The International House of Bacon

I’m in an incredibly sour mood, and I’d rather not project it further. No new updates on this front until Monday.

Race free edition!

* No, really - some meta-blogging here - if you’re going to comment, please be aware that there are people who may not think like you do, and as much as we might not want to mince words, sometimes we have to to get a point across, and that means going by the basic expected norms. This goes for everyone, even though yesterday was a tipping point of sorts - I don’t want to or plan to monitor everyone or set hard and fast ground rules, just remember that we’re all human beings here is all. We have great conversations with these posts, I’d like to not see this turn into a morass.

* Now, onto real issues: Obama wants to expand Bush’s faith-based initiatives. A more detailed explanation from the campaign can be read in PDF form here, and some statements from the man himself here. It’s okay that I find this whole thing completely laughable at this stage, right? Yet again, Obama, who was being praised again for this speech for its secularistic tendencies, decides to run from wherever he stood before to…what, exactly? I don’t even know who this is supposed to grab in this case, given his other positions. But this is still incredibly funny to me. I’m officially wondering where the line is for many of his supporters.

* More good news from Iraq: not only are we seeing great achievements in the benchmarks, but the Sunni boycott may be coming to an end. I still think Iraq is way overblown as an issue this election - the progress we’ve been seeing as of late almost definitely means that we’ll be seeing gradual withdrawals as we continue on anyway, and neither Obama or McCain are truly foolish enough to mess with that. Right?

* Surprise surprise - Justice Kennedy’s assertion about capital punishment for child rape? Not entirely true. I feel like this is what happens when you decide to create a “consensus” out of thin air.

* Yesterday marked 35 years of an all-volunteer military. Something to cheer about.

* The Heritage Foundation blog offers some comparisons with Obama’s tax plan and how it has affected others with similar situations.

* Oh, wait, something changed again - Obama apparently supports gay marriage now. Remember, he used to be against gay marriage. EDIT: I may have dove at this too early - this isn’t a de facto support for gay marriage, but it’s still an interesting move on his end.

* Obama in 2005: “We will NOT support the removal of [North Korea] from the State Department list of State Sponsors of Terrorism until such time, among other reasons, as a full accounting is provided to the Kim family regarding the fate of Reverend Kim Dong-Shik following his abduction into North Korea five years ago.” Obama in 2008: Apparently, as long as they meet disarmament conditions. I’m sure the Kim family is pleased.

* As gas prices rise, remember that Obama called for a global ban on fissile materials. You know, the stuff that makes nuclear power. The stuff that’s probably keeping demand for oil and coal-based energy at bay in many western nations. The stuff that could act as a clean, workable alternative for the United States very soon. Worth remembering.

* Obama’s also taking credit for welfare reform, even though he was against Clinton’s reform, against his state’s reform, and consistently dodged the question up to this point. Anyone want to tell me what positions Obama has that he won’t shift on?

* Protectionism sucks. You listening out there?

* Finally, a fun 1940 election ad.

Be good, folks!

In the event that I don’t get to mess with this between now and Wednesday morning, keep in mind that much of this was written on Monday evening, and mostly concerns links from the weekend. We will continue with regular link posts tomorrow.

* So Obama is 99.99% the nominee, even though superdelegates can change and Clinton hasn’t dropped. The more things change…. I will say this much - Obama losing South Dakota should be considered a bigger deal than it will be. He was up quite a bit only a couple weeks ago - where’s his momentum?

* The Next Right posted a venn diagram of GOP archetypes. It’s a pretty decent breakdown - if I were Republican, I’d likely place myself in the overlap between neo-libertarian and paleo-libertarian.

* I love things like this: photos of some of Earth’s last remaining uncontacted tribes. I’m constantly amazed that stuff like this exists - to think that, even with all the exploring and advances we have in the world, there are people we’ve never met and cultures we may never know. If anyone knows any books on this sort of thing, I’d love to read one.

* McCain proposes Parliament-style question time for the Senate. I’d watch that - I used to always tune in when they played it on TV here, I wonder if they still do…

* Okay, now Obama is considering an Iraq trip. Someone please defend this. Someone please explain what Obama WON’T fold on. Someone still explain why he has any appeal to anyone beside the D next to his name.

