15 Minutes

Last week a radio host I listen to on the weekends got his 15 minutes (actually much more) of national fame. James T. Harris was on just about every cable news talk show around, having to explain himself for two things. One, begging; a word he wishes he had replaced; John McCain to "take it to Obama", two, for the offense of being black and not supporting Barack Obama.

How bad did it get for him? Death threats, thousands of angry e-mails, some rather disgusting cartoons. Follow the link to the comments on his National Conversation Blog and see how he was treated.

Or, watch some of the YouTube video's of him on CNN.

Now comes Joe the Plumber's turn "in the barrel". Joe's crime was that he asked a question that Barack Obama gave the wrong answer to. Now, Joe's getting his tax records looked at, his license (or lack of) checked out by the media.

Everyone is focusing on Joe. There are rumors that some remenant of the Keating 5 planted him at the Obama walk around, or that Fox News had him there as a plant.

The conspiracy theories from the left are laughable. It doesn't matter if "Joe the Plumber" was planted by Keating left-overs, coached by Karl Rove, paid by Fox News, and was the love child of Rush Limbaugh, it was OBAMA who answered the question. Barack was the one who said he wanted to "spread the wealth"; through higher taxes.

No matter what Joe did or asked, he couldn't force "The One" to give that answer, unless of course there is some right wing thought machine out there that can plant those answers in Obama's head. If they had that technology, I'm sure Obama would have been on the debate claiming that Karl Marx was his idol, and that socialism is good for America.

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Obama Race Baiting

Rush Limbaugh, who I'm no fan of, has accused Barack Obama of race baiting ,(link to WSJ article) with hispanic voters the target of some vicious, and absolutely contrived comments.

What Obama's campaign has done is take one and two second snipets out of longer comments by Limbaugh to make them sound very anti-hispanic, and then linked (here's the punch line) John McCain to Limbaugh through these.

First the punchline. Anyone with half a brain, who's listened to Rush in the last 6 months knows that off nearly all the possible GOP candidates, McCain is the one he hates. He's spent time equating voting for McCain to voting for Hillary Clinton, saying we'll get the same goverment. So the idea that McCain is some huge, Limbaugh fan, linked to everything he says is, well, a joke.

Now to the ads themselves. As Rush says in his editorial piece on the Wall St. Journal (linked above) the ads are both deceptive, and truly race baiting. Here's the narrative of one of them:

"They want us to forget the insults we've put up with . . . the intolerance . . . they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much."

Then the commercial flashes two quotes from me: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!"

And then a voice says, "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote . . . and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain . . . more of the same old Republican tricks."

Now, both quotes, "Stupid unskilled Mexican's" and "You shut your mouth or you get out" sound pretty bad. Actually, when taken in context, which Obama didn't do, they aren't. One (unskilled) was from 1993 when Limbaugh was railing about NAFTA opponents, and turning their arguement back on them, specifically that the loss of low skill jobs here was okay, because we'd have better one's:

"If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

Limbaugh wasn't calling Mexican's stupid and unskilled, he was mocking the folks who argued that the only jobs that would leave were the one's that would be filled by stupid unskilled people, so NAFTA would be okay. If anything, considering their rhetoric about NAFTA this year, the Obama folks should be embracing Limbaugh's 1993 rants about the agreement.

The "Shut Up" comment, though, is even more telling of Obama's race baiting. It had nothing to do with hispanic immigrants in the US. It was, instead, about the Mexican immigration laws, and their government's hypocrisy about immigration.

As for the second sound bite, I was mocking the Mexican government's double standard -- i.e., urging open borders in this country while imposing draconian immigration requirements within its own borders. Thus, I took the restrictions Mexico imposes on immigrants and appropriated them as my own suggestions for a
new immigration law.

Here's the context for that sound bite: "And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail."

To take it farther, while the Mexican goverment is looking for full rights for it's citizens who move north, moving south is nearly impossible, unless you are rich and can buy a large business. Even then, their goverment restricts property rights, voting rights, and the other things Limbaugh railed about.

Taken in context, it's obvious that Limbaugh isn't making charges or talking down to mexican immigrants, he's talking about the hypocrisy of their government, and the laughability of the NAFTA arguements.

As much as I hate it I have to agree with Limbaugh, that to take the comments in the context that Obama's camp has is nothing less than a full out race baiting attack designed to attract hispanic voters.

These are definitely not the politics of hope, and the politics of change. Instead Obama is practicing the politics of fear and lies at it's lowest level.

