Predictions For The Next Two Years

Here's a bold, against the grain prediction for the next 2 years. Barack Obama will NOT push the extreme liberal agenda many in Congress want, and supporters will demand.


Like it or not, and many on the left will be in the NOT category, Obama has a couple of problems with pushing the repressed liberal agenda through to law. It's another case of reality meeting rhetoric.


The first is the economy, stupid. He can't afford a bunch of new social spending when he's already looking at a TWO TRILLION dollar deficit for next year. That's a big number, but with the bailout, and another looming economic stimulus, and a Detroit Bailout there just isn't the money. He knows he can only raise taxes on so many, so far, and not finish killing the economy.


Second, history. In the last 32 years the Democrats have controlled both houses of congress, and 1600 Pennsylvania for a total of 6 years. They lost 2 of 3 in 1980, finally got them all back in 1992; and then lost the House in 1994, and the Senate a few years later. All of the losses are easily attributable to pushing to big a social agenda too fast and coming up with economically horrible game plans; 1994 being the best case in point of it.


If you look at the choice of John Podesta as transition coordinator; and probably senior cabinet member; and Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff Obama has grabbed a couple of Clinton advisers that not only know what was done right in those 8 years, but what was done wrong. They'll probably both work towards a somewhat moderate agenda until after the mid term elections. It's entirely possible they'll work on him, and congress, to push a close to centrist agenda until 2012, to ensure a second term and continuing majorities.


Third, it's still the economy, stupid. Some of the pet projects of Democrats are going to get held off on until the economy recovers. One of the surprises in the first 100 days will be that the union backed "card check" legislation won't get signed into law, it may not make it in the first two years.


Obama and his advisers are smart enough to know that increasing labor costs when the job pool is shrinking isn't a great idea. So it will be brought up to placate the union bosses who supported him. But then will die because of a GOP threatened filibuster in the Senate.


So what will liberals get to keep them happy? They'll see a reimportation bill pass, to allow buying drugs from Canada. They may even get some modest price controls on drug bought through medicare with a "negoiated price" on many popular drugs.


SCHIP will expand to higher income levels. It will be hard to demonize childrens health care when the unemployment rate is going up. The GOP may be able to push through a timeframe on the expansion though, or economic milestones that bring it back to the current level.


The Bush tax cuts that took 30 million off the tax rolls will get extended, and some of them will be allowed to expire, specifically say "Welcome Back!" to the death tax and marriage penalty. Capital gains may end up off the table for a while, but increasing withholding for Social Security, in some form, for incomes over $200,000 will probably happen.


Liberals will also get a "security agreement" with Iraq that will bring everyone home in a relatively short amount of time. They'll also claim any problems after they leave aren't their problem because of such an agreement. Anyone looking for a long term basing agreement such as we have with Kuwait and Bahrain will be sorely disappointed.

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P.J. O'Rourke on Politics

Many years ago I got into reading P.J. O'Rourke, it started with "Parliment of Whores", and I ended up reading many of his books. His appeal was not only that he's conservative, but as a conservative, unafraid to bash the right along with the left when he see's them veering off course.

The fact that satire is his preferred method of delivery helped hook me. Unlike William F. Buckley and George Will, who are brilliant writers, but end up being dry and lecturing, O'Rourke's mix of humor with fact made it easier for me to follow him, and led to a better understanding of the Will's and Buckley's of the world.

At the Cato Benefactor Summit, O'Rourke was at it again. The text of his speech in the spring volume of Cato's Letter, (pdf file) and he hits both sides, though he saves most of his ire for the Democrats.

A lot of conservative bloggers are picking up on one of the big quotes from the speech:

Two substantive political issues are the federal budget deficit and the war in Iraq. Now, if you’re electing Democrats to control government spending, then you’re marrying Angelina Jolie for her brains.

This leaves the Democrats with one real issue: Iraq. And so far the best that any Democratic presidential candidate has been able to manage with Iraq is to make what I think of as the high school sex promise: I will pull out in time, honest dear.

