Category Archives: The Nation

The ‘Fighter with the Hard Left Hook’

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Sure, maybe Hillary can do shots with the guys in PA, but she’d better thank her stars she’s not up against this guy in the primary.

Charlie Pope, former reporter at The State (and my former teammate on the Cosmic Ha-Has softball team), is now covering Washington for a paper in the Pacific Northwest. He brought my attention to this candidate from his neck of the woods, Steve Novick.

Sure, Obama overcame some hard times as a kid to go to Harvard Law (where they obviously don’t teach bowling), but Steve graduated Harvard at the age of 21 after being a high school dropout. He also, aside from being born without a left hand (he calls himself the "Fighter with the Hard Left Hook"), is only 4’9" tall.

But he’s a scrapper. And he’s with me on Health Care Reform. You gotta like the guy.

And if you want more Steve, here’s another one of his ads:

Bad news: Hillary likely to force war of attrition well beyond today

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Remember how, in my Sunday column, I cited how undecided Pennsylvania voters were, according to Zogby? Specifically, I cited his figures as of last Thursday, which he said showed Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama "deadlocked." I wrote my column Thursday night.

On Friday, as I was editing the column and putting it on the Sunday page, I noticed that Mrs. Clinton had gained a little ("Clinton Edges Ahead"). But it was still within the margin of error, and could easily go the other way, so I didn’t make too much of it. On Saturday, it was "Clinton Builds Lead by Inches."

Apparently, those were not just fluctuations, assuming Zogby’s doing his sums right. The trend continued Sunday and Monday, and as of this morning, he announced that she had was she was looking for — a 10-point lead.

That means at the very least that she’s beyond the margin of error, and probably that she’ll get the magic double-digit win today that "conventional wisdom" says she’s got to have.

And that means this thing drags on. It’s still highly unlikely that she could win, but she can keep drawing blood from Obama as the days and weeks drag on.

If you’re a Democrat, this is awful news, because polls already show McCain tied with Obama (and beating Hillary, quite consistently, which continues to make me wonder what people who are voting for her are thinking). And if you’re a Republican, you’ve still got to be tired of this, right?

I know this UnPartisan is.

Not everyone at the Journal is clueless about McCain and Sanford

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My earlier post reminded me of something — a couple of weeks back, someone at the Journal was trying to reach me to talk about Sanford and McCain. Elizabeth Holmes and I traded phone messages, but never got in touch. Then I forgot about it.

Remembering that today, I sent Ms. Holmes a link to today’s post on the subject. She wrote a quick line back asking whether I had ever read her story, which I had not. I just found it. It ran on Saturday, March 29. I don’t know if this link will work for you or not, but essentially the piece drew the sharp contrast between 2000, when Sanford co-chaired McCain’s S.C. campaign, and 2008, when he wouldn’t give the McCain campaign the time of day:

    Mr. Sanford didn’t endorse anyone during the primaries this year, after having co-chaired Sen. McCain’s bitter battle in South Carolina during the 2000 race. He brushed off requests for support by the McCain team at least three times, according to people familiar with the matter, including a period last year when the campaign was at a low.
    The snub could cost him his chance at the vice presidency. "Loyalty is a big, big commodity in McCain-land," said a McCain aide familiar with Mr. Sanford’s involvement…

As for why there’s so much talk out there about Sanford in defiance of all reason… Ms. Holmes is hip to that as well. After the 2000 campaign, Mr. Sanford became governor, and as she notes, "As governor, he began speaking at conservative think tanks — such as
the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute — and continues to do
so."

Add to that the governor’s most ardent cheerleaders at the Club for Growth. The Club was pushing Sanford for national office as early as the Republican National Convention in 2004. Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote at the end of that week in New York:

    Even our own Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Mark Sanford were being mentioned. As I wrote earlier in the week, Sen. Graham spent the convention going between interviews like a bee going from flower to flower.
    For his part, Mr. Sanford calls all the talk "the last thing in the world I’m looking at or thinking about." But that’s about all he’s got time to say about it because he’s too busy participating in things like a "Four for the Future" panel over at the Club for Growth.
    On Wednesday, he invites the delegation to a soiree at a friend’s home on the Upper East Side. He urges them to come see "how a real New Yorker lives. They live in small boxes." His host’s home may be a little narrow, but if that’s a box, it’s from Tiffany’s — and it’s gift-wrapped.
    At the reception itself, when the governor silences the assembled gathering to thank Howard Bellin for the use of his home, the host says, "I fully expect to be his guest at the White House in another four years."

One nice thing about the Club, though — maybe nobody else reads my blog, but they certainly do. This appeared on the S.C. chapter’s Web site roughly an hour (either 47 minutes or an hour and 47 minutes, depending on how their site treats time zones) after my last post went up.

So, let me close with a big shout-out to my pals at the Club, which believe it or not actually has a blog devoted to pushing Sanford as Veep.

‘Sanford as veep’ AGAIN? Geez, would you people give it a rest?

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Back when I did the editorial stating fairly succinctly why naming Mark Sanford as running mate would be stupid for John McCain, and disastrous for the country, I got a call from a reader who said I was manufacturing the whole thing, that nobody mentioned it but us, and if I’d just shut up, it would go away.

I wish.

Unfortunately, even though most Republicans see no reason for McCain to choose Sanford, and those Republicans who actually know both men (that would be S.C. Republicans) mostly think such a move would be insane, there is one subfaction in the GOP coalition that continues to push him, against all reason and all odds. That is the economic-libertarian faction represented by the Club for Growth and The Wall Street Journal, among a few others.

Sanford_promo_2
The Journal‘s latest effort along these lines was to devote the big "Weekend Interview" to Mr. Sanford on Saturday, and to promote it from the front page, complete with a front-page, full-color caricature of
our gov. It’s fascinating the way the Journal — truly one of the best papers in the country — continues to sully its reputation by taking Mr. Sanford more seriously than does any paper in South Carolina, with the possible exception of the Post and Courier.

The Journal apparently justifies continuing to float this idea on a basis that simply isn’t true, that Mr. Sanford "is on nearly every Republican strategist’s shortlist for vice president this year." To back that up, the piece names three people: "Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove and Sen. Lindsey Graham (a stalwart John McCain backer) have all floated Mr. Sanford’s name for veep."

