Right Wing Nut House

Kevin Drum is extremely distrustful of anything the Bush Administration says or does. This is all well and good as the Bushies have made a nasty habit of surprising the country by saying one thing and later having the exact opposite of their claims revealed as the truth.

But don’t let Drum’s jaundiced eye toward politicians fool you. He is actually the most trusting of souls, willing to generously give the benefit of the doubt to all sorts of people - especially those disposed to vote for Democrats:

The State of Indiana has the most stringent voter ID laws in the country. Democrats are always griping about this, and have even gone so far as to challenge Indiana’s law in the Supreme Court. But this is just silly. In this day and age everyone has a photo ID anyway, so what’s the problem?

Just in case, though, the Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity and Race decided to check and see if this was really true. The three charts reproduced here illustrate the guts of their findings. By a substantial margin, the Indiana residents most likely to possess photo ID turn out to be whites, the middle aged, and high-income voters. And while this is undoubtedly just a wild coincidence, these are also the three groups most like to vote for Republicans. (2006 exit poll data here for the suspicious.) Overall, 91% of registered Republicans had photo IDs compared to only 83% of registered Democrats.

In truth, voter ID laws are highly discriminatory. The problem for Drum and other Democrats is that they discriminate against people who want to cheat the system and commit voter fraud. In Drum’s universe, anyone who shows up to vote should be taken at their word that they are who they say they are.

Just so we’re clear on this, in 2004 when the voter registration fraudsters at ACORN submitted registrations with names like Mary Poppins and Dick Tracy, Drum believes the poll workers should have just gone ahead and allowed anyone to vote who chose to use those names - even though Mary Poppins couldn’t possibly have been in Ohio at the time since she was working as a waitress at the greasy spoon down the street from where I lived in 2004, her being between nanny gigs at the time.

How very trusting of Mr. Drum. And how oblivious can you be to the widespread potential for abuse of the system when Democratic partisans like ACORN and the NAACP Voter Fund register non-existent or dead people to vote and then have these phantoms show up on election day, presenting themselves as legitimate?

The Supreme Court ruled in Reynolds v Sims in 1964 that there should be “one man, one vote” not “one man, one vote per registration.” But if we were to listen to the Kevin Drum’s of the world, everyone is basically law abiding and there is very little chance to game the system by faking registrations and then organizing an election day party where groups of Democratic party supporters vote early and often.

To be fair, this excellent article from Slate last May by Richard Hasen outlines the difficulty in carrying out an effective fraud scheme at the polls. But Hasen, like Drum, suffers from an acute case of overtrusting their own interest groups as well as the individual voter.

How could an effective fraud scheme be carried out? This piece by Marc Ambinder reveals the AFL-CIO’s plans for the 2008 election:

AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman will oversee the deployment of more than 200,000 volunteers to 23 priority states, including Ohio, pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Five house seats in “union-dense” districts and six Senate seats will be targeted.

In Ohio, where union households comprised 28% of the vote in 2006, the AFl-CIO plans to reach out to more than 1.4 million voters.

The labor federation will partner with other groups and use reams of consumer data to market precise political messages neighborhood-by-neighborhood.

“Our members are building an army to make more calls, knock on more doors and turn out more voters than ever,” said AFSCME President and AFL-CIO Political Committee Chair Gerald McEntee. “We’re going for the Trifecta: the House, the Senate, and the White House.”

In total, the AFL-CIO unions will spend about $200 million on Election 08 efforts, according to AFl-CIO estimates.

I would say that $200 million is lowballing it. AFSCME alone plans to spend $50 million in 2008. And some independent studies point out that staff time and other in kind contributions by labor raise that number by a factor of at least three, making the real figure closer to $600 million - almost all of it spent to aid Democrats.

The point is simple; there is ample money to organize, fund, and carry out voter fraud using labor allies in ACORN, the NAACP, ACT, and other organizations to supply the fake registrations, sharing that info with unions (unions help fund ACORN and ACT). And given the fact that there is massive resistance to purging voter registration rolls of the dead, of convicts, and others who may have moved out of state or otherwise become ineligible to vote, it seems abundantly clear that the potential exists not only to carry out fraud on a large scale but also, just as importantly, to escape detection doing so.

It is simply naive to believe otherwise.

The fact is, voter ID opponents do not have a good argument against a system that demands voters prove who they are prior to casting a ballot. Instead, they fall back on the tired old canard that requiring identification to vote is tantamount to a “poll tax” or “discourages minorities from voting” - even if, as the state of Georgia recently did, offer to give away state ID’s to those who couldn’t afford them.

They cannot argue simply on the merits of the plan. They must play the race card to obscure the real reasons for their opposition - that it would make voter fraud by labor and other Democratic allies extremely difficult.

Republicans, of course, have their own problems with voter fraud. I outline some of the ways the GOP attempts to tamp down minority voting in my PJ Media article here. Robert F. Kennedy estimates in his widely circulated Rolling Stone article that up to 350,000 minorities were intimidated or otherwise prevented from voting in Ohio in 2004. That number seems very high but there is no doubt that GOP efforts at “election monitoring” and spurious mailings to black precincts warning residents not to vote if they have so much as a parking ticket depressed black turnout.

I am not advocating making it difficult to register or vote. The process should be as simple as possible while still maintaining the integrity of the system. Otherwise, why bother?

I’m not revealing any privileged information by saying that our electoral system is in big trouble and needs to be fixed. Now that states are going to programs such as election day registration, it becomes paramount to make sure that each person votes only one time and that his vote is counted only once.

And if Kevin Drum and other Democratic partisans can quit playing the race card when it comes to voter ID programs, it might help in not only cutting down on fraud but also raising the confidence level of the American people that the most sacred of our democratic institutions is being safeguarded to the best of our ability.

Dennis Kucinich is just old enough to have been one of Ken Kesey’s “Merry Pranksters” - those wild and crazy post-beat generation prophets of the psychedelic age whose cross country trip on a bus named “Further” has captured the imaginations of rebels and reprobates for 40 years.

Immortalized in one of the most manic, most hilarious books of the 1960’s, The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, the Pranksters made it their business to try and alter the consciousness of America by getting everyone to drop acid and turn on to the psychedelic experience. The Pranksters themselves were quite the crew. “Pranking” unsuspecting citizens from coast to coast with elaborate hoaxes, the Prankster’s in your face method of revolutionary activity made them all seem larger than life.

Kucinich may not be quite ready to contaminate the Congressional water supply by dumping LSD into the cisterns. But he’s got a great head start on trying to alter reality:

Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich expressed satisfaction Tuesday with a series of procedural twists on the House floor that resulted in the Ohio congressman’s impeachment articles against Vice President Dick Cheney being sent for committee review.

A series of strategic maneuvers on both sides of the partisan aisle ended with a 218-194 vote along party lines to deliver the impeachment resolution to the House Judiciary Committee, the panel of jurisdiction for such matters.

“This vote sends a message that the administration’s conduct in office is no longer unchallenged,” Kucinich said after the vote.

