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Articles on National Review Online http://article.nationalreview.com NRO Articles en-us © National Review Online 2009. All Rights Reserved webmaster@nationalreview.com (NRO Webmaster) Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:49:02 -0500 Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:49:02 -0500 NRO RSS Generator v1.0 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 5 http://www2.nationalreview.com/images/nro_rsslogo.jpg Articles on National Review Online http://article.nationalreview.com 144 80 National Review Online Blanche Lincoln's Balancing Act -- By: David J. Sanders webmaster@nationalreview.com (David J. Sanders) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGM1MGVjNWU5OTg3ZGQyNmZhMDE1NDhmNGQ5Nzg2NWQ= For Sen. Blanche Lincoln, the moderate Arkansas Democrat, the nation’s health-care woes may lead to more headaches than any medicine could alleviate. Lincoln is a pivotal vote on the motion to begin debate on Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s health-care legislation; if the motion passes, she could be the swing vote on the eventual motion to close debate. Her decision isn’t simply a calculation about winning the right number of concessions, as perhaps President Obama and the Democratic leadership hope; it’s about her political survival. The pressure in Washington may be significant -- Lincoln has had sit-down meetings with Obama and Senate majority leader Harry Reid -- but so is the pressure back home, where Lincoln is showing clear signs of political weakness heading into her 2010 reelection campaign. She is unpopular with a wide range of voters, and that unpopularity directly correlates with the hostility many Arkansans feel toward Democratic policies in Washington, health care included. A recent Zogby International poll of likely Arkansas voters showed that 64 percent oppose the Senate health-care plan and only 29 percent support it. The stacks of survey data show that more voters disapprove than approve of Lincoln. Her approval rating has consistently hovered in the low 40s, while her disapproval rating has edged up into the high 40s. So far, seven Republicans are vying for an opportunity to challenge her in the general election. Some of her would-be Republican opponents, though relatively unknown statewide, are within the margin of error in most polls. According to Zogby, in an initial match-up of Lincoln and possible Republican candidate Gilbert Baker, a state senator, Lincoln holds a narrow 41-39 lead. Against another possible GOP contender, State Senator Kim Hendren, Lincoln holds a more substantial 45-29 lead. But when voters were asked how they would vote in a Lincoln-Baker race if Lincoln were to vote in favor of the pending health-care legislation, the incumbent Democrat fell behind her possible GOP challenger 37-49. In all, 48 percent of likely Arkansas voters said they would be less likely to back Lincoln’s reelection if she supported the health-care bill, and 38 percent said they would be much less likely to back her in that event. The senator received more bad news earlier this week. On Wednesday, Public Policy Polling (PPP), a Democratic-leaning firm based in North Carolina, released the results of a survey of likely voters in Arkansas’s 2nd Congressional District, which showed Lincoln with a shocking 27 percent approval rating. The district includes Little Rock as well as the rest of Central Arkansas, and it has historically been one of the state’s most Democratic-friendly areas. In the same PPP survey, President Obama registered a 42 percent approval rating in the district, and the district’s U.S. congressman, Democrat Vic Snyder -- who has shown recent signs of vulnerability -- came in at 41 percent. The solution for Lincoln is easy, argue some observers: She should simply come out against health-care-reform efforts. But Lincoln has trouble within her own party. She hasn’t polled well with Democrats, who in large part support their party’s designs for health care. The PPP poll found that only 43 percent of Democrats give her positive marks, while 37 percent view her negatively. Here is where her balancing act begins: According to the survey, 30 percent of Democrats think she’s too conservative, while 49 percent of independents think she’s too liberal. Two high-profile Democrats loom as potential primary opponents. Arkansas state senate president Bob Johnson, a 40-something conservative Democrat, has expressed interest in challenging her in a primary. And Lincoln’s supporters worry that Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, whose popularity is high due to his role in establishing the state’s new educational lottery, might forgo reelection next year and challenge the senator from the left. In a move that has fed suspicions of a Halter primary bid, the lieutenant governor is playing host this weekend in Little Rock to the National Association of Free Clinics. None other than MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann has plugged the clinics (which provide free health-care services to the uninsured) as a way of putting pressure on fence-sitting moderate Democrats such as Lincoln. So, if she votes with her party -- including on the motion to begin debate -- it could spell electoral doom; but if she bucks Democrats, she could face a primary challenge. Lincoln is clearly caught between a rock and a hard place. -- David J. Sanders is a columnist with Stephens Media in Little Rock, Ark. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGM1MGVjNWU5OTg3ZGQyNmZhMDE1NDhmNGQ5Nzg2NWQ= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:30:18 -0400 Saturday Night Fever -- By: Robert Costa webmaster@nationalreview.com (Robert Costa) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzkyZTFjNGZmYzhjNzg4Y2EwMTdiMGZkM2FhNDdmODk= In the 2008 presidential race, John McCain often dueled with Barack Obama over health care. Over a year later, Obama is in the White House and McCain finds himself back on Capitol Hill. The battle, however, continues. With the president and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) making a final push to pass Obamacare in the upper chamber, McCain tells NRO that it is crucial for Senate Republicans to make every effort to defeat Reid’s 2,074-page blueprint, which is expected to come to a cloture vote on Saturday night. That vote will determine whether the bill can move to the Senate floor for a final debate. Reid, who leads a caucus of 58 Democrats and two independents, needs to secure 60 votes in order to proceed. Democrats, says McCain, “are trying to fundamentally change health care in America.” Reid’s bill, he adds, is “like a big fish in the sun: After a short period of time out there, it really begins to stink.” McCain’s concerns are numerous: the bill’s spending, its new taxes, its Medicare cuts, its abortion language, its public option, its employer mandates, and its lack of medical-malpractice reform. The last item really irks the Arizona senator. “The total absence of meaningful malpractice reform just shows you the incredible influence of the trial lawyers of America,” says McCain. “It’s just blatant.” The Congressional Budget Office’s recent <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/107xx/doc10731/Reid_letter_11_18_09.pdf">score</a> of Reid’s bill puts the cost at $848 billion over ten years. McCain says that number is misleading. Unlike the House and Senate Finance Committee health-care bills, whose reforms were set to start in 2013, Reid’s bill pushes back the implementation date to 2014. McCain calls the move “outrageous.” “People will start paying taxes right away, but now the benefits won’t kick in until years later,” says McCain. “It’s like buying a house and starting mortgage payments only to be told that you have to wait five years to move into your home. And when you look at the actual cost of implementation, once the taxes come into effect, the ten-year cost is $2.5 trillion.” Beyond the CBO numbers, “this bill is an atrocity, it’s awful,” says Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), an orthopedic surgeon. “The overall costs are hidden. A huge part of Medicare that seniors depend on is going to be cut, and the bill includes major new taxes.” Also worrisome, says Barrasso, is that rationing is on the horizon: “The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government panel, just came out with an astonishing report on mammograms that [encourages the government to step] between people and their doctors. It’s amazing that the government and the Democrats would show their hand this soon. This report is clearly the first step toward rationing and a glimpse into the future of health care in America.” Knowing that the public is growing increasingly uneasy about Obamacare, the Senate GOP is more than ready to raise objections at every turn, says McCain. “Our amendments will be our alternative,” he adds. “We’ll propose a group of reforms to bring down costs, from malpractice reform and enabling people to purchase insurance across state lines to rewards for wellness and fitness and cost-savings for small businesses. Cost is the fundamental schism here. Republicans know that the focus needs to be on bringing down costs. The Democrats, meanwhile, are intent on changing the whole system.” But before the Senate GOP has a chance to offer those amendments on the floor, they’ll have to try to topple Reid’s bill this weekend. Abortion is already at the center of the debate, a major hurdle for Reid as he attempts to cobble together 60 votes. Pro-life Democrats are giving Reid heat for his decision to leave out the abortion language from the health-care bill that recently passed in the House. There, pro-life congressman Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) was able to force Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) to adopt a strict limit on abortion funding when he secured 240 votes for a related amendment. Now, in similar fashion, pro-life senator Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) has threatened to filibuster a final vote on Reid’s bill if the language on restricting federal funds for abortion is not strengthened. “Saturday’s vote is not just some meaningless procedural vote,” says Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), chair of the Senate Republican Conference. “In this case, procedure equals policy, as it often does in the Senate. If you care about right to life, if you’re a pro-life senator, then you know that this is probably the only chance we have to get that provision changed.” “I’ve always thought that Senator Reid could get his 60 votes on the motion to proceed,” adds McCain. “He’s good at that kind of thing. But there will be a backlash in this country when they find out that federal dollars may be given to cover abortion. That is a radical departure from the Hyde Amendment. When the abortion language in this bill is correctly analyzed by experts, Americans will notice. The majority of Americans, be they pro-life or pro-choice, do not want federal dollars directly or indirectly funding abortion.” Sen. Mike Johanns (R., Neb.) agrees. “Saturday’s vote is an abortion vote,” he says. “We often use arcane procedures in the Senate that just lose people. Things can get complicated on the process side here, so let me be clear: This cloture vote is a make-or-break vote on the pro-life issue. Reid’s bill has language that includes a mechanism for public funding and a significant extension of abortion coverage. If this bill moves to the floor with 60 votes this weekend, the only way to change it is to get 60 votes again. That will be very tough to achieve once the bill goes to the floor. A vote to proceed is thus a vote for extending abortion coverage.” Republicans and pro-life Democrats need to unite on Saturday night, says Johanns. “Stupak didn’t give in to Speaker Pelosi. Every Democrat who has run as a pro-life senator, anyone who has gotten an endorsement from the National Right to Life, needs to stand up on this. This is the pro-life vote of their Senate career.” Thanks to these and other concerns, three Democratic senators remain publicly undecided on whether to move Reid’s bill toward a floor debate -- Arkansas’s Blanche Lincoln, Louisiana’s Mary Landrieu, and Nelson. Lincoln is facing growing unpopularity back home and a tough reelection battle in 2010. So far, she and Nelson have issued noncommittal statements. Landrieu has said she may deep-six the Democrats’ plan. Knowing this, Reid gathered the wary trio in his office on Thursday for a private briefing on the bill’s “particulars.” “I’m sure they were talking about more than the weather,” says McCain, who’s concerned that Reid may be sweetening the bill at the last minute for the three fence-sitters. “There should not be a surprise boost in Medicaid funding for states that have been declared disaster areas in the last seven years,” says McCain. “If you look at what’s in that provision on page 432, you see the benefits those states will receive, especially Louisiana, which suffered from Hurricane Katrina in 2005.” ABC News reports that the Congressional Budget Office expects this added component of Reid’s bill to cost $100 million. “We need to engage in an extensive debate over these things,” says McCain. Reid, he adds, with such fine-print favors, could be seen as trying to “buy” Landrieu’s vote. “In a 2,074-page bill, there’s a lot of room for mischief.” Reid isn’t the only Democratic leader trying to help Obamacare along tomorrow, of course. The White House is also doing everything it can to make sure Reid gets 60 votes. For example, a handful of top Obama strategists -- including Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina and pollster Mark Mellman -- addressed Democratic senators on Thursday afternoon. Vice President Biden, they said, is ready and willing to travel to help any worried Democrat sell voters on Obamacare in red-tinged states. Obama himself has also gone out of his way, even during his recent trip to Asia, to praise Reid’s bill. GOP Senate staffers tell NRO that they expect Reid to get his 60 votes. Nonetheless, Alexander says that he’s not giving up on trying to change some minds. The GOP is “doing everything we can” to reach out to moderate Democrats,” says Alexander. “We respect their autonomy, but we know they pay attention to what happens in their states. For example, Senator Johanns held two press conferences recently about Saturday being a right-to-life vote. Those events were surely noticed in Nebraska and especially by Senator Nelson.” Alexander adds that in the final run-up to the Saturday-night vote, the GOP will continue to remind Democrats that they “won’t be able to explain away a ‘yea’ vote on Saturday night as ‘just trying to move the bill to the floor.’ They’re going to have to realize that if they vote for cloture on Saturday, then they’re going to have to go home and explain to voters why they think voting to raise premiums, raise taxes, encourage taxpayer-funded abortions, and cut Medicare equals ‘health-care reform.’” The debate on Reid’s bill is set to begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, with the cloture vote to come around 8 p.m. If it passes, then the Senate will likely take a week off for Thanksgiving and come back to begin the floor debate on Monday, November 30. If it doesn’t pass, it will simply be a disaster for Democrats. President Obama would have little to no chance of signing any piece of legislation until early 2010 and the Senate would become mired in even more debate over cloture that could stretch on for weeks. Regardless of Saturday’s outcome, it will be important for Republicans to “keep going out to the American people,” says McCain. “I intend to try and get out of Washington during the final weeks of debate to have town-hall meetings. We need to keep the American people stoked up and informed and do everything we can to galvanize support. The American people overwhelmingly do not want this legislation. They’re already fired up and frustrated in a way I have never seen before. We have to help make sure that their voices are heard and engage in an extensive debate.” Alexander says he already has a plan. “We’re going to organize Republican senators today and Saturday into teams to go to the floor and read the text of the bill to help the American people understand how it affects their individual health care,” he says. “If the American people have a chance to read the text of the bill and understand its costs, then it has no chance of passing. That’s a very big challenge for the next few weeks, but we’ll take Friday and Saturday to explain the bill to the American people, through the Internet and town halls. We’ll be very active now and all through December.” Then again, some staffers say that if Reid clearly has 60 votes, then the GOP may back off its promise to read the bill in order to let their colleagues go home for the recess, keeping their procedural weapons in their holsters, if only for a week. Whether the Republicans will have much to give thanks for over the break is unclear. Though Reid may appear to be a couple of votes short on cloture, his ability to toss around big-dollar carrots to cautious Democrats like Landrieu should help to pave the way for a floor debate. Saturday night’s debate may be nothing more than a preview of politics to come. Don’t discount it, though, says Barrasso, the doctor. “The Reid bill is the wrong prescription,” he adds. “On Saturday, we’ll give Americans a second opinion.” -- Robert Costa is the William F. Buckley Jr. Fellow at the National Review Institute. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzkyZTFjNGZmYzhjNzg4Y2EwMTdiMGZkM2FhNDdmODk= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:53 -0400 The Man Who Would Kill Lincoln -- By: John J. Miller webmaster@nationalreview.com (John J. Miller) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGI1YmU0YWUyNDM0ZWUzYjFmNGZlM2YzNWRmZjQ0ZDk= EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=1449532438">The First Assassin</a>, by John J. Miller. Saturday, February 23, 1861 When Lorenzo Smith heard the chugging of the train, he felt for the revolver at his side. His fingers met its smooth handle, hidden beneath his black coat. Then he found the short barrel and the trigger below. Smith had reached for it a dozen times in the last hour, but he wanted to be certain that the gun was still there. It will make me a hero, he thought. It will change history. Listening for the rumble of the train had been difficult. A loud mass of people waited for its arrival at Calvert Street Station. Smith did not know how many were there, but they must have numbered in the thousands. The noisy throng spilled from the open-ended depot onto Calvert and Franklin Streets. Inside the station, where Smith stood, shouts bounced off the walls and ceiling. This place of tearful departures and happy reunions had become a hotbed of agitation. The train’s steam whistle pierced the din of the crowd. The engine would pull into Baltimore on schedule, at half past noon. Heads bobbed for a view. Smith struggled to keep his position near the track. He had picked it two hours earlier, when the flood of people was just a trickle. He was not sure precisely where the train would stop, but he thought he had made a good guess about where the last car might come to a halt. He wanted to be within striking distance. As the locomotive’s big chimney came into view, a man standing next to Smith bellowed, “Here he comes! Here comes the Black Republican!” A roar of jeers and insults filled the station. Smith craned his neck. He saw the engine’s massive oil lamp mounted on top of the smoke box. It gazed forward like the unblinking eye of a mechanical Cyclops. Behind it were the cab, the coal tender, and a line of cars. Flags and streamers covered them all. The whole train glistened from a recent cleaning. At the rear, Smith spotted a car painted in orange and black. He reached into his coat another time and tapped the gun. Just making sure. For the last ten days, the train carrying Abraham Lincoln on his inaugural journey from Springfield, Ill., to Washington, D.C., had taken the president-elect through six northern states -- all populated by the abolitionists who had voted him into office. Applause greeted him at almost every stop. But on this morning, as Lincoln’s train turned south into Maryland, it had entered slaveholding territory for the first time. Baltimore was the only city on the trip that had not extended a formal welcome to the incoming president -- an obvious snub that pleased Smith when he thought of it. Smith scanned the crowd and saw several men wearing hats with blue-ribbon cockades. This was the fashion among Baltimore’s secessionist set. Each cockade had a button in its center displaying the palmetto tree, the symbol of South Carolina. That state had quit the Union in December, before any of the others. Many Marylanders now wanted to join the growing Confederacy. The moment Lincoln pulled into the depot, the members of the mob would let him know that he did not have their support. They did not even respect him. In fact, they hated him. Rumors had circulated for weeks that Lincoln would not be safe when he reached Baltimore. But the president-elect had no choice about the visit. The only rail route into Washington from the north required going through Baltimore. Lincoln had to stop and switch to the Baltimore & Ohio Rail Road line at another station more than a mile away. That meant the presidential party would have to make a slow transit from one depot to the other, surrounded the whole way by an angry swarm. Lincoln was supposed to catch a three o’clock departure for Washington, where he would arrive about an hour and a half later. Smith could not keep from grinning. He could hardly have asked for a better opportunity than the one handed to him here and now. He was about to become a hero -- the hero of a new nation. He had planned for this moment from the day he heard Lincoln would pass through his city. He had visited the depot to see where the trains stopped along the platform. He had walked the route Lincoln would take to the other rail line, checking alleys and side streets for the best escape routes. He had studied a picture of Lincoln that had appeared in a magazine. When he learned that the president-elect had grown a beard, he drew whiskers on the picture and studied it more. Smith had cleaned his revolver over and over, trying to keep it in perfect condition. He had tried on his entire wardrobe, testing the gun in trouser pockets, through belts, and in his coat. He bought himself a new pair of shoes and broke them in. They felt good on his feet as Lincoln’s train crawled into the station. The