October 21, 2010
A vicious cycle
National Review Online had an email exchange with NPR regarding the sacking of Juan Williams. Asked what exactly Williams said that NPR deemed inappropriate, Anna Christopher, NPR's senior manager of media relations, wrote: "We aren't going to get into a back and forth over semantics. The comment violated our ethics guidelines, and offended many in doing so" (emphasis added).
The last phrase caught my eye. I assume that NPR's audience consists primarily of leftists (I know few non-leftists who listen to it these days). Thus, many audience members possess sensibilities not unlike those of Joy Behar and Whoppi Goldberg. Williams' comments offended those sensibilities.
NPR cannot afford to offend its base very much. So even if its senior decision-makers did not regard Williams' comments, coupled with those he has made in the past, as a firing offense, letting him go was the smart move.
I take no position on what the decision would have been if the decision-makers were not constrained by their lefty audience. But I wouldn't be surprised if, by and large, their sensibilities mirror those of the audience. After all, how did NPR end up with that audience?
How about a moratorium on construction of false graves?
The following is one of those stories that, through its sheer strangeness, provides a better window into Israeli-Palestinian relations than 1,000 accounts you might read in the mainstream media. It seems that the Muslim Waqf (a religious endowment in Islamic law that oversees land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes) has asked a court to force the city of Jerusalem to stop removing false graves from an ancient Muslim cemetery near the center of the city.
What are the false graves doing in the cemetery? According to this report, the Waqf had them constructed because it wanted to add property to the cemetery.
The cemetery had been in a state of severe disrepair for more than a century despite being under the supervision of the Waqf. But recently trucks, tractors and other heavy machines were spotted dumping building materials at the site. Workers then shaped the materials into Muslim-style tombstones with no one buried beneath them. Approximately 300 such tombstones were created.
Later, it was reported that essentially the same thing was occurring in the area of the Eastern Wall in Jerusalem (adjacent to the Western Wall). In that case, the Arabs involved simply ignored a ruling that deems the area a national park. Apparently, the police are also ignoring that ruling and, indeed, preventing Jews from passing through the area.
After receiving reports about the construction at the cemetery near the center of the city, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israel Lands Authority began removing the tombs. The Waqf sought legal redress. Argument was heard this week.
Absent evidence that anyone was buried in the graves at issue, the Waqf's case seems like it should be dead on arrival. We'll see.
How odd that Israel is expected not to build in settlements to accommdate live citizens, while Muslims build in Jerusalem on behalf of Arabs who never existed.
Power Line Bookshelf
The good news from South Dakota
It's been a while since we last checked in on the race for South Dakota's congressional seat between incumbent Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Republican challenger Kristi Noem. South Dakota native John Hinderaker is tied up with work for the next few weeks, so we turn to Best News and Politics for this update.
BNandP reports that Noem has retaken the lead over Herseth Sandlin with less than a month to go before the election, according to what I believe is the most recent Rasmussen Reports poll. The Rasmussen Reports poll shows Noem up over Herseth Sandlin 47 to 44 percent. The poll result reverses the showing of the candidates in Rasmussen's September poll.
Now comes Jim Geraghty with the good news, and the excuse for this update. Geraghty reports that plenty of good seats remain available for Herseth Sandlin events (video below).
For the purposes of the election, Herseth Sandlin holds herself out as an independent moderate. In the first of her ads to run in the race on South Dakota television, Herseth Sandlin touted her supposed opposition to "a trillion-dollar health care plan," i.e., Obamacare. "A trillion-dollar health care plan," she seems to be saying, is an insupportable monstrosity.
So Herseth Sandln must support repeal of such impossibly costly legislation? Actually, no. According to Herseth Sandlin, "repealing it wouldn't be a productive way forward." My idea for a productive way forward is to replace Herseth Sandlin with Noem.
Tonight in St. Paul
My friend Teresa Collett is running against the useless incumbent Democrat Betty McCollum in Minnesota's Fourth Congressional District (St. Paul and suburbs). As I have noted here previously, Collett is a brilliant teacher at the University of St. Thomas Law School and a powerful pro-life advocate as well as a person of complete integrity. She has been challenging McCollum to debate for the past few months. Tonight's the night.
