Right Wing Nut House

This report from the usually reliable Asia Times online is spectacular news if true. The Pakistani military has declared all out war on the Taliban and al-Qaeda in their sanctuary provinces of North and South Waziristan:

An all-out battle for control of Pakistan’s restive North and South Waziristan is about to commence between the Pakistani military and the Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents who have made these tribal areas their own.

According to a top Pakistani security official who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, the goal this time is to pacify the Waziristans once and for all. All previous military operations - usually spurred by intelligence provided by the Western coalition - have had limited objectives, aimed at specific bases or sanctuaries or blocking the cross-border movement of guerrillas. Now the military is going for broke to break the back of the Taliban and a-Qaeda in Pakistan and reclaim the entire area.

The fighting that erupted two weeks ago, and that has continued with bombing raids against guerrilla bases in North Waziristan - turning thousands of families into refugees and killing more people than any India-Pakistan war in the past 60 years - is but a precursor of the bloodiest battle that is coming.

Lining up against the Pakistani Army will be the Shura (council) of Mujahideen comprising senior al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders, local clerics, and leaders of the fighting clans Wazir and Mehsud (known as the Pakistani Taliban). The shura has long been calling the shots in the Waziristans, imposing sharia law and turning the area into a strategic command and control hub of global Muslim resistance movements, including those operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Someone or something lit a fire under President Musharraf in order for him to commit to this kind of action. You might recall it was a little more than a year ago that Musharraf made his pact with the devil, concluding a deal with the Taliban and tribes that essentially gave them free reign to set up shop in South Waziristan. This is after a deal he signed the previous year doing the same thing in North Waziristan.

At the time, Musharraf had not committed his forces to defeat his foes but rather upset their strategic plans for cross border incursions into Afghanistan as well as training and logistics for al-Qaeda fighters headed to Iraq. His efforts failed and he was forced to sign the humiliating agreements with the terrorists.

All this is apparently about to change:

According to the security official, an ultimatum had been delivered to the militants recently during a temporary ceasefire. The army would set a deadline and give safe passage into Afghanistan to all al-Qaeda members and Taliban commanders who had gathered in Waziristan to launch a large-scale post-Ramadan operation in Afghanistan. They, along with wanted tribal warrior leaders, would all leave Pakistan, and never return.

After their departure, under the direct command and surveillance of newly appointed Vice Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani (who will replace President-elect Pervez Musharraf as Chief of Army Staff), fresh troops and paramilitary forces would be sent in to establish bases at all strategic points and disarm the local tribes. The Durand Line (the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan), would be fenced and border controls would be tightened.

The militants rejected the ultimatum.

Won’t the Taliban and al-Qaeda run away to fight another day?

The militants have little option but to stand and fight, rather than slip across the border or melt into the local population. Aside from the sanctuary and succor afforded them in the Waziristans, most of the fighters there are either Waziris, or from other parts of Pakistan, or foreigners. They would be unable to support themselves in Afghanistan, especially as most of the non-Waziris do not speak Pashtu - a fact that also prevents them from disappearing into the Waziristan populace.

Just how important is this coming battle?

This could prove to be the turning point in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan while setting al-Qaeda’s operations back to where they were in 2003 after the Taliban was defeated. A “qualified” intelligence estimate is that pacification of the Waziristans would reduce the capability of the Afghan resistance by 85% as well as “deliver a serious setback to the Iraqi resistance” who depend on the bases in Waziristan for money, weapons, and logistical support.

In addition, as the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on al-Qaeda shows that much of its command infrastructure had been reconstituted since 2003. If the Pakistani military is successful, that infrastructure will be destroyed along with their bases. And how huge is that?

How serious are the Pakistanis about this coming fight?

The safety of Taliban and al-Qaeda assets in Waziristan is a matter of life and death and, therefore, the militants have devised a forward strategy to target the Pakistani cities of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad, hoping to break the will of the Pakistani armed forces. The Pakistani military, meanwhile, is trying to break the will of the militants with ongoing bombing raids.

Underscoring the seriousness with which the military is planning for the coming battle, it is reported that Shi’ite soldiers from northern Pakistan are being sent to the Waziristans. In the past, the Pakistani Army has been plagued by desertions of Pashtun and Sunni troops who refuse to fight fellow Pashtuns or Sunnis.

The ultimate question is why now? An American might ask “What took you so long?” but that ignores the consequences of what Musharraf is undertaking with this all out attack. By using his air power and armor, it is likely that civilian deaths will be numerous - something no leader wants to do when you consider the population will already be restive with or without the Taliban in charge. This is the way things have been in the entire Northwest Frontier Province area for 60 years - fierce, independent tribesmen who have resisted control from Islamabad from the beginning. Bombing and shelling will not endear the locals to the government.

Then there’s Musharraf’s internal political problem with considerable support for the Taliban in his intelligence service, the ISI as well as the religious parties who refuse to shut down the madrasses that supply the Taliban with a steady stream of recruits. This all out move against the Taliban will not be popular in many quarters in Pakistan.

Finally, you have to believe that American pressure was at work here. Did we tell Musharraf to clear out the Taliban or we would do it for him? The fact that the Pakistani offensive, which began two weeks ago, broke up the Taliban’s plans for a “post Ramadan offensive” and that it is widely believed that we have lost ground to the terrorists in the last year in Afghanistan could very well have elicited such an ultimatum.

Whatever the reason, Musharraf has evidently decided to commit his army to the destruction of the Taliban. And if he’s successful, it might just turn out to be the most significant battle in the war against Islamic extremism to date.

As all other Presidential campaigns have done, Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy team has written an essay for Foreign Affairs outlining her thoughts and goals for her potential presidency.

I felt that given the fact that it is a good bet at this point that Mrs. Clinton will be putting her thoughts into action come January, 2009, a close look at her ideas and proposals would be of interest to all.

