California: The Broken State

The Economist has the best analysis I've read on California's governing crisis, "California: The Ungovernable State":

ON MAY 19th Californians will go to the polls to vote on six ballot measures that are as important as they are confusing. If these measures fail, America’s biggest state will enter a full-blown financial crisis that will require excruciating cuts in public services. If the measures succeed, the crisis will be only a little less acute. Recent polls suggest that voters are planning to vote most of them down.

The occasion has thus become an ugly summary of all that is wrong with California’s governance, and that list is long. This special election, the sixth in 36 years, came about because the state’s elected politicians once again—for the system virtually assures as much—could not agree on a budget in time and had to cobble together a compromise in February to fill a $42 billion gap between revenue and spending. But that compromise required extending some temporary taxes, shifting spending around and borrowing against future lottery profits. These are among the steps that voters must now approve, thanks to California’s brand of direct democracy, which is unique in extent, complexity and misuse.

A good outcome is no longer possible. California now has the worst bond rating among the 50 states. Income-tax receipts are coming in far below expectations. On May 11th Arnold Schwarzenegger, the governor, sent a letter to the legislature warning it that, by his latest estimates, the state will face a budget gap of $15.4 billion if the ballot measures pass, $21.3 billion if they fail. Prisoners will have to be released, firefighters fired, and other services cut or eliminated. One way or the other, on May 20th Californians will have to begin discussing how to fix their broken state.

Spend a few minutes reading the entire article. With the exception of the discussion of Democratic and Republican officeholders as "extremists," this is a much better overview than you'll find in day-to-day reporting at the Los Angeles Times or elsewhere. This chart was also handy:

I had lunch with the president of my college, Eloy Oakley, on Thursday. The meeting was an informal brown-bag luncheon with interested faculty. Perhaps forty professors were there. Eloy spoke for about 20 minutes. Things don't look good for community colleges. Eloy just wants to make it through 2011 without too much pain, i.e., layoffs. After that, economic projections suggest an economic turnaround and perhaps growth in the state's revenue picture.

I'm not torn about this at all. I'll vote against all the ballot measures except 1F, which will freeze legislative salaries. We have a budget "crisis" in California every year. I'm tired of "ballot-box budgeting" because it's so irresponsible, and for all the benefits of direct legislation and citizens' activism, the initative process in California helps to destroy republican government. Actually, the initiatives exacerbate the constitutional dysfunction, especially the 2/3 requirement for both tax increases and budget approval. The Economist suggests that Calfornia needs a consitutional convention to deal with these structual issues. I'm all for it. The essay makes clear the potential for interest groups and hyper-partisans to hijack a convention. The idea is thus to require only budget issues to be addressed (keeping hot-button social issues away from the body).

Whatever happens, the article made me a little upset to think that the state that literally blazed the trail to progressive government in the United States, roughly 100 years ago, now has the most ungovernable political system in the union.

More later ...

Image Credits: The Economist.

I Bring You Everything That Floats Into Your Mind...

I spent the day chauffeuring my kids to their activities. This, of course, includes listening to my oldest son's radio station. So, while some youngsters might like Pitbull's "I Know You Want Me," I think I'll hold off one that one for now. (Although Pitbull's hotties might qualify for some "Rule 5" action!).

Instead, please enjoy one of Sheryl Crow's all-time best recordings, "Anything But Down" (the song begins shortly, after the advertisement):

The song appeared on Crow's 1998 CD, The Globe Sessions.

I remember when I bought the disc. It was a Saturday. I was with my oldest - and at that time only - son. I couldn't remember the name of the song, and I remembered hearing "Anything But Down" only vaguely. But I knew I really liked it. So, I popped in the disc in the changer, and started going down the tunes. My son kept shaking his head no until the it started (the song's #7 on the CD). He doesn't remember, but it's one of those "daddy" moments I'll never forget.

(Side Tech Note: The lyrics to The Globe Sessions were included on video at the CD, and thus were available when played on a PC. This was 11 years ago, and pretty cool at the time ...)

Sheryl Crow has a few other excellent songs ("The First Cut is the Deepest"), but some of her stuff became way too commercial ("Soak Up the Sun"). On balance, though, Crow would be on the top of my list to get a backstage pass to one of her concerts.

More later ...

Hateful Intolerance at LGM? Shocked, Shocked!

You've just got to love the nihilist lefties sometimes!

It turns out that Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money (a.k.a., Lesbians, Gays, and Marriage) is shocked - shocked! - to find hated-filled intolerance in his comments section.

Farley, apparently, just returned from Seattle. While gone he had Professor Charli Carpenter write a guest essay. Professor Carpenter's an expert on gender and humanitarian intervention in international politics. She also a co-blogger at Duck of Minerva.

Well, she took a hit from Farley's regular commentocracy at her guest essay, "Careless Warfare or Lawfare? A Pointless Debate." Farley then wrote a chivalrous post to defend her. He writes:

I'm a bit befuddled by the apparent influx of an army of trolls in my absence ... I was extremely disappointed by this comment thread, and in particular that one of my favorite regular commenters saw fit to mount his high horse and dismiss Charli as "a technician of empire" for making a set of entirely reasonable claims about airstrikes in Afghanistan ... Regular commenters incur some responsibility for civility, but more importantly they have a responsibility to behave as if the bloggers and the other regular commenters are acting in good faith. This means that you can't simply denounce a blogger as "a technician of empire," and thus unworthy of engagement, after a single post. At LGM we ban people because of arbitrary drunken whim; no one is safe. That said, consistenly treating the bloggers and other commenters as idiots who act in bad faith (and to be sure, I don't think that the commenter in question has established such a pattern of behavior; far from it) is, in the fullness of time, likely to get you banned.

Oh poor Robbie! The faux outrage is exquisite! And boy, how about that determination and resolve: "No one is safe!" My God, what would life be like without posting privileges at LGM! A poor soul's life would be ruined to meet such a fate!

"Be not so long to speak. I long to die"!

Seriously, that's offensive? Suggesting that Professor Carpenter is "a technician of empire" raises old Robbie's hackles? Actually, that's nothing compared to the regular bile the spills off that page.

