The View from Right Field

Voting In the Age of Trump

So, what do you do next Tuesday if you’re not a Democrat (and will probably never be as they move more and more to the left) and yet you’re appalled by much of what Donald Trump says and especially how he says it.  Plus, good Republicans, like Paul Ryan, are leaving.  But you still have to vote.

One idea might be to figure out who you want to be happy on Tuesday night.  Or, alternatively, who you don’t want to be happy on Tuesday.  Maybe, in an ultimate case of “the lesser of two evils,” the question is whose victory party would be more obnoxious?  The Democratic celebrations could be pretty bad, and their policy ideas, to the extent they have any other than “Trump’s horrible” and “Medicare for All will be free,” are not where I think the country should go.

Move to the Center? Move to the Right?

Since the election there have been lots of articles telling Republicans what they need to do to win back the House of Representatives in 2008. The problem is that much of the advice is contradictory. Some people say the Republicans need to move to the center. That is where the swing voters, the independents, are, they say, and those are the voters the Republicans need to reclaim if they want to win in 2008. Others, however, say the Republicans need to go to the right, refocusing on the true Republican "brand."

So, what should Republicans do: move to the center or move to the right? First, it is important to realize no one can know what is going to happen in the next two years. After the 2000 election, nobody could have predicted what was going to happen in the next two years.

While you might think that not knowing what is going to happen in the next two years makes it hard to know what to do in order to win 2008, I think it actually makes it easier -- because the key to winning is not to move to the center or to the right, but to move to what you think is right.

Of course, voters want to vote for people they agree with, for candidates who believe in the same things they do. But voters also want to vote for candidates who actually believe in something. Voters do not want candidates who just say whatever seems to be popular, shifting with the wind, constantly changing directions. They want candidates who say what they believe and believe what they say.

Obviously, a real conservative is not going to win in San Francisco just because she is honest about what she believes. Similarly, a true, left-wing liberal is not going to win in Utah just because he really believes the government should run everything. But in many districts, in the close races, voters will elect the candidate who really believes in something as opposed to one whose views track the latest opinion polls.

In the 2004 election an important part of George Bush’s election victory was the fact he stood for something, that he believed in something and that people knew what it was.

Republicans need to do the same thing. They do need to believe in something, something besides winning by throwing more pork at the voters and deciding their positions by looking at a weather vane.

Republicans do not have to agree on everything, but we can agree on good basic beliefs: Limited government; letting people run their own lives; controlling spending; keeping taxes down.

It is not a matter of moving to the center or moving to the right. It is a matter of campaigning on what you think is right and then actually doing it. That will enable us to win the House back in 2008.

A Few Reflections on Iraq After the Election

Gerard Baker’s column in The Times (London) on November 10, 2006, was entitled "Four reasons for optimism after Bush’s drubbing – as long as you’re not Iraqi." I hope the last part of it is not true, but I fear it may be. I have this idea for a political cartoon. It is a picture of an American voter (at least a liberal Democratic voter) holding up a purple-stained finger to a group of huddled Iraqis. It’d be his/her middle finger.

The "me-ism" of the certain parts of the American public, combined with the Bush-hatred of the American left, could prove the death knell for too many Iraqis who trusted us. For many people, especially on the left, their belief that we were wrong to go into Iraq means we should leave Iraq as soon as possible, regardless of what has happened since 2003. It is as if leaving will mean we were never there, so it is okay to just leave.

For others it is their hatred of Bush because of the Florida recount or his smirk or he talks about God (although Clinton talked about God more and that was okay – but then anything Bill Clinton did was okay) or he’s just not one of them. In any case, Bush took us in (all those Democrats who voted for it are irrelevant because it was Bush’s fault the CIA got it wrong about the weapons of mass destruction), so it is Bush’s fault if anything bad happens when we leave.

Some of those who want us to leave say that it is okay to just leave because the fighting is only going on because we are there. If we leave, the fighting will end – or at least decrease. If we leave, the terrorists will leave, and everybody else will just stop shooting. This is, of course, exactly what the liberals and Democrats said about Vietnam and Cambodia: If we would leave, the killing would end. If wasn’t true then (just ask the boat people of Vietnam and the survivors of the killing fields in Cambodia), and it won’t be true now.

But it doesn’t matter to the people who want to get out – now – because Bush is bad and when it comes to the Iraqis, they just don’t care.

But if we can’t just leave, what should we do?

