YouTube Video Ads Battle Over Proposition 8

Political activists are increasingly creating their own campaign advertisments and distributing them via YouTube.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the campaign for California's Proposition 8, which would authorize a state constitutional amendment banning gay marriages, has seen the creation of a number of citizens' ads, like this one from Grant Johnson:

The key text suggests:

The historic purpose for governmental recognition of marriage has been about children and society, not the relationship of two adults.

That message is remarkably similar to an opinion piece in the Times a couple of weeks back by David Blankenhorn, "Protecting Marriage to Protect Children" (this is the best commentary I've read on gay marriage, so please read and distribute widely).

By chance, I was just thinking about citizens' YouTubes yesterday while visiting Mr. RawMusleGlutes, who posted this "No on 8" video.

It turns out that support for Proposition 8 is trailing in the polls, a trend so far attributed to the opposition of young voters (which consequently means that voter turnout is likely to be significant in determining the measure's fate).

Metrolink Engineer Sent Text Message Before Crash

Robert Sanchez, the Metrolink engineer who was piloting the train that crashed in Simi Valley on September 12, had sent a text message seconds before the crash that killed at least 25 people and injured 135, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed that Sanchez had been text-messaging, but withheld additional information pending further investigation. The Times story, however, cites the reports from academic research on the crash:

Investigators have not said whether they think the text messages played any role in the crash or affected Sanchez's ability to operate the train. But the two USC academics calculated for The Times what may have happened just before the crash.

Using the NTSB figures that Sanchez's train was traveling 42 mph in the area from the red signal to the collision point and correlating the times of his text messaging, Najmedin Meshkati, a USC engineering professor and veteran transportation safety expert, estimated that the last text message would have been sent about five seconds after Sanchez sped past the signal.

Gokhan Esirgen, laboratory director for instructional physics at USC, also calculated that Sanchez would have sent the last message just after the light. He believes this timetable provided little or no time for Sanchez to react after he saw the oncoming train.

Even if Sanchez wasn't sending a text message at the exact moment of the crash, he may have had "inattention blindness," said David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor who's studied cellphone use's effect on motorists.

"If you're busy text messaging and you're taking a minute or so to key in a message, you're obviously not going to see the things that go by when you're looking at the keyboard and screen," said Strayer, adding that it often takes motorists five to 10 seconds to readjust their focus to the road.

Read the whole thing, here.

I followed the story closely the first couple of days after the crash, although I hadn't seen any formal confirmation of the text-messaging story beyond the first day's reporting (my wife first mentioned that the engineer had been sending text messages, which she had learned on the radio).

The Times ran an interesting graphic a couple of days after crash, which explained the deadly nature of the impact. It turns out that the two front engines of the freight train, which was heading southbound at about 41mph, weighed nearly twice as much as the entire Metrolink commuter train (545,000 each). The freight train's head-on impact drove the Metrolink locomotive back into the first passenger car of the commuter train, killing the occupants.

This story is devasting. My heart goes out the families and the survivors.

Congress will require that all train track-systems in the country will have smart technology to stop trains heading for collision by 2015. The systems are now in use in other parts of the country, but not California.

You Might Use It If You Feel Better...

Expectations are high for tonight's vice-presidential debate, and I'll have analysis on the event later today (but note for now that Gwen Ifill has permanently tarnished her reputation as an objective journalist, as she's blatantly in the tank for Obama).

In the meantime, please enjoy Steely Dan, "Rikki Don't Lose That Number":

Steely Dan is one of the great FM drive-time favorites, although I like the studio version of "Rikki" better than the live take here, particularly for its guitar solo (available here).

The Shape of the Race, 10-1-08

The New York Times reports that Barack Obama leads John McCain 48 to 42 percent in the latest NYT/CBS News poll.

The findings come as a number of other surveys also see Obama emerging as the frontrunner. Today's Pew Research poll, for example, finds Obama taking a 49 to 42 percent lead among registered voters, and CNN reports that the Illinois Senator's pulling ahead in a number of key battleground states (Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada and Virginia).

The Times piece puts things in perspective:

The contest between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama is far from over. It is being fought against the continued uncertainty over the turmoil on Wall Street and in the bailout negotiations in Washington. There are three potential turning points ahead — a vice-presidential debate on Thursday night and two more debates between Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama — and this election has regularly been shaken up by outside events that have tested both candidates and altered voters’ views.

Still, the trends signaled by this new wave of polls — coming at what both sides view as a critical moment in the contest — suggest that the contours of this race are taking form, and in a way that is not encouraging for Mr. McCain’s prospects.

The election cycle is entering a time when voters historically begin to make final judgments; this year, in fact, many of them are actually beginning early voting in states. What is more, the poll suggests voters have been guided by how Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama did in their debate last Friday, and also how they have responded to the crisis on Wall Street and the resulting deadlock in Washington about how to respond to it.

Note that we could indeed see some kind of "October Surprise" that dramatically reshapes the race, but it does appear at this point - with five weeks left in the season - that the Democrats have turned a corner.

If there's a bright side for the McCain camp it's that the remaining debates may help the GOP regain some momentum (and that includes the vice-presidential debate tomorrow, which is highly anticipated); also, if Congress can reach a respectable bailout bill on Capitol Hill this week or next, the sense of economic crisis may subside just enough for the race to tighten back up in the last couple weeks of the campaign.

The Politico reported this week that Republicans are getting worried and are urging McCain to go on the offensive against Obama. They're right to be concerned, and I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen more of an effort among conservatives (or a more coordinated effort) to define Obama more forcefully.

Of course, one of the big unknowns at this point is whether the considerable shock and outrage during the primaries over Obama's ties to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as well as to the remaining rogue's gallery of Obama's radical friends, has dissipated enough for the Democrats to slide into a win on November 4, to elect the most liberal presidential candidate since George McGovern.