This evening at 6:00 p.m. Collett will meet McCollum for a debate to be held at the Wilder Foundation Auditorium (451 Lexington Parkway North) in St. Paul. I understand that SEIU forces will be in attendance at the debate. It would be nice if Collett supporters turned out in force to express their support. Please note that the debate hall prohibits signs and campaign related apparel. The campaign asks that those planning to attend show their support by their presence, not through t-shirts or signs.
The firing of Juan Williams
Mara Liasson is National Public Radio's top political correspondent. She also helps hold down the left flank on panels where she appears as a FOX News contributor such as Special Report with Bret Baier. Last year Josh Gerstein reported that NPR management has asked Liasson to reconsider her appearances on Fox News because of what they perceive -- in accord with the teaching of the Obama administration -- as the network's political bias. NPR executives said they had concerns that Fox's programming had grown more partisan, and they asked Liasson to spend 30 days watching the network.
At the end of the 30 days, Liasson was undoubtedly expected to engage in rigorous self-criticism, but it didn't work out that way: "At a follow-up meeting last month, Liasson reported that she'd seen no significant change in Fox's programming and planned to continue appearing on the network, the source said." Now NPR has gone a step beyond the summoning of Mara Liasson.
Big Journalism reports that NPR has fired senior news analyst Juan Williams for thought crime committed on Fox News. Williams concurred with Bill O'Reilly on "the Muslim dilemma" posed by O'Reilly. Williams admitted that, despite his prolific admiration of the civil rights movement, "when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
Williams also referred to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. Williams noted: "He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts."
NPR has issued a statement explaining that Williams's remarks "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR." The remarks, however, may have been something of a pretext. NPR itself reports that Williams's presence on Fox News "has long been a sore point with NPR News executives."
Williams knowingly prefaced his remarks with the observation: "Political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis..." NPR proves that the point is precisely to induce the paralysis of which Williams spoke.
Via Instapundit.
UPDATE: Bill Kristol makes the same point, calling NPR National Politically-correct Radio. If it's not apparent from my comments, I would like to make clear that I join Rich Lowry in condemning Williams's firing as "shameful."
PAUL adds: As I said at the time of the Liasson incident, I'd rather listen to commercials on sports talk radio than listen to NPR.
October 20, 2010
Bad news for Harry Reid
The early voting numbers in Nevada do not bode well for Harry Reid. The numbers come from the state's two most populated counties -- Washoe County (Reno) and Clark County (Las Vegas). Together, they are home to 86 percent of Nevada's voters.
According to Politico, in Washoe County, 47 percent of early voters so far have been Republicans, while 40 percent have been Democrats. Voter registration, though, is evenly split at 39 percent for both parties. Thus, Republicans have turned out in disproportionately high numbers, to date.
In Clark County, Democrats make up 46 percent of the county's registered voters; Republicans just 33 percent. Of the voters who have cast ballots so far, 46 percent are Democrats and 39 percent are Republicans. Again, Republicans are punching above their weight.
These numbers show that the Dems are actually turning out the vote in proportion to their registration. But the Republicans are significantly outperforming their registration and, in doing so, outperforming the Democrats.
Apparently, it is independents who are not showing up early to vote. This probably makes sense, as they are not the target of either party's apparatus.
Polls show that Nevada's independents strongly favor Sharron Angle. Thus, the conventional wisdom is that Reid may have to outperform the Democrats' registration advantage this year in order to prevail. The early numbers suggest that, due to the high level of enthusiasm among Republicans, Reid is underperforming that advantage.
Show them the money
The Democrats say they are showing it to Hispanics. Hispanic leaders say they aren't showing enough of it, and that the electoral consequences could be "devastating."
Is this a great country, or what?
Barney the UnReady, part 2
We noted the bizarre intercession of Barney Frank's boyfriend (James Ready) in Republican challenger Sean Beilat's post-debate press event here (video included). Now Boston Globe columnist Brian McGrory follows up on the story in "Dude, show some respect." McGrory goes to Frank for his response:
When I called Frank yesterday to ask if he condones his partner goading and mocking an opponent, he told me that "Jimmy'' is a talented amateur photographer putting together a photo essay of the campaign.
When I asked if Frank planned to apologize for Ready's behavior, Frank said: "Jim should have broken it off and not responded. But Bielat shouldn't have initiated the conversation. I don't see what was inappropriate about taking his picture.''
I'll mark that down as a no.
A few moments later, my phone rang again. It was Frank, adding, "Jim's new to political campaigning. He takes it more personally than someone who's used to it.''
