Right Wing Nut House

Let’s put down our political playbooks today and put on our thinking caps.

What is “consciousness?” Even trying to define it can get you into trouble. Is it something only humans possess? How does perception affect reality? Does it affect it at all? How did we achieve self-awareness?

Endless questions which, in the Socratic method of argument, only means that the mystery of how, when, what, and who regarding consciousness will continue. It is the conscious mind that formulates the questions, and supplies the answers - inadequate though they might be. This is why the question of what is consciousness crosses so many disciplines and fields of study. Science, philosophy, religion, metaphysics - all have taken a stab at trying to tell us why we are who we are.

I have been fascinated by this subject despite my woefully inadequate grounding in science and philosophy. So it was with great pleasure that I came across this piece at Pajamas Media by Mike LaSalle who runs the blog Mensnewsdaily.com, a site that has linked here on occasion over the years. Mike’s piece posits a new theory of consciousness that is mindboggling; that nothing is “real” in the conscious sense until it is observed. In other words, we create our own consciousness by what we experience through our 5 senses.

This is certainly a far cry from how the Romans saw consciousness and especially how Christian thinkers like Thomas Aquinas viewed the mystery. Aquinas saw consciousness as a result of knowing our own moral choices as displayed against the backdrop of a moral universe. Fundamentally, knowing right from wrong made us human.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that science really got going on the subject. To this day, there is a school of thought that believes consciousness is little more than the interaction of brain chemistry. Then there was the metaphysical theory that consciousness is the result of the mind being in two places at once - the past and present - and that our self awareness is the result of placing ourselves in the near future. (All tenses being microseconds apart).

Then there is the belief that it is the electromagnetic field put out by the brain that creates consciousness. And the classical religious definition of man possessing the “spark” of life - a gift from the almighty - that posits consciousness as being evidence of our immortal souls.

But this LaSalle piece is really good stuff. It is generally based on the shocking realization that the universe seems to have been created specifically for life itseslf.

LaSalle explains:

Nowadays science identifies this phenomenon as the observation selection effect, wherein a “selection bias” must be factored in to cosmological measurements.

The gravitational constant is perhaps the most famous [example of the Goldilocks Effect], but the fine structure constant is just as critical for life. Called alpha, if it were just 1.1x or more of its present value, fusion would no longer occur in stars. (p. 87)

The Rare Earth hypothesis narrows the field of habitation down again, until the possibilities become too extreme to believe. In fact, the long odds against your reading this article are so remote as to be practically impossible. Yet, here we are, evidently snug inside the safe wave of the physical present.

You can look it up: “the Goldilocks phenomenon.”

By the late sixties, it had become clear that if the Big Bang had been just one part in a million more powerful, the cosmos would have blown outward too fast to allow stars and worlds to form. Result: no us. Even more coincidentally, the universe’s four forces and all of its constants are just perfectly set up for atomic interactions, the existence of atoms and elements, planets, liquid water, and life. Tweak any of them and you never existed.

Deterministic or random? Were there a trillion Big Bangs prior to the one 14 billion or so years ago where the laws of nature we are familiar with never materialized and the universe kept collapsing back in on itself? Was there a continuously expanding and contracting series of universes until our present universe was created that melded the laws of nature together perfectly so that you can be sitting in your chair reading this?

Or is there indeed an order to the universe that created this “Goldilocks effect” of living in a “just right” reality?

The latter is most attractive to people of faith because it posits a higher power intervening - even if just for a micro-second at the time of the Big Bang - thus proving the existence of God.

At any rate, this “selection bias” is a well known phenomenon in quantum mechanics. The theory of light is a good example. Light, we are told, is both a wave and a particle. But in order to study light, you must choose to observe it as either a wave or particle - you cannot do both.

The famous thought experiment (that riles cat lovers to this day) of Schrodinger’s Cat as explained in Wikpedia:

Schrödinger’s Cat: A cat, along with a flask containing a poison, is placed in a sealed box shielded against environmentally induced quantum decoherence. If an internal Geiger counter detects radiation, the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when we look in the box, we see the cat either alive or dead, not a mixture of alive and dead.

LaSalle (who is reviewing a new book that explains the theory titled Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe by Robert Lanza) explains the theory this way:

[P]hysical reality is a process in which observation and perception dynamically precede the presence of time and space.

Consciousness creates its own reality.

How this is done is still a mystery. But the provocative idea that consciousness is based on what we observe, that there is no hard and fast reality by which our minds grasp an essential and undeviating truth of existence is elegant, radical, exciting, and scary.

Read LaSalle’s entire piece as well as a lot of the stuff he’s linked to. It will blow your mind - figuratively speaking, of course.

He must be next in line. The GOP poohbahs are lining up with the former Massachusetts governor already and here we are still more than 3 years away from the election.

Patricia Chadwick of CNBC jumps on the Romney bandwagon with both feet:

If the economy is still in limbo, Mitt Romney will have the opportunity of a lifetime. He understands economics; he knows how industry and business should work to thrive; he has had both private and public experience; he even studied and signed into law a health care system. For sure he will be able to talk to its strengths and weaknesses, what it can do and what it cannot do.

In all the political kerfuffle unfolding today, Mitt Romney has gravitas—no sexual scandals, a few grey hairs, a total lack of demagoguery, confidence but not arrogance, an ability to lead successfully and an understanding of the sanctity of the private sector in this country. Those attributes should stand him in good stead when the 2012 Presidential campaign starts to unfold in barely more than a year from now.

Jon Martin of Politico has been tracking the Romney buzz and discovered that the mass of Romney supporters and staffers in the early primary states are already standing by, waiting for the word from on high:

For the Romney team, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that the campaign never really ended.

