Over at the Corner, I keep reading about how Palin doesn't answer the moderator's questions. No one answers the questions in these debates. Anyone who actually answers the question is considered simplistic or cocky. People, even at the Corner, confuse "New to Washington" with "New to Politics." Palin is an experienced politician; she knows how to play the game. I'd much prefer that they would all answer the questions that are asked; I'd also like to see more fourth-down conversion attempts in the NFL (see this very insightful article), but that also isn't the way the game is played.

The one with the most on the line was Ifill. Palin has two more years as governor in the worst case, Biden can look forward to a highly remunerative retirement on multiple corporate boards. Ifill, on the other hand, could wind up standing on the corner, next to Dan Rather, holding a cardboard sign reading "Will Slant for Money." It looks like she gets away with it. Not because she's innocent, but because she knows how to lie low until the heat is off (is that slang completely out of date, now?)

Republican conventions are where Conservatives come in sceptical of the presumptive nominee but leave wowed, only to remember why they were sceptical early the next year. I'm feeling the same way I did listening to Bush the Elder's acceptance speech in 1988. As I was walking into the gallery, someone tried to give me a Bush button, and I told him "I'm not ready for that, yet." When I walked out, I was ready.

I'm hearing things that I haven't heard about small government that I haven't heard since Reagan. Did we make the wrong choice in 2000?

Wait a minute, did he say "help bad teachers find another line of work?" I don't think I heard that even during Reagan.

"Stop sending foreign aid to countries that don't like us very much." Wow. Again.

I'm a little leery of the talk about making Washington more efficient. That kind of talk often misses the point that the problem is the intrusiveness of the programs, not just their expense.

OK ,the "working together" talk is too much like the "New Tone". Although it could be read like Reagan's famous saying about what you can accomplish when you don't worry about who gets the credit.

I got so caught up in the speech I lost track of the commentary. OK, I'm wowed now. Where's my McCain button?

vestigia terrent

I recently decided to try blogging again. While looking over what I had posted the first time around, I was embarrased at how badly I had predicted McCain's prospects, based on his compomise work regarding the Judicial fillibusters problem. That was until I found this unposted draft. Beside making my forecasting skills look slightly less amaturish, the following shows how down on Bush conservatives (taking me as typical) were even two years ago. So, here it is ...

Apparently, I misread the Gang of Fourteen deal. It would appear that the Miers nomination came from the belief that McCain could not be counted on to ride heard on the Compromisers. This, of course changes everything. It seems unlikely that even if McCain gets the nomination, he could hold together a Conservative base sufficient to carry battleground states that he needs to get to 270 electoral votes. The talking points from the White House seem to be blaming the G14 for the stealth nominations, so it would seem that McCain failed to give the assurances which I had predicted earlier.

A competing hypothesis that I have formed says that the Miers was the only one on the "short list" days before the announcement. I consider it very possible that this came as a result of an uncharacteristically brilliant move by the Democrats, Harry Reid in particular. It may have been that when Bush made his pro forma consultations with the Democratic Senators, Reid pointedly named Miers as a candidate acceptable to the Dem leadership. Since Bush already held Ms. Miers in such high regard, this would flatter him in his judgement of people, which he already dangerously overestimates. If the President had already picked Miers prior to the normal selection process, this would explain the reports that Andy Card had strong-armed the nomination throught the vetting committees.

As to hypothesis two above, why did Reid move to secure Miers nomination, and why is he so supportive of it? The first explaination is the "he knows something we don't" theory. Perhaps Miers gave hom some assurance that she isn't as nutty as the rest of the Republicans, but has to go along with the right-wing rhetoric. Tip O'Neill told a similar story of a conversation he had with George H. W. Bush following President Reagan's first State of the Union address, or there abouts. It may also be that he saw Miers as the best he could get from the Bush administration if he wanted to avoid forcing another Judicial fillibuster. The theory that the Democrats plan to ambush Miers in the committee hearings is weakened by the fact that the Liberal groups and Democratic campaigns left hundreds of thousands of dollars in fundraising on the table in holding their fire this long; they have a lot of opportunity cost invested in the Miers appointment. This applies to lesser extent to the "settling" explaination, since they could have milked this for some fundraising by mounting a token opposition.

And the winner is ...

I am now prepared to declare that the winner in the 2008 presidential election is John McCain. If you’re an old line Conservative like me, this is not to be met with cheers and confetti. I’m not writing this to promote his candidacy (partly because no one reads this currently); my preference would have been vice-president-elect Rice. I just want to get on record so that I can look prescient in November 2008, and maybe get quoted in one of the real blogs.