We've already seen with the broken promises on earmark reforms, and the attempted expansion of SCHIP to cover folks making $80,000 a year that the first part of the quote is right on target.

The second part is pretty easy for folks to get if they understand the folly of the Murtha "redeploy to Okinawa" strategy, or Obama's "reintroduction of troops, if needed" thoughts. The problem is, to understand the folly of either of those strategies, you have to have a good understanding how both militaries, and abandoned countries work.

The left has a bunch of folks who understand the latter, and promptly ignore it. What they've learned from Rwanda and Somolia, Viet Nam, etc. has no bearing (to them) in Iraq. They have a serious lack of understanding of the former, with a few mouthpieces like Wesley Clark and Tony McPeak, who refuse to bring their actual military knowledge to the conversation because it completely contridicts their political agendas.

Another great quote from the speach is this one on the problem of politics:

The key ingredient of politics is the idea that all of society’s ills can be cured politically. It’s like a cookbook where the recipe for everything is to fry it. The fruit cocktail is fried. The soup is fried. The salad is fried. So is the ice cream and cake. And your pinot noir is rolled in bread crumbs and dunked in the deep fat fryer. It is just no way to cook up public policy.

He is slightly off on this quote though. I actually enjoy fried ice cream, and most Mexican restaurants serve it. His lack of fine dining knowledge doesn't really diminsh the quote, though.

To see his point, you have to be willing to look at the areas where public policy was going to fix a problem, and made it worse instead. One of the most recent examples was the Democrat's "fixing" of the problem of student loans last fall, after the '07-08 school year loans were written.

Big bad banks were making too much money on servicing them. The (political) solution of course was to change the way the program worked, limit the returns banks could see on loans, and limit their options on dealing with defaults.

That "solution" drove a large number of the biggest student loan lenders to leave the business, and now for the 2008-2009 college year, there is a lack of lending available for students. Now Congress is once again "fixing the problem", and we'll see how bad they screw it up this time.

O'Rourke also spends time speaking about the most important number in politics, not votes but the lowest common denominator, to make everything fair.

No matter how foolish, irresponsible, selfish, grasping, or vile everyone may be, politics seeks fairness for them all.

Then goes on to give the example of his 10 year old daughter, who complains when things aren't fair:

“Honey, you’re cute; that’s not fair. Your family is pretty well off; that’s not fair. You were born in America; that’s not fair. Honey, you had better pray to God that things don’t start getting fair for you.”

We'd all better hope that things don't get made more "fair" for us, as most of Europe has proven, fairness only leads to brokeness for the majority. But at least it's fair that everyone's broke.

You'll have to go back to the link above and read the whole speech to find out who the Seven Dwarf's are, what Canada can teach us, and when price fixing is a good thing.

(H/T to Charlie for leading me to this piece)

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Erica Jong... Fear of Math!

Erica Jong has an article up at the Huffington Post that made me laugh, hard, about her lacking skills at both research, and math. You'd think an author, who posts to the internet could use Google or Wikipedia to check her facts.

"Why I Am So Afraid" shows the depths of despair of guilty liberal elites when they realize the Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot (again).

First, let's get to Erica's deficiencies. According to her, we are spending $12 Billion A DAY in Iraq. I'll do the math for her, that comes out to 4.3 trillion dollars a year, 50% more than the entire US Budget for FY 2008. Even 10-12 million a day would be hard to figure, since that would have 75% of the defense budget and off budget requests being spent there. But hey, what's being off by a factor of 1000 matter when you are making a point, right.

Erica also thinks we spend more on war than our people:

If anyone in Washington read history, they'd understand that any empire that spends more in war than on its people eventually goes down in flames.

Only one problem with that theory, we aren't close to spending as much on the war in Iraq, or the military in general, as we do on people. Mandatory Spending for 2008's budget was listed at 1.79 trillion dollars, while the discretionary portion (which includes much more than war) was 1.14 trillion. Social Security alone was higher than the DoD budget and GWOT budget combined!

If you add in HUD, Transportation, Education, Labor and Interior budgets to money spent on "people" and subtract the debt from mandatory spending, you end up with about 70% of the federal budget going to people, and 30% going to not only war, but everything else.

But then, why both fact checking, or even writing factual articles, when the lemmings that read it believe everything you say. (You can check my numbers, lest I call you lemmings.)

Now, on to the real issues she's dealing with. The real problem she's having though, is that Hillary and Barack are beating each other to death in the primaries, and letting John McCain grow his lead over both of them. Had she just said that, and not bothered with the Bush bashing hyperbole and LIES her article might have had some merit. Instead, it's another joke of a post at Huffington.

If you want to get into the other aspect of her post, the characterizations of Clinton and Obama as a beaver and a stallion, go check out Brainster.

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Naive On Iraq

I think someone at the Washington Post missed the memo on not criticizing Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on their Iraq stands. Today's lead editorial in the Post is titled "Fantasies on Iraq", and skewers both Clinton and Obama's stances on ending the war and naive and short sighted.

The Post, or at least the editorial board, seem to be getting the fact that if the US leaves Iraq, someone will have to fill the security vacuum, and there aren't many good choices out there.

How bad is it for Obama and Clinton? Well, here's the best line of the editorial, and one that shows how little the folks at WaPo think of the two's withdrawal ideas.

In all, Ms. Clinton and Mr. Obama speak as if they have no understanding of Iraqi leaders, whom they propose to treat as willing puppets.

It's not the first time they've spoken like that. Their stands on NAFTA and other trade agreements share that same trait. They seem to think that every leader will bend to their wishes, and there will be no repercussions from their actions.

I guess we can hope that this is all a big show to try and appeal to the base of their voters while the two are still locked in a tough primary struggle, and that after the convention the winner will gain some common sense.

Maybe, now that the Post has had the courage to call out the candidates on their stands more folks from the MSM will start asking them tough questions about it, and asking for answers, not campaign slogans.

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Turning Back Time

Evidently Barack Obama will be able to reverse time if he is elected to the Presidency. If he's elected, suddenly it will be 2002 again, and we won't invade Iraq, Saddam Hussein will still be in power, and Al Qaeda wont' be there.

That's the basic gist of his being called to the carpet for saying he wouldn't hesitate to send US troops back to Iraq "if Al Qaeda established a base there".

When McCain (rightfully) pointed out that Al Qaeda is in Iraq already Barack started dancing the "you're just like George Bush" two step, concentrating on the fact that it's Bush's fault we're in Iraq and McCain supported him.

That may be relevant on a certain level, but the fact is, it doesn't speak to the here and now, which is and should be more relevant than the past.

A few questions the senator should be asked, but evidently won't because it might embarrass him are:

1. Will Iraq be a safer place if we leave?
2. Will violence in Iraq continue to decrease as it has since the surge began(by over 60%)?
3. Will the Sunni's who turned on Al-Qaeda in Iraq to help the US side with a government they don't have faith in?
4. Will the region as a whole be more stable if we leave?
5. Will we have the clout in the region to help shape policy if we leave?

If the answer to any one of these questions were "no" it would probably point to pulling out being an unwise decision. The truth is the answer to all 5 is no, meaning that pulling out would probably be a disaster, both for Iraq, and US foreign policy in the region. However, that truth doesn't matter when you are panding for votes in the base of your party.

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Good News In Iraq?

What will the defeatists have to say about the latest news out of Iraq? The news is that US casualties are the lowest in 14 months, and Iraqi civilian casualties fell by over 50% in the last month.

While the Harry Reid sect will claim any casualty is one too many (and in the Neverland they live in, that's true), the fact is this week's report is more proof that no matter how the Defeatocrat party spins it, "The Surge" is working in Iraq, and progress is happening. It may be one of the reasons that none of the Democratic presidential candidates would commit in last weeks debate to have all US troops out of Iraq by 2013.

