Failing Their Political Oral Exams

Here, Herman Cain fails his political oral exam. It is not a matter of failing an ideological litmus test. It's not a matter of tripping up on an obscure question, like, "Who is the president of Uzbekistan?" He is clearly not qualified for the job. He doesn't need to know what a president needs to know. He doesn't have the requisite experience.

He didn't know that China has nuclear weapons, though they have had them since 1964.



Now this obvious ignorance of what's been going on in Libya in 2011.



This follows Rick Perry's disqualifying performance last week.



That would get you bounced from America's Got Talent. Why not also the race for the presidency?

Autobiography-in-Chief

As I was preparing to despair of having anything to offer as a column this week, I remember something that crossed my mind regarding presidential narratives. We put a lot of emphasis on it when choosing a president. Perhaps it's our democratic character. "Tell me how you're just like me." Or, "How American are you? Can you show how you've embodies the hope we all share as Americans? Perhaps a log cabin story?"

But hwere are the stories in this cycle of candidates?

So where are the narratives in the current Republican field? Mitt Romney? Fighting your way up from being the son of a Michigan governor to being co-founder and CEO at Bain Capital just doesn’t sing well. Herman Cain has a good story, working his way from po’ boy (his term) in Georgia to restaurant magnate and chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City. But his problem these days is too many stories.

So I review all the recent ones. Mostly the successful ones. It is interesting how many of them involve the abuse of alcohol. One might think that if you want your kid to be president you should start drinking heavily.

Read "Presidential Narratives" in WORLDmag.com.

Rhetoric and Political Accomplishment

President Barack Obama came to office as the Golden Boy with the magic tongue capable of sending tingles up the legs of respected journalists as though they were ten year old girls at a Jonas Brothers concert. He would cry out, "We are the change we've been waiting for," and a concert stadium would go wild. Many thought, "Finally, a President who can talk! He speaks our language and speaks to our hearts."

A year into his presidency, we are in a good position to access his rhetoical ability.

This is no small matter. Rhetoric is one of the essential tools a democratic statesman needs for governing effectively. Rhetoric is the use of public speech—words that are well chosen and well spoken—to move people to agreement and to action. Francis Bacon called it the application of “reason to imagination for the better moving of the will” (Advancement of Learning II xviii 2).

The Presidents pictured above had various records of success in their ability to speak to the American people. George Bush was pretty good when he wanted to be. He was hot when he debated Michael Dukakis on television. But in office, he spoke of "the vision thing" as though it were of little importance. He lost the next election. His son, George W., was worse. In his second term, he pressed ahead with his policies, but gave almost no attention to bringing the voters along with him in understanding and commitment. As a consequence, his approval rating fell to the floor, Congress ignored him insofar as they could, and his political power diminished considerably.

Bill Clinton could talk. He was trained by actors, and carefully calculated his words, their delivery, and their emotional coloring. He connected with the people on a deep level. But, of course, this was squandered, because what agenda he had was paltry compared to his considerable abilities, and he wasted much of his opportunity defending himself against avoidable scandals.

Then there was Jimmy Carter, the man on the end who seems to be off on his own. It is no accident that he is not the leader of his party, even though he is a former President, alive, and writes books. At our time of multiple crises, he showed us a long, worried face, and scolded us for our malaise. Apparently, he did not actually use the word "malaise," but we all remember that he did, as it summarized nicely whatever he said in his public address that night, and so it stuck. Again, one term, but also lasting shame.

The Great Communicator of course is man who is not pictured: Ronald Reagan. He had a knack for going around the press, speaking directly to the American people about their concerns in familiar terms because he knew them well.

So what about Barack Obama? In office, he has come across as inappropriately cool, as, for example, when he (finally) spoke after the underwear bomber's failed attempt to bring down a plane over Detroit. He usually speaks in the dry and technical manner of a tenured university professor, i.e. one who knows more than anyone in the room, and who doesn't have to convince anyone of anything to keep his job. He seems emotionally detatched and socially aloof.

This style does not match his agenda. He and his Democratic allies in Congress have set out on an aggressive agenda of government intervention and control the likes of which we have not seen in two generations or more. Yet, he has not been able to bring the great middle along with him. Approval for his most treasured initiative, health care reform, stands today at 37%. Under Obama's government, the American people have actually become more conservative.