**********

UPDATE: As a reminder of the era of partisanship that we're in, here's Markos Moulitsas' take on recent polling trends:

Many people will warn against "getting complacent". I like to approach this potential problem differently - we have a chance to rip out the GOP's jugular. We can throw them an anvil. We can kick them while they're down. No matter the metaphor, the underlying meaning remains - we can destroy the Republicans. Now's not the time to slack, it's the time to pick things up. We've got them in a near rout. Let's destroy them.

The word "campaign" has a military etymology, which comes through loud and clear with Kos' comments. I don't make predictions, but I can say that if the GOP turns it around, I'm won't be holding back from laying down some reciprocal phraseology.

Maybe We Could Last An Hour...

I'll be watching the Angels-Red Sox opener of the ALDS tonight, so political blogging might be light.

In meantime, please enjoy Joe Jackson's, "Breaking Us in Two," a song that popped into my mind yesterday morning for no particular reason:

I saw Jackson in concert at least three times in the 1980s, upon release of Night and Day, the chart-topping album featuring the hit "Stepping Out," in addition to "Breaking Us in Two."

Enjoy!

Grassroots Effort Ties Obama to Ayers, Rezko, and Wright

Via Wake Up America and the Politico, here's the anti-Obama ad buy from the Judicial Confirmation Network:

Here's an excerpt:

Choosing the right Justices is critical for America. We don't know who Barack Obama would choose, but we know this: He chose as one of his first financial backers a slumlord now convicted on 16 counts of corruption. Obama chose as an associate a man who helped to bomb the Pentagon and said he "didn't do enough." And Obama chose as his pastor a man who has blamed America for the 9/11 attacks. Obama chose to associate with these men, while voting against these men.

See more from the Judicial Confimation Network at the link.

Pelosi Sought Partisan Gain in Bailout Vote

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought partisan political gains for the Democratic Party, not economic rescue for the American people, in the vote on this week's Wall Street bailout bill. The Los Angeles Times reports:

When Nancy Pelosi was sworn in as the first Democratic House speaker in 12 years, she promised to reach across the aisle to Republicans, to be "speaker of the House -- the entire House." In tribute to that spirit, she dressed in purple -- blending the red and blue that are symbols of partisan division.

But she did not look like a speaker of the whole House this week, as the financial industry bailout she helped negotiate was unexpectedly defeated. Republicans deserted in droves, Democrats were split, and Pelosi ended the floor debate before the vote with a passionate critique of Republican economic policies.

The Wall Street meltdown is among the biggest issues to face Congress in decades, and it posed a daunting test of Pelosi's leadership abilities: Hardly anyone in either party wanted to vote for the bill to spend $700 billion to shore up ailing financial firms, but most everybody worried about the economic and political consequences of failing to act.

The bill's narrow defeat was in part a tribute to political forces far beyond Pelosi's control: The deep-seated mistrust between the parties has made it increasingly difficult for the House to address major national problems that cry out for bipartisan solutions. Her GOP counterpart, Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), is considered a weak minority leader, and President Bush's leverage within the party has all but vanished.

Still, Pelosi's handling of the issue provided a window onto her leadership style -- revealing the limits of her ability to win the trust of Republicans, to lean on her own rank and file, and to dispel her reputation as a polarizing figure.

Her closing speech was an assault on the Bush-era economic policies that Pelosi said had fueled the current financial woes. Some Republican leaders said Tuesday that her tone had cost them votes and contributed to the bill's defeat.

In truth, there was little in the San Francisco Democrat's speech that she had not said before. Brendan Daly, Pelosi's spokesman, said she intended it as a last-ditch effort to increase support from balky liberal Democrats.

Still, some analysts said that Pelosi's onslaught may have been ill-timed and reinforced Republicans' view of her as too partisan.

"The moment to make that speech is after the vote, not before it," said Leon E. Panetta, a former House Democrat from California. "It's obviously a sensitive moment when you have a close vote on your hands."

"It was very provocative," said Ross K. Baker, a Rutgers University political scientist who has worked as a Senate staffer. "When the issue is still in doubt, you don't poke a stick in the eye of the opposition."

After the bailout plan failed, Pelosi blamed Republicans for not having lived up to an agreement -- designed to give bipartisan cover to incumbents -- that each party would deliver half of its members in support of the bill. In the end, 60% of Democrats but only 33% of House Republicans voted for it.

Congressional leaders usually will not bring legislation to the floor unless they are sure it will pass -- especially when the stakes are so high.

Some critics now are asking whether Pelosi had faulty vote-counting intelligence. GOP leaders who were urging the rank and file to support the bailout plan said they told Democrats in advance that they did not have a lock on their votes but did not ask them to delay the debate. Democrats believed that Republicans were lowballing the count and that the measure would pass.

Others have questioned how committed Pelosi was to passing the bill because, once it became clear that it was failing, she made only limited efforts to change minds. She asked members of the Congressional Black Caucus, a bastion of opposition to the deal, to change their votes -- but did not deploy the kind of hardball tactics that leaders often use to win close contests.

There's enough blame to go around for the causes of the Wall Street collapse, and I have avoided taking a partisan approach to the issue. And while conservatives are pleased with the initial bill's defeat, the failure of the legislation also represents the hyper-partisanship of recent years, and in this instance the Democratic leadership's attempts to exploit and profit from it.

Pelosi's also in the news today with revelations that the Speaker paid her husband's business utilities bills and accounting fees with nearly $100,000 from her political action committee.

The most ethical Congress ever? Post-partisanship? Change we can believe in?

Yeah, right.

Palin is Formidable in Debates

There's some buzz this morning over GOP running mate Sarah Palin's debating style.

It turns out that Governor Palin's a confident debater who doesn't fluster easily. She's said to turn potential liability into strength with an ability to remain unruffled on issues of less familiarity. And on social policy - especially the value of human life - Palin speaks with authority and without hesitation, as seen in her Alaska gubernatorial debate in 2006:

Compare Palin's responses on the question of rape and abortion to Democrat Tony Knowles, who is completely flustered on his response to such a tragedy.

As this morning's Wall Street Journal indicates, Palin's a formidable debater:

There are two things people here remember about Sarah Palin's debating style during her race for governor two years ago.