The vote also sends the message that Dennis Kucinich is a certified loon. And his Democratic colleagues, scrambling like hell to avoid being lumped together with the Shirley McClaine of the House, tried desperately to avoid the impeachment issue alltogether by trying to kill the resolution outright. Alas, the Republicans decided not to be Pranked by their opponents and pulled a fast one:

Republicans, changing course midway through a vote, tried to force Democrats into a debate on the resolution sponsored by longshot presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich.

The anti-war Ohio Democrat, in his resolution, accused Cheney of purposely leading the country into war against Iraq and manipulating intelligence about Iraq’s ties with al-Qaida.

The GOP tactics reversed what had been expected to be an overwhelming vote to table, or kill, the resolution.

Midway through the vote, with instructions from the GOP leadership, Republicans one by one changed their votes from yes to kill the resolution to no, trying to force the chamber into a debate and an up-or-down vote on the proposal.

At one point there were 290 votes to table. After the turnaround, the final vote was 251-162 against tabling, with 165 Republicans voting against it.

“We’re going to help them out, to explain themselves,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. “We’re going to give them their day in court.”

The exquisite irony of watching Democrats fall all over themselves trying to kill impeachment after spending most of the last 7 years accusing Bush/Cheney of the most dire impeachable offenses was almost too delicious to watch. It showed the Democrats to be shallow political hacks, eager and capable of using rhetoric to undermine the presidency during a time of war but without the balls to match their actions to their words.

A truly pitiful performance.

Once again, I issue a challenge to those Democrats. If Bush/Cheney are truly guilty of all that you have charged them with over the last 7 years, stop talking and start acting. You own Congress now. There’s no real excuse you can use to delay any further. You have it in your power - not to mention an eager beaver Judiciary Committee Chairman in John Conyers - to begin serious, substantive hearings on everything you have accused this administration of doing for the last 7 years which would, if your rhetoric can be believed, lead to Articles of Impeachment being sent to the House floor.

If you are not willing to do so, STFU. Your apocalyptic rhetoric about the perceived sins of this Administration doesn’t match reality. It never has and never will. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that all the speechifying and wailing and gnashing of teeth has been nothing more than pandering to your rabid dog base of internet extremists. And the way they are turning on you today should tell you all you need to know about the viability of that strategy.

Kucinich is serious about impeachment because he is deranged. The rest of you may be more grounded in the reality found on this planet but nevertheless should be taken to task for your shameless, shallow political gamesmanship that has done almost as much damage to the United States as the Administration’s incompetence.

The fact that you won’t recognize that by either putting your votes where your mouths have been or toning down the rhetoric to a more civilized level of discourse reveals yourselves to be a collective of scumbags, unworthy of holding high office with responsibility for the safety and security of the American people.

By all rights, 2008 should be a hugely Democratic year. I daresay your actions yesterday along with other indications of your unfitness to be in the majority may yet save the GOP from disaster.

And if that happens, you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves.

It is usually very difficult to trace the origins of conspiracies. Much like the way urban legends are spread, finding out how a particular meme gets started is largely a matter of slogging detective work, tracing newspaper articles and wearing out shoe leather interviewing people.

It is believed that the very first hints of conspiracy involving Oswald and the JFK assassination could be traced to La Figaro L’Humanité, the communist party newspaper in France. A KGB defector in 1982 let on that the articles were part of a disinformation campaign designed to throw off suspicion of complicity by Moscow in the crime, something with which Kruschev was very concerned. (The defector’s reliability has been questioned on this and other matters).

A few months later, a small American publication called Ramparts began a series of articles using the La Figaro piece as a template to paste all sorts of conspiracies involving Johnson, the CIA, the Army, and large corporations. Other hard left magazines picked up on these theories and expanded on them. Even before the Warren Report was published, the paranoid left had a slew of conspiracy theories involving the assassination that fingered everyone but Oswald.

I bring this up because paranoia regarding the JFK assassination is one of the few semi- traceable conspiracies in modern history. Others have roots going back hundreds of years to the time of the Knights Templar and Illuminati and their beginnings have been lost to the mists of history. At bottom, all of these conspiracies posit the notion that powerful men using unseen and unknown methods control our destiny.

Today’s nuts inhabit both the right and left sides of the ideological spectrum with the left wing paranoids more prominent if only because of their target; George Bush and his Administration.

No? How’s that military draft coming, guys? And what about that fallout from our attack on Iran? You know, the one that was “imminent” at least three separate times over the last few years? And while we’re on the subject, have you sent your Christmas cards to your friends rotting away in those concentration camps you were so sure were going to be set up to house “regime” opponents?

I could go on, of course. There is no end to the wild nuttiness of the left when it comes to their paranoia about the Bush Administration. To hear them tell it, Bush is both evil genius and incompetent clown - a dichotomy most sane people would find laughable but which the paranoids on the left blithely run off at the mouth coming up with ever more outrageous “warnings” about Bush actions. The closer we get to the end of the Bush presidency, the more we hear of the “manufactured 9/11″ where Bush would cancel the election of 2008 and rule by dictatorship.

There are going to be a lot of exploding heads on January 20, 2009 when Bush rides off to Texas.

Where does this idiocy come from? It comes from here:

In a new book alleging a campaign of slander and intimidation orchestrated chiefly by Hillary Clinton, Kathleen Willey points a finger of suspicion at the former first couple for the death of her husband, who was believed to have killed himself.

Willey, who claims she was groped by President Clinton in the White House, acknowledged in an interview with WND today that she stands by the speculation she poses about her husband’s demise in “Target: Caught in the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton,” set for release this week by World Ahead Publishing, WND Books’ partner.

Asked if she suspects her husband Ed, a lawyer and son of a prominent Virginia lawmaker, was murdered, Willey replied, “Most definitely.”

There is absolutely no doubt that Bush Derangement Syndrome’s roots can be found in the Clinton Derangement Syndrome of the 1990’s. And if this book is any indication, BDS will continue to run long after George leaves office:

Willey writes that after her husband’s death, her friend Carole in Colorado told her something she had not known. Ed had confided to Carole’s husband that he had taken a briefcase full of cash to Little Rock, Ark., during the presidential campaign.

Willey said she was shocked but acknowledged her husband could have done it. Later she found a reference on a blog that explored illegal fundraising activities by the Clintons and noted Ed Willey was known for “handling large briefcases full of cash” as part of the 1992 presidential campaign.

She speculates: “I have no idea how anyone other than the Clintons would know that Ed might have carried cash in briefcases. So why would he be killed? Because he was carrying illegal money? That’s probably not enough reason. But what if, in his desperation, Ed had ‘illegally borrowed’ from the campaign?”

Willey herself brings up the obvious parallels to the Vince Foster suicide - which in Clinton Derangement Syndrome circles is listed as a “murder” despite numerous investigations by both Democrats and Republicans including independent counsels Fiske and Starr proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Fosters death was by his own hand.

The money is another issue. Willey wouldn’t be the first to have taken suitcases full of cash to Little Rock. But bribery and campaign financial irregularities are a long way from murder. And while the Clintons have been known to play hardball with opponents, Willey’s accusations are pretty slanderous. They were back then and they are now.

