Right Wing Nut House

By reaching outside the intelligence community and picking Leon Panetta for CIA chief, Barack Obama is sending a signal that he is not going to put up with the kind of nonsense that went on at the agency when George Bush was president.

The war carried out by partisans at the CIA where leaking classified information to undermine policy as well as attempting to defeat the president at the polls in 2004 will not be repeated under the leadership of Panetta, of that you can be certain.

This is a good, smart choice by Obama.The stated reasons - Panetta was not involved in the rendition or torture programs - are good, sound reasons but beyond that, Panetta was known both at OMB where he was director and at the White House where he was chief of staff as a ferocious in-fighter. Obama needs a bulldog at Langely if he is going to be free of the poisonous antagonism that made the relationship between the intelligence agencies and Bush so dysfunctional. Plus, Panetta will clearly be seen as “The President’s Man” - a perception that will come in handy for both men.

This makes him an excellent candidate to deal with the bitter inter-agency battles that destroyed Porter Goss (operations vs. analysis) and hampered Director Hayden whose fights with the Defense department over resources devoted to battlefield or tactical intel at the expense of strategic analysis roiled both shops during the last few years.

Apparently, the choice is not sitting too well with some on the Hill who no doubt had their own candidates in mind or perhaps wished General Hayden to stay on. As for the latter, Obama could not keep Hayden after all but promising his liberal base that he would end the “special rendition” programs begun under Bill Clinton and expanded by the Bush Administration as well as put a halt to torture.

And the shameful case of John Brennan being taken out of consideration for no good reason meant that he could hardly choose someone from inside the agency:

“They were fans of Mike Hayden and [were] hoping he’d be asked to stick around,” the former official said.

This former official said Obama’s transition team was forced away from selecting a career intelligence officer after having been “boxed in” by the withdrawal of leading contender John Brennan.

Brennan, a former senior intelligence official, withdrew his name from consideration last month over concerns about his role in the development of the interrogation and secret detention programs while he was at the CIA.

The official said the withdrawal forced the Obama team to look outside the intelligence community because “by ruling him out, they ruled out anyone who had been in the agency the last eight years or so. When you do that and look around for other people who have the capabilities and qualifications you are looking for, you quickly run out of choices.”

Just what was Brennan’s crime? Well, no one really knows. Those “concerns” about Brennan’s “role” in the development of rendition and torture were, according to M.P. MacConnell, the result of a lot of noise from the usual suspects on the left:

Contrary to false claims, American laws were not broken. No one is going to prison. Nothing even slightly unseemly has been uncovered — indeed, Brennan has a proven history of complete candor in discussing his views on those subjects with the media. There is nothing whatever to suggest that Brennan would disobey the now existing legislative prohibition on the use of waterboarding. He is as entitled to his views as anyone else, and has been both consistent and articulate in expressing them. As a direct result of Brennan’s counsel, some of President-elect Obama’s original national security positions have been reversed.

As Greenwald’s ally, Andrew Sullivan, makes clear, that is their real concern. They seem to be laboring under the impression that their iconic future president doesn’t possess sufficient willpower to resist the poisonous mumblings of a man like Brennan, leading him from the True Path upon which only they are fit to guide him. Their tireless efforts to find something — anything — damaging on Brennan that would discredit him failed abysmally, but the sheer noise that their protestations generated, along with the wild, unconditional, uncritical approbation of their followers, was sufficient to cause Brennan to step down.

My own research has led me to believe that Brennan is neither a zealot for enhanced interrogation techniques, nor an anti-torture advocate. From my view, there was no confusion. Brennan’s statements on the subject were quite consistent — in his opinion, rendition and interrogation were unpleasant and rarely carried out actions that nevertheless brought real, tangible results. In Brennan’s own words, “…lives have been saved.”

Unlike the Greenwalds of this world, he wasn’t a legal theorist, being paid to loaf in an office chair all day, rhapsodising on the ethical dilemmas posed by this program or that operation. He was an officer in a federal agency charged with the wartime security and wellbeing of American citizens. He clearly did bear the ethics in mind, but was also operating within the framework of the real world, dealing in harsh realities against a ruthless enemy, where innocent people died if you didn’t get the job done.

It is an unpleasant fact to contemplate but Brennan’s position on those two sensitive subjects would have been reflected by almost any current intelligence manager. To assuage the likes of Greenwald and Sullivan, then, Obama was virtually forced to seek someone outside the community.

He could not done much better by choosing Panetta. But as I mentioned, there are some detractors on the Hill as incoming Senate intel chair Diane Fienstien is grumbling about not being consulted. And there are a few in the agency who are not happy:

In an interview with ABC News, Scheurer, who headed the CIA unit that hunted Osama bin Laden, labeled Panetta “a Democratic Party apparatchik” who “may be a talented bureaucrat,” but who has little in his resume to suggest he “has any talent for this particular job.”

Scheurer predicts that Panetta’s leadership could have a chilling effect on the agency and that “morale won’t be good” as he “bends” to Congress and “harasses agency officials who ran the rendition and secret prison program.”

A senior intelligence official said that during his tenure Hayden has boosted morale at the agency and “done a lot of good over there at CIA.”

“If in fact such a decision has been made, Mike will leave the place in far better shape than he found it. That’s for sure,” the senior official said.

Scheurer’s comments seem gratuitous. Panetta is certainly not the most partisan Democrat Obama could have chosen and, as one analyst mentioned in the ABC story, the former White House chief of staff knows what the president needs in his daily brief - the PDB, which is probably the most important job the CIA performs in keeping the president on top of what’s going on in the world.

I don’t think Obama is much for radically reforming the CIA at this point which is too bad. In many ways, the agency is stuck in the past and jealously guards its prerogatives and perks while failing to improve its product. But Panetta is not going to CIA to change things. He is going to ride herd on all the competing interests in the intelligence community that have made our fight against Islamic extremism that much harder.

