The International House of Bacon

Still not feeling 100%, but better than yesterday, so let’s see…

* The “big news” was the John Edwards endorsement. I saw this coming if only because dirty populists need to stick together (I’m respectful to a fault toward a lot of ideologies that aren’t mine, but populism crosses a line for me - the rank dishonesty combined with policies that do the opposite of what’s intended is a bit much), but as a wider-scale issue, is an Edwards endorsement really going to help Obama in the general election at this stage? Does Edwards really bring anything to the table that would make the centrist voters that Obama needs give the Democratic ticket a second look? If there’s even a hint of Obama making Edwards the Attorney General, won’t that scare some people off? I don’t see the benefit past the mostly-already-decided Democratic primary, quite frankly.

* In the rare instance Obama does something right, I think it’s my duty to present it: Obama may relax the federal prosecution of medical marijuana, allowing the states more leeway. If we could get him on board for other issues of state’s rights, he might actually be worth someone’s time, but for the moment, let’s applaud him getting one thing right.

* Willisms on taxes and tax policy.

* RedState on Obama’s lack of momentum. He’s lost 7 of the last 10 primaries, and (I think) is likely to split the final ones. It’s an interesting side note to a primary that Obama otherwise has locked up, and the narrative is ultimately what will keep him from truly locking it up in the next few weeks, barring a Clinton withdrawal.

* Related from Rasmussen: nearly 30% of Democrats want to see Clinton run an independent campaign. She’s not that dumb, is she?

* Chicago overturns its foie gras ban. Good move.

* I’m kind of sad I slept through this yesterday: Manny being Manny, 2008 edition. Those of you not seeing Boston baseball on a regular basis are missing out on some really bizarre stuff, let me tell ya…

* The polar bear is set to be an endangered species. One of those bizarre things that the Bush administration has done, and I can’t for the life of me understand why. I’m not predicting economic apocalypse like many others are, but this is a really problematic listing for me, since the full population of bears has risen noticeably over the years. What’s the benefit?

* Proving that New Hampshire’s Democratic leadership does, in fact, wake up from its daze every so often, the income tax proposal they’ve been floating has been put on hold. This has been a bizarre run for a while, and I need to expand further on this when I have the time.

* More Obama mistakes: They apparently speak Arabic in Afghanistan, and we’ve diverted too many agricultural specialists in Iraq. I remember, either in Newsweek or Rolling Stone back during the 2000 election, a long article about Bush’s relative lack of knowledge of world leaders and things of that nature, complete with caricature of Bush at a desk with Condi Rice as the teacher. Somehow, I doubt the media will be printing anything significant like that as the Obama gaffes keep piling up. It’s a bit much to expect a domestic leader to have a strong grasp on all areas of international affairs during the campaign (although you’d think something like this he’d bone up on just a little more, given the Obama narrative), as they will learn on the job, but the treatment of candidates in this area is telling.

* I may have linked to the story earlier, but the dance ban at an Arizona restaurant has been lifted.

* Finally, Spider-Man’s greatest Bible stories.

* So, we all know the story from last night, with Obama showing some surprising resiliency and Clinton hitting a pretty rough patch. Looks like she’s still going, though, which isn’t surprising at all.

* Interesting exit poll out of Indiana: half of voters were influenced by Wright, and 75% of those voters broke for Clinton.

* John Edwards on Barack Obama: “Sometimes I want to see more substance under the rhetoric.” Because if anyone could recognize a complete lack of substance, it’s John Edwards. I love it.

* An interesting piece on libertarian paternalism. I don’t like it for a lot of the same reasons the folks at Reason don’t, but it’s still more enticing than the alternatives that get thrown out there.

* The continued annoyance of the McCain candidacy: on one hand, he again vows to push for Alito/Roberts-style judges, a very good thing. On the other, he praises the Gang of 14 as allowing for the existence of them. Uh, wha? I wonder if he simply knows that the vast majority of conservatives will have to hold their nose, so he’s just sticking to the same old script. The only bright side is Obama’s response, which continues to sound completely tone deaf on what is one of the more important issues of the campaign.

* An interesting timeline of Obama’s electoral history. This is likely to be his first race contested to the finish, and those are some pretty neat tricks he pulled in some cases to cruise into office.