What CDS did was gather the kooks, the loons, and the nuts on the right under one umbrella with the internet as catalyst. Chat rooms and message boards acted as incubators where the latest preposterous theories about the Clintons were born.

And perhaps it’s no accident that BDS was born just when blogs began their rise to prominence. The archives of Daily Kos are full of diaries and posts that posit the most jaw dropping conspiracy theories about Bush. If the largest liberal blog could indulge themselves in such tripe, then clearly the way to fame and fortune in the leftysphere was to outdo the big guys in coming up with even more ridiculous theories of dark doings and evil abroad in the land.

It has culminated in the Rosie O’Donnell-Keith Olbermann axis of celebrity where those worthies feed hundreds of thousands of people a day a steady diet of BDS related claptrap. One wonders what poor Keith is going to do when Bush leaves office. Methinks he’s in for a fall since his “angry man” routine will be difficult to maintain if Democrats control everything.

Frankly, I’m surprised that Hillary hasn’t come in for more CDS than she has. Perhaps the loons are waiting for the general election campaign before letting loose. There are many bad things to be said about Hillary Clinton both personally and politically but what she and her husband were accused of during their tenure in office is so far beyond reality that it gives those of us who wish to critique Mrs. Clinton rationally a bad name. Those on the left who have spent the last seven years realistically critiquing the Bush Administration know what I’m talking about. It is easy to get lumped in with the nuts.

I feel for Kathleen Willey but she is wildly off base in her charges. I suppose I’ll hear it from some of my friends on the right but the fact is, tales of intimidation of witnesses, murder, burglary, and other illegal activities are largely anecdotal and have their origins in internet rumormongering. There is no credible evidence for it and thus, it is safe to dismiss much of CDS as the ramblings of paranoids.

The same could be said of BDS sufferers, of course. And given the polarization of our politics and general political nastiness abroad in the land, both Syndromes will probably be with us for a while.

Fred Thompson’s campaign is in trouble.

Not that the former Tennessee Senator has made any killer gaffes or tragic mistakes. He hasn’t. Thompson is suffering from that inside the beltway syndrome that pushes a potential candidate to enter the race and then mercilessly tries to tear him down once he’s in. Beltway insiders like Dick Morris have positively skewered Thompson for everything from his “trophy wife” trying to run the campaign to his curious habit of constantly clearing his throat

Fred is also suffering from comparisons to Reagan which were inevitable but unfair. And his laid back style on the stump seems to be eliciting a laid back reaction from voters - they like him but are perplexed by his seeming lack of passion.

And slowly, like a leaking boat, Thompson’s once climbing poll numbers have started to go south. And not just in the national polls but state by state, Thompson has seen his percentages slipping.

He is currently behind Huckabee in New Hampshire with 5% of the vote. And he’s currently 4th in South Carolina, a state he led less than a month ago.

Face it Fred Heads; Thompson needs a boost, a spark - something - or he’s going to be out of the race early. Part of it is certainly the fact that the major punditry has already dismissed him as “dumb,” or lackadaisical,” or just plain “lazy.” But part of it is Thompson’s doing as well. He has been too cerebral, too remote. His campaign has failed to give off any heat, relying instead on the candidate’s folksiness and star quality. That worked for a while. But once people really began to take a look at him, what they saw didn’t impress as much as it raised questions about whether he really wanted the job or not.

I happen to think of all the major candidates in both parties, Thompson is running the most thoughtful campaign. His positions are fleshed out with some real meat on them - unlike the sugar coated cereal burgers offered up as ideas by his counterparts and adversaries. If you listen closely, there is coherence and logic to his arguments about federalism and limited government. And I like his realism on foreign policy in that he seems not to be beholden to either the neocon or the more traditional Republican camps. There is some nuance in his formulations about the greater Middle East and what our policy should be.

All of this would play very well if Thompson were running for Chief Policy Wonk. But he’s not. He’s running for the Presidency of the United States. And American voters not only like to see a candidate’s mind on display, they want to know what is in his soul as well. So far, Fred has proved unwilling or incapable of reaching out and connecting with people on an emotional level. And time is growing short for him to do so.

One area he could connect with part of the base would be on social issues. But here again, Thompson prefers to frame the issues in the much broader context of his case for increased federalism. On abortion:

Questioned about his views on domestic issues, Thompson repeatedly cited or alluded to his belief in federalism, at times with skill. Of course, on abortion and gay marriage such deference to states and localities may cause problems. On the former, especially, Thompson offered a stark reminder that he would prefer not to see abortion banned but rather to revert to the pre-Roe v. Wade model, when states decided their abortion laws. “No,” Thompson flatly replied, shaking his head when asked if he could run on the GOP platform that calls for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution that would place unborn children under the protection of the 14th Amendment. Of course, Thompson’s less than orthodox views on the abortion issue are mitigated given his opponents’ views (past and present) on the topic.

This is almost a libertarian view of the abortion issue and the way Thompson has chosen to frame the issue does not sit well with those who see abortion as a defining matter for Republicans. His similar views on gay marriage are a little closer to the mainstream of GOP thought in that there is a sizable minority of the GOP who would like to see the issue decided by state legislatures. But his arms length relationship with the Christian right is not helping him catch fire even in the south where he is still running fairly well in most polls. For Thompson to break out of his regional candidacy, he must find a way to engage people’s emotions. And so far, he has been a disappointment.

I speculated a while back that the candidate may not be in the best of health although he is looking better of late. His energy level seemed better in the second debate as well. But with less than 2 months to go before the real contests begin in Iowa and New Hampshire, it may be too late for him to generate the kind of momentum that would allow him to challenge Romney in Iowa or New Hampshire and Giuliani just about everywhere else.

But stranger things have happened in presidential politics. And Thompson is known as something of a closer judging by his past races for the Senate. In order to have a chance, however, Thompson is simply going to have to change the tone of his campaign, bringing more enthusiasm and drive to his effort.

Otherwise, he may very well end up fading into background before the voting even starts.

The fires in southern California are still burning out of control in some places. People are still fleeing in advance of the inferno as the blaze has consumed nearly 2,000 homes and threatens thousands of others. A billion dollars in damage so far and there is no relief in sight for the residents and officials who are living this nightmare.

Meanwhile, it’s business as usual for the left, trying to score political points off of tragedy. This time, a couple of right wing pundits have chimed in, to the approving nods of some conservatives who have learned well the lessons of Katrina; it’s never too early to blame someone for nature’s handiwork.

Thousands of our fellow citizens are sitting in shelters not knowing if they have a home to go back to. Firefighters from all over the west and beyond are exhausting themselves to save lives and property. Federal, state, city, and local officials are working around the clock, doing everything they can to alleviate suffering, battle the numerous fires threatening the area, doling out assistance, and planning for the aftermath.

But none of this matters at the moment. Instead of doing everything we can to support these efforts, leaving the finger pointing and political gamesmanship until a decent interval has passed and life has returned to some semblance of normalcy for the afflicted, the professional bomb throwers on the right and the usual suspects on the left (almost everybody) are gleefully throwing around baseless and unproven charges of culpability.

