Blue Dog Reaganite

Obama & Iran

In terms of his popularity, 2009 has been the year of Barack Obama’s discontent, as he went from being a highly popular and historic new president coming off a decisive election victory, to being a reeling incumbent leading his party into the wilderness. Now what happens in ’09 isn’t all that relevant, but what happens next year will be enormous. And if the events of this past week are any indication, the challenges for the president are only beginning.

The foiled terror attack on the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight was only the most visible sign that the issue of national security is returning to the frontburner.  Charles Krauthammer at RealClearWorld has an article looking at Iran, and how the president’s poor handling of this issue is set to come back and haunt him. Let’s recall that President Obama did nothing to encourage pro-democracy protesters early in the year. He has been wishy-washy on deadlines for Iran getting rid of its nuclear program and the year ends with Tehran spitting in his face and telling him they’ll junk their nukes when we junk ours.

In this latter point, Tehran is not without an argument. Turn the clock back to 1800 and ask whether the emerging United States would have gotten rid of its navy because the British Empire demanded it. The answer is no, and we fought another war in 1812 to solidify independence. But the president may want to revisit that time period and ask that question in a different light. And that’s to ponder how history turned out. The U.S. built its navy and gradually become the pre-eminent power in the world, while the Empire began to dissolve. British interests were not served by a newly armed America. Applied to our contemporary situation, the lesson is this—Tehran or any other nation may have an understandable position in wanting to keep their nuclear program, but the national interests of the United States are clearly not served by such. We can understand their position all we want, but it doesn’t mean we have to set policy to accommodate it.

It is on this basic philosophical question that Obama and the Left go off the deep end (well this, and a few others). They seem incapable of finding a prudent balance between understanding where an enemy is coming, but still understanding where we are coming from. Because the United States has a right to its interests and opinion as much as the rest of the world does. And the reality is that this country has consistently taken the high ground when it comes to nuclear weapons. In the post-World War II era we were the nation that could’ve bombed the world into submission, but didn’t, choosing instead to rebuild Europe and Japan. That’s our legacy. It’s a fair guess that Tehran’s ambitions are a little bit different. The president ought to stand up and affirm that history and unapologetically demand that Iran get rid of its nuclear program. We have the moral standing to do so, and our strategic interest demands it. It’s time to worry more about the United States and less about whether he is being received by throngs of adoring fans overseas.

Christmas Eve & The Working Man

Its Christmas Eve morning as I type this, and I’m thinking of my late grandfather. An immigrant from Ireland in the 1920s, he was the prototype of the Democratic voter in those days. The pre-1968 Democratic Party, built heavily on Catholic immigrants, was the greatest political party in this nation’s history. Strong on defense, strong on law and order, and a believer in the use of government to properly spur economic growth—by focusing on those who wanted to work and help themselves. That Democratic Party was the true champion of the working man. And its rank-and-file lived it out. Every Christmas Eve, Grandpa Flaherty made the small, but meaningful gesture of leaving a six-pack for the garbagemen who would swing by. As I sit here having my morning coffee outside Baltimore and think of all the trash sitting on the sidewalk right now, I kind of want to do the same, but I’ll admit I’m afraid I’ll be laughed at by my wife, or the gift wouldn’t be appreciated by the recipients.

Those were the values of the Democratic Party from days gone by, and I believe still at the heart of the party--underneath the wealthy Ivy League leftists who provide its intellectual firepower, from the corporate CEOs who have bought off the office-holders, and from the loud-mouthed blog commenters writing under assumed names who make up the activist section—that there is a silent majority of real Democrats who believe those same things.

David Paul Kuhn of Real Clear Politics has a thoughtful look at the problems of the Democrats and the working man. The recession we are currently in has hit blue-collar workers hard, and Barack’s movement is not all that willing to address it. One thing Kuhn doesn’t touch on—but gets referenced here repeatedly—is that the entire economic structure of the United States hits blue-collars workers hard. The rules of the global economy have been written so that industries like steel, cars and coal, among others, have incentive to ship overseas. High-tech’s been hit as well, something that has serious implications for national security, but in this case, the MIT grads can find other work, minimizing the human cost.