shouting grew louder and louder. The engine rolled past Smith slowly, from right to left. His eyes met the conductor’s for a moment. The man was shaking his head from side to side. Smith wondered what it meant, but not for long -- there was too much going on. The cars kept moving by him. The presidential car in back crept closer. He could see the silhouettes of a few heads through its windows. A fellow up the platform from Smith began to smack the car’s exterior with his cane, but it rolled out of his reach a moment later. Then the train hissed to a halt, with the presidential car directly in front of Smith. His meticulous planning had paid off. Smith jumped onto the car’s metal steps. His feet clanged against them as he thrust himself forward and up. He heard men rushing behind him. At the door into Lincoln’s car, Smith hesitated. He quickly surveyed the depot from this elevated position. It was so full of people that Smith was not sure how he or anybody else could make a hasty exit. He would have to slip into the crowd and count on its anonymity to envelop him. First things first, he reminded himself. Several other men stood beside him on the back of the car. Smith thought he recognized one of them from a secessionist meeting he had attended. His hand was hidden inside his coat. Smith saw a slight bulge. So at least two of us are ready to perform the job today, he thought. Then Smith reached into his own coat and clutched his revolver. He was about to pull it out when the door flew open. “Stop right there!” The shout came from within the car. Before Smith could comprehend it, he saw the end of a pistol pointing at his face, just inches away. Behind the weapon he met the gaze of a man who looked ready to pull the trigger. “Raise your hands!” Smith knew that before he could even lift his gun, he would be shot between the eyes. But he did not loosen his grip. He was too close to his goal. “Where’s Lincoln?” yelled Smith. “Raise your hands, sir, or I will shoot!” came the reply. The man leaned forward. His pistol almost touched Smith’s forehead. Suddenly Smith felt a commotion in the depot. He sensed that the men backing him up were pulling away. The tone of the mob’s shouting had changed, too. He could not hear exactly what they were saying. “One last time, sir: Raise your hands!” Smith released the revolver. It slid back into his pocket. He showed his hands. “Lincoln is not on this train,” said the man. “You won’t find him in Baltimore today.” Smith peered over the man’s shoulders, into the rest of the car. It looked like a room in the mansion of a wealthy family. The red walls and heavy furniture bore all the dainty trappings of Victorian elegance. Blue silk covered the space between the windows. Little tassels dangled from the chairs and shined in the light of the open door. As Smith peered inside, he realized the man with the gun was actually letting him study the car’s interior. He wanted Smith to see who was aboard -- and who was not. Toward the rear, Smith noticed a plump, round-faced woman with her arms wrapped around a couple of frightened girls. A hulking man stood beside her, his arm on the back of her seat. A couple of boys sat nearby. Smith was certain he had seen the woman before. She glared back at him, her eyes glowing with anger. Then Smith realized who she was. He had seen her photograph. It was Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of the president-elect. He spent another few seconds looking at the other faces. Mrs. Lincoln’s husband was definitely not aboard. The man with the gun spoke again: “There’s your proof. He’s not here. Now leave this train immediately!” Smith studied the man. He was in his early twenties. Except for a thin mustache, his face was clean-shaven. His features were soft. He did not look like the sort of fellow who would pack a gun and protect a dignitary, but there was a steady determination in his gaze. Smith had no doubt the young man was willing to pull the trigger. Smith still did not move. “Who are you?” he asked meekly. “I am John Hay, secretary to Abraham Lincoln, who at this very moment is relaxing in Washington. He passed through Baltimore early this morning, in darkness. Now back off or I will shoot!” Smith retreated a step. The door slammed shut. Smith realized that he now stood on the back of the car with a single companion, the man he had recognized. The others who had followed him up the steps were gone. He looked at the mass of people surrounding the train. He heard voices up the track: “Lincoln is not on the train! He’s not on board!” Someone at the front of the car must have delivered the message, which spread quickly through the crowd. Dozens of faces now turned to Smith, hoping he would contradict this report. But they saw a demoralized man. “It’s true,” he said. “Lincoln is not here.” The catcalls started again. “Lincoln is a coward!” “He’s a sneak!” “He’s lucky he’s not here!” Smith slumped his shoulders and looked at the man beside him. “We have failed,” he said. Then Smith stepped off the train and vanished into the mob. On the way out, he did not touch his gun. -- John J. Miller is NR’s national reporter. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGI1YmU0YWUyNDM0ZWUzYjFmNGZlM2YzNWRmZjQ0ZDk= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:52 -0400 Just Bite Her Already -- By: Thomas S. Hibbs webmaster@nationalreview.com (Thomas S. Hibbs) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODdmNjMwYTk2MTZkZGUwYmZmNTZmZTAwMDRiYjg5ZWU= If Elvis and Christopher Walken had a son, he would look like Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), the dreamy-eyed vampire in Chris Weitz’s film The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The much-anticipated film is a sequel to the hugely popular Twilight, based on the best-selling series of books by Stephenie Meyer, who has found a teeny-bopper formula for repackaging the classic Wagnerian theme of love-death. If the screeches from the audience during the screening I attended are any indication, then this film will, like its predecessor, satisfy the romantic longings of its target audience: twelve-year-old girls. For that group, the endless focus on star-crossed lovers hurts so good; for the rest us, it just hurts. As you may know, at the center of the plot is Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a high-school student who has moved from Phoenix, where she lived with her mother, to a small town in the Pacific Northwest, to live with her father, a cop who devotes some of his time to tracking the mysterious source of brutal slayings. Bella, a withdrawn, brooding teen, draws the attention of the aloof Edward, who has previously shown no interest in any girl. Eventually, he reveals that he is a vampire, but not in a bad way. With his vampire family, he feeds only on animal blood, which he compares to tofu: It provides nourishment but never really satisfies. Danger thus lurks in every meeting between Bella and Edward. He might be tempted to feed on her, as might other members of his family; even if those temptations can be suppressed, there is the risk of Bella’s being caught up in the battle between the Cullen family and a group of much less principled vampires. Twilight is the ultimate female teen romantic fantasy, about the awkward female outsider who finds a complex, deep, dark male outsider, the one all the other girls wish they had. In this case, standard teen romance becomes a kind of teen gnosticism, since here the brooding James Dean happens to have preternatural powers and is clued in to the secrets of the universe. The filmmakers are clever enough to know that the real draw here is the seeming impossibility of the love between the two characters. In New Moon, Bella and Edward just happen to be studying Romeo and Juliet in class. The story is all about longing unrealized, never about what Shelley called “love’s sad satiety.” It is also about being addicted to the danger itself. As Edward says in one of many instances of clichéd dialogue: “You’re like my own personal brand of heroin.” The dreadful dialogue is matched by poor filmmaking technique. The Pacific Northwest setting, with its gloomy weather and its heavily wooded landscapes, suits the plot perfectly. But the rest of the filmmaking is utterly uncreative. The film tediously repeats slow-motion shots, zoom shots, and encircling shots. There is also that cheesy glitter vampires sport when they are seen in the sun. Large werewolves appear on the scene via the crudest CGI in recent memory, and Edward communicates with Bella in a hologram reminiscent of Princess Leia’s appearance to Obi-Wan. Then there are the profound silences, as Bella and Edward, with eyes averted, bear the excruciating pain of a love that cannot be. In New Moon, Edward decides to end the relationship permanently after a paper cut on Bella’s finger during her birthday party at the Cullen home has nearly tragic consequences. Unable to rid the world of the threat of paper, the Cullen family leaves town. Without Edward, Bella becomes despondent and self-destructive. Seeking risky pursuits -- both because, whenever she is in danger, Edward makes one of his holographic appearances to admonish her, and because the girl simply loves danger -- she begins motorbike riding with her Native American childhood friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Whereas Edward was cold to the touch, Jacob is unusually hot. Edward is pale; Jacob, dark-skinned. But both are gorgeous and both harbor secrets. Repeating Edward’s pick-up line, Jacob tells Bella, “Go away.#...#I’m not good.” The girl has a thing for attracting handsome monsters, and she loves every minute of the pain. In Edward’s absence, Bella actively cultivates pain because it is a “reminder.” One of her friends worries that she is suicidal, but she is not so much in love with easeful death as she is in love with the thrill of the constant risk of death -- especially of a dramatic death. As she puts it in her opening voiceover in the first film, “I never really thought about death.#...#Dying for someone else would not be a bad way to go.” One of the attractions of romanticism is that it counters the reductionist tendencies of the modern world. Romanticism reacts against the elimination of mystery from human life and the reduction of human sexuality to a mere appetite and of love to a contractual arrangement. As Roger Scruton argues (<a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=%200195166914">Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde</a>), romanticism is a remedy for what ails the modern world -- a “morbidly unheroic world,” dominated by “cost-benefit calculation,” which tempts us to regard our own existence as a “cosmic mistake.” The remedy is to “live as if a heroic love were possible, and as if we could renounce life for the sake of it.” Bella is in the grip of precisely such a vision. But we have serious reason to wonder how admirable her vision (or Scruton’s, for that matter) is. Her love-death passion is an escape from the banality of ordinary life: boring high-school classes with dull kids and a humdrum family life. The best thing about her father, Bella says, is that “he doesn’t hover.” There is an attempt in New Moon to invest Bella’s dilemmas with some sort of moral, perhaps even metaphysical, significance, but the discussion of the soul she would lose in joining the undead is specious and vacuous. The film made me nostalgic for the days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a TV series that extracted much greater humor from high-school existence and treated the loss of one’s soul with moral gravity and dramatic sensitivity. By contrast, Bella worries that if she doesn’t join the undead, she will grow old and become unattractive to the eternally dashing Edward. One shudders at the prospect of an eternity spent pondering self-indulgent romance masquerading as heroic self-sacrifice. Halfway through New Moon some viewers will likely have had enough. Those of us in this non-target audience have an urgent piece of advice for Edward: Just bite her already. -- Thomas S. Hibbs, an NRO contributor, is the author of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=189062635X">Shows about Nothing</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODdmNjMwYTk2MTZkZGUwYmZmNTZmZTAwMDRiYjg5ZWU= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:29 -0400 We Need Your Help -- By: Jonah Goldberg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjQxOTI1YmIzYzg4MmIyNjE4YTI4YmE0N2FiYmVmNzk= How much would you pay to watch Sarah Palin beat the stuffing out of Andrew Sullivan? What would Barack Obama’s official Kenyan birth certificate be worth to you? How about a videotape proving that Bill Ayers not only wrote Dreams from My Father, but also translated it from the original Russian? How about a new Christmas CD with Robert Byrd singing all of his Yuletide favorites (“I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas,” “I’m Dreaming of an Even Whiter Christmas,” etc)? What would you pay for a DVD of John Kerry saying “Do you know who I am?” one time too many at a biker bar? Alas, I can’t promise to deliver any of those things any more than I can immanentize the eschaton or hold more than 46 Cheetos in my mouth at any one time. But what I can promise you is that NRO will continue to be there for you, like the creepy dude at the local library who smells like cabbage and keeps following you around to tell you that nobody really understands the true story of the War of 1812. Except we’re not creepy (“Keep telling yourself that” -- The Couch) and don’t smell like cabbage (except around the in-house festival of St. Stanislaus), and while we may have our theories about the “War” of 1812, we instead mostly share conservative insights, news, anti-zombie strategies, humor, timewasters, debates, philosophy, tips about how to maintain sanitary standards in public restrooms, and lamentations about the sorry state of hand-drying technology therein. And, of course, we share dog stories of high caliber while tastefully referencing rodents of unusual size, Cthulhu, Mendoza, cats, and the ghosts of Mecosta: all on account of the flies. We keep the mainstream media on their toes like Robert Reich at a urinal, and cause the Left to fume and fulminate like volcanoes uncowed by the presence of airborne laser-lancing equipment. And you in turn keep us engaged like Picard’s Enterprise at Warp 9. Okay, that’s lame. You keep us on top of our game like Michael Moore sitting on a Parcheesi board? You keep us sharp like the crease in Mark Steyn’s trousers? (“Move away from the keyboard, Goldberg” -- The Couch.) Whatever. We love our readers, but not in the sense that we want to take you out back of the middle school and get you pregnant. We’re grateful to you for so much. And not just your money, which -- don’t get me wrong -- we want more than Joe Biden wants to be taken seriously. You’re our fact checkers and our tipsters. Our best friends and our harshest critics. What was it John Cusack said about Nick in The Sure Thing? “Nick’s your buddy. Nick’s the kind of guy you can trust, the kind of guy you can drink a beer with, the kind of guy who doesn’t mind if you puke in his car. Nick!” Well, you’re our Nick, and we want to be yours, but not in a gay way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. And Nick, buddy, pal, Kemosabe, we really do need your help. Sure, I could give you the Tommy Boy Callahan-brake-pads speech, asking you to give for your sake and your daughter’s sake. Sure, I could show you the books and run you through the numbers. And you could also take a look up a steer’s you-know-what, but why not take the butcher’s word for it? <a href="https://store.nationalreview.com/donate/">Please help</a>. For me. Please. Oh, I know what you’re saying: “Why should I do it for Goldberg? I had to kill a man with my bare hands in Machu Picchu for my money. Why should I give it to NRO just because Goldberg asks? He’s not as funny as Steyn, and he ain’t as smart as Ponnuru. He doesn’t know witchcraft like Derbyshire, and he’s not the all-powerful and extremely handsome Rich Lowry. Besides, now that he’s Mr. Book Writer guy, he’s gone all corporate, wearing belts and everything. I’d rather spend my blood money on sweatsocks filled with bird seed, just like Brian Williams does.” And even if that’s not exactly what you’re saying, I’m sure that’s the gist of it. So let me say: I hear you. And in order to prove that I’m staying at NRO for the long haul and committing to my end of the bargain with you, the Collective Nick, I’d like to make an announcement: I am Spartacus! Oh, sorry. That’s not it. I’d like to announce that all that clanking, hammering, and agonized shrieking of the damned you’ve been hearing from the National Review garage is not what you think it is (I’m assuming you thought I was building Mechagodzilla). We are going to bring back the Goldberg File. That’s right, the G-File is coming out of the misty shadows of memory and legend, like a Ranger out of Arnor or Mickey Rourke emerging from a shadowy doorway in Rumble Fish (though hopefully not looking like the Mickey Rourke of today, with the toy dogs and the face that looks like he was attacked by bees). It’s going to be an e-mail “newsletter.” But the amount of news will be swamped by the surfeit of letters. There will be more about this later. But first, we need your cash. Really. <a href="https://store.nationalreview.com/donate/">Please help</a>, Nick. Please. You’re our only hope. -- Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0385511841">Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjQxOTI1YmIzYzg4MmIyNjE4YTI4YmE0N2FiYmVmNzk= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:00:22 -0400 Welcome to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy -- By: Stephen Spruiell webmaster@nationalreview.com (Stephen Spruiell) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDlhOWMxMWM0NjI0Y2RmYTUwNzQ4YmJjMTIyYTA5MWE= In May 2008, Chicago Public Radio teamed up with National Public Radio (NPR) to produce an episode of the show This American Life called “<a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355">The Giant Pool of Money</a>.” The episode garnered widespread praise and won several awards for explaining the subprime-mortgage crisis with clarity and concision. It was such a success that NPR created a podcast, Planet Money, featuring the same team of reporters and producers. Planet Money covered the financial collapse last fall and continues to file jargon-free reports on the economy three times a week. A few weeks ago, that crew put together another big project, this time a <a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1320">two</a>-<a href="http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1321">parter</a> of This American Life and several subsequent podcasts devoted to the subject of health care. As in “The Giant Pool of Money,” the reporting was clear and even-handed. The team’s correspondents sought out industry professionals, economists, and patients. (They ignored politicians, by and large.) They surveyed the history of the American health-care system and drew some conclusions about why it has so many problems. And, if you’re someone who expects a certain amount of leftishness from NPR, those conclusions might surprise you. 1. Medical-malpractice lawsuits drive up the cost of health care. The first episode began by defining the problem: The average cost of a health-insurance policy for a family of four doubled between 2000 and 2007, host Ira Glass said, and it is projected to double again in the next seven years. Health-care costs are spiraling out of control, eating into the wages of those who have insurance and making it harder for the uninsured to buy it. Why? The answer is complex, but one of the problems the NPR team identified is that doctors practice what’s known as defensive medicine. That is to say, they order tests and perform procedures that their patients might not need, out of fear that otherwise they might get sued. The NPR team produced several stories on how defensive medicine drives up costs, including one about a doctor named Dan Merenstein. As a third-year resident, Merenstein counseled a 53-year-old man on the benefits and risks of getting a PSA screening (a common test for prostate cancer). Merenstein told his patient that he thought the risks outweighed the benefits: False positives are common, follow-ups invasive and potentially harmful. The man declined the test. The man was later diagnosed with a fatal prostate cancer, a kind that early detection probably would not have helped. He nevertheless sued Merenstein and his residency program. The plaintiff’s lawyers argued that Merenstein shouldn’t have given the man a choice on whether to have the test. “The jury#...#rejected the idea of following the guidelines based on evidence,” Merenstein said. “They took this approach that this thing called evidence-based medicine is just a way to save money, just a way to ration care.” The verdict left Merenstein alone, but found his residency program liable for $1 million. He told NPR that it’s hard not to see patients as potential plaintiffs. He says he still counsels patients on the potential drawbacks of the expensive, not-always-necessary screening, but he admits that he gives patients a little push by telling them that most people do get the test. 2. Insurance companies are not evil. This summer, amid all the town-hall pushbacks against Obamacare, Nancy Pelosi lashed out at private insurance companies: “They are the villains in this,” she said. “They’ve been immoral all along in how they have treated the people.#...