With Israel poised to begin ground operations in Gaza - an action that will no doubt set off new howls of outrage from the usual suspects on the left - we might do well to examine the intellectual underpinnings of the moral equivalency that afflicts many liberals as they struggle to frame the conflict between Hama sand Israel in terms that assigns equal blame to both sides for the violence (or sometimes disproportionate blame directed toward Israel).

Further, the Israeli response - even if grudgingly granted that a response was necessary - has to be folded into the larger question of how bombing the Palestinians will hurt the “peace process” and besides, it won’t win the Israelis any friends on the other side and will only radicalize the Palestinian people.

I appreciate the difficulty of their task. In order to achieve such a dishonest result, basic truths regarding the Hamas desire to destroy Israel and its people must be ignored while the terrorist’s provocations must be minimized or dismissed as inconsequential pinpricks. Not only that, a “peace process” must be invented and presented as a viable entity for achieving impossible goals like getting Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

Finally, to pull off this nauseating conceit, America must be blamed for supporting an ally during its struggle for survival and not being “even handed” toward both the victim and the aggressor. This support is marginalized by playing up the ubiquitous “Jewish Lobby” and the evil neocons who do the bidding of Likud rather than seeing the US acting in its own interests by supporting the Jewish state in its war against those who would destroy them.

The intellectual gymnastics that are necessary to arrive at these conclusions by the left are simply astonishing. Here’s Matthew Yglesias doing a forward double flip with a twist in an attempt to elevate moral equivalency to heights heretofore only imagined in this conflict:

One way to reply to this is à la Ezra Klein who observes that at some point you need to judge based on what’s actually happening. And what’s been happening is that whatever Hamas’ ambitions may or may not have been, they were scattering short-range inaccurate rocket fire on Israel that was causing little damage. Israel struck back with actions that have killed hundreds of Palestinians and pushed over a million more closer to the brink of starvation. And in general this is an important aspect of the conflict — irrespective of intentions, over the years you have many more dead Palestinian civilians than Israeli civilians.

There is no doubt to anyone with the ability to read that Hamas “ambitions” (a queer word to describe genocide) are clear, unambiguous, unchanging (despite Yglesisas’s sly inference otherwise), and central to the matter at hand regardless of the accuracy of their rockets or bean counting civilian deaths.

Yglesias wants to ignore “intentions” because it is the only possible way to place the moral onus for the conflict on Israel. How very convenient. Simply forget that this is the continuation of a conflict with Hamas who, without constant vigilance on the part of the Israeli security services, would make any action taken by the IDF look like a walk in the park casualty wise.

Yglesias’s contention is that because Hamas has been unsuccessful in deliberately murdering Israelis in suicide attacks or rocket barrages, we should ignore their fanatical desire to do so and concentrate on their thankfully puny efforts to inflict pain and terror on the Israeli populace.

Perhaps we should ask the Israeli police to allow a few Hamas martyrs into the country just so that their attacks could even things out a bit and make Matthew feel a little better about “what is actually happening” on the ground in Israel.

That Israel’s response has nothing to do with changing hearts and minds or furthering the “peace process” but rather the simple, straightforward, morally unambiguous goal of making their citizens safe in their homes must be lost in the translation somewhere.

Charles Krauthammer:

Some geopolitical conflicts are morally complicated. The Israel-Gaza war is not. It possesses a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.

Israel is so scrupulous about civilian life that, risking the element of surprise, it contacts enemy noncombatants in advance to warn them of approaching danger. Hamas, which started this conflict with unrelenting rocket and mortar attacks on unarmed Israelis — 6,464 launched from Gaza in the past three years — deliberately places its weapons in and near the homes of its own people.

This has two purposes. First, counting on the moral scrupulousness of Israel, Hamas figures civilian proximity might help protect at least part of its arsenal. Second, knowing that Israelis have new precision weapons that may allow them to attack nonetheless, Hamas hopes that inevitable collateral damage — or, if it is really fortunate, an errant Israeli bomb — will kill large numbers of its own people for which, of course, the world will blame Israel.

If Krauthammer believes such remedial lessons in moral clarity would educate those on the left who need it most, it is obvious he has never read Firedoglake:

So I guess this is good news to the IRA, Basque Separatists, and various others who have blown shit up over the years (killing many) — they now get a pass because they telegraphed their punches via warnings ahead of time. And I guess, by ol’ Charlies’ logic it is morally right to bomb Iran, because he wrote a cloying article about “Peace through Confligration” a couple years ago. So they’ve been adequately warned. So as long as you give a courtesy call it is okay to nuke somebody, because proportionate response just is not a moral question Krauthammer can believe in.

Huh? A bomb being set off by terrorists at a department store in London with warning given has any equivalence whatsoever with the Israelis warning civilians that they are going to destroy Hamas military installations? How novel!

First of all, our IRA heroes were nowhere near the blast site and were targeting a civilian establishments. Only the deliberately self-deluded actually believe that Israel is trying to kill civilians. And it is useless to try and argue the right and wrong of unintentional civilian casualties in war where the enemy, as Krauthammer points out, places its military installations where even pinpoint bombing can cause civilian deaths.

The faux choice between killing civilians or not killing any at all is an artificial standard created for Israel and the US who are supposed to fight wars as they did in the 18th century - gentlemanly conflicts where aristocratic officers weren’t targeted because the conflict might get out of control otherwise, it being fought by commoners and other rabble.

The sterile argument that Israel (or America) killing non combatants violates the Geneva Convention, when one side ignores the GC’s strictures against hiding behind civilian populations, fails to address the unpalatable option of not going to war at all in order to avoid civilian casualties and consequently enduring attacks on your country without response. It is the real world versus the ideal world imagined by those on the left who care less about the Geneva Convention and more about using the treaty as a way to defang both Israel and the US - emasculating them in order to achieve some wildly unrealistic status quo belli  but where the enemies of both nations can violate the GC with impunity and be safely ignored while an absolutist notion regarding civilian casualties is advanced.