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Paglia Defends Palin

Camille Paglia, noted (but strange, imho) feminist has come out in defense of Sarah Palin in her latest Salon column. She doesn't defend her to the point of endorsing the McCain-Palin ticket, but instead by claiming that Palin represents a new kind of feminism that has to be approached and applauded by the uber-left feminists on the Gloria Steinham end of the spectrum.

She skewers the democratic party, and the partisans that are attacking Palin as the folks who will bring the party down, not save it (or us) from the 'evil right wing'.

The witch-trial hysteria of the past two incendiary weeks unfortunately reveals a disturbing trend in the Democratic Party, which has worsened over the past decade. Democrats are quick to attack the religiosity of Republicans, but Democratic ideology itself seems to have become a secular substitute religion. Since when did Democrats become so judgmental and intolerant? Conservatives are demonized, with the universe polarized into a Manichaean battle of us versus them, good versus evil. Democrats are clinging to pat group opinions as if they were inflexible moral absolutes. The party is in peril if it cannot observe and listen and adapt to changing social circumstances.

I'd suggest the Democrats may not be able to adapt. The party has become so rigid in it's identity politics dogma, that any change is seen as abandoning a certain group and a slight to it.

While the pick of Joe Biden made sense in a foriegn policy sense for Obama, the women in the party are outraged that Hillary, who got as many votes as Obama, was left off the ticket. That doesn't mean that 90% of her female supporters are going to jump on the McCain-Palin bandwagon because there is a vagina on it, but a few will. Enough and it costs Obama the election.

Paglia makes another point about Palin, she represents something that many of the urban chic women of today don't get, but the folks who cling to god and guns do:

Perhaps Palin seemed perfectly normal to me because she resembles so many women I grew up around in the snow belt of upstate New York. For example, there were the robust and hearty farm women of Oxford, a charming village where my father taught high school when I was a child. We first lived in an apartment on the top floor of a farmhouse on a working dairy farm. Our landlady, who was as physically imposing as her husband, was an all-American version of the Italian immigrant women of my grandmother's generation -- agrarian powerhouses who could do anything and whose trumpetlike voices could pierce stone walls.

If someone has spent their life in Boston, New York, LA, or San Francisco this doesn't matter, it's a quaint story of "Americana" that those women don't understand. It should matter to the Democratic party, because the area that Barack Obama needs to make the most inroads is in rural white America. This is where Paglia's recollection of strong women is more the norm than thinking a pantsuit and Harvard Law degree is a sign of strength.

Or, as Paglia puts it:

Now that's the Sarah Palin brand of can-do, no-excuses, moose-hunting feminism
-- a world away from the whining, sniping, wearily ironic mode of the establishment feminism represented by Gloria Steinem, a Hillary Clinton supporter whose shameless Democratic partisanship over the past four decades has severely limited American feminism and not allowed it to become the big tent it can and should be. Sarah Palin, if her reputation survives the punishing next two months, may be breaking down those barriers. Feminism, which should be about equal rights and equal opportunity, should not be a closed club requiring an ideological litmus test for membership.

Paglia is correct, and on point with that statement, but unfortunately that same rigid dogma of identity politics she hates will keep Palinesque women out of the feminism tent.

The specific litmus test; pro-choice; which she alludes to has so much of the feminist movement's energy behind it; and has for 4 decades; that to allow a pro-life woman under the tent would probably destroy it; at least in Steinham and Co.'s eyes.

It is nonsensical and counterproductive for Democrats to imagine that pro-life values can be defeated by maliciously destroying their proponents. And it is equally foolish to expect that feminism must for all time be inextricably wed to the pro-choice agenda. There is plenty of room in modern thought for a pro-life feminism -- one in fact that would have far more appeal to third-world cultures where motherhood is still honored and where the Western model of the hard-driving, self-absorbed career woman is less admired.

But the one fundamental precept that Democrats must stand for is independent thought and speech. When they become baying bloodhounds of rigid dogma,Democrats have committed political suicide

While I disagree with Paglia on a lot of topics, and nearly all the time, she hit the nail on the head on both how to expand feminism, and save the Democratic Party with this column.

For those who doubt that, just consider the McCain-Palin ticket. For months we've been told that the 'religous right' wouldn't embrace a ticket with McCain on it. Now they've not only embraced him, they've become some of Palin's biggest advocates.