They are enlisting the destruction of people’s lives in their battle to prove one thing or another about the President, or Republicans, or Democrats, or the War, or environmentalists. And for the left’s part, they are employing the age old political tactic of raising the spectre of race and class warfare; that the rich, white residents of San Diego County are being helped in a more timely and significant manner than the poor, black residents of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.

First of all, anyone who tries to draw parallels between a Hurricane and a fire is an idiot. Hurricanes tend to be somewhat wetter than fires for one thing. Secondly, the fire is not blocking access to the shelters in the city or other designated areas so that help can get where it is needed when it is needed in a much more timely manner.

Beyond that, I found this analysis interesting:

In addition to the reverse-911 system, authorities shut down schools, halted mail delivery and urged people to stay home and off the roads if they were not in danger.

Another factor separating these fire from other disasters has been wealth. Unlike many of the poor neighborhoods flooded by Hurricane Katrina, the hardest-hit areas in California were filled with upscale homes, with easy access to wide streets. Less wealthy areas — including rural enclaves and horse farms that stretch through the mountains east of San Diego — benefited from easy road access and small crowds.

The authorities didn’t wait to evacuate citizens from endangered areas. And apparently, wonder of wonders, the city of San Diego had a disaster plan and is sticking to it! Amazing what happens when you actually follow a carefully laid out plan rather than wring your hands wailing “Whoa is us” and go on the radio, blaming your incompetence on the racism of others.

Police roadblocks are preventing wide scale looting - not even residents are allowed back into areas no longer threatened until they can be protected. As far as we know, there have been no mass rapes of babies at Qualcom Stadium where around 10,000 residents have sought shelter. No murders or suicides there either that we’ve heard about. Food, water, and the amenities all seem to be plentiful at the moment.

In short, the difference between the fire and the flood is night and day - partly as a result of the competence of local officials but much more so because the two types of disasters present different types of challenges that are taking place in a different part of the country in different settings (densely populated urban area vs. the more open suburban/rural setting of southern California). Anyone who tries to draw some kind of parallel between the two tragedies or posit some race or class reason for the differences can safely be dismissed as agenda driven screwballs. There’s no “there” there.

But this hasn’t stopped the left from trying for a Katrina repeat. And this time, the right got the drop on the left as far as the race to politicize people’s agony.

Both Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have made comments trying to blame the left in some way for the tragedy. Beck’s point about the environmentalists opposing the clearing of brush and the deliberate setting of controlled fires may or may not be a valid point. But couldn’t it wait until after the disaster had been dealt with and all people and property were safe and secure?

Similarly, the lefty blogs have been full of comparisons to Katrina, intimations that the response to the tragedy is “proof” of racism and class differences, and the idea that if only we weren’t fighting the Iraq War, the National Guard could have prevented all this or, as Bill Richardson puts it, “Where is the National Guard?”

Today, as the fires rage, California has National Guard men, women, and critical equipment thousands of miles away in Iraq.

Richardson gives us a twofer in his article, reminding us that the entire reason so many died in New Orleans and why this fire is still burning is because of the War in Iraq.

I liked him better when he was lying about his Minor League baseball experiences.

There’s no evidence that the National Guard in California would be making a difference if the units serving in Iraq were here at home. But that won’t stop the left from making the argument anyway. Nor will they wait until the tragedy being experienced by the residents in southern California has passed before trying to score their political points with the public.

It didn’t used to be like this. No one would have dreamed of trying to politicize tragedy prior to the presidency of George Bush. But we’re in a different political ballgame now with no boundaries and few rules to live by. So we can expect this kind of idiocy from both sides from now on.

Both sides should be ashamed of themselves.

In the old days when watching television involved trying to decide what sitcom to watch on which of the only three networks the entertainment Gods saw fit to make available to us mortals, “channel surfing” meant heaving yourself up from the easy chair, walking over to the TV and manually twisting a knob that changed the station.

A “knob.” How quaint. The knob actually had the numbers 1-13 of which perhaps 5 channels actually featured a network. And one of those stations - PBS - wasn’t really considered TV anyway. No laugh track, nobody was ever gunned down, and nothing ever blew up. What was it good for, anyway?

Then came the TV remote control and life as we know it on earth was altered irrevocably. At first, men were able to drive their wives to homicide by switching back and forth between three channels - an admittedly futile and annoying practice since one was apt to confuse the plot lines of the shows you were trying to watch. Hence, it became difficult to remember if Dick Van Dyke was really going to be able to rescue Sgt. Saunders and Little John from the Germans while Marshall Dillon and FBI Inspector Erskine tried to arrest Johnny Yuma for crimes against good acting.

We have no such problems today thanks to the 200 plus cable and satellite stations available to any American of modest means. And with this explosion of choices, the TV remote has assumed the status of domestic icon, a talisman of power that allows the possessor a window on the universe or at least the ability to find out what the temperature is outside your window.

Such power is intoxicating. But it can also condemn the user, like the Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow, to go off on a futile quest in search of something important that can never be found - the perfect television show where even the commercials are riveting entertainment. Unfettered channel surfing is as much an expression of hope as it is a way to alleviate boredom.

Thus, last night, I found myself in a monumental quandary. There was the GOP debate from Florida on Fox News where the grown up candidates were being asked questions by grown up journalists that actually elicited responses that voters might use to make up their minds about a candidate’s presidential qualifications and not demonstrate whether our future president might emote well when asked silly questions about how they are “feeling.”

Then there was Sunday Night Football on NBC with the Steelers going up against the Broncos at Mile High Stadium - classic match-up with classic announcers in Al and John. The fact that there are few things in life more enjoyable than watching NFL Football in Hi-Def was also an attraction.

Finally, to make my conundrum complete, there was the 7th game of the ALCS featuring the Indians - who haven’t won a World Series since 1948 - and the Red Sox who have made a wonderful habit in recent years of coming back from the dead and going on to victory.

For an hour and a half while the debate was occurring, I was clicking like a madman. Both ballgames ended up being as good as advertised (the Red Sox pulled away late to win 11-2) so I missed huge chunks of the GOP debate. This I didn’t mind because the football game was so good, it almost made me forget how badly my beloved Bears have been playing this year (despite an incredibly desperate, 97 yard TD drive with less than two minutes and no timeouts against the Eagles that saved their season temporarily).

However, thanks to old fashioned VCR technology, I was able to tape the debate and watch most of what I missed live. In this, I was not disappointed because the debate was perhaps the most animated, most interesting discussion compared to any of the previous GOP get togethers.

I thought that once again, Rudy Giuliani was sharp, on point, and at times, inspiring. However, he had trouble defending himself from some of the attacks launched against him by Romney and Thompson. There really isn’t any getting around the fact that when Mayor of New York City, Rudy acted at times in a decidedly unconservative manner. How much this truly hurts him I just don’t know. My issues with Rudy revolve around his experience and temperament not his lack of conservative credentials. But for some, I’m sure, his liberal apostasy will keep them from voting for him.

