Just want to say a word about the passage of “national health care” — maybe not a very welcome word. There comes a time, I think, when you have to point to the American electorate, who put those Democrats in place: in the House, in the Senate, and in the White House. Pelosi et al. did not shoot their way in; they didn’t stage any kind of coup. They were all elected, by good ol’ Amurricans.

I don’t know about you, but I have never had much patience with the argument that the Republicans “deserved” to lose in 2006. You know the line: “We spent too much, there was too much corruption in the House, George W. Bush was sloppy in his immigration proposal . . .” Well, in American politics, there is always a choice, or most always. If your beef is spending, will the Democrats spend less, or more? Will the Democrats be less corrupt, or more? (Think of the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel.) Are the Democrats more to your liking on immigration?

Consider last year’s presidential election, too. The line here, from many Republicans, is, “Oh, our candidate was an old coot, and Sarah Palin messed up in some interviews.” Therefore, the country had to go Obamite? Did the Republicans not offer an honorable and credible choice? I think they did.

You may argue that the voters, in electing the Democrats, were not asking specifically for national health care, “cap and trade,” mammoth spending, “card check,” and the rest of it. And you would have half a point, or a quarter of a point. But choices were pretty clear, district by district and nationally. And, in a democracy, very often, people get what they deserve.

Then there’s the minority . . .

‐In the titles of its editorials, the Wall Street Journal sometimes likes to ask, “Who Is X?” You know, “Who Is Hillary Clinton?” or “Who Is Vernon Jordan?” Well, we may ask — especially after the passage of PelosiCare, or whatever you choose to call it — “Who Is the American People?” Some analysts like to speak of “the American DNA”: We are a classical-liberal republic, we are different from Europe, we are individualists, we will never go socialist, or social-democratic. That may well be true. But I’m not sure whether countries have a DNA — that sounds a little too permanent, a little too immutable. Doesn’t it depend on who is composing the country — on who is around — at a given time? Doesn’t it depend on how people, especially the young, are educated? “Teach your children well,” sang the hippies, and they were right.

I think of the character of Britain. Is the character of today’s Britain what it was just a short while ago, for example during World War II? Really?

It could well be that, after our flirtation with Obamism — or more of a coupling with Obamism — we Americans will experience a free-market awakening. I wouldn’t rule it out. And wouldn’t that be a happy turn of events?

‐The general media reaction to the Ft. Hood massacre reminded me of an old joke. It’s about modern American liberals. One reason I feel secure in telling it is that I learned it from a liberal — from the commentator Mark Shields, who told it on television many years ago. Two liberals are walking down the road and they come to a person in the ditch. He has been beaten, and lies moaning, broken, bleeding. One liberal says to the other, “Quick, we have to find the people who did this: They need help.”

‐I remarked in a previous column on the absence of Barack Obama from the Berlin Wall — on the absence of the American president from ceremonies marking the end of the Cold War. What is also interesting to remark on is the presence of Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state: this good ’60s liberal who was of the school that thought the Cold War was basically a right-wing need, who opposed so many of the policies — Reaganite policies — that helped end the Cold War, and end the Soviet Union itself. These were people who thought that coexistence was the name of the game, and who thought that the very idea of opposing the Soviet Union and winning was dangerous, if not psychotic.

And Hillary Clinton is representing us at the Wall. Wonder if she’ll wear an old nuclear-freeze button. Funny old girl: not Hillary, but history.

‐Earlier this year, I commented with some agony on President Obama’s Nowruz greeting — his New Year’s greeting — to “the people and leaders of Iran,” as he put it. There was much to comment on, agonizingly. And one of the aspects was this: He stated his desire for “engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.” I asked,

What is there about the Iranian regime to respect? Forget what Iran does in its foreign policy: its pledge to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, for example. (Just a small example, huh?) What about what the regime does to the Iranian people?
They stone girls to death for the crime of having been gang-raped. Think about that, if you can bear it. And, just a day before Obama sent his New Year’s message, we learned that a young Iranian blogger, Omid Mir Sayafi, had died in an Iranian prison: Evin, that torture chamber and graveyard for so many good people.

Anyway, you know all this. I just want to say, now, that President Obama has done it again: has said that he wishes “a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect.” I’m not sure I’ll ever have a chance to question Obama, but one thing I’d like to ask him is, “What about the Iranian regime can decent people respect?”

And did you get a load of what the democratic protesters in Iran were chanting? “Obama! Obama! Either you’re with them or you’re with us.” I’m with Mona Charen (as I usually am): Tough to know how the president can sleep.

‐When I was a youngster, and a political junkie, I was quite interested in lopsided congressional votes. For example, there would be a vote that was 419 to 4 or something. And I’d want to know about the four. Well, I’m still that way, and probably you are too.

The other day, I was interested in the Goldstone vote — the vote in the House asking the administration to oppose with all its might the U.N.’s Goldstone Report, which is that gross libel of Israel as concerns Gaza. The vote was 344 to 36 (with 22 answering “present” and 30 not voting). Most among the 36 were lefties, such as Dennis Kucinich, George Miller, and Maxine Waters. John Dingell was kind of interesting. (“Dearbornistan”?) And there were three Republicans: Ron Paul (who is often in tiny minorities on these votes, owing to his constitutional principles), Charles Boustany (of Lebanese descent, by the way), and Geoff Davis.

If this is your game — if you enjoy it at all — have a look at the roll call. Incidentally, do you remember the days when there’d be a 99-1 vote in the Senate — and the one would be Jesse?

‐Another childhood thing: When I was a kid, I was always amazed that John Quincy Adams, who was president, later served in the House of Representatives. I thought that took exceptional humility (humility that I might not have). I was reminded of this, over the weekend, when learning that Mike DeWine, the former senator — U.S. senator — is running for attorney general in Ohio. Good for him: and that government could use a few good men, Republicans in general will agree . . .

‐The streets of New York are invaded by the clipboard people. Who are the clipboard people? They are young adults, stationed about 25 yards apart, bearing clipboards and wanting to stop you to yak about politics and get you to sign something. One clipboard person faces one way, the other clipboard person faces the other way. Sometimes they pivot. In any case, they get you coming and going. They are always on the left: wanting you to declare ANWR eternally off-limits or something. And they are pretty annoying. They are absolutely ubiquitous, too. The clipboard people are now a daily part of life, a daily part of my walking about town.

May I interject that I would not want to be stopped — certainly not so often — by right-leaning clipboard people, either? (Such people are unimaginable in New York, but they could crop up elsewhere.)

I also accept the truth that you will be annoyed when you venture out in public. If you want to avoid the public and the associated annoyances, stay in your room. No one is free from disturbance. And yet I think there should be a little civic space, a space that the clipboard people, in their ubiquity, are violating.

This was an issue in Salzburg last summer, too. I was there, working at the festival, as usual. And there were a million little clipboard artists for the WWF, which is to say, the World Wildlife Fund. They were a little different from the New York clipboard people. First of all, they were about 17, rather than 28 or so. And they would tell you their name and ask your name, shaking your hand. For a while, I thought they were cute. Then I was swattin’ ’em away like flies.

And I was thinking: When it comes to the WWF, I’ll take the World Wrestling Federation.

‐Few days ago, I was in an airport, and a voice was on the PA saying that the threat level was orange. In the time of George W. Bush, these announcements were thought to be totally scaremongering — just a tactic to make you fear Islam and vote Republican or something. Was that not the line, essentially, you heard over and over? Anyway, I was wondering why it was still going on in the new, pacific, logical age of Obama . . .

‐I mentioned, earlier, the streets of New York.Yesterday, I saw Vanessa Redgrave a block from my building. I first thought, “Who is that strikingly beautiful older woman, who looks like Vanessa Redgrave?” It was she. And though her views on the Middle East are roughly those of Hamas and Hezbollah . . . she is still beautiful, as I noted from Salzburg two summers ago, even as she was reading “Poems from Guantanamo” — verses written by those persecuted darlings in our facility down Cuba way.

‐In a column last Wednesday, I told of going to vote in my neighborhood, and being asked to do no more than sign my name. No showing of ID, no nothing. Wasn’t this just a little loose, a little too trusting — a little fraud-friendly? A reader wrote, “Jay, you have to go so far as signing your name, but here in Lowell, Mass., I just walk in and tell them who I am — and they believe me. No verification of any kind at all. Is this any way to run a railroad?”

But here is a contrasting note:

Jay,
I live south of Chelsea, Mich., in Freedom Township. I also work at the University of Michigan and I consider myself pretty conservative, much to the chagrin of many of my office-mates. I voted yesterday at the Freedom Township Hall and one of the poll workers asked to see my picture ID. There was also a little form to fill out. Now, I’ve known this woman for about two and a half years. We attend the same church, she teaches Sunday School with my wife, etc., etc. I absolutely loved it! Why do liberals have such a problem with showing picture ID?

I wrote a piece on this, “‘Poll Tax!’ They Cry,” for an October 2006 National Review. Go here, if you’re interested.

And you may be tickled to know that our Michigan reader put the following under his signature: “Living in Freedom just west of Ann Arbor and a little south of Hell.”

‐A language item? In that Wednesday column, I had a little note on “leave alone” and “let alone.” A reader sent me a quotation from Frederick Douglass. “What shall be done with them?” asked Douglass. What shall be done with the slaves, if freed? “Our answer is, do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs. Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is just to let them alone.”

For the relevant document, go here. Douglass could really talk, and really think, and really act. Great American, great Republican. (Sorry for the partisanship . . .)

‐Finally, want to give you a name — or rather, a reader does. He said, “Not sure if you’ve done this one.” (I hadn’t.) “Miss Airial Salvo is a dynamite volleyball player for the University of Washington.”

Thanks for joining me, dear ones, and best to you too, Miss Salvo. (To her opponents, I say, Duck.)

#JAYBOOK#