One is the stack of color-coded cue cards she took to the podium for help whenever she was asked a policy question. The other is how quickly she was able to shuck those props, master the thrust-and-parry of jousting with her opponents and inquisitors, and project confidence to an audience of television viewers watching from home.

That's the Sarah Palin I remember from the 2006 debates: positive, confident and upbeat," recalls Libby Casey, an Alaska public-radio reporter who served as a debate moderator on two occasions that year.

Even the New York Times concedes Palin's no lightweight:

A newcomer to the national scene, Ms. Palin has given little indication that she has been engaged in a serious way in the pressing national and international issues of the day.

But a review of a handful of her debate performances in the race for governor in 2006 shows a somewhat different persona from the one that has emerged since Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, named Ms. Palin as the vice-presidential nominee a month ago.

Ms. Palin, a former mayor who had become a whistle-blower about ethical misconduct in state government, held her own in those debates.

Note too that while Democrats are hoping to raise expectations for Palin in tomorrow's debate, Joseph Biden himself is reportedly planning a low-key strategy, where's he's likely to go easy on Palin should she make a gaffe.

Palin may well end up meeting - even exceeding - expectations, and Biden's fear of coming on too strong - i.e., contemptuous and sexist - will rebound the the advantage of the GOP ticket (as some on the radical left have noticed).

Even more importantly, as ABC News reports, Palin's small-town charm and outsider status may provide a winning angle amid the financial crisis, allowing Palin to "field dress" a new set of expectations on the direction of the presidential race.

Protect Values, Protect America: Vote Life

Via Jill Stanek, here's the powerful video from Catholic Vote 2008:

Life, faith, and family ... now more than any other time in history ... a new generation must stand for truth ...

Vote life in 2008.

Don't Proclaim the Obama Era Just Yet!

I need to follow up my earlier entry, "Obama's Landslide Projection is Risky," with this truly wonderful post from Hillbuzz, "Here’s What’s Going to Happen For the Next Five Weeks":

The financial meltdown in Washington has been coming for the last two years. Ironically, ever since Democrats regained Congress and Nancy Pelosi became Speaker. We did not expect things to come to a head at this moment — instead, we believed Democrats were trying to keep the bubble aloft until mid-October, so the meltdown would happen just before the election. For whatever reason, this financial situation happened now, and it’s benefitted SoetorObama in the short term. The narrative this week will continue to be about a struggling economy in recession — which benefits SoetorObama as long as voters don’t think too long about his actual ability to do anything about the situation. When they think long and hard about their financial problems, then look at SoetorObama’s complete dearth of experience in economic matters, the fact he’s never run any kind of a business, and his complete lack of experience ever dealing with large-scale problems like this on a bipartisan basis, with real accomplishment, we believe voters will not put this country in the hands of the media’s darling — not when jobs, lives, and the economy are at stake.

Hillbuzz has a provocative discussion of Democratic voter mobilization for Barry Soetoro (the black Democratic base is already mobilized as the most loyal voting constituency in the nation, so new registrants may not in fact turnout), and then concludes thus:

We’re in the middle of a pro-SoetorObama news cycle that will end this weekend — when Sarah Palin exceeds expectations in the debate this Thursday and people get together on the weekend to talk about how much they liked her and how well they thought she did....

Next week will be back to another upswing for McCain, followed by another SoetorObama week, give or take.

About two and a half weeks before the election, in mid-October, for all of SoetorObama’s shady connections to come to light and for the GOP to do what SoetorObama in his two autobiographies and his two years of running for president failed to do: define him. The GOP will prove to the American people that SoetorObama is unfit for the presidency: not ready to lead, but also morally questionable in his judgment and decisions through the years.

The Obama camp and some of his supporters are a bit too optimistic. Yet, the McCain camp has its work cut out for it, first with helping Sarah Palin master the national media spotlight, and next in repositioning McCain as the bare-knuckled fighter he'll need to be if he's going to successfully battle the left-wing media machine's attempted elevation of Barry Soetoro to the White House.

The Activist Fifth Column Probama Mass Media

I like Jeff Goldstein's take on the Glenn Reynolds' "media-in-the-tank-for-Obama" e-mail:

What strikes me as most odious is that last bit in the Instapundit excerpt — “The fix is in, and its [sic] working” — an admission made all the more disheartening to those of us who realize that the press is becoming a willing accomplice in election rigging because it was just 4-years ago that Evan Thomas of Newsweek acknowledged the media’s complicity in this attempted anti-democratic, anti-American gambit. But rather than feel shamed at their failure to honor a contract with the public, the press has decided instead to double down and give up any pretense of being neutral — all to help elect a Stepford candidate forged from 60s radicalism and polished by Alinsky, Gramsci, and the philosophical precepts of progressive fascism.

Proof positive that those who have suspected the press of being an increasingly activist fifth column are not so much paranoid as they are perspicacious.

But don't miss the other side on the Reynolds' scoop, for example, TBogg and Whiskey Fire (hat tip: Memeorandum).

Worst Case Scenario

Back to the future?

Ross Douthat, responding to the economic crisis and the congressional stalemate, suggests a depression is the worst of three scenarios ahead. But read David Brooks as well, "Revolt of the Nihilists":

What we need in this situation is authority. Not heavy-handed government regulation, but the steady and powerful hand of some public institutions that can guard against the corrupting influences of sloppy money and then prevent destructive contagions when the credit dries up.

That's reminiscent to what I wrote previously, in "Conservatism, Neoconservatism, and Economic Crisis."

Photo: Florence Owens Thompson, by Dorothea Lange.

In the Tank: Media Fix For Obama?

What's the definition of "in the tank"? Perhaps this:

I think your answer for why a thrown fight is considered “in the tank” is located directly above the entry for “in the tank” in the sports writer’s handbook. An easy fight may be “in the bag,” but a thrown fight? Well, that’s in an even sturdier, more reliable receptacle. It’s in the tank.

How about a thrown election? Could be:

A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM EMAILS: "Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working." I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted.

