From Tuesday night’s Fox News All-Stars.

On President Obama’s speech in Milwaukee:

He stands up and he says we’re going to do a stimulus, a mini-stimulus, which has all these wonderful effects, the rail and airports and road projects, and then he says we will do the targeted tax cuts that will improve our economy, stimulate growth, improve employment. And then he says: And because it’s a political season, the Republicans oppose it for pure partisan advantage.

Well, there’s a raging contradiction in the middle of that. If these ideas are so self-evidently good and they’re going to help everybody and the economy, what possible advantage would anybody have, Republican or otherwise, in opposing it?

Now, it’s a ridiculous argument, but he makes it because he does not want to engage the opposition on the substance of his proposals.

What we have is a deep philosophical difference. Republicans like broad-based, across-the-board cuts in taxes, so you give the money to the entrepreneur who can dispense with it as he thinks his business needs.

Democrats love the targeted tax cut because it gives power in Washington of deciding where capital ends up. So, for example, there’s nothing inherently wrong with a rebate if you invest in office equipment and stuff like that. However, what if your business needs not that but more money spent on marketing?

The better idea is to keep the Bush cuts, allow the money to remain in the pocket of the entrepreneur, and have him decide much more efficiently on where the money ought to be spent instead of experts in Washington deciding how to direct it.

On the planned Koran-burning in Florida:

Well, there is not going to be a lot of argument about this. It’s obviously an execrable, revolting act, what they’re going to be doing, although it’s curious we don’t hear a chorus of people telling us what a glory it is to the American system that all of us will defend his right to do it, even though we might question the wisdom of doing it.

On FBI statistics showing that 65.7 percent of hate crimes motivated by religious bias are anti-Jewish, whereas 7.7 percent are anti-Islamic:

It’s fashionable to say [Islamophobia] is now the new anti-Semitism. Well, apparently the old anti-Semitism hasn’t really gone away.

The New York Times reports (bonus points for the delicious irony of the bolded sentence):

WASHINGTON – A sharply divided federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of seizing terrorism suspects and transferring them to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration in its effort to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy power.

By a six-to-five vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, reversing an earlier decision, dismissed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging flights for the C.I.A.’s “extraordinary rendition” program, as it is known. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case on behalf of five former prisoners who say they were tortured because of the program – and that Jeppesen was complicit in their treatment.

Judge Raymond C. Fisher described the case as presenting “a painful conflict between human rights and national security.” But, he said, the majority had “reluctantly” concluded that the lawsuit represented “a rare case” in which the government’s need to protect state secrets trumped the plaintiffs’ need to have any day in court.

From Sarah Palin’s Facebook page:

Koran Burning Is Insensitive, Unnecessary; Pastor Jones, Please Stand Down

Book burning is antithetical to American ideals. People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation – much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

I would hope that Pastor Terry Jones and his supporters will consider the ramifications of their planned book-burning event. It will feed the fire of caustic rhetoric and appear as nothing more than mean-spirited religious intolerance. Don’t feed that fire. If your ultimate point is to prove that the Christian teachings of mercy, justice, freedom, and equality provide the foundation on which our country stands, then your tactic to prove this point is totally counter-productive.

Our nation was founded in part by those fleeing religious persecution. Freedom of religion is integral to our charters of liberty. We don’t need to agree with each other on theological matters, but tolerating each other without unnecessarily provoking strife is how we ensure a civil society. In this as in all things, we should remember the Golden Rule. Isn’t that what the Ground Zero mosque debate has been about?

- Sarah Palin

I liked this shop job from long-time Cornerite Rich Terrell:

Kevin, a thousand times yes!

I’ll add one more thing. Chait complains:

Okay. First we have this business about “impoundment power,” which entails magically re-writing the relationship between the White House and Congress. (All efforts to date to give the president line-item veto power have run aground in the courts.) Even if this process could magically occur overnight — and Daniels is talking about a short-term plan — it does not specify which spending programs he would impound.

I think Chait’s point about Daniels not laying out the programs he’d like to impound can be countered by something you suggest early in your post: this is an op-ed, not a budget message. It’s not incumbent on Daniels to write a budget message. Daniels has a clean balance sheet and a rainy-day fund in Indiana. Does your guy, Chait?

Besides, President Obama has asked for the very “magical” rewriting of the Executive-Legislative relationship that Daniels’ bullet point calls for, and he has promised to use it. 

I don’t know the fellow personally, but I wish I were a third as smart as Jon Chait thinks he is.

Jon Chait Can’t Read: An Ongoing Series — Mitch Daniels Edition.

From the latest CNN/Time poll:

In the Senate contest, 36 percent of people questioned say they support Republican nominee and former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio, with 34 percent backing Republican Gov. Charlie Crist, who earlier this year dropped his bid for the GOP Senate nomination and is now running as an independent candidate. Twenty-four percent say if the election were held today, they’d vote for Rep. Kendrick Meek, the Democratic nominee, with three percent saying they vote for none of the candidates and three percent holding no opinion.

“A three-way race is producing a three-way split among Florida voters,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Meek wins majority support among Democrats while Rubio picks up seven in ten Republicans. Among Independents, it’s Crist with 45 percent, distantly followed by Rubio with 29 percent and Meek with only 16 percent of Independents.”

It’s only a small step in the right direction, says Greg Mankiw, because interest rates are low. But interest rates won’t be low forever, and expensing might end up being a permanent policy.

Matt Miller writes:

The one tax cut that could have immediately created jobs (and gained bipartisan support — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) proposed a payroll tax cut on Wednesday) has been declared off-limits because it would muddy the Democratic message that Republicans are out to destroy Social Security. Democrats think they need this scare tactic to get their otherwise unmotivated voters to the polls to contain November’s coming damage. And so the lure of demagoguery on Social Security has won out over the prospect of creating jobs.

My understanding is that the Boehner people won’t be sending him out for a lot of interviews in response to Obama, although he’s getting inundated with requests. Would just take time away from working for candidates and would magnify the possibility of saying something the White House can seize on (like the ridiculous ant controversy).

Has it ever happened before that a president of the United States has made the House minority leader a major focus of attack? (Perhaps Clinton did a little with Newt Gingrich, but that shouldn’t give Democrats much comfort.) What we’re seeing is the pre-speaker process: This is the first step toward John Boehner becoming the next speaker of the House. The shift to Republicans in the polls has elevated Boehner’s importance, such that the White House is already trying to use him as a foil. It’s really amazing that Boehner gave a speech in Cleveland that got very little attention–even though it was a pretty good speech–and President Obama felt compelled to go the the same city to respond. It may be that the White House finds a way to take the edge off the Republican momentum, but I doubt attacking someone not very many people know and someone people won’t find very threatening is going to do it. If Boehner does become speaker next January, though, we’ll remember today as his first day as the officially designated leader of the opposition.