Generally, speaking the essay is typical Democratic party boilerplate with some interesting differences, including the eye-popping inference that a Clinton Administration may be willing to negotiate with al-Qaeda:

Use our military not as the solution to every problem but as one element in a comprehensive strategy. As president, I will never hesitate to use force to protect Americans or to defend our territory and our vital interests. We cannot negotiate with individual terrorists; they must be hunted down and captured or killed.

We can’t negotiate with “individual terrorists” but does that mean we might be willing to sit down with terrorist groups? I hope somebody asks her that question but for the moment, I’ll just put it down to poor writing on the part of whoever penned the piece.

As for the rest, I was surprised at what the left would consider to be her bellicosity toward Iran as well as a realistic view toward China. I would say that her outlook is not quite a 9/10 view of the world but she seems to have one foot in the past when it comes to fighting terrorism. And for all her Bush bashing rhetoric, she appears willing to carry on many Bush policies, despite not giving the President credit for them.

Here are some specifics:

The tragedy of the last six years is that the Bush administration has squandered the respect, trust, and confidence of even our closest allies and friends. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States enjoyed a unique position. Our world leadership was widely accepted and respected, as we strengthened old alliances and built new ones, worked for peace across the globe, advanced nonproliferation, and modernized our military. After 9/11, the world rallied behind the United States as never before, supporting our efforts to remove the Taliban in Afghanistan and go after the al Qaeda leadership. We had a historic opportunity to build a broad global coalition to combat terror, increase the impact of our diplomacy, and create a world with more partners and fewer adversaries.

But we lost that opportunity by refusing to let the UN inspectors finish their work in Iraq and rushing to war instead. Moreover, we diverted vital military and financial resources from the struggle against al Qaeda and the daunting task of building a Muslim democracy in Afghanistan. At the same time, we embarked on an unprecedented course of unilateralism: refusing to pursue ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, abandoning our commitment to nuclear nonproliferation, and turning our backs on the search for peace in the Middle East. Our withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol and refusal to participate in any international effort to deal with the tremendous challenges of climate change further damaged our international standing.

It’s hard to dissect so many mis-statements, falsehoods, and plain old Democratic talking points so I’ll just handle a couple of the more glaring errors.

First, the idea that all was peaches and cream on January 20, 2001 when the first President Clinton left office is so outrageously false as to be beyond belief. We were then as we were on 9/11 and afterwards, widely mistrusted and disliked by a vast majority of the world’s people and governments. The idea that 9/11 changed that is bunk, as I wrote about here.

This persistent myth is convenient politically but historically a sham. It has no basis in fact and has more to do with a desire by the left and the Democratic party to make some ridiculous point about America being loved by the world until George Bush came along.

I might have a few other questions for Hillary just from these first paragraphs.

* Which “new alliances” did the Clinton Administration build?
* Explain how gutting the military modernized it.
* Is it your position that we have more “adversaries” now than we did in 2001? Than 1996? Who are they? When did they move from the “neutral” or “friendly” column on to the “enemy” side of the ledger?
* Is it your position that we do not have a “broad coalition” fighting terrorism today - sharing intel, cooperating with law enforcement agencies around the world and generally working around the clock with literally dozens of countries to keep the US safe?
* Do you remember the Senate refusing to take up the Kyoto agreement during your husband’s presidency? Do you remember why?
* Do you remember the Iraq Regime Change Act of 1998? Or did you sleep through that one too?

Those are for starters. If we all got together and really put our minds to it, I’m sure we could come up with a couple of dozen more questions just from those first two paragraphs.

But that was just from the intro to the essay. Let’s get to the meat and potatoes:

IRAQ

We must withdraw from Iraq in a way that brings our troops home safely, begins to restore stability to the region, and replaces military force with a new diplomatic initiative to engage countries around the world in securing Iraq’s future. To that end, as president, I will convene the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council and direct them to draw up a clear, viable plan to bring our troops home, starting within the first 60 days of my administration.

While working to stabilize Iraq as our forces withdraw, I will focus U.S. aid on helping Iraqis, not propping up the Iraqi government. Financial resources will go only where they will be used properly, rather than to government ministries or ministers that hoard, steal, or waste them.

As we leave Iraq militarily, I will replace our military force with an intensive diplomatic initiative in the region. The Bush administration has belatedly begun to engage Iran and Syria in talks about the future of Iraq. This is a step in the right direction, but much more must be done. As president, I will convene a regional stabilization group composed of key allies, other global powers, and all the states bordering Iraq. Working with the newly appointed UN special representative for Iraq, the group will be charged with developing and implementing a strategy for achieving a stable Iraq that provides incentives for Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Turkey to stay out of the civil war.

“While working to stabilize Iraq as our forces withdraw” - a nice trick if you can pull it off. If we could stabilize the damn place while taking our troops out, somehow you have to believe we’d be doing it already.

And why should Iraq’s neighbors Iran and Syria work to “stabilize Iraq’s future” when they’re the ones destabilizing it at the moment? Is it Hillary’s belief that once we start to leave that those two terrorist supporting nations will suddenly cease their interference in Iraq and allow the legitimate Iraqi government some breathing room?

This is realism?

And then there’s the shocking notion that aid will go to the “Iraqi people” and not “prop up” the Iraqi government? What is she, nuts? While corruption is endemic in Iraq (as it is in every government in the region and most of the world) is that a reason to cut Maliki off at the knees? With us gone and the Iraqi government collapsing because a Clinton Administration won’t support them, who in God’s name is going to fill the vacuum?

Madness.

And I don’t hear Hillary or the left up in arms about giving assistance to African dictators who routinely line their pockets and those of their cronies with our foreign aid. If she cared half as much about a sizable portion of the rest of the foreign aid budget going into the Swiss bank accounts of the generals, potentates, and dictators who rule most of the world, you could at least give her credit for not being a towering hypocrite.