Sen. Graham is on that list because of the three, he’s the only one that anyone might believe has Sen. McCain’s ear. Well, I’ve shown you what Sen. Graham has to say about his old friend Mark’s status as a veep candidate or as a party leader of any kind; you may want to watch the video again.

So I don’t know where that’s coming from.

Anyway, the "hour-long interview" with the governor is said to have taken place at the State House; one must sincerely doubt that the interviewer bothered to ask anyone else about the governor on the way in or out of the building. That would have been damaging to the Journal‘s premise that the governor would be an asset to a national ticket. Of course, if you buy into the premise that Mr. Sanford is involved in a lonely, "prolonged fight against the political status quo in South Carolina," then you wouldn’t want to talk to any of those people, anyway.

But six years after he was elected, one has to be rather gullible to buy into that myth. The truth is that the State House is dominated by conservative Republicans who are much, much more representative of the national party and rank-and-file Republican voters (much less the independents that McCain must continue to appeal to) than Mr. Sanford ever has been or ever will be.

Yes, you can believe the myth if you don’t actually know him, and if you read the quote that starts the piece:

"Our system was put in place in large part based on the fear that a black man would be elected governor. So traditional functions of the executive branch were diffused . . . to mean that if a black man was elected governor, it wouldn’t matter anyway because he wouldn’t have any responsibility . . . That is an insane operating model."

And if you like that, you can read the much more extended version, written by me in 1991 as part of our "Power Failure" series (you’ll also learn that keeping the governor weak was not an innovation of the 1895 constitution, but the continuation of a 300-year South Carolina tradition). The governor read our reprint of that series back in 2002, and based much of his electoral platform on that. That’s why we endorsed the guy. But ever since he was elected, he’s put far more effort into his more marginal, anti-government libertarian proposals than he has into anything that would reform our system.

Several statements in this piece need to be addressed individually, to set the record straight (to the extent I can do such a thing, my pulpit being decidedly less bully than the Journal‘s):

  • After noting the rather obvious fact that no South Carolinian could help the GOP ticket, the author protests, "But Mr. Sanford is popular on the right because he understands markets." No. The truth is that he is popular among economic libertarians because he agrees with them, right down the line, perfectly. Such people are not the same as "the right," although they overlap with that set. And no one can be said to understand markets when he believes that distributing vouchers to people in a thinly populated, poor community that can’t attract a grocery store would lead to the spontaneous generation of an excellent private school.
  • "Mr. Sanford’s main governing problem is the state’s constitution." As someone who has been pushing for 17 years for the same restructuring reforms that Mr. Sanford says he’s for, I wish that were true. But Mr. Sanford’s main governing problem is that he can’t get along with other Republican leaders — and that doesn’t augur well for one who would lead his party nationally.
  • "…the state has leaned left on spending…" Oh, Good Lord have mercy. That’s so idiotic, so utterly marinated, rolled and deep-fried in fantasy, that it’s astounding a bolt of lightning didn’t strike the Journal’s presses as they pushed that one out.
  • "Over the past six years, he has helped shepherd through three big tax reforms: the state’s first cut to its income tax; a grand tax swap that slashed property taxes and increased sales taxes; and the virtual elimination of grocery taxes. That last one is not the tax cut Mr. Sanford wanted to spur investment. But he took what he could get…" Our "left-leaning" Legislature loves nothing more than to cut taxes. A session seldom passes without a tax cut; and the only suspense is what kind of cut will tickle lawmakers’ fancy that particular year. The governor can pretend that the Legislature keeps doing what comes naturally as some sort of response to him, but it’s just not true. (The closest it comes to truth is that some lawmakers pointed to the income tax cut as being kinda, sorta like a cut the governor wanted, and they used that as an excuse to say they don’t always ignore him. But even in that case, the cut what they wanted to cut, as they always do. But that’s the only instance in which it made sense for him to say he "took what he could get.")

Aw, geez, I can’t spend any more time on this, but if you’re able to call up the piece, you’ll find more absurd assertions than you can shake a stick at. Obviously, the only person this writer — the Journal‘s assistant features editor, if you can wrap your head around that — spoke to in South Carolina (or, perhaps, anywhere) for this piece was Mark Sanford.

And no matter what sort of goals it may have of bending the world to its ideological will, the Journal did its readers a disservice by publishing it.

