The latest from our partner, the PoliGazette

Now that the National Tea Party Convention is over, where should the tea party movement go from here?  I could be completely wrong, but from what I’ve gleaned from the little actual news of the convention’s happenings I can find, it seemed like it was mostly about organizing, wack-a-doos, and red meat.  And while the first and third (and not so much the second) are good for rallying the support of your ideological base and attempting to get your favored politicians elected, those things do little to to get an agenda passed.

The trouble with many protest movements – and I’d consider the tea party movement, at least until the convention, to be one – is that they’re great for expressing what they don’t like.  Take the anti-war protesters of the Bush years.  They were against the War in Iraq (and some were against Afghanistan), but when it came time to discuss what to do about terrorism, they had few answers.  This is perhaps why protesting is a political activity that Americans tend to look down upon: they are seen as whiners.  In a nation of doers, we don’t like whiners.  We like people who get stuff done, and for the most part, those groups have not been protesters.

Now, I understand that tea partiers are not necessarily politicians, but they are certainly political actors, and supposedly have an idea of what kind of agenda they’d like to see for America, beyond “limited government” and “no universal health care.”  After all, I’ve seen the competing plans for health care written by the conservative think tanks.  It seems to me that the tea party movement is well situated to make their voice heard about these ideas.  By using their numbers to put a bug in the ear of their legislators the tea party movement has the opportunity to create the change they’d like to see.

It will take organizing.  Yes, the tea partiers must work together.  I understand the whole point behind the movement is a bottom-up approach, but that does not mean the citizens cannot band together to get things done.  It will be necessary because politics simply cannot be done effectively in any other way.  Interest groups, 527s, and other political organizations do it all the time.  Anyway, strength in numbers, right?

The next convention will happen in July.  This first one had breakout sessions, and I think that is exactly the kind of setting that would be perfect for debating where to go on policy.  I would urge the convention organizers to coordinate with people on the ground to create sessions that will allow attendees to find their common interests, and perhaps even start to get an agenda in order.  Then the attendees can go back home and bug their Congresspersons and Senators, state legislators, and local councilpeople to get those things passed.  If they don’t, those sessions about getting people registered to vote will provide the next step.

The tea party movement is quickly coming out of its infancy, and in order to move forward the activists will have to work together to actually get a conservative agenda passed in local, state, and federal legislatures. The tea party’s future will depend on whether its supporters can be doers rather than just whiners.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

In the first year of his administration, Barrack Obama’s promise to elevate the civic culture of Washington, DC was about 95 percent vapid rhetoric, 5 percent reaching across the aisle with a limp handshake. Meanwhile, for the Democratic Party on the whole, it was business as usual. If the last two weeks are any indication, Phase-II of Obama-era postpartisanship might be even more cynical than was Phase-I.       

For many Democrats, Phase-I of Obama-era postpartisanship was mainly concerned with further weakening a damaged Republican brand. During the first months of the Obama presidency, Democrats/progressives were high on Tanenhaus ecstasy, convinced that they had won a sweeping mandate that was really a mirage. A few weeks after Obama was inaugurated, several of my Democratic friends explained to me, with devious smiles, how the Democratic Party was set to deliver the coup de grace to Republicans/conservatives. While Obama projected an image of exalted postpartisanship, his Democratic colleagues in Congress would ram through major initiatives, like the Stimulus, card check, cap & trade, and health care reform, completely locking out Republicans from the deliberations and, more importantly, the spoils. My Democratic friends predicted that, because Obama was so popular at that time, the Democrats would easily peel off a handful of moderate Republicans to support their agenda, while the remaining Republicans would try, unsuccessfully, to obstruct the program. When the economy started to rebound in fall 2009, the Democrats could take full credit, claiming that the New New Deal had pulled America back from the abyss – no thanks to those wily Republicans, who only care about party politics. Game, set, match.  

Phase-I of Obama-style postpartisanship backfired when the Democrats were unable to peel away more than a couple of moderate Republicans on major legislation (and later started losing stray Blue Dogs), while the economy and the deficit grew progressively worse. The Democrats’ pseudo-postpartisan maneuverings during year 1 of the Obama administration was partly motivated by the tendency of progressives to disregard political opposition and condescend toward non-elite Americans. When political and media elites began making haughty, crass jokes about town hall protestors and “tea baggers,” the malevolent side of ”progressive” culture was on ugly display, which undercut President Obama’s “hope and change” rhetoric. Recently, the activist left has been hammering Obama for allegedly being too nice to the real enemy (Republicans/conservatives), seemingly oblivious to the possibility that their gratuitous, drive-by attacks might have damaged their own movement. Of course, Obama damaged himself as well, like when he lets his mask slip, revealing just what he means by postpartisanship.              