First, we need to remember we were right to go in. The arguments for going in were right back in 2003, and they are still right today. Everybody thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The fact that it appears he did not have them, or at least very many of them, does not change the fact that decisions in 2003 had to be based on what we knew in 2003 – and what we knew then was that Saddam Hussein had WMDs.

Also, in 2003 sanctions appeared to be were failing. And boy, were we right on that one. In fact, we did not realize just how corrupt the whole food-for-peace process was back then and how many holes the sanctions had in them. If we had not gone in, the sanctions would have collapsed, whether publicly or privately. And once they had collapsed, Saddam was ready to go out and get WMD even if he did not have them before.

So we had to go in. And the invasion proved that Rumsfeld, who wanted to fight the next war, instead of the last war (as generals usually do), was right in how the invasion should be fought. We did not need to fight like we did in Europe in 1945 or even Kuwait in 1991. But while Rumsfeld was right on how many troops we needed for the invasion, what followed indicates he was wrong on how many we needed for the peace. We were not prepared for what came after the invasion. It is not Rumsfeld’s fault we were surprised by what happened. Surprises happen all the time in war, but it was his fault that we were not prepared to react to surprises and that we failed to react effectively to the surprises that did happen.

So what do we do now? While I do not know what policies would definitely have worked after the invasion or what would necessarily work better now, I would say this:

First, in spite of what the "me generation" wants to do, we cannot abandon the people of Iraq like we abandoned the people of South Vietnam. Just because some of the Iraqi leaders are bad does not mean the Iraqi people are. We owe the Iraqi people something. We owe them a chance. However, just because we owe the Iraqi people a chance, does not mean we should blindly "stay the course." "Staying the course" is right when it means doing our duty and keeping our promises. "Staying the course" does not mean following the same old policies if those policies are not working. Even though the goal stays the same, the policies should change if they are not working.

Second, there is a mistake too many of our political leaders make. In Vietnam we ignored our military leaders. Now, it seems, most politicians pay them too much heed. Politicians too often say, when it comes to military matters, that they will do what the generals say; that they will take the generals’ advice. Bush always says that it is up to the generals how many troops we have in Iraq and when they can come home.

No, it is not. There is no single military answer. There are lots of military answers. Also, the generals are not always right. They can’t always be right because they don’t always agree. Not all generals are equally competent, and some are just plain incompetent. It is the President’s job, with the help of his advisers, to figure out which generals have the right military answer.

If you do not believe me, ask Abraham Lincoln. If he had not kept firing generals until he finally found some good ones, the Union would have lost the Civil War. In Vietnam William Westmoreland wanted to fight a war of attrition against a fanatic foe that did not care how many people it lost. But Creighton Abrams had a different strategy; he just did not have enough time or support to fully implement it. (There is a reason the main Army battle tank is called the Abrams and not the Westmoreland.)

Third, this means that, when we were surprised, when things did not go well, we needed to try new policies. When policies continued to not go well, we needed to try new people. While Rumsfeld was right at the beginning, after enough mistakes, we needed to try somebody else. Generals needed to be replaced, too. On the other hand, instead of rotating the generals and other officers through Iraq (as we did in Vietnam), once we found good ones, once they knew what they were doing, we needed to keep them there, instead of sending them home so somebody else could have a chance. We are, after all, trying to win a war, not cross-train a bunch of administrators. 

So, what do we need to do? As I said, I do not have an answer, but here are some guidelines to help determine, and judge, what we should do:

We must fulfill our duty to the Iraqi people.

We need to let the Iraqi leaders know that our duty is to the Iraqi people, not to them.

When policies don’t work, we need to change the policies.

If policies continue to not work, we need to change the people.

When we find the right people, we need to keep them where they can build on what they know.

We need to make sure that the way we leave Iraq actually helps the Iraqi people, the world, and us, instead of making things worse.

A Few More Observations on Tuesday's Election

1. At least I no longer have to defend "big government conservatism." I always thought big government conservatism was both a contradiction in terms and a terrible idea, but there was a tendency to support it because Bush was ours and the Democrats were criticizing him.

    The idea behind big government conservatism was to use big government, the federal government, to pursue conservative goals. The problem is that the first conservative goal is limited government. For a conservative, process is as important, if not more important, than policy because our protection is ultimately in process.

    "No Child Left Behind" is a good example of big government conservatism. When Democrats and liberals attacked it, I would defend it, even though the whole thing was wrong. The federal government does not need to, and should not be involved in, setting policies and rules for elementary schools and high schools. That is for the state to dos. But the federal government should not be financing elementary and high schools, either. That, too, is for the states.

    There may be a few states that do not have enough money for their schools, but that is not true for most states. Take Illinois, for example. Illinois is rich enough to give its schools the money they need. If the voters in Illinois will not pay the taxes to do that, then that is their decision. It is a bad decision, but democracy is about letting people make bad decisions.

2. Now we can really attack earmarks. Before the election, there were Republicans who claimed they had to do earmarks, and all those other spending programs, so they could get elected, so they could do good. The problem was they spent so much time getting reelected that they never seemed to get around to doing good. It was always, if we can just reelected, then we do good. But the good never seemed to come. Now we can go back to principle, instead of pork.

3. I am sorry to see Ken Mehlman leaving as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Ken Mehlman’s running of Bush’s campaign in 2004 set a new standard for the use of volunteers and getting out the vote. As I have argued elsewhere, it was Ken Mehlman’s volunteer-based, computer-driven get-out-the-vote effort in 2004 that turned a narrow Electoral College victory into a broad popular vote mandate. The fact Bush and too many Republicans in Congress wasted that mandate is not Mehlman’s fault, and it should not detract from his accomplishment.

    Mehlman brought these same techniques and ideas to the RNC. Once again, the fact Republicans lost in 2006 was not Mehlman’s fault or the fault of his ideas. I hope the Republicans continue to use Mehlman’s ideas. Too often ideas are not used as effectively after their architect leaves. If that happens to the Republicans, we will truly miss Ken Mehlman.

4. Now the race for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination begins in earnest. The leading candidate is probably John McCain. Even though Senator McCain is an attractive candidate who says all the right things on so many issues for conservatives, I cannot support him – because of his stand on the First Amendment. Senator McCain says he prefers clean government to "quote First Amendment rights." I say you cannot know if your government is clean without your First Amendment rights. This goes back to my point about conservatives favoring process over policy. Our First Amendment rights are an essential part of the process that protects us.

A Few Observations on Yesterday's Election

First, it is clear the voters of Illinois were not enthusiastic about Rod Blagojevich. The subpoenas, the scandals, and the unpaid bills took their toll. In a year when Democrats were winning all over the country, and throughout Illinois, Blagojevich could not even win 50% of the vote in Illinois. But the voters were not happy about Judy Baar Topinka either. Therefore, an unknown Green Party candidate got 10% of the vote, essentially a "none-of-the-above" vote by the people of Illinois. Now the question is what happens next in Illinois. My guess is Blagojevich will try to reclaim his popularity by proposing even more new programs without raising taxes, thereby pushing Illinois farther and farther into a fiscal hole. The only question is whether (and this assumes Patrick Fitzgerald stays US Attorney for Northern Illinois) Blagojevich will be able to make it through his full four-year term.

Second, I was glad to see Peter Roskam win the sixth district in Illinois, which was Henry Hyde’s old seat. Henry Hyde was a great politician and a good man. He was first elected to Congress in 1974, the only new Republican congressman elected in that year of Watergate. After 32 years in Congress, it would have been sad to see his seat go to a Democrat.

Third, the Republicans have lost the House, as they probably deserved to do. It is sad for the good people who lost. It is an unfortunate thing about politics that sometimes good people lose because of factors beyond their control, whether a war, a scandal, or just a change in national feeling. But if this loss puts the Republican Party back on the road of principle, as opposed to pork, if it revitalizes our commitment to limited government, close to the people, as opposed to a national government in Washington trying to decide all things for the whole country, it will be a good thing in the long run.

Finally, a personal comment: Our daughter got a job on the Capitol Hill staff of Representative Frank Wolf, from the tenth district of Virginia, last May. As we have learned about Representative Wolf, we have been impressed. He cares about his district, but he also cares about the world. The Iraq Study Group, headed by Jim Baker and Lee Hamilton, was his idea. He has been to Darfur several times and is pushing for action there. Some day in the future, people will say we should have done something about Darfur. Representative Wolf is trying to do something now. Finally, he is a good fiend of Chuck Colson, and he mentions Witness by Whitaker Chambers at campaign rallies. If you are a Republican of a certain age, you have to like a man like that.

Believing In Something – or Believing What the Polls Tell You to Believe

As many Democrats adjust their position on Iraq to whatever view the latest poll tells them is the most popular, President Bush follows a different path. Instead of trying to figure out what the polls say and then making that his position (which can result in being for something before you are against it), President Bush is sticking to what he thinks is right.

President Bush and his team have made mistakes in implementing our Iraq policy, just as every government has made mistakes in every war in history, but at least they have a policy that does not change just because a new public opinion poll has come out.

As the campaign winds down to the last few days, as the Democrats try to make the problems in Iraq the main issue in the campaign, President Bush is out campaigning on the issue of Iraq, terror and our security – because he thinks he is doing the right thing.

It is nice to have a President, to have any politician, who is willing stick with what he or she believes is right even if the polls are against them. I think the feeling President Bush actually believes in something helped him in 2004. Let’s hope it will help Republicans who believe in something next Tuesday.

John Kerry Does It Again

It probably seems unnecessary for yet another comment on John Kerry’s "botched joke," but here are my thoughts:

1. When I first read what he said, I did not think that Senator Kerry was really criticizing our soldiers in Iraq – even though that was what he said (and that was what he did in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, when he said that US soldiers in Vietnam were committing war crimes). I assumed it was just another lame Democratic attempt to make a joke about how stupid President Bush is. Bush’s stupidity is a given among Democrats and a source, I guess, of great humor among them. I assumed that was what Kerry was doing (and failing at). It is one of the problems with telling "in" jokes to people who are not in on them. They can be misunderstood, especially if they are done without a full explanation.

2. What was interesting, however, was how long it took Kerry to finally apologize. In the last week before a critical election, Kerry used up two full days being the big story – and he was not even running. I knew Kerry was in trouble when I heard Dick Durbin call for an apology. If Dick Durbin will not back a Democrat, you know he or she is in trouble.

3. I would like to include three things here. The first is Kerry’s now infamous botched joke: "You know, education--if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you can do well. If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Next is the first statement Kerry issued (on October 31) in response to attacks on what he said:

"Statement of John Kerry Responding to Republican Distortions, Pathetic Tony Snow Diversions and Distractions

Washington – Senator John Kerry issued the following statement in response to White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, assorted right wing nut-jobs, and right wing talk show hosts desperately distorting Kerry’s comments about President Bush to divert attention from their disastrous record:

‘If anyone thinks a veteran would criticize the more than 140,000 heroes serving in Iraq and not the president who got us stuck there, they're crazy. This is the classic G.O.P. playbook. I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did.

I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium, or doughy Rush Limbaugh, who no doubt today will take a break from belittling Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s disease to start lying about me just as they have lied about Iraq. It disgusts me that these Republican hacks, who have never worn the uniform of our country lie and distort so blatantly and carelessly about those who have.

The people who owe our troops an apology are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney who misled America into war and have given us a Katrina foreign policy that has betrayed our ideals, killed and maimed our soldiers, and widened the terrorist threat instead of defeating it. These Republicans are afraid to debate veterans who live and breathe the concerns of our troops, not the empty slogans of an Administration that sent our brave troops to war without body armor.

Bottom line, these Republicans want to debate straw men because they’re afraid to debate real men. And this time it won’t work because we’re going to stay in their face with the truth and deny them even a sliver of light for their distortions. No Democrat will be bullied by an administration that has a cut and run policy in Afghanistan and a stand still and lose strategy in Iraq.’"

I assume this was prepared by some staffer with an over-active outrage gland, instead of Senator Kerry himself. However, it was issued in his name, so he has to live with it. It is interesting how many Democratic clichés they were able to squeeze into just five paragraphs.

This is the statement Kerry issued yesterday, when he finally got around to trying to apologize:

"Statement of Senator John Kerry

As a combat veteran, I want to make it clear to anyone in uniform and to their loved ones: my poorly stated joke at a rally was not about, and never intended to refer to any troop.

I sincerely regret that my words were misinterpreted to wrongly imply anything negative about those in uniform, and I personally apologize to any service member, family member, or American who was offended.

It is clear the Republican Party would rather talk about anything but their failed security policy. I don’t want my verbal slip to be a diversion from the real issues. I will continue to fight for a change of course to provide real security for our country, and a winning strategy for our troops."

Even in his apology Kerry does not really accept responsibility for what he said: he did not say anything wrong; it was just a poorly stated joke; he regrets any misinterpretation. Of course, you do not have to "interpret" Kerry’s words to get the insult to our soldiers. The insult is what the words said. You only have to "interpret" the words if you want to avoid insulting the troops.

It is interesting that, even when Kerry was trying to apologize, the longest paragraph was an attack on Republicans instead of his acceptance of responsibility. I think it gnaws at Kerry that he lost to somebody who is as stupid as Kerry apparently thinks Bush is.

Finally, I wonder how our troops in Iraq and their loved ones and friends back here will take this apology. Is it good enough? I have some doubts.

Judy Baar Topinka

Back in May I wrote about far too many Illinois politicians in general and our current governor, Rod Blagojevich, in particular. The gubernatorial election is coming up in a week and a half. Here are some thoughts on Blagojevich and his opponent, State Treasurer Judy Baar Topinka:

In 1990 Illinois was in bad financial shape. Things were so bad the legislature had to pass a temporary increase in the state income tax, from 2.5% to 3%. This temporary increase was one of the big issues in the governor’s race that fall. Republican Jim Edgar said the increase needed to be made permanent but that he would not raise taxes more. His stand was not popular, but Jim Edgar was not going to lie to the voters. Enough voters appreciated Edgar’s honesty, and he won. After eight years in office, the state income tax was still at 3%, and the state was in great financial shape.

Unfortunately, the next two governors did not continue Jim Edgar’s fiscally responsible policies. Instead, they spent money like there was no tomorrow.

Tomorrow has now come. Rod Blagojevich could have done something to get Illinois out of the fiscal hole it was in four years ago, but he did not. Instead he made things worse by proposing, and getting the legislature to pass, new programs without having the money to pay for them. Now the State has $3 billion dollars of unpaid bills while Governor Blagojevich continues to promise more spending and no increase in taxes.

Fortunately, like in 1990, we have an honest candidate running this year. Judy Baar Topinka realizes that more of the same will not work. While her proposal to get more state revenue (a new, land-based casino) is not my preferred option, at least she is trying; at least she is being honest.

While Rod Blagojevich "balances" the state budget by just not paying bills (don’t try that at home) and promises he will not raise taxes in the future (you don’t have to if you aren’t going to pay the bills), Judy Baar Topinka refuses to promise to not raise taxes because she is being honest with the voters of Illinois.

In 1990 the voters of Illinois respected Jim Edgar’s honesty and elected him governor. The voters of Illinois need to do the same thing in 2006. They need to elect Judy Baar Topinka.

[Update (11/2/06): A slightly different version of this post was published in the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest on November 1, 2006.] 

Democrats Against the First Amendment

In all the controversy about ABC’s miniseries "The Path to 9/11," the most revealing moment came in the Democratic protests against the show. In some ways the protests were similar to complaints by conservatives about the television movie CBS produced about President Reagan several years ago. But they were also different in one very important way.

In 2003, even though there was a lot of criticism about the Reagan show, CBS officials said they received almost no official questions about the show. This was not true of "The Path to 9/11". Harry Reid, Senate minority leader, joined with other Democrats to write a letter to Robert Iger, the chairman of Disney, ABC’s parent company, urging that the show be cancelled. In their letter, the Democrats noted that ABC’s television stations had

"a free broadcast license predicated on the fundamental understanding of your principle obligation to act as a trustee of the public airwaves in serving the public interest. Nowhere is this public interest obligation more apparent than in the duty of broadcasters to serve the civic needs of a democracy by promoting an open and accurate discussion of political ideas and events."

This was a clear and direct threat by the leading Democrat in the Senate, the man who would run the Senate if the Democrats pick up six Senate seats in November.

What Reid did reminded me of the successful efforts by Kerry supporters to stop Sinclair Broadcasting from running "Stolen Honor," a program about Kerry’s service in Vietnam and what some veterans thought about it, shortly before the election in 2004. Back then, a Kerry spokesman said that Sinclair Broadcasting had "better hope" Kerry did not win.* Also, William Lerach, a leading plaintiff-oriented lawyer and a Democrat, threatened to bring a stockholder derivative action against Sinclair Broadcasting if it showed the program. The blackmail worked. The program was shelved, and another way to restrict free speech was discovered.

Many Democrats complain that some of President Bush’s efforts to protect us in the War of Terror infringe our constitutional rights. But at least President Bush is trying to protect us 9/11. The Democrats’ threats against our First Amendment rights seem just for their own partisan political purposes.

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* The Kerry spokesman claimed his statement was not a threat. Yeah, right. (The source for the quote and the report about William Lerach was the October 20, 2004 edition of OpinionJournal’s Political Diary {subscription required}.)

Six of One, Plus One More

I have been away for a while. Instead of something long, here are some thoughts on things that have come up in the last two weeks.

The Cost of Going to College

On Thursday Mayor Richard Daley (of Chicago, of course) suggested high school should be expanded to five years, so college could be shortened to three years. He suggested it as an idea to help parents with college costs. It would be one more year of low-cost high school and one less year of high-cost college.

While a fifth year of high school is not the answer, college costs are a problem. College costs too much. There is no good reason for it. Colleges are not well run from a financial point of view, but they do not have to be. The good ones can get all the kids they want no matter how much they charge.

It is like a really sick person. He or she will pay just about anything to get well. When it comes to college, there are lots of parents who are willing to pay anything to get the best college for their child. And if they are willing to pay almost anything, the colleges will charge it.

We are not going to get college costs down until we introduce some market discipline into college tuition. Once enough people refuse to pay what colleges charge, colleges will lower their tuition. Until then, it is not going to happen.

Iraq – Comment #1

Why is it that just about the only time the media reports on our soldiers in Iraq (or Afghanistan), it is about claims of abuse or violating rules?

I was at least happy to see the Chicago Tribune ran an article about a Marine investigator who said that what the Marines did at Haditha* appeared to have been appropriate. But even here, the article is about an alleged massacre and violation of rules. Where are the articles about the tough fights and the heroic efforts, the good deeds and the brave soldiers? They are happening, but the news media is not reporting them.

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* This is the incident Democratic Representative John Murtha called a cold-blooded massacre before the investigation was complete – but don’t worry, Representative Murtha supports the troops, even if he does think a bunch of them are war criminals.

Katrina – It’s Really Rudy’s Fault

I see Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans has said, in response to a question about the slow efforts to rebuild New Orleans, "You guys in New York can’t get a hole in the ground fixed and it’s five years later. So let’s be fair."

Actually, Nagin does hit on a point (unintentionally, of course) that I have not seen mentioned in all of the finger pointing over the response to Hurricane Katrina. One of the people I think needs to be blamed for the poor response to Katrina is Rudy Giuliani.

I think FEMA and the rest of the federal government were misled by Rudy Giuliani’s response to September 11. Rudy Giuliani led the feds to think local government could actually be competent in an emergency and could actually do something to help its citizens. Ray Nagin has reminded us how wrong that is. If you really want to see what local government can do in an emergency, don’t look at Rudy Giuliani, look at New Orleans.

It All Makes Sense If You Think George Bush Is the Biggest Terrorist

The anti-war Democrats (which, it seems, are most of them) have had a lot to cheer about lately. First, Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman. Then a federal judge in Detroit, Anna Diggs Taylor, issued an opinion holding Bush’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, which monitors phone calls and Internet activity between suspected foreign terrorists and people in the United States, was not only illegal under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 but also unconstitutional. Her opinion, including such carefully restrained statements as "there are no hereditary Kings in the America," read more like a Teddy Kennedy campaign speech than a judicial opinion.

And this is the problem. If you are going to let judges decide questions like this, it has to be on the basis that they are making their decision on the law, not just their political opinions or their politicized view of the law.

If judges’ decisions reflect nothing more than their politics, if judges’ opinions are nothing more than campaign speeches in black robes, then why is a judge’s decision any better or deserving of respect than a President’s or a legislator’s. Presidents and legislators take oaths to defend the Constitution, too. Why should we defer to judges, if they are nothing more than politicians appointed for life?

At some point I hope to come back to this, but for now let me just raise the question.

Danny Davis Finds an Interesting Travel Agent

I see Representative Danny Davis of Chicago went on a junket to Sri Lanka last year that was paid for by the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group. As the Chicago Tribune asked on Friday, "What, was Hezbollah’s junket filled?"

In any case, how long do you think it will be before the liberals who criticized Tom DeLay say something about Representative Davis? I am not sure, but I think the answer involves the amount of time it takes light to travel to the edge of the universe – and come back.

Iraq – Comment #2

With all of the articles in the newspapers and claims by politicians that our soldiers are committing atrocities and deliberately killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is amazing to me that any of the members of our Armed Forces are reenlisting. Except for a very few, these are good people doing a tough job while being criticized by a bunch of people who have no idea what they are talking about.

Vacation Plans

I am going on vacation in October this year. Next year, however, we will have to go in September. I’m going to be busy in October.