After we hung up, Frank called again, saying, "You know, he calls me dude. I didn't realize that was troubling people. He calls all sorts of people dude.''
So what's happening here? McGrory takes a respectable stab at it: "For the last three decades, the political establishments in Boston and Washington have excused Frank's consistently obnoxious behavior as Barney being Barney....But now voters are looking to D.C. and wondering what has gone wrong in a city and a system that is having such a hard time getting things right."
McGrory also gives Bielat his due: "Bielat, an even-keeled Democrat-turned Republican with a Harvard degree, made Ready look foolish this week." Kudos to McGrory for following up and getting it right.
Stanley Kurtz's irresistible book
Due to my immersion in the 1960 World Series, and other, less enjoyable projects, I still haven't finished Radical-in-Chief, Stanley Kurtz's political biography of Barack Obama. I'm getting there, though, and I recommend that our readers consider doing the same.
Early in the book, Kurtz reminds us of this passage from Obama's autobiography Dreams From My Father:
Political discussions, the kind that at Occidental had once seemed so intense and purposeful, came to take on the flavor of the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union or the African cultural fairs that took place in Harlem and Brooklyn during the summers -- a few of the many diversions New York had to offer, like going to a foreign film or ice-skating at Rockefeller Center.
To many readers, this phrasing must have seemed quite clever from a literary point of view -- confirmation, if any were needed, of the author's precociousness. To highly politically conscious readers, the passage must have seemed equally clever. Obama, who was then gearing up for his first political campaign, signaled to the leftist Hyde Park crowd that he was a man of the left, without signaling to others that he was threatening. In addition, Kurtz speculates (plausibly) that Obama may have been concerned that evidence of his attendance at socialist conferences would surface, and thus attempted preemptively to remove its sting by characterizing his involvement as a "diversion."
In any event, Kurtz demonstrates that Obama's effort to make light of his involvement with socialism is a deception. For one thing, Obama has acknowledged that this period was one of extraordinary intellectual intensity for him. It was, in his words, a time of "solitude and isolation." When his mother and sister visited him, they "made fun of me because I was so monk-like." Surrounded by books, he was in "the period when I grew as much as I have ever grown intellectually."
It follows that during this period, "politcal debates" mattered at least as much to him as when he was at Occidental. And if Obama skated at Rockefeller Center during his "monk-like" period, surely it was not with the seriousness of purpose with which he engaged political ideas, including those espoused at all-day socialist conferences.
Indeed, Kurtz shows a connection between what was espoused at these conferences and Obama's decision to become a "community organizer." Going into his senior year at Columbia, Obama seemed on course to work in the field of international relations, his major. He was particularly focused on nuclear disarmament, writing both his thesis and a major piece for a campus newsmagazine on this subject. And eventually, to accumulate money to tide him over as a community organizer, he took a job with an outfit that helped companies with foreign operations understand overseas markets.
But in the second half of his senior year, Obama resolved to become a community organizer. What inspired that choice?
According to Kurtz, the inspiration likely came from his involvement in the socialist movement. In fact, the importance of community organizing was a major theme at the socialist conference Obama attended at Cooper Union. For example, an all-star panel on "Social Movements" was devoted to community organizing.
One of the panelists, Peter Dreier characterized such work as developing "socialist incubators." The idea was to combine diverse community organizations into a national grassroots movement to "democratize control of major social, economic, and political institutions." (emphasis added) In this vision, a grassroots movement for such public control would gradually overcome American cultural resistance to state-run enterprises.
This would only happen, though, if the "socialist incubators" developed by community organizers moved into the political arena. Thus, Dreier's vision pointed not only to Obama's first important career -- community organizer -- but also his second -- political candidate.
Finally, black liberation theology was also featured at the conference, and Obama's attendance may well have started him on the path to Reverend Wright. At a panel on "Race & Class in Marxism," a young Cornel West spoke. During this period West was an assistant professor at the Union Theological Seminary. There he co-taught a course with James Cone, Wright's mentor, on "Black Theology and Marxist Thought."
West had told Michael Harrington, the dean of American socialists, that he wished to "legitimate socialist alternatives" in social discourse, while also infusing the African-American church with socialist analysis and ideas. This, almost certainly, is what West talked about during the panel on "Race & Class in Marxism." If Obama was at that session -- and how could he have resisted -- the eloquent and impressive Prof. West would have made far more of an impression on young Obama than ice skating or a foreign film.