Emphasis added, and there's more at the link.

Come to think about it, on abortion and ACORN alone, Barack Obama's skating free. He may get some critical press once in a while, but this notion that "editors refuse to publish anyting that would jeopardize" Obama's chances sounds eminently reasonable to me (for example, here).

Obama's Landslide Projection is Risky

The Daily Telegraph reports that Barack Obama believes he'll win the November election in a landslide:

Barack Obama's senior aides believe he is on course for a landslide election victory over John McCain and will comfortably exceed most current predictions in the race for the White House.

Their optimism, which is said to be shared by the Democratic candidate himself, is based on information from private polling and on faith in the powerful political organisation he has built in the key swing states.

Insiders say that Mr Obama's apparent calm through an unusually turbulent election season is because he believes that his strength among first time voters in several key states has been underestimated, both by the media and by the Republican Party.

Obama's confidence rests on his expectation to win in battlegrounds states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, where he suggests that extant polling has underestimated his appeal.

While there's no doubt that Obama's currently doing well relative to the GOP ticket, the Illinois Senator's theory underlying his landslide projection is suspect.

Gallup reported in June that voter enthusiasm dipped considerably at the conclusion of the primaries, and experts predict that young voters' enthusiasm turns into unreliable confusion in November. Additionally, it turns out that Obama's outreach efforts to unionized white-working class voters have proved difficult, as the New York Times reported this morning (from Wisconsin, where union activists say working-class voters often base their votes on non-economic issues, including race). Not only that, while dramatic turmoil in the economy continues, Americans see better times ahead, as soon as next year (58 percent as indicated in the new USA Today poll).

The way these variables interact depends on developments both in the economy and the campaign, although both Democratic and Republican operatives indicate things are looking good for the Obama camp.

Yet, Peter Wehner suggests a huge opening for John McCain:

Potentially, the most lethal political charge against Obama is that he is a deeply liberal/ideological figure who has associated with radical individuals in order to advance his political career. The question is whether Obama’s countenance and personal style make those charges seem far-fetched; or whether the McCain campaign can convince voters that Obama’s appeal is at its core fraudulent and his new-found centrism a mirage.

Members of both the left and right recognize Obama's genuine ideological radicalism, to the glee of the trolls of the left-wing fever swamps and to the consternation of conservatives (and see Stanley Kurtz's new essay, linking Obama to ACORN and the subprime mortgage crisis).

As it stands, other than Gallup, a number of other major surveys find Obama up only by four or five percentage points in national head-to-head matchups (today's Los Angeles Times and Rasmussen, for example); yet Obama is picking up ground in some key battleground states.

It remains to be seen, however, whether recent improvements warrant Obama's optimism.

Obama Sought Rape Victim for Ad Promoting Abortion

Jonathan Martin reports that Barack Obama looked into procuring the services of a rape victim to appear in a pro-abortion camaign ad buy:

Barack Obama's campaign earlier this month sought to find a rape victim to appear in a campaign commercial, according to an e-mail obtained by Politico.

Kiersten Steward, director of public policy at the Family Violence Prevention Fund, served as a conduit between the campaign and victims and women's advocates....

The Obama campaign wouldn't detail the strategy behind finding an individual to discuss such a sensitive topic but did suggest the ad may be aimed at underscoring their candidate's support for abortion rights and ongoing effort to retain those women who backed Hillary Clinton in the primary.

"Choice is an important issue, and we're going to continue talking about it in battleground states through the election," said spokesman Bill Burton.

Virginia is one of those swing states that Obama is especially focused on, and that's where one rape victim received the request to appear in an ad.

Mikele Shelton-Knight declined to do so, but said in an interview that she was glad the Obama campaign was seeking to highlight the issue.

There's likely more to it than that ... perhaps Shelton-Knight found distasteful the prospect of becoming the poster-girl of the Democratic-left's pro-abortion fanaticism.

Barack Obama's an abortion extremist, Senator Infanticide.

Obama's bid to exploit tragedy is just one more example of how the left devalues life. Family-planning organizations counsel abortion as a "solution" to rape, but research shows that women feel more guilt over aborting their pregnancies than being victims of sexual assualt. The abortion industry is all about rights, except those for the baby who might come into this world, an innocent child that in the end signal's God's ultimate blessing of healing.

Obama himself has said that women shouldn't have to be "punished" with a child, and he refused as a member of the Illinois state legislature to guarantee the right to life for infant abortion survivors.

It's no suprise that the driving factor in the radical left's demonization campaign against Sarah Palin has been the Alaska Governor's living threat to the ideology of abortion on demand. Obama's effort to exploit rape victims to advance the cause of abortion extremism is logically part and parcel to that.

Palin Operation Gets Upgrade Ahead of Veep Debate

The Wall Street Journal reports that GOP running mate Sarah Palin's campaign operation is getting an upgrade ahead of Thursday night's vice presidential debate:

The McCain campaign moved its top officials inside Gov. Sarah Palin's operation Sunday to prepare for what is certain to be the most important event of her vice-presidential campaign: her debate on Thursday with Democrat Joe Biden.

Additionally, at the urging of the Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, Gov. Palin will leave late Monday for his Arizona ranch to prepare for the high-stakes debate.

The moves follow several shaky performances by Gov. Palin last week and come amid concern and grumbling from Republicans, and even a few queries from her husband, Todd Palin, according to campaign operatives and Republican officials.

McCain campaign manager Rick Davis and senior adviser Steve Schmidt are planning to coach the candidate ahead of the debate, according to senior advisers. They traveled Sunday to meet the Republican vice-presidential nominee in Philadelphia. After her appearance with Sen. McCain at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, these top officials plan to fly with her on Monday to Sen. McCain's ranch in Sedona, Ariz., which they hope she will find a comforting place to prep, these people said.

More broadly, the McCain campaign aims to halt what it sees as a perceived decline in the crispness and precision of Gov. Palin's latest remarks as well as a fall in recent polls, according to several advisers and party officials.