* Substitute teacher does a magic trick, and was accused of wizardry.

‘Tis all for now.

* The arrogance of Barack Obama. I’m not as bothered by this as Fournier is, or as many bloggers appear to be. What does throw me is that Obama is arrogant and it doesn’t bother his supporters - wasn’t the arrogance of George W. Bush a big problem? Is it just that you like what Obama’s arrogant about that it’s okay?

* Barack Obama is a politician. Congressional Quarterly’s election blog, Ground Game, covers what is obvious, but misses the fact that Obama presents himself as not-a-politician. That’s where the problem sits.

* I expect this to be the political meme of the summer: “What’s wrong with the beer we got?!” Must be heard to be believed, skip ahead to a little after 5:30 to get the juicy stuff. Short story? Alabama debates allowing an increase in the alcohol content of beer, which would expand the beer market and provide some more options, and one politician takes some offense to it.

* Have i mentioned lately how glad I am to not live in Massachusetts anymore? The Mass legislature is going to consider a bill to make it illegal to sell M/AO rated games to minors. Glad you got that budget situation worked out there.

* McCain is not only against Universal Health Care, but makes a fairly reasoned approach about the issue:

“Well, I think that’s one of the big differences we have about the role of government. If you think that the government should mandate anything to the American people than besides a safety net, and I don’t view it as a safety net. I view Medicare and Medicaid as a safety net,” McCain said. “But to mandate that all Americans are required to do something then that’s just not within the fundamental philosophy that I have about the role of government in America.”

While I’m not generally a fan of the “safety net,” that’s probably the best argument anyone could put out there in the current climate. Cheers to you, Sen. McCain.

* A lot of the spin on this one has been about how ridiculous Comcast is, but I happen to think they have a point in their lawsuit against the FCC challenging the “30% rule” which disallows the cable carrier from having more than 30% of the market. Not only does such a rule not appear to apply to groups like AT&T, but all it’s going to do is screw the current Comcast customers - without allowing Comcast to grow, it means that 100% of any future improvements to the system or cost increases are stuck on current customers rather than Comcast being able to grow their way out of it. While the FCC could care less about exclusive cable carrier contracts with municipalities, this is a very bizarre position to take.

* I have a severe problem with the use of minors in any politicking, especially very young ones. So as if this video wasn’t creepy enough, the addition of a bunch of kids parroting talking points their parents fed to them is really disturbing and disgusting to me. Can we make an agreement to, you know, NOT do this?

* Zogby noting that Nader’s making some progress. Good thing Zogby’s typically pretty far off these days, eh?

* A question from National Review: if it was so important for Senate Democrats to push a resolution condemning Presidential candidates speaking at Bob Jones University, why the reluctance on Obama/Wright now?

* China’s been especially brutal with Tibet over the last week. It’s a damn good thing that the US State Department removed them from the Human Rights Violators list days earlier, eh?. Moronic.

* Walter Williams had a scathing op-ed regarding ethanol over the weekend. The money shot: “If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil?”

* A few reactions to the Obama speech I found interesting. I don’t endorse them, but they’re a different reaction from my own: National Review, Reason.

* One word for Jim Cramer: Ouch. I have no real input on the Bear Sterns issue - whatever is going to happen is going to happen, we’re much better set up and diversified as a nation to handle it, though.

* Today, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments on the Washington, DC gun ban. I’m using the newly adopted Elmore Rule on this one - if you want something good to come of something that might work out very well, pretend it’s not happening. So instead, let’s get excited about The Supremes taking on an FCC case!

* Michael Stipe is gay. I highlight this not because it’s news, but more to laugh at the fact that it’s being treated as news even though we’ve all known it since the early 1990s.

* Thomas Sowell on Obama. This was posted pre-speech, but it’s still resonant.

* Fred Thompson to debate John Edwards. I so hope this gets televised or ends up on the web. Thompson would have made a great candidate for President, IMO.

* An interesting set of musings on why the “peace movement” has failed.

* Finally, humorous link of the day: Ludacris’s Rap Map, showing where his women at according to his song “Area Codes.”

I think that’s enough.

* An interesting report from the Washington Timesabout some minor backlash NPR recieved for its “Conversations With Conservatives” series at the end of February.