No doubt too that Professor Carpenter's a big girl and she likely can handle the abuse, or she wouldn't be blogging. No, what's funny is that if you cruise through some of the other comments at the post you'll feel as though you were at an organizing meeting for the Marxist-Leninist Workers World Party.

Check it out:

Somehow we need to reestablish the principle that the only time using military force abroad is justified is in response to an immediate, direct threat to your own country -- which in the case of the United States means pretty much never. The alternative, which we've got now, is simply imperialism.

Ahh, let me think ... "an immediate, direct threat" to our country is "pretty much never"?

Never say never, as they say:

And how about this one:

Invading Afghanistan was a monumentally stupid idea. Remaining there remains stupid.

Yep, invading Afghanistan was such a "monumentally stupid idea" that 98 U.S. Senators and 420 U.S. Representatives authorized the President of the United States "to use all 'necessary and appropriate force' against those whom he determined 'planned, authorized, committed or aided' the September 11th attacks, or who harbored said persons or groups."

But hey, we want Charli Carpenter to feel welcomed!

Wouldn't want to lose the one professor at LGM who actually has a shred of scholarly credibility.

Remember, Robert Farley is the professor who bagged $1000 to write a book review while simultaneously twiddling his Johnson and sipping a few whiskey sours!

How Alan Mulally is Saving Ford Motor Company

I think readers will enjoy Fortune's new cover story on Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford Motor Corporation: "Fixing Up Ford." I enjoyed the piece as a premier case study in corporate leadership; but also as one of personal success for Mulally, who at 63, sounds like a man possessing the vigor of someone half his age.

CEO Alan Mulally challenged his designers to build a cool Taurus and this is what he got. Combining "Bold American" and European "kinetic" styling, it's more of a personal luxury sedan than the workaday four-door it replaces. That will mean lower sales volumes but also higher profit per unit.

Mulally moved to Ford in 2006. He had worked at Boeing since 1969. He had been chief engineer for development of the 777, and was later Vice President of Engineering for commercial aircraft. Mulally had no sales experience, and he wasn't a "Detroit car man," much less a car man at all. He sold his Lexus after moving to Dearborn. What's most impressive is Mulally's "results oriented" leadership style. His management is crisp and authoritative, although he defers to the firm's design experts on the minutiae of the product lines. But on the big questions of the company's past mistakes and where it's headed, Mulalley made key decisions that placed Ford in good stead. When Mulally testified before Congress in December 2008, along with GM's Rick Wagoner and Chrysler's Robert Nardelli, he annouced that Ford would be able to survive the recession without a bailout.

For some flavor, here's the paragraph discussing Mulally's decision to revive the Ford Taurus:

The story of how Mulally revived Ford's best-known sedan is a quintessential demonstration of the Mulally method - analyzing a situation using accepted facts and then winning over support through persistence. Here's the story, told by Mulally:

"I arrive here, and the first day I say, 'Let's go look at the product lineup.' And they lay it out, and I said, 'Where's the Taurus?' They said, 'Well, we killed it.' I said, 'What do you mean, you killed it?' 'Well, we made a couple that looked like a football. They didn't sell very well, so we stopped it.' 'You stopped the Taurus?' I said. 'How many billions of dollars does it cost to build brand loyalty around a name?' 'Well, we thought it was so damaged that we named it the Five Hundred.' I said, 'Well, you've got until tomorrow to find a vehicle to put the Taurus name on because that's why I'm here. Then you have two years to make the coolest vehicle that you can possibly make.'?" The 2010 Taurus is arriving on the market this spring, and while it is not as startling as the original 1986 Taurus, it is still pretty cool.

And I like this section of his preparation and leadership style:

Arriving at Ford, Mulally boned up on the company like a student cramming for an exam, interviewing dozens of employees, analysts, and consultants, and filling those five binders with his typed notes. The research allowed him to develop a point of view about the auto business that now frames all his decisions. Its pillars draw heavily from his experience at Boeing: Focus on the Ford brand ("nobody buys a house of brands"); compete in every market segment with carefully defined products (small, medium, and large; cars, utilities, and trucks); market fewer nameplates (40 worldwide by 2013, down from 97 worldwide in 2006); and become best in class in quality, fuel efficiency, safety, and value.

Are corporate mission statements so 1990s? Not to Mulally. To let everyone know what he had in mind, Mulally created those plastic cards with four goals on one side ("Expected Behaviors") and a revised definition of the company ("One Ford") on the other. To Mulally, it is like sacred text: "This is me. I wrote it. It's what I believe in. You can't make this shit up."

"I am here to save an American and global icon," Mulally declares. He drives performance the way he did at Boeing, with the Business Plan Review, a meeting with his direct reports, held early every Thursday. "I live for Thursday morning at 8 a.m.," he says. First up are Ford's four profit centers: the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Ford Credit. Then come presentations from 12 functional areas (from product development and manufacturing to human resources and government relations).

"When I arrived there were six or seven people reporting to Bill Ford, and the IT person wasn't there, the human resources person wasn't there," says Mulally. "So I moved up and included every functional discipline on my team because everybody in this place had to be involved and had to know everything."

The Thursday meetings are held in what's known as the Thunderbird Room, one floor below Mulally's office, around a circular dark-wood table fitted with three pairs of videoscreens in the center. Eight clocks, one for each Ford time zone, are mounted on the wall. There are seats for 18 executives around the table, with additional ones on the perimeter ("Here's where I sit," says Mulally, indicating a chair: "Pilot's seat").

There are no pre-meetings or briefing books. "They don't bring their big books anymore because I'm not going to grind them with as many questions as I can to humiliate them," Mulally says. "We'll see them next week. We don't take action - I'm going to see you next week." No BlackBerrys are allowed, and no side conversations either - Mulally is insistent about that. "If somebody starts to talk or they don't respect each other, the meeting just stops. They know I've removed vice presidents because they couldn't stop talking because they thought they were so damn important."

Mulally instituted color coding for reports: green for good, yellow for caution, red for problems. Managers coded their operations green at the first couple of meetings to show how well they were doing, but Mulally called them on it. "You guys, you know we lost a few billion dollars last year," he told the group. "Is there anything that's not going well?" After that the process loosened up. Americas boss Mark Fields went first. He admitted that the Ford Edge, due to arrive at dealers, had some technical problems with the rear lift gate and wasn't ready for the start of production. "The whole place was deathly silent," says Mulally. "Then I clapped, and I said, 'Mark, I really appreciate that clear visibility.' And the next week the entire set of charts were all rainbows."