The concern's not without merit. But I don't think the left's demonic ridicule masters should start counting chickens.

As William Kristol notes this morning:

In the debate, Palin has to dispatch quickly any queries about herself, and confidently assert that of course she’s qualified to be vice president.

In other words, Palin needs to get back to being herself.

Joseph Biden is a 35-year veteran of the Congress, and bloviating sexist. He'll be walking on eggshells to avoid looking like an intemperate pig. Palin needs to have a ready comeback for Biden's over-confident preening, a "there you go again" moment that will put that stuffed suit in his place, revealing the utter hypocrisy of his attacks on Washington. A nice target will be the blatant corruption of Biden's son, Hunter, who just resigned as a corporate lobbyist in shame.

Conservatism, Economic Crisis, and American Power

I'm seeing an interesting reaction to last night's post, "Conservatism, Neoconservatism, and Economic Crisis."

It's not often that one gets attacked and ridiculed for having honesty and integrity, but that seems to be the case here.

Most vocal is the initial comment from an arch paleoconservative, "HarrisonBergeron2," of the Conservative Heritage Times. He's joined by a fellow who calls himself "The Angry Republican" in the comment thread. They're both followers of Ron Paul, and his tinfoil hat-style of extreme right-wing ideology (see "Ron Paul and the Fringe of American Politics"). Paleocons harbor a well-known hatred for neoconservatives, which in many respects puts them in bed with the antiwar left on questions of war and peace, and apparently on the economy as well.

So what's the beef?

The issue surrounds what might be called "the neocon approach" to the current economic crisis. Recall Jacob Heilbrunn's essay this weekend, which takes a look at variations of conservative thought. Heilbrunn argues that George W. Bush is hardly conservative when it comes to economic management and the expansion of the state sector. Not only does Bush's big goverment neoconservatism rile paleocons, but some of the top conservatives on the mainstream contemporary right as well, like Newt Gingrich and Michelle Malkin.

As I suggested at the post:

Americans expect an activist role for a substantial state sector, even conservatives. Until we are willing to peel back the entitlement culture and the regime of unchecked non-discretionary spending, much of the talk about fiscal conservativism is a ruse. The federal government is society's safety net, in most aspects of life. When things get rough, no other agent in American life has the legitimate power and resources to act to preserve basic functions and institutions, and hence to guarantee the survival of the republic.

Some may have read into this passage more than my meaning. The simple fact is that all modern industrialized democracies are advanced technocracies with large social welfare states. The notion of small-g conservative is fine in principle, but the U.S. has never really enjoyed a truly libertarian economic structure, the kind Hayekian libertarians advocate.

As the economist Robert Shiller points out today at the Washington Post, a strong role for government intervention in the economy is as old as the republic:

Americans may assume that the basics of capitalism have been firmly established here since time immemorial, but historical cataclysms such as the Great Depression strongly suggest otherwise. Simply put, capitalism evolves. And we need to understand its trajectory if we are to bring our economic system into greater accord with the other great source of American strength: the best principles of our democracy.

No, our economy is not a shining example of pure unfettered market forces. It never has been. In his farewell address back in 1796, 20 years after the publication of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations," George Washington defined the new republic's own distinctive national economic sensibility: "Our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing." From the outset, Washington envisioned some government involvement in the commercial system, even as he recognized that commerce should belong to the people.

Capitalism is not really the best word to describe this arrangement. (The term was coined in the late 19th century as a way to describe the ideological opposite of communism.) Some decades later, people began to use a better term, "the American system," in which the government involved itself in the economy primarily to develop what we would now call infrastructure - highways, canals, railroads -- but otherwise let economic liberty prevail. I prefer to call this spectacularly successful arrangement "financial democracy" - a largely free system in which the U.S. government's role is to help citizens achieve their best potential, using all the economic weapons that our financial arsenal can provide.

So is the government's bailout a major departure? Hardly. Today's federal involvement offers bailouts as a strictly temporary measure to prevent a system-wide financial calamity. This is entirely in keeping with our basic principles - as long as the bailout promotes, rather than hinders, financial democracy.

Like myself, Shiller sees federal intervention as guaranteeing the survival of our economic institutions, and this is a temporary intervention that may well serve as the catalyst to a new wave of dynamism that transforms the American marketplace.

From a neoconservative perspective, which sees a role for government regulation of the economy and the military-industrial sector, the administration's policies are reminiscent of the response we saw to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The nation faces a fundamental crisis, and an expansion of the state in response is both necessary and proper.

Indeed, Anne Applebaum notes that the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15 was "an economic 9/11":

The September 11 metaphor is a weary one: too many events, in recent years, have been described as "a new September 11", or "England's September 11", or even "football's September 11". Still, it might be worth rescuing the phrase one last time.

For if September 11, 2001 was the day that we had to reassess our ideas about America's role in world politics, September 15, 2008, the day Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, may well be remembered as the day we had to reassess our ideas about America's role in the world economy. It's that cataclysmic, that decisive, that irreversible.

Beyond this comparison, Applebaum's thesis is that instead of uniting the country (as we say in 2001, the Wall Street's financial mess has sent the country into a partisan funk, upending "our national psyche."

Applebaum's conclusion offers some speculation on whether the current economic crisis marks the end of America's international economic preponderance. She doubts it, but amazingly, some anti-Americans on the left are hoping that this month's collapse will weaken the United States and foment the rise of a true multipolar world order that effectively rein-in U.S. power and ambition.

I wouldn't bet on it, however:

As the world grapples with the fallout from Wall Street's shenanigans, there's no shortage of consternation, and even anger. But so far the international image of the U.S. economic model has shown amazing resilience. Lehman Brothers may be in the morgue and AIG on government-funded life support, but most businesspeople think the U.S. is more about Silicon Valley and Hollywood than the erstwhile dynamos of Wall Street. Even in China—where broadcaster CCTV-2 has been running two hours of special programming every night about the financial crisis—the U.S. is still a land to be emulated.