One of the things that grate me is when people say “hoi polloi,” instead of “the hoi polloi.” “The hoi polloi” is an American, or an English-language, idiom, meaning “the great unwashed” (basically). Some people sniff that the phrase is redundant, translating as “the the great unwashed.” You know the type of person who writes “lede,” instead of “lead,” to be all insidery and cool? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. Blech.

Well, the great Victor Davis Hanson, in a great column today, writes “hoi polloi,” without any “the.” And, baby, from a classics scholar — I’ll take it. From non-VDHes? I.e., from the hoi polloi? Don’t think so.

P.S. I admit, I have trouble writing “the al-Qaeda camp” — “the the Qaeda camp.” And I have at last made my peace with ordering “a panini,” instead of a panino, or two panini. (Same applies to “cannoli” — no one in America has ever ordered a cannolo, to my knowledge.)

P.P.S. Whenever I write something like “One of the things that grate me,” people write, “Shouldn’t that be ‘grates’?” That’s one of the things that grate me too.

Marcus Stanley, a senior aide to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) was arrested today when he tried to bring marijuana into the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill.

Marcus Stanley, who served as a senior economic adviser and at one time worked on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee — chaired by Boxer — was stopped by a police officer Tuesday morning when he allegedly tried to “remove and conceal” a leafy green substance from his pocket during a security screening at the Constitution Avenue door of the Hart building around noon, according to a Capitol Police report.

Police confiscated the substance, which later tested positive for marijuana, and Stanley quickly resigned.

“Marcus Stanley is no longer with this office,” Boxer spokesman Zachary Coile told POLITICO. “He submitted his resignation, and Sen. Boxer accepted it because his actions yesterday were wrong and unacceptable.”

Stanley has worked on Capitol Hill since 2007, according to financial disclosure records from Legistorm, and draws a six-figure salary. He has also worked for the Joint Economic Committee.

More here.

Ouch: “With less than an hour before President Obama’s scheduled speech, 75 seats remained empty in the recreation center at Cuyahoga Community College’s Western Campus. So organizers went around campus and recruited more students to fill the seats.”

The cover of The National Interest has a picture of Neville Chamberlain on it, with the word “Appeaser!” Then the cover says, “Paul Kennedy on the Most Abused Word in History.” In Impromptus today, I say,

Munich gave appeasement a very bad name, it is true. (That was a lesson taught to me by a history professor of mine, who otherwise wasn’t worth much.)

But I believe that, quite possibly, the most abused word in history — where politics and world affairs are concerned — is “peace.” And then, possibly, “fascism.” Of course, the most abused word of all time — any sphere — is “love.”

A reader writes, “The word ‘racism’ or ‘racist’ didn’t make it onto your very short list of the most abused? Why?”

Because I forgot.

Next Tuesday, September 14th, at noon, the ObamaCareWatch.org team will be holding its first public event at the National Press Club. Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.) will deliver a keynote address, and my Ethics and Public Policy Center colleague Jim Capretta and Robert Book of the Heritage Foundation will present the results of their new study on the devastating effects of Obamacare on the Medicare Advantage program. The event will be moderated by Bill Kristol, with additional remarks by Doug Holtz-Eakin. Worth your while if you’re in Washington. You can get more details here.

CQ reports:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski is strongly considering a mounting a November write-in campaign to keep her seat and could make an announcement as soon as tomorrow, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

Running as a write-in candidate appears to be Murkowski’s last remaining option. The Senate Republican Conference Vice Chairwoman met with Libertarian Party nominee David Haase on Tuesday to discuss taking his spot on the ballot, but according to a party spokesman, even if Haase dropped out, the party’s executive board — which last week voted against allowing Murkowski on the ballot — does not appear amenable to changing its decision.

Should Murkowski pull the trigger on a write-in campaign, GOP sources say she would face opposition from the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The NRSC endorsed Joe Miller immediately after Murkowski conceded the primary, and the GOP committee intends to stick with the Fairbanks attorney and provide him with the full weight of its backing.

A reader writes about Robert Ehrlich, whom I mention in Impromptus today. Ehrlich is the former governor of Maryland — a Republican, a libertarian-conservative — who is running again this year, versus the man who defeated him, Gov. Martin O’Malley. Our reader writes,

We’ve known Bob since way back in the early 1980s. He’s always been a great guy and will be a great governor when he defeats O’Malley in November. My 15-year-old is a political junkie and a conservative. He wonders what’s the point of electing Ehrlich when we live in the great Socialist State of Maryland. After all, the legislature remains overwhelmingly Democratic. Bob vetoes bills; they override the veto.

I’ve wondered the same thing myself and really don’t have an answer. Do you?

One might ask: Was it better when Ehrlich was governor, from 2002 to 2006, than it would have been with a liberal Democratic governor — a governor in harmony with the Democratic legislature? Yes, in manifold ways. For one thing, a governor can set an example: and is the leader of the state. A governor has a marvelous perch from which to speak and act. Ehrlich and KKT — Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, RFK’s daughter (the 2002 Democratic nominee) — are very different people. So are the candidates this year. And they both know it!

So, fearless Maryland Republicans, vote Ehrlich, early and often. (I guess that’s what they do in Baltimore, for Democrats.) (Ask Ellen Sauerbrey.)

Our reader adds something amusing:

Saw a great bumper sticker in the parking garage this morning. It reminded me of the old Mr. Bill skit on Saturday Night Live back in the ’80s: “Obama. O’Malley. OH NO!”

That’s the spirit.

Regarding Delaware, the GOP primary there presents the question of how do we get the most conservative possible Congress: by electing a Republican in a blue state who will vote with us 50–60 percent of the time, or a Democrat who will vote with us basically never? That’s essentially the choice in the Castle-O’Donnell race, since O’Donnell would have a very hard time winning in the general election (even Castle will not necessarily have a cakewalk — Sean Trende points out that his lead over the Democrat Chris Coons does not look impregnable in such a Democratic state). In the spectrum of conservative upstarts, O’Donnell seems more a J. D. Hayworth (a candidate with deep, ultimately fatal credibility problems) than a Rand Paul (an unusual candidate and ideological purist, but one plausible enough to win in a fairly conservative state). I wouldn’t be shocked if O’Donnell wins the nomination, given how small the primary electorate will be, but it will probably mean a more liberal Senate in the end.