* Not shockingly, Obama’s talking point that some CEOs make more in 10 minutes than the average worker does in a year is, with one to three exceptions depending on which metric you use, completely false. This is why populism is dangerous - it makes the mistake of either assuming anecdote as the clear reality (see: every John Edwards speech ever, Michelle Obama) or having to purposefully distort reality to make what may have otherwise been a valid, debatable point about a specific issue.

* Obama on the war. In a way, it does a good job explaining why Obama’s current Iraq strategy is so schizophrenic.

* Someone needs to reeducate the Associated Press regarding fair use principles. I think my favorite part is the probable concurrent contradiction by the organization.

* Kos blogger “on strike” because Daily Kos is apparently in the tank for Obama or something. It’s funny - the Republicans had a more diverse slate of candidates, more concern about the future of their party and ideology, and yet largely avoided this sort of infighting.

* Howie Carr’s yearly check-in with politicians in Massachusetts who call for higher taxes was published this week. One of the quirks in Massachusetts’s tax system is that the standard income tax rate is 5.3%. It should be 5% per a citizen vote, but Massachusetts politicians don’t care about Massachusetts residents. ANYWAY, at some point, an optional 5.8% rate was instituted - if you would like to pay the higher rate, the opportunity is there. Not surprisingly, very few people do pay the higher optional rate, including those who say that the state’s finances are in disarray and that higher taxes are needed. I love it.

* A minor follow-up to the Obama/Wright thing - while this was meant to apply to the Rezko situation (hardly finished, by the way), it applies here, too: Obama says that, “In a dangerous world, it’s judgment that matters.” If his “judgment” is to not only stick with this preacher for as long as he did, but also a) talk about possibly having to distance himself from Wright, only b) waiting until the mainstream press gets ahold of it, what does this say about Obama’s judgment? This is his standard, after all.

* More LiveJournal nonsense: censoring interests. Good times, SUP, really.

* Continuing with the sweet, sweet schadenfreude of the Spitzer crash, here’s a contrast between Keith Olbermann’s reaction to the New York Times non-story regarding John McCain and the lobbyist and Elliott Spitzer (Liz, you wanted to know why I’m not an Olbermann fan, here’s an example), and, just to show how detached some people are, FireDogLake being convinced that it’s just another Vast Right Wing Conspiracy. Riiiiight.

* David Freddoso at National Review talks more about the wage stagnation myth.

* It only took four years, but the New York Times finally starts asking some questions about Obama.

* Even though it’s from the Competitive Enterprise Institute - a group I’m not really huge on and one most of you would likely discount immediately - this list of the five dumbest product bans is interesting.

* We kept hearing over and over in 2000 and 2004 about preachers shilling for Bush from the pulpit and the tax ramifications. Why is Obama getting a free pass on this? The American Spectator has another piece on how Obama may have screwed one of his churches. I’ll say it again - our campaign laws are moronic, as are our tax laws. Fix them so we don’t have to worry about this sort of nonsense.

* I subscribed to The American Conservative for a while, but they’re pretty damn isolationist and tend to bring out the worst in American conservatism - then again, Pat Buchanan runs it, so why are we shocked? Then again, they are one of the few publications to present Barack Obama as a “warmonger,” and it’s worth highlighting. Sure, Obama might have a plan to get us out of - and then back into - Iraq, but it’s no guarantee that Obama’s foriegn policy is really going to change that much in terms of military action from our current situation. If anything, deciding to go and “meet” with every loony dictator this planet has to offer will probably create more opportunities, not less.

* Some new, peer-reviewed information putting current “consensus” thought on global warming in context. Short answer - these researchers may have figured out why the models never match up with the reality. It’ll be interesting to see if this gains any traction.

* In a good move, Samantha Power resigned last week after calling Hillary Clinton a “monster.” The problem with Power wasn’t the “monster” comment, it’s what she believes and her possible influence on Obama that makes her resignation a net gain for the Obama campaign. I don’t need to write a post only on her anymore, now that she’s gone, but her positions regarding Israeli influence and knee-jerk reactions to accurate reporting on Israel should have given Obama some serious pause. Israel’s far from perfect, but they’re also arguably one of our best allies.

* Outer space is CRAZY.