#You know, the litany of it all.” Many mainstream reporters know the litany of it all, or at least they think they do. But NPR actually probed this received wisdom, and found a lot of holes. For instance, a former insurance executive named Wendell Potter had a conversion experience and now goes around the country talking about all the bad things insurance companies do to save money. Potter is fond of telling one story about how Aetna purged 8 million people from its insurance rolls and subsequently saw its stock price go up. Taking away people’s coverage for profit: proof positive of insurance-company greed. “The truth of the story,” producer Sarah Koenig explained, “is a little more complicated, a little less Machiavellian.” In 2001, Aetna was losing $1 million a day. Aetna did two things to turn the company around: It raised premiums, and it pulled out of markets where it did not have a large presence. It turns out, the less competition an insurance company faces in a particular market, the cheaper it can price its products, and the lower premiums are for the insured. Why? Because insurance companies have to wield a lot of clout in order to bargain effectively with the large health-care provider groups in a given area. Obama says, “One of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest.” But if the public option would actually weaken dominant players in the insurance market and concentrate more pricing power in the hands of provider groups, it would drive health-care costs up. 3. Our reliance on third-party payers is at the heart of the problem. So if insurance-company greed isn’t to blame, what does ail our health-care system? NPR’s reporting points to what economists call the “third-party-payer problem.” As David Goldhill <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care">pointed out</a> in a must-read article for The Atlantic earlier this year, you don’t get the bill for your medical care. Someone else gets the bill, and that distorts incentives for payers, providers, and consumers of health care. The NPR team put together a couple of stories that illustrated this problem, but the most succinct explanation came from Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg in a segment on the history of American health care. “We the consumers are totally separated from the cost of what we’re consuming,” Davidson said. “We get tests and procedures we don’t need because, well, why not? We’re not paying for it a la carte. Our employers are paying for part of it, our government is paying for part of it through#...#tax incentives.” How did we end up with such an inefficient system? Prior to World War II, health insurance existed, but most people paid for medical care out of their own pockets. The government instituted price and wage controls during the war, but placed no controls on benefits, so companies turned to benefit packages as a means of competing for workers. Wage and price controls made the third-party-payer system possible, but a different policy set it in stone: a change in the tax law allowing employers to deduct the cost of health benefits from their taxes. After the IRS ruled that employers did not have to pay taxes on health benefits for their workers, the proportion of the population getting health insurance through their employers went from 9 percent in 1940 to 63 percent of the population in 1953. 4. Obamacare won’t fix it. The NPR team did not come right out and say it, but its reporting points to this conclusion. Alex Blumberg put it this way: <blockquote> Markets are usually really good at controlling costs. When they work best, products come into existence like cell phones or stockings, they start expensive and then they get cheaper and better. But markets don’t guarantee that everyone can afford the things they need. Government can be good at that, ensuring universal access. But when you’re paying for everybody, it’s hard to control costs. For [economic historian] Melissa Thomasson, she says that either extreme -- a competitive market system where consumers know what price they’re paying and what they’re getting, which would drive the cost of health care down, or a government-run system which would cover everyone -- would be better than the accidental mixture that we have today: a really expensive system that doesn’t cover us all. </blockquote> Obamacare would pour even more cement over this broken system. It’s not a single-payer system that would cover everyone and control costs through price controls and rationing. Nor is it a market-oriented reform that would empower consumers by equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance and reducing the role of government in the market. Instead, it makes health insurance mandatory for everyone. It bends the cost curve up by subsidizing insurance without putting any real cost-control measures in place. And it creates a public option that would weaken the power of insurance companies to bargain with hospitals for better rates. Democrats have accused conservatives of spreading fear and misinformation about their health-care legislation. They might want to look into this new and most insidious propaganda arm of the conservative movement: NPR. -- Stephen Spruiell is an NRO staff reporter. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDlhOWMxMWM0NjI0Y2RmYTUwNzQ4YmJjMTIyYTA5MWE= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00:15 -0400 End It, Don't Amend It -- By: The Editors webmaster@nationalreview.com (The Editors) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjUxNzU2ODFmMjVlOTA2ODgxMjE3NjJlNDA3N2UxMDc= Harry Reid offers the nation a mephitic Senate health-care bill that retains the worst features of Nancy Pelosi’s creation and adds fresh horrors of its own: It will force Americans to finance abortions and jack up some Americans’ Medicare taxes by 34 percent. On paper, the House bill costs a little more than $1 trillion, the Senate bill a little less than $1 trillion; more realistic estimates, minus the congressional accounting chicanery, put the price tag of each closer to $2 trillion over the first ten years of implementation. With trillions of dollars on the line -- along with the excellence of our health care and the energy of our economy -- Americans’ eyes must turn to Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who has the opportunity to stop this bill from going to the Senate floor for advancement. If there is only scant chance of that happening, that tells us something about the real commitment of these vaunted moderates and the price at which they may be bought off. Lincoln is an Arkansas Democrat, and there would be a pleasing symmetry to her standing athwart the nationalization of American medicine, a project launched in earnest by another Arkansas Democrat, Bill Clinton, a decade and a half ago. Senator Lincoln, one of those moderate Democrats who are the subject of so much talk and the source of so little action, has expressed some hesitancy to advance Senator Reid’s bill. As well she might: Her Arkansas constituency will be hit particularly hard by a federal mandate that will require Americans to spend up to 9.8 percent of their total annual household income on insurance premiums or find themselves declared outlaws, subject to serious fines and other punishment at the hands of the federal government. Senator Lincoln is joined in these concerns by two other prominent moderate Democrats, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, who are rightly skeptical of this $1 trillion experiment (which, if it follows the financial path of Medicare and Medicaid, will end up being a multi-trillion-dollar experiment) and who represent many constituents who may not seek to outlaw abortion but will object deeply to Harry Reid’s strong-arming them into paying for it. That latter concern must also command the attention of Pennsylvania’s Sen. Robert Casey, who presents himself as a staunch pro-life Democrat in the tradition of his father. All of their constituents also appreciate that other pending Obama-administration priorities, such as immigration-reform efforts that will include an amnesty for illegal aliens, will pile costs onto this bill that are not yet accounted for. There is, at this time, a real need for health-care reform, but there is not a need for anything so sweeping, radical, and expensive as what Senator Reid and Speaker Pelosi are trying to push through Congress. If there remains such a thing as Democratic moderation, now is the time for Senators Lincoln, Nelson, and Landrieu to show their true colors. This is their hour: The polls find not only that Americans are broadly opposed to the Pelosi and Reid model of health-care reform but also that, for the first time in many years, Americans have come to believe that reforming our health-care finances is not a job for Washington. This is a fraught moment in our political history, to be sure, but it also is an encouraging one in that Americans are calling for less government involvement in the economy, whether in health insurance, banking, or building cars. Washington has overreached: Obama, Reid, and Pelosi seek to overreach farther still. But the politics are against them, as is the national mood. President Obama makes a good speech -- he always makes a good speech -- but on health care he is a toy soldier. With big, expensive, ungainly parts of his domestic agenda yet unaccomplished -- global-warming “cap and trade” legislation, banking reform -- accompanied by the threat of a double-dip recession, persistent high unemployment, and a war in Afghanistan that he does not seem to be quite on top of, President Obama is in no position to make unreasonable demands of the moderate Democrats whose support he will need for the rest of his presidency. This will be even more salient if his party finds its congressional majorities diminished in the 2010 elections. Among the places that majority could be diminished is Arkansas, a state that is very Democratic but very conservative. (How conservative? Went for McCain-Palin, banned same-sex marriage with a measure that carried 74 percent of the vote, has a law on the books outlawing abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned -- that conservative.) There is no doubt that Senator Lincoln is more moderate than the typical Democrat; what is in doubt is whether that means anything. If the moderates meekly knuckle under to the most radical projects of the Obama-Pelosi-Reid Democrats, then they are simply insignificant. If Senator Lincoln and her confreres are sincere in their desire to see deep and wide improvements made to health-care legislation, then the time to act is now, by voting against sending Reid’s wreck to the floor for a debate. We hold out no great hope that they will do so, and that is unfortunate: This is not a bill that needs to be amended, but one that needs to be scrapped and replaced by modest, sensible reforms that address the real shortcomings of our health-care system, such as the insecurity and expense of decent insurance, without enacting a federal takeover of the medical economy. That is what “moderation” means, and the moderates ought to recognize as much. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjUxNzU2ODFmMjVlOTA2ODgxMjE3NjJlNDA3N2UxMDc= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 04:00:05 -0400 Palinophobes Hate First, Ask Questions Later -- By: Jonah Goldberg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzdiYTliN2MwYmJiNWY4OWVlZTA4ZmIwYzJkMjFjOGI= Slate magazine is just one of the countless media outlets convulsing with St. Vitus’ Dance over that demonic succubus Sarah Palin. In its reader forum, The Fray, one supposed Palinophobe took dead aim at the former Alaska governor’s writing chops, excerpting the following sentence from her book: “The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn’t work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.” Other readers pounced like wolf-sized Dobermans on an intruder. One guffawed, “That sentence by Sarah Palin could be entered into the annual Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest. It could have a chance at winning a (sic) honorable mention, at any rate.” But soon, the original contributor confessed: “I probably should have mentioned that the sentence quoted above was not written by Sarah Palin. It’s taken from the first paragraph of ‘Dreams From My Father,’ written by Barack Obama.” The ruse should have been allowed to fester longer, but the point was made nonetheless: Some people hate Palin first and ask questions later. My all-time favorite response to John McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate was from Wendy Doniger, a feminist professor of religion at the University of Chicago. Professor Doniger wrote of the exceedingly feminine “hockey mom” with five children: “Her greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman.” The best part about that sentence: Doniger uses the pronoun “her” -- twice. Just this week, a liberal blogger at The Atlantic who has dedicated an unhealthy amount of his life to proving a one-man birther conspiracy theory about Palin’s youngest child (it’s both too slanderous and too deranged to detail here) shut down his blog to cope with the epochal, existential crisis that Palin’s book presents to all humankind. The un-self-consciously parodic announcement seemed more appropriate for a BBC warning that the German blitz was about to begin, God Help Us All. Indeed, some of us will always be sympathetic to Mrs. Palin if for nothing else than her enemies. The bile she extracts from her critics is almost like a dye marker, illuminating deep pockets of asininity that heretofore were either unnoticed or underappreciated. In fairness, just as there are people who hate Palin for the effrontery she shows in daring to draw breath at all, there are those who love her with a devotion better suited for a religious icon. I hear from both camps, often. And while I don’t think both sides are equally wrong (after all, the acolytes of the Doniger school openly reject reality more than any so-called creationist), I don’t think either position is laudable or sufficient. Sarah Palin is neither savior (that job has been taken by the current president, or didn’t you know?) nor is she satanic. She is a politician, a species of human like the rest of us. I’m fairly certain that if you read many of her public-policy positions but concealed her byline, many of her worst enemies would say “that sounds about right,” and some of her biggest fans would say “that sounds crazy.” But most people would say that her views are perfectly within the mainstream of American politics. She may be more religious than coastal elites in the lower 48, but that is something some bigots need to get over, anyway. I’m happy about the books she’s selling thanks to the controversy over her, but that doesn’t mean I think these controversies are justified. Palin holds no public office and, as of yet, is not running for one. But the Associated Press assigned eleven reporters to “fact-check” her book, while doing nothing like that to fact-check then-candidate Obama’s or current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s no doubt riveting book. As it stands, my sense is that Palin is good for the Republican party but not necessarily great. She generates enthusiasm among, and donations from, the base. But she also turns off many of the people the GOP needs to persuade and attract. That could change with this book tour, and I hope it does. Whether she’s ready or qualified for the presidency is another matter. But the presidency is a long way off, and besides, that’s what primaries are for. -- Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0385511841">Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning</a>. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzdiYTliN2MwYmJiNWY4OWVlZTA4ZmIwYzJkMjFjOGI= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:59 -0400 Medicare: A Glimpse of the Future? -- By: Deroy Murdock webmaster@nationalreview.com (Deroy Murdock) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODBiMzQ4YzJkNjdlMTkyODJlMGUzOGZmZGZhZTAzZGU= As the U.S. Senate weighs a <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/19/health.care.bill/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn">2,074-page</a> health-care “reform” bill, supporters of a government option for medical coverage consider this the finest federal initiative since the Emancipation Proclamation. Yet today’s headlines show government severely bungling its current health-care duties. Expanding Uncle Sam’s medical portfolio is a prescription for fraud, fiscal incompetence, and rampant mismanagement on the clinical frontlines. Fraud devours some $60 billion -- or 13.3 percent -- of Medicare’s <a href="http://www.aafp.org/online/en/home/publications/news/news-now/government-medicine/20090527hhs-budget-sebelius.html">$452 billion</a> budget. “Rather than stealing $100,000 or $200,000,” federal prosecutor Kirk Ogrosky said on October 25’s <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/23/60minutes/main5414390.shtml">60 Minutes</a>, criminals “can steal $100 million.” One thief named “Tony” told CBS’s Steve Kroft that he robbed $20 million from Medicare. It was “real easy,” “Tony” <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5414400n&tag=contentMain;contentBody">said</a>. “It was like taking candy from a baby.” He registered bogus medical companies, bought stolen doctor and patient ID numbers, and then billed Medicare for phantom wheelchairs, phony artificial limbs, and more. Medicare soon delivered $20,000 to $40,000 electronically into “Tony’s” bank account -- daily. Kroft said his findings raise “troubling questions about our government’s ability to manage a medical bureaucracy.” Sen. Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) recently found that Medicare administrators received 30 serious fraud warnings over three years, primarily during the Bush administration, and simply ignored half of them. Medicare failed to investigate complaints that it reimbursed one company for injected drugs “at doses that were not medically feasible,” one letter explained. Rather than the proper $74 per dose, Medicare sent this provider $4,464. Another recent report uncovered $18.1 billion in improper Medicaid payments, or 9.6 percent of that program’s claims. Lacking the “evil and greedy” private insurers’ profit motive, Medicare managers have no incentive to uproot such malfeasance. Medicare staffers rarely are corrupt; but with their pay and promotions not tethered to any bottom line, they have little reason to worry about who gets paid what. Michael McGaughan <a href="http://www.pantagraph.com/news/opinion/mailbag/article_21a3af0a-cfe5-11de-b6e0-001cc4c03286.html">observed</a> in the November 13 Pantagraph.com that the top 14 health-insurance companies earned aggregated profits of $8.6 billion last year on combined revenues of $275.6 billion, according to the May 4 <a href="http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500/2009/industries/223/index.html">Fortune</a>. This translates into 3.12 percent in “greedy” profits in the private option versus 13.3 percent fraud in the public option. Greed suddenly looks pretty good. Meanwhile, doctors routinely wait and wait to get paid less and less by Medicaid. According to Athena Health’s PayerView report, North Carolina is the fastest state Medicaid system, paying doctors in 40.6 days. Still, it lags Coventry Health Care, a private insurer and the eighth-fastest of eight “national payers” that Athena measured. Coventry needed 38.5 days to issue checks. (Medicare Part B was ranked fifth among “national payers” at 33.4 days.) Among 14 state Medicaid systems that Athena rated, six take 77.7 to 89.7 days to pay. Medicaid of New York is the biggest deadbeat, averaging 160.9 days (or nearly six months) before whipping out its checkbook. Medicaid systems also reject claims more than do private insurers. While Humana, the No. 1-ranked national payer, has a 5.3 percent denial rate, No. 7 Medicare Part B spurns 8.7 percent of claims. Among Medicaid systems, No. 1 Illinois denies 9.1 percent of its claims. Medicaid of California’s refusal rate is 19.5 percent, while No. 12 New York’s is 34.1 percent. Fourteenth-rated Florida denies 38.8 percent of Medicaid claims. Government reimbursements also trail <a href="http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl">inflation</a>. In 1997, Medicare paid general surgeons $574 for each complex hemorrhoidectomy. In 2008, that procedure paid $390. This is barely half the $770 needed to equal inflation. “Due to Medicaid’s and Medicare’s low reimbursement values, high denial rates, and delays to reimbursement by the governmental payers, many physicians’ offices are choosing more and more not to accept patients with these payers,” says Dr. Soumi Eachempati, M.D., associate professor of surgery and public health at Manhattan’s Weill Cornell Medical College. Because of these problems and Medicaid and Medicare’s apparent tendency “to hold payments for no apparent reason other than a shortfall of their funds,” Dr. Eachempati says, “myself and many providers are against increasing government intervention in health care.” “At least 20 physician-specialty organizations including the American College of Surgeons have come out in opposition to the current health-reform bills,” Dr. Eachempati <a href="http://www.rga.org/homepage/">told</a> the Republican Governors Association Thursday in Austin, Tex. “Physicians feel that increased government intervention in health care will force them to be even more indentured to Medicaid and Medicare which perpetually appear to be on the verge of collapse. I personally know multiple physicians who suffered through a freeze on Medicare payments last summer as the state of Virginia ran out of Medicare funds.” The government option also impedes distribution of the swine-flu vaccine. Washington has injected little more than confusion into this situation. According to early promises, 120 million doses were to be deployed by mid-October. Now, only 30 million doses will be on hand, but not until late November. “I think we led expectations of availability to be higher than they have been,” Assistant Surgeon General Anne Schuchat told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday. “That, I think, can lead to frustration.” Committee chairman Joseph Lieberman (I., Conn.) <a href="http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press.MajorityNews&ContentRecord_id=0497ef73-5056-8059-7606-bcd4a2ea5a8d">said</a>, “I worry that we are undermining confidence, generally, in the public-health system.” Sen. Susan Collins (R., Me.) <a href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/Geriatrics/Vaccines/17081">scolded</a> Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for offering senators “generalizations and non-answers” on this vital matter. The government option in medicine speeds taxpayer dollars into the hands of crooks, stalls payments to honest doctors, and stymies Americans desperate for swine-flu shots. Imagine how much more the government option could accomplish with a trillion dollars and an appetite for one-sixth of the U.S. economy. — Deroy Murdock is a New York-based columnist with the Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODBiMzQ4YzJkNjdlMTkyODJlMGUzOGZmZGZhZTAzZGU= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:48 -0400 Travesty in New York -- By: Charles Krauthammer webmaster@nationalreview.com (Charles Krauthammer) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjAxZWY3OWMyY2ZkMmE5NzI3ZGFmYmI2NWNjZDQ3ZDc= For late-19th-century anarchists, terrorism was the “propaganda of the deed.” And the most successful propaganda-by-deed in history was 9/11 -- not just the most destructive, but the most spectacular and telegenic. And now its self-proclaimed architect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has been given by the Obama administration a civilian trial in New York. Just as the memory fades, 9/11 has been granted a second life -- and KSM, a second act: 9/11, The Director’s Cut, narration by KSM. Sept. 