The movement of the Democratic Party that elected Barack Obama—not African-Americans, who have always voted with the party, but of young people, who were taken in by the new president’s charisma—has little use for solutions that will help the working man get back on his feet. And Republicans don’t either. To the GOP, the working man is a useful tool to get back at the Left—or on a better note, to find agreement with on national defense or law and order—but not to help out economically.

There are real solutions that could provide a jolt to the economy where it’s needed the most. Start pouring money into highway construction and other infrastructure. Recent tragedies in places like Minneapolis, where a bridge collapsed under the weight of morning traffic, show how much new spending here is needed. The people who would be employed are the ones who need it the most. Infrastructure development is an area where there is bipartisan agreement that it’s a federal responsibility. And best of all, its real work, not a handout. It’s in the best spirit of the pre-1968 Democratic Party, conjuring up memories of Boston’s great James Michael Curley, who did the little things like giving men work chopping wood, to the big things like building the Hub’s great hospitals. To find the way to the future, the Democratic Party need only look at its past—and turn off the MTV crowd.

Like the U.S. Senate, I’m going to take a break the rest of this week. Merry Christmas everyone!

Health Care Bill Passes Senate

The health care bill passed the Senate early this morning. The next step in the process will be for the two pieces of legislation--one passed by the House and other passed by the Senate--into a conference committee, where representatives from both chambers will agree on a identical bill that can then be voted up or down by both. If it clears that hurdle, it then goes to the President for his signature.

Ben Nelson (D-NE) was the last holdout to come on board for the Democrats, with much of his holdout being over the right to life. Senator Nelson was not able to win as strong a pro-life language as Rep. Bart Stupak was in the House. The latter bill prohibited federal tax dollars from going towards the abortion industry, period. Lacking the votes to get this strong a bill, Senator Nelson obtained a provision that people who want abortion coverage will pay for it separately, with a different check. What's more, states will be able to opt out of offering it at all.

The pro-life movement's political leadership has excoriated Nelson for caving in, and I've seen the Senate version of this bill already referred to as "a pro-abortion bill." This is an inaccurate characterization of the bill, and an unfair attack on the senator who stood alone to obtain what he did. Planned Parenthood and other reps of the Big Abortion Business, are upset with the Nelson provisions, because they see--quite rightly--that it will be such an administrative hangup that insurance exchanges will decline to offer it, and a lot of people will decline to buy it, not wanting to write the separate check that calls such obvious attention to it.

Critics of Nelson are those who did not want to see this bill passed in any form, and are using the right to life of the unborn to hide behind. Pro-life political activism has been intertwined with Republican politics and economic theory so long, I wonder if they even make the distinctions anymore. I recall when I was part of a prayer group outside an abortion mill in Pittsburgh, and one of the leaders began handing out NRA materials. I agree with the NRA 75-80 percent of the time, but I was wondering what that had to do with the right to life. I also wondered if it wasn't unnecessarily turning off who people who supported gun control and didn't want their pro-life principles to be used against them.

I also would prefer that the health care bill be voted down, although my feelings are more mixed. I spent the better part of August discussing all the reasons why, so I won't rehash them here. But I'm not going to pretend that the Senate bill is somehow a gift to Big Abortion when it clearly is not.

It's long past time for pro-life voters to join union members in asking themselves whether their political leadership really has their best interests at heart, or if they have become too vested with one particular political party. Over the last ten months I've been doing this blog, I've alluded several times to the fact that if pro-lifers want more Democrats to stand up and be counted, then the pro-life community needs to stand up with them. I've seen Republican politicians get a pass for compromises on abortion far more grevious than the one Senator Nelson agreed to. George W. Bush didn't stop federal subsides from going to Planned Parenthood. Ronald Reagan appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. Both of these men are considered pro-life, and rightly so. Senator Nelson deserves the same.