In addition to the full-time employees the former Massachusetts governor has at his Boston-based Free & Strong America PAC, the early primary states and Washington are filled with former staffers and supporters who are in regular contact with one another.

Whenever Romney has a major TV appearance or pens an opinion piece, a PAC staffer, Will Ritter, circulates the news to an e-mail list of the former governor’s extended political family.

The Washington-based alumni have a regular monthly luncheon, are working on another reunion-like event around a 2009 candidate later this year and always make sure their former candidate is briefed on the latest political doings.

When Romney does a high-profile Sunday show like he did yesterday, for example, that means that former communications aides such as Matt Rhoades and Kevin Madden will join PAC spokesman and longtime adviser Eric Fehrnstrom to help prepare their old boss, either in person or over the phone. When he’s delivering a speech, as he did earlier this month on national security, other former campaign officials such as media consultants Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens are brought in.

And when the former governor is in Washington for reasons other than a public appearance, an even broader extended network of advisers is often alerted, including such figures as longtime lobbyist and GOP strategist Ron Kaufman.

Romney enjoys an equally strong following in many of the early primary states.

Long time GOP strategist and former McCain campaign manager Terry Nelson puts it more plainly: “Having run before for president puts you in a better place to run again. He doesn’t have to build an infrastructure or recruit a national fundraising team.”

I made the point on my radio show this past Tuesday that if - and that’s a big “if” - Sarah Palin thinks by resigning her office 2 1/2 years before the primaries begin, that she has a better shot at beating Romney, someone should have told her that not only is Romney so far ahead he is almost out of sight, but that the Republican elites are already touting him as “inevitable.” In other words, it’s Romney’s turn.

Who else is there? Gingrich blows hot and cold, trying to decide if his sky high negatives would get in the way of his ambition to be president. Of the governors, Jindal is too young and too green, Pawlenty is as vanilla as they come, Daniels says he doesn’t want it, Huntsman has been co-opted by Obama, and the rest are even more nondescript or unacceptable in one way or another (Do we really want to elect another Bush or another governor from Texas?)

Rising stars? There are a few. Mark Kirk of Illinois who is probably too moderate on social issues for a shot at the national ticket but who is a very telegenic, articulate spokesman for conservative economic issues, has the luxury of running for either governor or senator. But if elected, he would have to abandon his office almost immediately if he wanted to run for president.

Rob Portman, currently running for the senate from Ohio would have the same problem despite the fact that he is a genius on economic matters and has a nice, comfortable personae about him.

I saw Congressman Paul Ryan at CPAC and listened to a speech he made at a think tank roundtable on conservatism. He is definitely an up and comer but Congressman fare poorly as presidential candidates and besides, Ryan voted for TARP which may disqualify any Republican lawmaker who did so.

Then there’s the curious case of Mike Pence who, it is whispered around the Hill, would love to be president some day. He’s a pretty good speaker and is knowledgeable about a host of issues from the budget, to immigration, to health care. We’ll see how he does as Republican Conference Chairman and go from there. He’s only 50 years old so his national political days may be ahead of him.

Finally, we come to Mike Huckabee who, if elected, would be the first president whose named ended in two vowels. I can’t tell you how much I despise Huckaloser except to say I find great enjoyment and satisfaction in creating new and clever endings for his moniker. Huckapooh would destroy the Republican party if nominated so even though he has his own really dumb TV show, I sincerely hope everyone forgets him by the time the primaries roll around.

So not only is Romney next in line, there literally is no one else — unless Sarah Palin challenges him. This, she might do despite the spectacle she has made of herself this last week. When even Republicans - supporters as well as critics - come down on Palin and dismiss her chances in 2012, you have to wonder if she isn’t running for 2016 or beyond.

Maybe she’ll hit the rubber chicken circuit as Reagan did lo these many years ago. Not only will she command astronomical speaking fees, but she will keep her name and face in front of the faithful. Meanwhile, she would be honing her skills, filling in her extensive knowledge gaps, and generally creating a more serious, more complete candidate. We can only wait and see.

In the meantime, Romney continues to quietly do the spadework necessary for a 2012 run. And the GOP should find more uses for this very talented but flawed man. His critiques of Obama’s policies have been very good with no name calling, solid facts and figures, and his speeches are given with an air of authority few Republicans can match.

There is a slight chance that things will be so bad by the fall of 2011 that someone unknown at this point could sweep to the nomination if they are seen as a knight on a white charger. But that scenario is extremely far fetched. It is very unlikely that a new governor or senator elected in 2010 would abandon their office and almost immediately run for president. Hence, the names mentioned above (along with a few others) are it as far as GOP candidates are concerned.

That really leaves a wide open field for Romney. Even at this early, early, stage the race is his to lose. No one else will have the money or organization to challenge him - especially in the early states. If he is to be brought down, it will be by his own missteps, not by any other candidate surpassing him.

You won’t want to miss tonight’s Rick Moran Show, one of the most popular conservative talk shows on Blog Talk Radio.

Tonight, it will be all Palin all the time as I welcome Jazz Shaw and Melissa Clouthier to talk about the extraordinary events of the last few days.

The show will air from 7:00 - 8:00 PM Central time. You can access the live stream here. A podcast will be available for streaming or download shortly after the end of the broadcast.

Click on the stream below and join in on what one wag called a “Wayne’s World for adults.”

The Chat Room will open around 15 minutes before the show opens,

Also, if you’d like to call in and put your two cents in, you can dial (718) 664-9764.