In Cleveland, the president said that he believes “government should be lean.” Have you seen the landmark portrait of just what he means by government leanness? 

This is the image he has Democrats across the country running away from. And passing it is his signature achievement — the one for which even our military policy was held hostage, if you believe what you read in the New York Times.

Yesterday, I talked about Obama’s request for $50 billion in infrastructure spending. It’s a bad idea.

Today, I want to look at the tax side of the proposal. Under the president’s plan, businesses would be allowed to expense investment expenditures.  In other words, businesses would be able to immediately deduct 100 percent of the cost of new investment in plants and equipment, when calculating their taxable income, rather than having to gradually deduct the cost via depreciation allowances. The direct consequence of the proposal is that companies would be able to keep more cash now.

The hope is that companies who may be hesitant to invest and are holding cash today will have an incentive to expand, which might help the economy recover. From BusinessWeek:

Companies combining deductions proposed by Obama for equipment with deductions for borrowing costs would get benefits — including refunds or credits against future taxes — that exceed the additional income they get from new capital spending, according to a 2005 report by the Congressional Budget Office. For every $1 of additional income from new capital spending, companies may be able to get benefits worth almost $1.88, according to the budget office report.

“The combination of free deductibility of interest to make a marginal investment, combined with accelerated depreciation, would lead to negative tax rates on that new investment,” [Ed] Kleinbard said.

This is what is bothersome about this proposal.  It’s a “tax subsidy for debt-financed investment.” Moreover, the government, once again, is playing with the tax code to encourage one form of behavior over another (spending/investing/borrowing over savings). I am not saying that savings is superior to investing or that any move from the current situation is a bad move. My point is just that the government shouldn’t be in the business of picking winners and losers. Encouraging investments and discouraging savings through artificial and temporary tax breaks is wrong. It is because of the many decisions that were made by businesses and individuals based on targeted government policies that we are in this mess in the first place (think about the decision to buy a bigger house than you would have otherwise because of the interest tax deduction or low interest rates).

Instead of playing with the tax code, the administration should engage in serious tax reform and move to a consumption-based tax with a large base and a low rate. Besides, how likely is it that this proposal will have any real impact? Not very likely, said Harvard University’s Greg Mankiw:

However, the impact will be relatively modest. Notice that expensing merely accelerates deductions. Thus, the value to the firm depends on interest rates. With interest rates near zero, the impetus to investment is small. Put another way, this policy can be seen as giving firms a zero-interest loan if they invest in equipment. But with interest rates near zero anyway, the value of the loan is not that great.

In my column this morning, I criticized Rep. Mike Castle for being one of a handful of Republicans who had not signed a discharge petition to force a vote on repealing Obamacare. Congressman Castle’s staff has informed me that he intends to sign that petition as soon as he returns to Washington after the recess.

One of my favorite readers of all time sent me a note that made me wince hard. (Can you wince hard? I guess so.) She wrote,

I was struck by something you said about Rahm Emanuel in this Corner post: making fun of him for being a ballet dancer. Now, I bow to no man in my dislike of Emanuel, but mocking his dancing seems an unnecessarily cheap shot, and unworthy of you. I find his ballet background one of the (relatively few) appealing things about him — and for heaven’s sake, at least he isn’t a lawyer like every other member of the American political class!

Oh, I was badly misunderstood, and my fault, I’m sure! I have always marveled at Emanuel’s ballet background, and bowed to him for it. I have always said it was the thing I liked best about him. (The only thing?) This was back when he was a Clinton aide, long before he became a congressman. Also, in Impromptus, I have at least once remarked on his posture — the best posture in politics, almost certainly. He stands like a dancer. If only his political posture were as good . . .

In the above-mentioned Corner post, I referred to Emanuel as “the foul-mouthed ballet dancer.” Apparently, that came off as negative (!). I never passed a judgment on foul mouths — I can make a room bluer than Massachusetts, pre-Scott Brown. And ballet? I can’t dance for squat, but I’m becoming hard to out-’mane: I’d pay $100 just to watch Julie Kent or Veronika Part go from one aisle to another in the grocery store. (You know how much money I’ve shelled out on those broads over several seasons?)

So, dear readers, please remember for next time: When I say “foul-mouthed ballet dancer,” I’m not necessarily being critical. When I say “Clinton aide” or “Obama’s chief of staff” — that’s different.

Barack Obama for mayor of Chicago. Our friend and colleague Reihan Salam makes the case.

Fresh from his stint as the top White House budget official, Peter Orszag debuted yesterday on the New York Times editorial page.  In “One Nation, Two Deficits” he urges solving our intractable budget mess by putting everything on the table. Naturally, he recommends a massive and permanent increase in our tax burden as the main entree. But the way he arrives at that recommendation is a tad surprising.

Most of the chatter about this piece deals with the trial balloon he floats: a “compromise” that would extend the [Bush-era] tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it. 

In offering this bone to the “high-income” types, Orszag is clearly channeling the unease growing among certain Democrats, especially those with tens of thousands of “wealthy” constituents in their congressional districts.

But the real surprise is Orszag’s rationale for why the tax relief must eventually give way (for everyone!) in 2013:

Although hardly anyone wants to admit it, we’re not going to solve our budget problem over the next decade unless revenue is part of the equation.

…Let’s look at the facts. The projected deficit for 2015 is 4 percent to 5 percent of G.D.P., depending on whose assumptions you use. A sustainable level is more like 3 percent or lower. So we need deficit reduction of 1 percent to 2 percent of G.D.P., or about $200 billion to $400 billion a year by 2015. These figures are uncertain, but they’re the best we have (and they may well turn out to be too optimistic).

How much savings is plausible on the spending side? Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will account for almost half of spending by 2015. Even if we reform Social Security, which we should, any plausible plan would phase in benefit changes to avoid harming current beneficiaries — and so would generate little savings over the next five years. The health reform act included substantial savings in Medicare and Medicaid, so there aren’t further big reductions available there in our time frame. (Emphasis added.)

Hey, let’s replay that last sentence again:

The health reform act included substantial savings in Medicare and Medicaid, so there aren’t further big reductions available there in our time frame. (Emphasis added again.)

