Blue Dog Reaganite

Beltway Review

Susan Page of The USA Today looks at Barack’s approval ratings as he approaches the one-year mark in office. She cites several encounters with ordinary voters which more or less serve to corroborate what polling has clearly established in recent months—Barack has undeniably come down to earth. He’s not in so much trouble he can’t be re-elected, but nor is he a shoo-in. The theme of her article is that voters will be patient a little while longer, but not much.

When it comes to patience, I’m at my tipping point with this entire notion of the Presidential Messiah, a phenomenon that’s been going on well before Barack, but one that he benefited from like no other. Essentially it’s the notion that a president is going to solve all our problems. It was especially acute in 2008, as Obama was able to run an essentially issueless campaign in the face of an opposing party who lacked any credibility with the public. The new president’s charisma and good nature only exacerbated the problem. People liked him and wanted to vote for him, so they just poured all their hopes into him and counted on him to fulfill them. And while Barack does bear some responsibility for creating an environment where this could thrive—by not spelling out clear stands on issues in a very public fashion (posting them on your website where hardly anyone ever reads them doesn’t count—I’m talking about in ways designed to call attention to real policy stances)—the primary responsibility really does lie with the voters.

Calling out the voters isn’t something that will ever happen in a presidential campaign. Who’s going to walk into a job interview and tell their prospective boss that they’ve got to get it together? That’s what a candidate would be doing if he told voters to grow up and accept primary responsibility for their lives. It’s one thing to be disappointed about a president on the decisions he makes about whether to include a public option in health care, how many troops to leave in Afghanistan, what sort of judges he picks, etc. Those are decisions he’s actually responsible for making. But a president is not responsible for the billions of financial decisions made every day that constitute an economy. I’m sorry if people are having a rough go of it for reasons of no fault of their own—and for the record I don’t make a whole lot of cash either, certainly far less than the pundits who pontificate on TV about how compassionate they are—but it’s not Barack’s job to fix it. And it wasn’t George W. Bush’s responsibility either. That belongs to the We The People. And a Presidential Messiah will always let you down, because he’s not the real thing.

In a column published yesterday in The Hill, strategist Dick Morris lays bare how Harry Reid is trying to push a public option through the Senate, even though moderate members of his caucus oppose it, for either political or substantive reasons. The Majority Leader can’t fix the latter, but he is doing something about the former. Morris explains how Reid’s strategy is designed to let Blue Dog senators vote against a public option all the way to the very last vote, when momentum will have built and they can tell constituents they did everything they could to stop it, but it was either this or no bill at all. How they handle this vote will tell us a lot about people Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR). And it will tell us about the state of the American people. Do they want health care reform bad enough to live with what seems to be a fairly moderate public option? My guess is they do, and the political risk will lie with those with vote no, particularly in the Democratic Party where they will disillusion their base and win only nice words (but precious few votes) from the Republican side. Such is life as a conservative Democrat these days and the GOP rank-and-file can only help by supporting them in ways that go beyond lip service.

Mark Mellman, a Democratic strategist also writing in The Hill, notes the ironies about health care, in that the most controversial elements with the public are the least so in D.C. And the reverse is also true. Mellman’s data suggest what I believe about the public option—the public isn’t all that concerned. But they are concerned about taxing “Cadillac” health care plans. The labor unions are especially concerned about this and they are a core of the Democratic base. While Mellman says the idea is consensus in the Beltway and I don’t have reason to doubt him, I would still be stunned if the Democrats spit in the face of organized labor on this issue. While it’s true the Modern Left spits in the face of the average working stiff all the time, they rarely do the same to their highly compensated and self-appointed spokespeople in Washington.

The Reagan & JFK Vision For Security

In the column posted one week ago today (two posts down), we looked at the philosophical question of the international order and how it will function and who should make the vital decisions regarding the security of the United States. Today it’s time to look at a national security in a more tactical sense. What is the best way to defend our country, our legitimate interests and advance our values abroad? The vision of two former presidents, revered by their parties, leads us to the answer.

Like the questions of the international order itself, this issue came to a head in the debate over the war in Iraq. It was argued that if we don’t fight them over there, we have to fight them over here. Perhaps this is true, but I think it cannot be given primary importance in formulating our national security policies.