I hope this summary of a small portion of Radical-in-Chief provides readers with a sense of Kurtz's project. For me, his book is as irresistible as the Cooper Union socialist event was for Barack Obama during the period when he says he grew as much as he ever has intellectually.
Do you think baseball has a pacing problem?
Last night's game between the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers (won by Texas 10-3) took four hours and five minutes to complete. This is all-too-typical these days of high scoring playoff games with lots of pitching changes.
How long do you think Game 7 of the 1960 World Series (a 10-9 game with plenty of pitching changes) lasted? If you said two hours and thirty-six minutes, you are right.
Heck, it took me longer than that to write about the game.
Ishmael Jones: On the CIA lawsuit
Ishmael Jones is the pseudonymous former Central Intelligence Agency case officer who focused on human sources with access to intelligence on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. His assignments included more than 15 years of continuous overseas service under deep cover.
Mr. Jones is also the author of The Human Factor: Inside the CIA's Dysfunctional Intelligence Culture, published by Encounter Books. When it was issued in paperback he contributed the post "CIA spies and Dartmouth deans," exploring a theme of his book.
On Monday Bill Gertz reported that the CIA has sued Mr. Jones over the publication of the book. Gertz's article does a good job of exploring the issues raised by the lawsuit. Mr. Jones offered to expand on his comments to Gertz for us. He writes:
The CIA filed a lawsuit against me recently for writing a book without CIA approval. I'd been a CIA officer in a career which included more than 15 years of continuous undercover assignments in foreign countries, which is very rare given that CIA officers spend most of their careers in the United States. I showed the book to the CIA's censors and sought their approval, repeatedly asking what they wanted taken out of the book, but over the course of a year they just waffled.
In the end, it was my duty as an American to defy censors, and I went ahead and had the book published, as a tool for use in influencing the improvement of our clandestine service.
The book contains no classified information and I do not profit from it. CIA censors stonewalled this book because it exposes the CIA as a place to get rich, with billions of taxpayer dollars wasted or stolen in espionage programs that produce nothing. Despite the talented work force, more than 90 percent of employees now live and work entirely within the United States where they are largely ineffective, in violation of the CIA's founding charter.
We need to make Americans safer by increasing the tiny numbers of CIA heroes serving under cover in foreign lands. We need financial accountability and whistleblower systems to stop tremendous waste and theft. The good news is that we can achieve these things simply by enforcing regulations that already exist. It's already illegal to steal government funds, and we should enforce the CIA's founding charter requiring that the CIA focus on espionage in foreign countries.
When a former CIA employee publishes a book, the conventional wisdom is that the CIA is wise to ignore it because to do otherwise merely gives the book attention.
But ordering the lawsuit was a way for CIA chief Leon Panetta to curry favor with the CIA's senior bureaucrats, who dwell on the seventh floor of its headquarters, and who oppose critics of the Agency's current lifestyle. Panetta is beleaguered at the CIA and is in over his head. He has been Stockholmed by CIA bureaucracy and has become another failed Obama appointee.
It's great to be an American. In many countries it would be a death sentence to accuse the head of the spy service of incompetence.
Our nation's Founders recognized that censors will approve books that serve the censors' agenda and will block books that don't. Of course an intelligence agency must protect its secrets, but there have always been laws designed for this purpose. The CIA's ability to censor speech that does not contain classified information is a separate right that the CIA was granted in the 1970's, in the Snepp case. It is more than an infringement upon the First Amendment. It shields the CIA from accountability and allows them to stifle whistleblowers.
CIA censors do little to stop the leaking of actual classified information. They will permit the publication of startling amounts of classified information if a book is written by an influential bureaucrat, such as the book by former CIA chief George Tenet. The leaking of classified, secret, damaging information to the New York Times and the Washington Post by senior bureaucrats, for the benefit of political agendas, has reached criminal levels at the CIA. The New York Times and the Washington Post have developed franchises around this. As an unfortunate consequence, you'll rarely see any mention of intelligence reform from these newspapers, because to do so would upset their sources on the seventh floor of CIA headquarters.
All other effective organizations in the United States have accountability mechanisms. If a veteran in the Marine Corps, with an unblemished record, stated that billions of dollars were being stolen or wasted and that missions were not being accomplished, the Marines would call that person in immediately to ask what he was talking about, to get to the bottom of it, start an investigation, and fix it.