* MADD is insane. To summarize, a cop goes into a classroom, says a classmate was killed by a drunk driver. They’re then brought into an assemly and told that, no, they weren’t really killed, but every 15 minutes someone is. I’m sorry, that’s sick. Why do people think this is okay?

* The Cato blog discusses global warming’s impact on mortality. Interesting stuff here, even if you’re not one to like Cato.

* More from The Next Right, this time on McCain’s strong grassroots presence. It’s amazing how many McCain memes are floating around that simply aren’t true.

* The Washington Post puts it out there: The surge worked, so will Obama be changing his tune? My answer is probably not - the only principles he appears to hold are wrong ones.

* $225k in earmarks to Rev. Phleger while Obama was in the Illinois legislature. Same old politics, etc.

* From RedState, McCain mulled a one-term pledge. I think this would have been a bad move overall, but I would be more likely to vote for him if he made it, I won’t lie.

* Finally, happy anniversary to the Berlin Wall and its wife. No, really.

‘Tis all!

Okay. Very few links today, just musings on what I’ve heard in the crossfire of the last few days and other meta notes. I essentially didn’t check my Google Reader regularly again until Saturday morning, so I missed about 800 possible links, and didn’t follow up on others - I’ll start catching up on links as the week progresses, and I have some other things mostly prewritten that’ll post at some point later this week. That doesn’t mean I’m completely unaware of what’s been happening, though.

* First, the DNC meeting was actually rather riveting to watch. I love this sort of thing, which was fascinating, and most of my thoughts may be completely off-base if Clinton in fact drops out later this week, but I have to say: a) that the DNC made rules that they have no way of adequately being able to force compliance on (re: primary dates) is ridiculous, and to penalize voters for those issues when the voters have even less say in it makes even less sense, b) Florida getting half-seating makes sense given the bylaws as I understand them, c) Barack Obama absolutely, unquestionably, unfairly benefited from the Michigan resolution. I understand why you assume that he would have gotten the remaining delegates, but that ornery Ickes guy got it right - the Democrats have a rule for uncommitted delegates already, and there was no logical reason to suspend those, especially when it hurts a candidate that much as a result. There was no good answer for Michigan, but I really think they picked the dumbest one.

I don’t think the DNC will remain fractured long-term. People are angry, but this isn’t THAT dramatic in the grand scheme of things - if you’re so aligned to a party as is, you’re looking at party over person already. I do think, however, this may be a harbinger of things to come in the general - Obama’s going to lose a bit of support in the general based on these shenanigans, and the Democrats have all but lost the “make every vote count” narrative that has worked generally well for them since the 2000 debacle. I’ve been wrong before, but that was some nasty stuff I saw there.

As for Clinton? I don’t think she’ll resign/concede, I think she’ll “suspend,” allowing for a challenge at the convention and the possibility of buyer’s remorse to set in on the Obama side while not having to work too hard. I hesitate to say that she was screwed by the system, since she ran a pretty horrid early campaign, but if the superdelegates are going to get behind Obama on this, I think that’s a mistake given the electoral maps. But hey - I’m jut a bystander.

* Scott McClellan’s book? Honestly, who cares? Really. At this point, assuming the leaking we hear is within context, we have a guy who stuck around for years doing something he was uncomfortable with for…what? And he was so comfortable being duplicitous in that role that we’re ready to trust him now because he’s saying things we want to hear? Okay. I mean, truly, I didn’t care about Feith’s book, I didn’t care about O’Neill’s book, and I don’t care about McClellan’s. Sadly, when the book proposal gets leaked, you know this is going to take up some cycles, and that’s just pathetic, and I don’t care any further.

* Obama left his church. We’re supposed to believe that you can’t ditch a crazy uncle, unless that crazy uncle possibly goes too far by calling you a politician, and maybe if that family decides to mock your Democratic opponent. I mean, I wonder if this helps him long term. I can’t imagine anything with this church can help him at this point. I dunno. It’s all so stupid and weird - to think that if he had left a year ago he could have avoided this should infuriate any Obama fan.