The United States has been blessed by the course of history, in that we have two oceans protecting our East & West Coasts, a strategic advantage unrivaled by any serious power in global history. While the nuclear age and advanced weaponry have mitigated it, it is still an edge that should inform our security policy. The only way the United States can be attacked from East or West is to be hit with a nuclear weapon or by naval attack. The latter was a reason why the U.S. became a maritime power first and announced its arrival on the world stage in the early 20th century be sending The Great White Fleet around the world at the behest of Teddy Roosevelt. In the case of the former, it’s important to understand that simply because a country has nuclear weapons does not automatically presume it has the power to strike the United States. Short-range tactical weapons, the kind most likely to be acquired by a rogue dictator or terrorist group, can’t reach across the ocean. Not since the Soviet Union dissolved, has there been a hostile power capable of striking the United States from anywhere on the globe.

There is a way that short-term weapons can hurt us though, and that’s if they are brought in over the border and exploded right here on the homeland. This is why border security—not fighting wars abroad, should be our first and primary purpose. The United States should always be welcoming of new immigrants, but that does not extend to allowing millions upon millions of illegal entrants. Even if 90 percent of these are perfectly upstanding people trying to escape poverty, how many bad apples does it take? Not many. As Ronald Reagan said, a country that can’t control its borders isn’t really a country anymore. And the United States must continue to remain a country.

That’s the short-term solution. In the long haul, the U.S. must continue to win the race for space. The inability of hostile nations to reach the United States from long distance can’t be presumed to hold forever. Ronald Reagan’s greatest legacy was his promulgation of the Strategic Defense Initiative, a visionary idea that offered real defense against nuclear weapons—not just deterrence, the insane idea that only the ability to destroy our adversary was necessary. As we saw all too vividly on 9/11, there are enemies willing to die just to inflict a catastrophe on the United States. Modern-day liberals mock this idea and debunk U.S. efforts to continue research into space. Many of these same liberals cite John F. Kennedy as a hero, with an absolutely no sense of the irony of invoking the president who vowed to put a man on the moon and posthumously saw his vision fulfilled.

If the United States devotes its resources to securing our border from ground attack, continuing to maintain the strongest Navy in the world and developing secure space-based defense against a nuclear strike, we have a complete and comprehensive defense. And with ourselves secure, we can then move the discussion forward on how to advance democratic values. This should be done with the greatest of prudence—the Iraq mission should have our eyes open to how difficult it is to displace a dictator and replace with a democracy. Does the American political system have the will to sustain such a long fight? The rapid and predictable decline of public support for the Iraq operation suggests not. Yet this same mission and all its difficulties also shows the promise and possibility. Even the most hardened war opponent must concede that the Iraqi people have jumped at the chance to vote, regularly defying terrorist threats to go to the ballot box at rates that are embarrassing to the spoiled and indulgent democracies of the West.

Perhaps re-enacting the Reagan Doctrine of the Cold War would be the answer. President Reagan steered clear of direct attacks on Communist regimes, but funneled economic aid and military support to freedom fighters ready to battle for their country. It kept the United States engaged and occupied on the global stage, without bogging us down. It put the first responsibility for changing a country on its own people, but accepted the American responsibility to use its great wealth to aid others. It would be a welcome middle ground between complete disengagement and the overreach of former President Bush and the neoconservative political movement, who underestimated the difficulties involved with direct attack.

As is often the case, the wisdom of Reagan, applied to post-Cold War circumstances can lead us to the answers. That wisdom isn’t always exactly what the modern conservative movement, built as it is on selective application, says it is. And moderate and conservative Democrats can remember that Reagan was one of them before his natural party veered left and off the rocks. And that the vision outlined here is consistent with what JFK was elected on in 1960. 

Health Care & Election Overview

Richard Rahn of The Washington Times articulates the unease many of us have over health care reform and Congress overall, though he takes a considerably more libertarian tack in doing so. That unease is this—the indisputable tendency for Congress to make a problem worse rather than better. We can all see the problems in health care—spiraling costs, inefficient delivery of services, and an insurance industry that reaps billions in profit through de facto extortion as they jack up premiums. But does health care reform mean just substituting a government racket for the insurance one? If that’s the case, sometimes it’s just easier to stick with the devil you know and wait for a better time to come along. That’s where I’m at right now, and I suspect it’s where a lot of people are at, hence the decline in support for the various bills floating through Congress.