Romney was surprisingly subdued although smooth and very well prepared as usual. He actually had a hair or two out of place which almost made him look human. Why he is wasting his time attacking John McCain is beyond me. Their catfight elicited the liveliest exchanges of the night but Romney’s target should be Giuliani. Besides that, he said nothing memorable and got bogged down a couple of times in minutiae. Not his best performance.

McCain also seemed a little off although he delivered the best line of the night talking about the $1 million earmark Hillary delivered for the Woodstock Museum. He noted that the concert was probably a “a cultural and pharmaceutical event” but that he couldn’t attend because he was “tied up at the time” - a reference to his horrific experience as a POW. That crack garnered a standing ovation and applause from the other candidates.

But McCain seemed a little flat when defending some of his positions and didn’t have the energy the other candidates brought to the debate. A disappointing performance.

The Huckaboob was his ‘ole self, grinnin’ like a possum and reeling off southern aphorisms one after another. I suppose we’re going to have to put up with him for a while longer since he’s closing fast in Iowa and might shock the world and finish 1st or 2nd. He doesn’t have a prayer in the general election if he were to win the nomination so if the GOP wants to commit suicide, the Huckathing is their man.

Hunter,Tancredo and Paul could have stayed home. I think Paul even did more damage to himself by his reaction to the booing in the audience. It was the first venue where his Paulbots seemed to be drowned out by the rest of the audience and it appeared to disconcert him. If possible, he was even more shrill and nonsensical than usual. If people were actually going to give him a serious look last night, I would think they would have to come away disappointed.

But if there was a winner last night, it had to be Fred Thompson - not because of his outstanding performance but because once again, he exceeded expectations. I thought he was rather subdued and tired looking in that first debate but this time, he looked much better (make-up?) and sounded much more alive and forceful. He was animated in his debate with Giuliani over tort reform and I think he scored quite well with his federalism answer to Rudy’s charge. He also took a nice chunk out of Rudy with his pointing out the former Mayor’s inconsistency with regard to sanctuary cities. Rudy’s answer was vague and unconvincing. In short, Fred scored against Rudy while establishing himself as the leading conservative in the field. Not a bad night for someone already being written off by the inside the beltway crowd.

Note to the political parties: Please do not schedule your debates opposite NFL Football ever again. My thumb eventually became sore switching back and forth between the two great American games and I would hate to have to give up watching either one just to prevent carpel tunnel syndrome.

We used to chalk incidents like the Stark smear up to “Bush Derangement Syndrome” which actually began as something of a tongue in cheek reference to the sometimes unhinged nature of left wing criticism of the President.

But I think it’s time to come up with some nomenclature that’s a little more accurate - and we don’t even have to invent any clever phrases to describe it.

How about “Morally Depraved?” Or perhaps “Ethically Challenged?” Maybe “Mindless Gorgons” would be the best descriptive.

And for those on the left who so obviously didn’t have a clue what constituted a “smear” when “defending” poor little Graeme Frost who never had an unkind word directed his way by any conservative blogger, pundit, writer, or commentator at any time ever nor in any way, shape or form, allow me to present Exhibit A of what a “smear” actually is:

“Are you going to tell us lies like you’re telling us today? Is that how you’re going to fund the war? You don’t have money to fund the war on children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if he can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President’s amusement.”

“President Bush’s statements about children’s health shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than his lies about the War in Iraq. The truth is that that Bush just likes to blow things up – in Iraq, in the United States, and in Congress.”

A “smear” is “an unsubstantiated charge” according to Websters. What possible substantiation could there be to the charge that Bush gets “amusement” from soldier’s dying? Or that the President likes to “blow things up” in Iraq?

There is none, of course. But on the left, this is what passes for proper discourse. Starks comments have received gushing approbation from a variety of sources. A sample:

The Democratic Daily:

Rep. Pete Stark stood on the floor of the House during the SCHIP and spoke the truth to power. Now the Republicans are feigning outrage over Stark’s comments and demanding an apology.

The American Street

I owe Pete Stark a thankyewverymuch. He’s not mental. He’s just mad as hell, for every good reason.

He knows the bully’s a serial murderer who can’t even fight his own fights, a guy who’d turn his back on hurricane victims, relent when forced to, promise to fix things then rig it so all his bully friends can fleece the victims and profit from their misery. He knows he’s a coward, a chump, a lowlife who kicks puppies for fun.

Go ahead, keep pushing the kids, tens of millions of kids.

But you better call your Mama first, dickhead, to make sure her schedule’s open to change your pissy pants.

I’m impressed with both the reasoned rhetoric and intellectual heft of this post. I just hope the blogger didn’t stay up too long past his bedtime to finish it.

Skippy:

would you spineless wussicrats grow a freakin’ backbone and concentrate on the real points; the real isses and not this distraction. take your wussy eyeballs off the shiny objects and deal with the real issues. this administration is hellbent on destroying this country and they don’t freakin’ care as long as their buddies are profiteering.

the man installed as monarch…ugh, president, has no clothes; has no plan for iraq; has no plan for healthcare; has no plan for disasters hitting the country; has no plan for aiding the poor; has no plan for alternative energy; has no plan for the homeless; has no plan for transporation; has no plan for the credit disaster; has no plan to invest in the future of this country by investing in the human capital of the country’s citizens (schip, etc.).

pete stark’s been paying attention, he’s mad as hell about the real things, and so am i. mad about the things that really matter to human lives and not some “falsified” outrage.

What really matters to human lives is human freedom. All else flows from that. Lefties have that concept ass-backwards. Enslave people, make them dependent and you will make them free.

Beyond that, aren’t these the same folks who were “outraged” about something Rush Limbaugh said regarding anti-war soldiers? Using Skippy’s logic, the left is guilty of exactly the same thing he is accusing Republicans of doing here - obfuscating the argument over the Iraq war by concentrating on a side issue.

But that’s different. Why? Because they say it is and that’s the end of that argument.

Carpetbagger Report

For years, Republicans worked to create the opposite reputation. They’re tough. This is the macho “daddy party.” They don’t care about “political correctness” and wussies who cry over words that rub people the wrong way. This is a crowd that calls it like they see it, and doesn’t look bad or apologize.

And yet, they’ve now spent the better part of a year trembling over mild rebukes from liberals. If Democrats were smart, they’d look at this as an opportunity to rebrand the GOP as pathetic cry-babies who can barely go a week without throwing a hissy fit over one manufactured outrage or another. Alas, it doesn’t look like Dems are smart at all — the House leadership is already distancing itself from Stark.

It’s obvious that Benen doesn’t read Think Progress very often. On almost a daily basis, that website takes something some conservative says completely out of context and, judging by the number of lefties who reguarly link to them, create an artificial blogswarm over something totally innocuous. I may be wrong but they may have been the first lefty website to accuse conservatives of “smearing” 12 year old Graeme Frost - despite the fact no had said or written a word against the kid.

Perhaps Benen should clean up his own house before he craps in someone else’s.