It's more than perception, however. Every major international crisis or domestic setback the U.S. has faced has been met with cries on both left and right that America's in relative economic decline. Yet, the more likely scenario, as Applebaum notes, is that if the U.S. ecoonomy goes down, the rest of the world will go down with it. Not only that, there's no ready alternative to American world economic leadership. The dollar still finances more than 90 percent international trade in goods and services, and the U.S. market is the destination for both people and products from every shore abroad.

This is not to say the way out of our crisis is guaranteed, or that it will be easy. It does suggest that simplistic notions calling for some pastoral states-centered economic system in the U.S. is silly. On top of that, expectations that the Wall Street crash heralds the end of the American global protectorate is wishful thinking at best, and implacable America-bashing at worst.

Folks need to step back a bit, and think things through. We are facing a grave crisis, and in times of trauma often Americans turn to Washington for help as well as their own perserverance. Our traditions and our republic will endure, and they'll continue to adapt and evolve, as they always have.

Conservatism, Neoconservatism, and Economic Crisis

Last Sunday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich offered a compelling conservative critique to Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's Wall Street rescue plan. According to Gingrich, "this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money is being proposed by a Republican administration, [and] the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused."

Not all conservatives were silent nor confused, however. The day after Gingrich spoke out, Michelle Malkin asked, "Will the real fiscal conservatives please stand up?"

In the comments here, at some of my posts on the bailout, I've seen considerable conservative skepticism and outrage at the enormity of Washington's financial rescue activities over the last few weeks. As readers may recall, I've mostly just reported on the developments, without advocating one way or the other (the exception being my post on the left-wing protests against the administration in New York and Washington). I have, of course, been amazed with the concentration of power in the Treasury Department under Secretary Paulson, and I've entertained the idea that the $700 billion rescue may indeed work to stablilize markets and restore confidence in the economy, helping to shift the system back toward financial recovery.

There's a couple of reasons for this: One, frankly, we're in a fast-moving and complicated period of economic crisis, and I'm like many others who are sorting their way through events, trying to get a handle on things. More than that, secondly, is that I don't disagree ideologically with the direction the adminstration has taken. The scale of the banking fallout certainly is unprecedented in my lifetime. Wall Street as it's been known throughout the 20th century - one composed of big investment banks and brokerages - no longer exists; and I see the Paulson plan as providing the stability and structure that will allow American capitalism to survive the seemingly existential shakeout now at hand.

That said, what's happening now economically and politically raises fundamental questions about the direction of conservatism, a continuation of the debate we were seeing on the right before the GOP primaries commenced in January: What happened to the Reagan legacy? Can small-g conservativism make a comeback?

While we may never again see another Ronald Reagan, lots of conservatives won't be too happy to see George W. Bush take his last ride out of Washingtion on Air Force One.

Jacob Heilbrunn takes a look at the Bush administration's handling of the crisis, with an eye toward the administration's legacy for the conservative movement:

Bush’s break with traditional conservatism is not a sudden development. Some of his most far-reaching measures — the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind education policy and, most emphatically, the costly Medicare prescription drug benefit — cut against the grain of that orthodoxy.

To Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and author of “Leviathan on the Right,” Mr. Bush is not a conservative by any definition. “Anybody would be more restrained than Bush,” Mr. Tanner said. “Bill Clinton was a more conservative president than Bush” because Mr. Clinton “balanced the budget.”

Mr. Bush’s thinking, it appears, is rooted in a rival conservative vision. In this view, big government is here to stay and the job of conservatives is to convert it to the proper uses. The most articulate proponents of this idea include thinkers like Irving Kristol, who as early as the 1970s identified a new mission for conservatives — not to destroy government but rather to wrest control of it from a “new class” composed of professors, educators, environmentalists, city planners, sociologists and others trying to steer the economy toward a “system so stringently regulated in detail as to fulfill many of the traditional anticapitalist aspirations of the left.”

Mr. Kristol understood that Americans had grown accustomed to the services government provides. The conservative mission must be to transfer some of that power to private enterprise by slashing taxes while also fostering a religiously based moral vision for society.

And it is essentially this argument that has advanced throughout much of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

President Bush's vision, therefore, is a neoconservative vision that is far from hostile to the role of a large bureaucratic state in the development and administration of mass industrial policy, regulation, and social provision. As Irving Kristol once noted:

Neocons do not like the concentration of services in the welfare state and are happy to study alternative ways of delivering these services. But they are impatient with the Hayekian notion that we are on "the road to serfdom." Neocons do not feel that kind of alarm or anxiety about the growth of the state in the past century, seeing it as natural, indeed inevitable.

One doesn't have to be neoconservative to agree with this view.

The development of the modern industrialized state has been the development of bureaucratic, technocratic government power and scope. To think that the U.S. will return to some kind of early-19th century agrarian model of state-centered federalism is naïve. That's not to say we shouldn't seek to downsize the role of the state. It's simply to realize that the massive size of the federal goverment today is the result of the increase in government responsibility in all aspects of life, economic, military, and social, and the hopes to turn back the tide to an earlier era of libertarian small government are a bit wistful.

Americans expect an activist role for a substantial state sector, even conservatives. Until we are willing to peel back the entitlement culture and the regime of unchecked non-discretionary spending, much of the talk about fiscal conservativism is a ruse. The federal government is society's safety net, in most aspects of life. When things get rough, no other agent in American life has the legitimate power and resources to act to preserve basic functions and institutions, and hence to guarantee the survival of the republic.

In Contempt: McCain Wanted to "Demonize the Enemy"?

The early word this morning on last night's presidential debate held that the nation saw stark contrasts between the candidates, but "neither emerged as the obvious winner except to their partisans."

Actually, maybe the perception of a win for Barack Obama isn't as obvious as his left-wing supporters might like. With the exception of an odd post here or there, few Obama backers are ready to say the Illinois Senator hit a home run. Indeed, with the debate a draw, folks are looking for idiosyncracies or anomalies with which to blow up into a major news story. I heard George Stephanopolous say twice last night that "McCain didn't make eye contact," or just thereabouts.