Health care reform in its present form seems to be getting some skepticism from the left side of the D.C. media divide too, as this column by Dana Milbank of The Washington Post indicates. Milbank’s issue is with a separate plan proposed by Michigan senator Debbie Stabenow, a woman of the Left, to add $250 billion to the deficit by essentially buying off the support of the American Medical Association. And this does show the financial problems of overhauling health care. Through poor management of money, and the drain on the Treasury created by an outdated Social Security system, the government can’t fix health care without going deeper into a debt.

As Obama’s approval rating hovers just above 50 percent (a few points higher than President Bush’s at the time he was narrowly re-elected in 2004), the Beltway is watching the coming November gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia closely. GOP candidate Bob McDonnell is pulling away from Democratic opponent Creigh Deeds in Virginia. Meanwhile in New Jersey, the momentum is going the other way. Republican Chris Christie has seen a double-digit lead over incumbent Jon Corzine drop into a dead heat. I would imagine that momentum and being in a Democratic state will put Corzine over the top.

If the elections work out that way, it would suggest a Republican comeback, but not a GOP surge. By that I mean, that some type of bounceback was absolutely inevitable. The Democrats are at the tipping point of the number of seats either party can reasonably expect to control. Virginia is a case in point. Obama carried this state in 2008. Now say all you want, about the northern Virginia suburbs of D.C. becoming more liberal. That’s true, but the Commonwealth is still conservative turf and there was no way that Republicans were going to continue being routed there. McDonnell’s victory is just a reflection that the cycle is moving back toward normalcy.

But for an election to truly be a surge, you have to win on non-friendly turf, as New Jersey is for the GOP. It’s good news for the party that Christie has been this competitive, but a win for Corzine suggests that Democrats are at least holding their own. And I think that’s a foreshadowing of what will happen in 2010. There will be Republican gains, but at this point I don’t see a tidal wave. I see “out party” gains within the historical norms that suggest regression to the mean, not a Republican takeover, is in the works.

Another area where regression to the mean may be underway is in New Hampshire. The Granite State was long known for its rock-ribbed conservatism. But John Kerry won the state in 2004 and Barack took it in 2008. That could be written off to a little bit of favorite-sonism, with Kerry from neighboring Massachusetts and a general anti-Republican wave in 2008. But New Hampshire’s also been electing Democratic senators and governors, giving rise to the belief that this was another conservative state seeing demographic changes produce political ones. Namely, people from Boston were moving out to escape skyrocketing housing costs—the NH border is only an hour or so from the Hub and bringing their politics with them. Indeed, in the spring of 2006 I sat at Fenway Park next to a couple from New Hampshire who told me that was the place to go for more affordable housing. But the GOP is leading the ’10 Senate race there by seven points at this writing. This is a small state, but in a world of close elections, it’s one they must start winning again.

U.S. Security In The International Order

One of the better debates to have taken place in recent years has been over the role of international institutions, the world, and how the United States should relate to them. The run-up to the Iraq war brought this debate into full public display. I say this has been a good debate, because I think it meets three key criteria—it’s about a serious issue that’s actually worth the trouble, yet it doesn’t rise to the emotional level of questions like the right to life, that we’ve looked at in recent posts. And it is an issue where the two parties have fundamental disagreement and have candidly taken their positions to the American public. The Democrats are generally supportive of the U.N., Republicans mostly opposed. I realize that sentence is a very crude caricature and each side could offer more depth to it, but it does establish the general outline of how they each line up.

Blue Dog Reaganite takes it philosophical foundation in the doctrine of the Catholic Church. At Vatican II (1962-68), the most recent council of the Church, the postwar international order was embraced. While a statement like this doesn’t rise to the level of theological dogmatic pronouncements that a Catholic is bound to accept, I also think that promulgations of an ecumenical council are not to be casually disregarded. Which means acceptance of at least the general outline of the international order.

However, acceptance of this general outline does not obligate one to agree with every last decision of the hierarchy in how to implement it, and there’s no question that recent popes and bishops are much more optimistic and ebullient about the prospects of this new order for bringing peace and justice than I am. And I do not believe Catholics are duty-bound to accept every move or speech of a prelate on individual issues, though such statements should certainly be treated with great respect and given fair consideration.

My own personal political involvement was primarily in the presidential campaigns of Pat Buchanan and his blunt criticisms of the new order are very much a part of the books I’ve linked to on the left-hand side of this site. PJB goes further than I would in debunking the international order, but this skepticism is something I very much share. Because while the Catholic Church and other philosophical thinkers can take a longer view and envision how such an order would work, an American president must focus on how it’s working in the present day. And the reality is that the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Criminal Court, etc, are populated and driven by anti-American screeds and give disproportionate influence to thug Third World dictators.