The regional conference idea is a good one - something Bush should have embraced years ago. If he had, there’s a chance that pressure from other Arab states could have curtailed Syrian involvement. Iran is a whole different story. The mullahs have their claws firmly gripping a sizable chunk of Iraq thanks to their influence with some powerful forces as well as individuals. I doubt there is much that can be done to lessen their interference in Iraqi affairs.

IRAN

Here, Hillary admits Iran is supplying weapons to our enemies in Iraq, something not too many Democrats have done so I give her credit for abandoning a cherished Democratic talking point. As for the rest of her prescription regarding the mullahs, she mixes tough talk with unrealistic diplomatic goals:

The case in point is Iran. Iran poses a long-term strategic challenge to the United States, our NATO allies, and Israel. It is the country that most practices state-sponsored terrorism, and it uses its surrogates to supply explosives that kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The Bush administration refuses to talk to Iran about its nuclear program, preferring to ignore bad behavior rather than challenge it. Meanwhile, Iran has enhanced its nuclear-enrichment capabilities, armed Iraqi Shiite militias, funneled arms to Hezbollah, and subsidized Hamas, even as the government continues to hurt its own citizens by mismanaging the economy and increasing political and social repression.

As a result, we have lost precious time. Iran must conform to its nonproliferation obligations and must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table.

On the other hand, if Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons program, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilizing Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives. This will let the Iranian people know that our quarrel is not with them but with their government and show the world that the United States is prepared to pursue every diplomatic option.

Talking is fine but what do we discuss? Iran has ostensibly taken their enrichment program off the table so some kind of “Grand Bargain” involving Iraq and Iran’s nuclear program would seem to be nixed for now.

If she believes that her Administration would be able to offer anything to Iran that would make it “willing to end its nuclear weapons program, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilizing Iraq,” she is dreaming. There are no “calibrated incentives” that would encourage the mullahs to behave like decent citizens of the world. Even without Ahmadinejad in the picture, the nuclear issue won’t be negotiated to our satisfaction. We just don’t have enough to offer the Iranians that would knock their socks off and give them the incentives to make a deal.

If elected, she will have about 2 years to decide whether to attack or live with a nuclear Iran. It will be the hardest decision of her presidency - as it would be for anyone sitting in the Big Chair at that time - and whatever she decides will have severe consequences for American policy.

AFGHANISTAN

The forgotten frontline in the war on terror is Afghanistan, where our military effort must be reinforced. The Taliban cannot be allowed to regain power in Afghanistan; if they return, al Qaeda will return with them. Yet current U.S. policies have actually weakened President Hamid Karzai’s government and allowed the Taliban to retake many areas, especially in the south. A largely unimpeded heroin trade finances the very Taliban fighters and al Qaeda terrorists who are attacking our troops. In addition to engaging in counternarcotics efforts, we must seek to dry up recruiting opportunities for the Taliban by funding crop-substitution programs, a large-scale road-building initiative, institutions that train and prepare Afghans for honest and effective governance, and programs to enable women to play a larger role in society.

We must also strengthen the national and local governments and resolve the problems along Afghanistan’s border. Terrorists are increasingly finding safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Redoubling our efforts with Pakistan would not only help root out terrorist elements there; it would also signal to our NATO partners that the war in Afghanistan and the broader fight against extremism in South Asia are battles that we can and must win. Yet we cannot succeed unless we design a strategy that treats the entire region as an interconnected whole, where crises overlap with one another and the danger of a chain reaction of disasters is real.

Hillary’s heart and head are in the right place regarding Afghanistan but the problem is there is very little to be done about Pakistan and not much militarily that can be accomplished in Afghanistan without a 180 degree change in the attitude of our NATO partners about engaging the enemy (”How many NATO troops do we need to guard the airport?” asked one Canadian general).

The political problems in Afghanistan that prevented us from taking out the opium crop last year, leading directly to a Taliban flush with cash to buy weapons and influence with the tribes need to be solved by President Karzai and the National Assembly. Other questions directly bearing on the Taliban resurgence in the south have to do with the ease with which their fighters can infiltrate across the border with Pakistan.

And there, Hillary is once again dreaming if she thinks there is anything the US can do to help the Pakistani government (which will be even less cooperative with the US once civilian control is restored early next year and we will be dealing with Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister), especially in the NWFP - the “federally administered tribal areas” - where the writ of Pakistani law has never run in the 60 years of independence. We could “redouble” our efforts, triple them, and then multiply that by a hundred and still come up short. Musharraf can’t control those areas. What makes Hillary think we can?

No word in the essay about how divided Pakistan is about helping us with the people madly opposed to American policy in Afghanistan and the intelligence service ISI supportive of the Taliban. Pakistan is a much tougher nut to crack than simply “redoubling” our efforts.

RUSSIA

Statesmanship is also necessary to engage countries that are not adversaries but that are challenging the United States on many fronts. Russian President Vladimir Putin has thwarted a carefully crafted UN plan that would have put Kosovo on a belated path to independence, attempted to use energy as a political weapon against Russia’s neighbors and beyond, and tested the United States and Europe on a range of nonproliferation and arms reduction issues. Putin has also suppressed many of the freedoms won after the fall of communism, created a new class of oligarchs, and interfered deeply in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics.

It is a mistake, however, to see Russia only as a threat. Putin has used Russia’s energy wealth to expand the Russian economy, so that more ordinary Russians are enjoying a rising standard of living. We need to engage Russia selectively on issues of high national importance, such as thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, securing loose nuclear weapons in Russia and the former Soviet republics, and reaching a diplomatic solution in Kosovo. At the same time, we must make clear that our ability to view Russia as a genuine partner depends on whether Russia chooses to strengthen democracy or return to authoritarianism and regional interference.