So, a permanent, multi-hundred billion dollar tax increase hangs over every American taxpayer like the sword of Damocles precisely because President Obama and his allies in Congress used up all the potential savings from two of the big three entitlement programs — Medicare and Medicaid — to pay for Obamacare?  The mere existence of Obamacare, we are now told, means all of us — included those with far less than $250,000 a year in income — will be saddled with higher taxes forevermore. And there is no other way to solve this fiscal mess? How convenient! Why didn’t Orszag and other administration officials in the know shout this rather salient fact from the rooftops prior to the final vote on Obamacare? Think it might have affected the outcome?

Guess we just have to score any future tax increase as yet another cost of Obamacare. Or, better yet, repeal the darn thing.

A reader — in fact, a friend and NR cruiser — writes,

Sounds like you’ve had gobs of mail on this one already, but I have to jump in. Here in Nebraska there is a team named the Vikings — the Waverly High School Vikings. And the girls’ team? Well, they are the Waverly Viqueens, of course!

There was a similar letter from Shelbyville, Tenn. And one from the Upper Midwest, which said that fans of the Green Bay Packers sometimes refer to the Minnesota Vikings as . . . the Viqueens. (Yeah? Tell it to Judge Page!)

Then there was this:

My high-school team was called the Rams. Officially, the girls’ teams were the “Lady Rams.” However, some of us guys referred to those teams as the “Ewes,” which did not go over very well.

No? Another reader writes,

I graduated from Fairfield University in Fairfield, Conn., in 1992. Since the school started out all-male, the Jesuits decided to use the symbol of the Hartford archdiocese, a stag, as their mascot. When the school went co-ed in 1969, the women’s teams were called the Lady Stags.

Funny. And this?

From 1973 to 1977, I attended the University of South Carolina, whose teams are the Gamecocks. In my day, the women’s teams were known as the Chicks. And you’d better-by-God believe it ain’t that way today.

Oh, and at LSU, instead of the Tigers, women’s teams were called the Ben-Gals, well into the ’80s.

Took me a second to get that one. Maybe more than a second. Finally,

Reading about the Vikettes reminded me of one of my favorite bumper stickers. It refers to UConn’s outstanding women’s basketball team: “I Love Husky Women.”

President Obama is talking the economy in Cleveland. You can watch the stream here. Some notes from the speech:

–Obama goofed introducing was introducing Lee Fisher as the “soon to be junior senator from the great state of Illinois – uh, Ohio.” He then explained that “I was thinking about my own — Lee Fisher is here. I used to hear that line … about the senator from Illinois. That would be me.”

–Not much new here so far (e.g., “The flawed policies and economic weaknesses of the last decade culminated in a financial crisis and the worse recession of our lifetimes”). Instead, he is repeating familiar claims about 3 million jobs created or saved by the stimulus, intransigent Republicans, etc., much of it to surprisingly tepid applause.

–He takes on House Minority Leader John Boehner directly, saying that “there were no new policies from Mr. Boehner” during Boehner’s remarks two weeks ago. “[T]here was just the same philosophy that we already tried during the decade they were in power. . .Cut more taxes for millionaires and cut more rules for corporations.” And so on.

–The one novel bit is the president’s focus on his family story. He opened by speaking at length about the federal government’s role in helping his grandparents secure a college educations and a home.

–President Obama just said he believes government should be “lean” and “efficient” and leave it to individuals free to make choices about “what is best for them. . . as long as it doesn’t hurt others.” (!) And then adds, with an Abraham Lincoln reference, that he believes “government should do for the people what they can’t do better themselves.”

–The president was most animated when he claimed Republican economic policies would take jobs from Americans. In a booming voice: “That is one difference between the Republican vision and the Democratic vision and that is what is election is all about!”

–Discussing the Bush tax cuts, Obama reiterated his belief that the cuts should be made permanent for the middle class. Republicans “would have us borrow $700 billion over the next ten years to give a $100,000 tax break to people who are already millionaires.”

“We should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage any longer.”

“This isn’t to punish folks who are better off. God bless ‘em. It’s because we can’t afford the $700 billion price tag.”

A dare to Republicans: “We are ready, this week, to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less.”

–Obama directs his comments again and again at Mr. Boehner.

–Summing, Obama dusts off the “ditch” metaphor one last time. The choice is between Republican policies that “drove us into the ditch” and the Democratic policies “that are slowly pulling us out.”

–Vows to fight any (phantom) Republican efforts to privatize Social Security (what about the robots? Will he protect us from the robots?)

–The health-care law is mentioned, briefly.

–”When I walked in, wrapped up in a nice bow, was a $1.3 trillion deficit, sitting right there on my doorstep.”

–”I’m keenly aware that not all our policies are popular.”

–There is no other way to describe the president’s tone but to say he has done a lot of yelling. And it sort of seems as if he is yelling at the audience when he says things like “You didn’t elect me to just read the polls and figure out how to keep myself in office. You elected me to do what’s right!” It is as if, having been told by his advisers that he has failed to communicate his case to the American people, Obama resolved to try again BUT LOUDER.

–The conclusion of the speech was the usual cliches, except — again — louder. “CHOOSE HOPE OVER FEAR! CHOOSE THE FUTURE OVER THE PAST!”

There’s been a lot of talk about how we have to support the “moderate” in Delaware, like good little prags. (I’m just being snarky. Supporting Castle is the right thing to do. I guess.) And everybody’s quoting WFB about why we have to do it.

I thought readers — especially newish ones — would like to know where WFB got it. Many years ago, Bill’s friend John Kenneth Galbraith was asked which Democrat he would like to see win the presidential nomination. He replied, “The leftwardmost viable candidate.” So Bill picked that up, in his own terms: “the rightwardmost viable candidate.”

End of history lesson . . .

P.S. Despite my snarkiness, I’m big on electoral pragmatism, always have been. In the ’90s, there was much talk about whether conservatives should support certain liberal Republicans — these were Senate candidates, mainly. I said, “I’d vote for Karl Marx, as long as it meant that Jesse could be chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.” That would be Jesse the North Carolina Anti-Communist.

A rising tide lifts all boats. A rising Republican tide — including Snowes and Castles — lifts all Jesses.

According to this New York Times piece, many people now think the government must stop rolling out programs to prevent the housing market from collapsing. I agree, but then again I was against propping up housing prices in the first place.

Besides, these policies do not seem very effective: Housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 to July 2010. And it’s not for lack of trying:

Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market, using tax credits, mortgage modification programs, low interest rates, government-backed loans and other assistance intended to keep values up and delinquent borrowers out of foreclosure. The goal was to stabilize the market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded places to live.