During part of my CIA training I was trained by Drug Enforcement Agency agents. The DEA agents taught me that when they arrested an innocent person, that person asks many questions: What's this all about, what's going on here? But guilty people don't ask questions because they already know the answers. I am accusing CIA director Leon Panetta of condoning fraudulent operations that leave Americans vulnerable and that steal or waste billions of dollars, and he doesn't have any questions. That's because he already knows the answers. Panetta thinks he can oversee theft and waste and that he can then sue the man who calls him on it.
If I can win this lawsuit, or even just do a good job fighting it, I will be able to bring attention to CIA reform that can result in greater safety for Americans and our allies.
We have previously noted that Mr. Jones is contributing all his royalties to veterans' groups. One of the remedies sought by the CIA in the lawsuit is the seizure of the author's profits on the book.
We are grateful to Mr. Jones for giving us the opportunity to submit his pointed comments on these important issues to the judgment of our readers.
UPDATE: Encounter Books publisher Roger Kimball comments on this post in "A bad day for the spooks."
Uncommon Knowledge with Victor Davis Hanson
Last week we posted Peter Robinson's interview with Victor Davis Hanson. Given our format, the interview rotated off the site after a few days. We'll have another installment of Uncommon Knowledge next week. In the meantime, here is the interview with Dr. Hanson, once more once, after a brief introduction.
Victor Davis Hanson is the prominent classicist and military historian who is the author of numerous brilliant books including The Western Way of War: Infantry Battles in Classical Greece, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and the Spartans Fought the Peloponessian War, and, most recently, The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern. He is also the author of the forthcoming Broadside pamphlet How the Obama Administration Threatens Our National Security. And these are just my favorites. Interested readers should check out the body of his work here.
One of the most prominent public intellectuals in the United States, Dr. Hanson is a Fellow of the Hoover Institution. Peter Robinson recently conducted a wide-ranging interview with Dr. Hanson beginning with a discussion of Hanson's NRO essay "The New Old World Order" and moving on to Europe, Asia, Russia, Mexico, and the United States. Through our arrangement with the Hoover Institution, we are pleased to present the interview in its entirety.
October 19, 2010
A benign Obama blunder, but a scary blunder nonetheless
Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post reminds us of how President Obama sabotaged the Middle East "peace talks." He did so by insisting on a settlement freeze. For years, the PA had conducted talks with Israel in the absence of such a freeze. But when Obama came to power, suddenly the PA treated settlement construction as an obstacle to talks.
Why the switch? Because once Obama demanded a settlement construction freeze, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the PA, had to insist on it too. As Abbas himself put it:
When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped. If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?
This statement confirmed that, in Diehl's words, "the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas but with President Obama -- who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote."
This summer, Obama appeared at last to recognize the self-defeating nature of his position. Following a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, Obama didn't mention settlements and began to urge Abbas to talk directly with Israel. But by September, he was back on the record calling for a halt to settlement construction, thus making it impossible for Abbas not to make the same demand.
Frankly, I'm glad Obama sabotaged the "peace" talks. In my view, they are, at best, a waste of time and, more likely, a threat to Israel's security. Torpedoing the talks may prove to be Obama's finest accomplishment as president.
But the staggering incompetence Obama has displayed in handling this issue should give all Americans pause. For if Obama could play this hand so poorly, what other serious blunders are in store?
Highway 61 Revisited
Up in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District (northern Minnesota, including the Iron Range and Duluth), 18-term incumbent Democratic porkmeister Jim Oberstar is in the race of his life against Republican challenger Chip Cravaack. The Eighth Congressional District is Democratic territory. No Republican challenger has previously come within shouting distance of Oberstar; he has never won less than 59 percent of the vote.
In Duluth today Oberstar met Cravaack for a debate in which Oberstar was not eager to engage. For weeks Oberstar refused to confirm his participation. After the Duluth News Tribune published an editorial highlighting Oberstar's refusal to explain his record to voters, Oberstar announced that he would participate. His decision preceded an internal Cravaack campaign poll that placed Cravaack within three points of Oberstar.
The venue was moved twice to accommodate the crowd of 1,800 that attended the debate at the Duluth Convention Center. Cravaack supporters turned out in force. The report of the Duluth News Tribune highlights the raucous nature of the throng. Cravaack suporters could not have been disappointed with this:
When asked what their first priority would be if elected to Congress, Republican Cravaack said he would "get rid of Obamacare'' to shouts of glee and applause from his supporters.
The Cravaack campaign has issued this colorful press release:
At a debate today, 18-term incumbent Congressman Jim Oberstar boastfully defended his record of wasteful run-away spending which has caused our nation's debt to skyrocket. Conversely, Chip Cravaack laid out his vision for a better Minnesota and more prosperous America. In front of an energized crowd of more than 1,800 at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, Cravaack explained his plan to create jobs, stop tax hikes, and eliminate pork-barrel spending in Washington.
"It's disappointing that Congressman Oberstar once again showed how out of touch he is with Minnesotans in the eighth district," said Cravaack, a 24-year Navy veteran. "His behavior today is what's wrong with Washington and why Minnesotans believe Congressman Oberstar has lost his way."
Throughout the debate, Congressman Oberstar repeatedly scolded those in attendance. In fact, he shouted to audience members who disagreed with him and arrogantly called them "members of the Flat Earth Society." When asked about the stimulus, Congressman Oberstar repeatedly said "the federal government creates jobs." When asked about ObamaCare, he angrily pointed at the audience claiming their health care is better after this law. When asked about his steadfast support for the cap-and-trade national energy tax and America's Commitment to Clean Water Act, Congressman Oberstar replied: "If you want clean water, join the Supreme Court."
During the spirited debate, Cravaack explained to a standing ovation that the federal government does not create jobs, the private sector does. Regarding ObamaCare, Cravaack said repealing this fatally-flawed law would be one of his top priorities in Congress. And Cravaack assured the audience he would oppose the job-killing cap-and-trade national energy tax.
When asked about his vote in September to adjourn for the year - which failed to allow a vote to stop a massive $3.9 trillion job-killing tax increase on all Americans on Jan. 1, 2011 - Congressman Oberstar erroneously denied it.
"Congressional Republicans and more than 30 House Democrats were calling for a vote to extend the tax cuts for working families and small businesses yet Congressman Oberstar voted to adjourn, which left the $3.9 trillion tax increase on the table," Cravaack said. "The tax hikes Congressman Oberstar voted for would adversely impact 75 percent of small business owners that file taxes and individual rates - the same small business owners responsible for nearly two-thirds of private sector job creation."
A rematch is scheduled this Friday at Itasca Community College in Grand Rapids.
The Constitution in the Financial Crisis
Michael McConnell is one of the nation's leading constitutional law scholars, especially on the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses. Until recently, he was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. In 2005, McConnell was frequently mentioned (including by us) as a possible nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.
McConnell resigned from the federal bench last year to teach at Stanford law school and to direct its Constitutional Law Center. The Center's goal is to return constitutional law scholarship to the most fundamental questions of consitutional order, especially the allocation and control of governmental power through law. As an alum of the law school, I'm proud that Stanford has become a force for the serious study of the constitution and against the various fads and frivolities that sometimes seem to dominate the field.
Next month, the Center will present a conference on "The Constitution in the Financial Crisis." It will take place on November 11-12.
The government's response to the financial crisis certainly poses broad constitutional questions about the government's role in the American economy and about how its decisionmaking power is allocated between branches. The panel topics reflect these questions. They include: "The Executive in Crisis: Constitutional Capabilities and Constraints," "Bankruptcy and the Rule of Law," "The Federal Reserve in Our Constitutional System," "The Government as Shareholder: The Implications for Corporate Governance," and "Rule and Standards Revisited: Discretion in the Financial Crisis."
Several friends of Power Line are among the distinguished participants. They include Todd Zywicki, Kenneth Anderson, John Steele Gordon, and Prof. McConnell himself.
By the way, Prof. McConnell tells me that he is participating in the case of ACLU v. TiZA, where he is representing, pro bono, the parents of the students attending an Islamic charter school. Scott wrote about the case here, taking the side of the ACLU, which contends that the school's operation on public funds is illegal. This is also the position I'd probably take if I knew enough about the facts, and had given the case sufficient thought, to take a position.
Prof. McConnell says he became involved in the litigation for two reasons. First, he believes the litigation is a stalking horse for a broader assault on charter schools that have curricula or requirements that appeal to religious families. Second, he believes that it is important to encourage Muslim Americans to be, and to become, partriotic Americans without thinking they have abandoned their faith. McConnell understands that TiZA is trying to accomplish this.
Presently, the case is on appeal to the Eighth Circuit, where the issue is whether the parents can intervene in the litigation. The district court refused to allow them to do so.
We'll keep an eye on this case which, like so much else of what matters these days, arises from Minnesota (in this instance, St. Paul). Meanwhile, I'll be wishing I could attend the Stanford conference, and keeping an eye on the internet, where the proceedings will be made available.
Going, going. . . .
The Washington Post points to a set of polls (see item 5 in the link), conducted for the independent expenditure arm of the National Republican Congressional Committee, that shows Republicans leading in nine battleground districts throughout the country. In all but one case, the trailing Dem is an incumbent.
Several of the races are ones we have been following. In Florida's Eighth Congressional District, Dan Webster leads the despicable Rep. Alan Grayson 46-30. In Ohio's Fifteenth District, Steve Stivers leads hard-leftist Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy 51-39. And in Washington's Third District, Jaime Herrera leads Denny Heck 51-38.
Since these are Republican internal polls, they should perhaps be viewed with caution. But the margins in the three races mentioned above are so large that you have to like Republican chances in all three. For what it's worth, the only margin of the three that surprised me was Herrera's.
The return of Bill Clinton
Clinton's never really gone away, but he has returned as the Democrats' most popular campaigner this year. In Jay Nordlinger the return of Bill Clinton has induced that old Clinton feeling:
Watching Bill Clinton on the campaign trail this year has brought back the revulsion I once felt, those years ago, when Clinton was president. The bullying, the arrogance, the dissembling, the lying, the defaming. The refusal to regard Republicans or conservatives as people, with points to make. As opponents to be engaged and argued with.
(To be sure, Obama et al. exhibit the same mindset.)
Clinton's perpetual line, of course, is that people are voting Republican this year, or thinking of doing so, because they're "mad" -- mad as in angry. The implication that goes with that is that the voters are mad in another sense, too: nuts, out of their minds. How could you vote Republican if you were a rationally thinking human being?
There was a bumper sticker once -- probably still is: "I Think, Therefore I Vote Democrat." If you say so yourself, schmuck.
Barney Frank, up in Massachusetts (unless you live north of there, of course!), is having a tough challenge, from a neat Republican named Sean Bielat. How tough is this challenge? Frank thought it wise to have Clinton come up and campaign for him.
In the Taunton High School gym, the former president said, "The only thing that really matters is, What are we going to do now? What are we going to do now, and who's more likely to do it?" Okay, Bill. "If those were the questions the voters in this congressional district asked, Barney Frank would get 85 percent of the vote and we wouldn't be here."
Meaning, there would not even be a competitive race. There would be no need for a rally featuring the former president. There would not have to be this tedious old campaign -- democracy and all that BS.
If only the voters had their heads screwed on right! If only they asked the right questions! Oh, why do you plebes waste my time with this need for a contest? Why should there be any argument at all? Why should there be a second party in this country!
More recently, Billy J. was out in Nevada, campaigning for Harry Reid. There, he was in another gym: that of Valley High School, in Las Vegas. I will quote a report from the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "Clinton said that 'in a normal time' Reid would be winning his re-election bid by 25 points and his GOP challenger Sharron Angle wouldn't be an electoral threat to the incumbent."
Again, that sense of entitlement: Why should we have to compete for our seats? Why don't they just trust us, and reelect us automatically?
Said Clinton, "You and I know the only reason this is a tough race is because people are having a tough time. When people are mad, it's time to think."
Oh, I think they are.
Clinton then spoke of the horror of ads run against Senator Reid -- ads by Republicans, against a Democrat! Can you imagine the effrontery? Said the 42nd president, "If you knew who's giving the money, you would know that the ads weren't true."
Oh, really? And how's that? Clinton did not elaborate (of course). He simply smeared.
But here is the pièce de résistance: The former president said about Angle, "This is a woman who doesn't want women to have mammograms." The Review-Journal commented, "Actually, Angle voted for mandating insurance coverage for mammograms when she was a Reno assemblywoman. But in general she opposes mandates because she says they increase the cost of insurance for everybody."
"This is a woman who doesn't want women to have mammograms." Forget what you or I or Angle or Clinton might think about appropriate government policy. "This is a woman who doesn't want women to have mammograms." What a disgusting lie. And to think that Clinton was once president of the United States.
No, I don't miss him at all. Count me out. I think I'd rather have Barack Obama for two terms than Billy J. for one. I think he probably has more honor, heaps more. We forget the never-ending stream of lies, the finger-wagging prevaricatin' and fulminatin'. Yeah, he signed Republican welfare legislation, and a free-trade agreement, when he was running for reelection and "triangulating." So?