Nice trick if you can get away with it.

Secondly, I daresay when the ground assault by Israel begins - as it apparently will, shortly - and if the IDF warns civilians thus losing the element of surprise for their soldiers, the resulting casualties sustained by the IDF will prove the efficacy of Krauthammer’s argument; that Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to protect the enemy population even at a cost to the the lives of their own military.

The weird, idiotic hearkening back to a column written by Krauthammer on the possibility of an attack on Iran being presented as further “argument” that Israel should receive no points for good behavior as a result of their warnings is daffy. A two year old column by a journalist is similar in construct to Israel warning Palestinian civilians?

The preceding by FDL was not an exercise in mental gymnastics but rather a baking class where students are taught how to make a pretzel. Only in this case, the confections were twisted so painfully and into such ludicrous shapes, that it cried out in protest at being abused so ignorantly.

All of this twisting and running in circles stands in stark contrast to the way the left justified fighting fascism on the side of the “republicans” during the Spanish Civil War. On the surface, going to war against Franco and the nationalists could be seen as noble, even heroic. The clerical-fascists backing the Spanish dictator were certainly an unattractive lot, wanting to keep the Spanish people in virtual bondage and peonage while being kept in line using the heavy hand of the Catholic Church.

Franco was supported by Italian and German fascists. And hearing the siren song of war being sung by Stalin and his communist party minions throughout the west, thousands of Americans joined what history has come to know as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade - a kind of super glorified Boy Scout troop that was short on military knowledge and discipline but long on enthusiasm and true belief in the cause.

What was that cause? The Spanish “republicans” were an equally inglorious bunch having made it their first order of business upon assuming power the slaughter of Catholic clergy and laity (more than 7,000 murdered) as well as tens of thousands of others who didn’t demonstrate correct political thinking. This “Red Terror” was followed by the much more brutal and efficient “White Terror” of Franco.

The Abraham Lincoln Brigade was made up of the cream of the American left - many of whom, as was the fashion of the time, were communists. (Being a Communist in the 1930’s was cool - sort of like being a Republican in the ’80’s or a Democrat today.) There were also socialists, Wobblies (IWW members), liberal democrats, the mainstream middle class, and the usual smattering of soldiers of fortune, adventurers, and devil-may-care journalists.

All the ALB cared about was that they were fighting fascism. No doubt the nationalists were deserving of disapprobation given their bombing of cities and wanton slaughter of civilians. But the atrocities committed by the “republicans” were equally vile as they too killed their fair share of non combatants, executing as many nationalist sympathizers as they could find.

Committing evil to fight evil? Who’da thunk it. Very few voices on the left were raised in opposition to these tactics on the republican side and indeed, those that were pointed to “disproportionality” between atrocities committed by Franco’s government and the Republicans.

Fighting Franco was almost certainly the right thing to do. Standing on the sidelines and positing a “pox on both their houses” would have ignored the moral framework of the conflict in favor of a safe intellectual harbor where kibbitzing from the sidelines as the nationalists murdered their way to victory would have been cowardly. No one knows what kind of government would have emerged if the republicans had been victorious but given the history of communist movements worldwide, its a safe bet to say that Spain may very well have eventully been gobbled up by Moscow.

But we have the advantage of 20/20 hindisight and at the time, fighting on the side of those who supported liberal democracy was the correct moral choice.

The point is, the left had no trouble taking sides when the moral choices were much less clear given the ravages committed by both sides. But correctly identifying the side in the right in the current Hamas-Israeli War seems to be beyond their capacity despite the fact that the issues here, as Krauthammer points out, possess “a moral clarity not only rare but excruciating.”

I used to make great sport of Salon’s Glenn Greenwald and his idiotic rantings against Bush, conservatives, Republicans, and individual bloggers he would attack irrationally. There is no one on the internet who exaggerates more, takes what someone writes or says completely and dishonestly out of context more often, or sets up larger strawmen - knocking them down with the kind of feverish frenzy one might see in a 14 year old drama queen.

His over the top, hysterical warnings about the imminent demise of American democracy, his one dimensional take on everything from the war to same sex marriage, and his insufferable, loutish, smugly self righteous attitude figured to be just too tempting a target for many of us who see in him the epitome of netroots hypocrisy and stupidity.

But it got boring after a while to pillory Greenwald because he was so predictable. This is why he largely goes unchallenged these days; people are just too busy with other, more important matters, than going through one of his 3,000 word rants and calling him out for the lies, the exaggerations, the deliberate twisting of intent, and other grevious sins that is this sock puppet’s stock in trade.

Occasionally, however, the urge comes upon me to try to set the record straight. It may seem vainglorious for me to think that anything I write on my little blog matters a whit in the larger scheme of things - even in so insignificant a matter as Glenn Greenwald and his latest smears against those with which he disagrees. But winding up and throwing a haymaker toward Greenwald’s jaw - in a literary sense - is nevertheless a quite satisfying exercise emotionally and I will therefore indulge myself as I desperately need some spiritual uplift following the decline and fall of My Beloved Bears last week.

Greenwald has written perhaps the most dishonest, ignorant, deliberately deceptive piece on the War against Hamas that has yet been penned. And given the tripe that’s been vomiting forth from sites like The Nation and Firedoglake, that is a truly remarkable achievement.

Greenwald is a liar. Either that or he is so oblivious to facts, reason, and logic that he must experience life on the level of a two year old. How else would you describe his opening to this anti-Israeli screed that drips with venomous hatred against his political enemies:

This Rasmussen Reports poll — the first to survey American public opinion specifically regarding the Israeli attack on Gaza — strongly bolsters the severe disconnect I documented the other day between (a) American public opinion on U.S. policy towards Israel and (b) the consensus views expressed by America’s political leadership.  Not only does Rasmussen find that Americans generally “are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip” (44-41%, with 15% undecided), but Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive — by a 24-point margin (31-55%).  By stark constrast, Republicans, as one would expect (in light of their history of supporting virtually any proposed attack on Arabs and Muslims), overwhelmingly support the Israeli bombing campaign (62-27%).