President Obama has discovered a spending program he doesn’t like. It’’s crop price supports and other subsidies that go to farmers - most of whom don’t need them or shouldn’t be getting them.

My latest column at American Issues Project examines the outdated notion that farms need and deserve subsidies:

Thank Thomas Jefferson for the nearly $17 billion we taxpayers are forced to shell out every year to subsidize two dozen commodities with price supports, as well as billions more for a complex of interrelated agricultural benefits for everything from crop insurance to irrigation payments.

It was the Sage of Monticello, gentleman farmer, tinkerer, and agricultural scientist, who envisioned an America of “yeoman farmers,” whose industriousness, virtue, devotion to the land, and love of freedom would one day extend coast to coast in an “Empire of Liberty.”

Jefferson offered this vision as a counterweight to Alexander Hamilton’s money grubbing commercial ideas of factory owners and shopkeepers running the country (along with stock jobbers and speculators). The two great visions of America have clashed since our founding, with Hamilton’s ideals eventually winning out.

But the romanticized Jeffersonian vision of the small farmer, battling Mother Nature and the land itself, has never quite died the death it should have. Hence, beginning with the New Deal, farmers have been given special treatment by the government in the form of price supports that place a floor underneath commodity prices. And most of that taxpayer cash goes to “farmers” who are quite far from Jefferson’s yeoman farmer vision. In fact, it was discovered in 2007 that about $1.3 billion in farm aid went to people who didn’t grow or produce any agricultural products at all, while another study in 2008 found that two thirds of the subsidies go to just 10% of all farmers.

Subsidies costs us hundreds of billions in increased food prices, taxes, and lost exports as other nations raise huge tariffs on our farm products to keep them off their grocery shelves. Poor people around the world suffer as well because subsidies not only make food more expensive but also drive them off the land because they cannot compete with western industrialized agriculture.

Read the whole thing.

Inconstancy? Or proof of the never ending individual quest for enlightenment?

There is, abroad on both sides of the ideological divide, a prejudice against anyone who stakes out a position on an issue and then alters their thinking on that issue when new information or a new reality presents itself. Changing one’s mind is a no-no and is either a sign of a weak will or worse, a lack of courage to stick to one’s “convictions.”

When re-examining the underlying assumptions which form the basis for rational thinking on any issue, the mind changer is denigrated as a cowardly wretch, a loser, an insincere fake. I am not saying it is an occasion for congratulations or a pat on the back. But the disapprobation associated with sincerely altering one’s views based on a rational re-analysis of one’s thinking is disturbing.

The political internet places a premium on closed mindedness, rewarding those who march in lockstep with the group. Deviation from the Party Line is discouraged by a loss of prestige and respect, and a consequent loss in readers and links. Any blogger can tell you this is true. More recently, some conservative commentators and pundits have learned the truth of this convention when they “strayed” from conservative dogma and embraced a more independent line of thinking.

Certainly, I am not trying to advance the idea that disagreements over politics and policies should not be vigorous and sustained. But criticizing someone simply because they changed their mind on an issue? Something is wrong with that picture - at least the way I have been encouraged to think over my lifetime. I tried to put this into words several times over the nearly 5 years I have been blogging but probably lack the intellectual chops to get it right.

This was my latest attempt from a few months ago:

I return once again to the theme of making this site a “Blog of Self-Discovery” or, the “Writings of the Self-Absorbed Man” if you prefer. In truth, after more than 4 years of struggle, I am in many ways, more of a stranger in my minds eye than I was when I began this journey of self criticism; challenging everything I believe, forcing me to justify the underlying assumptions of my philosophy to my own satisfaction.

Although it should be the goal of any examined life to make such a quest a lifelong pursuit, it is a journey that is best begun when one is young, I think. At age 55, one has lived too much, experienced too much, seen too much, lived and loved and lost too much to retain the suppleness of mind that can process and absorb the terabytes of information we mainline every day. Can we recognize what all of this data is doing to us, how it is changing us, why it challenges our long and comfortably held assumptions as new insights are gleaned and new directions in thought are explored?

For those handful of you who have taken seriously my earnest but woefully inadequate attempts to put into words the “velocity of my thoughts” on the nature of man, of conservatism, and the threads of history and the evolution of man’s relationship to the state that seeks to find a complementary connection between them, please bear with me over the next few days as I attempt to explain the insights that have been granted to me recently.

What brought this subject to the fore was a link from Instapundit I received today where Glenn Reynolds made note of my change of mind on the value of tea parties. He linked to this post that contains my original thoughts on the first efforts of the tea party movement last February.

Reynolds took me to task for that post, writing “If this keeps up (and I think it just might) the amateurishness will fade away soon enough. Then Moran will probably complain about the loss of authenticity.”

My post was too snarky by half and not very well thought out. I vividly recall the reason for that snark, however; there were 9,000 conservative activists at CPAC in Washington, D.C. and yet the tea party in Lafayette Square during the conference drew a measly 300 participants. The disconnect between the rhetoric promising a “new American revolution” sweeping the country with paltry turnouts elsewhere also drew my criticism.

Since then, I have changed my mind on the tea parties and believe them useful. Why? Because the underlying assumptions I had originally formulated that informed my position changed dramatically. The April 15th protests showed massive growth in numbers and the dynamism of the movement. And yet, the criticism I received then (as well as Reynold’s implied criticism of my change of heart today) was not about the substance of my argument but rather the fact I had simply accepted a new reality and altered my beliefs accordingly.

At the time last April, even Reynolds agreed with my critique that the tea parties were amateurish and disorganized. We differed on the belief that they would grow into something significant. My fault was in underestimating the organizers, not in analyzing what went on at the actual events.