Another sign of progress, on the political front, is the Iraqi PM's nose thumbing of a Senate Resolution asking that Iraq divide itself into three sectarian based regions. The PM isn't the only one in the act, scores of Iraqi politico's, across all the sectarian lines have told the US Senate to pack sand. Maybe the US Senate is just what Iraqi's government needs to make progress; a common enemy for the Sunni, Shiite and Kurd members.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Insurgents, Congress, Politics

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Still No Unity

My title doesn't refer to Iraq, where our Congress would have us believe that not having complete unity of the country after 5 years makes any efforts there a complete failure. Instead, it refers to this article in today's Washington Post, about the lack of full unity in Bosnia.

It seems that 12 years after ending their civil war, they still have no national security force, instead it's divided between the two ethnic enclaves in the country. Yet that country is the example of how to "do it right" by some on the left. Funny, but they are fractured into two major "sectors", each lead by it's own leader, reporting to a PM, each supplying it's own security forces, even in different uniforms. That's not exactly a "unified" country.

I bring it up because I'm surprised the Post published the story. It gives credence to the idea that maybe our Congress is pushing for too much to fast in Iraq, and setting unrealistic benchmarks. Hell, it will probably become fodder for the legion of right wing talk radio hosts and bloggers to point out that progress is slow in new democracies.

And rightfully so; it took 3 years for the fledgling US to come up with the Articles of Confederation, our first shot at a national unity government. It failed after just a few years, and we started from scratch with the Constitution we now have. It was five and a half years after the end of the Revolutionary war before we had a President under the Constitution; that was 13 years after we declared our independence. Iraq, though, should have everything done in under six, with no infighting or problems, right?

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Bosnia, United States, Government, Unity

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Big Surprise

So, was anyone surprised over the last few days when the Democrats attacked Gen. Petraeus' assessment of the situation in Iraq? If you were, you've had your head in the sand for quite a while. Last Saturday in his radio address Harry Reid basically said the exact things about Petraeus' testimony as he did AFTER he heard it.

For months conservative commentators, including me, have said that because of the reduction in violence in Iraq (about 35% according to Petraeus) that Democrats would start moving the target from violence to political benchmarks.

While our congress wants to complain about "lack of political progress in Iraq", how would they fair if they were given such benchmarks? We are less than three weeks from a new fiscal year, how many of the 13 appropriations bills have been passed? CongressPedia has a pretty good run down on what's been going on with our own budget. (0 appropriates bills have made it through conference committee yet).

While our own Senators and Congressmen (and women) complained of the Iraqi Parliment's August recess, they took 3 weeks off themselve, not passing any legislation.

While our legislators complain of the lack of progress in Iraq, they ignore the fact that from January 21st until the August recess Iraq's parliment had passed more "real" legislation than our own Congress (0ver 60 items to 57). Maybe if we spent less times on hearings about Iraq, and more on hearings about what's going on in our own country we'd have a budget done, and some of the reforms promised last year by the Democrats.

Instead, we have endless "gotcha hearings" and no real political progress in our own country. I'll be our congress is happy that no one gave them any benchmarks.

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Politics, Politics, Politics

The Democratic party is the gift that keeps on giving for guys like me. I mentioned that they were "fractured" a few days ago, and they keep on proving it, as usual.

Shoprat, a frequent reader and commenter gets it right when he says that having that many victims groups under the same umbrella makes it impossible to not be fractured.

While everyone expected the GOP to beat on John Murtha's proposal to basically abandon the troops in Iraq with no back ups, no spares, and no hope of winning, who'd have thought his own party would begin beating on him too.

Murtha's problem is while his plan keeps the anti-war activists in the base happy, the coalition of Blue Dog Democrats are balking. They remember that they promised during the election not to let a stunt like Murtha's happen if the Democrats controlled Congress.