* Finally, I knew my memories weren’t decieving me: it IS possible to shoot that dog in Duck Hunt.

Yes, I’m bothered by Obama in a lot of ways, but a good deal of it is, at its root, philosophical differences. As said elsewhere, I don’t doubt that Obama generally has the best interests of the country in mind, but I simply think he’s going about it the wrong way. One of the most major ones that keeps popping up for me is Obama’s protectionism.

The root of the issue comes in the fact that we’re now a global economy. The internet has facilitated it on an individual level, and the ease of which to transport goods and services has made it a basic inevitability among the Western world. The idea of a “domestic economy” is in the past, and those who are still fighting the war against globalization have simply lost.

Unfortunately, at least rhetorically, Obama still appears to be fighting that fight. To his defense, he may have had to - both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton have taken positions against outsourcing and NAFTA, and the misguided idea that free trade is hurting “ordinary Americans” seems to be a pretty solid meme amongst “concerned” Democrats. The problem is that the protectionism simply doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, and is not doable in the current economic atmosphere.

Here are the facts: While Obama and Hillary trade blows about who’s more against NAFTA, they both ignore that unemployment has dropped since NAFTA was implemented. No, correllation does not necessarily mean causation in this case, especially in the tech boom of the 1990s, but there’s something to be said about employment levels improving as trade is opened up on both sides of the border, while protectionist policies like steel tariffs adversely affected the economy..

The position certainly has some place in massaging the xenophobic populace’s straining muscles (how soon we forget the Qatar/port authority flap), but it also has root in the old populist canards of the jobs that Americans are somehow entitled to flying away overseas, or the mythological tax breaks for offshoring, ignoring the facts of the matter for an easy scapegoat in an era of budget deficits. The position is not only pandering, but it’s simply unrealistic.

For one, as Daniel Griswald at Cato notes, the choices to the upcoming President aren’t many - unilateral withdrawal will result in tariffs on our trade, Canada and Mexico aren’t going to be interested in reopening the treaty. So this sort of rhetoric has the double-edged sword of angering our allies (which, I’m told, is bad to do given how Bush has allegedly treated our allies over the last year - not to mention unilateralism in just opting out of the treaty, but that’s beside the point.) and possibly harming our economy in a significant way.

But there’s also the outside chance that Obama’s just trying to get elected anyway. His campaign’s been assuring Canada (and this back-channel communication could be illegal if true) that it’s “just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.” Or not. Maybe. Well, that’s nice in any regard - he may be taking a position that will actively hurt our economy, but that might be all a lie just to get elected, a lie that’s probably hurting our relationships with other countries. How pleasant.

Whichever way you slice it, this is pretty bad news. Especially in a time of a slowing economy, any help we can get should be a positive one, and Obama seems pretty set on looking toward the opposite.

If anyone’s even reading at this time of day.

* Personal opinion: Patriots 38, Giants 20. I don’t see this being close.

* From The Locker Room, an article at Tech Central Station about the successes of free market reforms around the world. A pretty interesting list.

* Cato at Liberty on Ted Kennedy actually getting it regarding the role of the judiciary v. the role of the legislative branch. I suppose you can teach an old dog new tricks.

* John Tierney at the New York Times signed he and his wife up to eHarmony to see if they could get a match, and then wrote about the results. A pretty interesting insight into the whole eHarmony thing.

* FactCheck.org debunks the long-standing myth that the unemployment stats don’t count folks who aren’t recieving benefits. A piece worth reading even if you already knew that.

* I’m very glad John Edwards is gone, but The Munchkin Wrangler posted a beautiful takedown of Edwards’s campaign yesterday that’s worth linking to.

* Julia Sweeney does a one-woman show about her atheism, and lists 10 things she’s learned.

Have a good weekend.

* From Shawn, quite possibly the best video ever. The Onion does it again.

* California’s version of government health care was soundly rejected this week. Good for them.

* Australia’s left does what even our right couldn’t accomplish, cutting taxes AND spending at the same time. Why can’t we be this smart?

* The big news of the morning? No, not that Rudy lost big and that he’s likely to endorse McCain (more on that later), but that John Edwards has dropped out. Good riddance, and this probably locks up the nomination for Obama.