To be wrong is human. But admitting error or admitting a change of heart on the political internet gives most commenters leave to question your intelligence, your principles, even your integrity. It doesn’t matter if the underlying assumptions you originally used to justify a position become irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if new information comes to light to challenge your beliefs. You are supposed to ignore this and “stay the course.”

This is counterintuitive thinking as far as I’m concerned. And it is destructive of rational discussion of issues big and small. But as long as this mindless group think dominates both sides of the ideological divide, there will be little independent thought to temper the extremes of right and left nor will there be room for consensus to solve the problems that are bedeviling us.

Reading a lot of blog posts and newspaper columns today, (while also observing various comment sections in the rightosphere), one wonders who died and where’s the funeral.

Is today the 4th of July? Or did a bunch of impostors dressed up like Americans infiltrate our country to put on a massive pity party?

The most optimistic nation in the history of the planet appears to be in a funk on this, a day that above all days, should be a celebration of that optimism and and a thanksgiving for all that has been bestowed upon us by history and providence.

Instead, we have gravely long faces spouting nonsense about a politician in Washington who doesn’t much like that history and wishes to alter the experiment in representative government that has survived a helluva lot more serious threats than some ex-state senator whose claim to fame before achieving office was that he was a failed community organizer who could deliver a speech as long as a teleprompter was in front of his face.

This is a day to remember how impossible it is that we are even having this discussion as a free people. This is a day to remember the incredible odds our founders overcame to defeat the superpower of their day on the battlefield, unite the most disparate and quarrelsome of peoples, write a document that became the model form of government for the world, and went on to conquer a continent, raise a civilization from nothing, and create a nation more free, more dynamic, more powerful, than any other nation in the history of civilized man.

In the history of civilized man.

Are we remembering that today? Nope. Instead, we get crap like this:

If that America is truly no longer relevant, then let us at least spend this Independence Day mourning its death. Weep when you hear the “Star Spangled Banner,” because the broad stripes and bright stars are now tattered and torn. If it still breathes, however, then let us mend it back to strength. Let us be bold in our endeavors, firm in our beliefs, steadfast in our resolve. Let us remember the words of Thomas Paine, who exhorted a people not to revolt, nor to wage war, but to act. The pamphlet urged independence, it’s true. But independence was a means to an end, the last resort of a people whose government wouldn’t listen. The problem wasn’t the crown or parliament, but how the two managed the affairs of the colonies.

Or this tripe:

We are seeing even those small marks of personal pride and independence — the freedom to rev up the engine on a Friday night — taken away. The muscle cars, under the diktat of the president and head of General Motors, are simply being eliminated and replaced by Yugo-style cars. The common retort to my lament is that such a boost to the male ego is silly in light of global warming and the greater good. What I find alarming, though, is that today’s generation submits to such authority.

And what about those from the upper-middle classes who had dreams of becoming doctors, executives, or entrepreneurs? As our president defies history and the Constitution by firing executives, citizens applaud.

It’s a refrain that many on the right are singing today. “All is lost! Woe is us! Obama has destroyed America!”

If you actually believe that Barack Obama could “destroy” what 233 years of blood, sweat, and tears have built then I suggest you find a country more to your liking. I hear France will take just about anybody - especially those willing to wave a white flag at the drop of a hat.

Obama and the democrats will not destroy the United States. Just as Bush and company couldn’t destroy the US as charged by the left. It is a silly, stupid, exaggerated, notion advanced by ignoramuses and not worthy of citizens who reside in a country that survived the occupation of foreign troops, a civil war, and a host of well meaning fools like progressives who believed government was “perfectible,” right wing fanatics who believed the black man wasn’t equal to the white man, radicals of every shape, size, and stripe, and a peanut farmer from Georgia who almost blew up the planet with his naivete and stupidity.

Obama has ignorantly nationalized the auto industry. He has rewarded failure in the financial industry. He is seeking to reduce us to paupery with his spending schemes. And he wants to stick his nose into every nook and cranny of the economy, dictating how much people can earn, and what industries will be winners and losers in his brave new world?

But if you don’t know by now that America is more than Wall Street, more than Washington, D.C., more than the centers of media, entertainment, “green” technologies, unions, liberals, socialists, and incompetent politicians, then you really have no clue what America is all about.

America is an idea. No matter what Obama does - ignorantly or deliberately to change it - he cannot alter the fundamental truths of America nor can he change what should be in each and every one of our hearts; the steadfast, optimistic belief in ourselves as an exceptional people that there is nothing we cannot accomplish if we put our minds to it.

Holy Christ people! Are you saying that you don’t have the same will to succeed as the guys who leveled mountains, bridged mighty rivers, and threw thousands of miles of steel across a continent to connect us by rail? Do you seriously believe that the spirit that animated personalities like Washington, Lincoln, King, and Reagan is lost, that Obama killed it?

Speak for yourselves. Don’t count me in with those who throw up their hands in despair and whine about Obama being a communist (he’s not) or even a socialist (he’s not - he’s a liberal) and that he wants to use illegal aliens to build a permanent Democratic majority. The challenges posed by an Obama presidency are normal political challenges, not a reason to start a war or revolution except in our own minds.

Obama cannot alter the America that lives in our minds and hearts. In the end, each of us defines America in our own way and we imbue that vision with our own experiences, our own worldview. Try as he might, that America is safe as long as we keep it alive with our words and deeds.

Interfering with the free market will not destroy America. Cutting defense spending will not destroy America. Cap and trade may grievously hurt the economy but it won’t destroy America. National Health Insurance may change our relationship with government but it will not destroy America.