One of the very interesting aspects of the Times article is that it lists the people who stand to lose from a serious drop in prices: “the tens of millions of homeowners who have already seen their home values drop an average of 30 percent,” builders, the banks (millions of owners are just hanging on and might default on their mortgages), taxpayers (they are on the hook for mortgages that were guaranteed by the government), and the administration, which gambled on a recovery that is not happening (not much sympathy here). I would add to that list real-estate agents.

The winners, the piece argues, are the renters who could buy if prices dropped.

Tyler Cowen has mixed feelings about it:

Yet what happens if we let them fall? Arguably many banks would once again be “under water.” Enthusiasm for another set of bailouts is weak, to say the least. Our government would end up nationalizing these banks and it still would be on the hook for their debts. The blow to confidence would be a major one, especially if along the way we saw a recreation of a Lehman or Bear Stearns or A.I.G. episode.

I increasingly believe there is no easy way out of this dilemma and it is a major reason why the U.S. economy remains stuck. Housing prices must fall, yet . . . housing prices must not fall.

I don’t see how we can continue the charade of government policies to prevent the inevitable. We must let the market clear. We’ve tried everything else. And while there is a risk, nothing can prevent it.

Nina Shea and Paul Marshall denounce the (perfectly legal) Koran-burning stunt.

Victor Davis Hanson examines the Left’s disappointment that the country no longer worships Obama.

Andrew McCarthy argues that the Ground Zero mosque backlash shows the public will no longer support pseudo-moderate Islam.

The Editors conclude that Obama’s latest stimulus proposal shows he still hasn’t realized that the economy needs a new pro-growth policy.

Michelle Malkin warns that Obama’s proposed infrastructure spending will lead to “Union Payback Fall.”

Michael Tanner urges anti-Obamacare Democrats to prove their sincerity by signing petitions supporting repeal.

Would that so-called mainstream Muslim groups were as categorical in condemning the actual murder of human beings as leading opponents of radical Islam are in their condemnation of the Koran-burning stunt.

For instance, here’s Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch:

“International Burn a Koran Day” does a grave disservice to the cause of spreading awareness about Islamic teachings and the threat that Sharia poses to our way of life. It is a gift to Islamic groups who would so dearly love to portray all of us who criticize and question Islamic teachings (and triumphalist mosques) as frothing reactionaries.

Of all imagery to appropriate from the past century, that of book-burning is utterly disastrous, inviting comparisons with the Nazis’ famous roundup of banned books, and creating an opening for Heinrich Heine’s famous admonition: “Where one burns books, one will soon burn people.”

The most substantive means of framing the conflict between Western values and Islamic law are productive, not destructive: Artwork, satire, commentary and criticism, to name a few.

Awareness is a mightier weapon than a bonfire.

As such, it would be better to read aloud from the Qur’an for all to hear of its hatred and subjugation of non-believers, the second-class status of women, cruel and unusual punishments, and open-ended calls to warfare in order to impose Islamic law.

I love the idea of an International Read Aloud from the Koran Day!

And Brigitte Gabriel, whose group, ACT! for America, has chapters all over the country to fight radical Islam:

We at ACT! for America denounce and condemn, in the strongest terms, the upcoming Koran burning event organized by Pastor Terry Jones and members of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida. Their proposed event is ill-conceived, counter-productive and unwelcome in a world where ideas and philosophies are best debated in the context of the issues and the facts. We find this an archaic act that serves no useful purpose, and as such is a regrettable instance of an inability or unwillingness to discuss the issues facing us in a reasonable and constructive manner.

ACT! for America is, and has always been, committed to exposing the threat of the political ideology of radical Islam and its sharia law through constructive debate, illumination of the facts, and a reasoned analysis of the implications of the threat.

Pastor Jones and his congregation are stooping to the tactics of and joining the inarticulate who express their anger and opposition through destructive and spiteful acts of denigration. What is the difference between his actions and the actions of Islamists destroying synagogues in Gaza or churches and Bibles in Lebanon, Bosnia and Egypt? We are better than that as Americans.

Along the same lines, Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs:

My position on the Koran burning in Florida by a whacko church aligned with the vile anti-military, anti-semitic Westboro Church that defiles the funerals of our honored fallen soldiers:

1. This church’s plan to burn the Qur’an does a grave disservice to the cause of spreading awareness about Islamic teachings and the threat that Sharia poses to our way of life.

2. The burning of books is wrong in principle: the antidote to bad speech is not censorship or book-burning, but more speech. Open discussion. Give-and-take. And the truth will out. There is no justification for burning books.

The Los Angeles Police Department’s sanctuary policy is officially intended to foster trust between illegal aliens and the LAPD–in particular, to ensure that illegal aliens cooperate with the police in reporting crime. No one has ever shown that sanctuary policies result in more witness cooperation than would occur without such policies, but we can now say with assurance that the more general “trust and good will” rationale for sanctuary policies is bogus.

For the last two days, Hispanics in the Westlake section of Los Angeles, a poor neighborhood of Mexicans and Central Americans close to downtown, have violently clashed with the police following the fatal shooting on Sunday of a drunken Guatemalan “day laborer” — i.e., illegal alien — who had been threatening passersby with a vicious-looking knife. Responding at 9.30 p.m. to a 911 call regarding the knife-wielding assailant, three officers on bikes confronted 37-year-old Manuel Jamines with weapons drawn and repeatedly asked Jamines in Spanish and English to drop the knife. Instead, Jamines, who, as was his weekend wont, had been drinking since 9 a.m., lunged at them with the knife over his head, according to LAPD chief Charles Beck. Officer Frank Hernandez responded with two shots which killed Jamines.

The subsequent protests could well have been organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton. Residents have thrown rocks and bottles at officers, set trashcans on fire, and hurled projectiles at the windows of the local Rampart police station, while calling the police “assassins” and demanding “justice.” A store security guard had to flee in his car after protesters got in a shoving match with him; as he sped away, they threw objects at his car. As usual in such matters, witnesses are claiming that Jamines was unarmed.

The LAPD has worked for years on cleaning up the Westlake-Ramparts section from the gangs and disorder that have characterized it. Illegal aliens and their progeny have been both the perpetrators and victims of that disorder; they are also the beneficiaries of the department’s recent progress in cleaning up the landmark MacArthur Park, which had been infested with the drug trade and prostitution.