This came to a head in the fall of 2002 when George W. Bush sought authorization to go to war with Iraq. Bush’s critics felt he should get U.N. approval for the mission. Some of us, whatever we felt about the war itself, wanted no part of giving vital decisions on U.S. security over to an organization dominated by people who despise our country. This debate became a vital issue in the 2004 presidential election. Indeed, John Kerry’s statement that U.S. foreign policy must pass “the global test” may have tipped the election the other way. While secondary issues about the international order didn’t get the same kind of attention, it is no less important to note that the World Trade Organization can levy sanctions against nations—including our own—if we fail to bring our trade laws into compliance with the globalist vision of complete free trade. This was an agreement signed under Bill Clinton, with the full blessing of Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich. And the International Criminal Court is a European-based racket that sought the power to try American soldiers for war crimes. Because Bush—and not Al Gore or John Kerry was president—the United States declined participation here.

Global organizations have a place in the world. They are useful for organizing joint peacekeeping missions in places like Somalia or Bosnia, where aid is a humanitarian necessity, but not necessarily the sole responsibility of one country. They can be useful for delivering economic aid to the Third World—although we must note that this should not be used as a pretext for propping up dictators at the expense of the people we really want to help. And Third World nations with a Catholic heritage should never be forced into accepting “population control” (re: forced contraception and sterilization) as a prerequisite to getting help. For that matter no nation, regardless of heritage, should have this kind of burden placed on it.

Perhaps it can all be summed up thusly—the international order is worth preserving and trying to improve. But until that reform arrives, it has to be seen with great skepticism and support of such institutions is not a reason for the U.S. to commit national suicide at the hands of nations that hate us.

Beltway Review

Real Clear Politics, home to the most consistently accurate polling data in the business, reports that Arlen Specter is experiencing a drop in his numbers called “staggering” and even “fatal” by political consultants. Specter’s switch from dissident liberal Republican to Democrat is a gambit that has failed. If he is able to survive and win re-election it will be in spite of the change, not because of it. I see this as being less about which party is up and which is down, but instead a personal repudiation of Specter. Pennsylvania is a Democratic-leaning state. And for GOP voters, Specter’s maverick reputation was strong enough that him switching over can’t be seen as ideological betrayal. It may instead be a sense of disgust that Specter was making the change for personal expediency—to keep his place in the majority and the committee chairmanships that come with it. For just as voters long knew the score with Specter, he too long knew the score with the Republican Party. While Specter may have joined the GOP in the days when liberal members in the Northeast were a reliable part of its coalition, those days have been disappearing rapidly since the nomination of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and everyone knew it. The sudden party switch may have cost him his reputation for integrity and explain his falling poll numbers.

If the general election were today, Specter could still win. He’s running against conservative Pat Toomey. The former congressman and president of the Club For Growth, an organization dedicated to advancing supply-side economic policies, is the likely GOP candidate and polls show it as a dead heat. Toomey is a free-trade diehard in a state whose industry has been lacerated by imports. He is a fervent conservative in a state that’s colored light blue. And he lost a virtual dead-heat race to Specter in 2004 in a Republican primary. What is there to think Toomey’s chances will improve facing a broader electorate? Only Specter’s personal free-fall. I think the incumbent could survive this race. The question is whether he’ll get the chance. There are strong opponents in the Democratic primary, notably liberal House member Joe Sestak. Right now, polls show Sestak 28 points back. But numbers like that disappear quickly in a primary like this one, where it takes voters longer to get focused. I expect the Democratic primary will tighten of its own accord, and if Specter’s overall numbers don’t improve, it could turn into a groundswell for Sestak as the best way to keep the seat Democratic. I’m betting a Sestak-Toomey race. Right now I’d make Sestak a slight favorite because of Pennsylvania’s leanings, but that would be a true Left-Right showdown and very much worth watching. 

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The memoirs of George W. Bush will apparently be out in time for the 2010 elections, along with books authored by several other key figures in his administration, including Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. Democrats are salivating at this, figuring it will keep Bush in the public mind just as the voters are headed back to the polls and stave off a potential Republican tidal wave.