The smear written here - so casually made - that “as one would expect” (as if everyone were as intellectually dishonest as Greenwald), Republicans have a “history” of supporting “any proposed attacks on Arabs or Muslims.” What history might that be? A favorite Greenwaldian subterfuge is to throw as many charges against his enemies just to see if any stick. This one’s a biggie, of course.He is saying that all Republicans are bigots and hate Muslims and Arabs - without one single example or any evidence to support his wild, unsupported lie.

No, very few people “expect” Republicans to act in such a bigoted manner - especially 62% of them - except Greenwald and his ilk whose exaggerated sense of disproportion allows them to posit all kinds of evil without offering a scintilla of proof. Supporting wars against Saddam Hussein and the Taliban for reasons of national security is not the same as hating Muslims so much that Republicans relish the thought of killing them. The fact that I have to point this out would seem silly to most rational people except Greenwald apparently believes it - or is a liar.

It would also be relevant point out that while Democrats and liberals were willing to allow Muslims to be slaughtered in Bosnia and Kosovo, it was Republican support that allowed a Democratic president to go to war against orthodox Christian Serbia and save them. Does that mean that liberals hate Muslims because they didn’t mind seeing them murdered and raped? In Greenwald’s world, yes.

If possible, this statement is even more dishonest:

It’s not at all surprising, then, that Republican leaders — from Dick Cheney and John Bolton to virtually all appendages of the right-wing noise machine, from talk radio and Fox News to right-wing blogs and neoconservative journals — are unquestioning supporters of the Israeli attack. After all, they’re expressing the core ideology of the overwhelming majority of their voters and audience.

What “core ideology” is that Mr. Greenwald? The subtext is, we assume, the same as above; that the GOP hates Arabs and Muslims. And where in God’s name did this worthless dreck of a human being come up with the idea that the “overwhelming majority” of Republican voters and audience hates Muslims?

It might be interesting to have Mr. Greenwald link to the poll that shows that the “overwhelming majority” of Republicans buy the “core ideology” of bigotry and hate against Muslims and Arabs. It is this kind of deliberate smear that Greenwald gets away with for the simple reason no one takes the time (or wastes it) in responding.

This calumny is not your run of the mill political mud wrestling where eye gouging and leg twisting is done with relish and opponents end up covering themselves in manure when all is said and done. This is the world according to Glenn Greenwald - a very special place where simply having him say that up is down, black is white, and the “overwhelming majority” of Republicans are bigots makes it so.

Note I have not called Greenwald an “anti-Semite” for opposing Israel’s war of survival against an enemy whose public policy toward their neighbor is total destruction. You can be an idiot without being a hater. But his selective outrage against Israel (and tepid, pro-forma objections to Hamas’s cruel barrage of rockets targeting civilians in Israel) is indicative of someone without moral awareness. Is he deceiving us or himself? A good question that too many on the left - lacking the desire for introspection as they do - fail to ask themselves.

But what really has Greenwald’s panties in a twist is the fact that American political leaders of both parties have, for the most part, taken Israel’s side in the War:

Ultimately, what is most notable about the “debate” in the U.S. over Israel-Gaza is that virtually all of it occurs from the perspective of Israeli interests but almost none of it is conducted from the perspective of American interests. There is endless debate over whether Israel’s security is enhanced or undermined by the attack on Gaza and whether the 40-year-old Israeli occupation, expanding West Bank settlements and recent devastating blockade or Hamas militancy and attacks on Israeli civilians bear more of the blame. American opinion-making elites march forward to opine on the historical rights and wrongs of the endless Israeli-Palestinian territorial conflict with such fervor and fixation that it’s often easy to forget that the U.S. is not actually a direct party to this dispute.

As Israel’s biggest and best ally and virtual guarantor of their existence, of course we have an abiding interest in the conflict. The wonder is that Greenwald evidently feels sticking a knife in the back of your ally while she is fighting for her life by condemning this bomb going off in the wrong place or that bullet not hitting its intended target is just fine. Better yet, take the morally reprehensible position of a “pox on both your houses” and condemn everybody. That way, you can do away with the only democracy in the Middle East as an ally and simply treat them as we might look upon Sierra Leone or Gabon.

When one’s moral compass goes in a circle and taking the “out” that the survival of an ally is none of your business might be satisfying from an ideological standpoint but is hardly practical or even desirable. Taking sides in a war is a necessary evil when it comes right down to it. The US is not Sweden or Switzerland, although Greenwald might prefer that kind of “neutrality” to the sort of practical realization that the survival of Israel is important to the US national interest.

Whew! Remind me not to ask Greenwald to be an ally.

The rank deceitfulness of Greenwald is really getting tiresome. The idea that this ignorant hypocrite - as ignorant and hypocritical as any right winger he wants to name - has been given such a big megaphone at Salon would be incomprehensible except when you realize that his followers among the netroots are equally obtuse and perfidious when it comes to attacking their political and ideological enemies.

With that kind of devoted following, he’ll probably grab a Pulitzer someday.

My latest column at Pajamas Media is up. I look at Blago’s master stroke of changing the dynamics of his personal political situation and throwing the ball into Harry Reid’s court as far as the senate choice is concerned.

A sample:

On the surface, this was a brilliant stroke by Blagojevich. By rolling the dice and naming Burris, he puts the onus of rejecting a supremely qualified African-American candidate smack on Senator Reid’s shoulders while perhaps even currying favor with Illinois blacks. In addition, if Reid were somehow to reverse himself, the drive for impeachment would slow considerably. The process had already been reduced to a crawl as a result of the holidays, and any urgency to impeach Blagojevich would dissipate because the idea was to get him out of office quickly so that he couldn’t name Obama’s successor.