It isn’t that it’s unseemly to cheer on the smearing of the President of the United States on the floor of the House. It’s the total cluelessness as to why it’s important. Rules, traditions, manners, proper decorum - these things are irrelevant to the left. “Speaking truth to power” and using any means necessary to achieve one’s goals is.

Harry Reid trudged to the well of the Senate to make an unusual speech this afternoon. The trouble was, he was just coming from the restroom and somehow, a long strip of toilet paper had become attached to his shoe. Every time he walked, the TP would jerk and then float on the air making it appear that Harry was trailing some weird, white snake that seemed to be trying to devour his rear end.

Astonishingly, none of Harry’s Democratic colleagues could see the hilarious sight. Neither could any of the netroots, although some of them may have actually seen the TP on Rush Limbaugh.

But Harry’s Republican colleagues saw the TP and just couldn’t stop laughing at him:

MORE THAN 40 OF MY SENATE COLLEAGUES AND I CO-SIGNED A LETTER TO THE CHAIRMAN OF CLEAR CHANNEL, MARK MAY, TELLING HIM THAT WE WANTED HIM TO CONFER WITH RUSH LIMBAUGH REGARDING THE } STATEMENTS HE MADE. (”Phony soldiers” comment).

I’VE SINCE SPOKEN TO MARK MAY ABOUT THIS. MARK MAY, IN FACT, CALLED ME REGARDING THIS LETTER. THIS WEEK, RUSH LIMBAUGH PUT THE ORIGINAL COPY OF THAT LETTER UP FOR AUCTION ON E-BAY. MR. PRESIDENT, WE DIDN’T HAVE TIME, OR WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN EVERY SENATOR TO SIGN THAT LETTER. BUT HE PUT THE LETTER UP FOR AUCTION ON E-BAY AND I THINK VERY, VERY CONSTRUCTIVELY, LEFT THE PROCEEDS OF THAT IT GO TO THE MARINE CORPS LAW ENFORCEMENTS FOUNDATION. THAT PROVIDES SCHOLARSHIP ASSISTANCE TO MARINES AND FEDERAL LAW ENFORCEMENT PERSONNEL WHOSE PARENTS FALL IN THE LINE OF DUTY.

WHAT COULD BE A MORE WORTHWHILE CAUSE? I THINK IT’S REALLY GOOD THAT THIS MONEY ON E-BAY IS GOING TO BE RAISED FOR THIS PURPOSE. WHEN I SPOKE TO MARK MAYIC HE AND I THOUGHT THIS PROBABLY WOULDN’T MAKE MUCH MONEY, A LETTER WRITTEN BY DEMOCRATIC SENATORS COMPLAINING ABOUT SOMETHING. THIS MORNING, THE BID IS MORE THAN $2 MILLION FOR THIS. WE HAVE WATCHED IT DURING THE WEEK. IT KEEPS GOING UP-AND-UP AND UP. THERE’S ONLY A LITTLE BIT OF TIME LEFT ON IT. BUT IT CERTAINLY IS GOING TO BE MORE THAN $2 MILLION. NEVER DID WE THINK THAT THIS LETTER WOULD BRING MONEY OF THIS NATURE. AND, FOR THE CAUSE, MADAM PRESIDENT, IT IS EXTREMELY GOOD.

The whole world is laughing at Harry and he hasn’t a clue, has he? Has there ever been a Senate Majority Leader more oblivious?

It gets better:

BUT WITHOUT QUALIFICATION MARK MAY, THE OWNER OF THE NETWORK THAT HAS RUSH LIMBAUGH AND RUSH LIMBAUGH SHOULD KNOW THAT THIS LETTER THAT THEY’RE AUCTIONING IS GOING TO BE SOMETHING THAT RAISES MONEY FOR A WORTHWHILE CAUSE.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE COULD DO MORE IMPORTANT THAN HELPING TO ENSURE THAT CHILDREN OF OUR FALLEN SOLDIERS AND POLICE OFFICERS WHO HAVE FALLEN IN THE LINE OF DUTY HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR THEIR CHILDREN TO HAVE A GOOD EDUCATION. THINK OF THIS, MORE THAN $2 MILLION — THAT WILL REALLY HELP.

THAT’S, AGAIN, AN UNDERSTATEMENT. THERE’S ONLY A LITTLE BIT OF TIME LEFT SO I WOULD ASK THOSE THAT ARE WANTING TO DO MORE, THAT THEY CAN GO TO HARRY REID LETTER AND IT WILL COME UP ON E-BAY. I ENCOURAGE ANYONE INTERESTED WITH THE MEANS TO CONSIDER CONTRIBUTING TO THIS WORTHWHILE CAUSE.

I STRONGLY BELIEVE WHEN WE CAN PUT OUR DIFFERENCES ASIDE, EVEN HARRY REID AND RUSH LIMBAUGH, WE SHOULD DO THAT AND TRY TO ACCOMPLISH GOOD THINGS FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

Harry Reid trying to take credit for Limbaugh’s brilliant riposte? Some things are simply beyond irony, beyond sarcasm, and enter the realm of sublime idiocy. Reid has no clue that he is being funny, that the joke is on him.

And that’s not all. The netroots are laughably saying “apology accepted:”

Following a heated debate as to whether Rush should be permitted to speak in such a manner, the Senate of the United States sent Rush’s boss a letter condemning the remarks.

Now, in an apparent attempt to atone for his dispicable lack of judgment, Rush has offered the sale of the actual document on a popular website. It appears as though it will sell for a lot of money, and the proceeds are said to be headed for a good cause.

Again, unintentional humor from the truly clueless.

And by the way…How’s that campaign to get Rush off Armed Forces Radio coming? Or destroy his career? Or lay him low? Or get him off the air?

Seems to me I recall many of the netroots saying “This is it!” This would be the end of Rush Limbaugh. While Limbaugh could probably use a good thwacking I can guarantee it will never come from liberals. Especially when they prove themselves to be so ignorant, so oblivious to how Limbaugh plays them.

You can take the TP off your shoe now Harry.

It’s taken a while, but the Democrats have finally gotten around to baiting another trap for conservatives on the S-CHIP program. Another family, another helpless child were convinced to step forward as examples of how the S-CHIP program helps families who can’t afford health insurance from private insurers.

This week, Democrats have brought forth the Wilkerson family, whose two-year old daughter Bethany is covered by SCHIP and had life-saving heart surgery when she was an infant. On Monday the Wilkerson family held a conference call, sponsored by USAction, a liberal grassroots advocacy group lobbying in favor of the $35 billion SCHIP expansion.

For the record, the Bo and Dara Wilkerson say they make $34,000 in combined income from restaurant jobs in St. Petersburg, Fla. They rent their house and the couple owns one car, which Bo calls “a junker.” Malkin and other bloggers have revealed over the past week that the Frost family owned two properties, as well as a couple cars, and had a $45,000 income. The accusation against Democrats, and by extension the Frost family, is that they are too middle class to be granted any subsidized health insurance for their children.

The Wilkersons said they are fully aware of the possibility that their finances and personal lives may be investigated by opponents of the SCHIP bill.