I’m interested too, because I remain convinced that GWB will look much better in light of history then he did with his contemporaries. The former president’s great attribute was that he didn’t waste time worrying about what everyone else thought about him and his decisions. It cost him his popularity, but those things have a way of disappearing quickly into history. Does anyone remember that Harry Truman left office with an approval rating of 25 percent? Bill Clinton left with ratings over 60, but ask your average person on the street today whether Truman or Clinton was a better president. What answer do you think you’ll get?

From a political perspective, I think the effect on the elections will be nil. I think the public was ready for a change, but I don’t think the very existence of George W. Bush is going to make them keep voting Democratic without a good reason. The average voter doesn’t go read these books, and the people that do, myself included, usually have a certain political outlook already in place. We read them for their historical value and their interest, not because we’re wondering who to vote for, or because we need to be reminded of such-and-such a person. I’m looking forward to Bush’s memoirs because I think he’s a good guy and was a pretty good president. I’m looking forward to Rove’s because I like political strategy books. 

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Carl Cannon at Politics Daily addresses the controversy over Rush Limbaugh’s bid to buy the Rams. He correctly asks how far we’re going to go in letting politics intrude on sports. I like Rush, though I find his economic views to lean too far libertarian. But I agree with his criticisms of the Left and I admire him professionally as the best at what he does. I also appreciate his constant prodding of his audience to be the best they can be, and he’s influenced decisions in my own life for the better in this regard. The opposition to his ownership is coming from a few African-American players, an Obama-supporting higher-up in the players union and an owner (Robert Irsary Jr) whose has the dubious “achievement” of standing by while his father packed up the Baltimore Colts quite literally in the dead of the night, drove the trucks to Indianapolis under the cover of darkness and ripped the heart out of my new hometown back in 1983. Who’s really a bigger threat to the role of professional sports in American culture? The Irsay Family, or a conservative talk-radio host?

The Role Of Judges

Over the last two weeks I’ve looked at the issues of the right-to-life and gay marriage. Both issues are necessarily tied up with questions of morality, the relationship of religion and the public square and the natural law. But when it comes to practical implications for voting, they are really only tied up with one thing—judges and the role of the judiciary in our political system. In a political campaign, the word “judges” is often seen as a code word appealing to pro-life voters to overturn Roe vs. Wade, or for stopping the overturning of state and local bans on gay marriage.

It’s understandable that it boils down to that, but the reality is somewhat different. Some us who are pro-life and do consider this the most important factor not only in voting, but in judicial nominations, also see it in a broader context. There have been many areas where liberalism—at least the pre-1968 version of it—brought great changes to American life. From the civil rights movement to the push for Medicare. From the New Deal and the establishment of Social Security, to the push for real workers’ rights, the progressives were on the side of the angels from the turn of the century to the advent of the Vietnam War. But on no political issue have they been more disastrously wrong than on the role of the judiciary—and unlike moral issues, their errors didn’t start with the 1960s radicals. The judges that would begin wreaking havoc on our legal system were already in place then. Nor was this all the fault of the Democratic Party—indeed seven of the nine judges on the Court that promulgated Roe in 1973 were appointed by Republicans. Roe still stands in spite of all the appointments made by Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Bush I & Bush II (eight in all). This is not about scapegoating one particular party, but rather about indicting an overall philosophy that is not appropriate to the bench.

When he sought out Sonja Sotomayer to become the newest member of the High Court, President Obama said he was looking for a judge with “empathy.” Now empathy is a nice personal quality. But it can’t work when interpreting law. In Obama’s vision—one that is standard liberal belief—the judge should look at a situation, decide who’s most worthy of sympathy and decide the case in their favor. It has a certain feel-good appeal. But what happens to stability in law? A society can’t function without some clear guidelines and if you wonder how a judge is going to rule based on whether he/she empathizes with you or not, there is no stability. Chaos takes it place.

A judge has to be society’s impartial umpire. So think about it this way. In the recently concluded playoff series, the Minnesota Twins were worthy of sympathy as they battled the New York Yankees. After all, the Twins have about a quarter of the payroll the Yanks do and not nearly the depth. They were at a societal disadvantage because of the economic structure of baseball. So should the umpire decide to make the strike zone smaller when the Twins batted and larger when the Yanks were up? It would certainly do something to level the playing field. But what if the umpire in the next game of the series, decided he empathized with individual Yankee players many of whom have never won a World Series and will get run out of town on a rail if they don’t win one this year. So he does something different. You have chaos, because umpires can’t keep their personal feelings out interpreting the rule book in live action.