First, it is difficult to see how we could have deflected Vladmir Putin from his goal to establish himself as virtual dictator. But having said that, I’m glad to see Hillary not taking the Russian bear for granted and realizing at the same time that there are vital areas where cooperation is desired by both sides. Non proliferation is huge and the Bush Administration should be faulted for its laxity in this regard.

One area of cooperation she didn’t mention was in fighting terrorism. We have worked closely these last few years with Russian internal security to combat the Chechen menace - one of the more active terrorist enclaves in the world. She might want to see about increasing those contacts and firming up some of these relationships that I understand are somewhat informal.

CHINA

Our relationship with China will be the most important bilateral relationship in the world in this century. The United States and China have vastly different values and political systems, yet even though we disagree profoundly on issues ranging from trade to human rights, religious freedom, labor practices, and Tibet, there is much that the United States and China can and must accomplish together. China’s support was important in reaching a deal to disable North Korea’s nuclear facilities. We should build on this framework to establish a Northeast Asian security regime.

I would be interested to hear her thoughts on the possible Chinese thrust at Taiwan. The day may come in the next 8 years where China feels strong enough militarily to take us on in their own waters. Do we abandon Taipei to the tender mercies of their communist cousins? Or do we risk a general war with China to try and save her?

As for the rest, Japan, China, and the US have been the powers that be in Asia for the last 100 years and will be for the next 100. Working together the last quarter century has brought peace to Asia for the first time in a thousand years. A “Northeast Asian Security Regime” is fine as long as it recognizes our current commitments to South Korea and Japan. And I’d love to see a Democrat stand up to the Chinese about their unfair trade policies.

GLOBAL WARMING

This is worrisome:

We must also take threats and turn them into opportunities. The seemingly overwhelming challenge of climate change is a prime example. Far from being a drag on global growth, climate control represents a powerful economic opportunity that can be a driver of growth, jobs, and competitive advantage in the twenty-first century. As president, I will make the fight against global warming a priority. We cannot solve the climate crisis alone, and the rest of the world cannot solve it without us. The United States must reengage in international climate change negotiations and provide the leadership needed to reach a binding global climate agreement. But we must first restore our own credibility on the issue. Rapidly emerging countries, such as China, will not curb their own carbon emissions until the United States has demonstrated a serious commitment to reducing its own through a market-based cap-and-trade approach.

The problem is that the Kyoto protocols were not a “powerful economic opportunity.” Far from it. The protocols would have sucked several hundred billion dollars out of our economy and placed it in the hands of countries who had the offsets for sale. And the goals set for the US - emissions targeted to 1993 levels - could very well have had us spinning into a depression.

I would prefer a more modest approach to curbing emissions involving the only countries that matter - the industrialized nations of the world. We don’t need a Fidel Castro going on for 4 hours telling us how great an environmentalist he is and how evil we are. Kyoto was a scheme to transfer massive amounts of wealth from the rich to the poor countries of the world and was too complex to work anyway (witness Europe’s failure to meet Kyoto targets despite their best efforts). What is needed is an agreement among those nations who are responsible for 95% of the greenhouse emissions on the planet.

GROVELING APOLOGIES…

To build the world we want, we must begin by speaking honestly about the problems we face. We will have to talk about the consequences of our invasion of Iraq for the Iraqi people and others in the region. We will have to talk about Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. We will also have to take concrete steps to enhance security and spread opportunity throughout the world.

Perhaps we should get her some sack cloth and ashes as an inaugural present. From the sound of the above, she will be knee walking her way around the world apologizing for America being so beastly to everyone else.

Wake me when it’s over.

SUMMARY

Not as bad reading it the second time around. Clearly, Hillary’s inside look at how the presidency operates in a hostile world taught her some valuable lessons. My question is how resistant she is going to be to the siren call of appeasement and surrender of the base in her party? Ironically, for some of her bolder, stronger moves in foreign policy she may have to rely on the rational right in Congress to support her.

I am encouraged by some of what she is thinking and frightened by some other ideas. But taken in total, it is not a foreign policy I could get behind and support with any enthusiasm. Better than Obama’s. Better than any other Democrat’s so far. But far short of what I think is necessary as far as fighting an implacable enemy who, given the odds, will probably hit us again during her presidency.

And then we’ll see, in the crucible of crisis, of what exactly Hillary Clinton is truly made.

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.

Of course, once the “progressive” revolution achieves its ends — and soft socialism replaces the liberal democracy the founders envisioned — the “cream” will rise to the top, and a new class of elitist bureaucrats and politicians will take full control of the nannystate, just as they have long believed was their right.

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.

There has been a lot of criticism directed against conservatives for their seeming heartlessness when it comes to subsidizing health insurance for children in America regardless of whether their parents can afford paying for a private plan or not.

Leaving aside the obvious political framework in which the criticism is given, perhaps it’s time to have a debate about what kind of government we have, what kind we want, and most importantly, what kind of government we need to insure that liberty is not just something our grandchildren read about in history books. This is a debate conservatives should win every time because at bottom, a majority of people will choose freedom over dependence, liberty over the tyranny of the state every time.

The problem is, the left refuses to debate the question of tyranny or dependence and frames the question of what kind of government we should have in emotional terms instead. “Dependency” becomes “compassion.” “Want” becomes “need.” “Personal responsibility” becomes “selfishness.”

If the left were to debate whether their programs actually serve the cause of liberty or dependency, they would lose. It would be a no contest, slam dunk defeat every time. So we don’t debate the nature of government in a free society but instead argue over whether this government program or that one is good for the children, or old people, or any other group du jour the left seeks to ensnare in their dependency trap.

The left doesn’t want to discuss what we lose when government steps in where the citizen is capable of taking care of themselves. They refuse to acknowledge that every step toward establishing a government giving the people what they want rather than what is needed or desirable is a step back from human liberty and into the trough of virtual slavery.