At the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama ostensibly offered a few conciliatory, postpartisan remarks to Republicans/conservatives, yet his idea of postpartisanship always has to be on progressive terms:  

But there is a sense that something is different now; that something is broken; that those of us in Washington are not serving the people as well as we should.  At times, it seems like we’re unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate.  And this erosion of civility in the public square sows division and distrust among our citizens.  It poisons the well of public opinion.  It leaves each side little room to negotiate with the other.  It makes politics an all-or-nothing sport, where one side is either always right or always wrong when, in reality, neither side has a monopoly on truth.  And then we lose sight of the children without food and the men without shelter and the families without health care.

To paraphrase what Obama is saying: The great majority of Republicans, and a small minority of Democrats, are “poisoning the well of public opinion,” which is getting in the way of the great progressive project to feed all the hungry children, house all the homeless men, and provide healthcare to all the uninsured. Nevermind those seven decades of “progressive” policies have generated net negative results in terms of reducing poverty and lowering the costs of housing and health care. Obama’s postpartisanhip reminds me of a backhanded apology. “I’m sorry that you were offended by my actions, but you can’t help yourself.”

Obama’s remarks at the prayer breakfast also sound to me like Phase-II of Democratic postpartisanship in the wake of Scott Brown’s victory. The new “postpartisan” narrative (myth/lie) is that, in the first half of 2009, Republicans were invited, with open arms, by the Democratic congressional leadership to participate in legislative discussions, but decided to sit in the corner and throw a tantrum. Now that the Republicans have a 41 vote stranglehold in the Senate, they need to step up to the big kids table and take responsibility for governing “ungovernable” America  (because no political party has ever been able to get anything done in the Senate with a razor thin 59 vote majority). Of course, that means that Republicans will be expected to help the Democrats ”save the children,” and vote for items many Republicans/conservatives would be diametrically opposed to, which are cynically attached to bills that have nothing to do with those items, or else the Republicans will have reverted once again to being partisan, child hating cretins.

Just like Phase-I, the political effectiveness of Phase-II of Obama-era Democratic postpartisanship will be determined in part by macro-forces, like the economy, deficits, etc. Unfortunately, though, the PR machinations will come into play. Hopefully, the “progressive” left will not be able to resist sabatoging Phase-II, like they sabotaged Phase-I.

Right on cue, Jacob Weisberg of Slate magazine whined today that the “ungovernable” American public is becoming more ”childish, ignorant, and incoherent.” My first reaction was: Is this piece an example of the “reality based community’s” tremendous adherence to making claims based on empirical evidence? Maybe Weisburg is privy to some peer reviewed research supporting his blanket claims? Perhaps the childishness index has jumped since January 2009? Undoubtedly, the childishness index was quite low during the golden age of the post-WWII liberal consensus . . .  

I was the going to dissect the rest of Weisberg’s rant, but Bruce McQuain so completely destroyed Weisberg’s arguments that there is not much left to tear apart.

Let me just say one thing: It is by no means irrational (or ignorant) for people to want the government to provide premium goods/services to them at a low cost while insisting that the government be fiscally prudent as regards everyone else. Similarly, if you are a land owner, the best case scenario for maximizing the value of your property is that you (or future owners of your property) would be allowed to do whatever you wanted on your property, but the neighboring land owners would be very strictly regulated (and limited in terms of use).

Our Founding Fathers understood the above problem all to well. The so-called progressive movement has been one of the more destructive forces in eroding our constitutional protections. Now that the ”hope and change” express is losing steam, and no longer having a specific symbol at which to direct their fury (GW Bush), the progressives are actually lecturing the American people about being spoiled brats? That’s rich.

Update II

Right on cue, part deux: as part of the Phase-II rollout of Obama-era postpartisanship, which is now back to being called good old fashioned bipartisanship (and not by accident), the president is now calling for a half-day bipartisan summit on health care. To help Plouffe, err . . . Obama ensure that this latest bipartisan gesture is not perceived by opponents of Obamacare as another cynical trap – heaven forbid!, Hugh Hewitt has offered several excellent suggestions for facilitating an open, rigorous, balanced, participatory discussion. You know, those aspects of the democratic process that academic-types are always claiming are in too short supply. Surely, the postpartisan Professor Obama (h/t Jay_C) would not object to ”equal time”?

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

A few days ago Sarah Palin called for White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel step down for calling some liberals “retarded” in their to health care legislation last August.  Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh ranted about it (emph. TP’s):

LIMBAUGH: Our political correct society is acting like some giant insult’s taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards. I mean these people, these liberal activists are kooks. They are looney tunes. And I’m not going to apologize for it, I’m just quoting Emanuel. It’s in the news. I think their big news is he’s out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House. Much like the beer summit between Obama and Gates and that cop in Cambridge.