To those who might wonder why this changes anything with regard to impeachment, it is important to remember that in Illinois politics all politicians are guilty until convicted. Then they are simply unelectable. Illinois House Democrats will move no faster than they have to. And if the Senate accepts Burris (or is forced to accept him), impeachment will proceed much more deliberatively.

Burris served from 1979-1991 as comptroller of the state and from 1991-1995 as attorney general. He is currently head of Burris & Lebed Consulting of Chicago, a high powered lobbying and consulting firm that, according to the Chicago Sun Times, has gotten nearly $295,000 in state contracts since 2004. Burris and his partners have donated more than $20,000 to Blagojevich since 2004.

In the news conference introducing him, Burris alluded to the idea that he was pleased Blagojevich had named another African-American to replace Obama and he pleaded with his “good friend” Senator Dick Durbin to talk with him about being accepted by the Senate. And it appears virtually certain that Blagojevich will fight to seat his choice, as Burris said during the press conference, “I welcome the challenge that awaits us.”

Read the whole thing.

Is it smart politics to vote against what will be a wildly popular economic bailout package that may approach a trillion dollars? Further, is it really necessary in order to “save” the economy?

Politicians are always torn between doing what they know is right and what they know is politically safe. Many times, there is a happy convergence between the two schools of thought and the politician comes out a winner. For Republicans, this happens whenever tax cuts are up for a vote or votes on issues like welfare reform or military spending.

But what happens when an issue like the bailout package comes before you - a bill that most GOP conservatives worth their salt know deep down in their gut is the wrong approach to getting the economy out of a recession and will push the federal deficit toward the magic number of a trillion dollars?

To liberals like Paul Krugman (and probably some Republicans), the deficit doesn’t matter:

It’s politically fashionable to rant against government spending and demand fiscal responsibility. But right now, increased government spending is just what the doctor ordered, and concerns about the budget deficit should be put on hold.

Krugman may be half right. Government spending increases during a recession are inevitable and the fall off in revenue due to reduced business activity as well as the increase in the numbers of citizens forced on to the public dole as a result of job loss means a rise in the federal deficit. This much is unavoidable and repeating Herbert Hoover’s mistake in trying to hold the line on spending by increasing taxes is a non-starter. Even Obama knows that much in that he has put his tax increase plans on hold for a couple of years - much to the chagrin of his class warrior base.

But a trillion dollars? And beyond that incomprehensible number is the political fallout that would occur if the GOP were to fight against the stimulus package in the first place.

Such a move might please the Republican base which makes up about 30% of the electorate. But the last I checked it takes more than 50% to be successful in elections. And if the GOP wants to make inroads against the Democrats in the House and Senate, they are going to need considerably more than 50% of the electorate to vote for them in order to climb out of the huge hole they have dug for themselves.

So the smart political move would be to go with the flow and vote for Obama’s giveaway, right? Not so fast, says Nate Silver who lays out the political choices for GOP lawmakers quite nicely:

1) Try to pressure Obama into some kind of compromise, and vote for that compromise;
2) Let the stimulus pass as the Democrats choose to construct it, over your strong objection;
3) Yield to Obama, and vote for the stimulus in the name of national unity.

The third choice probably isn’t very appealing to you. It might be appealing to Newt Gingrich, who is telling you that you don’t have the credibility right now to pick a fight. Better off rebuidling and rebranding the party for the long term. But rebuilding and rebranding means someone other than you is in charge — someone, for example, like Newt Gingirch. So that option is out.

So let’s think through the other couple of choices. First thing first: if the economy improves substantially by the midterm elections, you’re screwed. It won’t matter whether you voted for the stimulus or voted against it, and it won’t matter whether you achieved some kind of compromise or you didn’t. If, by the summer of 2010, GDP growth has miraculously recovered to 4% per year, that’s all the public is going to think about. Obama Save Economy!! Me Vote Democrat!! They aren’t going to care about whether you snuck some sort of capital gains tax cut in there.

But let’s say that the economy still sucks in 2010 — which, frankly, is a pretty good bet. That’s going to work much, much better for you if you’ve voted against the stimulus. Not only can you pin the blame on the donkeys, but you can campaign on tax cutting and fiscal responsibility — the stimulus will “prove”, once and for all, the wisdom of conservative economic principles. And then think about this: the Democrats are going to be trying to spend $800 billion in taxpayer dollars as quickly as they can possibly get away with it. Somewhere along the way, they’re going to wind up funding a Woodstock Museum or a Bridge to Nowhere. Somewhere along the way, an enterprising contractor is going to embezzle a bunch of stimulus money, or cook up some kind of pay-to-play scheme. Maybe if you’re really lucky, this will happen in your Distrct. Better to keep the whole thing at arm’s-length and make sure that Democrats get the blame for that.

The Hobson’s Choice facing Republicans is fighting against a popular president and his very popular giveaway plan in which case if the economy improves by 2010 (more on this later), the GOP is toast or accepting the rationale of the Obama White House and voting in favor of the package in the name of national unity as a result of an “emergency” in which case you will get absolutely no credit from the American people and your base will desert you. The third choice is equally unpalatable; try to inject some sanity in the giveaway by dint of minor amendments, warn of catastrophe, and then vote for it anyway.

In other words, if you stand up for your beliefs and fight the bailout (a certain losing proposition at this point given the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate), your only hope is if the plan doesn’t work and the economy is still in the tank by 2010-12. But if you follow your political instincts and vote in favor of the plan - even if you are able to get Obama to modify some of the parameters - the American people will still see the package as a Democratic triumph. You only consolation by taking door #3 is that the GOP base won’t desert you entirely - probably.