You can hardly blame liberals in the end. It is extremely seductive (not to mention conducive to winning elections) to promise people that government will relieve the citizen of their burdens and make their lives easier. It is also convenient to then tar your opponents as unfeeling, uncaring monsters. Playing Santa Claus while painting the opposition as Scrooge has been part and parcel of the Democratic electoral game plan since the 1960’s.

But little, if any attention is paid to the idea that every time the government shoulders its way forward to assume part of the responsibility for our own well being, our choices about the direction our lives can take are limited in the process. Sometimes a small wrench thrown into the machinery while other times, an impassable roadblock is the result. Our own preferences are subsumed in favor of the ease or convenience the state can supply.

Is it wrong to oppose this creeping servitude offered by the left? After all, not only do the people want programs such as S-CHIP and like the idea of the government taking these decisions off their hands, but it takes a monumental sort of hubris to believe that you know what is best for everyone else with regards to their own personal freedom. And it takes an equal dollop of chutzpah to argue that people should actually wish for the burden of responsibility to fall upon them and their families when government is sitting out there perfectly capable of doing it for them.

Even if the left gets their way and the people are weighted down with the burgeoning largess government offers them, we will still have the Constitution. American will still be here albeit with a people who are a lot less free than their fathers and grandfathers. What we may lose in freedom of action, we will gain in security and ease.

This is the “perfectibility” of society that progressives have been striving for since the turn of the 20th century. The progressive movement itself was founded on the principle that government could be perfected via the application of scientific principles to the problems in society. By turning social scientists into gurus and Shamans, it was believed that America could become a place free from want.

Recall that at the time the Progressive movement was kindled, much of its impetus was supplied by the horrific conditions of the urban poor and the excesses of capitalism on display in the working conditions for labor as well as the power of the corporate trusts who literally owned Congress. Such conditions cried out for reform and progressives began to apply what they considered sound ideas grounded in the science of observation to these inequities.

From Teddy Roosevelt to Jimmy Carter almost every politician had to pay homage to the idea of government’s “perfectibility.” This was the great consensus that held America together through a depression, a world war, and much of the long, twilight struggle against communism. It was based on that most American of beliefs; that all problems have a solution and if we only tinker long enough with it, an answer will be forthcoming.

The father of modern conservatism (although he eschewed the conservative label for himself) Frederic Hayek rejected the notion that “science” could be applied to something so vague and random as human behavior. He believed that complex phenomena where humans interact cannot be scientifically predicted or even explained except in the grossest, most general way. Any attempts to do so was little better than “cooking the books” because social scientists would use the observational data they collected to formulate solutions based on a false understanding of science.

If Hayek was the father of modern conservatism, John F. Kennedy was the mother of “progressive perfectibility” adherents. Kennedy, himself no liberal, nevertheless brought hundreds of social scientists to Washington to address problems from poverty to nuclear policy. It was perfectibility with a vengeance. If anything, his successor gave the newcomers more power and influence. Originally charged with solving the problems associated with poverty, the perfectibility crowd has branched out since the 1960’s to dominate the agencies and departments of government while finding a comfortable home in the Democratic party. In fact, despite a quarter century of conservatives rising to power and prominence, the progressive notion of society’s “perfectibility” is now so firmly ensconced as writ in government that it’s stranglehold on the minds and souls of our politicians will prove very difficult to break.

Society and indeed government are not “perfectible.” There is no such place as Utopia nor would it even be desirable for free men to achieve creating it. Even those who proclaim that their goal is simply to “make things better” bely that notion by proposing solutions that invariably don’t solve anything or just as likely, create more problems needing to be “made better.”

If this sounds like I have an animus toward government, I would say that this is simply untrue. It is very hard to dislike something that should be seen as a utility. You may hate your cell phone every once and a while but it is a distant, impersonal kind of hate and not directed toward anything specific. My beef is with those who would use government to undermine the foundations of personal liberty by expanding its reach to ensnare those in dependency who are perfectly capable to taking care of themselves. The fact that they use government in this way for the purpose of winning votes is equally reprehensible.

And I include so called conservatives in this criticism as well. For ten years, Republicans in Congress pumped the spigot of government to spend their way to re-election. Paying off constituencies be they lobbyists, campaign contributors, or corporate special interests is as bad as anything the left has done. Earmarks have made thousands of American companies dependent on government for their survival - an intolerable excess in a free market society. Reform requires a cleaning of the house on both sides of the debate.

Today, we are far beyond the point where government programs are designed to only help the needy in society and are now busy establishing new parameters of government beneficence for the middle class and even the wealthy. We’ve had corporate welfare for 3 decades now as the government designs tax policies that restrict competition, incentivize production, or simply fill the coffers of some well heeled companies who happen to have connected lobbyists inside the Beltway.

Lost in all of this has been the belief that freedom is preferable to dependency and that walking away from a society based on self-reliant, rational men and women by infantilizing their lives threatens to change the United States into a far different place than that which was bequeathed to us by our fathers and their fathers before them going back to the beginning.

A spokesman for the Alfred E. Nobel Foundation announcing Al Gore’s Peace Prize.

Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

He follows a long line of illustrious humanitarians who have selflessly and with no thought of personal reward, served the needs of humanity through the sheer goodness and purity of their souls. Or, in Gore’s case, those who have shamelessly promoted themselves as saviors of the planet when they have been proven in a court of law to be nothing more than alarmist charlatans.

Dedicated peace activists like the Dali Lama, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa have preceded Mr. Gore in winning the Prize. As have not so dedicated peace activists like Yassar Arafat (who could have been described as a “piece” advocate due to the condition of the bodies of his victims after they were blown to bits), Mikhail Gorbachev - the first time a Peace Prize was awarded to a dictator for not sending in tanks to crush liberty, and Kofi Anan whose contributions to the peace of such places as Rwanda and Darfur will long be remembered - at least by those lucky enough to be left alive following his spectacularly inept and corrupt leadership.