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable -- a civilian trial in the media capital of the world -- from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America. So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system, in which the rule of law and the fair trial reign. Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) “do not get convicted,” asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. “Failure is not an option,” replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn’t the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure -- acquittal, hung jury -- is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place. Moreover, everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning. Apart from the fact that any such trial will be a security nightmare and a terror threat to New York -- what better propaganda-by-deed than blowing up the entire courtroom, making KSM a martyr and making the judge, jury, and spectators into fresh victims? -- it will endanger U.S. security. Civilian courts with broad rights of cross-examination and discovery give terrorists access to crucial information about intelligence sources and methods. That’s precisely what happened during the civilian New York trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. The prosecution was forced to turn over to the defense a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators, including the name Osama bin Laden. “Within ten days, a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum,” wrote former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the presiding judge at that trial, “letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.” Finally, there’s the moral logic. It’s not as if Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of the attack on the U.S.S. Cole, to a military tribunal. By what logic? In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his November 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal. What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime -- an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war which the U.S. itself has engaged in countless times? By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal? Moreover, the incentive offered any jihadi is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform -- everything but your own blog. Alternatively, Holder tried to make the case that he chose a civilian New York trial as a more likely venue for securing a conviction. An absurdity: By the time Obama came to office, KSM was ready to go before a military commission, plead guilty and be executed. It’s Obama who blocked a process that would have yielded the swiftest and most certain justice. Indeed, the perfect justice. Whenever a jihadist volunteers for martyrdom, we should grant his wish. Instead, this one, the most murderous and unrepentant of all, gets to dance and declaim at the scene of his crime. Holder himself told the Washington Post that the coming New York trial will be “the trial of the century.” The last such was the trial of O. J. Simpson. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjAxZWY3OWMyY2ZkMmE5NzI3ZGFmYmI2NWNjZDQ3ZDc= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:38 -0400 Holder's True Motive -- By: Mona Charen webmaster@nationalreview.com (Mona Charen) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2YyNzVlODFjZDI1OGI2NWRhNzg2NzU2NGIxZTllNDM= Attorney General Eric Holder adopted a tough-guy pose when he announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others will be tried in federal court for the most heinous terror attack on Americans in history. “After eight years of delay,” he intoned, “those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September 11 will finally face justice. It is past time to finally act.” Where to begin? The claim that the Bush administration was somehow dilatory sets a new standard for gall, particularly coming from Eric Holder. As former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out, “The principal reason there were so few military trials is the tireless campaign conducted by leftist lawyers [including Holder] to derail military tribunals by challenging them in the courts.” Those lawyers threw up hundreds of roadblocks. Military detentions and tribunals violated, they claimed, the U.S. Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Litigating all this has taken years. At last clearing those obstacles, the government initiated Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s military trial in Guantanamo in September of 2008. In December, KSM pled guilty and asked to be executed. But now the attorney general puffs out his chest and declares that by trying KSM in an Article III federal court he has chosen the forum “most likely to lead to a positive result.” The mind reels. This is an excruciatingly awful decision that no hanging-judge talk of “the ultimate penalty” can perfume. What about the increased risk of terror attacks on New York during the trial? The city is “hardened” against attacks, Holder assures us. Really? Like Fort Hood? By granting a civil trial to KSM, while Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who bombed the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, will receive a military tribunal, the U.S. telegraphs this message to terrorists: Wherever possible, attack our civilians. You’ll get more lawyering and a better deal than if you attack our military. (And by the way, you’ll get more rights than a member of our military who commits a crime.) Attorney General Holder is keen to prove to a supposedly skeptical world that America lives up to its values (never mind that granting the full rights of citizens to enemy combatants is not part of our creed -- nor anyone else’s). Yet he has also repeatedly asserted that a not-guilty verdict is unacceptable. “Failure is not an option. These are cases that have to be won.” Whoa. In the first place, it isn’t at all beyond imagination that the government could lose this case. KSM was waterboarded. No evidence thus obtained is admissible. A liberal judge who disliked the Bush administration might exclude other key evidence as well. But Holder says he’ll be found guilty. Isn’t that a perversion of our jurisprudence? If a not-guilty verdict is impossible, then the trial is a sham. “Sentence first -- verdict afterwards,” said the Queen of Hearts. Moreover, the Justice Department has assured Sen. Jon Kyl that “we will not release anyone into the United States if doing so would endanger our national security or the American people.” So in the event that KSM is acquitted, it’s the position of the Obama Justice Department that we would continue to hold him? How does that outcome burnish the reputation of our justice system? And while we’re on the subject of not thinking things through, at a Senate hearing Mr. Holder could not answer Sen. Lindsay Graham’s question about how we would deal with Osama bin Laden if we caught him tomorrow. Would he be Mirandized? Would we give him a lawyer? Isn’t that the precedent this decision sets? There are dozens more reasons (including the intelligence bonanza this will confer on al-Qaeda) that this decision is among the worst to emerge from a terrible presidency. What did they hope to achieve? Perhaps they have thought it through -- at least as far as how the trial would unfold. With no defense (he has boasted about his mass murder), what will KSM do? He will put the CIA and the Bush administration on trial. Prepare for lurid accounts of his and others’ mistreatment. Is that the nub? To satisfy the revenge fantasies of American leftists who have lusted to put the Bush administration on trial, the Obama administration is willing to sacrifice logic, justice, national security, and honor? When KSM’s star turn in the courtroom goes viral on the Internet and inspires thousands of new jihadis, the Obamaites can console themselves that at least they stuck it to George W. Bush. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Y2YyNzVlODFjZDI1OGI2NWRhNzg2NzU2NGIxZTllNDM= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:16 -0400 Barack Obama's Chump Diplomacy -- By: Rich Lowry webmaster@nationalreview.com (Rich Lowry) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzZmOWNhNTZiYTdiZTU2OTgzMzlhNmYxNGE5YjgzMDk= EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: <a href="mailto:kfsreprint@hearstsc.com" target="_blank">kfsreprint@hearstsc.com</a>, or phone 800-708-7311, ext. 246. Oh, how the international community loves Barack Obama -- loves to stiff him, play him along, and manipulate him. He’s the world’s celebrity ingenue, the slender naïf perpetually undone by the recalcitrance of foreign leaders. Earlier this year, in a touching exercise in diplomatic and civilizational outreach, he sent two letters to Iran’s mullahs and a new year’s message to the Iranian people. How mannerly, how unthreatening. When the Iranian government beat protesters in the streets after it stole the election for Pres. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, Obama kept his criticism muted. How sensitive, how subtle. In October, the Iranians agreed to send their low-enriched uranium -- at least the portion of it we know about -- to Russia in what was hailed as a triumph for Obama’s charm offensive. Except it’s all predictably ending in tears. If George W. Bush put too much faith in oppressed people -- their ability and willingness to rise up for freedom -- Barack Obama puts too much faith in their oppressors. The Iranians have all but announced that they are reneging on the October deal. U.S. officials, according to the Wall Street Journal, “acknowledge Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be using negotiations to limit U.N. pressure while also working to legitimize his government domestically.” Maybe they should get word to the president? In response to Iranian intransigence, Obama is supposed to be poised to crack down with harsh sanctions supported by the Russians and Chinese, won over by Obama’s accommodating gestures. Neither is likely to go along, though. True to his word, Obama has worked a remarkable change in America’s reputation in the world -- from purported bully to notorious chump in less than a year. As Obama demonstrated again on his Asian trip, he is the leader of the free world in adoring crowds (“Obama-san!” they shouted in Japan) and personal charisma (“I would like to be his friend,” Xie Lijun, 28, told the Washington Post in Shanghai). But even the press is beginning to realize that all this personal good will generates only personal good will. Obama’s chief politico, David Axelrod, explained that Obama’s team never expected “change overnight.” Now he tells us. It’s not just that the world hasn’t fallen at Obama’s feet, it’s that the administration’s self-described “smart power” has -- to borrow an old gibe about the Moral Majority -- proven to be neither. Afghan ambassador Karl Eikenberry is fundamentally at odds with Gen. Stanley McChrystal over Afghan strategy, making it all but impossible that the two will replicate the superb civil-military cooperation of Amb. Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq during the surge; super Af-Pak envoy Richard Holbrooke is persona non grata in Afghanistan; Amb. Christopher Hill in Iraq is something of a diplomatic nonentity; Middle East envoy George Mitchell has hurried the “peace process” to a point of crisis worse than when he started. As Casey Stengel famously asked, “Can’t anyone here play this game?” The administration might have waited to accomplish something before adopting a foreign-policy slogan pre-emptively congratulating itself for its diplomatic acumen. But that’s not the Obama way. Democrats spent years banging on Bush for alienating our allies. What they really meant was that he hadn’t been nice enough to our enemies. Reversing field entirely, Obama has been hell on allies like Hamid Karzai and the Israelis. He’s undercut the Poles and Czechs. He’s given a cold shoulder to friends who have the temerity to want to trade with us, like the Colombians and South Koreans. He’s cooled the special relationship with Britain. And he hammered the government of Honduras when it stopped a creeping Chávezist coup by its sitting president. The more pro-U.S. a country is, the more it can expect scolding or neglect from the president of the United States. It’s our enemies and the authoritarian big powers that Obama wants to woo. And like every cad who’s ever been presented with achingly defenseless innocence, they are very glad to see him. Yes, the world loves Barack Obama. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzZmOWNhNTZiYTdiZTU2OTgzMzlhNmYxNGE5YjgzMDk= Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:16 -0400 Criminalizing Health-Care Freedom -- By: Walsh & von Spakovsky webmaster@nationalreview.com (Walsh & von Spakovsky) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjVjY2FmYmE3MTQwNmNlYWRlMzE4YTc5NGQ4OGJkMmM= <div> The “reformers” in the White House and the House of Representatives have made all too plain their vision of the federal government’s power to coerce individual Americans to make the “right” health-care choices. The highly partisan bill the House just passed includes severe penalties for individuals who do not purchase insurance approved by the federal government. By neatly tucking these penalties into the IRS code, the so-called reformers have brought them under the tax-enforcement power of the federal government. The Congressional Budget Office stated on October 29 that the House bill would generate $167 billion in revenue from “penalty payments.” Individual Americans are expected to pay $33 billion of these penalties, with employers paying the rest. Former member of Congress and Heritage Foundation fellow Ernest Istook has concluded that for this revenue goal to be met, 8 to 14 million individual Americans will have to be fined over the next ten years, quite an incentive for federal bureaucrats. Who will be included among those subject to civil and criminal penalties if this provision becomes law? For starters, any family of four whose combined income in 2016 is above $102,100 ($88,200 in today’s dollars) and that chooses to pay all its medical expenses out of pocket rather than pay the $15,000 a year that the CBO says will be the lowest-priced insurance option for families. Also any healthy twentysomething in a city with high costs of living who chooses to take the risk of going uninsured. And by outlawing the popular high-deductible plans that are currently among the lowest-cost health-insurance solutions, the new law would only increase the number of Americans on the rolls of those who cannot afford insurance. The CBO itself estimates that at least 18 million Americans will still be uninsured in 2016. The fact that the penalties for noncompliance are enforceable by criminal prosecution is a chilling abuse of the prosecutorial power, which Columbia law professor Herbert Wechsler pointed out 50 years ago is the greatest power that any government uses against its citizens. Using it to enforce one particular notion of appropriate insurance coverage is nothing less than a tyrannical assertion of raw government power over the private lives and economic rights of individual Americans. How would the penalties work? As a starting point, taxpaying Americans who do not satisfy the law’s insurance requirement would be penalized on their federal income-tax returns. Their tax burden would be increased by the lesser of (a) the amount the government decides they should pay for government-mandated health coverage or (b) 2.5 percent of their adjusted income above a filing threshold. An otherwise law-abiding American who fails to pay this “tax penalty” could be criminally prosecuted and sentenced to a year in prison if the feds deem his refusal to be a misdemeanor. Worse, if the feds decide the refusal is felonious, the culprit may spend five years in federal prison and be fined up to $250,000. You could end up in a cell in Leavenworth even if you have paid all your family’s medical bills yourself. By transforming a refusal or failure to comply with a government mandate into a federal tax violation, the “progressives” are using the brute force of criminal law to engage in social engineering. This represents an oppressive, absolutist view of government power. What does President Obama think of the criminalization of Americans’ economic choices? He trivialized the issue when he told ABC’s Sunlen Miller he didn’t think the question of the appropriateness of possible jail time is the “biggest question” the House and Senate are facing right now. We beg to differ. The idea of imprisoning or fining Americans who don’t knuckle under to an unprecedented government mandate to purchase a particular insurance product should outrage anyone who believes in the exceptional promises and opportunities afforded by our basic American freedoms. The idea isn’t progressive but highly regressive, the equivalent of reinstituting debtors’ prisons, a punishment Americans eliminated 160 years ago. Of course, the prospect of winding up in prison for failing to maintain government-mandated insurance may be of no personal concern to the president or members of Congress. They each receive a Cadillac version of health-care coverage funded by those same American taxpayers who, in the reformers’ vision, will be federal criminals if they have the audacity to make their own decisions about medical insurance. If the public’s objections to this provision grow loud enough, we will undoubtedly be told that criminal prosecution will be used only against really bad actors. But that same reasoning was used to justify the law that sent inventor and entrepreneur <a href="http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Examiner_Special_Report_How_one_good_mans_intentions_took_him_from_a_fuel_cell_to_a_jell_cell_012209.html">Krister Evertson</a> to federal prison for nearly two years. Evertson testified in July at a bipartisan House hearing investigating the overcriminalization of conduct in America. In May 2004, FBI agents driving a black Suburban and wearing SWAT gear ran Evertson off the road near his mother’s home in Wasilla, Alaska. When Evertson was face down on the pavement with automatic weapons trained on him, an FBI agent told him he was being arrested because he hadn’t put a federally mandated sticker on a UPS package. A jury in federal court in Alaska acquitted Evertson, but the feds weren’t finished. They reached into their bag of over 4,500 federal crimes and found another ridiculous crime they could use to prosecute him: supposedly “abandoning” hazardous waste (actually storing, in appropriate containers, valuable materials he was using for the clean-fuel technology he was developing). A second jury convicted him, and he spent 21 months in an Oregon federal prison. Many of the Americans who will surely ignore the government health-insurance mandate may not wind up in prison. But if noncompliance becomes too widespread, any one of us could become the example the feds prosecute to make sure the iron hand of the new Washington is clearly visible to other potential “criminals.” This is Chicago-style hardball, backed by the full power and resources of the U.S. government. It illustrates both Obamacare supporters’ view of the appropriate uses of governmental power and the lengths to which they are willing to go to force us to do what they believe is best. It is a view unbefitting a free people. Unless this paternalistic juggernaut is stopped, Americans will lose some of their most fundamental freedoms, and the power of the federal government to impose novel requirements in every facet of our personal lives will have become virtually unlimited. --Brian W. Walsh is senior legal research fellow, and Hans A. von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow and manager of the Civil Justice Reform Initiative, at the <a href="http://www.heritage.org/">Heritage Foundation</a>. </div> <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjVjY2FmYmE3MTQwNmNlYWRlMzE4YTc5NGQ4OGJkMmM= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:42 -0400 Roadmap to Victory -- By: Tevi Troy & Jeff Anderson webmaster@nationalreview.com (Tevi Troy & Jeff Anderson) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmFmNzA3MzNlOWRmYTJjY2YwYTk4MmZmZDc2NjJlMDk= By proposing a health-care bill of their own, Senate Republicans can throw the extraordinary weaknesses of the Democratic bills into stark relief. In the wake of the Congressional Budget Office’s recent scoring of aspects of the House Republican bill, there is now an opening for Republicans to provide a clear contrast with the proposed Democratic overhaul. The Democratic bills are polling badly, even though they’ve been running largely unopposed in the eyes of most Americans. But continuing to let them run without competition would be a major political error, in both the short and long term. Republicans need to show how health-care reform should be done, improving on the unsustainable status quo while reflecting the political realities of the moment. The House Republican bill, while imperfect and incomplete, provides a roadmap to victory. Even the New York Times recognizes as much, writing that “a ‘cheaper’ alternative” (the Times puts it in quotes) could scuttle the passage of the proposed Democratic agenda. The Wall Street Journal strikes a similar theme, writing that in the aftermath of the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial elections, Republicans “have an opening” to “give obviously anxious voters an alternative.” The Democrats are attempting to decrease the number of uninsured through mandates and requirements -- at the tradeoff of raising costs. Americans recognize this. As a recent poll in the Economist shows -- by the overwhelming margin of 50 to 9 percent -- Americans think they would personally have to pay more if the Democrats pass a bill. That is why the CBO’s evaluation of the House Republican alternative is so encouraging. The Republican approach is to focus on lowering costs, which in turn would make coverage easier to afford -- and the CBO says this approach would succeed. It estimates that the Republican bill would lower Americans’ insurance premiums -- by 5 to 8 percent in the small-group market, up to 3 percent in the large-group market, and 7 to 10 percent in the individual market -- while increasing the number of insured by 3 million. The House Republican bill also has an obvious weakness, as the New York Times and Washington