More to the point, can an honorable politician of any ideology or party deny the president what he deems necessary to help people in what his advisors and many experts are telling him is an extremely serious economic crisis? And what does it say about the GOP as a party whose only real hope for gains in 2010 is if the president’s plan doesn’t work and millions suffer the consequences?

Or will they? We are in a serious recession, the depth of which is unknowable at the moment. A Republican Administration has already pumped trillions into the financial sector (without much effect on credit markets and all to the detriment of a free market economy). Few are asking would we have been better off - or just as badly off - if Bush and his gorgon Paulson (and bailout enabler Fed Chair Bernanke) had simply tweaked the system rather than drowning it in money. If the Bushies had allowed several larger Wall Street banks to go under or facilitated some mergers while letting others go down the drain, how much worse off would we be?

Stock market lower? Perhaps. Credit tighter? Hard to see how that would be possible. More job losses? Again, we’re bleeding half a million jobs a month so it would be difficult to imagine that pace getting much worse.

Then there’s all that worthless paper - mortgage backed securities, credit derivatives, and loans that have been foreclosed. There are trillions of dollars of this worthless toilet paper sitting in banks around the world - had been sitting there for months as the housing bubble burst and began to drag the economy toward recession. What changed that caused this bailout mania?

Panic took hold. The Panic of 2008 will be remembered for the scramble to inject “liquidity” into the financial sector so that the business of American business could continue. Gigantic corporations asked the government to sheild them from the results of their poor business decisions and the ebb and flow of the free market by claiming to be “too big to fail” and the government obliged them by throwing trillions of dollars in their direction. No one knows where this money went. No one knows how it was spent. We are told that by saving these companies, we avoided a “meltdown.” If it not be heresy, might I inquire as to just what proponents of these bailouts think we are experiencing now if not a “meltdown?”

In effect, we just spent $7 trillion or so (most of that printed up by the Fed and pumped into the “system” in ways that are so arcane, not even the deacons of high finance can explain it adequately) just to avoid what we are, in fact, going through right now. We don’t know how much worse it would have been without this massive bailout. Such prognostication is impossible. Indeed, even asking the question “How much bang did we get for those $7 trillion bucks?” will bring down criticism for even daring to think that perhaps - just perhaps - much of this massive giveaway was - dare I say it - unnecessary?

But with the GOP’s credibility at close to absolute zero, no one in the Republican party seems willing to make the case that before we pump another trillion dollars into the economy in free money, it might be a good idea to pause and reflect on exactly what we are doing. Forget the deficit for the moment. How is this bailout mania - the result of a feeding frenzy due to the smell of unearned cash available to those who whine the loudest and have the best lobbyists - affecting the ability of the free market to function?

For all the ignorant words written in opposition to the free market in recent months, no one has yet figured out a better way to deliver goods and services to the consumer so cheaply and efficiently, create wealth and jobs, innovate in cutting edge industries like energy, pharma, and bio-tech, while proving itself over time as the most spectacular engine for liberty and the fairest system in the history of industrialized civilization for distributing the economy’s bounty.

No, it is not perfect. Far from it. But this hybrid beast that is emerging as a result of such massive government intervention in the economy is an unknown animal. And if this is to be the end of the “American System” don’t you think we should like, you know, have a debate about it or something? Right now, the new Obama Administration is riding the crest of a wave of panic that gripped this country in late summer and early autumn. And the idea of making nation-changing decisions because Wall Street has been spooked or people are anxious about the future without the benefit of a full fledged debate is even scarier than anything the economy could ever elicit from me.

And now, at the exact moment that this country needs a strong, united Republican party who could come up with free market alternatives to this giveaway society being created by the Democrats and stand up for what they know is right, the GOP is busted, broken, toothless, and out of ideas.

It is not simply going to be good enough to scream “NO” into this hurricane wind of “hope and change.” The GOP must vigorously make the case that the need for this bailout has not been thoroughly examined or thought through adequately. They have a responsibility to try and apply the brakes to this juggernaut that has swept the country over the last few months as politicians have responded to panic by panicking themselves. Most importantly, they must do what minority parties are supposed to do; offer sound, reasonable, achievable ideas to counter what is coming from the majority.

This will not happen to the leaderless, dispirited crew of Republicans on Capitol Hill. In this respect, it won’t matter politically whether they vote for the bailout or not. They have already proven themselves to be emasculated by the voter and their own timidity and cowardice when it comes to standing up for their core principles.

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.

Some trenchant analysis in Politico this morning on the problems facing Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal in running for president in 2012:

One other similarity between the two: a charmed political existence so far. Jindal’s first year in office brought historic ethics reforms, deep tax cuts and major funding for workforce training and highway projects. State tax coffers bulged with oil industry revenues from $4-a-gallon gas.

So, along with his counterpart in Alaska, the Louisiana governor became the undisputed hot ticket for the GOP’s circuit of Lincoln and Reagan Day party fundraisers, traditionally a testing ground for presidential aspirants. And unlike Sarah Palin, Jindal is also quickly becoming the toast of Republican elites, the class of elected officials, donors, and consultants who are much sought after well before the first primary votes are cast.

Now some political reality is setting in.

For one thing, Jindal is facing what nearly every one of his counterparts is in capitals across the country: a gaping budget deficit.

With the price of oil plummeting, energy-rich Louisiana has lost a significant chunk of anticipated revenue and is projected to have a $2 billion deficit next year.

“He’s had a rocket ride,” said Maginnis, the Louisiana political analyst. “Nobody has had a first year in office like his. But next year is going to be a lot rockier.”

In addition to the deficit, the political calendar is working against him. It would be extremely difficult for Jindal to run for both re-election as governor in 2011 and the Republican nomination in 2012. The first primaries are going to be, at best, 10 weeks from election day in Louisiana - hardly enough time to shift gears and concentrate on running for president after spending the previous year campaigning in Louisiana.