The view I give, can result in some decisions that are essentially cold-blooded. Watch a few episodes of Law & Order, and you find yourself understanding judicial rulings on evidence that favor obvious criminals on technicalities. There’s a sense of outrage over it, but also a sense that the judges’ hands are tied. And it’s not his/her place to try and fix it.

That doesn’t mean we throw up our hands and do nothing, and tell innocent victims—be it in civil or criminal court that there’s nothing we can do. It just means that a judge taking the law into their own hands and putting their own personal feelings above it isn’t the answer. We have a legislative branch of government for a reason and that’s to work on fixing those injustices. Drawing on our baseball analogy, we don’t just tell the Twins that there’s nothing we can do. We might push for a salary cap or more equitable sharing of revenue between franchises. We’d work on changing the rules through the proper channels, rather than arbitrarily letting the umpire do it by any means necessary.

In a philosophical sense, justice and mercy are inextricably tied up together. Justice is cold, but necessary. Mercy is compassion itself. It’s the job of the judiciary to handle justice. Legislative bodies—and more importantly people themselves—handle mercy. It’s important to have judges who understand that. And the reality right now is that such judges are far more likely to come from Republican presidents than they are from Democratic ones. As long as the GOP stays the course on this, it’s the best reason there is to vote for their candidates at the national level.

Beltway Immigration Battle

An editorial in The Washington Times addresses the question of health insurance for illegal immigrants. The Times reports that Congress has voted down a requirement that ID be presented when coming to receive benefits. This is the sort of loophole that makes it possible to claim that health care reform does not give benefits to illegals—a claim now famously made by President Obama in his State of the Union address and prompting the “You lie!” shout by Joe Wilson. The Times correctly notes that not requiring ID makes any law prohibiting benefits for illegals as toothless as would be laws that didn’t require teens to show ID when buying alcohol (although the latter would have made my life a helluva lot easier in high school).

I really don’t understand how one can possibly argue that illegal immigrants should be covered by any sort of government health care reform. How can you break the law to enter the country and then access all the benefits that full citizens have? What is the point of having laws if they have no force? And how can the United States regulate its growth and budget—something it has always done, including in the Golden Age of immigration in the early part of the 20th century, when scores of Irish, Italians, Poles and Germans arrived—if there’s no way to control how many newcomers come in on an annual basis?

Advocates of open borders have consistently misused the American heritage to make their arguments. They manipulate the memories of the Golden Age—no one told your family they couldn’t come, is a predictable taunt. This ignores that immigration levels were considerably lower then than they are today. It further ignores the even more obvious point that the immigrants of that generation obeyed the law and came through proper channels. The same system should exist now—both the openness, but also the careful regulation of the process and the demand for conformity with the rule of law.

The views I’ve just advocated would get me tarred as an extremist. Which is why I reacted defensively to Michael Gerson’s column in The Washington Post on the departure of Mel Martinez, a senator from Florida who is a Hispanic. The headline asks “With Martinez Gone Who Will Stand Up To GOP Extremists.” But the content of the column was actually well-balanced and made some reasonable points.

One of those points is that the way you present an argument matters a great deal in politics, especially ethnic politics. And even though Hispanics are not necessarily pro-illegal immigration, and are very traditional in their outlook on society, they are steering clear of the Republicans, due to rhetoric and language that make them feel unwelcome. Gerson allows that while many opponents of illegal immigration avoid the use of divisive language, they are drowned out by extremists.

Whether that’s true or not, I will leave for another time, but suffice it to say, that presentation does matter. Those of us who want a crackdown on illegal immigration and even a slowing of legal immigration to Golden Age levels should not hesitate to make the case for what we believe—that the Hispanics arriving today are every bit as fundamental to the future of the country, as the Irish, Italians and Poles were so many years ago. They bring an energy and life that we are better off for having. Their focus on the family is a welcome contrast to the yuppies in the suburbs. There’s no reason that southern cities that are havens for the newcomers—most prominently Miami—can’t develop a proud Hispanic heritage, in the same way Boston developed a glorious Irish heritage. And on the West Coast, there’s no reason the same can’t apply to Asian newcomers. (Obviously, like the earlier immigrants before them, they can move elsewhere, I’m just looking at the most obvious landing points). And the United States should have enough belief in its own traditions—English-speaking and proud of its Western political and cultural heritage—to want to make learning them an essential part of the assimilation process.