Yes, our Al is in good company alright. But never mind the Peace Prize. Will he or won’t he? Does the light of ambition burn bright enough that he would, once again, shoulder the burdens of a long, difficult campaign for the presidency of the United States?

Though Gore’s name has been frequently mentioned in presidential politics this year, potentially as a “draft” nominee, he has declined to enter the contest.

But the Nobel is a huge honor recognized worldwide and gives him even more stature. It gives him a moment to reconsider the race for the Democratic nomination, now led by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Gore has not completely ruled out running, saying in the past he had “no plans” to be a candidate and shying away from the fund-raising extravaganza that now is central to American politics. At one point, he even said that he is “not very good” at politics. Critics often lampooned him as wooden as a campaigner.

Let’s put it this way; I doubt whether Hillary Clinton is losing any sleep over a potential Gore candidacy. She’s way ahead, she has more money than God, and it’s just about 90 days to the New Hampshire primary - not enough time to pull an organization together, raise the money, and run any kind of a professional campaign. It’s not that his chances of success would be small. His chances of success would be zero.

All that aside, just what has the Nobel Committee done by giving the prize to a man a British Court called an “alarmist” just the other day? He is a man whose major achievement - his film Inconvenient Truth - has been debunked even by scientists who share his fears of climate change. Other scientists have called on the former Vice President to quit being such an alarmist.

The fact is, Gore’s major “contribution” to the global warming debate has been shown to be at the very least problematic and at worse, a shameless piece of propaganda. Yeah - but at least his heart is in the right place.

I can never decide whether Gore is being used by the Luddites, the one worlders, the NGO’s, the anti-globalists, and the anti-industrialists as a front man for the implementation of their political agendas or whether he actually agrees with many of their ideas. The fact is, it’s not about the science. It’s never been about the science. If it were about the science, those who do not believe in anthropomorphic global warming theories wouldn’t be branded as “Nazis” and would receive a fair hearing. Similarly, those who reject the idea that global warming, even if it comes to pass, would not have the catastrophic effects promised by the alarmists, would not be marginalized and shunted to the sidelines of scientific debate.

Global warming is mostly about politics which is why Gore has probably done so well in promoting it. It has left the realm of science and entered the world of religion - a belief system with dogma, sacraments, and penalties for apostasy. And standing above all others as the High Priest, Great Prophet, and number one snake oil salesman has been Albert Arnold Gore, Jr.

Our climate is changing and thank God for that. About 20,000 years ago, there was an ice sheet a mile thick where I am sitting right now. I daresay if I had been siting in the same place back then, it would have been a tad uncomfortable. But the earth warmed, the glacier receded, and the Great Lakes were created in all their beauty and splendor.

I simply don’t know if the scientists who posit catastrophe are right. I do know that every “sign” pointed to as “proof” their theories are correct by global warming advocates today is not indicative of long term climate change. But I do not reject out of hand the idea that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut in order to prevent (or mitigate) drastic changes in the climate.

In short, I’m an agnostic on the subject. I am not a scientist. I can’t examine the evidence the way a climate modeller or a atmospheric physicist can and reach an intelligent conclusion. We must base our beliefs on explanations of that data by scientists themselves.

No, I am not a scientist. But neither is Al Gore. And the Nobel Committee’s curious choice of the former Vice President for the Peace Prize is perplexing indeed. Global warming is a scientific phenomena. To give it to someone whose scientific acumen has been questioned both by scientists and the courts strikes me as incomprehensible.

But then, that seems to be par for the course as far as the Nobel Committee is concerned.

The votes are in from this week’s Watchers Council and the winner in the Council category is “Gratefully Not Dead: Iraq Civilian and US Military Deaths Plummet” by Big Lizards. Yours truly came in second for my post “Man Without a Party.”

Coming in first in the non Council category was “That’s Propa-tainment!” by my colleague at Pajamas Media Jules Crittendon.

If you’d like to participate in the weekly Watchers Council cote, go here and follow instructions.

I didn’t want to write about the SCHIP imbroglio again today but frankly, I find it fascinating that simply by writing about it, I am accused of “smearing” or “swiftboating” a 12 year old boy.

Are many on the left brain dead? If you don’t say anything negative or snarky about a 12 year old boy and, in fact, express concern over his condition, would someone please explain to me how that constitutes a “smear?”

A “smear” is a lot more than simple criticism - something no one has directed toward young Graeme Frost. A “smear” is “a usually unsubstantiated charge or accusation against a person or organization” according to Webster. Very well. Let’s give the left the benefit of the doubt and say that the original round of criticisms of Mr. and Mrs. Frost (not Graeme or any other child) were “smears” in that the Freeper who googled up the information that most conservative blogs relied on to originally comment on the issue was incorrect and flawed. Of course, it was “substantiated” to the extent that the Freeper supplied links to his information much of which was later proved to be false or exaggerated. But let’s ignore that little detail and acknowledge that the information was incorrect and further, was disseminated in order to show up the Frost’s and, by extension, the Democrats.

Where does the smear of little 12 year old Graeme Frost come in? Did anyone question his injuries? Did anyone say he was faking it? Did anyone anywhere on conservative blogs write anything that could possibly be construed as an “unsubstantiated accusation” - or any accusation at all - directed against Graeme Frost?

I’m serious about an answer because even today, I’ve gotten several emails and have seen several headlines on liberal blogs that are accusing the right of “smearing” a 12 year old kid when my investigation yesterday revealed not one single conservative blog had said one single word against Graeme Frost.