One wonders what took them so long to push another family forward. Was there a lack of volunteers? That last bit about the Wilkerson’s being aware that they “may be investigated” makes me think that the Democrats let their potential poster families in on their strategy this time - unlike the Frosts who obviously were not informed that they were being used as bait to trap opponents of the S-CHIP expansion in a brilliant political ploy where criticism of the program became impossible without criticizing little 12 year old Graeme Frost.

Of course, the strategy of using children as human shields in a political fight received scant attention thanks to the outburst of fake outrage on the left over anyone daring to question anything about the program. Watching them falling over each other trying to outdo one another in the level and originality of their invective for “smearing 12 year old Graeme Frost” - where no smear ever occurred anywhere at anytime by any blogger, pundit, writer, or spokesperson - actually became something of an entertainment - sort of like a bad episode of Days of our Lives where every scene was horribly melodramatic and overdone.

The Democrats just don’t get it. They didn’t get it when questions arose about the Frosts. They don’t get it now. And it is likely they will never get it because they refuse to ask the right questions.

It’s not about income. It’s about choices. It’s about the kind of government we should have. It’s about freedom versus dependence, liberty versus slavery, self-reliance versus serfdom.

And it’s about fairness. In the Frosts case, the consequences of one family’s choices being foisted upon their fellow Americans who may be less well off but are nevertheless asked to pony up to support them.

No one should begrudge the Wilkerson’s their participation in S-CHIP. They are barely above the poverty level and have little in the way of assets. But the Wilkersons and those like them are not the problem and the Democrats know it. Borderline cases like the Wilkerson’s who regularly fall through the cracks of coverage in other government programs are not part of the central criticism against the expansion of S-CHIP. It is subsidizing coverage for those up to 400% above the poverty level that is the basis of conservative opposition to the Democrat’s bill.

Funny how we don’t see any poster families who are 400% above the poverty level being pushed forward as examples of the kinds of people the $35 billion expansion of S-CHIP will help. Why not? Since the original parameters of the S-CHIP program enjoys the overwhelming support of Congress and the President, why trot forward families like the Frosts and the Wilkersons who qualify under the current rules? Why not bring to the fore those families at the high end of the expansion requirements and let the American people decide if they want to subsidize insurance for them?

The answer is obvious; a family living 400% above poverty are not as sympathetic as those, like the Wilkerson’s, who couldn’t get by without S-CHIP. In fact, pushing forward people who make more than 40% of all the families in America as the poster family for S-CHIP expansion would probably torpedo the bill then and there.

I note that this time around, the Democrats were careful to push a family forward whose choices regarding health insurance couldn’t be questioned. In that respect, if they’re waiting for conservatives to attack the Wilkerson’s, they are going to be sorely disappointed. The Democrats just don’t have a clue about the true nature of the opposition to their S-CHIP expansion. For that, they would have to give a fig about the tradeoffs we make between dependency and freedom every time they get some not so bright idea about “helping” those who can usually be counted on to help themselves.

UPDATE:

I could easily have excerpted most of this Goldstein post for the simple fact that it reflects my thinking from this morning as well as the post above:

You are dealing with those so impressed with their own presumed genius that they’ve given themselves license to use any means necessary to bring about their desired ends. Using a largely sympathetic press — and casting their political opponents as villains who hate for the simple pleasure of hating (hi, Mr Krugman!) — they are attempting to control public policy by way of rhetorical totalitarianism and cynical manipulation of the un- or ill-informed, a group to whom they both pander and empower.

Hell, it’s more than a right. It’s their destiny!

And Malkin keeps the heat on:

If Republicans don’t have the stomach to do battle over fundamental policy questions–like, you know, who deserves government-subsidized health insurance– what are they doing in office? More “partisan bickering” could have spared us McCain-Feingold, No Child Left Behind, and the hugetastic Medicare expansion boondoogle. If not for “partisan bickering,” shamnesty would be the law(lessness) of the land.

We need more “partisan bickering,” not less.

As long as that’s the tactic being used by the otherside, the GOP has little choice. You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight.

I believe it entirely appropriate that we conservatives criticize little Graeme Frost - an injured boy of just 12 years old - for…well, I’ll think of it in a minute. I know we should be skewering him for something. Maybe we should go after him for getting in front of the car that caused his injuries? How about for not being born with a silver spoon in his mouth? Perhaps we could come down on him for giving a poor performance during his response to the President for vetoing SCHIP?

I know there’s something that we should be hammering the kid for. After all, if liberals accuse conservatives of something, it’s got to be true. They never exaggerate. They never lie. They never twist words or make outrageously stupid analogies.

The problem as far as I can see it is that conservatives must have erased their blog posts in the middle of the night of all the nasty things they’ve written about little Graeme while no lefties were looking because for the life of me, I can’t seem to find a single example from any conservative blog where one negative word has been written about a 12 year old little boy suffering the pain and trauma from an automobile accident. Not one. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

There has, of course, been plenty written about his parents. Even Rush Limbaugh’s accusations of the kid “lying” are not based on anything the child came up with on his own but rather what he was handed to say. Unless the critics are saying the kid wrote that response all by himself, blowhard Limbaugh (whose shtick is really getting rather tiresome) was spot on. The Democratic response, written we are told by Democratic staffers, was full of lies, exaggerations, and distortions of the conservative position on the issue. This is not the fault of Graeme Frost but of the supposed grown ups - including his parents - who used him as a prop and human shield in their propaganda war against the right.

The point is simple and worth repeating; not one single righty blogger that I have read has criticized a 12 year old boy. Despite all the hand wringing, wailing, fake outrage, and deliberate obfuscation of the truth, to charge conservatives with the crime of piling on an injured child is outrageously false and, since the left knows it’s not true, a blatant lie.

It has, however, given liberals the opportunity to stretch their vocabulary of invectives - including this ignorant analogy drawn by the normally intelligent Ezra Klein:

This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he “really” needed that tax cut. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to call his family and demand their personal information. It would never occur to me to interrogate his neighbors. It would never occur to me to his smear his children.

I’m glad it would never occur to you Ezra because trying to compare a tax cut to an entitlement program is the most stupefyingly idiotic analogy I have ever seen a lefty make. It’s not even worthy of Oliver Willis. It’s not even comparing apples to oranges - more like peaches to elephants.

But Klein’s analogy is instructive. Not of leftist stupidity although you’d be hardpressed to find a more doltish example of liberal witlessness. Rather, it points up very nicely the difference between a liberal and conservative on the reason and function of government.

Klein has no trouble equating a tax cut with an entitlement program because he sees the tax cut as a gift from government. It is government as daddy giving us a boost in our allowance. More prosaically, it is, like SCHIP, just another responsibility of government - in this case, by “giving money back to the people,” consumerism is encouraged.

But tax cuts have nothing to do with government and everything to do with personal property. That money is the taxpayer’s. It is already in his pocket. A tax cut is nothing more than a law preventing the government from reaching into the taxpayer’s pocket and taking away his property. It is not a gift or a favor or even a responsibility of government. A tax cut has everything to do with expanding personal liberty and nothing whatsoever to do with government being nice to taxpayers.