The only person capable of destroying America is you - murdering your own personal dream of what America means to you. So quit your bellyaching and get to work. There’s a lot to do in order to shape America into your vision of what she should be.

Hard to see this as anything else. Yeah, she may still run for president in 2012 but, if anything, this makes her an even longer shot. I hate to say this — and I know it will rile some — but I see this as a retreat. She is, to be blunt about it, running away from the savaging she is receiving in the press and from liberals. It’s not exactly cowardice because the press targeted her kids and husband too - something new and despicably low in American politics. But it suggests an inconstancy that presidential candidates shouldn’t have.

She may be doing it for her family now. But if she then shows up in Iowa and New Hampshire asking people for their vote, what are people to think? It’s only going to get worse if she runs in 2012 and people will rightly wonder if she can stand the gaffe. Such doubts will keep the mega money men in the GOP from kicking in. This is not an insurmountable obstacle but it sure makes it harder in those early states for a breakthrough.

If she began her campaign in the fall, she would be eating Romney and Huckafool’s dust. Romney especially has been locking up key personalities in early states and creating a national organization. He has been visible and effective as a spokesman outside of government against Obama’s heavy handed interference in the economy. In short, he is in very good shape. Huckaloser is far behind but has a national TV show on Fox and is effectively presenting himself as Mr. Populist alternative to Romney’s establishmentarianism.

This leaves Palin in an very bad situation. If she had remained as governor, she would have had no chance as Chris Cillizza pointed out a few months ago.

Being from Alaska is a HUGE hurdle for Palin’s national ambitions from a logistical point of view. Alaska is four hours behind east coast time and takes the better part of a day to travel to or from. That means that Palin, if she is committed to running for reelection, can’t simply pop into Iowa or New Hampshire for the day — she needs to take at least two days away from Alaska (a fact her Democratic opponents are sure to take note of) to do the sort of soil-tilling in these early primary and caucus states that is absolutely necessary for a presidential candidate. If she announces some time soon that she will not be running for a second term, she will not only be more free to travel to key states between now and 2010 but will be able to devote full time to campaigning in the critical year between January 2011 and January 2012.

The logistics alone present enormous challenges for even a sitting governor from Alaska. Hence, the clean break that could be followed by a very low key effort to build a national team for a run in 2012. At least, that appears to be her intent. Here’s Michelle Malkin with some excerpts from her press conference that seems to point to some undefined effort to advance her pet issues of energy and national security:

Palin: “I love my job. I love Alaska. It hurts to make this choice. But I’m doing what’s best for Alaska.” Tears in her eyes.

Says she will be able “to effect change from the outside.” America needs protectors of individual rights now more than ever. Promises to always be there for Alaska. Wants to work not just for Alaska, for the rest of the country. Taking a fight for Alaska in a new direction. Quotes MacArthur: “We are not retreating, just advancing in a different direction.”

Lt Gov. Sean Parnell says he receives announcement with a “heavy heart.” Thanks Sarah for inspiring so many.

More from press conference: After touting Alaska’s accomplishments, Palin laments “politics of personal destruction.” Notes attacks. $500,000 in legal bills. “Life is about choices. I choose a path of fruitfulness and productivity. Life is too short to compromise time and resources…I will work very hard for others…I will support others…”
***

Chuck Heath, Palin’s brother, on FNC talking about incessant attacks. Very emotional. “It’s weighed on her a long time.” Couldn’t effectively govern when having to defend herself against attacks.

I have been following politics very closely for 30 years and a decade before that as a fan and the only thing comparable to the rabid, frothing, hateful, exaggerated, off the wall kind of media attacks against Palin I have seen was toward the end of the Nixon administration. And we have never, ever in American political history seen attacks on a politician’s children as we have seen with press and media savagery directed against Palin’s kids. (Spouses are fair game - to a point.) These people are incapable of feeling shame because in order to experience that emotion, one must possess a soul and a conscience.

Jim Geraghty had the best explanation for this extravagant, unprecedented hatred directed against Palin:

Hugh suggested it tied to the contrast between her lifestyle and her critics: “She is the embodiment of the anti-choice, the opposite of every choice that lefty elites have ever made — as to going back home instead of moving to the west coast, having children, having a child with Down’s, staying married to one man the whole time, choosing rural or suburban over urban and living a generally conservative lifestyle, working with her hands . . . That everything she is is the antithesis of everything that liberal urban elites are, so it’s not just enough to say, ‘I disagree with you,’; she has to be repudiated and crushed.”

And now, I would submit a slight refining of that idea, that the seeming happiness of Palin’s life is a 24-7 irritant because it challenges the way some liberals see the world.

Liberals believe that their ideas, philosophy, worldview, and policies liberate believers, and that the conservative equivalents limit people. Liberals see themselves as rejecting outdated beliefs and obsolete ideas, overturning established orders, and discarding traditions established by superstitious and ignorant forebears who weren’t as enlightened as we are. Conservatives, in their minds, are runaway cultural superegos, always wagging their fingers about individual responsibility, dismissing excuses, reminding people that they can’t always do what they want because of the consequences to themselves and to others.

Conservatism, they suspect, will leave you in a marriage that doesn’t satisfy you, burden you with children you don’t want, repress your passions, and trap you in a empty, boring, and unfulfilled life, with no hand of government able to help.

In toto, that may be a little too pat. But I think the gist of the argument rings true. It isn’t enough for liberals and the media to oppose Palin. It isn’t enough to attack her. She must be destroyed, left emotionally drained and gagging at the obscenity of the attacks on her children because she is a danger to their one dimensional, shallow view of conservatives and Christians.