Waiting for Pennsylvania to buckle down and decide

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
LATE ONE Monday morning several weeks ago in a small-town diner in central Pennsylvania, I looked up from my paper to see that I was the last customer at the counter. Just the one waitress, the coffee pot and me.
    Filling the silence, I asked for a refill. Then I asked for her thoughts on the upcoming titanic battle in which she and her fellow Pennsylvanians would get to choose the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.
    She didn’t have any. Yeah, she knew there was something like that going on, and that some people were really excited, but she had made no effort to follow it. She wasn’t dismissive, and she was willing to hear me talk about it, but to her it was neither here nor there. Some customers want coffee. Others don’t. Some want to talk politics. Whatever.
    This was disconcerting. I looked around the way you do when you’re thinking, somebody back me up here. But it was just her and me. And there was something about the moment — she was so matter-of-fact — that made me feel like I was the one who had to explain himself.
    So I did, at some length. I even confessed that I actually made my living caring about elections and such, thinking and talking and writing about them, which as I said it sounded ludicrous. She just nodded. Some collect stamps; others watch birds. This guy’s into politics. Whatever.
    She even encouraged me, in a noncommittal way. She asked who was still in it. I explained that John McCain had sewn up the Republican nomination, and that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were locked in a tight battle on the Democratic side — one primary going to her, the next to him, back and forth, the suspense building. I told her how folks had come out in huge numbers in South Carolina to support Obama.
    So who will win? she asked, and I said the smart money at that point was on Obama, with more and more Democrats deciding they couldn’t support Hillary.
    She asked: “Why? Because she’s a woman?”
    The question wasn’t a challenge; there was no feminist defiance in it. She was just asking, the way you might ask, “Do you think it’s going to rain?”
    Certainly not, I told her, and tried to explain about the Obama Appeal, about Hope and Change (capitalizing the key words with my voice), and how Sen. Clinton tended to appeal to folks who actually relished the partisan fight between left and right, and that many Democrats, and independents who had voted in Democratic primaries where (unlike Pennsylvania) that was allowed, were tired of the Bad Old Politics, so Obama was really catching on.
    There were, however, certain demographic tendencies to be noted, I said. For instance, quite a few white women over the age of 30 (realizing that I had just described the woman in front of me, I started talking faster to put that part behind us) did seem to support her because she was a woman, but the men and minorities and young people and women who favored Obama were, if they were turned off by Clinton, reacting more to the sort of campaign she had run….
    She nodded, and when I paused to take a breath, told me that the woman who owned the diner, and another waitress who wasn’t on duty that morning, were both Hillary supporters. Apparently, I had described them pretty well. Deciding I should quit while I was ahead, I paid my check, making sure to tip at least 20 percent, and headed back out into the cold March wind.
    And I thought about that woman, and how very normal she had been. She was no silly, apathetic fool, the sort that the passionately committed declare that Democracy Is Wasted Upon. She was intelligent — at least average, if not more than. She was sensible, and perfectly willing to care about things that should be cared about. She was earning a living; she was doing what needed to be done, and not wasting energy on anything that didn’t.
    Since that day, she has come to represent The Pennsylvania Voter in my mind. Down here in South Carolina we knocked ourselves out trying to make a difference, and we did — giving Sen. McCain the payback he had waited eight years for, giving Sen. Obama a big push forward.
    But it’s not over yet on the Democratic side, and it’s within the power of Pennsylvanians to make the final decision, and after the mad pace of having a high-stakes primary about every five minutes from the first of January through early March, nothing has happened for weeks and weeks while we all wait for Pennsylvania to do something, and the latest polls say it’s still a dead heat. Zogby reported Thursday that 45 percent were still for Clinton, 44 percent for Obama, 9 percent undecided, and 3 percent wanted someone else.
    Tied? Undecided? Someone else? They still haven’t decided up there! It’s like they haven’t been paying attention.
    The candidates haven’t helped much, what with Sen. Clinton making up Bosnia war stories (there I was, pinned down…) and Sen. Obama going all cold and detached (religion is the opium of the people…), to the point that you can see how a sensible person might be turned off.
    But I find I want to drive back up there before Tuesday, and go back into that diner, and convince that sensible woman that these are solid candidates, that one of them is likely to become president, that the rest of us took them seriously, so won’t you please just bear with us long enough to go out and vote, and settle this thing for the sake of the country?
    And then, once you do, we can all take a load off, order another cup of coffee, and think about something else until Labor Day.

‘Hillary-style attacks’

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We at the UnParty continue to be fascinated at the ways in which party-line thinking warps perception…

You may have noticed that Democrats talk ominously and often about the coming "Republican attacks." There is much mumbling about "Swiftboating" and "Karl Rove," and other things that to bear no rational relationship to the fact that the Democratic nominee will be facing John McCain in the fall.

As is often the case with ideological mythology, almost anything is justified in the cause of warding off these dread calamities that lie ahead. Hillary Clinton uses the belief that such atrocities are on the way as an excuse to pound Barack Obama with various bludgeons that the wicked GOPpers will certainly hit him with sooner or later. The message here is that those monsters on the right have already thrown everything they have at HER ("having now gone through 16 years of being on the receiving end of what the Republican Party dishes out"), thereby giving her immunity or something. (I think you have to believe in the mythology to follow the reasoning.)

In the black-and-white world that gives rise to such thinking, there is no difference between Karl Rove and John McCain. Anyone who consents to be called a Republican is equally evil, with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln. That McCain, who has been a victim of such excesses as the Democrats fear, might be different does not enter into the equation.

Will groups on the Right do unconscionable things against the Democratic nominee in the Fall? You betcha, just as MoveOn.org and its ilk will do to the Republican — a fact that purveyors of the Coming Debacle seem to overlook. What each side will do in the name of ideology will be reprehensible, as always — that’s why I’m an UnParty man. Sadly, I don’t expect much from Democrats and Republicans.

But sometimes, it just gets beyond ridiculous, such as when Joe Klein refers to "the Republican-style attacks that Hillary Clinton has been previewing…"

No, Joe. This is not a preview; this is real life, happening in real time. And it’s Hillary doing it. These are, quite obviously and demonstrably, "Hillary-style" attacks. Or perhaps we should say, "Stephanopoulos-style attacks." Here’s a sample, from Wednesday night’s debate:

And if I’m not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York, and I would hope to every American, because they were published on 9/11 and he said that he was just sorry they hadn’t done more. And what they did was set bombs and in some instances people died. So it is — you know, I think it is, again, an issue that people will be asking about. And I have no doubt — I know Senator Obama’s a good man and I respect him greatly but I think that this is an issue that certainly the Republicans will be raising.

And it goes to this larger set of concerns about, you know, how we are going to run against John McCain. You know, I wish the Republicans would apologize for the disaster of the Bush-Cheney years and not run anybody, just say that it’s time for the Democrats to go back into the White House. (Laughter, applause.)

Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be willing to do that. So we know that they’re going to be out there, full force. And you know, I’ve been in this arena for a long time. I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years. (Laughter.) And so therefore, I have, you know, an opportunity to come to this campaign with a very strong conviction and feeling that I will be able to withstand whatever the Republican sends our way.

Not the SHE would say such things about Obama, he being such a good man, but you just can’t trust those damned Republicans. Folks, how simple do you have to be to miss the fact that SHE JUST SAID THESE THINGS?

What’s really pathetic is that they’ve got Obama buying into this line, and I would expect him to know better. Klein quotes Obama as saying, "That [debate] was the rollout of the Republican campaign against me in November…"

No, it was the real thing, happening in April, and it was Democrats doing it. Can’t you see that? Folks, this is why I trash parties all the time — they turn our brains to oatmeal.

You want to see a "Republican-style attack?" OK, here’s a real-life one that came in today:

Wednesday’s Democratic debate provided insight into Barack Obama’s positions on key foreign policy issues. As president he says he would immediately withdraw our troops from Iraq- even if he were strongly advised against this by our nation’s top military commanders. He would also hold direct talks with the Iranian regime- a regime that does not recognize Israel and is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. Iran’s president has even called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." 

During the debate, Barack Obama once again refused to condemn former President Jimmy Carter- who publicly supports Obama- for holding talks with the Hamas terrorist group, a group supported financially, politically and military by Iran.

Barack Obama’s foreign policy plans have even won him praise from Hamas leaders. Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to the Hamas Prime Minister said, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election. He has a vision to change America."