What he settled for was a compromise that was far from perfect. Of course it's not what I'd prefer--what I'd really prefer is a constitutional amendment that made it clear that the protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness starts at the moment of conception. But it was the best he could do. If the pro-life movement is going to continue to see friendly Democrats only as useful tools for pushing a GOP agenda, they shouldn't be surprised when more of us continue to keep them at arm's length. In the meantime, thank you Senator Nelson. Yes, I wish you would have gotten more, but what you got was still pretty good.

The More Things Change...

I just finished reading the book Adams vs. Jefferson, a story of the first contested presidential election in American history. The 1800 race came on the heels of two terms by George Washington. The 1796 race, won by John Adams, was still more coronation than confrontation, as Adams was the anointed successor of Washington. But by 1800, the parties had crystallized and Jefferson emerged as the leading candidate of the opposition. Two great icons of the American Revolution squared off with the presidency in the balance. As I read the book, I couldn’t help but think of the old saw that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The issues back in those days were still the size and scope of government. It was still a perceived battle between the elites and the people. You still had limousine populists. And you still had the danger of a good cause running amok.

Adams represented the Federalist Party, which consisted of men who supported a strong central government designed to protect their commercial interests. The needed a protective tariff policy, and they needed a strong navy to ensure freedom of the seas for American shipping. Jefferson represented the Democratic-Republican Party. The organizational apparatus is the forerunner of today’s Democratic Party, although they were referred to then, and will be in this article, as Republicans. They were already suspicious of the stronger central government the then-new U.S. Constitution authorized and believed in keeping as much power as possible out of the federal government, then based in Philadelphia.

The Federalists were seen as the elites, distant from the people, much as the modern-day GOP is. 1800-style Republicans were seen as the populists, the ones who had the interests of the little guy at heart. However, we must note distinct difference in lifestyle among the two candidates. Adams truly lived closer to the common people, while Jefferson was distant from those he claimed to speak for, hidden away at Monticello, where history has documented he carried on affairs with his slaves. When one considers the behavior of today’s self-proclaimed spokesman for the people, we truly see that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

My disdain for Jefferson’s lifestyle does not keep me from admiring his principled commitment to the ideas of the American Revolution. However, he had a difficult time finding his voice when those principles ran amok in France. The overthrow of the monarchy took on historically bloody proportions. France’s revolt was taken over by the faux populist, Robespierre, who made such extensive use of the guillotine that the water of Paris began to be contaminated with blood. Jefferson briefly succumbed to the appalling logic that you can’t have a revolution without bloodshed—as though the mass execution of innocents for anything remotely suspected as sympathy to the Crown could ever be justified. As readers know, I am generally sympathetic with populist movements, but the French Revolution was the most appalling display of what can happen when untempered hate drives such a movement. And the events in France had a profound effect on American politics at the time, with the issues of whether to align with Paris, London or neither being the central foreign policy question of the time.

And just as today, the problem of where the true populist was supposed to turn existed. In our day, there are those of us who sympathize with the populist principles in Democratic economics, but find the party’s embrace of the abortion industry, softness on defense and limousine liberals too much to take. In 1800, the true populist would have been turned off by the Federalists, but found the embrace of the French Revolution, the dismantling of the navy and Jefferson’s hiding at Monticello as he penned tracts talking about the nobility of the people, to be too much to take.

I have been tough on Jefferson in this article, but I honestly don’t know who I’d have voted for had I lived and owned property at that time (the requirement for voting). And when all is said and done, we have to note that Jefferson found his voice and finally spoke against the atrocities in France after he won the race. These were two great Americans, who eventually reconciled their bitter personal feud and became friends, until they both ironically died on July 4, 1826 the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Politics With A Purpose

I was visiting my mom’s house in the summer of 2005, just outside Milwaukee and listening to conservative radio host Mark Belling in the afternoon. The issue of the day was whether or not to invoke the “nuclear option” in the Senate, to end the filibuster and push through the nominations of President Bush’s excellent judicial nominees. Belling, in a prescient display of political realism, urged the GOP to strong action, saying “I don’t think the 2006 elections are going to go particularly well. This is there chance.”

In reading the recent column of Roll Call’s Stuart Rothenberg, I thought of Belling’s comments. Because now the shoe is on the other foot. The Left has commanding majorities and is peeking around the corner to a midterm election that won’t go particularly well for them. Rothenberg wondered why the Democrats are following the Republicans off the same cliff. His criticism is of a majority party more interested in appeasing its most hard-core voters and House members, rather than undertaking moderate measures with broader appeal.

It’s well possible that liberals might feel the same way Belling did back in 2005. And on the particular issue Belling spoke of, I agreed with him. The purpose of power is to enact the ideas you believe in, and exercising the use a majority is a legitimate means of doing that. Whether the ideas themselves are legitimate is a question we’ll leave for another time, but Rothenberg’s comments make perfect sense to political professionals who are simply focused on winning, but to no purpose. The attitudes of the party activists, while often obnoxious, are focused on winning with a purpose. What’s more, it’s somewhat refreshing to hear anyone associated with politics acknowledge that their majority is a temporary thing, and not some grand realignment.

Good political leadership can balance principled political goals with practical political needs. And no one ever did that better than Ronald Reagan.

Bradford Plummer of New Republic goes into the climate change debate and what a new cap-and-trade system might mean. It means big money for Wall Street trading firms. Cap-and-trade involves Congress setting an overall amount of emission “units” ,and then allowing companies to trade the units amongst themselves. It will be a new trillion-dollar market for Wall Street to tap into.

This is yet the latest illustration of why the alleged division between Big Government and Big Business is just that—an allegation, not a fact. What’s good for one is good for the other, and the annual fight they put on every four years via the Democratic and Republican parties is mere theatre.

Matt Lewis of Politics Daily examines the presidential possibilities of South Dakota’s Republican senator John Thune. In a field that still has no clear frontrunner, Thune is intriguing political darkhorse. I am strong in the belief that whomever the nominee is will not come from the generally mentioned group of candidates, headlined by Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. There is a hunger in GOP circles for a new name. Thune has the resume, and his in-the-background approach will prevent from burning out too quickly. If he can win re-election in 2010, he’ll be a formidable candidate.

The Boston Battle Continues On

Mention the name of Boston to any conservative person—even those just socially or culturally conservative, and you can expect to hear the city’s politics quickly lambasted in a knee-jerk response. Why do they keep electing Kennedy, would have been the old lament. In Catholic circles, the response can be even more vituperative, given the extreme postures the state’s elected officials have often taken on abortion and gay marriage. As someone who considers Boston kind of an adopted hometown—never lived there, but love the city with the passion that often comes from those on the outside—I’ve quickly risen to the Hub’s defense. There’s a silent majority that are loyal Democrats to be sure, I argued, but don’t tell me they’re all consumed with left-wing doctrine on the social agenda. Visits to the city and hearing off-the-record comments from figures as wide-ranging as a former Attorney General, whom I caught up with on St. Patrick’s Day 2007, with a snowstorm raging outside and Irish music and the NCAA Tournament on inside Amhrein’s Pub, to people sitting around me at Fenway Park, confirmed me in my view.

My view, as well as those of Boston critics got more ammunition in yesterday’s Democratic primary to replace the late Senator Kennedy. It was an abortion-rights extremist, Martha Coakley, who brought home the nomination. Yet in spite of the historic nature of the election—this would, after all, be the first senator in the post-Kennedy era—less than 10 percent of eligible voters made it to the polls. Before you blame the weather, the skies were clear. This clearly suggests to me that the problem is not that the good people of Boston and the state overall are wild-eyed left-wingers. But rather, that it’s only the wild-eyed left-wingers that are getting active. Primary elections in Massachusetts have devolved into a debate amongst themselves.

This is the Democratic crisis in the nation at-large. In the big picture, the Republican Party has provided a temporary refuge for some of us, with a commitment to a strong national defense and the appointment of good judges to the courts. But we also know that there remains a divide between us on the GOP on core questions of economic values. So the alliance is temporary and uneasy. But it’s worse in Massachusetts, because the Republicans are no answer at all. Coakley’s opponent in the general election will be Scott Brown. He is good on defense issues, but shares Coakley’s commitment to legalized abortion. In this, Brown is in the recent Massachusetts Republican tradition of Bill Weld and Mitt Romney, who each won statewide elections.

Let’s be clear on one point—I would vote for Brown, because of his national security posture and he does come out against gay marriage. But I’m not going to pretend this is a great candidate, and I don’t intend to sit in judgment of the Massachusetts Catholics who may opt for Coakley. I’m convinced that would be the wrong move, but this is hardly a clear-cut contest. The Massachusetts GOP tradition—which includes Romney’s closing of medical centers that resulted in mentally ill people being on the street (my source here is a Bostonian who normally votes Republican by the way) is not going to solve the Bay State’s political crisis.

Getting the silent majority to vote its convictions is the answer. Just as the Boston Red Sox have had their good name tarred in recent years by an emerging class of fans that acts more like Yankee loyalists in Sox garb, the Democratic Party has had its good name tarred by radical left-wingers who are every bit as elitist as their Republican counterparts. It’s time for normal Democrats (and normal Sox fans for that matter) to stand up and reclaim what’s ours.

Massachusetts Election Looms

On Tuesday, the Democratic voters of Massachusetts chose their nominee for the January 19 special election to replace Ted Kennedy. In this bluest of states this surely amounts to de facto final. Attorney General Martha Coakley is the frontrunner, holding a double-digit lead in most polls, although polling in a race like this isn’t quite as precise as that in a presidential campaign. Coakley is being challenged by House member Chris Capuano. An interesting third candidate is businessman and co-owner of the Celtics, Steve Paglicua.

Boston politics is my special historical interest, and even though this is statewide, I’ve been watching this campaign with an interest disproportionate to its impact on the immediate political situation. Whomever wins is going to be a reliable liberal vote. But they will be a seminal figure as well, the person to step into what is now the post-Kennedy era of Massachusetts politics. Unfortunately, the campaign has been about which candidate is most committed to forcing every citizen to finance abortions. Coakely and Capuano are so extreme that they would even vote against health care reform—the great dream of Democratic voters—if it does not include subsidies for the abortion industry.

Paglicua is far from solid on this issue. He’s still pro-choice and his campaign website states that federal subsidies for the industry are a necessity. But he would not vote against health care reform if it did not include it. It’s the smallest crack of light possible, but the only one that exists in this race, and on that basis I’d vote for Paglicua if I lived in the Bay State. He strikes me at least a man who can be reasoned with. And yeah, that co-owner of the Celtics thing doesn’t hurt his case with me either. They’re 16-4 and have a shot at hanging another banner in the Fleet Center come June.

In other news, GOP congressional leaders have sent a letter to President Obama asking for assurances that the U.S. delegation to the Copenhagen environmental summit will not commit to emissions reductions. The GOP correctly insists that only Congress has the authority to approve such reduction. The Republicans are obviously in the right on this. The Constitution is clear—treaties with other nations are not only subject to Senate approval, but they require a two-thirds majority. It’s hard to get. But that’s the whole point. Our form of government was established with the idea that major change or commitments could only take place if there was a broad national consensus. However, the GOP is just as clearly playing double standards. Because the Constitution is no less clear in stating that Congress alone has the power to declare war, but a series of Republican presidents—from Nixon to Reagan to the Bush Dynasty, have sought to deploy troops in serious military action without such a declaration. Some of the actions were wise, some of them weren’t, but that’s not the point. Congress’ powers have been eroded, and it’s happened with the advice and consent of the legislative branch—but ceding its power and responsibility, they also cede any political damage that may arise, and can keep the gravy train of re-election rolling.

