added by voice vote to the annual Defense Authorization bill. The Senate continues to debate the measure and a final vote is expected later this week.

“The Senate vote last night was a long-overdue recognition and fitting tribute for our citizen-soldiers and the sacrifices they have made on behalf of our nation,” said Graham. “The Guard and Reserve is indispensable to fighting the War on Terror and protecting the homeland. Their voice needs to be heard.”

The legislation was endorsed by the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Governors Association, the National Guard Association of the United States, the Adjutants General Association of the United States, and the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States.

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I always have trouble explaining the degree to which the Guard is our state militia, versus the extent to which it is part of national Total Force structure (does that still exist? not sure; references on Web seem few and far between). Seems like this is another tip in the direction of the federal. If so, he makes it sound like it’s noncontroversial, with all those groups supporting him.

Nor should it be. Controversial, I mean. States have no business having separate militaries, with the Recent Unpleasantness well behind us. Still, though, this is South Carolina, so I thought I’d take note…

So THAT’s where the 1 percent is

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Occupiers everywhere will no doubt enjoy this cartoon from Bill Day in Memphis.

So do you like Newt MORE now, or LESS?

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This sets up an interesting conundrum:

Gingrich endorsed by former SC lieutenant gov

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A former South Carolina lieutenant governor who once likened the state’s poor to stray animals has endorsed Newt Gingrich’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Andre Bauer’s endorsement Monday comes as Gingrich begins three days of campaigning in South Carolina, which holds the first Southern primary Jan. 21.

So tell me, folks — do you like Newt more now, or less?

Happy Thanksgiving, Richard — and everyone

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Once upon a time there was a thing called newspapers, and Richard Crowson is my oldest newspaper friend. One of his first published editorial cartoons illustrated a column I wrote for the editorial page of the journalism department lab paper at Memphis State University in 1975. I already knew Richard from working with him at the MSU library.

A couple of years later, Richard joined me at The Jackson Sun, where we worked together for close to a decade, Richard as the editorial cartoonist.

Then, in 1985, I persuaded him to come out to Kansas, where he eventually became editorial cartoonist of The Wichita Eagle. A couple of years after that, I left to come here. Richard stayed.

Richard, being a talented editorial cartoonist, was laid off from his job about six months before Robert Ariail and I were.

Anyway, I only possess a copy of one of his cartoons, the one above from 1982. It’s my favorite. Sorry that the perspective is a bit askew. It’s too big for my scanner, and I had to shoot it with my camera at an angle to get the reflection off the glass of the frame.

Enjoy.

Oh, another thing about Richard. He’s not only a great cartoonist; he’s probably the most talented picker I know — of any stringed instrument you care to name, as long as it’s used in the production of Bluegrass. The first thing Richard did when he arrived in Wichita was go out and buy several second-hand kitchen chairs for his apartment, for his fellow pickers to sit on once he found some. Which he promptly did.

Below, you see him at left with the rest of The Home Rangers, “Kansas’ Premier Cowboy Band.”

Column II: It’s the government we’re TALKING about here, Cal

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Just as one should change a car’s oil every 3,000 miles, I think it is helpful to call “Bull!” about everything 3,000th time I hear a nonsensical rhetorical cliche.

Such as this one in a Cal Thomas column I read in the paper today:

There is something else Republicans must not do. They must avoid making the same mistake Democrats make by looking to government as a first resource.

Ahem.

Cal, you were talking in this column about people running for president of the United States. Someone to run the executive branch of the government. Someone to be in charge of government programs. Someone we trust to be in charge of the things we have decided that we want out government to do.

We are not hiring a pastor for our church, or a den mother for a Cub Scout den, or the CEO of a corporation, or the executive director of a nonprofit. We are looking for someone to run the government.

That’s the job. This person will not be in charge of anything else in the world except the government. Therefore the only tools this person will have at his (or, in one unlikely case, her) disposal will be government tools.

Therefore, the only proposals any reasonable person — whether Democrat, Republican, or whatever — would expect to hear such candidates speak about would be proposals for what to do with the government. Any other proposals would be completely irrelevant.

Now, you or I and lots of other folks might prefer to turn elsewhere for solutions to problems we see in the world, and that’s fine. We should do so as we are inclined. But that is completely irrelevant to the task of choosing a president, a person who would have nothing to do with running those other aspects of life.