Chief Charles Beck, who recently took over the LAPD from William Bratton, is one of the department’s most street-savvy commanders; he took command of the Rampart police division following the greatly overhyped Rampart corruption scandal of the late 1990s and restored the division’s crucial role in aggressively fighting gangs. Beck’s rise to the head of the department was a great boon to Los Angeles. Beck is also an unequivocal defender of Special Order 40, the LAPD’s controversial sanctuary policy. Given the unstoppable power of Latinos in Los Angeles politics, it is unlikely that Special Order 40 will ever be reconsidered. But Beck is having a lesson in the limits of a policy that panders to the illegal alien lobby.

All week long, President Obama has retreated into the populist rhetoric of his presidential campaign, laying out very clear battle lines, particularly on domestic policy. His steadfast opposition to extending the Bush tax cuts for top earners is clearly a political and partisan move. His economic policies are about using government to shore up the middle class (to get votes), steering the economy into favored industries, and “creating” jobs (often government jobs) for lower-income groups while penalizing wealth creation and private investment. This week’s economic-policy pronouncements have been about creating an economy and a populace more dependent on government.

As the New York Times reports:

Politically . . . the president is, in effect, daring Republicans to oppose the plan, in that way proving Democrats’ contention that they will block even their own ideas to deny Mr. Obama any victories.

And by proposing business tax breaks that, according to nonpartisan analyses, would do more to stimulate the economy than extending the Bush tax rates for the wealthy, Mr. Obama hopes to buttress Democrats’ opposition to extending those rates.

The Times should have emphasized that tax breaks to private businesses create financial dependency on government, which mutes dissent, and explicitly aim at bringing business policies in lockstep with federal policy. And of course, “nonpartisan analyses” are not necessarily correct analyses, as I pointed out in my critique of the econometric models that “showed” the stimulus package to have created millions of jobs while the private economy languished (see “Did the Feds End the Great Recession?”).

As we head into the midterm elections, it’s clear that Obama is rallying his political troops along a partisan, populist, anti-market, and anti-independent-private-sector line. As the leader of their party establishes the political boundaries for dissent, blue-dog Democrats are finding themselves out of luck. The real question is whether Republicans, or even pro-freedom third parties like the Libertarian party, will be able to seize the opportunity President Obama has handed them to rally their supporters to head off even greater expansions of government.

Apparently there’s enough vacant housing in China to accommodate nearly the entire adult population of the United States. Doesn’t sound too optimal to me!

Recent statistics show that there are about 64 million apartments and houses that have remained empty during the past six months, according to Chinese media reports. On the assumption that each flat serves as a home to a typical Chinese family of three (parents and one child), the vacant properties could accommodate 200 million people, which account for more than 15% of the country’s 1.3 billion population. But instead, they remain empty. This is in part because many Chinese believe that a home is not a real home unless you own the flat.

And so people prefer buying to renting, and as a result, the rental yield is relatively low.

The Post has a front-page story on the impending closing of GE’s last incandescent-light-bulb factory in the United States, in my old stomping grounds of Winchester, Va. The headline reads “How innovation killed the lights” — but it’s not “innovation” that caused this dislocation:

What made the plant here vulnerable is, in part, a 2007 energy conservation measure passed by Congress that set standards essentially banning ordinary incandescents by 2014. The law will force millions of American households to switch to more efficient bulbs.

The resulting savings in energy and greenhouse-gas emissions are expected to be immense. But the move also had unintended consequences.

Rather than setting off a boom in the U.S. manufacture of replacement lights, the leading replacement lights are compact fluorescents, or CFLs, which are made almost entirely overseas, mostly in China.

As with the low-flow-toilet rules (which Dave Barry so effectively mocked) or shower-head regulation (which Seinfeld mocked), this is something people directly experience and don’t like. We can complain about this among ourselves all we want, but Republican candidates need to actually run on this sort of thing — acknowledge that it’s just a light bulb (or shower head or whatever), but that a government big enough to tell you what light bulb to use is a government big enough to take everything you have.

The Wall Street Journal has taken the position staked out by Ramesh, Jonah, Andrew, Jim Geraghty and I me on the topic of the Delaware Republican Senate primary:

The tea party movement has largely been a boon for the country, reviving the case for limited government and a properly understood Constitution. Now that the general election campaign is near, however, we’ll see how well the movement and its favored candidates can close the sale and pragmatically advance their goals.

We say this in particular about their relationship to the Republican Party, and vice versa. The GOP is a more natural ideological home for most tea partiers than is the other major party, but they also suspect many Republicans of committing pragmatism, if not selling out too easily to Beltway mores. They have a point.

On the other hand, sometimes you need a few “wets” to gain a majority and advance your own ideas. Ask Nancy Pelosi, who rode the victories of Rahm Emanuel’s hand-picked Blue Dog Democrats to the House Speakership in 2006 and then used them to pass 40 years of liberal dreams in this Congress.

This political dilemma is coming to a head in next week’s Senate primary in Delaware to determine the GOP nominee for Joe Biden’s former seat. Congressman and former Governor Mike Castle is running and is thought to be an easy general election winner. This would be a net GOP gain in a blue state that gave President Obama 62% of the vote in 2008. Such pickups aren’t easy to come by.

Mr. Castle will never be mistaken for South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, however, and he has a moderate voting record across his 18 years in Congress. His (still unapologetic) support for cap and tax last year is especially radioactive for many GOP primary voters, whether or not they are tea party fellow-travelers. That voting record has drawn a primary challenge from Christine O’Donnell, an itinerant conservative commentator and activist who is supported by some in the tea party movement and national talk radio. She is close in the polls and could pull an upset.

If she does defeat Mr. Castle, however, she has little chance to win in November. A two-time loser statewide, Ms. O’Donnell has a history of financial troubles and recently told the Weekly Standard her home and office were vandalized, though she hadn’t reported it to police. She recently accused a conservative local talk radio host that he had been “paid off” by Mr. Castle’s supporters after he asked her tough questions.

So GOP primary voters must decide if they want to vote for Mr. Castle, a moderate who would help Republicans organize the Senate and who opposed ObamaCare but who will give them heartburn on some issue in the future. Or they can vote their heart even if it means giving up a Senate seat.

The editors even end, as Ramesh began, with WFB’s dictum:

Politics in our two-party system is about coalition building, and any successful party must stretch across many groups. Republicans will have to accommodate much of the tea party agenda if they hope to assemble a new majority and avoid third-party challenges. But tea partiers who want to restore proper Constitutional limits, rather than merely pad the ratings of talk radio, might recall William F. Buckley Jr.’s counsel that his policy was to vote for the most conservative candidate who could win.