Well, that's it: The left wants McCain's concentration and focus to be the week's big attack meme. Josh Marshall's been leading the partisan charge, for example, saying McCain was an "angry" old man this morning. That spin's turning to something allegedly more sinister: McCain is being said to have held Obama in contempt, and as Eugene Robinson claims in the interview with Chris Matthews below, McCain wanted to "demonize his enemy":

Steve Benen's now working to get the "contempt" meme viral:

After the initial dust settles on a presidential candidate debate, Phase II begins - the media moves beyond who said what, and starts looking for some overlooked trend to obsess over.

The quintessential example was, of course, Al Gore "sighing" during the first of the three debates in 2000. A few people noticed Gore's breathing the night of the debate, but a day or two later, it became the story. To a lesser extent, Bush's bizarre facial features, and the apparent bump under his suit jacket, became fodder for discussion four years ago.

So, what's the stylistic story from last night? It may be John McCain's willingness to be ... what's the word I'm looking for ... something of a jerk....

The specific and unusual rules of last night's debate were intended to generate more interaction between the two candidates. Jim Lehrer seemed intent, at least early on, to get the two to engage each other directly. Obama mostly spoke to the camera last night, but he didn't hesitate to speak directly to McCain.

McCain, on the other hand, went out of his way, it seemed, to not even look in Obama's direction. Chris Matthews described this as a sign of "contempt," which struck me as the right description.

Benen concludes his piece with a coy disclaimer, offering doubts that the "contempt" meme might generate significant traction.

That's baloney, of course. CNN's already spinning the focus group data toward an Obama "win" last night (when in fact Democrats are overrepresented in the samples), and some in the leftosphere are working hard to portray Obama as having put McCain down for the count.

I've followed McCain's presidential campaign like an addict all year, and I have never heard it on good faith that John McCain literally holds Barack Obama in contempt.

I saw McCain last night as a candidate at the top of his game, which was a phenomena in itself, considering the stressful week of events, and McCain's breakneck pace in working to ease the financial crisis. The Arizona Senator, frankly, was in the groove in Mississippi, and he wasn't about to knocked off his stride by slick debating tricks or slippery evasions. As David Yepson argued last night, "McCain never got rattled or flustered, he just constantly stayed focused on the attack."

Not only that, if there's truly been any "contempt" and efforts to "demonize the enemy" this year, that program's been on the left of the spectrum, especially with the full-blown cultural revolt we've seen in response to Sarah Palin's nomination, but also in the earlier efforts to portray McCain as a bloodthirsty neo-imperial warmonger who would keep the U.S. in Iraq for 100 years, and as a feeble geriatric whose "hair was whiter than his teeth."

The left's hysteria surrounding McCain/Palin continues to build, amazingly. Barack Obama didn't do as well as he should have last night, and his partisans are going to make it even worse for him.

Debate Shows Obama Not Ready to Lead

Here's John McCain's new ad buy slamming Barack Obama as "Not Ready to Lead":

Neither candidate in last night's debate emerged as a clear winner, although many leftists concede that Obama's performance was far from spectacular.

Barack and Michelle Obama don't look all that pleased with the performance, for example, as seen walking off stage immediately following the debate:

Meanwhile, CNN has a lead story with the headline, "Round 1 in Debates Goes to Obama, Poll Says."

Yet, as Noah Pollack reports, more Democrats watched the debate, and were thus over-sampled:

Buried way, way down at the bottom of the story — hopefully, one surmises, past the point where anyone would read — is the following:

The results may be favoring Obama simply because more Democrats than Republicans tuned in to the debate. Of the debate-watchers questioned in this poll, 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Democrats, 27 percent as Republicans and 30 percent as independents.

I’m far from being a polling expert, but this is obviously a slanted poll.

Pollock's right, which means that the consensus among the punditocracy is accurate as well: John McCain, not known for powerful oratory, did better than expected, and in fact was successful in highlighting his towering foreign policy credentials in contrast to Obama's inexperience.

So what's the left to do?

Focus on any angle they can to keep up their relentless smears against the GOP ticket. The fertile ground? McCain's "lack of eye contact," which is apparently the opening Josh Marshall needs to paint McCain as angry and psychologically unstable, even animal-like:

Here's one comment we got from TPM Reader EO ...

As a psychotherapist and someone who treats people with anger management problems, we typically try to educate people that anger is often an emotion that masks other emotions. I think it's significant that McCain didn't make much, if any, eye contact because it suggests one of two things to me; he doesn't want to make eye contact because he is prone to losing control of his emotions if he deals directly with the other person, or, his anger masks fear and the eye contact may increase or substantiate the fear.

I noticed him doing the same thing in the Republican primary debates. The perception observers are likely to have is that he is unwilling to acknowledge the opponent's legitimacy and/or is contemptuous of the opponent.

And here's another note from TPM Reader TB. I guess I'm really not sure quite how to characterize it ...

I think people really are missing the point about McCain's failure to look at Obama. McCain was afraid of Obama. It was really clear--look at how much McCain blinked in the first half hour. I study monkey behavior--low ranking monkeys don't look at high ranking monkeys. In a physical, instinctive sense, Obama owned McCain tonight and I think the instant polling reflects that.

So McCain may have given away his status as a low-ranking monkey. I'd never even considered monkey rank.

It turns out that the attack-potentional arising from the psycho-simian meme looked so promising that Marshall checked out his commenter's scientific credentials, which - joy! - turned up as legitimate.

Hooray! Obama's poor debate performance may not turn out so bad after all!

The Illinois Senator's not only got CNN in the tank for post-debate polling manipulations, but the nihilist leftosphere can perform clean-up work with a novel round of "McSimian" attacks (and make themselves look even more racist simultaneously - Obama a "high-ranking monkey"? Sheesh...).

It's just keeps getting better...

A Glimpse of Left-Wing America

Is the era of "post-partisan" America upon us, with the possible accession to power of "The One" in January? I wouldn't bet on it, if this video showing the left's reaction last Sunday in Manhattan to - blasphemy! - a pro-McCain victory march:

The Jawa Report suggests the scene is "a painful glimpse into a segment of America which is insular, bigoted and mired in despair."