Ron Grossman of The Chicago Tribune says that Barack Obama earned the Nobel Peace Prize simply by being elected. If that’s the case, isn’t the honor being bestowed on the wrong person? Obama didn’t elect himself, the 54 percent of the American electorate that voted for him did. If the election of the nation’s first African-American president is cause for a peace prize, why not give it to the people who really made it possible. Of course that would mean honoring a lot of people, including the “Reagan Democrats”, many of whom voted for Barack and have long been slandered as racist by the left-wing imposters who hijacked the Democratic ship. Let’s give them the Nobel Peace Prize. Not to fear, being a Reagan Democrat myself, I didn’t vote for the president. I guess my honor’s still a long way off.

The Green's Big Setback

The environmental movement took a huge setback this past week, when dumped e-mails among prominent scientists made it clear that the fix has been in on the whole “study” of man-made global warming. A conclusion that such does exist is so clearly fixated in the minds of leading scientists that, according to the e-mails, they did everything they could to destroy the reputations of anyone who dared disagree. There are two kinds of research—that done in a real search for the truth, and that done solely to find data in support of a pre-existing conclusion. And in this case, the latter was what was done. It was something more suited to political campaign strategists and not respectable scientists.

With the façade blown off, just in time for Barack’s arrival at the Copenhagen environment summit, it’s time to ask yourself this question—are you really surprised? Talk to any environmentalists, and “open-minded” or “tolerant” would hardly be the words that come to mind. The crusade against global warming has been a quasi-religion for its leading practitioners, and any denying man-made global warming was treated the same way a Catholic would treat the denial of the Eucharist as Christ’s Body & Blood.

Environmentalism became a cheap and easy way for upper-to-middle class yuppies to feel good about themselves, while they were insulated from the actual hardships inflicted by onerous regulations on industry. Steel, auto, and coal all suffered. The latter is the main source of jobs in West Virginia, the poorest state in the Union, and far removed from Al Gore’s gas-guzzling jet.

In this way, there is a parallel between enviro-radicalism and the crusade for global free trade. To proponents of the latter, the benefits of a completely open global marketplace are so self-evident that to deny them can only be seen as evidence of stupidity or malice. Try and point out to them that the actual results of such policies are a decline in wages, and the enrichment of multi-national corporations who pay pennies on the dollar for labor in the Third World and then ship back to the American market, undercutting the companies that chose to stay here. Try that can get a lecture similar in condescending tone to the one environmentalists give. Just as environmentalists rigged the game in the science community, so too did free trade extremists hotwire the intellectual debate in the political community, quickly marginalizing researchers who might have challenged the mainstream view. In each case it allowed what appears to be an impressive intellectual architecture to develop, but it was only so, because dissent was not allowed in. Research into both economic practice and the study of the earth, was treated with the certitude of Divine Revelation.

Just like with the environmental movement, the fervent supporters of free trade do not suffer the consequences of their policies. The Republicans who have made sure that candidates like Pat Buchanan or Mike Huckabee would never rise above interesting noisemaker, aren’t waiting in unemployment lines in Ohio (although a lot of their politicians in that state have been forced back into the private sector). The Democrats, like Hillary Clinton, who backed the expansion of free trade aren’t trying to support a family on a declining salary, as wages race to the bottom.

The dumping of the e-mails this week helped avert a disaster for the United States, as the prospects of forced economic change is now virtually gone. But we might not be so lucky with the timing next time. A better method of prevention would be to view with deep skepticism, any acolyte of a cause not ready to take the suffering their proposed prescriptions might bring, right along with everyone else.