We need change in America, but not the kind of change that wins kind words from Hamas, surrenders in Iraq and will hold unconditional talks with Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

John McCain’s foreign policy provides a stark contrast to the policies of Barack Obama. As president, John McCain will provide the leadership we need to win the war against Islamic extremists. We need your help today to reach out to Americans across the country to spread the message of John McCain’s plan for your national security. Please follow this link to make a financial contribution to our campaign today.

Yep, it’s another one of those McCain fund-raising e-mails I’ve been complaining about lately. It’s pretty critical, all right, but you’ll note that it’s built around policy differences. Nothing about bitter xenophobia in Middle America, or Bill Ayres, or Jeremiah Wright. And you know, McCain had to go out of his way to find something in that debate to comment on other than those things, since most of the debate centered on them.

That doesn’t mean McCain won’t point to the fact that he doesn’t see average Americans as bitter; in fact I think he already has. But now, he declines an obvious chance to join Hillary in piling on.

I just thought maybe somebody should point that out.

This time, ‘The Nation’ has a point

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Having received a release about "a broad coalition of journalists" that had chosen to "speak out against ABC News in response to Wednesday night’s ‘gotcha’ debate," I thought, Good. Stephanopoulos et al. were out of line with their obsessive pounding on Obama.

Then, I clicked on the link, and saw that this was something on The Nation‘s Web site, and that few of the undersigned writers were what you’d call MSM types. Yes, there was somebody from The Baltimore Sun, and Washington Monthly is reasonably close to the center, but mostly it was people from The  Nation, and Mother Jones and the like — not the sorts of titles that bring "detached observer" to mind.

Which was a shame, I thought — a real missed opportunity for mainstream professionals to decry something that was out of line. Sure, this was The Nation, but for the most part there was nothing left-fringe about the message. An excerpt:

For 53 minutes, we heard no question about public policy from either
moderator. ABC seemed less interested in provoking serious discussion
than in trying to generate cheap shot sound-bites for later rebroadcast.
The questions asked by Mr. Stephanopoulos and Mr. Gibson were a
disgrace, and the subsequent attempts to justify them by claiming that
they reflect citizens’ interest are an insult to the intelligence of
those citizens and ABC’s viewers. Many thousands of those viewers have
already written to ABC to express their outrage.

OK, so maybe it was a little overwrought. And the next paragraph was obviously arguing on ideological grounds, suggesting there was something out of line about saying capital gains tax cuts could stimulate the economy.

But there was a sensible, mainstream point here. The debate I heard sounded like something that Stephanopoulos and the Clinton campaign could have cooked up and rehearsed in advance, as an ambush on Obama. Perhaps it fell short of a "disgrace," but it was most unseemly, because it was so one-sided.

Obama’s remarks about "bitter" Middle Americans were a legitimate point of discussion. But when that was followed by Jeremiah Wright and the Weather Underground, I started thinking that I didn’t need a Weatherman to know which way the wind blew.

So yeah, in this case, The Nation has a point.

Forget Real ID; Big Brother’s going private

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While Gov. Mark Sanford and other opponents of Big Gummint are busily fighting that hyper-scary Threat to All We Hold Sacred, the Real ID program, Big Brother’s turning to the private sector to get the dirty deed done.

The Financial Times reports that, under a program (that’s "programme" to you Brits) run by Homeland Security, air travelers are voluntarily turning their most intimate identifying info over to private contractors:

    Until recently the only thing apart from love that money could not
buy was a guaranteed place at the front of an airport security queue.
That is changing, as an additional 500 US air passengers a day agree to
hand over a $100 (£50) annual fee, plus their fingerprints and iris
scans, for the right to become “registered travellers” in private
programmes supervised by the Department of Homeland Security.

    Once
the authorities have run an applicant’s background checks to ensure he
or she is not a threat to airline security, the successful RT receives
a credit card-style pass containing biometric information and the
privilege of joining specially designated fast lanes at a growing
number of US airports. The market leader, Verified Identity Pass (VIP),
has received about 100,000 applications, of which 75,000 have been
approved.

I suppose the reader reaction to this news will serve as a sort of litmus test: Libertarians will say, "See? Told you the private sector can get the job done better than gummint!"

Others among us would far rather give up such information only to Uncle Sam, who is constrained by laws written by the representives we elect, than to someone with a profit motive, who might choose to do whatever he pleases with it. Different strokes.

First we outsource warfighting. Now this.

A working class hero is something to be, and golly I sure wish I could sound like one right about now…

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Watching the Democratic debate in PA just now, I was really feeling for poor Barack Obama. They were, of course, asking him about the "religion and guns" thing, and he was trying to act like he welcomed the chance to explain what he meant to say, when obviously he welcomed it about as much as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. And who can blame him?

Meanwhile, Hillary was trying not to jump up and down and hug herself with ersatz proletarian glee. Of course, when her turn came, she starts in with, "Well, I am the granddaughter of a factory worker from Scranton…"

This is totally unfair — who’d a thunk Mrs. Clinton would be anybody’s working class heroine? — but Mr. Obama did create the situation all by his lonesome.

Maybe he should make himself a note: In future, when running in a tight race in Pennsylvania, stay out of San Francisco…

Presidential resonance: One of my pet peeves

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Today, I received this release from the Obama campaign:

Obama Statement on the
Anniversary of the Virginia Tech Tragedy

CHICAGO, IL –
Today Senator Obama issued the following statement on the anniversary of the
tragedy at Virginia Tech. 

"One year after
the tragedy at Virginia Tech, families are still mourning, and our nation is
still healing. As Americans gather today in vigils and ‘lie-ins’ – or pray
silently alone – our thoughts are with those whose lives were forever changed by
the shootings. But one year later, it’s also time to reflect on how violence –
whether on campuses like Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University or on
the streets of Chicago and cities across this nation – can be prevented.
Clearly, our state and federal governments have to strengthen some laws and do a
better job enforcing others. But we all have a responsibility to do what we can
in our own lives and communities to end this kind of senseless violence. That is
still our task one year later, and it will be our ongoing task in the years to
come."

                ###

This statement brings to mind two objections. The first is, what is this national fascination with anniversaries? Just because something was news a year ago does not make it news now. It’s not happening now. It was happening then. Aside from the entirely artificial connection of occurring on the same date on this artificial thing we call a calendar, today and that day have nothing to do with each other.

But that’s just a minor peeve. Here’s the major one: Why do we expect presidents to make statements about things that have nothing to do with the job of being president — even to the extent that people applying for the job think that they have to make such statements?