Can he do both? It would be unprecedented and there are a couple of scenarios where it might work out, specifically a run against a weak Democratic gubanatorial candidate in what would shape up to be a Republican year. What the good people of Louisiana might think about someone running for both offices is a big unknown. And raising money for both races would almost seem to be a waste.

A more likely scenario is that Jindal skips 2012 and takes his shot in 2016. He will only be 41 years old in 2012 which would still make him younger than Obama if he were to wait for four years.

And speaking of the president-elect, Republicans are already referring to Jindal as “our Obama” - a gruesome thing with which to saddle anyone. It is a superficial recognition of his Indian heritage - a “man of color” - that shows how desperate the GOP truly is. One would think that other, more important factors, should recommend Jindal to national voters and no doubt, some will emerge. But the blatant race-based politics that can proclaim Jindal a serious candidate based at least partly - or mostly - on the color of his skin has no place in any party to which I want to belong. Turn the Obama question on Jindal - “If his name was Smith and he was white, would he be taken as serious fodder for the presidency?” - and you are left with an emphatic “no” for an answer.

Sizing up Jindal at this point is probably an exercise in futility since he will no doubt grow and change as his term in office continues. But what we know of him now is not very encouraging to me. I could never vote for someone who believes that creationism/intelligent design should be taught in schools - even if it is done in concert with the teaching of evolution with the goal of “letting the kids decide” which “theory” they wish to believe.

This kind of anti-intellectualism that promotes ID as science on a par with Darwinism is just plain loony. Imagine in Cosmology if we taught the “Steady State” theory of the origins of the Universe alongside the “Big Bang” and expansion theories, allowing students to decide which theory is “true.” The question answers itself. One theory is clearly wrong and the other is clearly correct.

If parents want to home school their kids and teach them ID or send them to private religious schools where Darwin is a dirty word, fine. They will grow up sweeping the floors of Japanese, Swedish, or Chinese bio-tech factories rather than owning them. You can deny the efficacy of evolution all you want but since modern biology is based on it (and not on ID/creationism) it stands to reason that the coming revolution in bio-technology will proceed without your children being involved. This nonsense has already affected the numbers of students entering graduate level life sciences which a recent Rand study showed will necessitate US bio-tech firms looking overseas for engineers and biologists within the next decade.

But this debate is only a symptom of what ails the GOP. Much of the base appears to be battling modernity itself. Declaring categorically - and without even a scintilla of the requisite knowledge to do so - that Climate Change is a “hoax” bespeaks an ignorance that causes most voters to blanche in horror at the prospect of electing a Republican. Scientists who advocate the theory of catastrophic climate change may indeed be wrong. They may be close minded and not open to opposing views. But “hoaxers?”

This is not the first time that eminent scientists have gotten it wrong and refused to consider evidence the the contrary. The theory of plate tectonics - the continents sitting on plates, floating on magma, that rub against each other and migrate great distances over time - was belittled for a 100 years. But no one accused proponents of the Continental Drift theory of perpetrating a scientific hoax to advance that theory at the expense of plate tectonics.

The evidence for Climate Change is hardly in dispute due simply to the fact that the earth’s climate is always changing. The question is how much humans have had to do with any change in climate and whether cutting emissions will do any good. To simply pass off these enormously complex questions as a “hoax” reveals the deep strain of anti-intellectualism in the GOP that raises its ugly head from time to time. I like the great physicist Freeman Dyson’s explanation for the disinterest of warming advocates in acknowledging that there is still a debate about the causes and especially the projections of scientists regarding the earth heating up. Dyson says that “When science gets rich it becomes political.”

In his comments at both the Nassau Club and Labyrinth, he decried the use of computer modeling to make “tremendously dogmatic” predictions about worldwide trends, without acknowledging the “messy, muddy real world” and the non-climatic effects of increased carbon dioxide. “There is no substitute for widely-conducted field operations over a long time,” he told the Nassau Club audience, citing the “enormous gaps in knowledge and sparseness of observation” that characterize the work of global warming experts.

Instead of engaging in debate on the scientific merits of the Climate Change proponents, many are apt to simply dismiss the findings of eminent scientists as a “hoax.” Dyson has exactly the right attitude; plead for additional research before implementing draconian solutions that may not even address the problem. And please note he says nothing about scientists trying to pull off a “hoax.”

Jindal may not believe in theories of Climate Change and wish to see ID/creationism taught in schools. Should this disqualify him from successfully running for president? Perhaps not. But it certainly portrays the Louisiana governor as someone without the intellectual curiosity that we in the GOP should have in our candidates. Believing in ID/creationism flies in the face of the facts. Do we really want a president who does that?

This whole Rick Warren blow-up that has occupied both the left and right recently reminds me of all that I hate about both conservatives and liberals. They aren’t discussing the very smart political move (and wonderful, healing gesture) by Obama to invite a man who equates gay love with incest to give the invocation at this historic inaugural. The issue has been folded into the Prop 8 brouhaha and has been deliberately used to reignite a debate that was settled the only way such thorny issues can be settled; at the ballot box by ordinary Americans making their feelings known in a clear, unambiguous way.

To my conservative freinds, I would ask what possible relevance this minor, irritating issue has when the country’s economy is going to hell in a handbasket? I don’t ask the same question of the left because to them, “the personal is political” and forcing the concept of gay marriage down the American people’s throat seems perfectly reasonable - especially since they believe the rest of us are a bunch of bible thumping, goober chewing yahoos who need to be instructed (by them) as to what is correct thinking and what isn’t - regardless of one’s personal beliefs.

Calling on government to either ban or bless how one chooses to express their love for another human being is the height of idiocy. If individual religious sects (or, through the ballot box, a state) wishes to recognize unions of same sex couples as “marriage” or something similar who are we to say otherwise? It’s not anyone’s business and the idea that it should matter is rapidly becoming ridiculous.