 

I would not have made this prediction six months ago, especially after he refused to use his Viet Nam veteran bully pulpit to savage Mr. Winter Soldier. There are enough issues where the senator from the media has turned on his own party (especially Campaign Finance Reform) that I would have said at that time that the Conservative base would never allow him to get the nomination. Some things have become apparent during the Roberts hearings that change that equation.

 

Immediately after he brokered the Gang of Fourteen compromise on judicial filibusters, I was distinctly unimpressed. It looked like he had given away the Constitutional Option in exchange for a vague commitment from the Democratic compromisers to exercise judgment in deciding whether to filibuster judicial nominees. Shortly thereafter, though, Sen. McCain made a statement suggesting that he would hold those judgments to an objective standard, and wouldn’t simply accept “oh, we judged for ourselves that this nominee is an extreme circumstance.” In fact, the only time we have heard the word “filibuster” since John Roberts’ appointment was when Sen. Biden attempted a zinger at Roberts for following the “Ginsburg rule”. This was the point when I realized that Sen. McCain had effectively shut down the Democrats’ filibuster game, guaranteeing that President Bush owes him for each and every nominee from here on out, especially Supreme Court nominees.

 

Republican politicians, if not activists, also owe McCain immeasurably for the once hated Campaign Finance Reform. This, too, was late in becoming apparent. During the past election cycle, we saw Democrats out-raising Republicans in even-softer-money from the 527 groups by as much as eight-to-one. We all cried loud and long about this, when we couldn’t see the huge price Democrats would pay for this fleeting advantage. Now we can see powerful, senior Democrats “following Nan Aron of a cliff,” eyes wide open, because, absent the old-fashioned soft money contributions from “corporate fat cats,” they just can’t do without the money from the extreme left-wing 527 groups. The Democrats know they can’t beat Roberts (in other circumstances, they might not even want to), but for the sake of their sponsors, they have no choice but to throw up futile, indecorous obstructions. It was just this behavior that doomed Tom Daschle’s campaign last year. And for this, Republican Party leaders are in debt to John McCain and CFR.

 

No other prominent Republican can point to political accomplishments like this, except for Bush who is term-limited, Cheney who is uninterested, and Giuliani, who is pro-abortion. And no other politician is as accomplished at collecting interest on political debts as Sen. McCain. Expect the first endorsements shortly after the GOP seats 58 senators next January.

 

 

NRO on NPR

I am so hacked off. I just read that NRO regular Jonah Goldberg was the political commentator on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. I was up early making breakfast for the kids, and I turned off the radio before he came on because it was hard to hear over "Clifford's Puppy Days", but mostly because I wasn't in a mood to put up with Daniel Schorr, for whom Jonah was substituting.

I've been wanting to start a blog for some time, but I've been deterred by two considerations. First, I had doubts over my ability to contribute anything useful to the b'sphere, and whether my pronouncements could stand up to public scrutiny. Second, I didn't know how I could distinguish myself among the galaxy of conservative intellectual bloggers, which includes veteran journalists, professors and war heroes. Then I realized that these work together in favor of my starting out on this enterprise. As long as I remain nearly invisible in among the throng of aspiring Hewitts and Tarantos, I can make my misguided attempts at brilliance with impunity.


Since this blog will serve as my Mitty-esque secret life as an influential member of the right-wing intelligentsia, I thought that "Secret Life" would be an appropriate name for it (I passed over Mitty forms to avoid trademark disputes with the Thurber estate). Unfortunately, every variation I tried on the name was taken already. I tried forms of "world 3", referring to Popper's term for the world of ideas independent of the their originators, but found all of those names taken as well. Finally, I turned to the classic solution, flipping pages in a dictionary. Except that instead of a dictionary, I used Liddel and Scott's Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. This was how I came upon "perinoia", "thoughtfulness, quick comprehension". I was amazed that I had no trouble registering what I thought was a homophonic gem. After registering it, I found that the homophony with "paranoia" is so exact, that its only use on the WWW is as an especially bad misspelling of "paranoia". I imagine that anyone coming upon my blog for the first time will assume that I just can't spell. I guess that's what they call being too hip for the room.

Thus I begin my career as a right-wing opinion maker.

"Rick Harlan re-read K-Lo's disparaging comments on his "Roberts" article. He half-smiled, knowing he'd knock this one out of the park. But, he'd have to make it fast if he wanted to get to Gigot's show in time for his segment. Harlan opened the editor and began to type his rebuttal, filling the cherry-paneled study with the keyboard's pocketa-pocketa-pocketa."