This peeve is a very old peeve for me. Or maybe not all that old. I think it reached its peak during the Clinton years. Bill Clinton was really, really into resonating to the news, the more emotional the news the better.

Mind you, I’m not blaming Mr. Clinton himself for this. He just happened to be very good at it, and to come along at the moment in history when 24/7 TV "news" was coming into its own. Remember that the 1991 Gulf War was the first CNN war (as I recall, Saddam Hussein was a big fan of the network). That’s when Wolf Blitzer became a household name. The next year, Mr. Clinton was elected, and the man matched the moment.

By the end of the decade, the assumption that the president would resonate with news that had nothing to do with him had become so assumed that by the start of the next decade, serious political observers upbraided Mr. Clinton’s successor for failing to play along. That brings me to an interesting historical artifact — a column I wrote in April 2001, at the very start of the current Bush administration.

It may for that reason seem anachronistic — particularly where I speculate that Mr. Bush is "too isolationist for my taste." This was, of course, before 9/11, and before the Iraq invasion — although I would submit that perhaps one reason Mr. Bush botched the Iraq intervention in so many ways is that he remains at heart an isolationist rather than an interventionist. (In other words, if he actually believed in nation-building, perhaps he’d be better at it.) But that’s not my point here today.

My point is that this piece reminds me of one thing I did like about Mr. Bush (sometimes it can be hard to remember such things): The fact that he doesn’t do the presidential resonance thing. Of course, this may be due to something in his character that is exactly what so many others hate about him — and remember (in spite of current political commentary militating against your remembering it), Bush-haters hated him way before Iraq.

Anyway, here’s the column:

 

The State

April 25, 2001, Wednesday

The president should do his own job, not everybody else’s

BYLINE: By Brad Warthen

SECTION: COMMENTARY

LENGTH: 1133 words

Exactly two years ago as I write this, I found myself a
captive audience for CNN’s breaking coverage of the shootings at Columbine High
School. I was on the stair-climber in the workout room, and somebody else had
the remote. So I got a larger dose of television news than I would normally
subject myself to.

    At the time, I did a column on the nature of the coverage,
which was appallingly inaccurate and careless in the rush to tell everyone
right now what had happened, even though no one really knew at the time.

    I left out of that column one of the things that bothered me
most: Every few minutes, the announcer would cut in to say that the White House
would have a statement from the president on the incident shortly. The tone and
context implied that this was something everyone was anxiously awaiting. I got
the impression that everyone involved thought the president would be derelict
in his duty if he didn’t hurry up and say something.

    And all I could think was: Why? Why would the president say
anything about this, especially at this moment? The people on the scene, the
people who know more than anybody, don’t even know how many victims there are
yet, much less how or why this happened. What in the world is the president
going to be able to add that will be relevant or helpful? I wouldn’t presume to
say anything about it. Why would the president? It’s not his job to do so any
more than it’s mine. More importantly, why does anyone expect him to say
anything?

    The last part was what really got me. This was, after all,
happening in Littleton, Colo., and was the responsibility of the local
authorities there. No one had suggested that there was anything about this that
bore upon the powers and duties of the federal government.

    Yet the nation was presumably breathless to hear what the
president had to say about it. And you know what? Those announcers were
probably right. The truth is, the nation has increasingly come to expect the
president to weigh in on such things.

    If something happens somewhere in the nation that makes
headlines, we expect the president to do something about it _ or at least to
say something. If there’s a flood or an earthquake, there’s a demand for the
president to drop everything and go fly over it, to let us know he cares.

    This makes no sense, but then, it’s not supposed to. It’s
about emotion, not reason. But for my money, there are far too many actions and
decisions taken in the public sphere on the basis of emotion already. We don’t
need any more of it.

    What provoked this rant? A David Broder column in The
Washington Post. Mr. Broder doesn’t usually set me off like this. He is, in
fact, the columnist I admire most. He’s calm, rational and knowledgeable. But
when he argues that George W. Bush is falling short as president because he
doesn’t have something eloquent to say about every major news development
across the nation, I just have to break with him.

    Dubya has a lot of faults. He’s a mushmouth. He lacks what I
consider to be an adequate respect for the environment. To the extent that he
has an overarching foreign policy vision _ and I’m not sure yet whether he does
_ I suspect that it is too isolationist for my taste. For these and other
reasons, he was not my first choice to be president.

    But he has his virtues as well. He seems to be a pretty fair
manager. He knows how to assemble a team and let it do its job. Vision or no, he
seems to deal effectively with specific foreign policy issues as they arise _
the confrontation with China over our surveillance aircraft being an instance
that Mr. Broder rightly cites.

    But my very favorite thing about President Bush is that he
seems content to be the chief executive of the federal government, and feel
absolutely no obligation to be the nation’s Chief Empathizer. No urge at all to
go on television every day and bite his lip, give a thumbs-up, shed a tear and
let us know he feels our pain.

    I really, really appreciate that.

    And I’m not just saying this to put down Mr. Bush’s
predecessor. The greater problem lies with us _ the press and the public. We
simply expect things of a president that are not a legitimate function of the
job. After Hugo hit South Carolina in 1989, many complained indignantly that
Bush pere failed to rush right down here. Mind you, he had immediately declared
the state a disaster area.

    "This other stuff, like flying over the damaged area,
is largely PR, although I admit good PR. But what does that accomplish?"
one politico said in defending him. "What you’re asking me is, why didn’t
Bush have a photo op?" Exactly. Bill Clinton’s weakness in that regard was
that he enjoyed the photo ops too much.

    If it weren’t David Broder complaining about it, I’d say
this was a case of a Washington journalist feeling a loss of his own power
because the president refuses to use his bully pulpit to make everything that
happens anywhere a federal case, thereby making Washington _ and its vast media
army _ the center of attention. With the Cold War over, Washington has had to
look in previously unexamined boxes to find issues to justify its continued
paramount importance.

    But this is David Broder, and I know he seriously believes
that these matters should be on the president’s priority list. I just think
he’s wrong.

    Sure, there are national, non-Washington stories that are
very much the president’s business, and demand that he exercise leadership
before the nation _ the Oklahoma City bombing, for instance. But that was a
deliberate attack, not only upon a federal building and the people in it but
upon the entire notion of the federal government. The Colorado shootings, as
tragic and horrific as they were, lacked that feature.