Not only the “first,” but the only “resource” this person would be empowered to use in carrying out his (or her) duties would be government.

I just thought I’d point that out. It seems to me to be painfully obvious, but you seemed confused, and I like to help.

Column I: Cindi Scoppe puts Georgia port dredging issue into perspective

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Today, I think I’ll use some columns I read in the papers this morning as conversation-starters. We’ll begin with Cindi Scoppe’s balanced, thoughtful approach to DHEC’s granting of a dredging permit to Georgia.

As is her wont, she skewers weak arguments on all sides:

To those who ask, “Did Gov. Haley pressure her appointees to the DHEC board to approve the permit?,” she explains that it doesn’t matter. The governor says she fully supports the decision. She takes ownership of it. It doesn’t matter whether she pressured anyone. And what pressure can she exert? She appointed these people, but she lacks power to remove them. Who cares? She appointed them, she in no way distances herself from the decision.
Then there’s this red herring: “Why did the DHEC commissioners put Georgia’s economic interests above the economic interests of the state of South Carolina?” It’s not DHEC’s job to decide on the basis of economic interests. It’s their job to protect the environment, which is a separate question.

Here’s the question Cindi urges lawmakers to concentrate on: Did the Corps of Engineers and Georgia grant enough concessions to meet our state’s environmental requirements?

She continues with a discussion of various aspects of that consideration.

Then, in the end, she offers this bit of simple clarity:

We probably wouldn’t have to worry so much about cozying up to our competitors if our own Sen. Jim DeMint hadn’t helped put the Port of Charleston even further behind the Savannah Port, by delaying efforts to dredge Charleston Harbor. But the sad truth is that he has done far more to damage the Port of Charleston than anything DHEC could ever do. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much the Legislature can do about that.

All around, a good, solid column on a difficult issue.

Clyburn might excuse signing pledges, but I don’t

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Over the weekend — before the wretched, useless “supercommittee” had failed completely to do its job — Jim Clyburn had a piece in The Washington Post setting out his views as a member of that panel. This bit jumped out at me:

I understand signing pledges and suspect that all of us have agreed to them at one time or another. But it is beyond me how one defines eliminating a preference or closing a tax-code loophole as a tax increase. Loopholes that allow extremely wealthy and sophisticated Americans to avoid paying any, or an appropriate amount of, taxes while the middle class gets squeezed and working people struggle to pay their bills are fundamentally unfair. That is the big issue and the main obstacles to accomplishing something of which we can be proud and by which our nation will be strengthened.

What Clyburn seems to be saying there is, I understand the games we all play as partisans, the ways we trade away our freedom to be intellectually honest, good-faith participants in the deliberative process, but I think I see the way around it for y’all…

Well, Clyburn might understand it, and even excuse it, but I don’t. Signing pledges preventing yourself from being open-minded and able to make decisions as an elected representatives in the future is completely inexcusable.

And so is this committee’s failure.

On the one hand, I feel a tad guilty getting on Clyburn for trying to see the other fella’s point of view, instead of just bashing Republicans as usual. But he’s seeing their point of view on partisanship itself. And for me, THAT is the “other side,” the enemy, the force to be opposed.

It’s touching that Clyburn also says in the piece, “My reply remains the motto of the great state of South Carolina: ‘Dum Spiro Spero.’ ‘While I breathe, I hope.'” I love my state’s motto. But I have practically no hope in that crowd up there.

America is disgusted, and right to be. And in next year’s election, you’ll see candidates of both parties try to run as outsiders, as a solution to the problem. But if electing them means sending more Democrats and more Republicans, how can that be a solution?

There has never been a better moment for the UnParty. Who wants to run?

‘The Hillary Moment?’ Really? Y’all think THAT is a smart move for Democrats at this juncture?

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There was a startling op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal today by Pat Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen. I had to look at the bottom to see who Schoen was, but Pat Caddell was Jimmy Carter’s pollster, a member of the team that brought him from obscurity to the White House in 1976. (Schoen was Bill Clinton’s pollster.)

They were urging President Obama to step aside and let Hillary Clinton replace him on the Democratic ticket next year.

It was bizarre. And perhaps no passage in the piece was more bizarre than when they compared the current situation with LBJ’s in 1968, to which I can only say, “Say what?”