This simple, basic, liberty loving concept has been forgotten by liberals like Klein who see tax cuts as part of a government “plan” for the economy hence, monies that the government will forgo collecting in order to modify or encourage some kind of economic activity. In short, the money “given back” to taxpayers is really the government’s money to begin with, theirs to do with as they see fit.

To not see how that concept turns the idea of freedom on its head reveals a moral blindness that makes it easy to posit that all property is subject to government approval and control. It justifies eminent domain and host of other egregious threats to human liberty that used to be a concern of liberals but is now seen as an impediment to government management of most every facet of people’s lives.

The struggle here is not over little Graeme Frost who no one has criticized or smeared. The ideological battle over “need” and “want” is what is at issue. Of course the middle class wants SCHIP. Why not? It’s free, isn’t it? But no one is asking if there is a better way to insure those who don’t make a million dollars a year. No one is asking if this expansion of federal largess at the expense of other taxpayers is a good thing or not - certainly no one has queried those taxpayers who are going to foot the bill for families like the Frosts whose situation, while complicated, is not desperate or hopeless where no one would begrudge them the benefit.

But if the left can’t see this fundamental issue as one of taxpayer fairness I don’t hold out much hope for entitlement reform and indeed, see a wild expansion of government programs in the future that would benefit families who aren’t needy but simply don’t want to make the sacrifices other families willingly make in order to get insurance, or send their kids to college, or go on a European vacation for that matter - something I have no doubt the left would use government to subsidize if they thought they could get away with it.

The whole problem with SCHIP and other entitlements is that we have confused “need” and “want” to the point that there is no longer any difference between the two. It is the difference between freedom and capitalism and dependence and socialism. As each incremental increase in government’s ability to make decisions for us becomes law, a corresponding loss of freedom occurs - freedom to make our own decisions about family and our futures. SCHIP does not represent much of a loss as far as our freedom is concerned. Perhaps technically none at all. We simply abrogate responsibility for supplying health care to our loved ones and place the burden on our neighbors.

Compassion has nothing to do with this issue. If it did, liberals would emote just as histrionically for taxpayers. Instead, they obscure the entire issue by hiding behind the problems of a middle class family who have clearly made choices that their neighbors may or may not have made if they were in a similar position. And because of those choices, those same neighbors are footing their health insurance bill.

If it is a socialist state (European model) that is sought by the left, why don’t they come out of the closet and proudly proclaim it to the rest of the country? If not just the needy are to be taken care of by government but also anyone and everyone who has their hand out, why not take your case to the people and run on it?

It won’t happen, of course. And liberals will keep playing Santa Claus while painting conservatives as Scrooge. Damned effective politics, that. Whether it’s the right thing to do as far as maintaining our liberties is concerned just never seems to enter into the discussion. And I have no doubt, we will rue the day that we stopped weighing the consequences of what we give up in freedom for what we gain when abrogating our responsibilities to live as independent, self reliant people.

UPDATE

Two additional posts I believe are well worth reading.

First Michelle Malkin’s thoughts - especially in her syndicated column - touch on some of the themes I’ve written about above.

Appropos of stupid analogies, some idiot published her personal information on their website. I guess the thinking was since she “stalked” the Frosts, someone should do it to her.

I thought that Ezra Klein’s jaw droppingly stupid analogy above was pretty dumb. But whoever pulled that crap is beyond stupid and enters the world of metaphysical mindlessness.

Also, Dan Reihl’s piece from yesterday reflects much of my thinking as well.

I don’t agree with everything either blogger has written in those posts nor do I necessarily subscribe to the tone of their criticism of the Frosts. But that’s a matter of taste. I agree with the idea that the Frosts entered the political fray of their own volition. Ignorance of what might happen to them as far as criticism of the choices they have made is not an excuse.

The Democrats hoped that using the family as I say above as a “human shield” would not only mute criticism of their tactics but also give them a nice juicy opening if anyone had the temerity to criticize the Frosts. In this, they have well and truly succeeded in scoring points against their critics. As I said, damn smart politics.

But I’m not going to sit here and be accused of “smearing” a family when the Democrats believe it is perfectly legitimate political discourse to use the Frosts as a poster family for what is good about SCHIP while not allowing me to use them in the exact same political context to show what is wrong with the program.

UPDATE: 10/11

Reader DC Lemmon points out that SCHIP is not an entitlement but is funded through a block grant to the tstates. My bad. Doesn’t let Klein off the hook for his poor analogy, of course.

This part was precious:

And this doesn’t even address the most insidious thing about this whole
story…..the need to attack this kid. You and your ilk are low life scum for
perpetuating this trash. You should be ashamed, but you’d have to have a
conscience, so I know that’s not an option.

I suggested the gentleman attend a remedial reading course at his local JC. Poor reading comprehension seems to be an epedemic in lefty circles these days.

UPDATE III: CORRECTIONS

Here’s an email I received from Marc Marton who is Communications Director for a children’s advocacy group in Georgia. regarding some specifics about the SCHIP program that I neglected to mention as well as some corrections and misstatements I made about the program:

Not only is SCHIP not an entitlement, it requires enrollees to pay a monthly
premium.

You can point fingers at Democrats and the lunatic left all you like, but the Republicans and ridiculous right are just as guilty of spreading false information and sliming others.

Mr. Marton makes some good points and I thank him for his corrections.

However, SCHIP is being used not just to insure “children:”

According to the states’ budget projections, 13 will spend more than 44 percent of their SCHIP funds in 2008 on people who are neither children nor pregnant women.

Michigan tops the list with 71.6 percent of its SCHIP money earmarked for adults who have no kids. In New Mexico, 52.3 percent of the state’s SCHIP dollars will be spent on childless adults.

Source: Department of Health and Human Services/CMS Data

And Mr. Marton may accuse Republicans and conservatives of “misrepresenting” many of the facts surrounding the Democrat’s planned expansion of the program, but what does he think about the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office?

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that 50 percent of the upper-income enrollees added to SCHIP under the Democrats’ proposal currently have private health insurance but will drop their current health insurance coverage and shift these costs to the taxpayers.

Just sayin…

And what about waiving the requirement that enrollees must prove they’re citizens?

H.R. 976 says that simply writing down a Social Security number is good enough to prove you are a citizen, although the commissioner of the Social Security Administration says emphatically that Social Security numbers are laughable as proof of citizenship because thousands are issued every year to non-citizens. Moreover, the Democrats’ SCHIP bill doesn’t even require that an applicant flash an ID to demonstrate that he or she could be the actual owner of the number.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that erasing the mechanism that reserves welfare for Americans instead of illegal aliens will cost U.S. taxpayers an extra $3.7 billion in federal spending and $2.8 billion in added state spending.

Again, I thank Mr. Marton for pointing out my errors (especially the fact that enrollees pay a premium - something of which I was totally unaware). But there is plenty in this bill to dislike not the least of which it seeks a top down government solution to a problem that should be addressed - along with all other Americans who are unable to afford coverage if they desire it - by reforming many aspects of the insurance and health care industry in order to bring premiums down to a level most Americans (and American employers) can afford.