David Brooks, in his column "The Tea Party Teens," identifies the present governing class (as they also identify themselves) as "the educated class," and argues that the Tea Party movement is a passionate but informed rejection of everything that this governing class--that includes and is typified by President Obama--represents.

Every single idea associated with the educated class has grown more unpopular over the past year.

The educated class believes in global warming, so public skepticism about global warming is on the rise. The educated class supports abortion rights, so public opinion is shifting against them. The educated class supports gun control, so opposition to gun control is mounting.

The story is the same in foreign affairs. The educated class is internationalist, so isolationist sentiment is now at an all-time high, according to a Pew Research Center survey. The educated class believes in multilateral action, so the number of Americans who believe we should “go our own way” has risen sharply.

Commenting on Brooks, Noemie Emery emphasizes that the public recoil against the President's politics is substantive not only as to specific policies, but also as to the political theory underlying those policies.

While the liberal Left controls the White House along with both houses of Congress, the country it governs has moved to the Right. These phenomena are all interrelated: The country is moving Right in reaction to Obama's theories of governance, and Obama and the educated class are one and the same.

Michael Barone, also commenting on Brooks's column, remarks on how the 2008 Obama supporters were impressed largely with his style.

The Obama enthusiasts who dominated so much of the 2008 campaign cycle were motivated by style. The tea party protesters who dominated so much of 2009 were motivated by substance.

Remember those rapturous crowds that swooned at Barack Obama's rhetoric. "We are the change we are seeking," he proclaimed. "We will be able to look back and tell our children" that "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal." A lot of style there, but not very much substance. A Brookings Institution scholar who produced nothing more than that would soon be looking for a new job.

The great surprise of the Obama presidency has been the contrast between the enormity of his domestic policy ambitions in comparison with the rapid shrinkage of popular support for them on account not only of their inherent problems but also of his ineptitude in promoting them rhetorically. Obama's governing rhetoric has not matched the rhetoric of his campaign. Ill-crafted rhetoric in support of unpopular and even irksome policies will make Barack Obama an historically important one-term President.

Obama Bows to Foreign Crowns

So far, President Obama has bowed twice before foreign heads of state--both of them kings.

The headlines read that specifically conservatives are upset at this. But why should indignation be the reserve of conservatives on this point? I can see how liberals should be at least torn over it. On the one hand they value being culturally sensitive. If it is customary in Japan to bow before the Emperor, they believe the President should avoid offense (except to Americans) and bow. On the other hand, they are egalitarians. Why should one human being bow before another, especially in a political content like this?

For the President personally, there is another consideration. Though he is not descended from slaves, those who are look to him as representing them in a special way. Slaves in America had to bow before masters. The journey up from slavery, Jim Crow, and social subordination in general has been a long, bloody, humiliating, but gloriously triumphant one. For our first black President to distinguish himself as the President who bowed to foreign masters is a disgraceful dereliction of duty, both political and moral.



Here is his bow to the Saudi king. Perhaps he just wants to bring back bowing to heads of state among Americans.

Obama's Kinder, Gentler War

In his inaugural address, Barack Obama announced that change had come also to the moral content of our national security policy.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.

We will have a moral foreign policy, and we will fight the War on Terror morally. We will respect the rights of our enemies, even as they conspire and fight to destroy the regime that guarantees us ours. We will respect their rights in the same way that we respect the rights of our own citizens.

This is the way Jimmy Carter began his (one term) presidency, making concern for human rights the organizing principle behind his foreign policy. Twenty-eight years after he left office, we are still dealing with the deadly consequences of his naive moralism.

After taking office, President Obama wasted no time asserting the enlightened moral perspective of his approach to foreign policy in contradistinction to that of his notoriously diabolical predecessor. In "Obama Made a Rash Decision on Gitmo" (WSJ, Jan. 29, 2009), former Bush Justice Department official John Yoo tells us, "During his first week as commander in chief, President Barack Obama ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and terminated the CIA's special authority to interrogate terrorists." He did this "without a meeting of his full national security staff, and without a legal review of all the policy options available to meet the threats facing our country."


On the basis of the new President's halt to all military commission trials, Yoo surmises that enemy combatants and al Qaeda operatives such as Ali Saleh al-Marri will soon be tried in civilian courts under ordinary criminal law. Such trials would have to include the requirement that prisoners be read their Miranda rights when they are captured, that they have the right to counsel, that they have the right to remain silent, that their counsel have access to all the intelligence on their clients and information on how it was obtained, and of course that they be treated nicely at all times.