I was in the ninth grade at the time, so my political perception was nowhere near what it would be later, but these guys write as though they didn’t live through that time at all.

The convulsions the Democratic Party was going through in ’68, the highs and lows both, were titanic by comparison to what’s happening intraparty now. Everything was bigger. LBJ had had much, much greater success early in his tenure — historic success – but then his re-election ran into the greatest internal conflict that party has suffered in the past century: Vietnam.

Yeah, today Barack Obama presides over an economic situation that is upside-down from the 60s, the worst economy since what FDR faced. But how many Democrats — as opposed to Republicans — actually blame him for that the way the McCarthy faction blamed Lyndon “How Many Kids Did You Kill Today” Johnson? LBJ was blamed specifically for what he had done (escalate the war), not for what he had failed to do (rescue us from the crash that started during the previous administration).

LBJ pulled out after suffering actual primary setbacks (a strong showing by McCarthy in New Hampshire, the decision by Bobby Kennedy to jump in) at the hands of insurgents in his own party. If Obama stepped aside, he’d be doing it because Caddell and Schoen and whoever else they speak for were dissatisfied with him. Which is pretty thin stuff, by comparison.

Finally, let’s look at how that turned out for the Democrats — with the election of Richard “He’s Back!” Nixon.

Caddell should think harder about another example from history: The challenge mounted by Teddy Kennedy to his man Carter in 1980. That insurrection was put down, but it weakened Carter further, and we know how that turned out.

Finally, it gets weirdest of all when the authors twice offer the argument that Barack Obama is… too partisan… and that the cure to that ailment is… and here the mind reels… Hillary Clinton. See this excerpt:

One year ago in these pages, we warned that if President Obama continued down his overly partisan road, the nation would be “guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it.” The result has been exactly as we predicted: stalemate in Washington, fights over the debt ceiling, an inability to tackle the debt and deficit, and paralysis exacerbating market turmoil and economic decline….

What? A year ago was way before Obama turned partisan. Less than a year ago was when he, at least temporarily, gave Republicans what they wanted on continuing tax cuts. I’m really missing something here.

And then there’s this part:

By going down the re-election road and into partisan mode, the president has effectively guaranteed that the remainder of his term will be marred by the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity, common purpose, and most of all, our economic strength. If he continues on this course it is certain that the 2012 campaign will exacerbate the divisions in our country and weaken our national identity to such a degree that the scorched-earth campaign that President George W. Bush ran in the 2002 midterms and the 2004 presidential election will pale in comparison…

Just to review how we got to where we are today… In 2008, Barack Obama was the cure to the hyper, bitter, partisanship of the Clintonistas. The most partisan Democrats didn’t like his conciliatory tone, which is one reason the Clinton campaign was as long-lived as it was: The partisans didn’t want to settle for the nice, reasonable guy.

Those same people have griped about, and undermined, the Obama presidency since Day One. Finally (and I can remember Jimmy Carter doing something similar to please the red-meat crowd in his party), he’s gone on the attack, after extremists in the Republican Party have led us to a downgrade in the U.S. credit rating. So the partisans in his own party are cheering, and these guys pick this moment to turn against their president, and moan about him being too partisan?

These guys can fret over their numbers all day, but the one individual who is actually running for president who has the best chance of being elected right now is Barack Obama. As much dissension as there has been among Democrats, it’s nothing compared to the lurching fragmentation going on in the GOP, which looks good in a poll against the president except when you substitute any of the actual people running for a hypothetical Republican.

Does that mean America is itching to jump on his bandwagon? No. America isn’t itching to jump on anybody’s bandwagon these days. America is bummed out. And the answer to that is to substitute him with one of the most polarizing Democrats of the last 20 years? Really?

Yes, she polls well. People approve of the job she’s doing as secretary of state. And they’re right to. I’ll go further: Hillary Clinton, in my opinion, has never deserved either the hatred of the right, nor the adulation of the most partisan elements of the left. I’ve always seen her as more of a pragmatist, someone who will work hard to get the job done. And people like those qualities in her current job, just as her constituents liked them when she was their senator.