Post were quick to note. While it would reduce the number of uninsured by far more per dollar spent than the Democratic bills would, it would not lower the total number of uninsured by nearly as much. But the CBO score for the House GOP bill was also extremely positive in another way: It said that the bill would reduce deficits by $68 billion. This, in tandem with the verdict that the bill would lower premiums, provides a prime opportunity for Senate Republicans to advance a proposal that does a better job of reducing the number of uninsured. Here’s how: Senate Republicans should take the House Republican bill and add a $2,000 per person ($4,000 per family) tax credit -- <a href="http://thefinancebuff.com/2009/02/refundable-tax-credit-and-non-refundable-tax-credit.html">refundable</a>, <a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/advanceable">advanceable</a>, and usable only to buy insurance -- for those without employer-based health coverage. Currently, those who buy health insurance on the open market have to buy it with income that’s already had taxes taken out of it, while those who get insurance through their employer get it tax-free. This inequality is unfair, and it makes no sense when trying to solve the problem of the uninsured. Elsewhere, Senate Republicans should more or less mirror the spending proposals of the House Republican bill, though they would be wise to spend more on state-run high-risk pools and less on incentives for innovations by states. They should save money by putting their legislation into effect no sooner than 2014 (just like 98.3 percent of the Senate Democrats’ bill). Importantly, while adding a tax-credit for the uninsured, the Senate proposal should leave the tax status of those with employer-provided insurance entirely untouched. (Millions of Americans are worried that their employer-provided insurance will be jeopardized by the Democrats’ proposed “public option,” and they want to know that their employer-provided insurance will remain secure.) The CBO has already scored such a tax credit, albeit with somewhat different terms. Based on that prior CBO scoring, this proposal would likely reduce federal revenues by about $190 billion by the end of 2019, while increasing the number of insured by about 12 million. (If it were to insure more, it would reduce revenues by more, and the inverse is also true.) These 12 million people would largely be in addition to the 3 million newly insured from the House Republican bill, and would put a significant dent in the number of uninsured. According to the Census, there are 28 million uninsured Americans -- 46 million, minus 9 million non-citizens, minus 9 million Medicaid recipients that the Census admits were falsely tallied as uninsured. (Note: The CBO has consistently been using the wrong number on this, failing to adjust for the Census’s admitted Medicaid undercount.) President Obama seemingly agrees with this analysis, having said in his address to a joint session of Congress on September 9 that there “are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.” This proposed Senate Republican bill would cut that number in half. So, how to pay for this? The CBO has already floated and scored the idea to convert Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments into block-grant payments to each state. DSH payments help compensate private hospitals for losses from treating the uninsured. With fewer uninsured, DSH payments need not expand at the same rate. Following the basic outlines of the CBO’s proposal, the Republican bill should set the block grant at 80 percent of each state’s current level of federal DSH funding and index it to the consumer price index minus one percentage point. Based on CBO scoring of a very similar proposal, this would increase revenues by about $135 billion from 2014-19. Between this $135 billion and the net $68 billion surplus from the other provisions of the House Republican bill, $203 billion would be available to cover the $190 billion tax-cut for the uninsured, leaving a small surplus. So, let’s compare the results. The Senate Democratic bill -- as passed by the Senate Finance Committee and now in the hands of Senator Reid -- would raise taxes and fines on Americans by over half a trillion dollars. A Republican bill along the lines of the one proposed here wouldn’t impose any new taxes or fines. The Democratic bill would provide strong incentives for people not to buy insurance until they are already sick or injured, raising premiums for everyone else in the process; the Republican bill would provide strong incentives and opportunities for people to buy insurance, letting them shop across state lines for the best values from coast to coast. The Democratic bill would fail to end runaway medical-malpractice suits, which cause doctors to practice costly defensive medicine, stop practicing in certain areas, and pass along expensive malpractice premiums to patients; the Republican bill would end such runaway suits, saving the federal government $54 billion over ten years, according to the CBO, and likely saving Americans many times that in health costs. The Democratic bill would funnel those without employer-provided insurance into government-run exchanges, where plans would look similar because the government would tell companies how they have to look; the Republican bill would keep alive and even expand the private market. The Democratic bill would perpetuate the federal government’s counter-productive limits on allowing private companies to offer lower premiums for healthier lifestyles; the Republican bill would welcome these <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124476804026308603.html">Safeway-style</a> cost-cutting efforts. The Democratic bill would require younger Americans to subsidize the premiums of older Americans, banning private companies from offering plans to younger people at their true price; the Republican bill would not impose this heavy burden on young adults. The Democratic bill would limit the use of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), making it harder for people to control their own health-care dollars and forcing them to pay money to their insurance companies rather than directly to their doctors; the Republican bill would encourage HSAs, private control, and price-consciousness. The Democratic bill would result in an additional 27 million Americans (29 million people) having insurance, at a cost of $31,000 per newly insured American; the Republican bill would result in about 15 million more Americans having insurance, at a cost of less than $15,000 per newly insured American. Otherwise stated, the Republican bill would newly insure about 15 million Americans per $200 billion spent, compared to fewer than 7 million per $200 billion under the Democratic bill. The Democratic bill would siphon over $400 billion out of already-barely-solvent Medicare; the Republican bill wouldn’t touch Medicare (aside from the proposal regarding DSH payments). The Democratic bill says that it would cut doctors’ Medicare payments by 25 percent and never raise them back up -- making it harder for Medicare patients to find doctors willing to see them; the Republican bill would leave doctors’ payments alone. If Congress doesn’t follow through on the Democratic bill’s Medicare cuts -- and the CBO is plainly skeptical that it will -- the CBO says the bill would increase our deficits by over $300 billion, as dealing with doctors’ payments alone would cost roughly $250 billion; the Republican bill would be deficit-neutral and would even provide a slight surplus. Finally, the Democratic bill would likely raise Americans’ insurance premiums substantially; the Republican bill would lower Americans’ insurance premiums significantly -- according to the CBO. The Republican bill would have no obvious weaknesses. Aside from inefficiently and expensively increasing the number of insured, the Democratic bill would have no obvious strengths. By taking the House Republican bill, adding a tax cut for the uninsured, and adopting a variation on the CBO’s proposal to convert DSH payments into block grants, Senate Republicans could offer an extraordinary -- and extraordinarily popular -- health bill. This bill would meet both widely stated goals of health-care reform: lowering costs and decreasing the number of uninsured. And it would do so sensibly, affordably, and unobtrusively. In comparison, the Democratic bill would appear all the more plainly irresponsible, profligate, and counterproductive. The Republican bill could help convince some centrist Democrats that there in fact is a better way. If not, if would help further convince the American people of this fact. It would provide an important alternative for Americans to consider all the way through the 2010 and 2012 elections -- where the fate of any legislation that the Democrats dare to pass on a near-party-line vote would ultimately be decided. -- Tevi Troy, a visiting fellow at the Hudson Institute, was the deputy secretary of health and human services (HHS) from 2007-09. Jeffrey H. Anderson, director of the Benjamin Rush Society, was the senior speechwriter for Secretary Mike Leavitt at HHS from 2008-09. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MmFmNzA3MzNlOWRmYTJjY2YwYTk4MmZmZDc2NjJlMDk= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:30 -0400 Cobbling Together a Crisis -- By: Michael Fumento webmaster@nationalreview.com (Michael Fumento) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjkwOTFhN2ZlZTU3MGFiMzY1M2Q4YWY5MzllN2Q2MTg= ‘Swine flu has killed 540 kids, sickened 22 million Americans,” <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-11-13-1Aflu13_ST_N.htm">screams</a> USA Today’s page-one headline, with a sub-head proclaiming, “CDC: Cases, Deaths are Unprecedented.” “Swine flu cases in the U.S. are rising at the fastest pace for influenza in four decades,” breathlessly <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=aeE_7PAb6.Kw">declares the lede of a Bloomberg News article</a>. Another article’s title refers to a “<a href="http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/national-swine-flu-spike-also-claims-tenth-pbc-53827.html">national swine flu spike</a>.” Scary stuff -- but it’s phony. It’s actually a desperate effort to distract from an alarmist media world’s greatest nightmare: that the epidemic has peaked. The latest hype is based on the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm">estimate</a> that 22 million Americans have been infected with H1N1 swine flu from the outbreak’s early-April beginning through October 17. (Though the word “sickened” hardly applies, since <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/PCAST_H1N1_Report.pdf">about a third</a> of cases are wholly asymptomatic.) Of those, the agency says 4,000 have died. Put in perspective, through a comparison with garden-variety seasonal flu, these figures aren’t at all alarming; and the CDC’s report indeed provides seasonal-flu data. But perspective is the alarmists’ enemy. So, instead, reporters simply cut, rearranged, and pasted <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/media/transcripts/2009/t091112.htm">press-conference statements</a> from unofficial swine-flu “czarina” Dr. <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/about/leadership/leaders/schuchat.htm">Anne Schuchat</a>, director of the CDC’s Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. Thus Schuchat’s reference to “unprecedented” had nothing to do with absolute numbers of infections or deaths, but referred just to the time of year at which they were occurring. That’s because swine flu spreads more easily at warmer temperatures. Normally, flu doesn’t get into stride until early January and then peaks in mid-February. The figures themselves are far from “unprecedented.” The <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/keyfacts.htm">CDC estimates</a> 5 to 20 percent of the population (15 to 60 million people) gets the flu in a typical year, with almost all cases occurring from January through April. That’s as many as 15 million a month, compared to 22 million spread over half a year. What’s truly unprecedented about this swine flu is its incredible mildness. The CDC estimates seasonal flu <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm">annually kills</a> 36,000 Americans, again spread over four months. That compares to 4,000 swine-flu deaths in the current cycle. The seasonal-flu death rate therefore ranges from 0.06 percent to 0.24 percent, while the CDC estimate puts it at only 0.0182 percent for swine flu. So seasonal flu is three to twelve times deadlier per case. The media also used Schuchat to invoke the horrific <a href="http://www.fumento.com/disease/flu2009.html">Spanish flu</a> of 1918-19, in which about 675,000 Americans died out of a much smaller U.S. population. CNN.com paraphrased Schuchat, saying: “The prevalence of flu cases is higher than at any time since the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.” Utterly false. Her only reference to the calamity was “what we’re seeing with this H1N1 virus is nowhere near the severity of the 1918 pandemic.” Apparently something got lost in the translation. And just as swine flu arrived early, so too must it peak earlier. Indeed, it already has -- as data readily available on the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly">CDC FluView website</a> and elsewhere, and just as readily ignored, show. <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2009-2010/AHDR44.htm">The accompanying graph</a> from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows a sharp decline in both new deaths and hospitalizations. Even more telling, though, is that the <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2009-2010/data/whoAllregt44.htm">bottom has fallen out</a> of new infections. Test samples doctors have submitted to CDC-monitored <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/pdf/overview.pdf">surveillance laboratories</a> went from 26,000 two weeks ago to 21,000 last week to just 13,000 at present. Further, progressively fewer of those samples have actually shown flu. Overall, the number of positive samples has plunged over 60 percent in just two weeks. But could these indicators start to shoot up again? Not likely. According to <a href="http://www.faqs.org/abstracts/Health/Farrs-law-applied-to-AIDS-projections-The-epidemiologic-necropsy-for-abdominal-aortic-aneurysm.html#ixzz0WNkBDPCE">Farr’s law</a>, named after 19th-century epidemiologist<a href="http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/36/5/985"> John Farr</a>, infectious disease patterns follow a bell curve. As the disease first plucks low-hanging fruit, infections rise rapidly, but as fruit gets harder to reach the rate of increase slows - until, finally, infections start falling off either to zero or to a low “endemic” level. Back in 1989, <a href="http://www.fumento.com/shrinking.html">I wrote</a> that Farr’s law indicated that U.S. AIDS cases had already peaked. For my troubles I was called -- to use the mildest of the epithets -- a nutcase. Somehow, we were told, AIDS was going to go on infecting and infecting, killing and killing. There were predictions of more dead Americans than there were people in the U.S. population. These projections obviously simply ignored Farr’s law - and also flunked the common-sense test. And Farr’s law applies in the current case, too. Since Australia is in the southern hemisphere, its flu season has ended. Almost all cases were swine flu and there was no vaccine. And Australia’s <a href="http://www.healthemergency.gov.au/internet/healthemergency/publishing.nsf/Content/ozflu2009.htm/$File/ozflu-no24-2009.pdf">epidemic curve</a> indicates that, yes, once swine flu cases started going down they kept dropping. No, the bell wasn’t symmetrical, and we shouldn’t expect it to be here in the U.S. either. Expect a long “tail” extending to the end of normal flu season in April. In other words, the fact that infections have peaked doesn’t mean we’ve necessarily seen half of them yet. And that should actually prove to be good news. Consider that even without a vaccine, Australia along with New Zealand <a href="http://www.healthemergency.gov.au/internet/healthemergency/publishing.nsf/Content/ozflucurrent.htm">reported significantly fewer</a> flu deaths than in normal years. Why? As I mentioned above, the newly released <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm">CDC estimate</a> of infections and deaths in the U.S. indicates that seasonal flu is anywhere from three to twelve times deadlier than swine flu. Other data, including data <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/02/nyregion/02swine.html">from New York City</a>, also indicate that swine flu is far milder. Yet swine flu spreads more easily, essentially outcompeting seasonal flu. In doing so, it’s essentially acting as a vaccine against its far deadlier cousin. (The father of vaccinations, <a href="http://www.sc.edu/library/spcoll/nathist/jenner.html">Edward Jenner</a>, observed something similar: Cowpox protected dairy workers from the often-deadly and horribly disfiguring smallpox.) Swine flu, therefore, prevents more flu deaths than it causes. Unfortunately, the U.S. “hysteria curve,” as indicated by <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2009-2010/picILI43.htm">emergency-room visits</a> by people worried they have the flu (and worried enough to seek medical attention) is still at a higher level than for any other flu season in the 21st century. You can probably credit, in part, Obama’s <a href="http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/10/national-emergency-obama-makes-formal-declaration-on-swine-flu.html">October 23</a> “national emergency” declaration. Nothing like an official pronouncement to send people with slight fevers -- real or imagined -- into fever pitch. Perhaps the administration can argue that extra work hours put in by exhausted health-care personnel, and by a sensationalist media hyping the story, are stimulating the economy. -- Michael Fumento is director of the nonprofit Independent Journalism Project, where he specializes in science and health issues, and author of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0895267292">The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS: How a Tragedy Has Been Distorted by the Media and Partisan Politics</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjkwOTFhN2ZlZTU3MGFiMzY1M2Q4YWY5MzllN2Q2MTg= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:00:11 -0400 Circling Sharks Smell American Blood -- By: Victor Davis Hanson webmaster@nationalreview.com (Victor Davis Hanson) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTE5NzE4MDAxZjU2YjRjZmYwY2NhNWMxODM5NjExNTM= On his recent trip to Asia, President Obama found China, Japan, and South Korea -- like many nations these days -- in no mood to hear more American lectures. Beijing is worried about owning so much American debt. Tokyo is tiring of an American military base in Okinawa, and wants to redefine its relationship with us. Seoul is starting to doubt American commitment to keep it safe from North Korea. Why all the sudden pushback to our charismatic president? Our dollar is crashing, while the price of gold is soaring. The budget deficit has never been worse -- and the president wants to float even more debt for health-care and energy initiatives. By the end of this presidential term, we may add another $9 trillion to our already astronomical $11 trillion debt. Unemployment has already topped 10 percent. This quarter’s trade deficit reached a near-historic high. Our debtors and oil exporters talk of scrapping the dollar as the common international currency. American hesitation abroad reflects the shaky economic news. In Afghanistan, we can’t decide whether to seek victory or admit defeat -- or simply vote present by keeping the status quo. President Obama reached out to enemies such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela. But so far they remain unimpressed, despite his apologizing for an assortment of supposed past American sins. The Chinese don’t listen all that much anymore to our sermons on their human-rights, coal-burning, and free-trade abuses -- not when they hold $1.5 trillion in U.S. assets. The president took a lot of flak for bowing to Saudi royals and the Japanese emperor. But why wouldn’t he show deference -- given America’s huge dependence on foreign oil and Japanese imports? France, of all nations, is now warning us to get a backbone with the Iranians. So far the theocracy has snubbed our new outreach efforts aimed at stopping its nuclear proliferation. Iran’s Russian patrons now talk more nicely to us -- but mostly because we caved on land-based missile defense in Eastern Europe, and got nothing really in return. The Norwegians gave Obama the Nobel Peace Prize after less than a year in office and without any real accomplishments. They must suspect that such global recognition will flatter Obama to push a now-unexceptional America toward a more multilateral perspective in tune with the thinking at the United Nations. The Obama administration announced a kinder, gentler approach to the War on Terror. It serially promised to the world to shut down Guantanamo and loudly derided much of the Bush-era anti-terrorism protocols. We may put on trial former CIA interrogators, while we give civil trials and full American legal protection to the terrorist detainees who planned the 9/11 attacks. Obama himself has praised the history and culture of the Islamic world, and even fudged the historical record to magnify its achievements. Yet, so far this year, authorities broke up three radical Islamic terrorist plots inside the United States. And we lost twelve soldiers and one civilian (with others wounded) at Fort Hood; the accused, a member of our own military, has shown himself to be a Muslim extremist. Al-Qaeda promises more attacks, and the Taliban feel that American commitment to a free Afghanistan is weakening. Add it all up and there is a growing sense that America is in fact hemorrhaging -- as both friends and enemies abroad smell blood in the water. The president through conciliation and concession -- not to mention constant talk -- is trying to superficially restore the influence we once earned by virtue of our economic power and self-confidence in our exceptional past and singular values. But being both loud and vulnerable is not a winning combination, since political influence and military power are ultimately predicated on economic strength. The United States needs to re-establish itself as financially credible and responsible so that when we lecture -- about everything from global warming to Iranian nukes -- we do so from a position of strength. That means we need to stop borrowing other nations’ money. America also can’t afford to keep importing high-priced oil that we won’t produce at home. And we should stop promising ever-more government entitlements to ever-more voters that we can’t even begin to pay for. For as we continue in our self-indulgence, a more defiant world seems to be saying that the old rules of the game have changed. In response, America should keep quieter abroad -- and try finding a bigger stick. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTE5NzE4MDAxZjU2YjRjZmYwY2NhNWMxODM5NjExNTM= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:49 -0400 Obama twitters, &c. -- By: Jay Nordlinger webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jay Nordlinger) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDZlOGNiYzk1Yzg4MGQ2NTM1OTM3ZmQ0MzQxNWMwMmY= In China, a student asked President Obama, “Should we be able to use Twitter freely?” You and I might have said, “Yes.” President Obama began, “Well, first of all, let me say that I have never used Twitter. My thumbs are too clumsy to type in things on the phone.” He went on, “I should be honest. As president of the United States, there are times where I wish information didn’t flow so freely, because then I wouldn’t have to listen to people criticizing me all the time.” Yet “in the United States, information is free.” And “I have a lot of critics . . . who can say all kinds of things about me.” And “I actually think that that makes our democracy stronger and it makes me a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don’t want to hear.” You could argue that this is a clever, nuanced answer -- not too brash. But isn’t the answer weirdly me-centric, Obama-centric? And doesn’t he argue from pragmatism -- “It makes me a better leader”? How about principle: the principle of free speech, freedom of expression? I really think a simple “yes” might have been better. One more thing: Obama said, “There are times where I wish information didn’t flow so freely.” Did he mean that, or was that just a matter of rhetoric? Speaking of what our president means and doesn’t mean: You might have said that the bow to the Saudi king was just a slip-up -- some sort of presidential Tourette’s, a weird, anomalous moment. But the bow to the Japanese emperor: That shows us that Obama really, really means these bows. Which is frankly bizarre. I can think of some national leaders -- in Israel, Honduras, and Eastern Europe -- who do not require bows. Just a little presidential respect. Obama was asked about his new strategy for Afghanistan. He said, “This decision will put us on a path towards ending the war.” I might have liked it better if he had said, “put us on a path towards winning the war.” But perhaps Obama -- like many others -- thinks that “winning” is the wrong concept for Afghanistan, and an unreasonable one. We can agree -- can’t we, conservatives? -- that the federal government spends money on things it has no business spending money on. The Constitution often seems an afterthought, at best. Bill Buckley used to scoff at “free false teeth”: The government would spend money on “free false teeth or whatever.” It was one of the great WFB dismissive lines. But we can agree that, if federal dollars can be spent on anything, they can be spent on the wars we fight -- such as in Afghanistan. That’s why it is so vexing to hear the Obama people fret about the cost of the war in Afghanistan. Apparently, this is a big part of their deliberations. These are people who are spending zillions on everything they can think of, through the “stimulus” and other gargantuan schemes. But war is actually a federal responsibility. And they get all green-eyeshadey in this area? You may well oppose the war in Afghanistan, for sound reasons. But if this is a war worth fighting, and winning, it is worth spending on. And you can get your savings through fewer false teeth . . . Speaking to American Indian leaders, Obama said, “I know what it means to feel ignored and forgotten, and what it means to struggle. So you will not be forgotten as long as I’m in this White House.” Nice. But, it seems to some of us, if there are two things Barack Obama has never been, it is ignored and forgotten. As for the “struggle”: Well, who can really know the lives people lead? The headline read, “Death of an Iran prison doctor raises suspicion.” And the <a href="http://apnews.excite.com/article/20091118/D9C1USR80.html">article</a> began, “An Iranian doctor who treated victims of torture at Tehran’s most feared prison has died, amid conflicting reports of a heart attack, a car accident or suicide -- raising opposition accusations that the 26-year-old was killed.” Um, what do you think, dear readers? Heart attack, car accident, suicide -- or something else? Don’t bet the ranch on anything other than “something else.” (You recall those poor people in the Communist bloc who pushed themselves out windows, right? And the ones who shot themselves in the head -- three or four times?) I should not point out a beautiful name in a discussion so grim -- but the author of the above-cited article is Scheherezade Faramarzi. According to <a href="http://apnews.excite.com/article/20091118/D9C1UNNO0.html">this article</a>, Rep. John Conyers (D., Mich.), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is planning “to bring a bill through his committee calling for the government to study the issue of reparations to descendants of slaves.” Conyers said, “This is not just a feel-good measure. This is very serious business.” A “very serious business” is one way to put it, yes -- you might also think of the word “racket.” I think this is a good idea. The ad says, “Support Freedom of Expression: Buy a Banned Book.” And the ad is for a “human-rights book fair” at the Fordham Law School, New York City, on December 3. I learned about this via Human Rights in China, <a href="http://www.hrichina.org/public/index">here</a>. “Buy a banned book” -- yes, a good idea, I think. Is this a good idea? “Beverly Hills, LA councils ban declawing of cats,” the headline said. And the <a href="http://apnews.excite.com/article/20091118/D9C1PQD81.html">article</a> reported, “The Beverly Hills City Council voted 5-0 Tuesday night to approve a declawing ban, except in cases of medical necessity. The Los Angeles City Council also gave final approval to a similar ordinance Tuesday.” It seems to me we have a clash of rights: pets’ rights and owners’ rights. Again to quote the article, “The California Veterinary Medical Association opposed the declawing ban, saying pet owners should be responsible for declawing decisions in consultation with their vets.” I believe I agree. By the way, on November 11, Veterans Day, a little boy of my acquaintance woke up and said to his father, excitedly, “Happy Veterinarians Day!” I’ve been hearing the name Stupak so much, I’m thinking he should form his own political action committee -- the Stu-PAC. This article <a href="http://apnews.excite.com/article/20091117/D9C13EE01.html">here</a> is all about the greatness of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, or at least her popularity and funkiness. There is a “Sotomayor Mambo,” composed by Bobby Sanabria. I’m almost certain I’d like the “Sotomayor Mambo” better than Sotomayor jurisprudence. There is also a song, composed by Arturo O’Farrill, called “Wise Latina Woman.” Hmmm, sounds promising . . . In <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWI2YWZlM2JiMTcwNWU5ZDVlZGZiY2YyMzU4NGY2ZDE=">Tuesday’s Impromptus</a>, I had an item about names carved in stone -- and what if you happened to misspell a name, or word? Readers sent me many examples of such mistakes -- on buildings and on tombstones. Some of the misspellings on tombstones are pretty sad. One reader referred to such mistakes as, not “typos,” but “engravos.” And I thought I’d publish one related letter -- which contains, at the end, another neat word: <blockquote> The next time you drive south on I-95 you may notice a building over the entrance to the great Ft. McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore. In the lobby of it (the East Vent Building) is a large bronze plaque congratulating those who had a hand in making the tunnel “happen.” My name is on it -- misspelled. When I mentioned this to the structure’s inspector, he said he’d talk to the Baltimore City people about getting some “bronze-out.” </blockquote> Care for a bumper sticker? <blockquote> Hi Jay, Yesterday I pulled up behind a car that had an incredible bumper sticker. It had the oh-so-lovely Darwin fish symbol and the words, “We have the fossils, so we win.” Win what? I wondered. The game of hostility, perhaps? Why must people be so unfriendly and angry? </blockquote> Dunno. A little language? <blockquote> Mr. Nordlinger, This may be old news to you, but I hadn’t heard it. My oldest daughter is about to graduate high school and is visiting colleges trying to find the right fit. As we listened to the admissions presentations, I kept hearing the term “first years” and did not understand what they were referring to. It finally dawned on me that the schools had seniors, juniors, sophomores, and “first years” -- not “freshmen,” to avoid offending female students. </blockquote> We are all used to PC revisions to our language -- but that one’s a little hard to swallow, I think. Earlier this week, Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, the Republican from Miami, gave a speech on the House floor. It was on a topic familiar to readers of this column: the ignoring of Cuban dissidents by the American media; the ignoring of gross abuses committed by the Cuban dictatorship; the strange indifference of American journalists to journalists persecuted in Cuba -- where is solidarity? I commented on this speech in our Corner two days ago. If you would like to see this comment -- which includes a link to a video of the speech -- go <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZWY3NjNmN2NiNjY1ZDIyMDc2Nzg4NGQ1YzNjNmFkYzg=">here</a>. I also published a letter -- which I’d like to republish here. Reader said, “Just wanted you to know that I care about Cuba . . . I don’t have any particular reason to care, I suppose -- I’m as WASP as they come -- I just love freedom and hate tyrants.” Is that not one of the most beautiful and simple things you’ve ever heard? Let’s end with another reader letter -- a lovely and eloquent one, about a “safe-zone violation”: about the intrusion of politics into an area that ought to be politics-free. Check her out: <blockquote> Dear Mr. Nordlinger, . . . I recently bought a home in a historic area of Atlanta. There are many old tall oaks and other trees in my yard and I am frequented by birds of all kinds. Since moving in I have thoroughly enjoyed watching and studying the birds who come to the five feeders placed by the previous owners. My interest grew and I began buying special seed, suet, and fresh fruit. I purchased three books on identifying birds and a pair of binoculars. Currently I am hosting cardinals, brown thrashers, robins, nuthatches, blue jays, chickadees, mourning doves, downy woodpeckers, and a catbird. They are all very fat as I have no doubt been overfeeding them. Unfortunately, my time is limited and while I want to indulge this new hobby, I have resigned myself to the fact that I cannot become an Audubon and instead will remain a dilettante. Imagine my thrill upon finding a book for someone like me called The Armchair Birder: Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds by John Yow. Best of all Mr. Yow is from Georgia so I knew we would have some of the same birds. Overall it was a wonderful book, but right in the middle of a chapter on a particular bird there was a commentary on George Bush’s election and how he certainly was not a conservationist. It was jarring and strange, as if an editor had just stuck it in randomly. The statement was completely unsupported, just baldly made. I have no idea how President Bush felt about backyard birds, but I cannot imagine that he would have wished them any harm. I really believe that such things are a form of rudeness. I loved this book right up until that unnecessary comment. That comment diminished my joy. </blockquote> Thanks for joining me today, guys, and, by the way, if you can help it: Let nothing diminish your joy! <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDZlOGNiYzk1Yzg4MGQ2NTM1OTM3ZmQ0MzQxNWMwMmY= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:25 -0400 Lessons of Fort Hood -- By: Clifford D. May webmaster@nationalreview.com (Clifford D. May) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTBjMDRmOGY1NmUwODlmODY3OGUxMDc0ZTcxY2NjYzU= When a military officer participates in a war against his own country, that is high treason, and that is the charge that ought to be brought against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. But it’s not going to happen. Hasan should have been weeded out of the military long ago. There was abundant evidence that his allegiance was not to the United States -- the country that had given his immigrant family safe haven and provided him the opportunity to become, at taxpayer expense, a physician, an officer, and a gentleman. It was apparent that he had come to view himself not as an American soldier but as a “Soldier of Allah” -- the phrase he had printed on his business cards -- and that sooner or later he would wage war against the “unbelievers.” Why did none of those who saw something say something? In a culture where the value of diversity trumps the requirements of security, to do so would have been career suicide. There was no way that was going to happen. Let’s be clear: The lesson of Fort Hood is not that Muslims in the U.S. military are a fifth column. But neither can we continue to blithely assume that someone like Hasan -- American-born, well-educated, apparently sophisticated -- could never succumb to the temptations of what the politically correct call “violent extremism.” Paradoxically, the Fort Hood massacre highlights the fact that Muslim soldiers who are doing their duty as proud, patriotic Americans are extraordinarily independent-minded and brave. Because while there is no evidence that Hasan was ever harassed for being a Muslim -- as some of his relatives have charged -- there is a long record of Muslims who criticize Islamists being denounced as apostates -- a sin that can bring a fatwa and the death penalty. “Patriotism is paganism,” the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini famously said. Khomeini was a Shia Islamist, but on this theological point Sunni Islamists emphatically agree. Out of ignorance or wishful thinking, Western commentators sometimes assert that Muslims who preach intolerance and belligerence are “heretics” who have “hijacked” a great and peaceful religion. But no Muslim authority would say that -- not even those who denounce terrorism. How, after all, can a fundamentalist be a heretic? How can someone who insists on a literal reading of the Koran be accused of misrepresenting what it says? Some Western commentators also assert that there is a “civil war” taking place within “the Muslim world.” It would be simpler and more encouraging if that were the case. In reality, there are the many Muslims who look upon the West with disfavor but would not sacrifice themselves and their families to destroy it. They may even live in the West -- enjoying the opportunities and freedoms the West provides. A second faction, small but deadly, do act on the conviction that Christians and Jews are vermin. They become what they call jihadis, holy warriors -- revolutionaries on a mission from God, no hyperbole intended. A third faction chooses to interpret their religion in a moderate, tolerant way and integrate it into the modern world, alongside the other great religions. But only a very small number are activists who put their lives on the line by publicly challenging the fascistic reading of Islam championed by Iran’s rulers, the leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Wahhabi clerics. No battles or even protests were ever staged outside the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Northern Virginia where Anwar al-Aulaqi preached a hateful and violent theology. Major Hasan was among those who worshipped with -- and was inspired by -- al-Aulaqi, an American-born cleric who five years ago decamped to Yemen. In recent days, al-Aulaqi has described Hasan as a “hero,” adding: “The only way a Muslim could Islamically justify serving as a soldier in the U.S. army is if his intention is to follow the footsteps of men like Nidal.” Islamism is today advancing on multiple fronts. Khomeini’s successors have reduced Syria to a satrapy. Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy, is increasingly powerful in Lebanon. Tehran also has made common cause with Hamas in Gaza, and with such leftist autocrats as Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Turkey is shifting closer to Iran, while drifting from traditional Turkish secular nationalism. Pakistan, conceived as a pluralist nation, is now an Islamic Republic and struggling to decide what that means, and with whom it should be allied. The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution -- all sought to liberate society from religion. By contrast, Islamist revolutionaries intend to liberate society from all religions but one in pursuit of a glorious future modeled on what they claim as a glorious past. They mean to knock down any remaining walls between mosque and state, to spread Islamic law, sharia, around the world, and in time to humble, defeat, and conquer their enemies, the “infidels.” It’s an ambitious agenda, but they are determined, ruthless, and well-financed, thanks to the West’s addiction to oil, most of which is found in lands ruled by them or those sympathetic to their mission. The revolutionary jihadis also have this advantage: the reluctance of so many in the West to accept that a serious war is being waged against them -- even after an American military base in Texas has been turned into a killing field by what appears to have been a turncoat furious over Islamist grievances, driven by Islamist dreams. In his remarks at the memorial in Fort Hood last week, President Obama said: “No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts.” But the faith embraced by Major Hasan, al-Aulaqi, and millions like them has been invoked to justify the slaughter of Christians, Jews, and Muslim dissidents for decades. It would be enormously helpful if our political leaders would acknowledge this reality and consider its policy implications. But that’s not going to happen, at least not any time soon. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MTBjMDRmOGY1NmUwODlmODY3OGUxMDc0ZTcxY2NjYzU= Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:06 -0400 The Right Role for Sarah Palin -- By: Reihan Salam webmaster@nationalreview.com (Reihan Salam) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjcyZGY5OWFhNWM2YmNlNzgwOWQ5OGJhOTVmMjgyYTc= When Sarah Palin resigned on July 4th weekend, it certainly looked as though she had decided to abandon politics, or at the very least given up on running for president in 2012. And despite the saturation coverage of Palin’s <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0061939897">Going Rogue</a> book tour, it’s not obvious that she hasn’t. As Republican political strategist Patrick Ruffini has observed, a Palin presidential run would have profited from releasing the book a year from now, maximizing media exposure in the crucial year before Iowa. Granted, John McCain also capitalized on his political celebrity to publish a series of well-timed soft-focus memoirs and personal reflections, but he did this while remaining in the U.S. Senate and playing a pivotal role in policy debates. Sarah Palin appears to be pursuing a different model. The former governor has said that she intends to play a role in the 2010 congressional elections, barnstorming across the country on behalf of small-government conservatives. As one of the most charismatic national Republicans, that makes a great deal of sense. But now might be the right time to think more broadly about the role Palin might play in reviving the Right. One of the central reasons Palin has proven so polarizing a figure is that she is a pro-life working mother. Though there are tens of millions of pro-life working mothers in the United States, relatively few have occupied prominent roles in our politics. Debates over work-life balance and other issues that have been traditionally -- and wrongly -- understood as “women’s issues” have thus been dominated by women who identify with the Left. Bob McDonnell represents the dramatic transition among social conservatives on the role of women in the workplace. In the late 1980s, McDonnell’s master’s thesis suggested that mothers should be strongly discouraged from entering the workforce. But as McDonnell successfully established in the gubernatorial race, he has since embraced the idea that women, and men, can and should make a contribution both in the home and in the office. This is not an issue that has been settled to everyone’s satisfaction, and many conservatives, including Mary Eberstadt, will argue that McDonnell was right the first time around. The demographic reality that the American workforce is now as female as it is male, however, suggests that politicians will have to adjust to the new reality. Palin can play a crucial role. It’s hard to think of a right-of-center woman who has as prominent a role in American public life as Phyllis Schlafly did at the height of her influence. If Palin decides not to run for higher office, it’s easy to imagine her becoming the country’s most forceful advocate of social conservatism. It’s a commonplace that in the Obama era, social issues have lost ground to economic issues among conservatives, and indeed Palin has placed heavier emphasis on health-care reform and stimulus spending than abortion. But this could represent an opportunity for a skilled political entrepreneur. Rather than just serve as a new messenger for a time-tested message, Palin could weave together social and economic strands by advancing family-friendly reforms to the tax code, like those championed by Ramesh Ponnuru, and programs like Social Security that arguably shortchange working women. For Palin, this role might not prove as satisfying as running for president. But it is well-matched to her considerable strengths. -- Reihan Salam writes <a href="http://agenda.nationalreview.com/">the Agenda blog</a> for NRO and is the coauthor of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0385519435">Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjcyZGY5OWFhNWM2YmNlNzgwOWQ5OGJhOTVmMjgyYTc= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:30:25 -0400 The Little Red Hen Syndrome -- By: Jack Fowler webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jack Fowler) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWMwYTRkNTRmMjdlYTE4ZjdkMTQ3YTAxODZmNjk2ZGE= You know the story of the famous rosy chicken. She finds grain, she asks her buddies for help to bake bread, no one lifts a finger -- it’s like High Noon starring Rachael Ray. So LRH does it all solo, and then, when the bread is baked, all her excuse-mongering barnyard paisans are suddenly ready to help -- mangia. No sweat equity, but big eyes and bigger stomachs. There is a bit of that around these here parts. Oh, we are blessed with good people who know that NRO is free as the air, but realize that all the glorious writing doesn’t come out of the air. They contribute to make sure this operation keeps afloat financially. They know that NRO is central to conservatism -- whether it’s debating a policy or fighting dopey legislation -- and they know that it takes moolah to make that happen. People (talented people!) have to write, others have to edit, others have to maintain our tech infrastructure, and they aren’t doing it strictly for the compliments. Indeed, there are salaries (small!) and bills (large!) that go along with this operation, now in its 13th year of making life miserable for extreme liberalism, RINOs, PC apostles, and just about any other cause, person, or -ism that needs a good daily undressing. “I love Victor Davis Hanson,” a friend told me recently. He comes to NRO every day to get a VDH fix. “Did you see that great article he wrote in the last issue of the magazine?” I asked. Ixnay -- my bud doesn’t get the magazine because he hangs out on The Corner all day. As the old saying goes, why buy the milk#...