The other fun part with the Democrats is the jousting in the run up to next years primary elections. After last weeks jabs from David Geffen the Hillary Clinton camp has let all of the contenders know that Bill's impeachment is subject not to be raised.

According to Hillary's new selective memory, January 1993-January 2001 were Camelot Redux, with only good things happening in government and America. And if you have the guts, as Geffen did, to remind people of the truth, expect the weight of the Clintonista machine to fall on you, quickly.

Geffen got it right, while the Clinton's may be able to bully their own party into amnesia about the problems the White House had in that administration, they'll have no such luck in a general election fight. The GOP will remind people, mercilessly, about guys like Vince Foster, $100,000 profits in one day of trading, and weird land deals that got friends put in jail.

The Democrats are better off defending Obama's lack of experience, than trying to rewrite the Clinton experience. All they need to do is ask John Kerry and Al Gore how well rewriting history works to get you elected.

Technorati Tags: Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Murtha, Democrats, GOP, Congress, Iraq, Politics

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Fractured Democrats

Funny things are happening with the party in charge of Congress lately. The kumbaya moments from November's election victory are quickly dissipating as Iraq, and the next set of elections start taking center stage.

As I mentioned last night, Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha's position on Iraq has come under fire from Dick Cheney, who was on the news this morning not only standing by his comments, but increasing his attacks on Pelosi & Co.

Hillary and Barack Obama are fueding over who Hollywood should be supporting, and it's turning into an ugly throw down. Everyone expected Hillary to take off the gloves in the fight for the White House, it was a given. I don't think anyone expected haymakers to be thrown in the first round of the fight. Obama, to his credit, isn't doing a bob and weave, but instead firing body shots right back at the Senator from New York.

And finally, in what would be a huge blow to the party, Joe Lieberman has mentioned he could change his caucus vote to the GOP if the Democrats try to undermine funding for the war in Iraq.

A Lieberman switch would move Senate control back to the GOP, and lead to a bloodletting of the Democratic leadership in the Senate. Harry Reid has to know this and I'm wondering what he's going to do to both placate Lieberman, and the ultra liberal base that is running the party agenda.

Fun times in politics folks!

Technorati Tags: Lieberman, Pelosi, Cheney, Clinton, Obama, Murtha, Iraq, Congress, Senate, Reid

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It's Your Plan, Not Your Patriotism

Memo To Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha: Dick Cheney didn't question your patriotism when he said:

"I think if we were to do what Speaker Pelosi and Congressman Murtha are
suggesting, all we will do is validate the Al Qaeda strategy. The Al Qaeda strategy is to break the will of the American people, try to persuade us to throw in the towel and come home, and then they win because we quit."

No where in there does he call them anything resembling "unpatriotic"; he just stated what they are suggesting validates what Osam Bin Laden has said before, that when the going gets tough the US get's going.

Lest you forgot, here is what Osama had to say (thanks Black Five):

"After leaving Afghanistan, the Muslim fighters headed for Somalia and prepared for a long battle, thinking that the Americans were like the Russians," bin Laden said. "The youth were surprised at the low morale of the American soldiers and realized more than before that the American soldier was a paper tiger and after a few blows ran in defeat. And America forgot all the hoopla and media propaganda ... about being the world leader and the leader of the New World Order, and after a few blows they forgot about this title and left, dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat."

You see, Madam Speaker, what Dick Cheney said wasn't beneath the dignity of his office, or a questioning of your patriotism, it was a statement of fact that you seem to need to keep hidden under a rug.

Now, instead of your strawman arguement of questioning your patriotism, how about telling the American people how your strategy doesn't validate the above statement. Your constant grumbling about the (supposed) questioning of your patriotism is beneath the dignity of your office.

Technorati Tags: Pelosi, Murtha, Cheney, Iraq, Al Qaeda

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More Reindeer Games

Congress is getting ready, after their short hiatus, to start playing more reindeer games with Iraq.

Since they know that an actual vote to defund Iraq won't pass, guys like John Murtha are now looking instead towards ideas like setting training bars so high for military units that they can't be deployed anytime in the next couple of years.