The challenges we face in the next few years are as serious as any faced by a generation of Americans since World War II. We are at war with a fanatical ideology, supported by nation states - one of whom may very well be close to having the ultimate weapon - using terror tactics to achieve their ends while their actions are supported or tolerated by tens of millions of their co-religionists.

Our economic situation is dire - and being made moreso by mortgaging our future so that politicians can be seen to be “doing something about the problem.” Eight trillion dollars later, the economy is arguably no better off and we have postponed the date of recovery. In the meantime, a budget deficit approaching a trillion dollars is staring the liberals and the face and they are not giving an inch. They are going to initate all their pet spending schemes come hell or high water. The trouble is that both those things have come already. We are in hell. High water would be an improvement.

The most inexperienced chief executive in American history will be learning on the job while the rest of the world - especially our enemies - will seek to test the limits of his patience and skill. There are so many landmines strewn in his path that the chances of him stepping on one of them is pretty darn good. Either Russia or Iran is almost certain to challenge Obama somewhere, somehow. That seems to be a growing consensus among our foreign policy wise heads who give the new president less than a year before he faces a genuine, teeth rattling crisis.

And despite all this, the gay community is throwing a tantrum about Rick Warren while seeking to nullify the will of the people in California. Inconvenient? No doubt. Democracy is a messy, ugly process. But working actively to tell the millions of Californians who voted for Prop 8 that their vote, their feelings, and their beliefs matter as much as a pile of crap is not the way things are done in democracies. They are acting as if there will never be another election and that people’s minds cannot be changed. If they keep up with these bully boy, screaming, foot stomping, two year old-like tactics, people will continue voting to deny what they see as their “right” to marry until they grow up and work like responsible adults to bring people around to their point of view.

To the Mormons and rabid gay-haters out there on the right who think they hold a patent on truth, I’ve got news for you; very few people care what you think. In fact, the more you work against gay marriage, the faster you hasten the day when it will become a reality. The only thing keeping a backlash from forming against you now is the backlash that has already formed against the kooks on the left who beat you to it through their childish idiocy of attacking people for their religious beliefs while screaming that everyone should boycott everybody if they even sneezed in favor of Prop 8. I never thought I’d see the day when people would feel sorry for Mormons and others who are in the line of fire of these ignorant boobs in the gay community.

In the end, this is a non-issue being pushed on both sides by ignorant statists who wish to use government to get what they want. Meanwhile, the world melts down around them and the rest of us wonder just what the hell has got this minority of loudmouths so upset. The only thing I know is that the louder they get, the more I wish they’d just shut up and the whole issue just go away.

UPDATE:

Judging by the emails I’ve gotten, my usual detractors are accusing me of dismissing the issue with a “pox on both your houses,” typical Moran BS. In this case, I see no difference between the Mormons, the gay haters, and those in the gay community who are blowing a gasket over the Rick Warren imbroglio and Prop 8 boycotts.. They are all statist boobs as far as I’m concerned, seeking to hijack government in order to impose their views on the rest of us.

Gay marriage is not a “conservative” issue. Conservatives don’t care whether someone loves another who is the same sex or not. Love is love and trying to redefine it is like trying to get the sun to rise in the west and set in the east. If you believe the love you hold for your own spouse is legitimate, you cannot deny the same kind of love that exists between two men or two women is equally correct - bible or not.

And there is no “human right” to get married. That may be the biggest bunch of hooey ever advanced by the left. If gay marriage is going to happen in the US, it will happen with acceptance by the majority and not as part of legal trickery that seeks to redefine what a “human right” is suppose to be.

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.

I think Franklin Roosevelt said something eerily similar about the New Deal:

US President George W. Bush said in an interview Tuesday he was forced to sacrifice free market principles to save the economy from “collapse.”

“I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system,” Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision “to make sure the economy doesn’t collapse.”

Bush’s comments reflect an extraordinary departure from his longtime advocacy for an unfettered free market, as his administration has orchestrated unprecedented government intervention in the face of a dire financial crisis.

“I am sorry we’re having to do it,” Bush said.

But Bush said government action was necessary to ease the effects of the crisis, offering perhaps his most dire assessment yet of the country’s economy.

“I feel a sense of obligation to my successor to make sure there is not a, you know, a huge economic crisis. Look, we’re in a crisis now. I mean, this is — we’re in a huge recession, but I don’t want to make it even worse.”

Let’s get something clear. What Bush and Obama are doing has nothing to do with “saving” the free market” and everything to do with saving the hides of politicians who are responding to the cries of frightened people by overturning sound economic principles in favor of corporate handouts to failing companies who gambled and lost and now want the taxpayer to subsidize their recklessness and incompetence.

And just what does Bush call this economy if not “collapsed?” He is pumping $8 trillion into the economy and I would like to know what difference it has made? The credit markets are no better, unemployment is skyrocketing, businesses from Main Street to Wall Street are either failing or hanging on by a thread. Negative growth, prices deflating, and consumer confidence is the lowest it has been since records have been kept.

Tell me, what good has all this free money done? What has it prevented? Worse? It is hard to see how things could be much worse. If Bush had allowed market forces to work as they should have, we would have seen bankruptcies, mergers, reorganizing, and a general winnowing out of winners and losers. Yes, people would be no better off - they would still be losing their jobs, companies would still be closing their doors, unemployment would still be skyrocketing.

But the seeds of recovery would already have been sown. Successful companies would know how to weather this storm and emerge on the other side even stronger. Once recovery began, it would be rapid and robust.

All of this bailout money has delayed the inevitable. It is not steering the economy to a soft landing. It is not saving one single job. Even the auto bailout is delaying the inevitable collapse of car companies that make few products that people want to buy and who refuse to face the fact that their labor costs and business plan are outdated, outmoded, and out of luck. Eventually, we are going to have to nationalize The Big Three completely or keep pumping tens of billions of dollars down a black hole of failure, cowardice, and incompetence.

George Bush is a fool if he think he has “saved” anything.

This blog post originally appears in The American Thinker