#? This dude could buy and sell me ten times over every day of the week. You’d think he’d throw a few coins in the collection plate. I hope he does, and I hope many others do too. For the obvious reason: Without broad financial help, this enterprise has a tough time making it. You know what NR means to conservatism: Isn’t supporting NRO worth it? Yeah, it is. Very much so. And if the answer isn’t obvious, well, maybe you should be playing Minesweeper instead of reading this. NRO makes a huge difference. But it can do so only because a lot of good people -- like some of you reading this right now -- have stepped up. On behalf of all “the suits” here at NR’s lean and mean HQ, I am deeply appreciative of your generosity because you don’t have to. Yet -- you do anyway! And many do anonymously. Wow. Hey, we’ve got great friends here at NRO. But we want and need more so we can keep doing the very things that keep bringing you back to <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/" target="_blank">www.nationalreview.com</a>. If you’ve already helped out, thanks. If you are about to, thanks in advance -- you can go <a href="https://store.nationalreview.com/donate">here</a> to make that happen. And if you are my VDH-fan friend thinking you're going to keep pulling a fast one, remember -- I’ve got pictures! -- Jack Fowler is the publisher of National Review. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWMwYTRkNTRmMjdlYTE4ZjdkMTQ3YTAxODZmNjk2ZGE= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:46 -0400 Four Measures to Remake America -- By: Michael G. Franc webmaster@nationalreview.com (Michael G. Franc) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjIxOTNiN2RmMzA3ODBjYTZhZDY2ZGNhYjAzOWIyYmQ= The Pelosi-Reid Congress, it’s clear, fancies itself among the most consequential Congresses ever. In the House these last ten months, four votes stand out for the historians and political scientists to ponder and dissect -- the final votes on the $787 billion economic stimulus plan, the fiscal-year 2010 budget resolution, the cap-and-trade legislation, and, of course, health reform. If signed into law, collectively these four measures would remake America. Arguably, none of our previous major public-policy upheavals -- not the New Deal of the 1930s or Great Society of the 1960s on the political left, nor the 1980s Reagan Revolution or the short-lived 1990s Republican Contract with America on the right -- would rival this one for the extent to which it would permanently alter the relationship between the federal government and ordinary Americans. Why? These bills call for new and unprecedented levels of taxation, spending, regulation, and debt (total federal debt, for example, would triple in the next decade alone); they would usher in an entitlement crisis measurably worse than even the most jaded budget experts previously thought possible; environmentally based trade protectionism in the form of carbon tariffs would undermine the post-World War II consensus that international trade is good and must be as free and open as possible; regulations on the production and use of energy would squeeze the budgets of American families and threaten the existence of millions of small businesses; and, finally, the federal welfare state and all its pathologies would extend far into the reaches of a formerly self-reliant middle class, and in so doing limit the ability of future generations to equal or exceed the achievements of previous ones. Few lawmakers have cast so many important votes in such a short period of time. House Republicans have been virtually unanimous in their opposition to this agenda, but House Democrats have been divided in important ways. One would expect, for example, that the members of the über-liberal House Progressive Caucus would robustly embrace this agenda. And 75 of its members voted for all four of these measures; the four who cast any dissenting votes presumably did so because the proposal in question wasn’t liberal enough. The story is roughly the same for the other two large, left-of-center member caucuses: the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The only Black Caucus member not to vote in lockstep for all four measures was Rep. Arthur Davis of Alabama, who opposed both the cap-and-trade and the health-reform bills (and who, perhaps coincidentally, is seeking statewide office). Members of the Hispanic Causes supported Pelosi across the board. These members, of course, form the political and ideological base for Speaker Pelosi and President Obama in the House. So their near-unanimous embrace of this agenda comes as no surprise. But what about those members who are more centrist in their orientation, or who represent districts where the voters are more suspicious of Big Government initiatives? First, let’s look at the Blue Dogs. The 52-member Blue Dog Coalition proudly touts its commitment to the principles of fiscal conservatism on its website. One icon simply states: “restoring fiscal responsibility to the federal government.” The coalition, we learn on its history page, has been particularly active on “balancing the budget and ridding taxpayers of the burden the debt places on them” and “protecting that achievement from politically popular ‘raids’ on the budget.” For these reasons, the Blue Dogs should be the decisive middle bloc of votes on issues involving the size and scope of government. If they recoiled at some liberal scheme to increase spending, regulate business, or worsen deficits, they could join forces with House Republicans to stop virtually any bill dead in its tracks. So what have these “fiscally conservative” lawmakers done on these four Big Government bills? In large part, signed on. Speaker Pelosi persuaded 46 out of 52 Blue Dogs to support the $787 billion economic stimulus plan and 39 to line up behind the FY 2010 budget resolution. But then the going got rougher. A plurality gave the thumbs-down on the cap-and-trade bill (29 against and 23 in favor), and a somewhat smaller number rejected the Pelosi approach to health reform (24 against and 28 in support). Only four Blue Dogs (Reps. Bobby Bright and Parker Griffith of Alabama, Walt Minnick of Idaho, and Gene Taylor of Mississippi) voted against all four measures. Seven others took the small-government position three times (Reps. John Barrow and Jim Marshall of Georgia, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Travis Childers of Mississippi, Jim Matheson of Utah, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, and Glenn Nye of Virginia). Each supported Pelosi in the mid-February vote on the economic-stimulus bill. Eleven others voted the limited-government way twice. Perhaps most surprisingly, a total of 30 Blue Dogs tilted to the side of Big Government at least three out of four times, including Reps. Marion Berry of Arkansas, Allen Boyd of Florida, Joe Donnelly and Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, Bart Gordon of Tennessee, and Ben Chandler of Kentucky. That leaves 17 who voted for all four Big Government proposals. This group includes Reps. Leonard Boswell of Iowa, Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona, Baron Hill of Indiana, Dennis Moore of Kansas, Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania, and Zack Space of Ohio. I also examined the voting behavior of the 85 House Democrats who represent congressional districts that voted for either George W. Bush in 2004 or John McCain in 2008. With poll after poll confirming that Americans have turned against these Big Government initiatives, this trend should be even more pronounced in these swing districts. Not surprisingly, virtually all of the Democratic votes cast against these four measures (100 out of 107 of the dissenting votes, to be precise) came from here. Eleven of these members voted against the Big Government agenda all or most of the time. Nineteen others (including eleven Blue Dogs) voted against two of the measures. But 24 sided with Pelosi all but once and 31 heeded her call every time. Even as conservatives recoil at this agenda, they must grudgingly acknowledge the San Francisco speaker’s ability to persuade her troops to line up behind a breathtakingly liberal legislative agenda. -- Michael G. Franc is vice president of government relations at the Heritage Foundation. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjIxOTNiN2RmMzA3ODBjYTZhZDY2ZGNhYjAzOWIyYmQ= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:00:56 -0400 Obama's Prissy America -- By: Victor Davis Hanson webmaster@nationalreview.com (Victor Davis Hanson) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTgzOTFjYmRlMDY4MTg0MjI2MzdjMjM0NDQ3NGNlOGM= The liberal writ was that a strutting “bring ’em on” George W. Bush for eight years did what he pleased on the international scene. His “unilateral” America supposedly did not consult with either allies or international organizations, as he rammed through democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush’s “my way or the highway” personal credo resulted in an America alone. Obama, of course, was hailed as the multifaceted antidote to all that. The new nontraditional America would reach out to the world. We would now listen rather than lecture. This was a welcome reflection of Barack Obama’s own cool and tolerant approach to politics, learned as a seasoned community organizer in Chicago. But things have not quite worked out as planned. Barack Obama to all appearances is certainly more relaxed than Bush. And he resonates abroad as a nontraditional American. Indeed, Obama is now the paradigm of America’s ongoing metamorphosis into something more like the rest of the planet. Yet in his own way Obama projects a far more prissy, self-indulgent America than we had under Bush. And that self-centeredness seems a logical extension of the new commander-in-chief himself. How can that be, given Obama’s well-known apologies -- for everything from slavery and our treatment of Native Americans to being imperious toward Europeans and Muslims? In obsequious fashion, we have sought to assure the Russians that we won’t deploy anti-ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. Obama has reminded the Chinese that they enjoy sovereignty over Taiwan. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Bashar al-Assad, the Castro brothers, Hugo Chávez, and assorted other old enemies of the United States are suddenly considered either neutrals or friends. It seems counterintuitive, then, to suggest that Obama’s America is increasingly self-absorbed. GLOBAL PENITENT But consider first the nature of his apologies. America deigns to apologize to Muslims without much mention of a murderous Islamic radicalism that almost daily fuels a terrorist attack on some portion of the world’s civilian population. Left unsaid by the global penitent is that Russia flattened Grozny and butchered hundreds of thousands of Chechens in serial wars. No need to talk of the absorption of Tibet by China or of the 70 million Chinese who were killed or starved to death under Mao. Will the adjudicator Obama not say who was at fault in Rwanda, who needs to apologize -- and how? Obama is conflicted over Hiroshima, but not so much over the millions of Chinese, Koreans, Australians, British, and Americans who were slaughtered by the legions of the Co-Prosperity Sphere -- and were desperate to find a way to stop Japanese militarism. The point is this: When Obama takes it upon himself to adjudicate, in quite ahistorical fashion, who is culpable and who not, the resulting verdicts are consistent only in terms of the president’s own Chicago-style race/class/gender politics. Detention in Guantanamo is Bush’s transgression against the Constitution, but the incineration of terrorists and their families by judge/jury/executioner Predator drones in Waziristan is Eric Holder’s approved cosmic justice. The New York trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of mass murder, proves to the world that war can become a refined legal matter in the prissy new age of Obama. But there is no need to go into the morality of blowing apart the head of a negotiating Somali pirate with sniper fire, since the killing had a presidential seal of approval. What is lost in all this “Bush did it” moral posturing is any sense of American humility, of tragic acceptance that in bad/worse alternatives there is no good choice. Instead, Obama’s America arrogantly sermonizes to the world that it alone, in its singular wisdom and morality, has redefined war as a courtroom drama -- but not quite when it is a matter of what America wants. Just wait: If a few unhinged jury members, ACLU lawyers, and showboating judges collude to acquit KSM as only 99 percent guilty, then Obama will, for 2010 political purposes alone, connive to find a way to keep the acquitted killer in prison. Obama lectures the world on new American values, and then does pretty much what he pleases -- whether it is not quite “shutting Guantanamo down” in a year, or not quite ushering in a new global age of his radical cap-and-trade environmentalism. The more Obama confesses to America’s shortcomings, the more his bored hosts abroad sense that such loud self-righteousness is psychodrama -- Obama’s angst about his own country. The world has a lot on its plate -- hunger, war, plague, poverty, histories of mass murdering -- without adding yet another private sermon by Obama about how his own miraculous presidency is moral redemption for an array of past American sins. GIVE ME YOUR CASH Consider next the matter of debt. Obama inherited the Bush budget deficits -- and then drove them through the roof. Indeed, he is on schedule not only to run up consecutive trillion-dollar-plus annual shortfalls, but also in his tenure nearly to match the aggregate debt piled up by all previous administrations combined. A large portion of the new Obama borrowing has to be covered abroad, mostly through Chinese and Japanese purchase of U.S. government bonds. The Obama administration expects to borrow yearly hundreds of billions of dollars from the Chinese to expand American health care. In some sense, therefore, 400 to 500 million Chinese -- most of them without much access to even rudimentary medicine, doctors, and hospitals -- will be working overtime to loan Americans enough money to ensure universal access to hip replacements, gastric bypasses, and flu shots. Cut through the soaring rhetoric: We are left with an America that assumes the world’s less well-off will directly subsidize our own better-off. No wonder that Obama has cooled his rhetoric on Chinese smoky coal plants, Tibet, mercantile trade policies, and human rights. All such idealism falls before America’s voracious appetite for borrowed cash. For Obama to fulfill his grand visions of expansionary American entitlements in health, education, and welfare, he must jettison the idealistic international rhetoric, and instead concentrate on the money. We want dollars that we haven’t earned. And, like a grasping heir, we will do or say almost anything to get them. I NEED YOUR OIL Our energy policy reveals the same prissy sense of self. For all the campaign rhetoric about using all America’s energy resources, the administration seems focused on subsidizing relatively small amounts of wind and solar power. Green talk is preferable to encouraging American industry to exploit our sizable gas, oil, shale, tar sands, and nuclear resources. Apparently, we want to boast to the world about our new solar farms, while quietly continuing to import Hugo Chávez’s messy goo. Since American consumption of gasoline and traditional generation of electricity remains steady even in the new age of wind and solar power, Obama’s message is, again, hardly subtle: The rest of the world is supposed to keep drilling in the ecologically fragile Persian Gulf, tap the tundra of Siberia, and pump out of the Latin American jungle -- while we pay for it with borrowed Japanese and Chinese money. That way we are assured that the California coast, the Alaskan frontier, and much of the American West stay off limits from exploitation -- in accordance with our ever more refined environmental and aesthetic sensibilities. OUR EXCEPTIONAL PRESIDENT Again, much of this disconnect between utopian rhetoric and national selfishness reflects Obama’s own conflicted persona. When the common man Obama travels abroad, foreigners witness the strange spectacle of soothing “We are the world” sloganeering, coupled with an imperial entourage of jumbo jets, caravans of SUVs, and an array of flacks who allot precious seconds of face time with Him. During the campaign there was Obama the Humble, offering creepy messianic rhetoric about subsiding seas and cooling temperatures, in a mise-en-scène of faux-Greek temple convention sets, Latin mottos and the Obama “seal,” schoolchildren singing Obama songs, and the staged Victory Column backdrops. All that led right into ten months of an even more megalomaniac climate in which dissent -- whether from Fox News, the Tea Party protests, or the Chamber of Commerce -- was seen as blasphemous. We have now hit bottom with government requests to report “fishy” critics. The NEA schemes to advance the agenda of the new Caesar. And official communiqués announce fictitious jobs in fictitious congressional districts “saved” by more quite real government borrowing. The net result of all this is that America is becoming as self-righteous, self-centered, and prissy as its president is himself. -- NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the <a href="http://www.hoover.org/">Hoover Institution</a>. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTgzOTFjYmRlMDY4MTg0MjI2MzdjMjM0NDQ3NGNlOGM= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:00:55 -0400 Delicate China -- By: An NRO Symposium webmaster@nationalreview.com (An NRO Symposium) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWQzOGZlMzg5ODhmNjdkYjhmODI1OTAwNTllMWYyNjU= As the president winds down his China trip, National Review Online asked experts on China and foreign policy: What should we do with and how should we regard China? PETER BROOKES No country or issue will shape the course of the 21st century -- for good or ill -- more than China. For example, it’s the world’s most populous nation; the largest producer of greenhouse gases; the greatest holder of foreign currency reserves and American debt; the second biggest consumer of energy; the third largest economy; it has the third biggest defense budget; and so on. China is quickly becoming a country of superlatives. Accordingly, it has the raw potential to shake the international system like other rising powers have in the past, often with less than optimum outcomes. Some believe China intends to amass the national power that will allow it to replace the United States as the preeminent power in the Pacific, and perhaps even in the entire world. And if we’re not careful, it just might do so. -- Peter Brookes is a Senior Fellow for National Security Affairs and the Chung Ju-Yung Fellow for Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.<a style="text-decoration: none;"> JOHN DERBYSHIRE We should be guided by the old diplomatic quip about a different would-be superpower: “Russia is never as strong as she looks; Russia is never as weak as she looks.” China’s strength is well-advertised. Her rate of economic growth across the past 30 years has been sensational. She is re-tooling her military at an impressive clip. Her foreign policy is ruthlessly self-interested. With Han Chinese at 92 percent, minorities concentrated in remote regions, and zero immigration, China is spared the demographic fissures opening up in Western nations. The Communist party is secure in power, having survived all challenges. Let us bear in mind that those growth rates are based on an economic model that may already have ceased to be tenable (see Gordon Chang in the November 23 issue of National Review); that Chinese weapons, now as in the past, are intended for use </a><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8308169.stm" target="_blank">against</a> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veQIdaR0J70&feature=video_response" target="_blank">those</a> <a href="http://aroundtheedges.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/tiananmen-square-tank1-1808.jpg" target="_blank">inhabitants</a>, or <a href="http://eng.taiwan.net.tw/" target="_blank">recalcitrant ex-inhabitants</a>, of the Celestial Empire who will not bow to the Son of Heaven; that Chinese diplomats excel mainly at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ugly-Chinaman-Crisis-Chinese-Culture/dp/1863731164/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258487967&sr=1-1" target="_blank">making their nation disliked</a>; that resentments of class and wealth inequality can <a href="http://www.fresno.k12.ca.us/divdept/sscience/lloyd/age_of_revolution.htm" target="_blank">sunder a nation</a> as surely as can ethnic troubles; and that the median duration of a Chinese dynasty has been 45 years. -- John Derbyshire is an NRO columnist and author, most recently, of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0307409589" target="_blank">We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism</a>. JAMIE M. FLY President Obama is continuing his predecessors’ unfortunate tradition of viewing China as a “strategic partner” because of China’s growing economic might and its role in financing the American economy. Successive American presidents have gone hat in hand to China, begging for assistance on problems -- such as North Korea, Iran, and climate change -- on which China has dissimilar goals from Washington. Meanwhile, China is developing advanced military capabilities while we spend less on defense. This has implications for U.S. allies such as Taiwan, Japan, and others in the region. As China seeks increased ties in Africa and Latin America in its search for natural resources to fuel its booming economy, it is likely that the Chinese navy and military will follow. American leaders should not shy from confronting the Chinese leadership about human rights and political repression in China. During his time in Shanghai and Beijing, President Obama’s minimal efforts to discuss freedoms of the press and speech were heavily censored by the Chinese regime. While he deserves credit for raising the issue, he did little to improve the plight of dissidents and activists in Chinese jails. A free, democratic China would be a real “strategic partner.” The American president should advocate loudly and frequently for real political reform to achieve that goal. -- Jamie M. Fly is executive director of the <a href="http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/" target="_blank">Foreign Policy Initiative</a>. WILLIAM MCGURN There is no simple answer to China. China is the largest country in the world, with a market that is increasingly tied to the American and global economies. It also remains a Communist country: Though no longer totalitarian -- partly thanks to the private spheres opened up by the advance of wealth and enterprise -- it remains a dictatorial country that 1) is insecure about its role in the world; 2) distrusts its people; and 3) at times acts on either or both of these two principles in ways that are dangerous to its citizens or the region. The answer is not to badger or berate them. The answer is to be firm, and show that you mean what you say. When you show you are afraid to meet the Dalai Lama, they conclude you are weak and do not really mean all your highfalutin talk about human rights and human dignity. They respect you when, as George W. Bush did, you meet with house Christians and the Roman Catholic cardinal of Hong Kong -- and show you mean it when you discuss, say, religious freedom. Remember that when Bush started, the Chinese were playing bumper cars with our planes. In retrospect, looks like he handled that pretty well. Bottom line for an American president: Encourage them to do well, and keep opening their markets, applaud them when they do, and give them incentives to do the right thing. But don’t let them dictate whom you meet with, or be afraid to take them to task when they do something bad. An American president needs most to be respected by China. -- William McGurn, formerly the chief speechwriter for Pres. George W. Bush, is an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. THERESE SHAHEEN Hopefully (but doubtfully) the president returns from Asia recognizing that China cannot be the “engine of growth” for the world as it emerges from the economic recession. Indeed, China’s structural economic challenges are such that the greater concern is that it not become the “engine of crisis” if there is a double-dip recession in the developed world and China’s falling exports and direct investment crash. Despite the difficult and protracted economic position in which the United States finds itself, China is worse off. China’s economy was overheating years before the financial crisis hit. Asset inflation -- whether it is property values or the equities markets -- has been exacerbated by the government stimulus spending this year. There is constant pressure on the Communist government to dazzle the region and the world with near double-digit growth, combined with unrelenting demand for jobs in an economy with some 150 million people unemployed, and per-capita income among the lowest in the world. What this means as the president turns back to his domestic agenda is that the United States must defend the dollar, get our own deficits under control, avoid the stifling taxes that would come with government-run health care, and keep the United States as the engine of growth. The United States is the only viable engine of growth for the foreseeable future, and hopefully the president realizes that China -- and Asia more broadly -- depends upon it. -- Therese Shaheen is chairman of U.S. Asia International, a consulting firm that does business in Asia. JOHN J. TKACIK JR. As the smoke clears from President Obama’s 2009 Asia tour, America’s new status as the second-most powerful nation on earth is no longer obscured. It is the measure of a superpower that nobody else tells it what to do, but America is no longer the superpower. It is now China whom no one dares lecture. The Obama administration has failed to muster the leverage necessary to gain China’s cooperation on any of its global priorities: nuclear proliferation, climate change, trade, exchange rates, human rights, competition for resources, environmental despoliation, or moderating China’s territorial claims against its neighbors -- most of which are America’s friends and allies. It simply is not credible in Beijing that Obama’s Washington has the courage to come up with an “or else” if China insists on pursuing its goals via a robust state-mercantilist ideology. So Beijing now does what it will, and will lecture the U.S. president if it pleases. This was evident in Obama’s handling of the Tibet issue. He dared not meet with his fellow Nobel Laureate, the Dalai Lama, because China was not pleased. In his comments to Chinese leaders, Obama reassured them that the United States “recognizes that Tibet is part of the People’s Republic of China,” without pausing to consider that China claims 32,000 square miles of Indian territory -- the state of Arunachal Pradesh -- as “part of Tibet.” Clearly, President Obama sees his challenge as managing America’s decline gracefully. -- John J. Tkacik Jr. is a senior research fellow in Asian Studies at the Heritage Foundation. LARRY M. WORTZEL China is an important global actor with wealth and military capacity, with which the United States shares some common interests. We must have diplomatic and economic interaction. However, the U.S. and China are in competition in a number of sectors, and no country is more aggressive in espionage and cyber intrusions against the U.S. The two countries have little in common in their basic values regarding democratic systems, such as the freedoms of speech, assembly, and religion. From a security standpoint, our objectives on the Korean Peninsula and with countries such as Iran are quite different. Neither country wants to see war on the Korean Peninsula, but the Chinese Communist party wants to see the peninsula remain divided. With respect to North Korea and Iran, it serves the interests of China if the United States is overwhelmed with difficult problems such as the development of weapons of mass destruction. China is not of much help in Central Asia, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, which it helped arm with nuclear weapons and delivery systems. We differ significantly in our views on military activities in the Exclusive Economic Zone and space. -- Larry M. Wortzel is vice chairman of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. ANGELA WU China’s future as a superpower is imminent, but it’s a mistake to believe our foreign policy won’t shape the kind of superpower it becomes. A cornerstone of that policy should be religious freedom, at the heart of which is the dignity of the human person. Freedom of individual conscience is the freedom without which all others are meaningless -- what else are we living for? The Chinese people are going to define the Chinese state as people always have in every country. The Chinese are yearning for human dignity, to live with it openly, freely, prolifically. Instead of telling them, as Secretary Clinton did in February, that their dreams “can’t interfere” with economic, climate, or security interests, we have a duty to let them know that prosperity and human respect are not mutually exclusive. We have a duty to let them know the freedom they were born with won’t be sold out to the baser interests of any state. We should regard China the way we should regard the rest of the world and ourselves: with great hope, with high expectations, with the knowledge that sometimes the high ground is gained at a cost that we are willing to share. -- Angela Wu is international law director for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWQzOGZlMzg5ODhmNjdkYjhmODI1OTAwNTllMWYyNjU= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:00:29 -0400 Leave It to the Generals -- By: NRO Staff webmaster@nationalreview.com (NRO Staff) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmY0NzQ1NzkzNjYwNzFhNjM0YmVkMjBhZjQyNGM0ZTQ= As the debate over whether to send more American troops to Afghanistan intensifies, our war efforts could be hindered by an unlikely source: the U.S. judicial branch. Federal judges are considering whether foreign al-Qaeda and Taliban supporters captured by the U.S. military and held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan can sue the U.S. government to be released from custody. On October 30, Fadi al Maqaleh, a Yemeni citizen currently detained in Afghanistan, argued in a brief to the D.C. circuit court that he has the right under our Constitution to challenge his confinement in U.S. federal court. Despite his campaign promises to abandon the detention policies of his predecessor, President Obama has adopted the same position as President Bush and is trying to block al Maqaleh’s law suit from proceeding. On Monday, the Obama administration filed a brief urging the D.C. circuit court to dismiss the case. Permitting enemy militants to sue their U.S. captors would overhaul the military’s entire detention system and severely disrupt the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. But one judge has already ruled in favor of al Maqaleh. In a stunning decision this spring, Judge John D. Bates of the D.C. district court declared that al Maqaleh has a constitutional right to bring a claim challenging his custody. The Obama administration immediately appealed to the D.C. circuit court, where the case is currently pending. Maqaleh v. Gates is a watershed case because al Maqaleh is one of approximately 600 enemy detainees being held at Bagram. Most are Afghans who were captured on the battlefield and who might rejoin the fight if released. As an essential part of wartime strategy, capturing and detaining enemy fighters has long been considered indispensible for weakening the other side’s ground forces. (For example, the United States detained more than 3 million German soldiers in World War II.) A ruling for al Maqaleh would mean that -- for the first time in our history -- foreign-enemy litigants in an active war zone could flood our courts asking judges to order the U.S. military to release them from custody. The case is also important because Bagram is one of the most crucial logistical bases in Afghanistan. Thirty miles north of Kabul, it comprises nearly 4,000 acres, and much of the military’s supplies for the region pass through, including weapons, equipment, and food. Located in the middle of a battleground, the base has been attacked several times since the war began in 2001. As fighting in Afghanistan escalates, Bagram remains one of the largest and most vital military facilities in the fight against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants. Requiring the airbase to facilitate detainee trials, counsel visits, and court preparation would pose a significant security burden. Al Maqaleh argues that Article I of the Constitution bestows on him a right to challenge his detention, a right known as habeas corpus. The Obama administration contends that al Maqaleh -- as an enemy foreigner, captured abroad and held in a war zone -- has no legal right, under any statute or the Constitution, to challenge his detention. Indeed, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which bipartisan congressional majorities passed and President Bush signed into law, explicitly bars any U.S. court from hearing cases brought by alien detainees. The Supreme Court, however, struck down part of the Military Commissions Act in the groundbreaking 2008 case Boumediene v. Bush. In a 5-4 opinion, the court declared that detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp have a constitutional right to challenge their captivity in federal court. The decision hinged on the unique, century-long control that the U.S. exercises over the Cuban land -- sovereignty so absolute that the Supreme Court concluded, “in every practical sense Guantánamo is not abroad.” #page The decision prompted a vigorous dissent from Justice Antonin Scalia, who strenuously disagreed that Guantanamo detainees may dispute their confinement: “What competence does the Court have to second-guess the judgment of Congress and the President on such a point? None whatever. But the Court blunders in nonetheless. Henceforth, as today’s opinion makes unnervingly clear, how to handle enemy prisoners in this war will ultimately lie with the branch that knows least about the national security concerns that the subject entails.” As Scalia predicted, the Boumediene decision has put the judicial branch on a collision course with the president and Congress. Al Maqaleh now asks that the Boumediene ruling be extended halfway around the world to Bagram Airbase. The Obama administration argues that even if the right to habeas corpus reaches Guantanamo (because of U.S. sovereignty over that land), it surely must not extend to an active war zone in Afghanistan (where no similar sovereignty exists). There are three reasons the D.C. circuit court should reverse Judge Bates’s decision. First, nothing in the text of the Constitution grants enemy foreigners held in an active war zone the legal right to sue their captors. Indeed, legal precedent instructs that enemies held abroad have no such right. In a post-World War II 1950 case, Johnson v. Eisentrager, the Supreme Court considered whether German war criminals imprisoned in Landsberg, Germany, were entitled to habeas corpus. The court held that they were not: There has been “no instance where a court, in this or any other country where the [habeas] writ is known, has issued it on behalf of an alien enemy who, at no relevant time and in no stage of his captivity, has been within its territorial jurisdiction. Nothing in the text of the Constitution extends such a right.” (The Eisentrager precedent was not dispositive in the Boumediene case because of America’s unusual sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay.) Second, the Constitution specifically grants the two elected branches of government the power to formulate military policy. The president is the commander in chief of the armed forces, and Congress may declare war and provide for its funding. This allocation of power provides accountability. Voters are particularly concerned about policies affecting our troops, as shown by the heated debate about boosting forces in Afghanistan. The two branches that are accountable to the American people, therefore, should generally make military decisions, without being undermined by the politically insulated judicial branch. When the executive formulates military strategy and Congress provides for its funding, both branches must consider the public will. But when a federal judge -- with lifetime tenure -- defies those choices, the American people’s power to self-govern is diminished. Third, judges do not have the military training or expertise to know the damage that could result from allowing detainees to sue their captors. The executive branch attests that permitting enemies to bring such lawsuits could be crippling: It would have “serious adverse consequences for the military mission in Afghanistan,” according to the Justice Department. The result would be “disruption, distraction, burden, and loss of prestige of the command.” In reaching this conclusion, presumably the executive branch has drawn on the expert opinions and classified information of the Department of Defense, the CIA, and the National Security Agency. Federal judges -- with no particular national-security training -- are in no position to second-guess experts on this matter. Let’s leave the Afghanistan war in the hands of generals. -- Stephanie Hessler is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. She served as a constitutional lawyer for the Senate Judiciary Committee, where she advised on terrorist-detention policy. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NmY0NzQ1NzkzNjYwNzFhNjM0YmVkMjBhZjQyNGM0ZTQ= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:00:21 -0400 It's No Way to Fight a War on Terror -- By: Jonah Goldberg webmaster@nationalreview.com (Jonah Goldberg) http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGVlODVlZDEzZTc5NWI4NzMwNDMxMDU3NjE5NGFjMjU= I get where President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are coming from. They think that if we change our way of life, the terrorists will have won. In principle, I agree. If upholding our values makes fighting the War on Terror harder, then it should be harder. That’s why I don’t care much that it will cost more money to try suspected terrorists in the Big Apple than it would in the state-of-the-art facility at Guantanamo Bay. Similarly, while the security concerns stemming from a trial in New York are real, I think we can handle them. And, again, just because something is harder or more dangerous, that doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t do it. That’s the whole point behind “millions for defense but not one cent for tribute.” Some things just aren’t for sale. Nonetheless, I think the decision to send Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his buddies to a civilian trial is a travesty. Ultimately, the disagreement is one of first principles. If we are at war, then the rules of war apply. The fact that this is a war unlike others we’ve fought should not mean that it isn’t a war at all. Don’t tell that to Obama. He’s made it clear that he doesn’t see the threat as an unconventional war but as a conventional law-enforcement problem. The attorney general insists that 9/11 is a matter for civilian courts. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says attacks such as 9/11 should be thought of as “man-caused disasters.” Her top priority after the Fort Hood shootings was to bring Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan to justice -- a fine answer for a law-enforcement official, but not from someone charged with protecting the homeland. The War on Terror itself has morphed into “overseas contingency operations.” Just as telling, Obama insists that the decision to move Mohammed to civilian court was entirely Holder’s. This is deceptive nonsense. Even if technically true, the choice to let Holder make the decision was the real decision. The commander in chief opted to hand off jurisdiction over enemy combatants to the cops. He can’t duck that responsibility by saying it wasn’t his call. But there’s a more immediate problem. This won’t be a show trial, strictly speaking. But it will be a trial for show. Prominent defenders of the decision insist that this trial is at least partly to benefit America’s image around the world. That’s a laudable goal -- and another example of why this is not a mere law-enforcement issue. But I’m dubious that will be the result. Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.) defended the administration Sunday on Fox News, echoing suggestions from the White House that even if the accused are acquitted on a technicality, they won’t be released. They would go back to the legal purgatory known as “preventive detention.” That is the right policy; these are dangerous men, after all. But it is an affront to civilian jurisprudence. Under military law, preventive detention is a well-established norm. Under civilian law, it’s an affront. Throw into the equation that these men weren’t read their rights, were interrogated in a manner that is illegal in civilian courts, are being tried with little if any possibility of an impartial jury -- and the fact that Holder all but insists they’ll be convicted -- and it all adds up to a farce. Moreover, the administration has not abolished military tribunals. Holder is sending the al-Qaeda suspects in the attack on the destroyer Cole to one. Hence, enemies who attack us abroad are treated like enemy combatants with fewer rights, while terrorists who managed to kill civilians here at home are treated like American citizens. That is perverse. If history is a guide, this trial will unavoidably come at a cost in terms of leaked intelligence and propaganda victories for our enemies. Obama’s defenders don’t believe it. “Does anyone think,” asks Joshua Micah Marshall, a prominent liberal blogger, that the “Nuremberg trials#...#advanced (the defendants’) causes?” Obama himself invoked the Nuremberg trials during the presidential campaign. “Part of what made us different was even after these Nazis had performed atrocities,” he explained, “we still gave them a day in court, and that taught the entire world about who we are but also the basic principles of rule of law.” Such arguments are revealing on at least two counts. First, the Nuremberg trials were military tribunals -- it was understood that the Nazis were not mere criminals. Second, they took place after we had won the war against Nazi Germany. We could afford such a spectacle because the Nazi cause was dead. Meanwhile, the War on Terror lives. Just don’t tell that to Barack Obama. -- Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online and the author of <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/redirect/amazon.p?j=0385511841">Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning</a>. © 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc. <hr width=100% size=2> http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGVlODVlZDEzZTc5NWI4NzMwNDMxMDU3NjE5NGFjMjU= Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:59 -0400