* Gaming geeks: Check out the new proposed Team Fortress 2 achievements. Via Something Awful’s photoshop contests.

Okay, a few things because this is a very long election cycle. This will be somewhat disjointed:

1) What’s written here in terms of political opinion are just that - opinion. I do not pretend to have the market cornered on the truth on most issues.

2) Generally speaking, I don’t think you’re an idiot if you believe what you believe and have good, sound reasons as to why you believe what you believe. I may not agree with you, and may be puzzled as to why you’ve reached a certain conclusion, but I have a lot of respect for reasoned, logical opinion.

3) I’m not the same person I was four years ago, and a lot of my philosophies involving politics - and especially tactical voting - have changed considerably since the Kerry campaign.

I’m catching a lot of heat for my Obama entry today. I didn’t expect any, but perhaps that’s my first problem. Let me map this out in detail:

On the Democratic side, there are/were essentially four candidates running with a legitimately viable shot at winning the race: Clinton, Edwards, Obama, Richardson. A very interesting slate of candidates: the highly experienced statesman, the populist lawyer, the known commodity, and the bringer of hope. These archetypes existed largely before the campaign, as all of them were recognizeable long before the campaigns even started. The newest face in the bunch was Obama, and he had been electrifying people since the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Here’s the rub: Richardson appealed to a very small crowd, unfortunately, probably because of the headliners in the Democratic club ahead of him. Edwards is a world-class populist, and can sling the class war rhetoric better than anyone I’ve been alive to see. Hillary Clinton is Hillary Clinton - her name comes with both baggage and cache, and having Bill around doesn’t hurt you, either, since there’s at least the perception that you know what you’re getting. Obama’s set himself apart his own way, and it’s through “hope” and “change.” As noted in the last entry, this was all stuff he took onto the national stage four years ago, and to great acclaim. The message has stayed extremely consistent.

Now, for Obama, the question for him (and for me) is whether it’s been too consistent. He’s done nothing to set himself apart in Congress thus far - his two noteworthy legislative victories to this point have been minimal but positive, involving government oversight and accountability. His platform is not entirely different from his opponents in any substantial way. The only thing that sets him apart is his charisma, which he appears to have coming out of every pore.

This is where I get lost, for starters - populism really does nothing for me, and being inspired by a politician isn’t really my idea of a good time politically. But the annoying thing is that it appears that Obama supporters are split between two groups:

a) The inspired.
b) The educated.

Before you start tearing me down for this, there is overlap, for sure - many people excited about Obama know what he’s about, and that feeds into it. This is not where I’m critical, even if I think you’re wrong. My criticism comes where there appears to be a disconnect between the inspired and the educated, where Obama’s support is coming from folks who not only don’t necessarily care about what he’s standing for, but actively don’t know. Anecdotal, yes, and I’m not sure how to test this in a more controlled way, but you’d be shocked at how often I’ve encountered this exact concept.

This is where populism is dangerous. Yes, Obama’s about providing “hope” for America, but to find out why, you’ll have to take a deeper look. But don’t worry about it - he’s an agent for “change!” While the other guys are simply politics as usual, look at me - I’m different, and I’m a good enough speaker where I can inspire you where the guy in charge now isn’t all that good at it, and the other guys don’t get it the way I can.

I don’t understand how people, especially someone who goes out of their way to find out about a candidate’s positions and figure out where they stand, can’t be somewhat insulted by the nature of it. Besides the attempts at taking reign in the “change” department, but (and this is where I think it’s the worst) offering “hope” to those not significantly involved in the political process not through action or details, but through a glossy presentation heavy on emotional platitudes but light on detail. His book was called The Audacity of Hope - that he has the audacity to make emotional appeals in order to curry your favor should be a major warning sign, and you should be doubly offended if you’re a consistent Democrat or liberal. Have we forgotten the 2004 campaign already? Hell, ignore the campaign and go with the post-11 Sept political landscape, where one of the major criticisms of Bush was that he was preying on the fears of the electorate. Is it because “fear” has a negative connotation and “hope” a positive one that we’re suddenly okay with a Presidential candidate pushing emotional buttons? Is it because it’s your guy doing it this time? I don’t know.