So far, no one on the left has bothered to explain how conservative blogs are smearing Graeme Frost. They use the term in their headlines and the body of their posts. They use the word in comments left far and wide on righty blogs. They use the word as if it is simply a given, as if “the smear of Graeme Frost” exists naturally in the universe and needs no explanation - sort of like the sun coming up every morning.

This would be mindless stupidity - if there wasn’t a purpose behind it. And since the intent all along was to cut off debate on the fact that the Democrats wish to expand SCHIP eligibility to include adults and people who by any stretch of the imagination would be seen as middle class (or even upper middle class), it has worked like a charm. The Democrats set a trap and the right has fallen into it. They used the Frosts as human shields and for exactly the same reason that terrorists use them - to make sure that any attack against them would also hit the civilians (Frosts). As I have said, it was a brilliant political ploy. I’m only sorry that the Frosts weren’t informed of the strategy prior to their becoming embroiled in the debate. They may have had second thoughts about becoming involved.

For in the end, that was the entire point of the political exercise; to make sure that as little light as possible was shed on SCHIP, obscuring the debate by hiding behind the Frosts and generating fake outrage when the inevitable questions would arise about the family’s choices which prevented them from being able to afford insurance for their children.

As such, those choices have been attacked by many on the right as selfish. Is that a smear? Their “choices” can be substantiated by what is already on the record regarding their assets. The fact that there are tens of thousands of families - perhaps many times that - who make sacrifices so that the family is insured before any tragedy strikes them and who are being asked to subsidize the choices made by the Frosts opens up the question of fairness.

And therein lies the debate. Not whether the Frosts have too much money to enjoy the coverage supplied by SCHIP but whether any family can make choices that force other families to pay for them. Yes, in order to afford insurance for their children the Frosts at the very least may have been forced to sell their rental property and perhaps even have one or both parents get a job where an employer provides health coverage. But there are thousands and thousands of families who are faced with those choices all the time and choose to make sacrifices so their kids are covered. Now those families are being told that, in effect, they’re a bunch of chumps for making those sacrifices because others who may even be better off are “smart” enough to avoid the responsibility and get coverage via SCHIP.

Where is the left’s outrage at this injustice? Where’s the hand wringing about the inequality of this situation?

The liberal answer to this unfairness is not try and make private insurance more affordable or come up with some other private alternative but to expand the program even further thus trapping more people into a dependency that prevents them from keeping the benefit if their income exceeds a certain amount. The disincentives in the program are obvious. It may make for good politics but it’s lousy policy.

I’m glad Graeme Frost didn’t have to suffer for his parent’s shortsightedness. And the left is right - we should leave little Graeme out of the debate. Let’s talk instead about fairness and how best to insure those who have problems getting coverage in the private sector.

Just let me know when you’re finished smearing conservatives by accusing them of something they’ve never done.

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.

Opponents of SCHIP, including President Bush, have been mischaracterizing the expansion initiativewith blatant falsehoods. It’s not socialized medicine because most, if not all the each state implementation of the SCHIP program use private insurance companies to manage them. That’s also why most insurance companies support SCHIP.

Families with incomes over $80K are not eligible for SCHIP. That figure was a waiver request from New York to cover families at 400 percent over FPL and was denied.

SCHIP was also not designed to cover children from families who are necessarily poor. Medicaid cover them. SCHIP was intended for working families.

The “crowd out” argument that says parents with access to private insurance will bypass that for better, cheaper SCHIP is also overblown. The vast majority of uninsured children don’t have that luxury.

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.

The Rick Moran Show will go live in just a few minutes at 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM Central time on Blog Talk Radio.

Call-in Number: (718) 664-9764

Join me as I go live one hour early and welcome some of my BTR hosts for a discussion of the upcoming GOP debate.

You can catch the stream here. A podcast will be available after the show.

UPDATE

The podcast is available at the links above or you can access it on the player below.

UPDATE II

Due to technical issues, the podcast of today’s show is unavailable.

This is the second time this has happened and I am no closer to any answers than I was before. I hear the intro so I know that I’m logged in properly. After that, I don’t have a clue why nothing records.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Superb article by David Nather today in CQ Politics about the “quagmire” in which the anti-war movement finds itself.

I should start out by saying that the lack of progress made by the coalition of groups who want to bring the troops home does not mean that the American people have still bought into the war, or George Bush, or the surge, or anything else. By clear majorities, the American people believe the war was a mistake and want the troops home.

But…

The inconvenient truth that the anti-war crowd can’t seem to grasp is that the American people are also ambivalent about how they wish our Iraq misadventure to end. For that reason, the people are all over the lot on the timing of troop reductions, the number of troops to come home, and what kind of mess we should be leaving in Iraq after we’re gone.

Nather grasps this which is why the article is so good. And he points up many of the problems - both internal and external to the coalition:

These are frustrating times for the collection of political, veterans, labor, and grass-roots organizations that make up the modern anti-war movement. At a time when a solid majority of the American public wants to pull some or all troops out of Iraq, these groups have been unable to turn the public support for their goals into enough votes to get a withdrawal proposal through the Senate, much less override a presidential veto.

Some of the groups have made tactical blunders along the way — most famously, the MoveOn.org advertisement in The New York Times last month deriding Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq — that have alienated their own Democratic allies. But that isn’t why the movement to end the Iraq War has failed to gain more traction in Congress, according to Democratic lawmakers and outside analysts of the movement.

Instead, they say, it’s because the groups simply have won all the Democratic votes they’re going to get. The only place to pick up more votes, at least for the next year, is on the Republican side.

I said at the time that the “Betray-us” ad was “the dumbest, the most spectacularly ignorant political maneuver in modern history.” To continue the idiocy by featuring the ad on their website as Moveon is doing only highlights their tone deafness about the nature of politics and what it takes to be right and win at the same time.