It is naïve to say, as Mr. Obama did in his inaugural speech, that we can "reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." That high-flying rhetoric means that we must give al Qaeda -- a hardened enemy committed to our destruction -- the same rights as garden-variety criminals at the cost of losing critical intelligence about real, future threats.

In chapter 15 of The Prince, Machiavelli says that, “if one considers everything well, one will find something appears to be virtue, which if pursued would be one’s ruin, and something else appears to be vice, which if pursued results in one’s security and well-being.” One does not have to accept Machiavelli's moral universe to understand that you cannot fight a war the way you fight domestic crime, and that a President cannot be faithful to his oath of office if he is determined to treat captured foreign terrorists who are concealing life-saving information the same way he treats the citizens he is sworn to protect. Every President either knows this, learns this, or brings disaster upon the country.

****************

Update: Dorothy Rabinowitz follows up on Yoo's article with her own critique of the President's recent national security endangering measures in light of various naive remarks in "his grim inaugural address" and his pronouncements during the campaign. "Obama's Moralizing Tone May Not Wear Well," WSJ, Feb. 2, 2009. This essay is full of insight and fine polemic.

To hear Mr. Obama speak now on matters like the national defense is to recognize that the leader now in the White House is in every respect the person he seemed on the campaign trail: a man of immense moral certitude, prone to an abstract idealism, and pronouncements that range between the rational and the otherworldly. ... Still, there is no reason to think that his views on security issues and Guantanamo and interrogations, his tendency to minimize the central importance of armed might, are not deeply rooted. They are clearly core beliefs. And that, along with those trumpeting declarations to the world that new leadership had now come to the United States, that we were now a nation worthy of the world's trust -- those speeches suggesting that after years of darkness America had now been rescued, just barely, from the abyss -- will be in the end this president's Achilles' heel. Those are not, Mr. Obama may discover, tones that wear well in the course of a presidency.

On the same page in today's Wall Street Journal, two economists, one from UPenn and the other from UCLA, warn that the wrong government intervention can make a major economic downturn far worse than it would be otherewise ("How Government Prolonged the Depression").

Our research indicates that New Deal labor and industrial policies prolonged the Depression by seven years. ... The main lesson we have learned from the New Deal is that wholesale government intervention can -- and does -- deliver the most unintended of consequences. This was true in the 1930s, when artificially high wages and prices kept us depressed for more than a decade, it was true in the 1970s when price controls were used to combat inflation but just produced shortages. It is true today, when poorly designed regulation produced a banking system that took on too much risk.

Between the President's economic initiatives and his national security innovations, he is already looking like the worst of FDR and Jimmy Carter. That is not a recipe for a great Presidency.

Presidential Words and Deeds

Joe Knippenburg, professor of politics at Oglethorpe University, has these wise reflections on President Obama's fine speech at the Inauguration ("Variations on a Theme: Spare Change in Obama's Inaugural Address," Ashbrook Center editorial).

I wished also to suggest to them both the importance and limits of words. Like all his predecessors, Barack Obama faces the twin challenges of moving from words to deeds, and using his words to move us to deeds. The fact that very different presidents can sound quite similar ought to be sufficient to remind us that their words may not fully reveal their intentions and that, even if they do, those intentions have to be fulfilled on the ground, so to speak. Presidents can be sidetracked or distracted by unanticipated events. They can fall into the trap of believing that governing isn’t all that different from campaigning, that what worked to get voters to the polls will work just as well to get members of Congress to sign onto legislative initiatives. They can misread public sentiments. And, most importantly, they can come to believe that their words are “reality” or by themselves can change reality, while, as a matter of fact, their words are most effective and persuasive when they conform to reality.

Reagan was a man of his word. Clinton was a man merely of words. W was a man who struggled with words, but he did what he said he would do. We will judge this President by how true he is to his words, such as his commitment to be “faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.”

Postscript:

Pat Buchanan found the speech remarkably neo-Reaganite.

Jon Stewart saw Obama, but heard George W. Bush. This is funny.

Jack Bauer and the Problem of Justice

"Where do the rules of engagement end, and the crimes begin?" Jack Bauer makes explicit this season what has been an implicit question for the last six seasons of Fox's taut serial thriller, 24. It is a version of the dilemma Plato presents in the Republic, where it appears as Thrasymachus' implicit challenge to Glaucon and Polymarchos: can a just man remain just while conquering evil, or does the asymmetry of the evil/good dichotomy always favor evil in this world? Actually, Thrasymachus presses an even more sinister question than that: why would a man of strength choose to be just, when all the benefits of this world so easily accrue to the unjust man strong enough to make it stick? Plato's solution for the attainment of justice is, ultimately, to spiritualize the good city, whose citizens inhabit it irrespective of the evil surrounding them--they are citizens of the good city in their minds. This is one reason that Platonism seems such a close analog to Christianity: the just city is a city in speech.

Alas, the tension is all the more unbearable, since the Word was made flesh and has lived among us. His followers are to live by his Word, but he counsels turning the other cheek--not a policy adaptable to the city as a whole. Our consciences bear witness against us when we are forced to deal with darkness in the political realm. The dramatic tension of 24 revolves around Jack Bauer's predicament, a good man standing guard over a good regime, whose enemies, like Thrasymachus, are not constrained by regard for justice. Like Lincoln in the civil war crisis, exceeding the constitution in order to save it, Bauer must break the law to preserve the rule of law and America, its principle symbol. In life under the sun, as Ecclesiastes's Teacher refers to this world, something like Machiavelli's teaching is what we reach for: a wise prince must know how to use both good and evil, in order to preserve the good. This is not the Heavenly city; but it is not Thrasymachus' either.

The Bush administration, when faced with implacable evil, struck the balance toward Jack Bauer's rough justice; perhaps our consciences are sullied, but we are safe. Where will the Obama administration strike that balance? And will it in fact be better?

Update:
Debra Saunders has this piece, "From Jack Bauer to Leon Panetta" this morning on "torture" under Bush and "flexibility" under Obama.

It's Always About National Security

It is easy to indulge in wishful thinking when making a major decision. Fred Kagan puts the facts squarely before us as far as national security is concerned ("Security Should be the Deciding Issue," Wall Street Journal, Oct. 31, 2008).

Making war and defending America's interests as Commander-in-Chief has been the occupation of every President since Herbert Hoover.

After FDR, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower led the war in Korea that ended up shaping East Asia and the global economy profoundly.

John F. Kennedy's ill-fated efforts in Cuba shape Central America and the Caribbean to this day. He also made key decisions regarding Vietnam, followed, of course, by Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. These decisions had major effects on American security and also helped launch a social revolution within the U.S.

Jimmy Carter's disastrous hostage rescue operation in Iran had profound implications for the U.S. there and throughout the region, as did his reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

Ronald Reagan's failed policies in Lebanon in the early 1980s, leading to the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut in 1983, shaped the nature of American involvement in that key region, and also the perception of the U.S., for two decades. His attack on Libya, on the other hand, effectively ended a significant terrorist threat to the U.S. It also laid the basis for the elimination of Libya's WMD program after 9/11.

George H.W. Bush fought in Panama and Iraq. Bill Clinton, who took office promising to focus "like a laser beam" on the economy, led U.S. forces to humiliation in Somalia, ineffective, pinprick responses to al Qaeda terrorism and to Saddam Hussein's provocations, and to large-scale conflict in the Balkans. The current administration inherited ongoing military operations in the Balkans and almost immediately confronted the consequences of President Clinton's policy failures in Afghanistan on 9/11.

The next president will not break this string of fighting presidents. He will inherit two ongoing wars involving more than 180,000 troops. He will face two global enemies -- al Qaeda and Iranian terror networks, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Quds Force and Hezbollah.

Kagan destinguishes "enemies" from "threats." It is not a speculation, but a certainty, that the next President will be confronted by not only enemies (al Qaeda and Iran, people who are presently killing our people), but also threats (Pakistani instability, Russian adventurism, North Korean nuclear proliferation, and so on).

He reminds us also that whereas the management economy is the business of the Congress, the President, the Federal Reserve and the courts, it is solely the responsibility of the President to safeguard American lives from foreign danger.

"When people feel relatively safe, they vote their pocketbooks. When they feel endangered, they vote for security. The world today offers no reason for Americans to feel safe. If we want safety, we have to be ready to fight for it."

McCain is the fighter. Obama is not. Cast your vote.

Anticipating the Obama Anti-Climax

David Brooks anticipates one or the other of these two Obama presidencies based on his historical and psychological assessments ("Thinking About Obama," New York Times, October 17, 2008):

And it is easy to sketch out a scenario in which he could be a great president. He would be untroubled by self-destructive demons or indiscipline. With that cool manner, he would see reality unfiltered. He could gather — already has gathered — some of the smartest minds in public policy, and, untroubled by intellectual insecurity, he could give them free rein. Though he is young, it is easy to imagine him at the cabinet table, leading a subtle discussion of some long-term problem.

Of course, it’s also easy to imagine a scenario in which he is not an island of rationality in a sea of tumult, but simply an island. New presidents are often amazed by how much they are disobeyed, by how often passive-aggressiveness frustrates their plans.

It could be that Obama will be an observer, not a leader. Rather than throwing himself passionately into his causes, he will stand back. Congressional leaders, put off by his supposed intellectual superiority, will just go their own way. Lost in his own nuance, he will be passive and ineffectual. Lack of passion will produce lack of courage. The Obama greatness will give way to the Obama anti-climax.

This dispassionate observer stance is ideal for a lawyer or professor, but not for a president. Obama has passed through life while barely touching it. You can read how this has been true at every stage of his life in "Obama is All About Obama."

But behind Barack is the very angry and activist Michelle whom Barack said would be his chief advisor. Expect a Michelle driven domestic policy. Look out, America! You're going to make her proud! And you won't recognize yourself when she's done with you.

Post Election Liberal Refugees

Here are two funny political videos for your weekend enjoyment.

If John McCain somehow wins in November, American liberals really need to make good on their promises and move north to Canada which I understand will admit anyone. Such a migration would serve two enlightened purposes. In view of Stephen Harper's recent electoral victory up there, this "surge" could prevent Canada from becoming a haven for the Conservative Party on our northern frontier. In addition, correct thinking people could more easily prosecute Mark Steyn for his thoughtcrimes.



Here are the two candidates for president yucking it up at the 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith fundraising dinner for Catholic charities.



It is a testimony to all the nations of the earth that the two men who are vying for the American presidency, the most powerful office in the world, get together every four years in this spirit just a few weeks before the election. It's because of who we are. Citizens would do well to study what that is, how we came to be this way, and what is required for preserving that character.

Assess the Man, Not the Plan

Jonah Goldberg has a very fine column today ("The Best Laid Plans..." on how to assess a presidential candidate, and how NOT to. (I am so charmed by his reflections, that I have sent them around to all my students.) Let me tease you into reading it with a few quotes.

Some historians claim that 19th-century Prussian field marshal Helmuth von Moltke, not President Eisenhower, authored the aphorism that no plan survives contact with the enemy....

Even plans to build houses often require countless revisions. But planning for people is so much harder. Every weekend I have a plan for how my one 5-year-old child will spend her day. Keep in mind: I am literally the boss of her. She has no money, little education and no reliable means of escape. And yet, she foils my plans time and again. But somehow we're supposed to believe that a plan involving billions or trillions of dollars, millions of people (each with their own agenda) and thousands of communities influenced by countless interested parties and bureaucracies is not only possible, but the highest responsibility of our elected leaders....

But the point is that it is juvenile to believe that voting for a president is synonymous with holding a referendum on a plan. And yet we have these interminable, often Jesuitical debates on what the fine print of the candidates' plans says.

I am particularly fond of this one:

Even worse, after every debate we are subjected to an endless parade of focused-grouped "swing voters" who think they're oh-so-terribly sophisticated for wanting to hear ever more details about this candidate's plan for education reform or that candidate's scheme for health care. It's all absurd intellectual vanity. These voters are undecided not because they haven't been spoon-fed enough policy detail, but because they haven't been paying attention and haven't bothered to do even minimal research about the candidates.

And he wraps up with:

The real hints for how to choose a candidate, at least in a general election (as opposed to a primary), reside in the realm of judgment, philosophy, track record and temperament. And, using those criteria, the choice shouldn't be hard at all.

Thus, assess the man, not the plan.

Harold adds:

That Jonah Goldberg, he da man.

Money and Good Looks Don't Win the White House

It is offered as a truism that money buys office in America. Money is the determining factor in who gets elected, we are told.

Consider the counterfactuals that we have seen thus far in the primaries, especially on the Republican side. Mitt Romney had far more money than any of the other candidates. Yet he was trounced on Super Tuesday. Who trounced him? It was John McCain who at one point had almost no money left, and yet came back to bury Romney on February 5. Mike Huckabee is fond of saying that, having spent less than 10% of what Romney has spent, he has done comparably well at winning delegates. No one can dispute that money is handy, but at least in presidential campaigns it has to be matched by a marketable candidate, i.e. one who has the requisite substance and skill.

Speaking of the role of money, it is worth noting that the top Republican contenders have almost no money left. As of the end of the 2007 fourth quarter, CNN reports that Romney had just $2.5 million and McCain had almost $3 million on hand. (Ron Paul has almost $8 million, but his money is not matched by a credible candidacy so it is useless to him.) The Democrats, by striking contrast, are bathing in cash. CNN tells us that at the end of the fourth quarter of '07 Hillary had $38 million in the bank and Obama had $18.5 million. That could have consequences. In a curious development, it is reported that the Clintons recently infused $5 million of their personal fortune into their campaign. This apparent contradiction between bank statement and behavior is explained by a large sum of those reserves that is designated for the election campaign itself. But again, that points to a Republican funding problem in the fall.

Let me add this little addendum. People also flippantly remark that television favors the telegenic candidates. In the video age, everything has become style over substance, image over reality. Voters are presumably mesmerized by handsome features and charming ways. Ugly old Lincoln could never get elected in our post-Gutenberg world.

And yet, John Edwards, perhaps the most handsome man ever to run for the presidency, came a distant third among the Democrats and did not even make it to Super Tuesday. This poor showing was despite his indisputable substance and skill and $44 million. On the Republican side, the unsettlingly handsome Mitt Romney is running a seemingly hopeless second, having fallen from what was once a confident front-runner position before the Iowa caucuses.

Take that, you cynics!

Presidential Hair

The previous post by guest writer, Christine Randolph, takes a light-hearted view of what is actually a recurring theme in American politics: presidential hair.

First of all, he must have hair. Our last bald President was Eisenhower (1953-61).

Consider this history of concern over the pinnacle of presidential power.

John Edwards: his almost Benny Hinnish and always perfect hair, as well as the $400 that this man of the people pays for his clip, were a campaign issue. Just before Edwards withdrew from the race, David Letterman did what most of us want to do. He mussed it up on television. Who first called him "silky pony?" (Photo: Seth Wenig, Associated Press)

I recall that in the 2004 race, some were asking, "Who has the better hair, Bush or Kerry?" Kerry's hair was a liability. My wife never liked it. It seemed bigger than the rest of his head.

In 2000, Al Gore appeared at one televised debate with his hair moulded in a strangely Reaganesque style. He also cocked his head that night the way the Gipper used to do.

Bill Clinton began his presidency with a number of missteps, including holding up air traffic at LAX while he got an expensive haircut on Air Force One from Beverly Hills stylist Cristophe.

At the 1992 Republican Convention, incumbent President George Bush mocked his challenger Bill Clinton for his use of a hair dryer. Unbeknownst to poor George, the use of hairdryers was common among voting men at the time.

President Reagan's hair was black and molded to perfection, but he was an actor so we expected this and forgave it.

Jimmy Carter moved the part in his hair from one side to the other in mid-presidency. That did not save him.

There is a doctoral dissertation here begging to be written.

Letting the Dems in the Door Will Cost Lives

It is tempting to be so distracted with what you dislike and even hate about your party's nominee that you allow it to become all there is to see. In my last post, "Romney is Nice, But No President," I argue that having a President who will protect the lives of people in this country from slaughter by either terrorism or abortion is the chief consideration in the coming election. For others, because the abortion battles have continued for so long with seemingly little benefit having come from them, it is tempting to become discouraged and perhaps even cynical. What difference does it make who is in the White House, a pro-life Republican or a pro-choice Democrat? Abortions continue either way. In response to my abortion concern in choosing the next President, Richie says this in the comments:

With a supposedly pro-life president, a supposedly pro-life congress, and a 5-4 advantage on the Supreme Court, what exactly was done to curtail abortion? The court question is a little dicey (which way would Kennedy or O'Connor go), but the GOP held Congress and the Presidency, and they did nothing. I consider abortion to be the most shameful (ongoing) episode in American history, but it's a little disingenuous to act like the pro-life views of the next President are going to make a difference in overturning Roe v. Wade. I just don't see either party doing much to end (or increase) abortion. It's much safer to keep the status quo, and be "pro-life" or "pro-choice" and not do anything about it....Obama, Clinton, McCain, Romney, or Britney Spears, there will still be babies being murdered in 2012. Abortion is legal because Americans want abortion to be legal. I'm too young to be this cynical, I think....