A lot of my issue with this is shaded by my own problems in 2008. Even the candidates I supported (Paul, Thompson, Richardson) brought agendas to the table that I could not enthusiastically get behind. It’s one thing to be 2004 and have one proven commodity against someone likely to do worse, it’s entirely another to have a pile of choices that fail to address the problems currently inherent in the system.

I’m also, however, not easily plied by emotional appeals from politicians. While Giuliani, Huckabee, Clinton, etc definitely have supporters who have nebulous and/or inconsequential reasons they’re giving to vote for them, they’re not making those issues the centerpieces of their respective campaigns. And when the emotional appeals set Obama apart from the other candidates, it’s not a demonstration at all of competence or even of simply being Presidential. It’s hardly an effort in favor of him, and often comes across as an effort in the opposite direction, namely that he’s hoping that people ignore his agenda because he’s full of “hope!” and will create “change!”

All of this, of course, is my opinion. You’re free to vote as you wish and support who you wish, just as I’m free to question whether that’s a good idea, or even a smart way of going about it. But the expectation of intelligent voting isn’t a horrible thing, and no method of coming to a conclusion on a candidate is beyond criticism. If anything, I’m more annoyed by Obama than by his supporters, because I think there’s a good chance some of them aren’t aware of what they’re getting into.

Excuse me while I take some time to sift through links I’ve had sitting around for a while.

Over at Betsy’s Page, Newmark highlighted a piece about “Care Bear Politics.” The piece, based off of a blog post by Reason’s Julian Sanchez and an article at Real Clear Politics:

And then there’s the Care Bear vision, which takes as given the perfectability of humankind and correspondingly interprets all problems as fixable, given the right conditions. Care Bearism involves, in Thomas Sowell’s words, “a disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary as either uninformed, irresponsible or motivated by unworthy purposes.” Should the critics prove, after the fact, to have been right, Care Bearists grant themselves absolution because their hearts were in the right place.

Since at least the 1960s, liberalism has provided an ideological wigwam under whose pastel-colored flaps the Caring-American community has gathered to emote and caucus in its therapeutic and sentimental fashion, always looking forward to a better future (in part, because it means they don’t have to look at the wreckage of their past schemes). Some latter-day conservatives began as liberals, until they understood that The Care Bear Stare was no effective defense against problems originating in human nature, which is not infinitely malleable, and in the intractability of evil.

While the conclusions of the piece leave a bit to be desired, the relative concept therein - from Sowell’s words to the examples at the start of the piece (both of which I’ve encountered numerous times) - are not only apparent, but seem to be manifesting itself in this election cycle to new heights.

I went into this election not so much tired of Bush (although there’s more than a little exhaustion) as tired of the brand of politics that have been ushered in - a “do-something” attitude, if you will, that seemed to reach new heights even as Bush branded himself a conservative regardless of his actual resume. With the failure of the Thompson run to gain traction, and knowing full well that Ron Paul is a non-factor, we’re stuck with more of the same, more of this “Care Bear” mentality:

* Barack Obama with his nondescript “change” manifesto.
* Mike Huckabee’s plans for the Constitution.
* John Edwards’s…everything.
* Mitt Romney’s abysmal record in Massachusetts.
* Hillary Clinton’s Santa Claus view of government.
* Rudy Guiliani’s record in NYC.
* John McCain’s record in Congress.

To use a cliche I hate, it’s the same pig dressed in different lipstick, and, perhaps more interestingly, is proof positive that this sudden lurch rightward that is alleged since Bush entered office is completely nonexistent - that the centrist Bush with his “compassionate conservatism” and government-can-do-it attitude introduced into the Republican Party and is apparently embraced by those with national recognition. Sure, the Jim DeMints, Jeff Flakes, and Jon Kyls of the Repubican Party exist, but most people reading this won’t recognize all three of those names for a while.

So what does this mean? It means that, right now, we have seven Care Bears running for President. Sure, some of them have lesser powers than others - as bad as McCain is, for instance, the damage he could do doesn’t come close to Edwards - but we’re still heading down that same road that so many are allegedly tired of. Especially in the age of large deficits, a slowing economy, and financial uncertainty, can we afford it in any context?

We know the answer to this, of course, but none of the folks who’ll be President in a year are actually going to answer it.