I’ll close today’s column, by going off on a brief tangent about Obama’s failed effort to land the Olympics for the city of Chicago. I had a very negative reaction when he went over to Copenhagen to try and secure the Games, and not just because I’m a displaced Wisconsinite hoping the Badgers bury Illinois on the football field and the basketball court in the coming months. But with problems in Iran and health care coming to a head, was this really what a president should be doing? Particularly for his own hometown. Was he Commander-in-Chief or Alderman-in-Chief? That was my reaction. Then I learned that Tony Blair and other world leaders had taken similar action on behalf of their home cities. So perhaps this is another case for Barack’s opponents, myself included, to lighten up and focus on the areas where we really disagree with him.

The Natural Order of Marriage

It was early 2004 that the state of Massachusetts dropped a bomb on the nation. The courts in the Bay State ruled that a ban on homosexual “marriage” was unconstitutional. It immediately set off a political firestorm and arguably contributed to the defeat of Massachusetts’ favorite son John Kerry in his presidential bid that year.

I write as a voter whose decision in ’04 was profoundly influenced by this issue and decided in a way that adversely affected Kerry. At the time I was still estranged from the mainstream of American politics, a situation not altogether rectified, as the differing personas featured on this site will attest. I either planned to vote for the Constitution Party nominee, Michael Peroutka, or for the re-election of George W. Bush. I grappled with an array of issues and implications and finally narrowed it down to one simple litmus test—if Bush would come out for a constitutional amendment in favor of traditional marriage, I’d vote for him. Bush did—so I did.

Why would this matter so much? Among Catholic voters, gay marriage tends to fall into the discussion along with embryonic stem-cell research and abortion, as the non-negotiable moral issues in politics. But while I am such a voter and agree that they are the “non-negotiables”, we should acknowledge that gay marriage is different in some important aspects. Abortion involves the taking of a human life. Stem-cell research—at least the kind opposed by the Catholic Church—involves unacceptable medical experimentation on human beings. You don’t need to be a Catholic, a Christian, or even to believe in God for that matter, to oppose these. Opposition to both can be rooted entirely in the notion that freedom stops where it begins to encroach on the freedom of another.

Gay marriage is different. I’m not directly affected if a couple guys want to go tie the knot. And the whole question of how far one can go in using one’s own moral code as the basis of law comes into question. The Catholic Church doesn’t advocate a ban on artificial contraception, choosing instead to rely on moral suasion rather than legal force. Can the same exist for gay marriage?

I don’t believe it can. Marriage is the foundation of the family and the family is the foundation of civil society. There might not be immediate effects by legalizing gay marriage, but the longtime erosion of this fundamental institution isn’t going to be a good thing. In spite of the often venomous protests of gay-rights advocates, this is a lifestyle that is fundamentally abnormal. It should not take an advanced degree in science or theology to know this. It should only take a rudimentary understanding of the human body to know that man and woman were made to be complementary, and not bedding down with their own. And if there is anything the human experience teaches us, it’s that you can’t go to war with nature without bad consequences.

The question of whether homosexuality comes about by nature or nurture is not relevant to this particular topic. I believe homosexuality is a lot like alcoholism (and I’m a recovering alcoholic, so that isn’t intended as the insult gay-rights activists want to turn it into). From my own experience with alcohol and later with other recovering people, I know there are certain ways our bodies and minds are wired, that we react differently to the sauce than other people. But we can also use spiritual means to move beyond a lifestyle that is inherently abnormal and unnatural. Similarly, I believe a person can be born with homosexual tendencies and desires. But that doesn’t make the answer to give legal legitimacy to those desires, any more than we should treat alcoholism by giving out free beer (though if we do, I can think of more than a few friends who will dance in the streets). Just as society has progressed to the point where it sees alcoholism as a disease in need of treatment, we need to progress to the point—on both Left & Right—of seeing homosexuality the same way. It’s not a lifestyle to be celebrated, contrary to what the Left says. It’s not necessarily something one chooses, contrary to what some of the Protestant preachers on the Right would argue. And most importantly, it’s a tendency and a desire, not the way to define an entire person, in spite of the gay-rights crowd rather bizarre desire to do this to themselves.

Gay marriage should not be legitimized. In most cases, I believe the right of the states to set their own laws should prevail. But that can’t work here. You can’t have a situation where a marriage is recognized in one state, but if the couple moves, it’s no longer valid. There must be a uniform law across the United States. And that’s why a constitutional amendment is so vital.

I still don’t know that gay marriage deserves to be casually mentioned in the same breath with abortion and stem-cell research. But it does deserve to be opposed and the natural order of man and woman should be enshrined in the Constitution.