But let her run for president, and you’ll give the hapless opposition something to rally against, something that awakens some of their more atavistic passions. Of course, Obama does that, too. But if you made me bet, I’d bet on the incumbent being better able to push past all that. This is the guy who got Osama bin Laden, and in a subtle piece of maneuvering brought down Qaddafi in Libya. Today, as we speak, he is taking the smart road on the failure of the “supercommittee” to do its job, taking the hard line, refusing to allow any backsliding on the sequester process. All things that only the incumbent can point to.

Obama’s failures are not failures of partisanship, but failures arising from passivity — the partisan Democrats are right about that, and so are the Republicans who accuse him of failing to lead. He let the stimulus package happen without doing enough to shape it, and then he did the same with his chance to make history on healthcare. Both of those grand schemes required a guiding intelligence to render them coherent, and he left the job to… Congress, of all unlikely suspects.

But no one running against him can point to any greater achievements (and poor Mitt Romney has to run from his). The GOP is lost and wandering right now; you can feel the lack of energy and enthusiasm about their field. And they have no one that independents like me can get excited about — well, they do, but they refuse to pay attention to him.

The one great advantage that Democrats have is they don’t have to go through this upheaval; they’ve got their candidate. It’s bizarre that veterans such as these would want to throw away that advantage.

Don’t you dare trash my Uncle Sam!

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This sort of thing has become routine, but I never cease to be disgusted by it.

To begin with, there is one thing that makes America special — “exceptional,” if you will — and that is our system of governing ourselves. It’s not our amber waves of grain or purple mountain majesties, as fine as those are. And it’s not that we are some master race — if anything, our glory is that we are a mongrel people. “We’re mutts” as Bill Murray said in “Stripes.”

What we are, what makes us special is that we are the country that made freedom work, on a grand scale. Over the course of two centuries, we steadily worked to perfect that, and we’re still working on it, to our great credit.

Therefore I cannot abide this constant, incessant, dripping, vituperative hatred hurled at American government by alleged “conservatives” — or for that matter by “progressives” who want us to believe that the system is stacked against the little man. But the attitude that government itself, the very notion of government, is an evil to be fought, overwhelmingly belongs to what we describe as the right these days.

Is there plenty wrong with the way our government functions? You bet. But a huge amount of the blame for that belongs to the extremists who want to possess Washington, and have no use for what anyone who disagrees with them wants. Each side jockeys constantly for absolute control of a system that was designed to accommodate the views of all. And no faction has been as vehement as those who hate government qua government.

That’s our fault, you know. We, the people. We keep voting for that garbage. Which is our right.

And the garbage will continue if we don’t stand against it. Which is not only our right, but our duty.

Today, I stand against something I saw in The Wall Street Journal.

The piece that it went with was unremarkable, the usual stuff you read on the opinion pages of the WSJ, containing such passages as this:

So why is our economy barely growing and unemployment stuck at over 9%? I believe the answer is very simple: Economic freedom is declining in the U.S. In 2000, the U.S. was ranked third in the world behind only Hong Kong and Singapore in the Index of Economic Freedom, published annually by this newspaper and the Heritage Foundation. In 2011, we fell to ninth behind such countries as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Ireland.

That didn’t bother me. Such assertions have become background noise. And while I object to the piece blaming government for everything (yawn!), I agree with the belief it is rooted in: That what America urgently needs right now is strong growth in the private sector. All for it.

No, what got me was the illustration that went with the piece. You can see it above: The shadow of Uncle Sam looming menacingly over ordinary citizens.

My Uncle Sam. Our Uncle Sam. The figure that inspired millions of us to take up arms, literally, against tyranny the world over. The greatest symbolic representation of the blessings of liberal democracy the world has known, with the possible exception of Lady Liberty. Being used to symbolize the “evils” of government. Being used the way cartoonists in this country used to use the shadow of the swastika, the Russian bear, or the hammer and sickle.

Once, Uncle Sam personified the very thing this writer advocates — America rolling up its sleeves, getting to work, exhibiting determined economic vitality in the service of us all.

Utterly disgusting. And yet, something that has become so routine that most won’t even take note of it. Which is why I just did.

Tweeting the GOP debate, in reverse

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Anybody see that movie, “Memento”? Well, here are my comments from during the GOP debate in Spartanburg — what I could see of it online (and here I thought I was smart, watching it from home).

And they’re backwards because that’s the way they look on Twitter. It’s just faster to put them up this way: