Pat Allen: The View from Right Field

Happy Birthday, Mr. Cub

Happy 81st birthday to Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, who was born on January 31, 1931. Let’s play two - in the friendly confines of beautiful Wrigley Field!

Happy 81st birthday to Mr. Cub, Ernie Banks, who was born on January 31, 1931. Let’s play two - in the friendly confines of beautiful Wrigley Field!

The Tea Party – A Follow-Up

On Sunday, I wrote a short post on “Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party”.  The main point of that post was that the people liking what they hear from Mr. Gingrich on the campaign trail today should  be sure to look at the whole package, and Mr. Gingrich’s whole career, before signing up to support him.

What I want to make sure of, however, is that nobody takes my post to be a criticism of the people in the Tea Party (or Tea Parties).  The Tea Partiers have been good for American politics.  The rebirth of the idea of the Constitution as a limit on government power owes a lot to the Tea Party.  Conservatives (some of us) have been pushing this idea for years, but for a long time, too many people saw the Constitution as little more than the Miranda warning and keeping prayer out of schools.  It was Tea Partiers who really helped restore the idea of the Constitution to its proper place as the people’s check on the power of government.

As a conservative who believes in the importance of process and procedure, how could I not appreciate people who talk about the Constitution as a principled limitation on what government can do – and who mean it? 

The Wrigley Field Season Ticket Scramble

A lot of people who signed up for the Chicago Cubs season ticket waiting list a long time ago showed up at Wrigley Field on Saturday – for the chance to spend more money than they had on something they really didn’t need.

They had gotten letters and e-mails from the Cubs back in December: “Cubs Season Ticket Waiting List Update: Your wait is over.”  And their one thought, upon reading the letter, and the accompanying warning that, if they did not buy season tickets now they would be kicked off the waiting list, was:  “Crap.  I finally get a chance to buy season tickets and the Cubs stink.”

The letter told them to report at Wrigley Field on Saturday at a particular time, based on their place on the waiting list.  When they got there they would find out what seats were available.

For those reporting in the afternoon, the only seats left were, of course, upper deck boxes.  The less expensive options, terrace reserved and upper deck reserved, were all gone.   Which put many of them in a quandary:  Second mortgage or sell the car?  (The gosh darned child labor laws had nixed that option.)

As they wandered around the upper deck looking at the available seats – and the prices – they wondered if the Cubs would let them sit in their seats on days when the Cubs weren’t home.  That would be helpful because paying rent might be tricky after buying the tickets.

Once they picked out their seats, they headed to the United Club to pay for them.  When they go there, they realized Crane Kenney missed a great marketing opportunity.  He could have rented out booths to people offering home equity loans or shady adoption agencies looking for babies and small children, no questions asked.  Or maybe even a surrogate mother group looking for wombs to rent.  Hmmm.  Just gotta make sure to schedule the delivery so it doesn't interfere with the playoffs.

Oh well, they thought as they left the park, they got their seats.  Now they just have to remember to bring egg salad sandwiches to the game – because there is no way they will be able to afford anything from the vendors.

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Seriously, a lot of new people were able to get season tickets this year – for two reasons.  First, the Cubs stunk last year.  (See above.)  Second, the Ricketts decided to sell more seats as season tickets than they have in the past, especially in the somewhat pricey upper deck boxes.  (Also see above.)  Their theory was, I am sure, that even if the people don’t show up and the Cubs don’t get the concession income, at least the ticket’s sold.  Somebody has to help pay for the last three years of Alfonso Soriano’s contract.  Why not new season ticket holders in the upper deck boxes.

In any case, it was really neat to see people picking out seats and then having friends or even strangers take pictures of them sitting in “their seats” at Wrigley Field.

One downside to the extra season tickets that the Cubs sold:  It will be harder for the fans trying to get tickets for just a few games.  The “inventory” (as they say) of single game tickets will be down.  But, it’s a business, and has been since about 1977.

Newt Gingrich and the Tea Party

Milton Wolf writes in The Washington Times about “[Newt] Gingrich’s rise and the Tea Party’s embrace of him”.  Dr. Wolf says:

“The conservative movement deserves an unapologetic, full-throated Great Communicator once again. Few can articulate conservatism as effectively as the former speaker.”

But what Dr. Wolf is missing, and what Tea Partiers (or anybody else) who are for Mr. Gingrich because of what they have heard him say in debates over the last few months need to realize, is that Newt Gingrich is a lot more, and less, than what they have seen and heard in those debates.  Obviously, that is true for all politicians (and all people, for that matter), but it may be a little more true for Mr. Gingrich.

Certainly, Mr. Gingrich was the architect of the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in 1994.  He was also thrown out of the Speakership by his own party four years later.

While Newt Gingrich was Speaker, the federal government enacted welfare reform.  The country also re-elected Bill Clinton at least in part because President Clinton beat Speaker Gingrich hands-down in the political battles over government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996.

I don’t object to people making money, but I wonder about all the money Mr. Gingrich made while consulting for federal government agencies.

And then there is his idea of having federal marshals effectively arrest judges to force them to testify before Congress about decisions Congress doesn’t like.

For those who have looked at all of Mr. Gingrich’s record and have decided to support him, I say more power to you (even though I disagree with you).  But for those who support Mr. Gingrich based on what he has been saying over the last several months, I say: Beware.  You may be surprised by what you get.

President Obama’s Testy Side – Again

There was a big brouhaha earlier this week over an apparently testy exchange between President Obama and Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona on the airport tarmac in Phoenix.  According to The Washington Post:

“Shortly after stepping off Air Force One on Wednesday in Phoenix, Obama challenged Gov. Jan Brewer (R) over characterizations she made of him in a recent book. His reaction, coming one day after he used his State of the Union address to call for a renewed spirit of political bipartisanship amid the nation’s economic woes, has exposed him to accusations that he is not interested in working with Republicans.

Brewer, whose ‘Scorpions for Breakfast’ faults Obama for pandering to Hispanic voters in his immigration policy, said the president mentioned the book, unprompted, after she invited him to meet with her to discuss ‘Arizona’s comeback.’”

Bizarre.  The President was in Arizona to talk up his State of the Union address, and when he meets the governor of Arizona he almost immediately brings up something in a book she wrote that he thought was unfavorable to him.  Interestingly, Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, didn’t try to deny that the President raised the question of her book to Governor Brewer, though he said it was just a matter of the President telling Governor Brewer that her description of a White House meeting was “not accurate”.

In either case, with unemployment at 8.5% and the economy just barely growing, you would think that the President would have more important things to worry about than what a governor wrote about him in a book.

But this actually seems to fit a bit of a pattern.  Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has said that, when President Obama visited Louisiana in 2010 after the big Gulf oil spill, Obama challenged him, once again on the airport tarmac, about a letter Governor Jindal had sent to the President asking for food stamps for people who had become unemployed.  Jindal wrote:

“President Obama had personalized this. And he was upset.  There was not a word about the oil spill. He was concerned about looking bad because of the letter.”

Once again, wouldn’t you think a President would have more important things to worry about this kind of thing?  Can you imagine Ronald Reagan doing something like this?  Can you imagine Abraham Lincoln doing this?

“Fed Sees Low Rates to 2014”

I wanted to make brief comments on two headlines on the front page of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.  The first headline is the title of this post.  The article beings: “Federal Reserve officials said they expect to keep short-term interest rates near zero for almost three more years and signaled they could restart a controversial bond-buying program in yet another campaign to rev up the disappointing economic recovery.”*

Obviously, my prior posts worrying about inflation have not been accurate, so my record as an economic predictor (or worrier) is suspect.  But still, I wonder whether Chairman Bernanke and the other Fed governors know what the solution to our economic problems is.  They stopped the financial crash from turning into a depression in 2008-09, but their efforts have not gotten the economy really started since then.  Of course, if what we had was financial crash/recession (like in the 1930s), as opposed to the more run-of-the-mill recessions we have had recently, then the fact that they don’t know what to do is understandable.  This is the first one of those recessions we have had since the 1930s.

But if the Fed really doesn’t know what to do and what will work – and the Fed’s trying so many unusual policies seems to indicate that they don’t, then maybe it would better if they stopped trying so much.  Instead of doing so many things that they have never done before and that they don’t know will work (or even how they will work and whether they will do more good than harm), maybe they ought to stop.  Maybe they should just set some kind of reasonable, middle-of-the-road, medium-term policy and then get out of the way and let the economy get better on its own.

Actually, it seems likely that, to the extent the government needs to do something to help the economy, it is Congress and the President who need to do something, the Federal Reserve having already done as much it is capable of doing.  Instead of monetary policy being the problem (and the solution), it seems likely it is spending policies and tax policies that need to be fixed.  The Fed can’t do that – and there is no reason they should continue to try doing other things if it is spending and taxing policies that need to be changed.  Because by trying to do things it is not equipped to do, the Fed may wind up accomplishing less than if it just did what it can do properly.

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* Luca Di Leo and Jon Hilsenrath, “Fed Sees Low Rates to 2014,” The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2012.

“More Drones, Fewer Troops”

The title of this post was the second headline on which I wanted to comment.  This article begins: “The Pentagon plans to expand its global network of drones and special-operations bases in a fundamental realignment meant to project U.S. power even as it cuts back conventional forces.”*  And it continues: “The plan … calls for a 30% increase in the U.S. fleet of armed unmanned aircraft” and a reduction in “the size of the active duty Army from 570,000 to 490,000”.

This article and what the Obama administration is doing with respect to defense policy deserves many posts – and by somebody more knowledgeable than me.  But I really want to make a couple of comments because this is an incredibly important issue and the policies the Administration is implementing could leave the United States less safe.

First, while our drones and our special forces have had fantastic successes recently (first Osama Bin Laden and now the rescue of two hostages from Somali pirates), drones and special forces have significant limitations on what they can do.  Among other things, in order to act, special forces need intelligence; they need information.  If we have to rely on other countries for the information (as opposed to getting it from our own people), we could wind up with more of the situations like we had in Yemen.  Our drones attacked on the basis of information from the Yemeni government.  After the attack, however, and upon finding out that a significant Yemeni civilian opposition leader was among those killed, the question arose as to whether we had been deliberately given false information by the Yemenis so that the opposition leader would be killed.** 

Second, the article quotes the Pentagon as saying that even at the smaller size the Army would have more than enough power to fight at least one major, troop-intensive ground war.  Except that is not true.  When General David Petraeus pushed for the surge in Iraq in late 2006/2007, we didn’t have as many troops as he really needed to get the job done.  And that was at a time that we had very few troops in Afghanistan.  If we didn’t have enough troops in early 2007, why would we think that the numbers being proposed is enough now?

Third, we may not want to fight another war like Iraq.  We may think drones and counter-terrorism forces are the way to go.  But, when it comes to defense, you have to remember that “the enemy gets a vote, too.”  We may not get to fight the war we want; we may have to fight the war we are given.  The Obama plan, however, by cutting the number of men and women in the Army (and the Marine Corps), is going to put us in a difficult situation if the enemy wants to fight a war other than the one we are planning on.

Fourth, I know we are in a difficult economic position, but defense comes first.  We may not have enough money for everything, but we have enough money for defense.  Because, in the long run, the cheapest defense is one that is strong enough that it doesn’t need to be used.

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* Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Siobhan Gorman, “More Drones, Fewer Troops,” The Wall Street Journal, January 26, 2012.

** Adam Entous, Julian E. Barnes and Margaret Coker, “U.S. Doubt Intelligence That Led to Yemen Strike,” The Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2011.

Newt Gingrich Is Not a Conservative

Newt Gingrich may have won the South Carolina primary yesterday.  Newt Gingrich may say things about the media that need to be said now and then.  And Newt Gingrich may have positions on certain issues that appeal to conservatives.  But Newt Gingrich is not a conservative.

On January 12, 2012, I talked about President Obama’s “recess” appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the NLRB, and I criticized Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page for missing the importance of process in what President Obama was doing:

“But the key to our democracy, and to the protection of our democracy, is not getting policy right but following proper and agreed-upon processes and procedures. 

… Our liberties are protected by making sure those who govern us follow the processes and procedures that have been established for running our government.”

Respecting process in government and understanding that the means are important than the ends is one of the ultimate conservative positions.  It is, in my opinion, one of the key differences between conservatives and liberals. 

I strongly criticized President Obama when, two years ago, he took the occasion of a State of the Union address to criticize the Supreme Court for its decision in Citizens United v. FEC.  The President directly attacked the justices of the Supreme Court, with congressional Democrats standing and cheering all around them.  It was almost as if the President was trying to physically intimidate the Supreme Court.  It was a terrible abuse of the State of the Union address and a disrespect for proper process in our constitutional system.

Which brings me to Newt Gingrich.  In December Mr. Gingrich said that, if Congress doesn’t like a decision that a court makes, Congress could subpoena the judge to testify before Congress to explain the decision and that, if the judge did not want to come, the Capitol police or a federal marshal could be sent to force him or her to appear.

Mr. Gingrich also said that, if the Supreme Court made a decision the President did not like, the President could just ignore it.  And that courts which make decisions that are unacceptable could be abolished.  Mr. Gingrich tries to claim there is historical precedent for this last idea, saying that Thomas Jefferson did it in 1802.  Except that what President Jefferson did was to abolish courts that had been established in the last few days of the John Adams administration (the famous “midnight judges”) and to do it before they decided any cases.  He did not abolish courts because he disapproved of specific decisions.

Mr. Gingrich’s comments about subpoenaing judges, ignoring decisions of the Supreme Court and abolishing courts are not those of a conservative, of somebody who respects the Constitution and who understands how all the parts of it work together to protect our liberties.

The Constitution provides for three branches of government, each with a specific role to play in our government.  Clearly, there are judges who make bad decisions and there are courts who overstep their proper role.  But the way to respond is by following the Constitution, not ripping it up.  If we want to preserve our liberties and protect our freedom, there are procedures to follow and processes to respect.  Conservatives understand that.  Newt Gingrich doesn’t seem to.  Which means Newt Gingrich is not a conservative.

The News Media and Karen Santorum

I have written previously that, while it was unfortunate for the Republican Party (and the country) that Mitch Daniels and other people like him are not running for president, I understand their decision and why they made it.  In Governor Daniels’ case, it just would not be worth what the gutter press we have today would have put his family through.

And so, in case anybody thinks I was exaggerating, I want to thank Nancy Hass at Newsweek/The Daily Beast for proving my point.  Ms. Hass has just written a 1200-word-plus article about Karen Santorum’s life before she met and married Rick.  The article, of course, has no point other than to try to embarrass former Senator and Mrs. Santorum.

Apparently, Mrs. Santorum, back in her 20s, lived with a doctor who was 40 years older than her and who performed abortions.  Okay, but so what?  Who cares?  How is that relevant to anything?

Of course, that’s the point.  There is no point.  The only purpose of the article to try to dig up “dirt” (or what some people might consider dirt) on people who are connected with candidates that Ms. Hass/The Daily Beast/Newsweek don’t like and then publish it in the hopes that these irrelevancies may somehow hurt the candidates in question. If the articles have no redeeming social purpose other than to appeal to the prurient interest of certain groups of people, that’s okay – as long as the proper political candidate is hurt (or might be hurt).

So, thank you, Ms. Hass (and The Daily Beast/Newsweek) for proving my point – and for helping make our political process the disgusting mess that it has become today.

27th Annual Cubs Convention – January 13-15, 2012

As those of you who read the Cubs articles on this blog know, I have been saying for a long time that the Cubs need to stop trying to win pennants by signing free agents and by trading prospects for other people’s soon-to-be free agents.  But the prior general manager (with the support or at least the acquiescence of the prior owner) said that Cubs fans had waited so long, that they had to try to win right now; that we, the fans, couldn’t wait.  We can’t wait to build from within, they said.  We have to buy what we need with money or prospects – or both.  Well, they were wrong two ways.  First, their way didn’t work.  The Cubs did win the NLDS in 2003, but that was it.  They lost the NLCS in 2003, and then went 0-6 in the playoffs in 2007 and 2008.  But management still tried to buy what they thought the team needed or trade prospects to get it.  And they wound up with Milton Bradley.  Second, they underestimated us, the fans.  We’ve waited this long.  You give us a good reason to wait a little while longer, we will.  Just make sure it works.

Fortunately*, in the fall of 2009, the Cubs got new owners, the Ricketts family.  At the first Convention the Ricketts came to, in January of 2010, they said that they were in it for the long haul, and they have followed through on that.  They didn’t make any moves right away, just to do something.  They watched, they investigated and, then, when they saw no progress being made, they acted.  Last summer they let the general manager go, and this fall they hired a whole new team. 

In the last several months, the Cubs have hired: a President, Baseball Operations; an Executive Vice President/General Manager; and a Senior Vice President/Scouting and Player Development.  They also split the scouting job in two, hiring a new Director, Professional Scouting and giving the current prior guy just the amateur scouting job.  And they signed a contract with Bloomberg Sports to significantly upgrade the team’s information systems.

With that as background, the 27th annual Cubs Convention was held last weekend.  And what I heard, on the baseball side, was encouraging.  First thing Saturday morning was “Behind the Scenes with Theo Epstein.”  Theo said all the right things about building from within, etc., but some of his predecessors have said much the same thing, and they didn’t get the job done.  There are signs, though, that things may be different this time.  While I have been a big Sean Marshall fan for a long time (see here and here), I do understand the logic behind the trade of Sean to the Reds:  Sean was going to be a free agent in one year.  Under the new collective bargaining agreement, the Cubs would not get a draft pick if he left.  The Cubs got a lot of prospects, including a young left-handed starter, who would be under the Cubs control for a long-time in exchange for one season of Sean Marshall.  While I feel bad about Sean leaving (and I really wish him well – except when the Cubs are playing the Reds), I can’t disagree with the logic of the trade.  Still, the proof is in the pudding (or the winning).   In the meantime, here are some of the good things Theo said:

• The two worst times to evaluate players are Spring Training and September.  Theo likes to tell his scouts to find two or three guys having a terrible spring.  Maybe their GM will panic and sell them cheap.
• The Red Sox strategy was to let free agents go and stockpile extra first round (and sandwich round) draft picks.  You can’t do that under the new collective bargaining agreement, so it’s going to be a matter of being the best at scouting.  You have to hire the best scouts and pay them well.
• Theo wants to develop a young core of players, and he wants to prepare them for both on the field and off the field matters.  The team will hold a two-week seminar in the off-season on things like off-field conduct, etc.
• The Cubs minor league talent was deeper than he thought, especially at the lower levels.
• The Cubs are behind in information technology.

Both Theo Epstein and then Jed Hoyer, in “Meet Cubs Baseball Management,” talked about a “Cubs way.”  In the past, if you talked to people, around baseball or elsewhere, about a “Cubs way” they would have thought you were joking – or talking about the wrong way to do something.  But Epstein and Hoyer were being serious, and they were talking about the right way to do something.  If they can do this, the Cubs will be in good shape.

Hoyer talked about insuring instruction is consistent up and down the system, having the major league coaches talk to the minor league coaches, so things are taught the same way at every level.  This is what good organizations do.  It is not at all clear that the Cubs have done that in the past.  The fact that Epstein and Hoyer are talking about it is encouraging.  But once again, while talking is good, accomplishing is what counts.

Sunday morning was one of my favorite sessions: “Down on the Farm”.  They had Jason McLeod, new Senior Vice President/Scouting and Player Development, as well as Oneri Fleita, Vice President, Player Personnel, and Tim Wilken, Director, Amateur Scouting, and several minor league players.  I have been a big fan of Tim Wilken since he took over back in 2006.  I think he has done a great job in the amateur draft.  I was wondering how he was going to feel about the Cubs bringing in a guy over him and giving half of his job (professional scouting) to somebody else.  Well, he seemed happy.  He said that he had been the only person (or at least one of only a few people) in major league baseball doing both pro and amateur scouting.  He likes doing the amateur side.  I hope that is true because, as I said, I think he does a great job on the draft.

Jason McLeod, who moved over from the Padres, said that what amazed him about Wrigley Field was the lack of facilities, things like places to practice swinging during the game, etc.  McLeod also said, echoing Theo Epstein, that with the new collective bargaining agreement, you won’t be able to be as aggressive in drafting and spending in the later rounds.  Therefore, it will come down to pure scouting.  It will be a scouting competition.

The biggest concerns, as always, came at “Meet Cubs Business Management”.  Apparently, the Cubs are going to try “dynamic pricing” in the bleachers.  As more seats sell and you get closer to the game, the price will rise – unless, of course, the Cubs are stinking, like the last two years.**  They are, in effect, going to price bleacher seats like airplane tickets.  Which is appropriate because a lot of the food at Wrigley Field tastes like airline food.  Also, airplane crashes are an apt analogy for many of the Cubs’ recent seasons.

The biggest concern, however, may be the 70-foot-wide LED board they are putting put in the far right field corner.  They are taking out the bleacher boxes and putting in a deck (like minor league parks have) with an LED board in front of it.  Did I just say mini-Jumbotron?  I certainly hope not, though with the guy in charge of Cubs business management (I refuse to mention his name because, if I did, I would have to boo him), it is possible.  And if it is, then the “view from right field” (i.e., from the right field bleachers) may be the best seat in the house – because it will be the one place you won’t be able to see the stupid LED board.***

But let me end with the high point of the Convention:  Friday evening, at the Opening Ceremonies, they introduced all the old-time players, the coaches, the front-office people, etc. – and then they introduced the current players.  After all the current players, through Randy Wells, had been announced, Pat Hughes, who was doing the introductions, said, I have a breaking news announcement.  And everybody cheered because we knew what it was.  Kerry Wood had signed!  It was the biggest cheer of the night – and of the whole Convention.  Woody was coming back!

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* I think it is fair to say “fortunately” because, no matter what you may think of the Ricketts family, they are better than the Tribune under Sam Zell.

** Apparently, though, tickets will not go below the initial price, no matter how poorly the Cubs are doing.  Except, of course, from the scalpers.

*** For you architecture buffs, it is not unlike what Frank Lloyd Wright supposedly said about the hyper-Gothic Harkness Tower at Yale University.  If he ever lived in New Haven, Frank said, he would want to live in Harkness Tower – because that way he would not have to look at it.

Update (1/17/12 11:45 pm):  Added the Sean Marshall links I forgot to include.

President Obama’s “Recess” Appointments – Even Though the Senate Isn’t In Recess

Last week President Obama made four recess appointments, three to the National Labor Relations Board and one to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  The Constitution clearly allows a President to make “recess appointments”.  Section 2 of Article II says:

“The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of their next session.”

The problem with President Obama’s recess appointments was that the Senate wasn’t in recess.  Senate Republicans, picking up on an idea Harry Reid started in 2007 to stop President Bush from making recess appointments, have forced the Senate to hold pro forma sessions instead of going into recess.  But President Obama didn’t care.  He decided on his own that the Senate was “functionally in recess”, so he went ahead with his appointments.

Which is where Clarence Page’s Op-Ed article in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune comes in.  Mr. Page agrees there is a constitutional question here, though the way he describes it makes one doubt he considers it all that serious:

“It's about such heavy-duty constitutional questions as how far an embattled president can go to perform his job despite cynical lawmakers who leave no tricks up their sleeves in order to stop him.”

Mr. Page goes on to talk a lot about the policy questions involved and why President Obama is right and the Republicans are wrong.  But at the end of his article, Mr. Page sort of returns to the constitutional question:

“Either way, the Cordray fight [i.e., the fight to appoint Richard Cordray as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] joins other recent events in signaling a less conciliatory Barack Obama. He is framing this battle as a fight against obstructionist Republicans who stage phony sessions to defend big banks against middle-class Americans. Even if Obama were to lose in the Supreme Court, he stands an excellent chance with the court of public opinion.”

What Mr. Page is missing here is the importance of process.  Mr. Page sees President Obama’s policies as right and those of his opponents as “obstructionist”.  But the key to our democracy, and to the protection of our democracy, is not getting policy right but following proper and agreed-upon processes and procedures. 

Our liberties are not protected by those in Washington making the right choices on policies. (Fortunately.)  Our liberties are protected by making sure those who govern us follow the processes and procedures that have been established for running our government.  When those in power decide that their policies are important than our laws and Constitution, i.e., when they decide the ends are more important than the means, our democracy is endangered.

And I really wonder if Mr. Page has thought through the implications of his last sentence:

“Even if Obama were to lose in the Supreme Court, he stands an excellent chance with the court of public opinion.”

Does Mr. Page really think the court of public opinion is more important than the Supreme Court?  There have been many times when the court of public opinion wouldn’t have given us much of a First Amendment.  Protections for people accused of a crime wouldn’t do well in the court of public opinion, either.  And in 1954 I doubt the court of public opinion would have given us a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education, assuming Brown would have won at all.

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Update (1/12/12 8:15 am):  Fixed a typo in the ninth paragraph.

Update (1/21/12 4:45 pm): A shortened version of this post appeared as a letter to the editor in "Voice of the People" in today's Chicago Tribune.  See here.

Attacking Romney

I agree with Mitt Romney.  His rivals, apparently getting desperate, are attacking him because of his record at Bain Capital.  Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have claimed Mr. Romney “looted” companies – and more.

Mr. Romney’s campaign said, in response to Mr. Gingrich’s charges: “It’s sad to see Speaker Gingrich lashing out with attacks on free enterprise because his own campaign in floundering.”*

I agree.  If you can’t disagree with Mitt Romney on Republican, free market principles, then maybe you ought to just shut up.

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* Neil King, Jr., and Danny Yadron, “Rivals Attack Romney on Bain,” The Wall Street Journal, January 10, 2012.  (Here if you are a subscriber.)

Why Haven’t the Chicago Cubs Signed Kerry Wood Yet?

Theo Epstein keeps talking about how he wants to sign Kerry Wood for 2012, and Kerry says he will only play for the Cubs.  So why hasn’t it been done?  Here’s my guess:  At present the Cubs’ 40-man active roster has – 40 men on it.  In other words, the Cubs have to move somebody off the 40-man roster before they can sign Kerry.  My guess is that it will happen sometime this week – before the Cubs Convention starts on Friday.  (I just hope it isn’t Casey Coleman.)

Update (1/9/12 12:20 pm): I may have spoken too soon about Kerry Wood.  See these two tweets from him (@KerryWood) after I posted yesterday:

“I have too much baseball left in me to retire. Hope to know where I'll be playing by end of the week.”

“As of now, it's looking like I'm not going to be at the Convention.”

I hope Theo, et al., understand how important it is to re-sign Kerry Wood.  Rebuilding is fine (actually, it’s great).  But when John Holland rebuilt the Cubs in the mid-60s, he did it with Ernie Banks, not without him.  Theo, et al., should do the same today with Kerry Wood.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz Wouldn’t Be That Hard

In response to a new U.S. law increasing sanctions against Iran, Iranian officials have threatened to retaliate by stopping oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz.  Since approximately 20% of the world’s oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz, stopping these shipments would be a big deal.  And the fact is it wouldn’t be that hard for Iran to do it.

Regardless of who owns the oil being shipped, oil shipments are generally made in ships owned by private companies.  These companies insure their ships against loss.  If they can’t insure their ships for certain uses or in certain areas, they won’t let them be used for that purpose or in that area.

It wouldn’t take much for Iran to do something that would either dramatically increase the insurance rates for oil tankers or make insurance effectively unavailable.  They probably wouldn’t need to sink a tanker.  It could easily be enough to just make a serious threat to sink a ship.  Mining the Strait of Hormuz, or threatening to do so, could be enough, too. 

In fact, the question of what it takes to effectively close the Strait for purposes of oil shipments could depend more on how the insurance markets react than on real military capability.  If insurance rates become too high – or insurance becomes unavailable – the oil tankers could stop moving and that means the Strait is effectively closed.

The solution at that point, I suppose, would be for the United States and its allies (the “coalition of the willing” - ?) to either provide naval protection to oil tankers going through the Strait of Hormuz or provide the insurance for the shipowners themselves – or both.

I hope the Obama administration has thought this through.  Because there won’t be much time to react if Iran does try to do something.

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Note: Stopping oil shipments by making insurance on the oil tankers either too expensive or unavailable, reminds me of the old Bill Cosby story about Noah and God.  God tells Noah that he is going to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights.  Noah interrupts and suggests that God should just have it rain for seven days and then let the sewers back up.  Letting the insurance markets do your dirty work for you is much the same thing.

 

President Obama Wants to Cut American Jobs - In the Army

Last year President Obama was pushing his American Jobs Act that he said would create or protect hundreds of thousands of jobs.  In 2009 his $800 billion stimulus plan was supposed to create or save millions of jobs.  President Obama is always talking about jobs – and criticizing Republicans for not caring about them.

So why is President Obama proposing to cut 100,000 government jobs and thousands of more jobs at government contractors?  Because that is what he proposed yesterday when he went to the Pentagon to outline his plans to cut Defense Department spending way beyond what has already been agreed with Congress and way beyond what then-Defense Secretary Gates proposed last year.

President Obama is proposing to cut the Army by 80,000 men and women and the Marine Corps by 20,000.  And cuts in Defense procurement will result in thousands more of job losses. 

President Obama and his administration say that we have to cut defense spending because we can’t afford it.  But he is proposing billions in subsidies for companies like Solyndra and other “green energy” initiatives.  How many jobs did Solyndra create (other than for bankruptcy lawyers)?  He also wants to spend billions for high speed rail, like between Bakersfield, California and Merced, California.*  But soldiers we can’t afford.

This actually fits in with the stimulus plan that Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats wrote for President in 2009.  They spent hundreds of billions of dollars looking to create jobs.  They spent money for all kinds of things – except for the one thing where they could have ramped up spending quickly and gotten people hired: defense.  What with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our stores of certain weapons were down.  We needed to build up inventories.  It would have been good to do it, and we could have done it – and we would have created jobs in doing so.  But the Democrats didn’t give any of that stimulus money to the Defense Department.

And now President, who claims we need to spend more money for jobs for Americans, is cutting the Army and the Marines because we can’t afford defense – even though we can afford Solyndra and high speed rail from Bakersfield to Merced.

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* "Solyndra on Rails," The Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2012.

Update (1/6/12 5:05 pm): Corrected a typo in the fourth paragraph.

A Washington Post Columnist Visits a Foreign Country

This is from a short article by Richard Cohen, an Op-Ed columnist for The Washington Post, on Wednesday, about a “foreign country” he recently visited, apparently via his television set*:

“Among the losers Tuesday night in Iowa was the late Leslie Poles Hartley. He was the British novelist who began his best work, “The Go-Between,” by saying, “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Now we know, so does the Republican Party.

Watching the returns come in last night, … I chanced upon an all-important endorsement Rick Perry Santorum was getting. It came from Jim Bob Duggar, who, as far as a prodigious amount of research can tell me, is famous for fathering 19 children. He and his wife, Michelle … are the stars of a TV reality show called “19 and Counting.” …

Earlier, I had watched a clip of Karen Santorum, Rick’s wife, crying as her husband defended or explained or described how they had handled the 1996 death of their prematurely born son, Gabriel. Karen Santorum wrote a book about the tragedy, Letter to Gabriel: The True Story of Gabriel Michael Santorum.” They brought the dead child home from the hospital to show their other children, slept with him that night and returned him to the hospital where … I don’t know.

I relate this story without any judgment whatsoever [sic], since I find myself incapable anymore of judging the folkways of the people who live in the foreign country we call the GOP. It is simply a strange place, and the man who took his dead child home** and who was endorsed by the father of 19 nearly won the Iowa caucus ...

After campaigning in Iowa for what amounts to eight years, Romney cannot be said to have done well. … But his opposition is weird, underfunded and inconceivable as president. …

Still, in making predictions, it is useful to keep the sagacious Leslie Poles Hartley in mind. What he said about the past is just as true for the contemporary Republican Party. It is a foreign country, and most of us are mere tourists there.”

There is not much to say about Mr. Cohen’s article.  The article really says it all – all by itself.

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* I have tried to keep the spirit of Mr. Cohen’s piece, but if you want to read the whole article, and I do recommend it, you can find it here.

** I wonder what Mr. Cohen thinks about the fact President Lincoln had the body of his dear son Willie exhumed twice so that he and Mary could look at him again. (See here.)

Obama’s New, Smaller Military

President Obama went to the Pentagon today to announce his plan for a new, smaller military that shifts its focus more toward Asia and emphasizes investments in new technology, including long-range stealth bombers and anti-missile systems. 

According to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the U.S. military “will be smaller and leaner, but its great strength will be that it is more agile, flexible, ready to deploy quickly, innovative and technologically advanced.”*

Wow, that sounds just like Don Rumsfeld, circa summer 2001.

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Greg Jaffe, “Obama announces new, leaner military approach,” WashingtonPost.com, Updated: January 5, 2012, 11:26 am.

Goodbye, Carlos

I’m sorry to see you go.  There were times when you did things that you shouldn’t have (like beating up on Michael Barrett), but there were other times when you told it like it was (last summer).   And a good part of the problem was a Cubs management that let you get away with things they shouldn’t have let you get away with for far too long.

So, goodbye and good luck.  And keep hitting those homers.  Someday maybe you’ll catch Wes Ferrell.  Just don’t do it against us.

“Oh Rahm, Oh Rahm, Emanuel”

Last Tuesday I wrote a short post saying Chicago’s new semi-official Christmas/Holiday song was “Oh Come, Oh Come, Em[m]anuel”.  That was too quick.   After a couple of days further thought, let me suggest that Chicago’s new semi-official Christmas/Holiday song is “Oh Rahm, Oh Rahm, Emanuel”:

Oh Rahm, Oh Rahm, Emanuel
Help save Chicago from going to hell.
From union bosses robbing us blind
And teachers letting our kids get behind.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

O come, from the White House and free
Us from the Daley family tyranny.
We used to be the city on the lake.
Now we're just a city on the take.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

O come, thou Rahm, come and cheer
Our spirits by returning here.
Stop ward hacks selling zoning permits
And pols looking for money in their fists.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

O come, Rahm Emanuel, come
And live again in your own home.
No parking meter contracts for sale
Or airport deals for friends of the mayor.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emanuel
Has come to us, fifth floor of City Hall.

Taxing the Rich – By Eliminating Tax Credits for Electric Cars

President Obama wants to raise taxes on “the rich,” who he calls “millionaires and billionaires” but who, under most of his proposals, are those who make more than $250,000 a year ($200,000, if they aren’t married).  And I want to get rid of wasteful government tax credits and subsidies, especially those that mainly benefit the middle classes and above.

Here is an idea that meets both criteria.  It taxes the rich (by raising the amount of taxes they pay) and it eliminates a tax credit that really only benefits the upper middle class and above:  Eliminate the subsidies and tax rebates for electric cars.  Think about it.  Who are those subsidies going to?  Are poor people or even working or lower middle class people buying electric cars?  Do regular working people have enough money to buy a “hobby” car that makes a nice political and environmental statement but costs more than cars with internal combustion engines?  To ask the question is to answer it.  These cars are being bought, to the extent that they are being bought at all, by the upper middle class.

The liberal-left buys electric cars to show-off their environmental consciousness.*  And I have no problem with them doing that.  I just don’t see why we have to subsidize this choice of theirs – especially when our deficit is so large and we have so many other needs.

As President Obama said in a different context, I am not telling upper middle class people that they can’t have an electric car.  I’m just saying that, in our present fiscal situation, they just need to pay a little more to for it.**

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* When Toyota came out with its hybrid, Toyota made the Prius look different than its other cars.  When Honda came out with its hybrids, Honda just put a hybrid engine (and battery packs) in its existing cars and put a little nameplate on the back that said it was a hybrid.  Toyota’s Priuses sold; Honda hybrids didn’t – because you couldn’t tell they were hybrids.  After all, what is the purpose of driving a “statement” car if nobody can tell you are doing it?

** Supporters of the electric car subsidies and tax credits (other than those who are just trying to get government money for themselves) will argue that the purpose of the subsidies is to help the environment by encouraging people to buy electric cars (and to help develop the electric car industry).  Well, President Obama talks about how rich people are willing to help America by paying more taxes.  Why doesn’t he also ask his friends (i.e., upper middle class liberals, the target market for electric cars) to help American by buying electric cars without a tax credit?