Prosecutors in L.A. yesterday charged open-borders protesters for blocking streets and causing massive traffic jams earlier this year in objection to the Arizona immigration law. I don’t know who thinks these stunts up, but you’ve got to wonder about their sanity — does anyone really think trapping people in the cars for hours is likely to get them to sympathize with your cause? When the SEIU tried this in 1995 in Washington as part of its Justice for (illegal-alien) Janitors campaign, as many as 100,000 people had their commutes interrupted and the AAA called it “transportation terrorism.” A police spokesman at the time explained the speed of the arrests:

Bostrom said police also were concerned about the safety of the protesters in the street.

“At several locations people were honking their horns and getting out of their cars,” Bostrom said. “We were concerned that motorists were going to assault the protesters.”

That’s the ticket to amnesty (or whatever is the leftist goal du jour): provoke law-abiding suburbanites to emerge from their cars and beat you up!

The authors of these three books will be on the 2010 NR Post-Election Cruise.

Buy them from the new National Review Book Service, sign up for the cruise, and get them autographed by the author.

In the name of boosting academic performance and giving struggling kids a better shot at succeeding in first grade, California appears to be headed down the slippery slope to universal preschool, never mind that state voters rejected such a plan when Rob Reiner got it onto the ballot in 2006.

This time they won’t have that opportunity, because the legislature has already passed the bill and sent it to Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk. He’d be wise to veto it.

Note, though, that what’s on offer this time isn’t called preschool. It’s called “transitional kindergarten,” and it’s not yet universal. For the moment, eligible participants will be children whose fifth birthdays fall during the months of September, October, and November. Under longstanding California practice, they may enter regular kindergarten when they are still 4, so long as they turn 5 by December 2. (In most states, the cut-off date is earlier in the autumn.) But a variety of educators and politicians have declared that kids this age aren’t ready for the academic demands of modern kindergarten, so they should first have a year of preschool.

If press accounts are to be believed, the usually sensible California Legislative Analyst’s Office declared this measure cost-neutral because the savings from having fewer kids in regular kindergarten will supposedly pay for the transitional program. That makes no sense, however, as taxpayers will end up paying for these youngsters to attend two years of school rather than one before first grade — a curious lapse of fiscal insight in a state with America’s worst budget problems. In effect, the legislation creates a new entitlement — another year of public school — for one-third of all young Californians.

You can read all 193 pages of it here.

This morning, the writer of the Vanity Fair Palin piece, Michael Joseph Gross, responded to some of the criticisms. Gross defends the story that Palin considered when a Bristol/Levi wedding would be most politically opportune, saying that he had a different source than the former McCain aide who went to Politico’s Ben Smith denying the story. He also defends his use of anonymous sources for the piece:

Forced to rely on anonymous sources for certain information, I made an effort to get to know those sources well, talking with them over periods of weeks or months. If I sensed that sources were motivated by the desire to attack Sarah Palin, I did not use the information they gave me. Those who told the most startling stories about Palin spoke not with glee or satisfaction but with trepidation and sadness.

First off, there is no journalistic criteria that says that if the source shows trepidation and sadness, they’re less likely to be misinformed (or lying) than if they show glee and satisfaction. The catch with anonymous sources has always been the lack of accountability. They face no repercussion for outright lies. Even if Gross’s source — the former Palin senior aide — is telling the truth when she said that Palin discussed the Bristol/Levi wedding in that way, there still are anonymous sources that gave inaccurate information. Gross hasn’t admitted that he was wrong to say Ivy Frye, Kristan Cole, and Meghan Stapleton were on “bad terms” or had “deteriorated” relationships with Palin. He hasn’t responded directly to Shannyn Moore, who says she was misrepresented in the article. And according to Smith, Gross is still wrong about the claim that a group was created just to give money to Palin. Here’s Gross’s “correction”:

A second blog post by Smith on Politico contained a complaint by Karladine Graves, the president of Preserving American Liberty (PAL-PAC), the organization that sponsored the event at which Palin spoke in Independence. I had written that the organization seemed to exist mainly for the purpose of putting on this one event, but Graves maintained that (in Smith’s words) it “continues to put on its regular slate of smaller local events.” Graves’s contention is not true—there is no “regular slate of smaller local events.”…

Smith responds:

On the second point, I was arguing with his original description of the group: “Palin’s tours around the country are supported by a network of organizations that are not always what they claim to be. The Winning America Back conference was organized by a Missouri political-action committee called Preserving American Liberty (PAL-PAC)…. PAL-PAC seems to have been created for a single purpose: to pay Sarah Palin to give a speech.”

The group, according to its Facebook page, recently hosted another gathering, with anti-illegal immigration lawyer Kris Kobach and Sherrif Joe Arpaio. It sponsored a float in a parade in Parkville. Its members rallied for a conservative candidate.  The event at which Palin spoke was a large gathering with other speakers from the conservative circuit like J.D. Watts and Fred Thompson. Its website has grown a bit out of date, its founder told me, because the woman maintaining it has been busy with other things. This isn’t necessarily terribly high-impact, but I don’t understand why it should be seen as shady, mysterious, or as a front for Palin.

Last night Karl Rove went into the belly of the beast, debating “Resolved: Repeal Obamacare” with the Yale Political Union in the Yale Law School auditorium. Rove was a sensation, quickly disarming and charming a hostile audience. When the chairman of Yale’s Progressive Party, sophomore Jordon Walker, satirically praised Rove’s good looks, the former deputy chief of staff rose, bowed, approached Walker, and placed a gentle kiss on his forehead. “If only you were twenty years older and an attractive woman,” Rove pined.

Walker later described the kiss as “a wet one.”

There’s an interesting requirement in the Treasury Department’s handbook for mortgage servicers who want to participate in the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The servicers are told they need to solicit Government Monitoring Data (GMD) on the “race, ethnicity, and sex” of borrowers, and “explain to borrowers the importance of providing this information.” The handbook says the information is important because it is used to ensure compliance with the anti-discrimination provisions of various federal fair-housing laws (although the Obama administration has promised to enforce them against practices that merely have a “disparate impact,” which really is not discrimination, but that’s another story).

Anyway, here’s the part of the handbook that ought to raise eyebrows:

If a borrower declines to provide GMD, the servicer should attempt to provide the information based on visual observation, information learned from the borrower or surname. The servicer must note on the form that the information is based on servicer observations. Servicing staff should be provided with training and job aids (e.g., desk references, scripts and, where feasible, system prompts) to supply this information based on visual observation or surname.