Geraghty also believes this move by Palin makes any success in 2012 a long shot:

Not finishing her first term will provide a major, major, major obstacle to any presidential bid. I thought a 2012 campaign would be a mistake; from today’s comments, it’s not clear whether Palin is still interested in that option.

But the moment she expresses an interest in a presidential bid, every rival, Republican and Democrat, will uncork the ready-made zinger: “If elected, would she serve the full four years, or quit sometime in the third year again?”

But as noted, Palin is 45. Life will go on, after this upcoming presidential election, and the next. People thought Richard Nixon was through after the 1960 election. When Ronald Reagan failed to dislodge President Ford in 1976, people thought he had blown his best chance at the presidency. People thought Bill Clinton destroyed his political future with an endlessly long-winded speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention.

If Palin decides to seek the presidency at the age that Hillary Clinton was when she ran in the 2008 cycle, she will be running in… 2024. That’s a half a generation, and several political lifetimes, away.

Perhaps by then, both conservatives and liberals will have stopped talking about how gorgeous she is.

UPDATE

Allah quotes Geraghty and Ace who believe this is a career ender.

Update: Says Ace, “It’s over. You can’t resign from a governorship and then run for higher office.” I agree. Placing your ambition over your commitment to the state looks shady, especially for someone who won’t have a single full term as governor under her belt for the primaries.

Ordinarily, I would agree with that sentiment. Except, we live in wondrously strange times in American politics and I’m not sure that many of the old verities still hold true. Allah rightly dismisses the Obama comparison Palinites could use to defend her as far as serving time in an important office. But there is the possibility that by the time 2012 rolls around, American politics will be upside down with government at all levels being in such bad odor that running as an “experienced” candidate may be the kiss of death.

Who knows?

Savior, messiah, redeemer - conservatives use these epithets to describe President Obama in a derogatory manner (liberals occasionally get carried away and are serious about those terms when they use them.) More often, I and others on the right use the terms to poke gentle fun at liberals who are quite enamored with our president and his policies.

But looking at Obama’s foreign policy, it is hard not to wonder if this is indeed, how the president sees himself and his role as the planet’s most popular leader.

Let me be clear. Obama does not have a God complex nor does he wish to set himself up as some kind of spiritual guide. In fact, if he does indeed see his role as a redeemer of America, it would be perfectly in keeping with our history and in line with at least one school of thought among historians who see the United States as a pivot around which most of the evils of this world revolve.

Redemption has always been a powerful spiritual and religious theme in America going back to the Puritans who believed that America itself was the word made flesh - a place to redeem mankind from all of its evils. The Great Awakening swept the colonies with a fervent revivalism that sought to redeem the people and the country from having strayed from the true path.

Our unique social movements from abolitionism to temperance, to women’s rights, and especially progressive politics — all sought to employ redemptive imagery and themes to move society in the direction they believed was necessary to save us from spiritual and moral decline.

Nor is there anything new in a president wishing to be a redeemer. Ronald Reagan’s biographer Edmund Morris believed that one could explain The Gipper’s passionate desire to bring conservative principles to government while taking on the Soviet Union by examining his youthful incarnation as lifeguard along the Rock River in Illinois. Morris saw this part of Reagan’s life as a defining moment - a personae RR adopted because of the adulation and recognition he received for having saved so many lives. The experience gave him a life mission and set him off on the road to the presidency.

We could do worse than have a president who looks at America and wishes to redeem her — to force her to come to grips with a sometimes checkered past, while putting in place policies that attempt to right past wrongs.

The problem with Obama, is that we have done worse because we have a president who has crafted policies that subsume American interests to those of other nations and supra-national bodies like the OAS and UN, done in the name of this redemption (i.e., the “restoration” of respect for the US in the world and what Obama sees as the necessary rhetorical nods to past “errors”), but without any apparent understanding of America’s role as the world’s sole superpower and traditional defender of freedom.

Many on the left (and some on the right) see nothing wrong with abandoning America’s superpower status. They believe that the temptation of “empire” has caused problems both at home and abroad by threatening civil liberties at home, human rights abroad, and has saddled us with a tendency to force our will on other nations in order to prevail in international relations.

I sympathize with some of this line of thinking but realistically, we can hardly be anything else. I reject the term “empire” to describe our commitments overseas or our actions relating to thuggish states like Venezuela, Iran, and Syria. There are some very bad actors in this world and to give them the benefit of the doubt by acknowledging that their critique of America’s policies past and present have any validity is to make conflict a likelihood.

Here is where Obama’s high minded, redemptive foreign policy crashes on the shoals of reality and where trying to exercise “moral authority” by granting friend and foe alike the same legitimacy in their complaints about our past bad behavior is so dangerous. For example, accepting the mullahs version of history about the Mossedegh coup will not assuage the Iranian government’s virulent and paranoid anti-Americanism. Two American presidents have already apologized for it and yet, the mullahs still insist that this 50 year old event is the proximate cause for Iran’s suffering.

Obama’s redemptive approach does not allow for the aggrieved party being wrong - about anything. Because of our past actions, any old lie, half truth, or outright exaggeration they wish to use is legitimized because the president has validated some of their grievances. “Give an inch and they take a mile” has been the reaction in unfriendly capitols to Obama’s carefully crafted rhetoric to date.

The same holds true in his reaction to the Honduran ousting of Zeyala where past US misdeeds in Latin America give Chavez, Castro, and their acolytes a ready made hammer to pound on the US because of our support of the banana republic dictators and clumsy interventions over the years. The problem is, their critiques - that Obama is ostensibly using not to support the restoration of democracy in Honduras - are laughably one dimensional and mostly without merit. But the president’s childlike belief that if he agrees with these thugs enough, they will agree to talk about substantive issues of mutual concern, may actually be making it harder in the long term to come to an agreement that would be favorable to US interests.