Well, let me encourage you with this. There are two ways in which it makes a difference who is President and who controls Congress as far as this matter is concerned. First, Republican Presidents since 1981 have passed executive orders forbidding the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Our economist friends tell us that when you subsidize something, consumption goes up. A Democratic President will open the fire hose of public funding for abortions and little ones will die in significantly greater numbers as a consequence. (Republican Presidents have also cut off funds for abortions overseas.)

My second point goes by two names: John Roberts and Sam Alito. You have not seen a dramatic difference as result of the appointment of these two men to the Supreme Court because one of them replaced a conservative and the other replaced a moderate. The next two retirements are expected to come from the far left end of the bench: John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Replacing these two jurists even with moderates would bring a dramatic change not only on abortion questions, but as increasingly horrific practices (as if partial birth abortion weren't horrific enough) come before the high court for decision. See, for example, "An Entirely New Kind of Social Evil."

The legality of waiting periods makes a practical difference in the number of babies who are allowed to live. The legality of parental consent laws, the legality of requirements that women be informed of the nature and consequences of having an abortion--these make a difference. That is why abortion advocates hate them with such passion.

There is a lot of good that can be accomplished short of overturning Roe v. Wade. But I have hope that we could see even that.

Romney is Nice, But No President

Last night, at the final Republican debate before the Super Tuesday primaries, John McCain and Mitt Romney sparred over whether Gov. Romney advocated timetables for withdrawal from Iraq after the Republican Congressional defeat of 2006. Drunk with victory at the polls, the Democrats were speaking incessantly about bringing the troops home and establishing "timetables" for doing so. In that context, both ABC and CBS asked Mitt Romney for his views on withdrawing troops from Iraq. McCain rebuked his opponent for not giving the simple and decisive answer, "No!" Romney countered quite emphatically, and with visible irritation, indignation and even frustration as the charge kept returning, that he was speaking of various other timetables such as in fact we have.

The statements in question were these. From ABC News, "Romney Embraces Private Iraq 'Timetables'," whose Robin Roberts asked "if he believes there should be a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq"

Well, there's no question that the president and Prime Minister al Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak about, but those shouldn't be for public pronouncement. You don't want the enemy to understand how long they have to wait in the weeds until you're going to be gone. You want to have a series of things you want to see accomplished in terms of the strength of the Iraqi military and the Iraqi police and the leadership of the Iraqi government.

On CBS's "Early Show," Romney said:

Well, I wouldn't publish [a timetable] for my adversaries to see. [Instead he advocates] a series of milestones, timetables as well, to measure how well they're doing. But that's not something you publish for the enemy to understand, because of course they could just lay in the weeds until the time that you're gone. So these are the kinds of things you do privately, not necessarily publicly.

ABC then made this interesting observation: "While Romney's Tuesday call for 'milestones' is nothing new, he has mostly shied away in the past from employing the more politically charged terminology of 'timetables.'" They also included a statement from a Romney official explaining what the candidate meant. In other words, the controversy was immediate, not something John McCain has invented.

As head of the executive branch of government, the President's chief responsibility is to defend the lives and liberties of the people against enemies both foreign and domestic. The two chief threats to the lives of people in this country are Radical Islam (primarily al Qaeda) and abortion. All the remaining candidates are square on the abortion question. But this remark just over one year ago under the pressure of fashinable thinking and voter anxiety shows that Mitt Romney does not possess the mettle and judgment to be commander in chief of the armed forces which is fully one half of the job.

I have tried to see the merits of this fellow. He did a good job last night of defending his record as Governor of Massachusetts. He was almost Reaganesque in his warmth. My guard was coming down. But in his altercations with the smiling and self-possessed McCain, he showed none of Reagan's executive fierceness. At no point did his words, tone, or manner suggest, "Don't mess with me."