Beltway Review

The struggle that those who support serious national health care reform as well as the right to life was highlighted by a lost vote in the Senate Finance Committee this week. The committee defeated an amendment that would have required people participating in the public option to purchase separate coverage for abortions. Passage of this amendment would have upheld the idea that the government should be value-neutral on abortion, which is what I always thought the Planned Parenthood movement wanted. That they feel everyone should be forced to pay for this, suggests that “pro-abortion”, rather than the preferred “pro-choice” is the more appropriate moniker for this movement. I refer not to people who may be sincerely struggling with questions of when life begins and what the government’s role in its defense is (see post below for a more detailed answer), but instead to those who insist that everyone pay for abortion coverage.

Declining to pass this amendment makes it impossible for anyone who believes in the right to life to support a public option in health care reform as currently proposed. And joining forces with the GOP, at least on a long-term basis, means giving up the goal of a health care system that everyone is a part of. Pro-life Democrats are placed between a rock and a hard place. I continue to advocate that the best way to handle these times we are living in is to have a short-term alliance with the GOP to defeat these attempts to expand the abortion industry’s influence. But the more important long-term goal should be to retake the Democratic Party, which is properly the province of ethnic Catholics and those who believe the government has a responsibility to protect the innocent unborn.

Christian Bourge, writing in The Washington Times, says it’s only a matter of time before anti-smoking fascists eventually get all smoking banned. The means of doing so are proposed regulations that would let a business owner ban smoking within 25 feet of his building, something that would make simply walking by the building with a cigarette in your hand illegal.

I was initially opposed to smoking regulations indoors in restaurants and on airplanes. Over the ensuing years I’ve met enough people who are more sensitive to smoke than I, who have described how bad it was to be in a restaurant that allows smoking, even in a non-smoking section. As a result I can see the need for a regulation in this regard. But I have a hard time with the idea of cigarettes being so bad that we need to use a law like the proposed one to de facto ban it everywhere. If we ban cigarettes, on what basis do we say alcohol consumption should be legal? Or any other vice that is pleasurable, but has long-term health consequences? The burden of outdoor smoke is surely no greater than that of an unruly drunk. And no one’s ever gotten killed from smoking and driving. So while there is a case to be made that indoors cigarette smoke causes more of a problem for innocent bystanders than alcohol does, I don’t see how the same applies outdoors.

Having said that, Bourge does seem on the extreme side himself. He goes on to write that being the son of a cardiologist nicotine advocates put him through college. He didn’t seem to be saying it tongue-in-cheek, and it was kind of an odd remark. But however he chooses to express himself, I think he’s right on this topic.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is in danger of losing his re-election bid next November. If he falters, he would be the second straight Democratic leader to be defeated in his home state. It happened to Tom Daschle back in 2004, when he lost to John Thune, now a possible darkhorse contender for the Republican presidential nomination. Politico reports that a Reid defeat would mean the rise of a Senate even more partisan than we currently have. The likely successor would be either Dick Durbin of Illinois or Charles Schumer of New York. Both are men of the Far Left. Both are also from solidly blue states and unlikely to be defeated for re-election, meaning they could give their party some stability.

While I don’t think Durbin is in any danger of losing his seat, I dispute the contention that Illinois is a solidly blue state. I realize the results of presidential elections since Bill Clinton began running nationally say otherwise, but I see the state’s current heavy vote for the Democrats more as a byproduct of the collapse of the internal Republican apparatus through reasons having nothing to do with philosophy, be it conservative or moderate. The GOP had leaders constantly running into scandals and eventually it took its toll. But George Bush Senior carried the state in 1988 and that’s not so long ago that demographics have irrevocably changed. Furthermore, downstate beyond Chicago is the kind of rural area that Republicans have done well in around the rest of the country. There’s no reason a revitalized party couldn’t do so in Illinois.

If Reid loses, I think both the interests of Blue Dog Reaganite, as well as the interests of the left-wing are best served by Schumer, if indeed the choice is between those two (I’d much rather see Kent Conrad from North Dakota or Ben Nelson from Nebraska personally). Schumer’s a liberal and a publicity-seeker, but he has sought to open the door to pro-life Democrats, including encouraging Bob Casey Jr. to seek the Senate in Pennsylvania. And for the Left, he’s from a state that no one doubts is blue to the core, and would stabilize the leadership position for a long time.