McCain himself fails half of the "Limbaugh Litmus Tests", but has suddenly energized the GOP. Limbaugh himself; self important gasbag that he is; has had to grudgingly accept his own wrongness on the idea of McCain getting killed by Obama in this race.

If the GOP, and Dittoheads can get behind a McCain type candidate, imagine what the Democrats, and feminists, could do if they ever got behind a strong, pro-life, woman. They might actually be able to win the White House, with a woman.

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Today's Funny Politics

I got some good laughs, politically, today. The first was listening to Rush Limbaugh nearly in tears declaring the end of the GOP. If, by the "death of the GOP" Rush means lockstep dittoheads who do his bidding, and only his bidding, I hope he's right. It would be the best thing for the GOP.

If he means the "Reagan GOP", that died years ago. That caused the other part of my laughing at Rush. He whined about the loss of Dennis Hastert's Illinois congressional seat to the Democrats. The thing was, Hastert was one of the leaders of the death of the conservative end of the GOP. Dennis, while out of power, talked of fiscal restraint and smaller government. When the GOP got control of the House (and appropriating money) he was one of the fattest pigs at the trough. He never found an earmark he wouldn't toss into a bill.

He could stand to be reminded that under Reagan, who did get tax cuts pushed through, just like with George Bush's time in office spending went up. It took Gramm Rudman and Gramm Rudman Hollings to get spending under control.

If Rush means the GOP that holds it's breath and stomps it's feet when it doesn't get exactly what it wants in Congress, I hope that one is dead. Just like I hope the Pelosi-Reid Democratic party dies. All or nothing politics, which is what it sounded like Rush was lamenting the loss of has done NOTHING good for the country. If that brand of politics goes away we are all better off.
Rush should keep in mind that St. Ronald was not only the great communicator, but the great negotiator, and was able to move things in goverment not by an iron fist but through shrewd give and take since he never controlled both houses of Congress.

The second big round of political laughs today was a two parter with Barack Obama as the star.

After Hillary crushed Obama yesterday in West Virginia I'm sure John Edwards phone started ringing off the hook with DNC big wigs telling him to endorse Obama NOW!!!! That happened this afternoon.

The party wants, desparately, for Hillary to go away, and quit pointing out that Obama can't win white working class votes, no matter how hard he tries. Somehow a millionaire trial lawyer is supposed to make a millionaire latte liberal look like the new champion of the working guy.

Dick Morris does a good job of pointing out why that group isn't voting for Obama, and why many of them still won't when Hillary is out of the race. Sorry Barack, getting the endorsement of Edwards, who didn't even last to Super Tuesday, won't help you much.

For the record, Senator Obama, your "bitter" remarks, your reverend, and your wife have permanently turned them off. Even your new lapel pin won't help much. Now wearing the flag looks like you are pandering to the folks who called you on it months ago.

The second laugh is Obama campaigning in Michigan. I'm sure that while he was stumping there today, he didn't mention that it was his campaign that kept them from having a new primary where their votes would count. He couldn't, it would have been another example of how the working class whites won't support him.

I'm sure that he didn't mention that at the end of the month, when the rules committee of the DNC meets, his folks are going to fight to keep Michigan and Florida's delegations out of the convention. If those get counted, he no longer gets to claim he won the popular vote.

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The Limbaugh Litmus Test

Rush Limbaugh and many other far right pundits have come up with a new litmus test that, they say John McCain fails. So lets look at some of the points on it, and see how other prominent Republican's do on them.

1. Illegal Immigration, we all want secure borders and no guest workers.

Ronald Reagan signed the biggest amnesty bill ever seen, it was extended by George H.W. Bush (and Bill Clinton). It did nothing to secure borders, and required only a six month wait to apply for a green card, and expanded half a dozen different types of temporary worker visas.

George W. Bush championed legislation similar to the 2005 McCain-Kennedy bill that
failed, and the toughened up 2007 bill. Rush didn't rail against him in 2000 or 2004 though, when it was known he wanted to include a guest worker program in immigration reform. He'd said during his campaigns, and as Governor of Texas.

2. Taxes, everyone wants a "Reagan Conservative" to take ahold of the tax problem, and claim McCain isn't one because he wanted spending cuts before tax cuts. Yet he's never voted for a tax increase while in office.