Of the four men, there was only one President among them, and that was John McCain. The questions for Republicans is: who do you want confronting the deadly international evil that threatens us in Iraq, Iran, North Korea and in sleeper cells here at home and who do you want making the next two appointments to the Supreme Court: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or John McCain. The stakes are too high for a "sit this one out" strategy.

The Coming Divide

This piece by NRO's Rich Lowry ("Revenge of the Lunch Buckets") shows that maybe John "Silky Pony" Edwards was onto something, at least around the edges. The emerging, defining divide politically looks to be economic, not between rich and poor, qua Mr Edwards, but between the working class and educated professionals, whose stakes in two of the modes of globalization are quite different: illegal immigration is much more an issue for the working class people whose jobs and incomes are being squeezed, and global trade, which doesn't effect working class incomes as positively or as directly as for the professional and business classes. Populism and its discontents are once again coming to the fore, as we see already with the buttons Huckabee keeps pushing, and as Lowry points out, the Clinton machine has always known how to manipulate.

With the economy finally heading into a recession--its been almost ten years since the last one, a minor one, and even longer since a serious downturn--Republicans will have the uphill argument to make for free trade, lower taxes, and less government. Democrats of all stripes will be pushing the opposite policies as the only way up and out of the coming "disaster." Reagan's simple and devastating question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago? will be harder for Republicans to use this time in their favor. Most people are nervous about the national prospect, even if their own situation is good. If we don't get a Republican grown-up to effectively articulate the vacuity of the Democratic view of life as it ought to be, we are going to be forced to live in their world for a while.

One important thing we have been taught by the last seven years, made noticeable by its absence, is the improtance of a president's ability to articulate the party's positions and relate them to the general weal. Call it the Rhetorical Presidency, a scholarly idea, but still of enormous import. Whoever we nominate is going to have to explain things in whole sentences to people inclined to believe that corporate execs are more evil than government bureaucrats, that government promises are more reliable than free markets, and that unelected judges are better placed to decide social and political questions than elected legislatures.

Which candidate will be best able to articulate conservatism, while staying alive against the tag team of the democrat machine and the main steam media?


-- Harold Kildow

Choosing a President Wisely

Here is another refreshingly and genuinely non-partisan reflection on the presidency and the candidates for it by a Republican. Below, I reported one from Peggy Noonan. Here I report on Larry Lindsey's essay in the Wall Street Journal, "What We Want in a President" (January 2, 2008). Dr Lindsey (Ph.D. Harvard, economics) has served under the last four presidents.

In short, he says that because of the world's vast complexity and thus the unpredictable and inevitable turns of fortune, every president comes to office in need of learning a great deal. Thus:

Our job as voters should be to select someone who will (1) know what he or she doesn't know, (2) get up to speed quickly, and (3) avoid making serious mistakes in the meantime.

Furthermore, while the primary process focuses largely on policy positions and mastery of the process itself (commercials, debating technique--Plato illustrates this in The Republic 488b-d), it is personal character that makes a president either great or disastrous. By character, he does not have in mind matters like truth telling and faithfulness to one's wife, at least not chiefly. Instead, he lists three critical considerations.

First, has the candidate faced a crisis or overcome a major setback in his or her life?...Second, has the candidate had a variety of life experiences? ...Third, can the candidate tell the difference between a foreign enemy and a political opponent?

He expands on these persuasively and offers historical examples of people who hold these virtues and also of those who were tragically missing them. He leaves the reader to apply these criteria to the present slate of candidates.

The first question clearly disqualifies Mitt Romney. I'm sure he "got straight A's, never got turned down for a date, was never fired from a job or defeated in an election." McCain and Giuliani are the most obvious overcomers in a crisis candidates. Huckabee's weight loss doesn't cut it.

The life experience question seems to favor Giuliani and Romney, even Hillary Clinton if only on account of her actual White House experience, and it is most disfavorable to Barack Obama.

And what name rushes to mind when you think of someone who treats domestic political opponents, even within her own party, at least as ruthlessly as she would treat a foreign enemy? The thought is chilling.

But do your own analysis. Invite some friends over and make it game!

It is interesting that the man whom Lindsey identifies nar the beginning of the essay as his own choice, Fred Thompson, does not appear to fare well according to the first two questions on this test, or so it seems to me.

To my many friends in Iowa attending the caucuses tonight: be wise!