Read the whole thing here.

Mulally's story reminds me of why America is the greatest industrial nation in history, but why we will be the greatest industrial nation for decades, if not centuries, to come.

Photo Credit: "Seven Cars for Ford's Future."

Full Metal Saturday: Jessica Simpson

This month's cover story at Vanity Fair features the lovely Jessica Simpson, "The Jessica Question." I've always had a crush on Jessica. And since Robert Stacy McCain stood up for her amid the singer's weight-gain episode, Jessica's story is perfect material for this weekend's "Rule 5" extravaganza!

This is the magazine's cover photo, but see also the slideshow of beautiful Jessica here, "Don’t Mess with Jessica."

And note something interesting from the article. It turns out that Jessica's natural endowment was a hindrance on her singing the church gospel circuit:

As Jessica’s gospel record was being produced, she toured on the Christian-rock circuit. This interlude is interesting mostly for why and how it ended, which, according to Joe Simpson, was because of those determining factors—her breasts—that made her too sexy for the circuit, causing the male parishioners to lust, distracting them from the divine. It’s part of the story the family (including Jessica) tells about Jessica. Too sexy for church, thus forced from the world of Hallelujah to the world of Yeah, Yeah, Yeah.

Ooh, the Christian circuit's loss is our gain! And who said Christian men don't love them some breasts?!!

Anyway, let's check around for a couple of other "Rule 5" entries:

* Is the First Lady breast blogging material? No? Think again at Private Pigg's post, "Michelle Obama is On the Maxim Hot 100 for 2009 / Rule 5 Blogging?"

* TrogloPundit has a Carrie Prejean birthday post.

* I'm a little late on this Monique Stuart Katy Perry entry, but check it out: "Rule Five Sunday: More KP Action."

* Stogie at Saber Point's been doing some Atlas Shrugs blogging. See, "Pamela Geller on Fox News - and Looking Hot!"

* And did readers know that the beautiful Kim Preistap of Wizbang is also a hot mommy blogger? Yep. Check out Kim at Up North Mommy!

* More lovlies can be found by way of Suzanna Logan, who introduces us to her friend and newby blogger, Becky Brindle!

* Speaking of lovelies! Amy Proctor's been doing some hot pro-life blogging, so head on over there and give her a hearty hello!

* Also, my wonderful friend Lynn Mithchell is doing so hot pro-life blogging well, especially on the Notre Dame Obama boycott this weekend.

* And my friend Joy, a.k.a. Little Miss Attila, says the weather is warm in Phoenix for the NRA convention.

* Now, for some general, all-around great conservative blogging, check out the "Two Dans": Dan Collins and Dan Riehl.

* Also, Jim Treacher says always remember, "Nancy Pelosi is the leader of the Democratic Party."

* Don't miss my ace commenter Chris Wysocki as well! He's working on the "31 days to Build a Better Blog Challenge"!

* Also, Jordan at Generation Patriot is blogging up a storm!

Finally, I'll conclude this edition of Full Metal Saturday with a referral to Carol at No Sheeples Here! Nobody does Rule 5 blogging better! So check it out, "Full Metal Jacket Reach-Around Saturday For May 16, 2009."

Oh, wait! No blogger worth his salt would forget the obligatory link to Glenn Reynolds!

Also, I'll be in and out all day, chauffeuring my boys to all of their Saturday activities (math tutoring, art class, and a birthday party!). But please e-mail me with your Rule 5 posts and I'll add them here in some updates!

**********

UPDATE: I just got an e-mail from Mike at The Classic Liberal. Check out his Rule 5 entry, "Emilie de Ravin Presents Rule 5 Saturday!"

Keep the e-mails coming!

**********

UPDATE II: Pat in Shreveport's got her weekend post up, "Rule 5 Sunday Linkage."

Sigh ... Excoriating Traditional Catholics as Medieval Fundamentalists

If you read enough hard-left blogs, you'll find an increasingly shrill tone of discourse. The goal - now that the left has power - is to smear conservatives as essentially barbarians. Oh sure, both sides do it, but if a conservative is pro-life and favors personal responsibility over governmental handouts and big-government largesse, they'll be tarred as a "reactionary," "racist," and socially apostate.

No wonder the political debate in America is mostly crude and vitriolic, and no wonder that conservatives continue to dig in their heels against the morally relativist tsunami of dread.

I mention all of this after reading James Carroll's essay at the Nation, "Inside the Obama-Notre Dame Debate." I'm not Catholic, but I espouse many Catholic values. So, I take offense at the Carroll's rank slurs against people of tradition, especially the notion that conservatives just can't think, that they're blinded by "irrationalism":

President Obama goes to Notre Dame University this Sunday to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree, the ninth US president to be so honored. The event has stirred up a hornet's nest of conservative Catholics, with more than forty bishops objecting, and hundreds of thousands of Catholics signing petitions in protest. In the words of South Bend's Bishop John M. D'Arcy, the complaint boils down to President Obama's "long-stated unwillingness to hold human life as sacred." Notre Dame, the bishop charged, has chosen "prestige over truth."

Not even most Catholics agree with such criticism. A recent Pew poll, for instance, shows that 50 percent of Catholics support Notre Dame's decision to honor Obama; little more than one-quarter oppose. It is, after all, possible to acknowledge the subtle complexities of "life" questions -- When actually does human life begin? How is stem cell research to be ethically carried out? -- and even to suggest that they are more complex than most Catholic bishops think, without thereby "refusing to hold human life as sacred."

For many outside the ranks of conservative religious belief, this dispute may seem arcane indeed. Since it's more than likely that the anti-Obama complainers were once John McCain supporters, many observers see the Notre Dame flap as little more than mischief by Republicans who still deplore the Democratic victory in November. Given the ways in which the dispute can be reduced to the merely parochial, why should Americans care?

Medievalism in Our Future?

In fact, the crucial question that underlies the flap at Notre Dame has enormous importance for the unfolding twenty-first century: Will Roman Catholicism, with its global reach, including more than a billion people crossing every boundary of race, class, education, geography and culture, be swept into the rising tide of religious fundamentalism?

Those Catholics who regard a moderate progressive like Barack Obama as the enemy--despite the fact that his already unfolding social and health programs, including support for impoverished women, will do more to reduce the number of abortions in America than the glibly pro-life George W. Bush ever did--have so purged ethical thought of any capacity to draw meaningful distinctions as to reduce religious faith to blind irrationality. They have so embraced a spirit of sectarian intolerance as to undercut the Church's traditional catholicity, adding fuel to the spreading fire of religious contempt for those who depart from rigidly defined orthodoxies. They are resurrecting the lost cause of religion's war against modernity--a war of words that folds neatly into the new century's war of weapons.

If the Catholic reactionaries succeed in dominating their church, a heretofore unfundamentalist tradition, what would follow? The triumph of a strain of contemporary Roman Catholicism that rejects pluralism, feminism, clerical reform, religious self-criticism, historically-minded theology and the scientific method as applied to sacred texts would only exacerbate alarming trends in world Christianity as a whole, and at the worst of times. This may especially be so in the nations of the southern hemisphere where Catholicism sees its future. It's there that proselytizing evangelical belief, Protestant and Catholic both, is spreading rapidly. Between 1985 and 2001, for example, Catholic membership increased in Africa by 87 percent, in Europe by 1 percent.

In their shared determination to restore the medieval European Catholicism into which they were born, Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI became inadvertent avatars of the new Catholic fundamentalism, a fact reflected in the character of the bishops they appointed to run the Church, so many of whom now find President Obama to be a threat to virtue. The great question now is whether this defensive, pre-Enlightenment view of the faith will maintain a permanent grip on the Catholic imagination. John Paul II and Benedict XVI may be self-described apostles of peace, yet if this narrow aspect of their legacy takes hold, they will have helped to undermine global peace, not through political intention but deeply felt religious conviction.

You can read the whole thing here.

Catholic Church doctrine is not my specialty, but I often look to the Vatican for moral guidance. I was moved upon the death of Pope John Paul II in 2005 to reflect on the powerful role of the Roman Church in defending freedom from Soviet totalitarianism; and on John Paul's leadership in returning the Church to its preeminent role in international politics as a beacon of goodness and light in the world.

I expect nothing less from Pope Benedict XVI.

So I see Carroll's screed as simply representative of the anti-life nihilistic mindset found among so many on today's radical left. I'd rather hang out with people like Michele Sagala and Andrew Chronister any day.

And There Was Nothing Left to Bring Me Back...

I listen to L.A.'s Jack FM 93.1 during my drive time (there are no DJs, just recorded programming, plus the slogan, "playing what we want"). The format's a little stale sometimes. Yet I do like the "trainwreck" sequences, where two songs are played back-to-back in a sequence you'd never hear on traditional radio stations (e.g., Haircut 100's "Love Plus One" followed by ZZ Top's, "Tush", etc). In any case, once in while I'll hear The Plimsouls', "Million Miles Away," one of my favorite songs from my early punk days. Check it out:

More later ...

Majority of Americans Identify as "Pro-Life"

I debated "social scientist" Scott Lemieux the other day, after he suggested that public opinion data indicate strong majority support for Roe v. Wade. Lemieux's key piece of evidence? A five year-old blog post with dead links.

Now, while Lemieux's specifically discussing support for Roe v. Wade, the underlying question is public support for abortion, and I called him on it in the comments. He in turn sent me to the abortion page at Polling Report, which frankly, didn't help his case, as I suggested in another comment:

CNN/Opinion Research April 23-26 shows declining suppport for "pro-choice" position, and 49 percent is bare plurality within the margin of error (i.e., statistically insignificant). NBC News/WSJ September 6-8, 2008, just 25 percent should always be legal. Both the Washington Post and Pew show declining support for abortion "in all cases."

Geez, Scott, that's some ace blogging there, buddy! I can see why you cited a 5 year-old blog post with dead links, ROFLMFAO!

This discussion provides an interesting and pertinent background to the new Gallup survey out today on the declining support for abortion, "More Americans “Pro-Life” Than “Pro-Choice” for First Time."

Just 42 percent identify as "pro-choice" at the discussion, which is precisely in line with the declining trends in the "pro-choice" side found at Polling Report. Gallup provides an analysis of the trends:

With the first pro-choice president in eight years already making changes to the nation's policies on funding abortion overseas, expressing his support for the Freedom of Choice Act, and moving toward rescinding federal job protections for medical workers who refuse to participate in abortion procedures, Americans -- and, in particular, Republicans -- seem to be taking a step back from the pro-choice position. However, the retreat is evident among political moderates as well as conservatives.

It is possible that, through his abortion policies, Obama has pushed the public's understanding of what it means to be "pro-choice" slightly to the left, politically. While Democrats may support that, as they generally support everything Obama is doing as president, it may be driving others in the opposite direction.

The partisan implications are clear: Barack Obama is seriously alienating the roughly 20 percent of voters at the political center who the Democrats need to maintain a viable electoral coalition. And always remember: "Republicans did not lose the 2008 election because they were out of step ideologically with average Americans."

And because of this, hardline leftists are already spinning Gallup's results as unrepresentative. Dana Goldstein, at the American Prospect, argues that "these latest number are, quite likely, outliers."

And then, coincidentally, Scott Lemieux follows up at American Prospect as well, "More on Abortion and Public Opinion":

As Dana says, the direction of public opinion has been solidly pro-choice, although marginal regulations on abortion tend (regrettably) to be very popular. So barring a much more sustained trend, it is indeed pretty safe to assume that the latest Pew and Gallup surveys are outliers ....

One should be particularly wary about poll questions, like the Gallup survey, that ask people to choose between abortion being legal in "most" or "a few" circumstances. Leaving aside the vagueness, the obvious problem is that for the most part such a question is irrelevant to legislative enactments ....

Speaking of concrete questions, for some reason polling firms often don't ask about Roe v. Wade. When they do, however, note that there are always substantial majorities in favor of upholding it.

On support for Roe, Lemieux again links to the same generic Polling Report page as if that provides some kind of powerful support for his argument.

The problem, first, for Lemieux is that Gallup's survey questions are in fact not "vague." As readers can see from the graph above, the question simply asks people of they consider themselves to be "pro-choice" or "pro-life." And only 4 in 10 support the "pro-choice" position. Indeed, if you check the survey, the choices for various question-items are clear and unambiguous. The results show steadily declining support for abortion in America. The poll asks, for example, should abortion be legal under any circumstances; legal under certain circumtances; or illegal under all circumstances:

In answer to a question providing three options for the extent to which abortion should be legal, about as many Americans now say the procedure should be illegal in all circumstances (23%) as say it should be legal under any circumstances (22%). This contrasts with the last four years, when Gallup found a strong tilt of public attitudes in favor of unrestricted abortion.

There's nothing "vague" about this at all.

Indeed, Pew released a poll on abortion just two weeks ago, asking whether abortion should be legal in all or most circumstances or illegal in all or most circumstances. Just 46 percent indicated that abortion should be legal in "all/most" circumstances, and what's especially interesting is the steady trend indicated at the questionnaire page in the declining support for abortion over roughly the last 15 years.

It's clear that support for abortion in the U.S. is on the decline. Actually, the election of Democrat Barack Obama to the White House has accelerated the drop off in support. Lemieux, second, cites no recent data to indicate continuing public support for Roe v. Wade. But given the more generalized results from a variety of recent surveys, it's clear that Roe v. Wade is barely hanging on for dear life (or "dear death," be that as it may).

See also Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns and Money, "Abortion and Public Opinion."

**********

Side Note: There's a lot of discussion of torture in the news, but for some real tortured pro-death logic, be sure to check the comment thread at Lemieux's post at Lawyers, Guns and Money I cited above. For example, right here:

I think it would better suit the arguments of the pro-choice movement to define fetuses as humans without consciousness. For instance, arguments are frequently made that those in a vegetative state can justifiably be killed (removed from life support) since they have no hope of regaining consciousness or otherwise enjoying life as most of us experience it. In this instance, human life is terminated on pragmatic grounds--pragmatic in terms of the patient's life and in terms of use of resources.

What this leads to in the context of abortion is a removal of the argument over whether a fetus is or is not human and replaces it with a discussion over the merits of allowing every fetus to come to term. Why is this a good thing? Well, first, it moves the debate towards the real problems solved by legalized abortion: overpoplulation, childhood poverty and/or neglect, abandonment, infanticide, botched non-medical abortions, threats to the health of mothers, etc. These problems are not minor and deserve to be the focus of the abortion debate.

And these kind of suggestions are extremely common on the left. The politics of abortion isn't really about "choice." It's about death. It's no suprise, then, that Americans are slowly but surely turning away from such gruesome far left-wing anti-life nihilism.

New York Times, Nation's "Paper of Record," Rejects Frontpage Coverage of Pelosi Scandal

The Hill's lead headline this morning blares "Storm Center Over Pelosi" (frontpage image here). And today's Washington Post features a couple of A1 stories, "Accusations Flying in Interrogation Battle: Pelosi Says CIA Misled Congress on Methods," and "Speaker's Comments Raise Detainee Debate to New Level."

So, how about the nation's "unofficial newspaper of record"? Nope, Nancy Pelosi's allegations of CIA lies and deception don't rate the frontpage:

In fact, the Times clearly hopes this story goes away, and fast. They've buried their coverage deep inside the front section, at page A20, "Pelosi Says She Knew of Waterboarding by 2003." And the editorial page makes no mention of Washington's biggest news at the op-ed page.

The Los Angeles Times is no better, relegating its coverage of Pelosi to page A15.

In contrast, the Wall Street Journal features a major A3 story, "Pelosi and CIA Clash Over Contents of Key Briefing." And today's lead editorial at the Journal hammers the Speaker, "Pelosi's Self-Torture."

While there's some suggestion of "yellow journalism" in the media of late, we might also see the Pelosi scandal as again substantiating the rise of a new partisan press.

**********

UPDATE: If I didn't know better, I'd think the Weekly Standard was reading American Power! See John McCormack's nearly identical post, "Pelosi Accuses CIA of Lying, the NYT Reports . . . on Page A-18."

Pelosi Engulfed by Her Own Game of Political Retribution

The tortured debate on enhanced interrogations is getting more tortured by the day.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has now elevated the left's power-hungry hypocrisy to the center of partisan politics. Today's lead editorial at the Wall Street Journal perfectly captures the moment and implications of Pelosi's pursuit of political retribution:

Given House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's acknowledged skill at torturing the Bush Administration in recent years, it no doubt afforded her critics some pleasure yesterday to watch her twist in the wind in front of the press over what she knew and when about the CIA's terrorist interrogations. With mockery even from Jon Stewart on Comedy Central, Mrs. Pelosi has turned herself into a spectacle about a subject that she and fellow Democrats had themselves reduced to a spectacle of demagogic accusation and blame, repeatedly threatening to put Bush officials in the dock for "condoning torture ..."

Whatever one's politics may be, there has to be some recognition that Washington -- the U.S. government -- simply can't function if it is endlessly entangled in the exquisitely argued, one might say absurd, blame-games that she and some Democrats are running against former Bush officials, and that now threaten the political standing of the Speaker herself.

Barack Obama won the election and as President he now has a government to run. With that responsibility comes the necessity to make difficult decisions, as those he has made on prisoner photos and military tribunals attest. If he is to succeed, he needs a capital city of responsible partners, not a running circus with the Speaker of the House at the center, blaming everyone else as she flees from any responsibility for what she heard and did.

As I argued yesterday, Speaker Pelosi should step aside. President Obama should encourage her to do so. As John Hinderaker argued yesterday:

I don't suppose anyone imagines that the CIA was foolish enough to lie to Pelosi and others about the use of waterboarding. On the contrary, it seems obvious that everyone in the chain of command was covering himself or herself by disseminating information about the harsh interrogations of three al Qaeda leaders. Pelosi has now opened the lid on a box that she will not be able to close. The CIA has no choice but to defend itself by demonstrating that she, not the Agency, is lying. Possibly Leon Panetta can save her, but at the moment, it is hard to see how this affair can end with Pelosi remaining as Speaker of the House.

The spectacle has taken politics to a new level, even by the standards of today's polarization. It's utterly astounding to see nihilist leftists attacking folks like Charles Krauthammer with childish Photoshops. And incredibly, James Fallows, the premiere writer at the Atlantic, is arguing that former Senator Bob Graham has "shifted the debate" away from Pelosi's lies (main story on Graham, here).

Amazing ...

Speaker Pelosi Should Step Down

I found no embed code, but the ABC News video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's press conference on enhanced interrogations is devastating. Check the MSNBC video below as well. Pelosi claims she was misled by the agency. Indeed, she accuses CIA officials of giving her "inaccurate and incomplete" information on waterboarding and enhanced interrogation methods:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The New York Times has a long rundown of Pelosi's involvement, and the post says the press conference was "heated." See, "Pelosi Acknowledges She Was Told of Waterboarding in 2003":

"I am saying that the C.I.A. was misleading the Congress and at the same time the administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction," Ms. Pelosi said.

Senator Joseph Lieberman, inteviewed by NBC's Norah O'Donnell, disputes Pelosi's allegations that intelligence officials lied:

No, on that specific point, I totally disagree. You have to have confidence in the CIA. And over the 20 years I’ve been here, I’ve been briefed constantly by the CIA and I’d say that they’ve told me the truth, as they see it.

I think Speaker Pelosi has completely lost the confidence of the American people. As Andrea Tantaros indicates:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has told multiple and conflicting tall tales regarding her knowledge of what she knew about the Bush administration’s information gathering tactics, when we know she was told about waterboarding in 2002, did nothing, and now has misled the American people about it.

Thus, until a resolution on this matter is reached in Congress and at the White House, I'm calling for Speaker Pelosi to step aside as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Also, if the clamor for investigations continues, President Obama should appoint an independent, bipartisan committee outside of the Congress to investigate the matter. The Democrats cannot be trusted on these matters, and the partisan witchhunt has gone on too long. Attacks on the previous administration have now reached a level of unacceptable distraction to the important business of the nation.

Speaker Pelosi: Step aside!

Leftists Take Refuge in Denial

Dr. Sanity's got another great post up, from yesterday, "The Consequences of Denial; or, The Perils of Self-Delusion."

Her point of departure is Jed Gladstein's essay, "The Price of Denial is Death," from American Thinker. She quotes Gladstein's key sections, adds an outline on the negative consequences of psychological denial, and then applies it to today's radical left:

Never have so many been willing to deny so much reality!Any success that was accomplished under a Republican is an unacceptable reality for them, thus they must distort it; and even make that success a crime, in order to maintain their own fragile sense of self.

Every person in denial has a hidden psychological agenda--which, in these examples, is nothing less than the continued humiliation of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the Republicans, and America so that they can continue to shore up their own self-esteem.Note that even after they have won the White House, their dysfunction continues.

They pride themselves on "speaking Truth to Power", but at the White House correspondents' dinner the other night, who were they denigrating with their humor? President Obama? The Democrats in power? No, they were still harping on the past Administration which has become the convenient scapegoat for their own irresponsibility, incompetence, and aversion to reality.

Their rhetoric is always designed to obfuscate and deny objective reality --which interestingly is a concept they don't even believe in to begin with (or, they believe in it until it become threatening then they seek refuge behind postmodern political rhetoric). The motivation for their continual Bush/Republican bashing is simple: they have no real ideas of their own (except the same one my teen daughter and her friends have: spend lots and lots of money without concern about where it comes from or who pays the bills. I can understand the teens--they are children still and irresponsibility is their default. They will grow out of it with patience. But the Obama Adminsitration is supposedly composed of adults who should know better). Unfortunately, they are as irresponsible as it is possible to be as adults.

As the real world presses in on them, their voices of the left will become ever more shrill and hysterical; their rage at the past will escalate (because dysfunction always escalates). They will look for--and find--new, improved scapegoats. The previous Administration is just the beginning. They will have to scapegoat big business, small business, Wall Street, and capitalism itself, to maintain their economic delusions; and they will have to scapegoat Israel and the Jews along with the previous administration, to be able to continue to maintain their delusion that Islamic terrorists are simply misunderstood citizens of the world, who given the chance to idolize Barack Obama will enthusiastically embrace this Messiah who transcends faith and focuses his largesse upon them.

It's been a while since most of the minions of the left bothered to argue their points logically; nor do they want to debate at all. They simply loudly denounce any idea or person who threatens their ideology or their god in the White House; or deliberately and with the ruthless finesse of all tyrants and thugs, simply attempt to silence all dissenting opinions.

9/11 did not wake them up; rather it forced them to openly move toward what they have supported surreptitiously all along--the elimination of free speech in the name of political correctness and multiculturalism; a dictatorship where the pseudo-intellectual, politically correct priesthood rule; and complete control over the lives of others (for their own good, of course!). Why should they waste a crisis, when they can use it to implement their ideology with the least muss and fuss?

Since their long-range objectives happen to parallel those of the Islamic terrorists, they care not that their behavior enables and encourages the terrorist's agenda. They blithely denounce America and the principles of freedom and democracy out of one side of their mouth, while remaining convinced that their actions are patriotic and are representative of "true" American values.

Once they considered it patriotic to dissent (when Bush was in the White House); now, of course, any dissent must be labeled at once for the racism and sexism and hate that it represents.

Their outrage at Republicans or Israel conveniently obscures the reality that we are at war with an implacable enemy that wants to kill us all.

That's what denial is all about. It allows--nay, it encourages-- the most blatant contradictions in thinking; and the individual does not ever have to account for those contradictions or take responsibility for them because they don't even perceive them! Facts, shmacts.

Good stuff, and there's more at the link.

Republicans in the Wilderness?

It's amazing sometimes how really awful mainstream political reporting has become. I'm just now reading Time's cover story this week, "Republicans in Distress: Is the Party Over?", and the half-truths and distortions are literally breathtaking. Note this passage on the GOP as the "Party of No":

The Democratic critiques of the GOP — that it's the Party of No, or No Ideas — are not helpful either. It's silly to fault an opposition party for opposition; obstructionism helped return Democrats to power. Republicans actually have plenty of ideas.

That's the problem. The party's ideas — about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else — are not popular ideas. They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base. A hard-right agenda of slashing taxes for the investor class, protecting marriage from gays, blocking universal health insurance and extolling the glories of waterboarding produces terrific ratings for Rush Limbaugh, but it's not a majority agenda. The party's new, Hooverish focus on austerity on the brink of another depression does not seem to fit the national mood, and it's shamelessly hypocritical, given the party's recent history of massive deficit spending on pork, war and prescription drugs in good times, not to mention its continuing support for deficit-exploding tax cuts in bad times.

It's a simplistic slogan, the "Party of No," and the Democrats know it. But notice how Time's Michael Grunwald substantiaties the meme anyway.

No one is talking about tax cuts for the "investor class." Conservatives simply think taxes are too high already, and they don't believe President Obama at his word when he says taxes won't increase on those making less than $250,000. And on same-sex marriage, as I've demonstrated many times, "protecting marriage from gays" is in fact majority opinion, nationally and in Iowa in recent polls.

Not only that. No one is "blocking" universal health insurance. Current Democratic health care proposals don't even claim to guarantee universal insurance coverage. What leftist are actually promoting is an opt-out provision to shift consumers to a government-run health bureaucracy whose ulitimate goal is to destroy private health markets and transform American medicine into an inferior ration-plagued socialized medical regime. And on torture, as we all know, the Democrats are all about hypocrisy and witchunts, and majorities oppose torture trials against former Bush administration officials in any case.

And we're simply not "on the brink of another depression." God, the stupidity rankles! The Dems just want big government activism, damn the leading economic indicators! Recall my earlier post, "With Recession Easing, Obama Will Keep Spending Anyway."

But actually Grunwald does have a piont about the GOP's "recent history of massive deficit spending on pork, war and prescription drugs ..."

This is precisely why the Republican grassroots is fired up. The GOP has gone off the tracks and the right-wing base of the party wants a return to not only limited government, but good government. And don't forget, "Republicans did not lose the 2008 election because they were out of step ideologically with average Americans."

The "Republicans in the Wilderness" meme has emerged as the left's major media frame to cover for the genuine fear among progressives that their government mandate is miniscule and their electoral majority fragile. The Democratic-media is simply attempting to brainwash the public with the "GOP is in disarray" propaganda. Their hope is that this smokescreen will work like magic to mask the Obama administration's incompetence and overreach.

On a related note, Erick Florack cites American Power in his essay at Pajamas Media today, "Frustrated Conservative Base Itching to Take Off the Gloves." As Florack notes:

For eight years, every single time the Republicans made any kind of a move, it was reason enough for the Democrats to hold a press conference. They would scream and gnash their teeth over whatever the news of the day happened to be. In so doing, they managed to cast anything even remotely Republican to be bad or evil.

Well, as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Related: For more examples of Democratic-media propaganda, see Dan Balz, "As Cheney Seizes Spotlight, Many Republicans Wince," and also Memeorandum.

Palin Backs Prejean, Blasts "Liberal Onslaught"

Here's The Politico's report, "Sarah Palin Backs, Relates to, Miss California" (via Memeorandum). But see also, "Palin Backs Miss Calif., Blasts 'Liberal Onslaught'":

In a strongly worded statement relased late Wednesday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin defended Miss California Carrie Prejean and ripped into "the liberal onslaught of malicious attacks" against Prejean for her response to a question about gay marriage.

"I can relate as a liberal target myself," Palin said. "What I find so remarkable is that these politically-motivated attacks fail to show that what Carrie and I believe is also what President Obama and Secretary Clinton believe — marriage is between a man and a woman."

Prejean created a stir with her response to a question about gay marriage at last month's Miss USA pageant, questions about her work with gay marriage opponents and nearly nude photos taken of her when she was a teenager put her title in jeopardy.

"I applaud Donald Trump for standing with Carrie during this time. And I respect Carrie for standing strong and staying true to herself, and for not letting those who disagree with her deny her protection under the nation's First Amendment Rights," the former vice presidential candidate said.

"Our Constitution protects us all — not just those who agree with the far left," Palin said.

On Wednesday, former Miss USA Shanna Moakler resigned as co-executive director of the Miss California USA pageant, saying she no longer believes in the organization because of pageant owner Donald Trump's decision to let the state's controversial title holder keep her crown.

At a news conference, Moakler angrily accused Prejean of violating the contract she signed with pageant organizers, but Trump announced Tuesday that Prejean would keep her title.

Moakler, the Miss USA of 1995, said she decided after Trump's news conference to quit.

For more on Moakler's resignation, see Robert Stacy McCain, "Miss December 2001 Decides She Can No Longer Associate With Miss USA Pageant." See also the commentary at Memeorandum.

Will Leftists Launch "Currency Trutherism" Against Nouriel Roubini?

You know, I'm no economist, but I'd say Nouriel Roubini is vindicating some of my recent economic analysis on the role of the dollar as the international reserve currency. In a couple of posts, especially, "Leftists Launch "Currency Trutherism" Against Bachmann," I showed that Representative Michelle Bachmann's concerns over the replacement of the dollar as the world's reserve currency were well founded. As I noted:

Bachmann's proposed resolution to protect the dollar as the country's sovereign unit of exchange is perfectly justified in light of monetary history and the outlandish comments from Secretary Geithner. Advanced economies are not inoculated from supranational pressures toward monetary homogenization or unification, as the case of the European Union indicates. Once Ms. Bachmann refers to "One World Currency," the only logical reference point is to a national currency unit that would replace current dollar hegemony worldwide.

So, I'm frankly getting a kick out of Nouriel Roubini's essay at the New York Times this morning, "The Almighty Renminbi?", via Memeorandum.

Roubini's made a big name for himself recently with a series of prescient articles on the scale of economic collapse (see, "The Coming Financial Pandemic," from Foreign Policy, March/April 2008). He's something of a "Chicken Little" if you ask me, but my interest here is whether leftist airheads will start attacking him for his "black copter" currency conspiracies:

THE 19th century was dominated by the British Empire, the 20th century by the United States. We may now be entering the Asian century, dominated by a rising China and its currency. While the dollar’s status as the major reserve currency will not vanish overnight, we can no longer take it for granted. Sooner than we think, the dollar may be challenged by other currencies, most likely the Chinese renminbi. This would have serious costs for America, as our ability to finance our budget and trade deficits cheaply would disappear.

Traditionally, empires that hold the global reserve currency are also net foreign creditors and net lenders. The British Empire declined — and the pound lost its status as the main global reserve currency — when Britain became a net debtor and a net borrower in World War II. Today, the United States is in a similar position. It is running huge budget and trade deficits, and is relying on the kindness of restless foreign creditors who are starting to feel uneasy about accumulating even more dollar assets. The resulting downfall of the dollar may be only a matter of time.

But what could replace it? The British pound, the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc remain minor reserve currencies, as those countries are not major powers. Gold is still a barbaric relic whose value rises only when inflation is high. The euro is hobbled by concerns about the long-term viability of the European Monetary Union. That leaves the renminbi ....

The renminbi, rather than the dollar, could eventually become a means of payment in trade and a unit of account in pricing imports and exports, as well as a store of value for wealth by international investors. Americans would pay the price. We would have to shell out more for imported goods, and interest rates on both private and public debt would rise. The higher private cost of borrowing could lead to weaker consumption and investment, and slower growth.

See also Clusterstock, "Roubini: The Dollar's Dead, China's Renminbi is the World's New Reserve Currency."

Socialism Schmocialism? Let's Get Real About Marxism in America

Look, I'll be honest. I've attacked Barack Obama many times for his "socialist" inclinations (which are genuine by training and upbringing), but so far this administration has not turned the United States into a genuine socialist regime. As Rick Moran argued before the election last year:

Calling Obama a 'socialist' simply isn't logical. He doesn’t share the belief that industries should be nationalized by the government or even taken over by the workers as many American Marxists espouse.

And that's the key: As long as the U.S. remains committed to a free-enterprise system - albeit with substantial market intervention by government - the U.S. will retain what's simply but technically known as a "mixed economy."

So, while it is true that President Obama is steeped in doctrinaire Marxist ideology, and through his activism and teaching he's practiced radical post-structuralist ideologies, this administration has so far worked within the normative boundaries of ideological acceptability. That's why, frankly, I greeted the news this morning of the GOP's "rebranding" of the Democrats as "Socialists" with a shrug.

I know most readers won't misunderstand, but let me be perfectly clear: The Barack Obama administration is indeed an ideological disaster for this nation. In economics, social policy, and international affairs, the administration is seeking to shift American politics to the extreme far-left of the spectrum. That said, we're still well short of "socialism" in the absence of state ownership of the means of production - and by that I'm not just talking about a trillion or two in government bailouts for privated industry. No, we'd need to see the toppling of the "capitalist state" altogether, and its replacement with a "workers' collective" legitimately organized along Marxist lines. As Eric Ruder notes at the May/June International Socialist Review:

In a society where all of the means of production are socialized, blind market forces would be replaced by democratic planning. The accumulated savings of society would not be handed over to a class of people, unelected and unaccountable, to invest for the purpose of their private gain. Instead, the economic output of society would be used to address the social needs of the producers. The critical determining factor of whether state ownership of the means of production (or the means of finance) has a socialist character depends on the answer to a simple question: If the state controls the economy, who controls the state?

The Obama administration’s state intervention in the economy today is designed to preserve decision-making power for the owners of banks and corporations ... This is not surprising, given the completely incestuous relationship between the state and private business, with a steady flow of businessmen into government jobs and then back again ....

The working class exerts its power, first through its ability to shut down production—the strike weapon. But if it is to assert its collective interests on society as a whole and against the employers as a class, it must seize political power. Only after the working class has seized political power can it begin to reorganize production and distribution in such a way as to gradually abolish the market and production for profit’s sake, and replace those relations with a purely socialized system of planning.

So it's going to take the literal "expropriation of the expropriators" to transform the U.S. economy from its current pattern of regulatory state capitalism to that of a full-blown workers' collectivist state.

But note something crucial here: While Barack Obama - to the dismay of the Socialist International - has indeed been "coopted" by the "agents of capitalist hegemony," his party's netroots-base is very much a radical "lumpen proletariat" agitating for the evisceration of capitalist "exploitation" in the U.S.

Amid this ideological tension between the president, the progressive capitalists within the administration, and the hardline Democratic base, we'll see the increasing shift to the compromise of "European statism." As Mark Steyn indicated recently, in "Prime Minister Obama: The Europeanization of America":

Europeanized health care, Europeanized daycare, Europeanized college education, Europeanized climate-change policy ... Obama’s pseudo-SOTU speech was America’s first State of the European Union address, in which the president deftly yoked the language of American exceptionalism to the cause of European statism. Apparently, nothing testifies to the American virtues of self-reliance, entrepreneurial energy and the can-do spirit like joining the vast army of robotic extras droning in unison, "The government needs to do more for me ..."

Most Americans don’t yet grasp the scale of the Obama project. The naysayers complain, oh, it’s another Jimmy Carter, or it’s the new New Deal, or it’s LBJ’s Great Society applied to health care… You should be so lucky. Forget these parochial nickel’n’dime comparisons. It’s all those multiplied a gazillionfold and nuclearized – or Europeanized, which is less dramatic but ultimately more lethal. For a distressing number of American liberals, the natural condition of an advanced, progressive western democracy is Scandinavia, and the U.S. has just been taking a wee bit longer to get there.

And this really isn't a matter of debate, although the radical leftists will deny it to no end, and they'll excoriate conservatives as "fearmongers" and "America-haters." But it is what it is. The problem is that the RNC doesn't have the time nor the inclination to explain to the public and the media the intricacies of democratic socialist philosophy. To relabel the Democrats as the "Democrat Socialist Party" is an attempt to brand them as the party of anti-Americanism. While true, it's unlikely that the GOP will be able to overtake the pushback from the media-netroots axis.

Just this afternoon, Digby got a post up entitled, "Socialist Schmocialist" (via Memeorandum). And Chris Bowers has joined in with, "The Name Calling is the Entire Point."

But recall, Mark Levin, in his new book, Liberty and Tyranny, gets around this problem of nomenclature by identifying today's Democratic collectivists as "Statists." And as I pointed out in "Renewing Socialism? Don't Even Think About It ...," it doesn't really matter how we label the ideological agenda of today's partisan radicals. The outcome will be the same: creeping tyranny and impoverishment, and the total obliteration of American exceptionalism, at home and abroad.