Granted, the Constitution does give Congress the power to provide for the training of the military. However, when unqualified congresscritters not qualified military minds start micromanaging everything about running the military, you end up with a military that is incapable of doing it's job.

Were the leadership of Congress to have the actual cajones to propose a vote to defund the war I'd disagree with them, but I'd have some respect for them. The end runs and side steps show a Congress that is even more weak willed when it comes to polls than it does when it comes to the war itself.

Since appropriates bills aren't subject to Senate cloture vote rules (60 to get to the floor), I would suggest that the Congress put into the 2008 Defense budget a proviso to deny all military funding for any excursions outside the US until such time that US troops have left Iraq. Then bring it to a vote. That would give the President until October 1st to get the troops home.

I won't be holding my breath waiting for Congress to put such legislation into writing. Democrats are too worried about "not supporting the troops" to actually vote on what they believe is right. Instead we'll the type of junk Murtha and Pelosi are talking about, lest they tick off the pollsters.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, War, Bush, Congress, Pelosi, Murtha, Troops, funding

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Broder on Bush

David S. Broder, syndicated columnist, has an interesting piece on a possible "Bush Bounce" because of some tactic changes by him over the last month or so.

I'm not convinced Broder is totally right that Bush can make anything of a substantial comeback; he's beyond being damaged goods and closer to being a total wreck. However, Bush has done some things that are going to help him, and hamstring the Democrats in Congress, specifically on Iraq, and in a broader sense, moving into 2008's election season.

I agree with Broder that by softening his rhetoric on the non-binding resolutions in Congress, and calling them meaningful debate, it dulls that sword being aimed at him. He's actually allowing them to pay out enough rope to hang themselves later on with the Iraq issue, in fact.

If we all remember back to August through November of 2006, one of the centerpieces of the Democratic campaign was that the new congress was going to be inclusive; unlike it's predecessor, which didn't allow opposing debate on many issues. Yet the Iraq resolutions have proven that promise to be a falsehood, as no GOP members have been allowed in introduce any resolutions of their own.

Secondly, and this is where the left is getting it wrong, the debate over funding for Iraq will not be pretty, but they don't get which direction they need to go on it. The folks over at Talk Left and Atrios seem to think that by allowing funding the Democrats are going to hurt themselves, as usual not looking at the bigger picture of Iraq and the area as a whole.

The region as a whole is going on a weapons buying binge, good for your stocks if you hold the right ones, but not great for stability in the area. It's easy to deduce why, too, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and other relatively stable countries in the region are seriously worried about what happens to them if we abandon Iraq. As long as the whack jobs of the region are busy dealing with us in Iraq, they are relatively safe.

If, as the left would like, Congress votes to cut off money, and we pull our forces out of the region, they end up with a vacuum that will have to be filled. Unfortunately for our interests and those of most of the western world, the country in the region best equipped to fill that vacuum is Iran, and everyone else knows it. Hence the buying binge on new weapons by others.

The problem here is that the left, in their standard narrow vision of everything, don't see that as an issue, yet. They will if it hit's them upside the head with $100/bbl oil prices as suppliers start worrying about the safety of shipments from the region.

This, not funding the war, is what would cause the left the most grief. You see, that would be the problem they'd have to take ownership of, not continuing to try and provide security to Iraq. If they vote for funding, and their resolution, they can point to the fact they've opposed the president, and supported the troops with what they need. If they vote to cut off funding, they have to stand behind that, and whatever occurs in the region as being of their own doing.

Bush, and the folks in the GOP with the guts to stand with him would be able to (correctly) point to the fact that wider regional conflict wasn't due to us being in Iraq, but occurred when we left, and they'd be able to point a finger at exactly who the architects of that plan were.

And that is where he'll get the biggest bounce, not from being nice to the media, or playing well with Pelosi and Co. over a few domestic issues.

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Iran, War, Democrats, Bush, Congress, Funding, Broder

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