    Similarly, the president’s failure to step to the fore
regarding the riots in Cincinnati is by no means a serious "leadership
omission," as Mr. Broder characterized it. As he further writes, "The
incident was local." He goes on to say that "the problem of police-minority
relations is national and important."

    Indeed. But it is national mainly in the sense that it is a
problem in local jurisdictions all over the country. If the riots were about
what the FBI or the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had done, we’d be
talking federal interest. But we’re not in this case.

    At some point, there will be an issue that I, too, will want
Mr. Bush to care about more than he does. But for now, I find his reticence a
welcome relief.

Oh, and back to where I started — I don’t blame Mr. Obama for trying to resonate on the anniversary of the slaughter at Blacksburg. That’s what presidential candidates are expected to do these days, especially if they are Democrats, and most especially if they are falling behind among women (yes, I think there’s a gender gap in this issue somewhere). Maybe Hillary Clinton and even John McCain have put out similar releases, and I just haven’t seen them yet.

I just don’t think they should be expected to do it.

Here’s the problem with John McCain

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I‘ve been watching and listening as Democrats start cranking up ways to trash John McCain (while moaning about the evil "Swift-Boating" that they’re sure will come their nominee’s way). None of it has been particularly imaginative — equating him with Bush is a favorite, although it certainly stretches credulity.

For the most part, they miss the one thing that bothers me most — and no, it’s not his age. It’s his having bought into the Bush tax cuts, after having opposed them so strenuously in 2000, and for good reasons (he did favor cuts at the time — just not nearly as deep). Sure, once the cuts are part of the tax structure for several years, I can see how someone might accept them as a fait accompli, but I don’t. (Call me wacky, but whether we’re talking the war or entitlements or anything else, I think we should pay what our government actually costs.) Also, I would hesitate to go back to the old rates when we’re in an economic slowdown — but McCain’s change of position occurred before that.

This is not a deal-killer for me, any more than Barack Obama’s preacher is. It’s just something that goes on the ledger in the negative column.

So it’s kind of galling to see this on the latest McCain fund-raising e-mail:

My Friends,

Today, April 15th, marks the deadline when all Americans must file their income taxes. While many of us are aggravated and displeased when we see exactly how much of our hard-earned money goes to the federal government – if one of my Democratic opponents is elected in November, you can be certain your tax rate will increase across the board.

When we elect our next president in November, we will make a clear statement about the direction we want to take our economy and our tax system. As I have said before, this election will present Americans with a clear choice between my vision for our country and that of my Democratic opponents.

I believe today, as I have always believed, in small government, fiscal discipline and low taxes. I believe that tax cuts work best when accompanied by lower spending. And I make the promise to you that if elected president, I plan to make the present tax cuts permanent, lower corporate rates from 35% to 25% and end the Alternative Minimum Tax, which will affect millions of middle class families….

Then, of course, we get to the point of the message:

But I cannot succeed in my efforts without your immediate financial support…

In other words, Quick! Send me your money before those crazy Democrats spend it on universal health care or something…

Such moments are not the senator’s best.

Obama trails Hillary by several frames

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Zogby has, after a long silence (that is to say, no releases that have come to my attention), released poll figures that show Barack Obama still trailing Hillary Clinton in PA:

UTICA, New York – Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton of New York leads party rival Barack Obama of Illinois
by a narrow margin in the all-important Pennsylvania primary heading
into the final stretch before Democrats there head to the polls April
22, a fresh Newsmax/Zogby telephone poll shows.

    Clinton
wins 47% support to Obama’s 43% among likely Democratic primary voters,
the survey shows. Another 2% are still holding out for someone else,
while 8% said they are yet undecided.

Ya gotta wonder about those folks who are still "holding out for someone else…"

… where was I? Oh, yeah. No doubt there will be all sorts of explanations for why Pennsylvania Democrats have not yet succumbed to the Obama magic — the fact that (inexplicably) Mrs. Clinton appeals more to blue-collar types, the Rev. Wright business, maybe even the unfortunate thing about guns and religion.

But personally, I think it was the bowling — if you can call it that.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania the last few years — I could just about do the drive up 81 through the Shenandoah Valley in my sleep (although I’d be missing some terrific scenery). And from what I’ve seen of Pennsylvanians — and mind you, I’m not talking Philadelphia lawyer types, but salt-of-the-earth, regular, small-town working folk — it’s hard for me to see them respecting a guy who can only put up 37 points after seven frames. (Frankly, I don’t even see how he did it; while it’s been a bunch of years since I maintained a 150-plus average, I don’t think I could convincingly pull off a 37.)

Normally, you wouldn’t look at Hillary and say, "There goes a bowler." But you can at least look at her and say, "Well, she should at least be able to beat a 37."

The way I see it, Obama’s got three frames left to go. Picking up spares isn’t going to do it; he’s going to have to strike out on his last five rolls.

Why Wright’s outrages don’t turn off Obama supporters

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Moss Blachman sent me (and a bunch of others) a copy of a piece from The Jewish Week Web site that sorta, kinda expresses my attitude about Obama and his pastor — what Rev. Wright said was utterly beyond the pale, and yet it doesn’t turn me against Obama. An excerpt:

    The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Barack Obama’s longtime pastor, says
some things that really offend me.  As a passionate Zionist I take
offense at his cruel reference to an apartheid regime going on in
Israel. As a patriotic American I shake in disgust at the “God Damn
America” sermon he gave soon after the tragic events of 9/11. His
ongoing association with Louis Farrakhan troubles me deeply, since
Farrakhan is a bigot. Indeed, I once led a group of protesters into the
office of Anthony Williams, former mayor of Washington, D.C., and
begged him not stand with Farrakhan. 
    At the same time, I do not view Rev. Wright’s remarks as a reason not to vote for Barack Obama. I may or may not decide
to vote for him, but not on the basis of his longtime pastor’s politics.

Of course, Obama’s relationship with this guy doesn’t help him with me, but it’s not a deal-killer, any more than it is for Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld, who wrote the piece.

Another thing I liked about the piece — and for me, this is a separate point from the whole Wright/Obama thing — was this statement:

A congregation should not identify itself with a specific political
party, but a religious leader should feel free to express himself on
issues that he deems of social and political significance.

As I wrote before, I was impressed at the political moral teaching I heard from the pulpit (is "pulpit" the right word?) at a synagogue up in Greenville several months back. Of course, the difference between that and the inexcusable stuff that comes from the Rev. Wright are very, very different.

Graham tells veterans they’re kicking a**

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Thanks to Mike Cakora for pointing out to us this from Politico’s The Crypt blog. It’s from a Vets for Freedom rally outside the Capitol. John McCain stopped by with his buds Joe and Lindsey. An excerpt:

    “Do not underestimate the contribution you have made on the political battlefield at home,” Lieberman said. “Do we want al Qaeda and Iran to win a victory in Iraq?”
    “No!” the vets screamed.
    Graham added, "More than anything else, we need you to win."
    “You want to know who wants you to come home more than anybody?” Graham continued. “Al Qaeda because you’re kicking their ass.”

I expect bud, among others, will have some thoughts to share on this subject…

An intriguing way out for Hillary

42 Replies

With John McCain beating either Democrat in polls, and the prospect of months of exhausting Democratic Party infighting ahead, an intriguing idea was offered on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal today. It was proposed as a way for Hillary Clinton to save face, and for the party to regain ground lost to the bitter primary campaign. And the power to act lies entirely in the hands of Harry Reid:

    The solution that is within his power is simpler, yet more profound than any of the extraordinary political events America has witnessed this election year. It requires only the rarest of things: an individual willing to set aside his own power and ambition for the good of his party and his country. It is this: Mr. Reid could step aside as leader of the Senate and hand the post to Mrs. Clinton. Only the proffer of this consolation prize would likely persuade Mrs. Clinton to drop her divisive, and now futile, quest for her party’s nomination.

Neither Sen. Reid nor Sen. Clinton is likely to actually listen to this advice, for a simple reason: The author of the piece is Richard N. Bond. Since he is a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, he is persona non grata to Democrats.

He would be persona non grata to me, too, as founder of the UnParty. But over the years, I’ve come to the conclusion that former party chairs can be decents sorts. Look at Henry McMaster and Joe Erwin (and don’t look at Dick "Bad Boy" Harpootlian; that would spoil the picture). And besides, it’s an important UnParty tenet to be open to good ideas wherever they may come from.

Is this a good idea? I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts. Read the whole piece, if the link allows you to, and let me know what you think.

An amusing aside (amusing to me, anyway, as a word guy). Mr. Bond is addressing himself to Democrats — sort of — yet he can’t help engaging in a linguistic tic that labels him immediately as a partisan Republican: He refers to "Democrat primaries," and "Democrat presidential hopefuls." What makes this stand out particularly is that he was actually trying to write in a neutral fashion, acknowledging the difference between a noun and an adjective. Elsewhere, he refers correctly to "a smashing Democratic win," "Democratic gains," "a dream Democratic year," and even, if you can believe it, "the Democratic Party!"

So he tried hard, but couldn’t quite carry it off. He reminds me of Gordon Jackson as Flight Lt. Sandy McDonald, "Big S" in "The Great Escape." Remember how he drilled prospective escapees in their German, and would trip them up by suddenly speaking English, causing them to speak English, and he’d lecture them on not falling for such a cheap trick? Then he fell for it himself during the actual escape. (I couldn’t find video of that scene, but as a consolation prize, here’s a clip of Steve McQueen’s legendary motorcycle chase scene.)

Habitual use or abuse of language carves deep ruts in the brain, and it’s hard to keep your tongue out of them, however hard you try.

Graham slaps down Sanford again — politely

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You’ll recall Lindsey Graham’s rebuke to his old friend Mark Sanford last week over the governor’s continuing efforts to divide the Republican Party.

As you can see on the video, he was polite and used mild language, but the rebuke was fairly firm nonetheless. Obviously, the Senator had decided it was time for someone to act like a party leader rather than an insurgent.

Well, he’s done it again, this time over the South Carolina reaction to Real ID. This release came in late Monday:

March 31, 2008

Graham on REAL ID and South Carolina
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) made this statement on South Carolina and REAL ID. 
    Graham said:
    “I am pleased South Carolina has been granted an extension by Secretary Chertoff regarding REAL ID compliance.  The decision was more than justified. 
    “The Governor has done an excellent job in explaining his concerns to federal officials, many of which I share.  Our state already meets 16 of the 18 compliance benchmarks – about 90 percent — called for in REAL ID.  Governor Sanford’s efforts to reform our state drivers’ license program has made the system more secure and efficient.
     “REAL ID grew out of recommendations made by the 9-11 Commission over the need for more secure forms of identification.  It was viewed as an effective means of cracking down on the use of fraudulent documents like those used by the 9/11 hijackers.  In addition, REAL ID would make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to obtain employment by tightening acceptable forms of identification.
    “I will do my part to help ensure the federal government addresses the unfunded mandate burden imposed on the states by REAL ID.  Governors and state legislatures across the country are rightfully concerned about these requirements.   
    “However, in this age of international terrorism we must secure the homeland.  We need better identification to protect air travel, access to federal buildings, institutions, and other high value terrorist targets.
    “I believe we can accommodate the legitimate national security needs of our nation with the concerns raised by Governor Sanford and the state legislature.” 

                    #####

As he said, there’s no excuse for unfunded mandates. At the same time, we need a better identification system for citizens, both for national security and immigration control reasons.

He points out that for all the hollering, South Carolina is already most of the way to compliance.

And as he concludes, we can address these important matters without all the ideological posturing and brinksmanship. We just have to act like grownups.

Those gutless feds

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We shouldn’t be a bit surprised that the feds caved in response to our governor’s libertarian snit-fit over Real ID. After what they’d done with Montana and New Hampshire, they couldn’t go all regulation on SC.

Of course, I suspect the governor was counting on that. However much the anti-government rebel he may want to seem, he tends to make his most dramatic gestures when there is somebody ready to break the fall. He knew the Legislature wouldn’t let him veto the budget. He knew somebody else (Will Folks?) was there to clean up the piglet poop. And he knew Michael Chertoff wouldn’t really inconvenience South Carolinians, which would have made 4 million people really ticked off at Mark Sanford.

Yes, unfunded mandates are bad. And yes, reasonable people can present arguments that Real ID has problems beyond that. (Gordon Hirsch presented a strong set of arguments back on this comment thread.)

But this little anticlimactic confrontation wasn’t about those things. It was about political theater, and everybody played his part. The Federal Government appeared in the role of The Wimp.