If we saw any softening at all in these government’s reactions to Obama’s attempt to redeem us in the eyes of the world, I might be inclined to praise the president’s courage and foresight. But the world has never worked the way the president is wishing it would and he is placing US interests in danger as a result.

In essence, if Obama wishes his redemptive approach to foreign policy to be a success, he must, by definition, abandon at least some US interests to achieve it. Perhaps an argument can be made that compromising our interests in the name of reaching a settlement with some of these thuggish regimes is a net plus. I don’t agree for the simple reason that by subsuming our own interests, we place friends and allies in danger. There is usually a reason for identifying American interests as important beyond the Chomsky school of thought that it is purely economic determinism that drives our foreign policy. Moral considerations as well as our traditional support for a stable world order play a much larger role in identifying American interests.

But Obama, who promised us “smart power” and “soft power” is giving us “no power.” In situations like Iran and Honduras, we are paralyzed - beholden to the president’s vision of redeeming America in the eyes of the world even if it means (perhaps especially if it means) ignoring our own interests.

This is a recipe for disaster. When a real crisis hits and the world, as it always does, looks to America, Obama will have boxed himself in and limited his options by insisting on America acting as any other nation even if doing so makes the situation worse. I am not a psychologist so I will not speculate if Obama is afraid of power or is ideologically inclined not to use it. But there will come a time when Obama will be forced to assert American power and risk the disapprobation of the world or watch as a vital interest of the US is threatened.

That public virtue, which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Edward Gibbon:

Much has been written about Governor Mark Sanford’s extramarital affair and I won’t add to it here except to say that his transgression against his marriage got me to thinking about public and private virtue.

The world has changed since America’s founding and the idea that we couldn’t be free without a civic minded citizenry that embraced public virtues and held their leaders to standards of public behavior that insured they were acting in the interests of the people and not selfishly. Back then, modesty, simplicity, probity, prudence, and self-abnegation were pre-requisites for political office. The model of a good republican was George Washington whose impossible adherence to these and other virtues made him an object of near worship to the generation who fought the revolution and wrote the Constitution.

But Washington was hardly perfect, although he tried to be while keeping one eye on history and the other on his “reputation.” He tended his public virtue as a gardener lovingly tends beloved roses, taking extreme, almost obsessive care that his public actions reflected the carefully crafted public image he had worked so hard to create. (This obsessiveness led him to destroy much of his personal correspondence with his wife before his death lest history find him a hypocrite.)

It would be grossly unfair to compare today’s politicians with Washington. But the public virtues he nurtured are as important to the idea of maintaining a republican government today as they were then.

Where have they gone?

It is not a modern phenomenon, this loss of public virtue in our political leaders. The degrading of public morals has been a long, slow, slide rather than a precipitous fall. But today, very few public servants actually “serve” the public, preferring to dust off their public virtues every two, four, or six years and parade them before the people around election time, as if the true nature of their cynical misappropriation of the public trust never happened.

We have seen greed, avarice, a lust for power and influence beyond reason, and the greatest sin of all - enriching oneself at the expense of the people - become more and more common. Congress votes itself more perks, more ways to separate themselves from their constituents until we get Barbara Boxer sternly informing a general testifying before her committee to address her by her “title” - senator - and not “ma’am” as the general was referring to her. The fact that a public servant would even consider the idea that she had been given a title says much about the attitude of our political leaders toward public virtue and civic-mindedness.

Sanford did not transgress against any public virtues by playing around on his wife. But how much separation is there really between public and private morality? Heather McDonald doesn’t think there is much of a connection at all:

For I otherwise don’t believe that there is a close connection between public and private virtue. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was an execrable father and husband but a transformative mayor, who understood as a gut matter some fundamental principles about the public realm and the responsibilities of citizens towards each other. Not all our Founding Fathers were paragons of fidelity. Bill Clinton’s ability to nudge the Democratic agenda towards a modest repudiation of the welfare state was untouched by his irrelevant womanizing. Sanford’s initial stance on the stimulus package was a valuable one, and it is amusing to see the media left seize on his marital transgressions to discredit it yet again.

[...]

Sanford did make his private life a matter of public concern, however, by his self-involved failure to secure the chain of command during his disappearance.

I would disagree with McDonald on the basis of private virtue — keeping sacred one’s promise to be faithful - as being reflective of and relevant to a politician’s basic trustworthiness. Clinton’s private peccadilloes directly led to his public transgression of lying to a grand jury. Whether that was impeachable is still being debated. But he was disbarred because of it and suffered the ignominy of having the House vote out articles of impeachment.

As far as Giuliani, right or wrong, he lost votes because of his messy personal life. Voters made the connection between public and private virtue even if McDonald doesn’t believe they should. And I suspect voters in South Carolina are making that same connection today.

If a politician swindles his business partner in the private sector, should we ignore that because of the public virtues he touts during his election campaign? People will draw their own conclusions and vote accordingly.

I would argue that not only has private virtue been undermined by our materialistic, hedonistic society but that public virtue has suffered the same fate. The cynicism is incredible. Nobody believes politicians act in the public interest anymore and why should they? They don’t. They don’t even pretend anymore. William Jefferson’s $90,000 in a freezer and Duke Cunningham’s written list of amounts it would take to buy his earmark are symptomatic of an attitude on the part of our politicians that is rending the fabric of our republic and destroying the idea of free, representative government.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

We get the government we deserve. And not demanding our politicians adhere to simple, republican virtues in their public life may have already ruined the dreams of the Founders beyond repair.