* I’m cautiously monitoring The Next Right. It’s a new conservative blogswarm created in part by Dale Franks (QandO) and Patrick Ruffini, and populated with mainpage guys who are conservative bloggers NOT in the Malkin/LGF mold. While I’m afraid of it turning into a conservative-style Daily Kos, I was cautiously optimistic enough to sign up for an account, and I’ll be crossposting New Hampshire information there unless it devolves into a morass of xenophobic lunacy.

* Speaking of xenophobic lunacy, Rachael Ray’s man hands are much more offensive than any scarf she may have been wearing. Enough already, please.

Plan for the week - probably no posts through the weekend. With the upcoming extraction, I have no clue how I’ll feel and probably won’t be interested in parsing political commentary. I was going to pre-write a few things, but my allergies are acting up again and I’ll likely go to bed earlier than normal tonight, so yeah.

I’m sure many of you will be devastated.

* Ken McKracken notes Obama’s unawareness regarding Iran policy. This is a pretty interesting note - how did he miss that?

* Adventures in legal prostitution.

* Why is Obama against the South Korean trade deal? Seriously, this is absolutely baffling.

* I have to say, Obama turning down a joint trip to Baghdad with McCain is really ballsy, especially stating that “We don’t need any more ‘facts’ to know that this war has been lost.” I liked the McCain move here - take a calculated gamble and see if you can’t get Obama to change his mind, and it ends up being lose-lose. The simple fact remains that if Obama was at all confident in his position regarding the situation in Iraq, he’d go along with this. He won’t because, I suspect, he knows he’s wrong and this is an issue he feels he simply cannot shift on. After all, for the amount of change he’s espousing, he simply has to stay as closed minded on this issue as his supporters tend to be.

* Jim Geraghty has some questions regarding Obama and his return to the “agricultural specialists” line.

* Adam, you were looking for me to bitch about Bush, here’s one: he signed that anti-genetic “discrimination” law into effect last week. Absolutely ridiculous. Even discounting the whole “government again intervening in the private sector,” the problem with this bill is that it forces insurance carriers to carry risk that they shouldn’t have to carry. I’m sorry, but at what point does it make sense for, say, an insurance company to offer flood insurance to an area that floods twice a year?

* Tom Coburn on the prescription for long-term Republican gains: Act like Republicans. Almost sounds too easy.

* Finally, some poll numbers. McCain beats Obama and Clinton on favorability, Obama’s unfavorables are higher than his favorables (very surprising), and a quarter of Democrats plan to vote for McCain.

Who wants in? I set up a Yahoo Group for those who want to do a friendly NCAA pool.

Group ID #:101578
Group pass: dukewins

* 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.

* Patterico linked to a blog post about reaching across the aisle, as Obama claims he can do. The problem? He hasn’t been one to reach across the aisle when bipartisanship was sexy - he wasn’t part of the Gang of 14, wasn’t part of the immigration process, wasn’t there during the FISA update. Supporters will point to his transparency initiatives, but the fact that very few people noticed them is probably an indicator that they weren’t a big deal, and, more importantly, weren’t “tough” to take politically. I agree with Patterico that the bipartisanship didn’t work out well for us as a nation (and Bush, another bipartisan unity type, is more evidence of this folly), but McCain clearly has the goods on Obama if this is a major selling point for you.

* Also from Patterico: Barack Obama is all about the Same Old Washington Politics. Someone should really Googlebomb that phrase and attach it to a comprehensive Obama listing of all the ways he’s the same old song and dance.

* Reason takes some time with Michelle Obama’s commentary. I don’t really disagree with a word Reason has to say about it. “Easy” is such a broad, subjective term anyway. She should know.

* I ask again: This is the type of heathcare we want? Really?

* It’s like Barack Obama is a three year old, really. Applauding a nose blowing?

* QandO notes the disconnect between treatment of the McCain affair allegation and other interesting allegations in the past. What liberal media, right?

* Washington State Supreme Court rules in favor of government monopoly. So sad.

* The whole “shoot a missile at a spy satellite” thing is pretty neat. Bad Astronomy has a great compilation of links, photos, and video.

* South Korea returned 22 boat people they captured to North Korea. North Korea then executes them. Great job, guys.

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.

More serious entries coming soon - for past entries, see my LiveJournal tags here, as well as my series on John Kerry and the 2004 election here.