Right Wing Nut House

The Kepler mission will be the first serious search for habitable planets in our galaxy.

Taking a break from politics this weekend (at least on this blog) because I’ve had a hankerin’ to do some gee-whiz, wowie-zowie, omigod, eye-popping, knock you out of your sox, space blogging.

There’s a lot going on at NASA besides trying to keep the dinosaur Shuttle fleet in one piece. (I pray every time they launch that Edsel that humans will not pay with their lives for the bureaucratic bungling that has us using this antique rather than modernizing years ago.) It is a consequence of a lazy media and their even lazier audience that the truly stunning scientific accomplishments that NASA is generally responsible for (in partnership with the EU, the Russians, and others on occasion) are barely reported and commented on.

NASA may be an agency in search of a grand vision but when it comes to cutting edge science, they do alright. The Mars rovers, orbiters, and the most recent laboratory lander, the Phoenix, that discovered what almost certainly is water ice at the north pole, are radically changing our view of the “dead” red planet (recent discoveries of plumes of methane suggest the possibility of life).

The agency’s New Horizon’s mission to Pluto and the Kuyper Belt is chugging along about a third of the way to crossing the orbit of Uranus. Launched 3 years ago, the spacecraft is the fastest man made object in the solar system traveling at more than 43,000 MPH. Even at that speed, it won’t reach Pluto until July of 2015.

The Hubbell Space Telescope is still amazing scientists with its discoveries. And for pure, geeky, kewlness, the pictures that are beamed to earth from Hubbell can’t be beat. Hubbell’s successor - The James Webb Space Telescope - will, if it works properly, probably have the capability to see earth-like planets in enough detail that we will be able to discern whether any intelligent life exists there.

But the launch of Webb is four years off. In the meantime, the most sophisticated effort in history to find earth like planets will be undertaken on March 6 of this year when NASA launches the Kepler Spacecraft into orbit.

A different kind of telescope, Kepler will be equipped with a gigantic photometer and will peer at one, small section of the sky continuously, comprising about 100,000 stars. It’s job will be to catch earth-like planets crossing in front of its star - “transiting” is the scientific term - and then determining the shape of its orbit.

The goal is to discover those planets in the “Goldilocks Zone” or habital zone, where water can exist in liquid form and planetary temperatures would at least give life a chance to arise. It’s called the “Goldilocks Zone” because the orbit would place the planet in a zone not too cold and not too hot but “just right.” This is a narrow zone indeed if you think about it. Of our two closest planetary neighbors, Venus is probably too close to the sun for life to have arisen (other factors like a runaway greenhouse effect also doomed life there) and Mars may be at the outer edge of the habital zone, having seen liquid water early in its formation as well as the possibility mentioned previously that some form of microbial life still exists there.

Here’s a brief overview of the mission from the Kepler website:

The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems. This is achieved by surveying a large sample of stars to:

1. Determine the percentage of terrestrial and larger planets there are in or near the habitable zone of a wide variety of stars;
2. Determine the distribution of sizes and shapes of the orbits of these planets;
3. Estimate how many planets there are in multiple-star systems;
4. Determine the variety of orbit sizes and planet reflectivities, sizes, masses and densities of short-period giant planets;
5. Identify additional members of each discovered planetary system using other techniques; and
6. Determine the properties of those stars that harbor planetary systems.

Using supercooled charge coupled devices (CCD’s), the sensitive photometer will be able to determine a small body transiting a distant star by measuring light before and during the transit. It is described as akin to measuring the light blocked by a moth as it transits a searchlight. The telescope will have its eye fixed on one, relatively small section of the sky and study such transits for 100,000 stars over a 5 year period.

There are a couple of drawbacks to this method of detecting earth-like planets. First, Kepler will only be able to see planets orbiting within the plane of the star. In our solar system, Neptune orbits outide of the plane of the sun which means its transits are very, very rare. An earth like planet orbiting closer to the star but not in its plane would have more transits but probably not enough to be detected during the 5 year life span of Kepler. (Scientists believe they have to see at least 3 or 4 transits in that period that will show the exact same drop off in starlight due to the object’s transit in order to be able to have a “robust” confidence in the data.)

Secondly, there is a possibility (some astronomers believe a probability) that Kepler won’t discover many of these earth like planets at all, that there are just too few of them. NASA says that this will also be valuable knowledge and I agree. But with cost overruns pushing Kepler’s price tag toward $500 million, the Republican in me questions whether earth-based observations could eventually achieve the same results for about 1/10 the cost.

At any rate, here are NASA’s expectations for Kepler:

Expected Results:

Based on the mission described above, including conservative assumptions about detection criteria, stellar variability, taking into account only orbits with 4 transits in 3.5 years, etc., and assuming that planets are common around other stars like our Sun, then we expect to detect:

From transits of terrestrial planets in one year orbits:

• About 50 planets if most are the same size as Earth (R~1.0 R_e) and none larger,
• About 185 planets if most have a size of R~1.3 R_e,
• About 640 planets if most have a size of R~2.2 R_e,
• About 12% with two or more planets per system.

These numbers come out substantially higher, when one takes into consideration all orbits from a few days to more than one year.

From modulation of the reflected light from giant inner planets:

• About 870 planets with periods less than one week.

From transits of giant planets:

• About 135 inner-orbit planet detections,
• Densities for 35 inner-orbit planets, and
• About 30 outer-orbit planet detections.

Detection of the short-period giant planets should occur within the first several months of the mission.

The sample size of stars for this mission is large enough to capture the richness of the unexpected. Should no detection be made, a null result would still be very significant.

As you can see, there would still be valuable data gleaned from the mission even if they only discovered a handful of earth like planets. To date, extra-solar planets have overwhelmingly been of the “hot giant” class due to the methods employed to discover extra-solar planets using earth based observations. The debate over why this is so is fascinating. Are these Hot Giants failed stars? Since about half of the stars in our galaxy are binary star systems with two suns in close proximity to one another, that explanation makes sense. Or are our theories on how planets form wrong? The “accretion disc” theory has been with us for several decades but suppose there are alternate means by which the dust and gas surrounding a new star resolves itself?

The big question is can both short period Hot Giants and earth like planets exist in the same solar system? Kepler may help answer that.

Kepler is the next step in NASA’s efforts to discover extra-solar life and perhaps, intelligent neighbors who might also be searching the heavens for signs they are not alone. More likely, those planets Kepler will find, if they harbor intelligent life, feature civilizations far more advanced or far less advanced than ours. But the discovery that there are perhaps thousands of earth like planets in the habital zones of stars in our galaxy alone would almost certainly change the way we look at our universe. Even many skeptics would be forced to rethink their notions of life in the universe if Kepler meets expectations.

Enjoy these discoveries while you can. With trillion dollar deficits staring Congress in the face, the probability that NASA funds will be cut to the bone are about 95%. Congressmen find it easy to cut programs that don’t enrich cronies or buy them votes back home. Most of the pure scientific exploration represented by Kepler, New Horizons, the Mars probes, and the Webb telescope are easy pickings for the budget cutters.

The paltry amounts that will be saved pale in comparison to what we will be losing.

Oath of Office - take two?

Several constitutional lawyers said President Obama should, just to be safe, retake the oath of office that was flubbed by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The 35-word oath is explicitly prescribed in the Constitution, Article II, Section 1, which begins by saying the president “shall” take the oath “before he enter on the execution of his office.”

The oath reads: “I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

In giving the oath, Roberts misplaced the word “faithfully,” at which point Obama paused quizzically. Roberts then corrected himself, but Obama repeated the words as Roberts initially said them.

A do-over “would take him 30 seconds, he can do it in private, it’s not a big deal, and he ought to do it just to be safe,” said Boston University constitutional scholar and Supreme Court watcher Jack Beermann. “It’s an open question whether he’s president until he takes the proper oath.”

This is truly a fascinating little tidbit of Americana. The oath, according to law, must be administered word for word. Since Roberts and Obama flubbed it, legally speaking, Obama had not fulfilled the Constitutional requirement to take the oath before assuming the presidency.

But then there’s the little matter of the 25th Amendment that made Obama president at 12 noon regardless of whether he had taken the oath or not. The amendment was passed to deal with crisis in a nuclear age with the death of a president and the immediate ascension of the Vice President to the office. The reasoning goes that the office of president can never be vacant, that if the president dies (or if both die) the next Constitutional officer in the line of succession automatically becomes president.

The article notes that both Calvin Coolidge and Chester Arthur took the oath twice. But both men were vice president at the time and Arthur, who was sworn in immediately, decided on a formal swearing in when he got back to Washington.

Coolidge, on the other hand, had his father, a notary public, swear him in upon hearing of the death of Harding. At the time, it was uncertain if a notary could actually swear in a president. To avoid confusion, Silent Cal had the Chief Justice swear him in when he got back to Washington.

In both of those cases, those men were following a tradition set down by John Tyler who ascended to the office of president following the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841. Constitutional scholars argue to this day whether Tyler was required to take the oath at all. (There was also a huge to do about whether Tyler was “Acting President” or actually possessed the office of president). There is nothing in the Constitution that clears up the matter and all vice presidents who have ascended to the presidency have followed Tyler’s example “for greater caution.” There is also great symbolic meaning to taking the oath which, in time of national emergency as when Kennedy was killed, can be an effective balm for the country.

But this situation is without precedent - flubbing the words of the oath. Is Obama really president? Yes, that much is clear. He was duly elected by the electoral college and the Congress certified it. From 12 noon yesterday, he was the legitimate president in the eyes of the law.

But challenges could still be forthcoming. If I were him, I’d give Roberts a call and invite him for lunch, taking the oath with a couple of witnesses “for greater caution.”

This blog post originally appears in The American Thinker

My latest at PJ Media is up. It examines the historic nature of Obama’s inauguration; that we have gone from “Whites only” drinking fountains to toasting an African American president in the White House within the span of my lifetime:

A sample:

Is it really possible we have gone from “Whites Only” drinking fountains to toasting an African American president in the White House within my own lifetime? I can easily recall the civil rights story told nightly through the grainy news film of the time. Images both unforgettable and horrifying were a nightly staple of the news. The dogs and fire hoses being let loose upon children. The beatings of demonstrators who sat stoically, knowing full well the blows were coming and refusing to fight back. And always, the dour, glowering faces of the southern authorities who resisted to the last.

No, the election and inauguration of President Obama does not banish racism or discrimination from America. That happy event is still in the future. But inaugurating Obama allows us a glimpse of such a future on the distant horizon, barely discernible but now a definite form shimmering in the morning sun. And a clear path to that goal is in front of us just waiting for us to take the first step.

Read the whole thing.

Lots of talk yesterday about comparing Bush to Lincoln. My PJ Media column this week responds that notion not unsympathetically but rejecting it nevertheless:

Some Bush supporters, while agreeing that things have not been exactly peachy these last eight years, nevertheless try and compare Bush to Lincoln — at least as it relates to the idea that both men faced serious challenges and remained steadfast to their beliefs in the face of virulent opposition. (My PJM colleague, the lovely Kyle-Ann Shiver, makes that point in her piece opposite this one.)

This is an emotionally appealing allegory and, on the surface, offers some compelling comparisons. The Emancipator had to deal with an active conspiracy to overthrow the lawful government and set up another nation. George Bush was faced with defending the American people from a murderous, implacable enemy hell-bent on our destruction. Both men chose force of arms to defeat the forces arrayed against them. Both men suffered numerous setbacks in the pursuit of their goals. Both endured the worst kind of personal invective hurled against them by their political foes.

But does Bush have any of Lincoln’s crying need for self-examination — a wrenching introspection where Father Abraham could recognize his failures and change course not once, but several times? Lincoln agonized over emancipation despite the fact he entered office never dreaming he would take that position. It went against his own inclinations and he did it in opposition to most in his cabinet, many of his supporters, and the army.

Bush gets credit for changing strategy in Iraq. But a good argument can be made that this change came three years too late and long after many experienced hands in and out of the military were telling him to dramatically increase troop strength. The difference between the two is that Lincoln knew when steadfastness was necessary and when hanging on to a policy was simple stubbornness. For Bush’s part, even in the face of total chaos, sectarian bloodletting on a large scale, and daily acts of horrific terror and violence in Iraq that only got worse and worse over the months, he would not alter strategy. The inability to admit error that gripped President Bush and prevented him from exercising sound judgement that would have allowed a change in tactics almost cost the United States the war. As it is, the issue is still in doubt despite encouraging improvements.

There are other fallacies with the Lincoln-Bush comparison. For example, I think that if one were to weigh the challenges faced by both men, Lincoln’s problems and burdens were much the heavier given the extraordinary carnage and destruction of the war. President #16 also had the issue of slavery to resolve — perhaps the most intractable problem our nation has ever imposed upon itself and more tangled and complex than anything with which President #43 had to face.

The money graf is earlier:

Not lacking in brains and possessing a confidence that bordered on arrogance, President Bush would probably have thrived in less interesting times. But the challenges that emerged beginning with the attacks on September 11, 2001, right on through today’s financial meltdown of which we still haven’t glimpsed bottom, showed a man out of his depth, lacking in judgement, unable to come to grips with the forces that were reshaping the world and America. He is not without gifts. But when a president is proved wrong by events as often and as consistently as Bush, there is little alternative but to conclude that he was the wrong man at the wrong time for America.

I think it can safely be said that in contrast, Lincoln was the right man at the right time for America. So much for comparisons between Bush and The Great Emancipator.

(BTW - Kyle Ann Shiver took the “pro” Bush as Lincoln position opposite my piece on the website.)

Can you identify this president?

“…a good man who didn’t understand his own shortcomings. He was genuinely religious, loved his wife and reshaped himself so that he could adapt to her ways and show her true affection. He was one of the most popular men in [his state], polite and thoughtful, easy and good at the political game, charming and fine and handsome. However, he has been criticized as timid and unable to cope with a changing America.”

Nope. Not Bush. It’s Franklin Pierce, the 14th President of the United States. This is the guy (among a half dozen others) that contemporary historians deliberately forget in order to be able to say that George Bush is the worst president in American history.

It was America’s bad luck to have a run of bad presidents at the most inopportune time. The decade preceding the Civil War saw some of our worst chief executives - all more incompetent and more wrong headed than Bush #43. We had 4 presidents between 1850 and 1860 and each one a bust to varying degrees. It is no accident that also during that decade, the nation moved slowly and inexorably toward splitting in two.

Elected in 1848 and dying suddenly on July 9, 1850, Zachary Taylor proved the adage that generals usually make terrible politicians. The Whig party, in its death throes, put “Old Rough and Ready” up, expecting to reap the spoils of having their man in the White House. But Taylor wasn’t much of a Whig and didn’t think much of Whiggery in general. His singular achievement was creating the Department of the Interior for which Native Americans will always be grateful, I’m sure. Indifferent to foreign affairs, he managed to anger the south, the north, and all points in between with his tepid policies toward slavery.

His successor was, if possible, even more incompetent. Millard Fillmore is, to this day, a national joke, a punchline of a president. Historians try to be kind to the guy but Fillmore’s rabid enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act (a product of the last great compromise by the Great Compromiser Henry Clay) meant that hundreds of freed slaves or slaves who had been living free in the north became targets of bounty hunters and slave owners with dubious claims on their person. Many freed blacks fled to Canada rather than take a chance with Fillmore’s federal marshals who enforced the act, working cheek to jowl with the bounty hunters. The legislation was part of the Compromise of 1850 that lasted less than 4 years when the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the seminal Missouri Compromise of 1820 and made the 1850 legislation moot. Even the Whigs refused to nominate him for a full term in 1852. He ended up running for president in 1856 on both the Whig and Know Nothing Party tickets. Considering that there was no such party as the Whigs except as it existed in the drawing rooms and salons of a few rich men, Fillmore’s greatest claim to fame may be that he was the last major figure to run for president on the Whig party ticket.

He was succeeded by the above referenced Mr. Pierce - a drunk “dough face” Democrat who managed to make people forget how bad a president Fillmore had been. Pierce was the darkest of dark horse candidates at the convention. He was desperation choice, receiving the nod on the 49th ballot. And the only reason he won the general election was that the Whigs had been self destructing since the Mexican War, splitting the party in two while the issue of slavery in the territories acquired in that conflict finished the Whigs off and cleared the way for a new party. The Whigs put up muttonchops Winfield Scott, another Mexican War general. This time, the military hero ploy failed as Scott managed to win only 4 states.

Pierce’s greatest success was in swindling Mexico out of a couple of million acres of land for $10 million. The Gadsen Purchase was ostensibly to be used for part of the transcontinental railroad. It never came close but they did find billions of dollars in precious metals. He is perhaps best remembered for signing the Kansas-Nebraska Act which led directly to Bleeding Kansas, John Brown, and disunion. The New Hampshirite inexplicably took the southern side when two rival constitutions were presented to Congress when Kansas petitioned to become a state. This was the last nail in the coffin of the union and paved the way for James Buchanan’s election in 1856 - my choice for worst president in history.

Buchanan plainly froze. With the nation disintegrating around him, he did nothing to stop it. Perhaps by then it was too late. We wll never know because when South Carolina seceded from the union, he failed to act. He failed to hold on to federal forts and customs houses in the south as the rebels seized them one after another. He failed to resupply Fort Sumter. State after southern state voted themselves out of the union and he basically kicked the can down the road.

James Buchanan makes the presidency of George Bush look like a smashing success.

None of those presidents placed their mark on history the way that Bush has. For good or ill, George Bush will be remembered as a consequential president whose footprint will affect presidents’ policies far into the future. Witness Barack Obama keeping many of his foreign policies - even ones he criticized during the campaign. Right or wrong, those policies cannot be easily tossed aside or, even more surprisingly, Obama found upon being briefed that the policies were sound and correct after all. This is true to a large extent of Iraq. Our withdrawal under Obama will differ only at the margins from Bush’s plan.

As for domestic policies, Bush has changed the education debate forever as he brought the idea of judging teachers for their effectiveness into the mix. Many will argue that No Child Left Behind is a horrible piece of legislation and it certainly has its critics. But no one can argue that NCLB isn’t a starting point for any further educational reform and that testing, charter schools, and perhaps some form of vouchers will be staples of the debate over the federal role in education.

Superannuated fools like Buchanan or incompetent drunks like Pierce didn’t come close to having that kind of impact on the future.

Bush certainly made it necessary for disaster relief to be a top priority of the federal government - a job previously (and best) left to local communities and the states. For good or for ill, every earthquake, hurricane, or tsunami will now be judged by how much better the response will be than Katrina. The Democrats, having politicized disaster relief, will now reap their own whirlwind.

There is one other aspect of the Bush legacy that has had an impact on the future and that will mark him as an important president; he will be held up as an example of conservative governance despite the fact that he has not governed as a conservative nor does he hold much in the way of conservative principles or any influence at all in the conservative movement.

This last may be the most consequential aspect of the Bush legacy. Democrats will successfully be able to portray Bush as a conservative largely as a result of his religious beliefs which endeared him to the social conservatives of the Republican party and his decidedly neo-conservative views on foreign policy which reflected few traditional conservative ideas but at the same time, was embraced by many conservatives following 9/11. Besides those exceptions, his policies were almost universally center right or even center left (prescription drug bill, anyone?).

This will easily affect the next 3 or 4 presidential elections - just as the presidency of Jimmy Carter was held up as an example of liberal excess by Republicans despite the fact that, even though a man of the far left now, Carter governed from the center. Many forget that he substantially raised defense spending, tried some modest entitlement reforms, and advocated a mostly free market energy solution. His social policies were decidedly liberal as was his failed foreign policy. But Carter’s judgement was always anchored in centrist politics.

Does this mean that Bush will be remembered as a “great” president? I hardly think so. Presidents who practice the worst kind of cronyism are not remembered as great. Presidents who politicize the government are not remembered as great. Presidents who stick the veto pen in their pocket while the federal deficit spirals out of control will not be remembered as great. Presidents who go to war without a plan for the aftermath and end up losing billions of dollars to corruption and graft will not be remembered as great. Presidents who create an entirely new federal department to deal with Homeland Security and then duplicate jobs that were already being done by other agencies and departments will not be remembered as great. Presidents who acquiesce and approve what the international community defines as torture will not be remembered as great.

There’s more but I want to go to lunch.

(Note: For some fun in the comments, insert your reasons why George Bush will not be remembered as a great president.)

George Bush - for effectiveness, for sound policies and judgment, and for competence in running the government - will not be remembered as a great president. He will almost certainly be ranked in the bottom fifth in any listing of our chief executives. But he is far from the worst presisdent we’ve ever had and his mark on history is assured. Might he be seen in a different light years from now? His stock may rise a bit if Iraq continues to improve. But any success in Iraq is offset by the empowerment of Iran in the region and the role Bush’s policies played in that development.

In fact, the rise of Iran brings up something very important about these last 8 years and highlights one of Bush’s biggest failings; he didn’t understand that the world and America were changing (with or without 9/11) and because of that, we are behind the curve and trying to catch up. Iran’s rise, like China’s and India’s, was inevitable. It would have taken Saddam Hussein a decade to rebuild his military to act as a counterweight to Shia fundamentalism. Knocking him out was inconsequential to the march of Islamic extremism across the Arab and Muslim world. Witness the rise of al-Qaeda allied groups in Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, and elsewhere in Asia. Our invasion of Iraq had little to do with those movements which are homegrown and have their own beefs with non-Muslims in that part of the world.

Iran, with half its population under the age of 25, was funding Hezbullah and Hamas long before Bush came into office. Only now are those seeds they planted bearing fruit in Lebanon and Gaza. They are using asymmetrical warfare to garner influence throughout the Muslim world. No Bush, no rise of Iran? If you believe that, you haven’t been paying much attention to what’s been happening in the world over the last 2 plus decades.

Still, the changes overseas and the changes at home were never anticipated by the Bushies nor was any attempt made to map out a long term strategy to counter. This may be the most critical part of the Bush legacy unless President Obama can act quickly and intelligently to get us back in the game; find a way to checkmate Iran, block Hezbullah from gaining power in Lebanon, develop a true strategic partnership with India, block Chinese ambitions in east Asia, ditto Russian designs everywhere, and shore up our friendships in Latin America. Bush did not react well to many of these changes which is why the train has left the station and Obama is running to catch up.

At home, the 8 years that Bush has been in office has seen the country slide back toward the center while demanding more from government. Obama successfully captured a yearning among citizens for an end to partisan sniping. They don’t care that the Democrats have spent the last 8 years in perpetual derangement over the Bush presidency. They want a new spirit in Washington and so far, Obama is delivering.

Talk to me 6 months from now and we’ll see if that spirit is still with us. But whatever happens, it won’t reflect the fact that Americans clearly wanted change when they pulled the lever for Obama. And that change is from perhaps the most tumultuous and consequential 8 years in several generations.

Is there any purpose served by investigating allegations of ordering torture, illegal surveillance, and other sins alleged to have been committed during the years of the Bush Administration?

For those of us on both sides who are slightly less partisan in our view of government and politics, it is a serious question. For those who have already made up their mind on both sides, not so much. While they scream at each other across the great divide in American politics, serious people will have to grapple with the serious questions - legal and constitutional - raised by the actions of the Bush Administration over the years.

As I see it, there are two major roadblocks to investigating previous actions of the administration. The first is that much of what has been alleged involves top secret programs, only parts of which we have been given a glimpse. It is a dead sure bet that no one has seen the legal opinions written by the Justice Department for any of these alleged abuses which makes any charges of illegal or unconstitutional actions by the Bushies even more problematic.

To base an opinion only on what has come out in the press about the Terrorist Surveillance Program, for instance, has always puzzled me. Forming an opinion without all the facts is the definition of “half-assed.” And what information we have as far as the TSP is concerned has come to us largely from anonymous sources who may, or may not, have had sufficient access to information about how the program worked in its entirety, not to mention a question of their knowledge of the legal implications involved. Compartmentalization of information in these top secret programs is a given and the number of people who would have a good overall picture of how they worked would be few indeed.

The only way to find out for sure is to investigate how the program was set up, how it was run, the technical means employed, and the legal justification for them. (Torture is a different matter that I address below.) But is it possible to investigate the workings of a top secret, on-going intelligence program without compromising its effectiveness?

And this brings me to my second major roadblock to investigating alleged abuses in the Bush Administration; the probability that any such investigating will degenerate into a partisan circus.

The Judiciary Committee under John Conyers has written two reports since 2006 that goes into excruciating detail about illegalities and unconstitutional actions by the Bush Administration. The problem is - and Conyers admits it - is that nothing in either report constitutes a finding of fact. This is not surprising given that the overwhelming number of allegations are based on newspaper accounts, studies done by liberal think tanks, or reports from partisan left organizations like Human Rights Watch and the ACLU.

Here’s Conyers from the Forward to today’s release of a 457 page list of allegations against Bush and his Administration. He is quoting from an op-ed he wrote in 2006 after the release of his initial report, “The Constitution in Crisis.” After all that ”investigating,” we are left with little better than a political indictment of actions Conyers and much of the left disagrees with:

The administration’s stonewalling, and the lack of oversight by Congress, have left us to guess whether we are dealing with isolated wrongdoing, or mistakes, or something worse. In my view, the American people deserve answers, not guesses. I have proposed that we obtain these answers in a responsible and bipartisan manner.

It was House Republicans who took power in 1995 with immediate plans to undermine President Bill Clinton by any means necessary, and they did so in the most autocratic, partisan and destructive ways imaginable. If there is any lesson from those “revolutionaries,” it is that partisan vendettas ultimately provoke a public backlash and are never viewed as legitimate. So, rather than seeking impeachment, I have chosen to propose comprehensive oversight of these alleged abuses. The oversight I have suggested would be performed by a select committee made up equally of Democrats and Republicans and chosen by the House speaker and the minority leader.

The committee’s job would be to obtain answers - finally. At the end of the process, if - and only if - the select committee, acting on a bipartisan basis, finds evidence of potentially impeachable offenses, it would forward that information to the Judiciary Committee.

Conyers admits he has no “answers” - only questions. Hence, the idea of some kind of “bi-partisan” committee to look into these allegations (there are hundreds) and discover “the truth.”

The Judiciary reports take issue with the Administration over just about every action they’ve undertaken in 8 years. Signing statements, intelligence, detention policies, rendition (begun under Clinton and expanded under Bush), warrantless searches and surveillance, the Plame Affair, the politicization of the Justice Department, the states attorney imbroglio, and “enhanced interrogation” or torture.

How many are actual allegations of crimes committed and how many are reasonable (or unreasonable) differences of opinion over politics? We won’t know unless someone, somewhere investigates what went on. The question of whether we need answers or not is moot. We do. The problem is who is going to find the answers?

Conyers’ idea of a bi-partisan committee or commission made up equally of members from both sides won’t fly. The Republicans tried it with investigating intelligence leading up to the Iraq War and the Democrats rejected the findings and substituted their own narrative. There was also the 9/11 Commission that degenerated into a partisan tug of war and that failed to assess enough blame to either Clinton or Bush while going easy on Giuliani and the intel agencies. There was also the findings of the WMD Commission most Democrats rejected out of hand.

The fact of the matter is politicians are, well, politicians and asking them to forget that primary fact of their existence is absurd. Hence, Conyers idea of entrusting such a daunting task to Congress is, to my mind, a non-starter. Even beyond the 9/11 Commission or the other investigative committee reports on the war, any body that investigates the president must be beyond partisan suspicion.

The leaves us with two choices; naming a special prosecutor (or several) to impartially investigate potential abuses or, intriguingly, set up a Commission of private citizens a la the South African Truth Commission. The latter idea has some interesting possibilities but at bottom, is a little ridiculous. In South Africa, they were dealing with decades of apartheid as well as political murders and violence. Unless you think Bush is responsible for 9/11 or actually caused Hurricane Katrina, I think some kind of Truth Commission is a just too much drama for what is at stake in any investigation of the Bushies.

A special prosecutor would probably be the fairest and most efficacious way to investigate wrongdoing during the Bush years. I think one should definitely be appointed to address the issue of torture which is not a political issue and represents some of the most serious charges of illegality against the president and his people.

As for the rest of Conyers allegations, I just don’t know. The problem with special prosecutors is that once you appoint one, they are almost duty bound to find illegality come hell or high water (i.e. Scooter Libby, Ken Starr). If it would be possible to narrow the scope of what a special prosecutor might be tasked to investigate, it might be possible that such an examination of Administration actions could rise above partisanship and would be accepted by a large majority.

But perhaps, that is only wishful thinking. Obama himself recognizes the difficulties which is why he would rather “look forward” than behind:

Obama also views waterboarding as torture. To find out who authorized its use in interrogations, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers has introduced a bill creating a bipartisan commission with subpoena power. But when Obama was asked on ABC’s This Week whether he’d back such a commission, he was cautiously noncommittal.

“We’re still evaluating how we’re going to approach the whole issue of interrogations, detentions and so forth,” Obama said. “Obviously, we’re going to be looking at past practices and I don’t believe that anybody is above the law. On the other hand, I also have a belief that we need to look forward as opposed to looking backward.”

Some Democrats who have strongly opposed the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation practices say they agree with Obama’s cautious approach. Among them is the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin.

“There’s a big debate going on about holding the previous administration accountable for [its] actions, and I would say for the time being that the Obama team is focused properly on the future,” Durbin said. “Our economy is so weak; we’re in desperate need of jobs. Before we start looking at the pages of history in the Bush administration, we should be looking at the obvious need to create jobs and create a new economic climate in this country.”

There’s a good reason both Obama and Durbin are cautious and it has little to do with the state of the economy. Congress or any Commission named can easily carry out its duties. Congress, especially, can do more than one thing at a time.

The danger that both Democratic leaders see is in the extraordinary difficulty in investigating Bush in a non-partisan manner and whose findings would be accepted by a majority of Americans. If the investigation would be seen as a partisan witch hunt, it would not redound to the Democrat’s advantage and might even hurt them at the polls. This would seem to make some kind of a special prosecutor even more likely but even there, Obama and the Democrats will tread cautiously.

Perhaps there will be more of a push for the facts by the American people of what happened during the Bush years than one can currently imagine. But like Obama, Americans tend to be a forward thinking people who tend not to dwell on the past. Except in this case, there may be good reason to find out what went on at the White House during the last 8 years. Whether it can be done believably and fairly is another question entirely.

I suppose the real question is will there ever be agreement among everybody on just what is satire and what is racism?

The answer is not as long as liberals see playing the race card as the political advantage it is.

The latest blow up involves a Rush Limbaugh parody that first surfaced on his show during the campaign. “Barack the Magic Negro,” an edgy satire of Obama’s celebrity and popularity with white voters that was written by Paul Shanklin and played numerous times on Rush’s show. (The term ‘Barack the Magic Negro” was first used in an Los Angeles Times column by cultural critic David Ehrenstein - a fact that the parody makes mention of. Ehrenstein is a white liberal.)

The song was sent out as a Christmas greeting by RNC chair candidate Chip Saltsman with the message:

“I look forward to working together in the New Year,” Saltsman wrote. “Please enjoy the enclosed CD by my friend Paul Shanklin of the Rush Limbaugh Show.”

Also on the CD were other examples of Shanklin’s satire including “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.”

Shanklin’s stuff is mostly brilliant satire. But like all good political humor, it walks a line of good taste and decorum. In fact, by pushing the boundaries as Shanklin does, he defines for us the essence of political satire. In this respect (not in talent) Shanklin’s material is no more objectionable than Jonathon Swift or George Orwewll for that matter.

That is, unless you’re a liberal seeking to make political hay and stifle free expression. You can criticize “Barack the Magic Negro” as unfunny or not in good taste. But when you use the inflammatory word “racism” to describe it, you go beyond critiquing the work and enter the world of pure politics. This liberals do on a regular basis and they get away with the sliming of political speech and speakers they disagree with because the press refuses to call them out on it.

In fact, the left has lowered the bar on what constitutes “racism” by redefining the term to suit their own political needs. And by refusing to acknowledge any set definition of the word, the left deliberately undermines free speech by cutting off debate with liberals firmly ensconced in a superior moral position while the person being unfairly smeared as a racist is unable to defend themselves. If one tries to stand up and fight the charge, they give automatic legitimacy to the left’s argument. And if they remain silent in the face of such slimeball tactics, the smear works and sticks to the accused like glue.

Having said all this, is it an appropriate Christmas message from a potential RNC chairman? It wouldn’t be my first choice but then I don’t think Saltsman the guy for the job anyway.

What is clear is that this despicable tactic by the left predates Obama and has done more to poison relations between the races in this country than all the cross burnings and hate speech delivererd by the morons in the Klan or the Skinheads. The reason is simple; the left has appropriated the word “racist” in order to define the debate on race - any issue, any time, anywhere - on their terms and their terms alone. Do you oppose Affirmative Action? You’re a racist. Do you oppose set asides for business based on race? You are a racist. Do you oppose racial quotas in college entrance requirements? You are a racist.

No debate. No exchange of ideas. No give and take on any issue that touches race unless you first accept the left’s position on these and other issues. If you don’t, the debate is closed off by simply calling you a racist - end of discussion.

So it’s no surprise they see legitimate satire as “racist.” In fact, the surprise would be if they didn’t.

UPDATE

Thanks to so many commenters - both present and future - who are proving the thesis of my argument so spectacularly. Not only are those calling me a racist proving their aversion to free speech but the dumbing down of the term racism by my detractors and its use to cut off debate (with the obligatory nod to the idea that  defending 1st Amendment rights are what will keep Republicans out of power - which is used in lieu of any kind of intelligent answer to the points I raise) only goes to show that the mind of a liberal is extraordinarily predictable.

Simple minded sophists usually are.

For all those who haven’t taken a good hard shot at me lately, I give you my newest up at PJ Media:

As the sands run out on the Bush administration and the nation looks to the incoming Obama White House with a combination of apprehension for the future and a desire to put the past behind us, there remains some unfinished business that is so fraught with political danger and so heavy with symbolism regarding how we Americans see ourselves that the political elites in Washington are reluctant to address it.

Added to the opinion war now is a report issued (PDF required) by the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. Even for those familiar with most of the details regarding Bush administration decisions about “enhanced interrogation” techniques, there is some new information as well as confirmation of the involvement of certain administration officials that directly implicates them in violations of U.S. law.

Read the whole thing.

This article originally appears in The American Thinker

I rise today in defense of my home state, my beloved Illinois, where top soil is so rich you can make soup from its deep, black loam and where agriculture was first elevated to a science to become the wonder of the civilized world.

We grow a lot of things in this state; corn, soy beans, hogs, cattle, dairy products, - all in numbers that are the envy of the rest of the world. Our higher education system is second to none in turning out both scholars and people who love to party. ( I would suggest you avoid Macomb, the home of Western Illinois University, on a Saturday night unless indulging in Bacchanalia is your thing.)

Besides that, Illinois features some truly remarkable points of interest. The two story outhouse in Gays, IL is a family favorite as is the captured leg of Santa Anna housed in the state capitol of Springfield. And who would want to miss visiting the largest Catsup bottle in the world located in the bustling tourist hub of Collinsville?

Why, my own little town of Streator has a statue of one of the angels of World War II, the Coffee Pot Lady. During the war, Streator saw about 1.2 million servicemen pass through town (we were a major hub for the old Sante Fe line) and faithfully doling out coffee and sandwiches as the trains stopped for fuel and water were dozens of women who made the long trip for the soldiers seem a little less impersonal and frightening.

I highlight all these natural and man made wonders located in Illinois because it seems that my home state is taking quite a beating in the national press and on blogs of late and I figured someone had to stand four square behind the natural beauty, the slow, deliberate pace of existence, and the emphasis placed on what is really important in life here in the Land of Lincoln; God, guns, and goofy politicians.

Indeed, it is sickening to have commentators who know nothing of Illinois or her people spouting off about the corruption in state and local government here. To all who are not from this state who have found the Blagojevich scandal a perfect opportunity to feel morally superior to us Illinoisans and write vicious, ignorant screeds about our “culture of corruption,” I say butt out!

Just what do you think you know about it, huh? And who do you think you are? If anybody is going to throw bricks at our politicians, it’s us. And we don’t need any help, thanks. We’ve been doing it for 190 years and by God we’ve got it down to a science and don’t need outsiders horning in on our fun. Our rope necktie parties are for locals only - no Cheeseheads or Hawkeyes allowed.

It cuts to me the quick that all these silly, snarky bloggers feel it necessary to disrespect the politicians in my state. Besides that, they are pikers when it comes to revealing the true nature of our political culture. Only native Illinoisans can come up with descriptions of our political heroes like “They are a carefully nurtured nest of nefarious nabobs who see politics as a cross between a slot machine and a gold mine.”

Out of staters don’t even come close and their attempts at describing what they can only dimly understand usually fall flat. For us Illinoisians, it is a matter of DNA; we are born with the ability to appreciate and become outraged over the rank dishonesty, the grasping, conniving, plotting, brazenly evil nature of our politics. It’s so much in our blood that I heard tell the Red Cross has considered keeping donations from Illinoisans in state so as not to infect such political paradises as Minnesota and Kansas. They also fear mixing blood from here with that of people from states like New Jersey or Louisiana. The monster that would create, once let loose upon the country, might doom us all.

Columnists, pundits, and TV talking heads can’t decide whether to opine as if auditioning for The Last Comic Standing by trying to outdo one another with unfunny jokes about the scandal or scream about political corruption being endemic to the way Illinois politicians do business. Endemic?  Tell that to a Chicago pol and he’s liable to give you a wary look, wondering why you think he needs a high colonic and perhaps contemplate how he can make a “pay to play” scheme go by getting a kickback from the enema bag manufacturer.

Besides, the idea of someone from New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, getting into a high dudgeon over corruption in politics is laughable. And that goes for just about anyone else anywhere in the US except maybe Montana where the ratio of guns to crooked pols is no accident. They take clean government very seriously in Big Sky Country. They also are not so politically correct as to have forgotten what good uses a little tar and some feathers can be put to.

For you New Yorkers, I might ask if Tamany Hall rings a bell - a city machine so corrupt that cockroaches were denied membership for being too clean. And all you Pennsylvanians who are on your high horse about Chicago political shenanigans, I direct your attention to your current governor, the Majority Leader of your Assembly, and how many other pols caught up in scandal just this year.

Alaskans have so much to be proud of what with their senior senator, his family, their lone congressman, and half the Republican party on the hook for taking favors from an oil company supplier. Let’s not forget New Jersey and its parade of criminal Newark mayors not to mention governors who resign in disgrace for showing favoritism to their boyfriends.

As for all you good government goofs in Minnesota, I’ve got just two words for you; Al Franken.

Reading a couple of articles about corruption in this state in Wikpedia is hardly the same as having grown up with it. To those of us native to Illinois who have spent our lives watching the comings and goings of governors, legislators, aldermen, lawyers, judges, businessmen, and Chicago city workers as they walk in and out of the jail in Pontiac, scandals like Blagobust are more than mere entertainment. They are reminders to all that “There but for the grace of God and a federal phone tap go I.”

So quit your yapping about stuff you really know little about. Whatever corruption scandals you’ve had in your own state cannot possibly prepare you to think, write, or spout about the Olympian nature of Illinois political stink. Our pols are greedier, more inventive in their criminality, more brazen in their disrespect of the law, and more breathtaking in their deeds of derring-do as they try to stay one step ahead of the prosecutor and two steps ahead of that former business partner they’ve cheated out of ill gotten gains.

Ed “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak, the infamous alderman and political thorn in the side of former Chicago Mayor, the late Harold Washington, was quoted as saying that he “talks to everyone as if they’re wearing a wire - even my wife.” Vrdolyak was the target of numerous investigations through the years but prosecutors could never catch him.

In his later years, after losing his clout, Eddie “retired” to private law practice and was considered a wise head in Chicago politics, nurturing many young up and comers, showing them the ropes until he was finally caught in a bribery-kickback scheme involving the sale of a medical school building to a Vrdolyak crony. Those charges may very well stick because Eddie forgot his own ironclad rule; his partner in crime wore a wire to several meetings where the illegal scheme was discussed.

The moral of the story is that not only could an Ed Vrdolyak only exist in Illinois but that only an Illinois pol could go down with such ironic juxtaposition attending his demise. That combination of Greek tragedy and Vaudeville comedy is why the rest of the country is so ill-equipped to comment on our troubles with politicians.

So I’d appreciate it if you just left us alone to wallow in our own muck, thank you.

David Axelrod is largely - and rightly - credited with successfully crafting Barack Obama’s campaign message machine and using it to great effect during the campaign.

But before he elected a president,  David Axelrod advised campaigns for a host of politicians including Chicago’s mayor Richard Daley. In fact, he considers himself an expert in “urban politics” - which translated means big city Democratic machine politics.

It is important to note that Republicans have their own “machines” - mostly in the south where “courthouse politics” employs many of the same patronage, kickback, and even “pay to play” schemes you routinely find in Democratic-run big cities. No party has a corner on corruption - which made the Democrat’s “outrage” in 2006 at the “Republican culture of corruption” so laughable.

But Axelrod just elected Mr. Clean as president. And it is important to get a handle on what a man who will be a close advisor to President Obama in the White House thinks of Patrick Fitzgerald’s corruption investigations.

Fitzy has taken down a host of pols in Chicago including aldermen, politically connected businessmen like Tony Rezko, and even 2 of Mayor Daley’s closest aides in city hall.

That last scandal involved serious violations of a court ruling that was supposed to clean up the city’s corrupt patronage system. Chicago mayors (and other big city pols) have used patronage as a means of controlling the Democratic party for decades. But a lawsuit against the practice in Chicago resulted in a ruling that most city jobs had to involve a fair hiring procedure where only the most qualified candidates would get government jobs.

Then in 2005, the Chicago Sun Times broke a fairly routine scandal involving the use of (or, in this case, the non-use) of city trucks - contracts to politically connected (and sometimes mobbed up) trucking firms that paid millions of dollars for little or no work. The city was entertained for weeks with stories of bribes being paid by city employees to steer truck contracts to specific firms, ghost payrolling, lolligagging truckers drawing taxpayer monies for going golfing, and other examples of extraordinary venality on the part of city politicians.

Once Fitzy got involved, the investigation expanded to include the entire patronage system in Chicago. And what prosecutors found was simply astonishing; 30 city pols who routinely violated the patronage law by doctoring documents to show interviews with candidates that never happened, resume tampering, and other fraudulent actions all to get loyal campaign workers city jobs. Fitzy’s investigation eventually reached deep into Daley’s office as two of his closest aides - including his patronage chief Robert Sorich - were convicted in the case.

Here’s how it worked:

In February 2005 a grand jury indicted Sorich for devising a scheme to “provide financial benefits, in the form of city jobs and promotions, in exchange for campaign work.” As part of this scheme, it charged, Sorich and other officials “corrupted the city’s personnel process” by awarding “jobs and promotions” to preselected candidates “through sham and rigged interviews.”

At the Sorich trial Kozicki, then in the buildings department, testified that as managing deputy commissioner he had altered 19-year-old Andrew Ryan’s interview rating to ensure that Ryan scored high enough to get a building inspector’s job for which other applicants were more qualified. Andrew Ryan is the son of Tom Ryan, secretary-treasurer of Carpenters Local 13, a union that was a major financial contributor to Daley’s 2003 reelection campaign.

And Axelrod? Here’s what the new Senior Advisor to the President had to say about it: back in 2006:

As Axelrod has said, a too-zealous prosecutor can look at normal political behavior and suspect impropriety. In a 2006 Vanity Fair interview, the Obama aide complained about Fitzgerald’s scrutiny of Chicago politics.

“He goes after fleas and elephants with the same bazooka,” Axelrod said. “At some point there’s a line … where you begin criminalizing politics in its most innocent form.”

When you practice the art of politics amidst such sleaze and corruption, egregious lawbreaking can, I suppose, seem “innocent.” But what does that reveal about the moral compass of people like Axelrod? When the rest of us are shocked and appalled at the routine and arrogant criminal conduct carried out by powerful people like Daley and Blagojevich, who obviously believe the rules followed by ordinary folk do not apply to them, do we really want moral pygmies like Axelrod anywhere near the seat of national government?

Indeed, Obama himself - now caught in the lie that he had no knowledge that any of his aides were meeting with Blagojevich’s people about his senate seat - has shown a curious lethargy about the entire Blagojevich scandal, especially because he’s known since a week after the election that Blago was shopping his seat to the highest bidder (See Jim Lindgren’s timeline of the scandal that shows how Obama first, made it known he wanted his good friend Valerie Jarrett to get the appointment and within 24 hrs of a phonecon involving Blago and one of his advisors - probably Emanuel - he yanked her name from consideration and gave her a job in the White House.)

The Obama team will vigorously deny they knew anything about Blago’s attempts to sell his senate seat but that just doesn’t pass the smell test. Given how careless Blagojevich was about the spread of such information, it is inconcievable that the president-elect, whose Chicago and Springfield connections are as good as anyone’s, wouldn’t have been aware of what was going on.

But why should they not come forward with the truth? They didn’t break any laws. The reason they won’t and can’t reveal their knowledge in this matter is because to do so would be to reveal a hole in their moral universe that shows that they considered Blago’s auction of the senate seat “innocent” and nothing more than routine political horse trading - routine for the culture of corruption in Chicago and Springfield. Obama was smart enough to see a train wreck coming and pulled his good friend Jarrett from consideration while still allowing Emanuel to have input into the selection process. In short, there were no illegalities but rather an incredible ineptitude in recognizing a moral problem with Blago’s criminality.

I am not sure what this portends for the next 4 years as far as the way the White House will operate. If you have a bunch of people who don’t know or can’t tell what’s moral or immoral as far as political actions are concerned, what kind of scandals will be breaking by this time next year?