So, in other words, if you refuse to check a silly little box defining your race and ethnicity, then the government wants the mortgage servicer to check a box for you, and to train its employees in judging people’s race and ethnicity by looking at them. Wouldn’t you love to be in on these “training” sessions, and wouldn’t you love to take a look at the “desk references” that are provided? All in the name of nondiscrimination, of course. As for judging people’s sex . . .

My relatives would understand your pain.

On Labor Day, Democrat Andrew Cuomo — New York State attorney general, son of former governor Mario Cuomo, and candidate for governor — wrote an op-ed in the New York Daily News titled “Labor, be part of the solution: Public employee unions must make sacrifices for the sake of the state.” The dauphin is taking on the public sector:

New York stands at a crossroads. Faced with the greatest economic downturn since the Great Depression, our state government is functionally bankrupt. For too long the state has lived far beyond its means, leading the nation in virtually every major category of public spending.

All true. So what’s the solution? The gubernatorial candidate channels former governor Hugh Carey, credited with saving New York City from bankruptcy in the ’70s:

Carey’s determined and creative leadership brought New York back from the brink of civic and financial catastrophe … through shared sacrifice and a balanced approach that did justice to the interests of both business and labor.

District Counsel 37 head Victor Gotbaum and Albert Shanker, president of the United Federation of Teachers, came to the rescue. The former agreed to shelve pay raises for municipal workers; the latter helped stave off bankruptcy by buying city bonds with pension funds.

In a time of great public need, public employees stepped up to the plate and took the long view. And their sacrifices paid off…

I suggest that today is another moment in time where the public sector (along with everyone else) must make sacrifices for the common good.

Cuomo is editorially careful, commending public employees for hoped-for sacrifices rather than condemning them for past largesse. And he hedges with a few platitudes, rhetorically genuflecting to union power. His message to public-employee unions seems to be: I like you guys, I really do, so don’t get mad, but honestly, you’re part of the problem.

Is Andrew Cuomo’s rhetoric credible? Maybe not. Governor Paterson’s promised fiscal austerity in his first State of the State Address didn’t pan out. Public opinion and economic realities are demanding spending cuts, but they are hard to realize in the state’s union-dominated legislative process.

But the rhetoric is a big change nonetheless. Old Albany politicos confirm that, just a few years ago, it was unheard of for an established Dem to criticize public-employee unions. This is one small step.

I write about Obama’s latest economic proposals today. The most direct way for him to boost Democrats’ fortunes in the fall is to turn out the base, eroding the Republican enthusiasm advantage. The problem is that the kind of things he can do to motivate his supporters are the kind of things that are driving independents away from him:

Obama’s domestic program has become one enormous wedge issue, the classic definition of which is anything that drives a “wedge” between the bulk of the electorate and a politician’s core supporters. While most people want less of Obama’s program, his base wants more. Obama could ease off his spending to try to take the edge off the brewing backlash, but that would anger his supporters. Instead, he promises his union-member allies yet more infrastructure projects. His new proposals for business-tax breaks are paid for not with spending cuts, but with countervailing business-tax increases, lest the Left throw a fit.

UPDATE: A reader chimes in:

To me, the speech in Milwaukee proves that Obama doesn’t believe he can get the independents back by November, so his only hope is to try to close the intensity gap and get his 2008 supporters to the polls.  The class-warfare stuff on the Bush tax cuts is consistent with such an approach as well.  At first blush, it seems like a desperate strategy, but tacking to the middle is unlikely to win him many independents at this point, and is likely to further depress liberal turnout.  From Axelrod’s standpoint, neither a base nor a middle strategy is likely to save the House; at least this approach lets him do what he’s ideologically inclined to do anyway.

At some point — maybe between 2010 and 2012 — the “political dilemma” observed here by a Wall Street Journal editorialist is going to come up against another political dilemma, noted here by Gallup.

According to the Journal:

The GOP is a more natural ideological home for most tea partiers than is the other major party, but they also suspect many Republicans of committing pragmatism, if not selling out too easily to Beltway mores. They have a point. On the other hand, sometimes you need a few “wets” to gain a majority and advance your own ideas.

Both parties’ congressional cohorts are disliked, Republicans just slightly more than Democrats. According to Gallup:

The parity in congressional Democrats’ and Republicans’ ratings underscores the conclusion that any Republican advantage in 2010 midterm voting is not primarily due to positive sentiments toward the GOP.

A fellow in the next county to mine got himself arrested and charged (felony reckless endangerment) for firing warning shots into his lawn when a gang threatened his home and family. The gang members were given free White Castle vouchers. (I made that last bit up, though the way things are going, I wouldn’t be surprised.)

The gun he fired was an AK-47. That would be my choice too.

Just got back from the opening ceremonies for my daughter’s first day of school. She’s starting second grade this year (I know, I know: long days, short years). I gave her the same fatherly advice my Dad gave me. First day of school, find the biggest, meanest looking kid you can find on the yard and beat him senseless. Then take over the cigarette trade as quickly as possible. Oh wait, that was advice my Dad gave me for my first day at something else. Oh, well, it still applies.

Anyway, it was a lovely moment. Lu seems better equipped for such things than I ever was.

Thanks for all the nice feedback on my column this morning. It’s particularly encouraging because I wrote it last week, in advance of the three-day column, and “evergreens” are the hardest columns to write. Here’s the opener:

No one in the world knows how to make the computer monitor you are looking at (and, if you’re reading this on your phone, iPad, or Kindle, no one knows how to make those things either).

Even the best editor in the world has no clue how to make a printing press or ink, or how to operate a communications satellite.

This is hardly a new insight. In 1958, Leonard Read wrote one of the most famous essays in the history of libertarianism, “I, Pencil.” It begins, “I am a lead pencil — the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write.” It is one of the most simple objects in human civilization. And yet, “not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me.”

The pencil tells the story of its own creation. The wood comes from Oregon, or perhaps California. The lead, which is really graphite, is mined in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The eraser, which is not rubber but something called “factice,” is “made by reacting rape-seed oil from the Dutch East Indies with sulfur chloride.”

To make a long story short, the simple act of collecting and combining the ingredients of a pencil involves the cooperation of thousands of experts in dozens of fields, from engineering and mining to chemistry and commodity trading. I suppose it’s possible for someone to master all of the knowledge and expertise to make a pencil all by himself, but why would he?

The lessons one can draw from this fact are humbling….

Meanwhile, speaking of humbling, did you know that Paul Krugman was crushed in a debate with a pencil?