I don’t get it. What earthly good is it doing, raising the issues surrounding the candidacy of Sarah Palin for Vice President among the “professionals” who ran John McCain’s horribly mismanaged campaign?

I put pros in quotes because this latest dust-up is all about the gigantic egos of the principles in this scrum - a quite unprofessional attitude that helps no one except the opposition . And also because the McCain campaign will go down as one of the worst managed campaigns in history, rivaling Michael Dukakis’s nightmare of a run and the quixotically inept campaign of George McGovern.

But it is mostly ego driving Bill Kristol, Schmidt, Scheunamann, and the rest of the losers who refuse to stand up and say “I blew it.” Admittedly, such an admission is hard to make when one’s reputation, and hence, livelihood, is based on success at the polls. But you don’t have to be a brilliant strategist to see that the McCain campaign was poorly managed - slow to respond to the day-to-day jousting with the Obama team, not to mention a questionable overall strategy, curious ad buys, poor decisions on staffing state offices, and a host of other missteps that doomed McCain almost from the start.

And that’s not even mentioning Sarah Palin. Readers of this site know that when she was chosen, I was jubilant, believing it was a real game changer. But subsequently, it became painfully obvious that not only wasn’t she ready for the national stage, but the way the McCain camp was “handling” the Alaska governor guaranteed that her inexperience would remain an issue for the entire campaign.

Stacy McCain refuses to come out and say Palin wasn’t ready, but in her defense, he blames everyone else for Palin’s own missteps:

Palin would have been solid gold in any impromptu encounter with reporters on the campaign trail. Putting her into one-on-one interviews with the network anchors — eager to draw blood with “gotcha” questions — was a stupid blunder on the part of the campaign.

To schedule those interviews, and then to arrange sessions to “prepare” her for them, was to imply that she was incapable of handling the interviews without the “expert” assistance of the Team Maverick brain trust which, of course, had committed her to these interviews in the first place.

Am I the only one who sees that the problem with how Palin was “handled” had nothing to do with Palin and everything to do with the handlers? She is being made the scapegoat for the failures of others.

Stacy knows full well that running on a national ticket is not a game for the inexperienced. It is absolutely true that Palin was “mismanaged.” But the Couric interview showed that no amount of managing or coaching would have helped. She was as green as grass and Couric bored in as any experienced interviewer would have. Is Stacy saying that it is Couric’s fault that she asked questions that just about any experienced politician would have been able to finesse but that Palin couldn’t handle?

Palin was indeed, inexperienced and not ready for the Big Show. There is nothing wrong with her innate intelligence. She’s no dummy and has shown that when’s she’s well briefed, she can more than hold her own in debate.

But it takes more than brains to demonstrate readiness for national office and more than a good briefing to have a handle on issues. Palin wasn’t only inexperienced in dealing with the national press. Her biggest lack of experience came from not having immersed herself in the nuance and details of policy, personalities, and politics - a failing that she will no doubt correct if she is going to run in 2012. Such immersion gives depth to a politician’s personae and authority to their words.

Palin will do better if she runs again. But she won’t be able to lose the “diva” label unless Kristol, Schmidt, et al stop talking about the campaign as if it were all about them. Their incompetence elected Barack Obama and gave us the dumbest, densest Vice President in history (Funny no one does a hit piece on the horribly gaffe prone Joe Biden and his friends in the credit card industry who have made him a wealthy man.) And yet, here they are, snarling, sniping, and acting like 12 year old little girls at a slumber party who break off into little cliques dishing dirt on someone across the room:

“Steve Schmidt has a congenital aversion to the truth,” Scheunemann said. “On two separate and distinct occasions, he speculated about about Governor Palin having post-partum depression, and on the second he threatened that if more negative publicity about the handling of Governor Palin emerged that he would leak his speculation [about post-partum depression] to the press. It was like meeting Tony Soprano.”

Schmidt said Scheunemann’s charges were “categorically untrue.”

“It is inappropriate for me to discuss personnel issues from the campaign,” Schmidt continued. “But suffice it to say Randy is saying these things not because they’re true but because he wants to damage my reputation because of consequences he faced for actions he took.”

Schmidt is alluding, without saying so directly, to the stories that emerged after the campaign that Scheunemann had been fired.

Scheunemann said Schmidt did try to fire him but added: “I’ve got a pay stub through November 15th.”

The questions about Scheunemann being terminated are central to the larger battle about who was trashing Palin, something that quickly came to the surface in the back and forth between Schmidt and Kristol on Tuesday.

All of this came about as a result of an article in Vanity Fair about Palin that is so bad, much of it has to be a lie, or at least an exaggeration. No human being I know is as bad as the portrait painted of Palin in that article. No one could achieve the success she has in her career if she was truly as monstrous as the person described.

But beyond the description of Palin, one wonders why now? Why a hit piece more than 3 years before the election?

Two reasons come to mind: 1) Palin is such a polarizing figure that anything written about her sells copy; and 2) There is a growing recognition among liberal elites that Obama is heading for a one term presidency unless they can destroy each and every Republican challenger who emerges.

It’s no accident that the name “Carter” is being whispered more and more around Washington to describe Obama. Stimulus isn’t working, debt is skyrocketing, people may like Obama but support for his policies is tanking, largely due to the realization of how much his programs are going to cost us.

Republicans are liked even less but individual politicians are ranked much higher. Trying to destroy Palin, Romney, Huckabee, and anyone else who may emerge in the coming months could be the only way Obama gets a second term.

Why Kristol and Schmidt think the Democrats need a hand in that process is a mystery.