And the gimlet eyed hard left radicals at Moveon and Code Pink have no intention of working with Doubting Thomas Republicans to bring about a true national consensus on when and how to leave Iraq:

Most of the groups in the anti-war coalition have appeared unwilling to work with Republican skeptics of the war on a plan they could all support. “They’re exercising their constitutional rights, and that’s fine, but by and large they aren’t doing anything to help us find a positive solution,” said Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who has been pushing for goals, rather than deadlines, for troop withdrawals based on the recommendations of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee H. Hamilton of Indiana.

Some anti-war activists say they’re just not interested in dealing with the GOP and want to apply more pressure to the party now in control. “We’re looking at some of the Democrats who were voted in on a platform of fighting against the war, and we’re not really seeing that,” said LeiLani Dowell, a member of the Troops Out Now Coalition, which wants to end war funding and staged a rally at the Capitol last month that reportedly drew fewer than 1,000 people.

But in the view of lawmakers from both parties, the groups have also failed to connect with potential GOP allies because they have unrealistic expectations of how quickly the United States could withdraw from Iraq.

To coin a phrase, “Aye, there’s the rub.” The de facto position of Code Pink, Moveon, and most others in the anti-war coalition is an immediate withdrawal from Iraq - a repeat of Saigon, 1975 complete with the last helicopter lifting off the roof of the unfinished, overbudget boondoggle that is the American embassy being built in Baghdad. They would like nothing better than to see a humiliating bug out of American troops, preferably within 6 months of the day it is begun.

That ain’t going to happen. Even rational Democrats don’t want us to leave that way. At least most of the Democratic timetables include a semblance of rationality in that they stretch the withdrawal out over a year or more. The Moveon bunch wants every American soldier - no residual forces, no bases, - out in 6 months. It’s madness and Republicans won’t even discuss it:

“I think they’re actually counterproductive. They don’t seem very thoughtful,” said Republican Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who opposed President Bush’s troop increase this year but wants any troop withdrawals to be based on benchmarks of progress in Iraq rather than a timetable. Democratic Rep. Zack Space, a freshman who will be up for re-election in a Republican-leaning part of Ohio next year, said of the antiwar groups, “By embracing a kind of impractical view of the situation, I think they hurt their cause.”

Ya think? The last Gallup poll showed 18% of Americans believe we should follow the advice of the Moveon crowd and bring the troops home now without regard for what is going on in Iraq or even the military practicality. We would have to leave vast stocks of military equipment in Iraq if we simply loaded 160,000 troops on planes and flew them home. Billions of dollars of stuff left to rot - or be used by both friend and foe in whatever kind of country Iraq will become after we leave it in the lurch.

That 18% is half that of the number who don’t want any timetable or benchmarks at all - 38% want to stay until the “job is done.” What does that say about the political acumen of the anti-war coalition?

And their public personae is nothing to get excited about:

Demonstrators from Code Pink, a peace group formed just before the Iraq War started, routinely disrupt congressional hearings and speeches, drawing the wrath of even Democratic lawmakers who share their views. Last month, when members of the group interrupted a House Armed Services Committee hearing where Petraeus was testifying, Chairman Ike Skelton of Missouri angrily described them to a colleague — and to a national television audience — with a vulgarity.

Even the most anti-war Democrats are scratching their heads at activist Cindy Sheehan’s decision to run for the Democratic nomination for the House in San Francisco next year against Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They insist Pelosi has fought the war every way she can. “This isn’t a weakness for her. It’s one of her strengths,” said one House Democrat who did not want to be identified speaking candidly about his disagreements with the groups.

I suppose this is to be expected of radicals in any age. I fondly recall the Robin Hood aura that surrounded many anti-war types when I was in school during Viet Nam. I would think that young people today would probably look up to the Cindy Sheehans of the anti-war movement in a similar fashion.

But I also remember my anti-war parents thinking the radicals at the time were scruffy looking as well as being a little dangerous. They were used to the 1930’s radicals who were anything but scruffy looking but perhaps even more dangerous considering from where their orders came. Moscow liked their stooges and plants to blend in to the background.

This crowd is scruffy looking and politically inept - which makes for a not very dangerous coalition:

But most of the Republicans who have voiced skepticism about the war say they’ve seen little, if any, effort by the anti-war groups to find a compromise they could all support. “There were so many attempts to score media points rather than actually engage,” said Phil English of Pennsylvania, one of the House Republicans who opposed the troop “surge” in Iraq. He said he has seen anti-war demonstrators in his Erie-area district with out-of-state license plates. One anti-war group, he said, invited him to a rally in August with just a week’s notice — and after his schedule was full — then announced at the rally that he had failed to show up.

Some groups say they have not given up on bringing members of Congress around to their side, but many activists say they have grown so frustrated with Congress’ failure to end the war that they’re in no mood to try to reason with lawmakers from either party. “I think people are done being polite and obsequious with their members of Congress. People are fed up,” said Sue Udry, legislative coordinator for United for Peace and Justice.

Somehow, I don’t think Sue or any of her friends are going to be writing a sequel to “How to Win Friends and Influence People.”

The fact that both the radicals and liberal Democrats in Congress are dealing with a severely wounded, lame duck President with approval numbers nearing Nixon territory only highlights their total inability to win the day. Politics is the art of the possible. And both the hard right and hard left have always had trouble defining what is possible and have reached instead for the unattainable. Failure and defeat follows such folly.

We are going to leave Iraq - probably long before George Bush wishes we would. But we are not going to leave on terms set by the radicals in the anti-war movement. It would be best for all if Bush, the Democrats, and the Republicans could all sit down and work to get us out of Iraq as quickly as possible with the least damage to our national security interests.

That’s what grown ups would do. Unfortunately, I hold out little hope for such a meeting of the minds given the poisonous political atmosphere and the constant yammering from the anti-war left who have sabotaged their own cause time and time again.