And don’t you just love the way they caved — pretending to give South Carolina the waiver that the governor petulantly refused to ask for?

The Department of Homeland Security isn’t even willing to stand its ground against political tantrums on the home front. Do you really think it’s prepared to do what it takes to defend the country?

Wright context doesn’t change message

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OK, I finally got around to watching one of those longer clips of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — specifically, one that contains the "God Damn America" part. I’ve been told many times that I just needed to get the context to understand that what he said shouldn’t be understood in the stark way that I have understood it.

The Rev. Joe Darby, in his op-ed piece on today’s page, suggested the same point:

… America is still focused on a few ten-second sound bites from Rev. Wright’s 30- or 40-minute sermons

Anyway, I watched this six-minute, 48-second clip — and it doesn’t change a thing. "God Damn America" still means "God Damn America." There’s no part in which he says, suggests or even hints that he didn’t really mean it, or that he thought America was in danger of damnation, and he wanted to save it. No, if anything, it’s clearer that he meant what he said.

But I think some of the well-meaning folks trying to explain all this to me are actually misunderstanding me. Start with the assumption that I somehow lack information. Aside from the above quote suggesting I need the context of the remark, the Rev. Darby also says:

Dr. Wright’s critics also need to learn more about the historically black church and its clergy…

I surely don’t claim to be an expert on the black church, especially in the presence of Joe Darby, who lives it. But no one has told me anything about the black church, in the course of "explaining" Mr. Wright to me, that I did not know. Sure, maybe something is lost in translation, but so far I’ve seen no indication that that’s what is at work this time.

But what Mr. Wright said is clear. The six-minutes-plus of context that went before "God Damn America" was exactly what I would have guessed went before it. Essentially, it was a review of history, mixed with a small dollop of political partisanship (the comparison of not-so-bad presidencies with the current one). Short version: The government has upheld oppression of black people during the course of American history.

Folks, I’m an American history major, and I’ve lived in this country for most of 54 years. What part of the rather sketchy overview in that sermon do you think I didn’t know already? If I’d been sermonizing, I could have added a lot to it — including the fact that the blood offering of the Civil War, as horrific as it was, seems to have been an inevitable sacrifice to expiate the sin of slavery. And I would have said the evil didn’t end there, nor could it, there being original sin in the world, and no one of us since Jesus Christ born free of it.

But I wouldn’t have said "God Damn America." Not in a million years. For me, the point of bringing up evil is to try to overcome it — as I believe two people Mr. Darby mentions (King and Bonhoeffer) were trying to do.

Sorry, but I can’t accept that the Rev. Wright was saying "things that challenge America to rise above its sins of prejudice and greed." No, if he’d said America was in danger of damnation, or headed straight thataway, rather as Jesus said to the Pharisees in the example cited by my colleague Warren Bolton this week, that might have been seen as a challenge, perhaps even a well-intentioned warning. (Personally, although he had more right, being God, than anyone else to do so, I don’t remember Jesus ever damning anything more sentient than a fig tree.)

But Mr. Wright didn’t call on us to do anything. Instead, he called on God to damn America.

One last point — Mr. Darby seems to assume, as have other writers, that those who say things like what I just said are against Obama. Well, I’m not. But just because I like a guy, I’m not going to sugarcoat a problem. As I said, Obama gave a brilliant speech, but he did not succeed in separating himself from what the Rev. Wright had said. He couldn’t. If he had disowned him at this point, it would have been crass opportunism, and beneath him.

So this guy I like — Obama — has a problem, one he can’t get rid of. Just as another guy I like, John McCain, is way old — nothing he can do about that, either.

I would suggest that if anyone out there supports a candidate and thinks that candidate is perfect, he should look a little harder. Nobody meeting that description has come along in two millennia. Thus endeth my sermon for today.

Graham on Sanford, S.C. politics

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Graham_008

Sen. Lindsey Graham made headlines today by rather dramatically breaking with his friend and fellow Republican Mark Sanford. Far from having a "list" of Republican lawmakers he’d like to get rid of, Sen. Graham gave a thumbs-up to the whole GOP field of officeholders in South Carolina.

So when he came by today to talk about Iraq, Iran, Europe and nuclear proliferation, before he left we inevitably got into S.C. politics, starting with a question from reporter John O’Connor about to what extent Mark Sanford is actually a veep contender.

Mr. Graham was careful only to say positive things about the governor, he did say something about himself that drew a contrast between the two of them. He said he was backing Republicans, regardless of whether he agreed with them totally or not, is because "I’m a party leader." Which of course suggests that certain other people are not, but he wasn’t going to say so.

He was much more forceful and articulate when talking geopolitics, of course. I plan to go back through the more substantive parts of the interview and see if I can can pull out a clip or two from those parts later. For now, I thought I’d share the part that dealt with today’s news story.

  

Earmark crusader still takes credit for SOME funds going back home

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Jim DeMint deserves a lot of credit for his crusade against earmarks. While we were reminded recently by Andrew Sorensen that earmarks are not necessarily always a bad thing — they’ve brought significant research funding to our universities — there’s no question that the whole process was out of control. Sen. DeMint has played a leadership role in embarrassing Democrats and Republicans alike on the issue, and on the whole I think that has had a salutary effect.

I was a little taken aback the last couple of days, though, when I received releases from Sen. DeMint announcing grant money for schools back here in South Carolina. No, they weren’t technically "earmarks." But by "announcing" these grants that were ostensibly "competitive" — which suggests that they were disbursed according to some criteria other than the political pull of a member of Congress — he is participating in the standard political practice of suggesting to the home folks that he is somehow responsible for this largesse.

And that, of course, is why politicians go after earmarks — so they can say to the folks back home, "Lookee what I brung you!" Here’s the release I received today:

Department of Education Awards $955,101 in Competitive Grants to Richland and Lexington School District 5

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) announced that Richland and Lexington School District 5 will receive $955,101 in competitive grants under the Teaching American History Grants program. This grant is designed to raise student achievement by improving teacher’s knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of U.S. history.  The program also aims to improve the quality of history instruction by supporting professional development for U.S. history teachers.

            ###

These releases do not cancel the cred Mr. DeMint has earned on the
earmarks issue. And they’re not a lot of money, and this one sounds like it’s
for a good cause (Lord knows we need to increase the level of understanding about our history in this country). They just seemed worth taking note of.