Ronald Reagan signed at least 8 bills that RAISED taxes during his 8 years in office. Yes, he did sign some tax cuts too, but if you are being honest you have to look at it both ways. In 1983 he said we'd get $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. In 1993 he complained that Congress never cut spending. (Bruce Bartlett of NRO wrote a great piece on this in 2003)

George H.W. Bush .... read my lips, this answer is too obvious

George W. Bush, at least he can say that he hasn't raised them, though he only got temporary cuts passed, which look to expire in a few years.

3. Supreme Court Justices. Everyone on the right is screaming for constructionist justices and worried that McCain won't appoint the "right kind" of people. But how did our past GOP presidents do? Not well, of the 6 appointed prior to GWB taking office you have 2 conservatives, 2 liberals and two swing voters.

Reagan appointed three justices, Kennedy, O'Connor and Scalia. Of the three Scalia is the only one who has retained his "constructionist" credentials. Both Kennedy and O'Connor turned into swing votes upholding Roe v. Wade and other "liberal" decisions from the Warren Court.

George H.W. Bush put David Souter and Clarence Thomas on the bench. Thomas is possibly the most conservative justice sitting, while Souter is more often than not in the liberal block on the court.

Gerald Ford nominated John Paul Stevens, a Nixon appointee to the appellate bench, and who's the most liberal member of the court by most counts.

4. 1st Amendment. McCain gets beaten on unmercifully for the McCain Feingold measure, yet Rush & Co. didn't have much to say about it in 2004, after George W. Bush signed it into law. While McCain authored it Bush signed it into law, instead of vetoing it, why didn't they cry and vote for John Kerry in 2004?

Spending is an area where McCain bests the above list, for 25 years has championed lower bugets.

Reagan only tried cutting it after the Gramm-Rudman and later Gramm Rudman Hollings acts were passed to try and reign in spending. GHWB did a better job, but still increased spending in many areas. While Democrats point to the "Pay Go" day's of the 1990's as a great spending control, like today's Paygo it's smoke and mirrors. The Pay Go bills of both eras had 4 years life spans, and new programs enacted generally waited (and still do) until the fifth year to have their full costs paid, thereby getting around the tough cuts or tax increases. This years $168 billion unfunded "economic stimulus package" is a great example of the swiss cheese like character of Paygo. We don't even need to get into GWB's spending record and lack of veto pen especially in his first term.

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McCain Derangement Syndrome

I just finished watching the video of Ann Coulter saying she'll campaign for Hillary if John McCain wins the GOP nomination and thought to myself, "wow, she's more screwed up than the liberals with Bush Derangement Syndrome".

Micheal Medved had a post up last week entitled "Six Big Lies About McCain" that I don't totally agree with (especially McCain Feingold), but many of his points make sense, and directly attack Coulter's positions. Specifically Ann, and many talking heads including Rush, and Hannity continue to claim McCain wants "higher taxes"; yet in 25 years in public office he's never voted for a tax increase.

As for the Bush tax cuts, he voted against them, yes, but on the floor of the Senate said that he'd vote for them, if Congress first passed spending cuts. That's far from being "liberal on taxes", it's actually the most fiscally conservative position there is. Considering what direction federal spending has gone over the last 20 years, Democrat or Republican's in control of Congress and the White House, it actually sounds like he was the voice of reason.

As for immigration reform, I think Medved did a spectacular job of actually reading what was in the bill that so many folks on the right have been railing against, but so few actually read, or understood. By the way, Limbaugh is at the head of that list. Specifically the fact that the "amnesty" so many railed about consisted of $6000 in fines, all back taxes, and a 6-14 year wait for actual citizenship, with deportation for any criminal offense during that period. And none of it beginning until Congress certified the border secure.

On top of that is the simple math of the immigration problem. Last week 7.7 million American's claimed to be unemployed and looking for work. At the same time between 8.5 and 10 million illegals (of the 12-13 million here) are supposedly holding jobs here. So, if we deport all of the illegals then we have a problem, as there will be somewhere between 800,000 and 2.3 million jobs with no one to fill them. If of course everyone looking for work was actually willing to do the jobs that illegals are currently doing, my guess is there is a fat chance of that happening.
In other words, you can either tell a few thousand employers to do without enough work and probably have some close, or you can have some sort of guest worker program. Again, that's not a liberal or conservative position, that's a mathematical one.

Back to Coulter, do I believe she'd campaign for Hillary instead of either sitting on the sideline or voting for McCain,? I'm not sure, but I do know that it's been a few months since she made a headline, so this is her probably her latest lame attempt to stay in the news. Ann's a lot of things, but mostly she's an attention whore who hates to be out of the news for any length of time.

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