The original hat tip goes to The People's Cube:

These useful intellectuals turn out to be not as peaceful, inclusive, and open-minded as they claim to be. Take a peek into the glorious progressive world they want us to live in - they display zero tolerance to the opposing viewpoint, yet they want to impose their rule over our lives. Fugedaboudit! Republicans should be lucky New York doesn't have a Colosseum with lions.

I've been covering this stuff all week (with some predictable backlash), but for an even better overview of contemporary leftist ideology, see Dr. Sanity, "Competition for the Most Unhinged is Fierce - But There's a New Leader of the Pack" (and the winner is ... Naomi Wolf).

American Power Fan Mail

I must be doing a great job lately.

My essays have been getting linked by a considerable number of blogs on the left-wing fringe, like At Largely, LGM, Stump Lane, and TBogg.

The traffic's nice, thank you, but the comments at the posts get old fast. My skin's thickened up a bit over the last couple of years, so I don't get too bothered by the attacks. Besides, it's like Mike's America once told me: "It's a badge of honor ... you know you're really getting to 'em."

My writing's been all over the place on the issues, but a common theme is often Palin Derangement Syndrome (or just left-wing nihilism generally).

But apparently my post on Matt Taibbi's way-over-the-top attack on the Alaska Governor generated some considerable resentment, at least if this e-mail from an outraged lefty is any indication:

I was going to say sophomoric...

But pathetic is better. You say you “despise the hard left agenda” yet you “abhor irrationalism.” Your diatribe on Taibbi’s Oct. 2 Rolling Stone article has no rationalism in it. It is as fully emotional and full of invective as the piece of writing you criticize, just nowhere near as imaginative and insightful. And you are just plain unoriginal and ordinary. I guess that explains why he’s a nationally syndicated writer and TV personality and you are a pathetic blogger. You are a hypocrite too, but that’s not surprising; I’ve found it to be a necessary prerequisite for neoconservatism. That you are an Associate Professor, even of some podunk JC in the OC, yet aren’t well schooled and self-critical enough about your blather to catch and edit obvious oxymorons is also not surprising considering the poor state of education in this country. Nor is it surprising, based on the above, that you would tout your academic credentials and spout your mindless, uncritical slavish patriotism (“I fully support current U.S. military operations throughout the world”) in one breath. (I doubt there is one American general that would make that blanket of a statement. Certainly many have voiced the contrary.) Do the world a favor. Stop masquerading as someone who’s got anything at all important to say about anything and make yourself at least of some use by getting a manual labor job. Leave the thinking to those who are endowed with intelligence and real learning.

I must be getting up there in the "wingnutiasphere," perhaps along with Michelle Malkin, who gets this stuff in her inbox routinely.

All in a day's work, I guess.

(And note, as well, that I did - finally, ha! - get linked at Newshoggers a while back, which was a tremendous success after years of tormenting old Cernig, the nihilist, enemy-cheering proprietor of that concern.)

Paul Newman, 1925-2008

Sometimes one doesn't realize how much we adore an actor until they're gone. That's the way it is with Paul Newman, who passed away Friday at his home in Westport, Connecticut.

I mention this while reading the New York Times' obituary, which lists so many of Newman's films, and not only American classics, but movies that I saw upon commercial release.

Unlike say, Marlon Brando or Cary Grant, I took in many of Newman's films at the theaters.

I must have seen "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" a half-a-dozen times (or that's what I remember; if that's an exaggeration, maybe the couple of times I did see the movie had an exponential impact). We had a small movie theater at the mall by my house. This was in the early-1970s, when I was in junior high. My parents let me go to the movies on the weekends by myself or with friends. "Butch Cassidy" is the film that reminds me most of that time. We didn't have cable TV back then, or iPods. It was still the age of the golden cinema, and nowadays I always hope that going to the movies will bring back the sense of fun and escape I had in those days - a carefree kid, really, innocent and out for a little getaway.

I remember, too, that Robert Redford was the heartthrob in all these flicks (like "The Sting"), but Newman was the sly joker, and he played off Redford magnetism just perfectly. I love the horseback getaway scene in "Butch Cassidy," where Newman and Redford are about to jump off the cliff and Redford says "I can't swim," and Newman says, "Are you kidding? The fall alone will kill ya!"

I don't remember the movie as a comedy, however. It's a tragedy when Butch and Sundance die in the blaze of bullets at the end, and the fade-away scene is a classic of motion picture artistry (reprised, for example, in 1991's "Thelma and Louise"). I just didn't want that movie to end...

Other films, like "Cool Hand Luke," I saw on Saturday afternoon's hanging around my parents house. I think I'm a lot like Luke, likely to spend the night in "the box" for getting too ornery for my keepers.

Anyway, I imagine I could go on.

I've only met a few actors in my life, and my dad once told me that Newman wasn't friendly to common folk, that he was cranky and stuck up. I always remembered that in watching his films. We like our stars on the screen so much, we don't want a negative image or personal background story to ruin it for us.

It happened to me, for example, with Sigourney Weaver. I bumped into her in Santa Barbara at a children's shoe store where we were both getting footwear for our kids. I lit up with the biggest smile and said hello to her, but she barely acknowledge me and went on about her business. That's certainly undstandable (while less forgivable), but it reminded me of what my old man has said about Newman. I don't know if he was a cranky guy to strangers - I had no personal experience with it. He did brighten many a Saturday afternoon for me, and his stunning good looks and clever deviousness endeared him to everyone.

May he rest in peace, and best wishes go out to his family.

Dancing in September ... Never Was a Cloudy Day!

My ace regular, Kreiz, put in a request for some Earth Wind and Fire, "September," so please enjoy (I like the psychedelics in the video, by the way):

I've been meaning to get back to my "lightening up" series with some more music, so stay tuned (and I'm in a punky mood as well, so we'll be rockin'!).