I don't think I can join Jay in his preference for Obama over Clinton. Is Obama really preferable to an operator like Clinton? I'll take Clinton, I think, though Jay may persuade me otherwise when he returns to the subject in a forthcoming issue of National Review. For the moment, recycling a line he used from the 2000 campaign, Jay concedes: "I'd rather be locked in a discarded freezer with Bill Clinton for a year than have a brief, delicious lunch at the Four Seasons with Al Gore."
As for the restatement of his revulsion over the characteristic Clinton tropes, thank you, Mr. Nordlinger.
Strong shots and long shots: Last call, maybe
Given that we're just two weeks out from election day, I think this may be our last edition of these glimpses of Republican challengers to Democratic incumbents in congressional races around the country. But don't hold me to it! We have only skimmed the surface noting some of the many outstanding candidates who have undertaken these races, even races that appear to be missions impossible.
I think, for example, of Sean Bielat challenging Barney Frank in Massachusetts's Fourth Congressional District, Ruth McClung challenging Raul "Boycott Arizona" Grijlava in Arizona's Seventh Congressional District, and Chris Gibson challenging Scott Murphy in New York's Twentieth Congressional District. The challengers in these difficult races are the kind of folks who make you proud to be a Republican. (I wrote this before finding Dennis Prager's column making precisely the same point using Ruth McClung as one of his several examples.)
My friend Teresa Collett running in MInnesota's Fourth Congressional District against the worthless Betty McCollum is another such example. Teresa is a brilliant teacher at the University of St. Thomas Law School. She is a devoted pro-life advocate and a person of complete integrity. Randy Demmer running against the phony Tim Walz in Minnesota's First Congressional District and Chip Cravaack running against Maryland resident Jim Oberstar in Minnesota's Eighth Congressional District also deserve mention in this context.
I think virtually all these races could be won with adequate resources. The late California Democrat Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh famously held that money is the mother's milk of politics, and he knew what he was talking about. Starving Republicans of the resources to run competitive races is one of the Democrats' major political projects. You can be sure that whatever rules the Democrats promote in the name of good government, labor unions will be left free to expend members' dues on candidates who will faithfully follow the union agenda. Which reminds me: I took a whack at the subject of campaign finance regulation a few years ago in the Weekly Standard column "Dream palace of the goo-goos."
Jim Geraghty has now posted the final pre-election update to his May list of 99 open seats and vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Geraghty's list has expanded to to 117 races. However, his list includes some races that appeared potentially competitive earlier and now aren't. Geraghty believes that roughly 100 seats are in play that Republicans should win no fewer than 40 of them.
Geraghty's list includes all the races we have mentioned in this series and many more as well as the latest poll data from whatever source derived. In this series I have taken our lead from readers, and readers have asked us to highlight the following races we have previously overlooked, also included on Geraghty's list.
Tom Marino is the former United States Attorney Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania who is running neck and neck against Chris Carney in Pennsylvania's Tenth Congressional District. "Carney has far more money," our reader reports, "and has gone almost exclusively negative in his campaigning." Geraghty reports that the Times Leader puts Marino ahead of Carney by 6 points. Please consider supporting Marino here.
Ben Lange is running against Bruce Braley in Iowa's First Congressional District. Our reader writes that Lange has never before run for office and that RealClearPolitics recently moved the race from Likely Democrat to Leaning Democrat. Geraghty reports that the there hasn't been much recent polling, but that an early September poll put Lange within 4.4 points of Braley. Lange is one of the Paul Ryan/Eric Cantor/Kevin McCarthy Young Guns (as is Minnesota's Randy Demmer). Please consider supporting Lange here.
A final note. Check out the Young Guns site and its complete roster of Young Guns candidates that is accessible via the map here. Click on any of the green states. There you can find, for example, Adam Kinzinger running against incumbent Democrat Debbie Halvorson in Illinois's Eleventh Congressional District. Kinzinger is an Air Force pilot who has served in Air Force Special Ops, Air Combat Command, Air Mobility Command, and Air National Guard. As I say, Kinzinger is the kind of candidate who makes you proud to be a Republican. Geraghty reports that Kinzinger is leading in the race, but that the size of the lead is in dispute. Please consider supporting Kinzinger here.
November 2 can't come soon enough.