A bunch of people were wondering about what Palin would have to say about this, especially since she just slammed Emanuel.  Would she go up against the big R?

Yes:

I asked Palin spokesperson Meghan Stapleton for comment on Rush’s rant, and she emailed me this:

“Governor Palin believes crude and demeaning name calling at the expense of others is disrespectful.”

Actually, I think Rush has a point (never thought the day would come).  Aren’t conservatives usually against political correctness?  I don’t know…maybe Palin is trying to retake the word “retarded” the way the PC brigade has been trying to retake “gay,” also a once favored way to call someone stupid (usually by youths).  In any case, this won’t be the first time I’ve thought Palin is less conservative than she makes herself out to be.

More on that after I finish Going Rogue. (H/T Andrew Sullivan)

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

While NASA mourns the loss of the Constellation program and the planned return to the moon, the space organization today announced five companies that will be awarded contracts to build commercial vehicles and the systems that will support them.  Frankly, I think this announcement couldn’t have come soon enough.

Lets face it, not much has happened in the way of space in the last…oh…38 years or so.  Sure, there’s the International Space Station, but that project is unfortunately doomed to failure.  It should have been completed years ago, but the Columbia tragedy prevented that.  After that, nobody really wanted to use a transportation system that was already old when the ISS was in its infancy.  Now the life of the station is being extended, so that it can all be torn down at about the time the last piece is put in place.  If the ISS is all we have to show in progress, than I argue that America has not gone very far since the last time we put a man on the moon (1972).

The Cold War is over, so there is nothing to influence American competitiveness for space anymore, at least not one that matters to the government.  The said, why not invite companies to do the R&D needed to get humans back to the moon, or beyond?

Companies compete everyday.  They must, or else they do not last long.  They don’t need a global conflict to ensure their innovation.  And that innovation is already happening, with companies like Bigelow Airspace, Scaled Composites, and SpaceX well on their well to making commercial space travel a reality.  Bigelow has already launched two habitation prototypes based on the Transhab project that was canceled by Congress in 2000.  Scaled Composites is known for their SpaceShipOne prototype, and SpaceShipTwo sub-orbital ship that billionaire Richard Branson is looking to someday buy for his planned Virgin Galactic fleet.  And SpaceX was one of the companies selected two years ago, along with Orbital Sciences Corporation, to create unmanned ships for work on the ISS.

With Boeing, Sierra Nevada, Blue Origin, and Paragon Space Development joining the companies listed above, the industry is now chock full of players either teamed up with NASA for ISS and astronaut-type missions, and/or looking to get into the space tourism field.  A NASA researched, designed, and built project just seems redundant in this case, doesn’t it?

I know that one reaction will be the inevitable “BUT, THEY ONLY WANT TO PROFIT!!!”  Sure they do, and why shouldn’t they?  It will, in fact, be that motivation for profit that ensures companies come out with not only the best designed and functioning product for this generation of space vehicles, but the next.  That’s how it works, folks.  Every company wants to be known as the creator of the latest and greatest in their field, so that they can capture the most profit.  That goal of being the leader will eventually lead Americans (and more broadly, humanity) to low-earth orbit and beyond.

That last sentence may seem idealistic of me, but I’m not so sure.  If you told someone in the late 1960s about the current state of computing, when they were by and large developed by government and academia, they probably wouldn’t have believed you.  But here we are in 2010, and it’s all thanks to the competitive nature of the companies that took the time to develop the best technology.

Now extend this to space travel.  I don’t pretend that we’ll be visiting Mars tomorrow, or even in 10 years, but I could easily see something like that happening within 20 years if space travel companies are allowed to take the reigns developing the next generation of space vehicles and associated technology.  It will happen because the companies involved in researching how to do it will have a profit motivation to make it happen as quickly as possible, or else get left in the dust by the guys who did it first.

I believe that the development of space exploration technologies will be part of the solution to restore the economy.  The growth of this new industry will help us recover from the shrinking of others, like the car industry, that have been victims of the recession.  I don’t know the specifics of what it takes to manufacturer a space vehicle, but I’ll venture that at least some of the same skills needed to build a car are required to build a line of ships for the likes of Virgin Galactic.  There will be some retraining necessary, of course, but that was inevitable.

More than that, there is still a real need for America to show its leadership in space exploration, and its status has been challenged of late due to lack of motivation.  A bustling space exploration industry is the answer to keeping America the leader in the final frontier.  So Obama’s decision to cancel the moon program and defer development of exploration technologies to the private sector could not have come at a better time.  I, for one, applaud him for the decision, and look forward to seeing what develops in the coming years and decades.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Although I understand and appreciate Orson’s take on Zinn’s death, I have to say that my own view on this ‘historian’ is less kind. Read this post by David Horowitz to get an idea of what I think of Zinn and his legacy.

What bothers me most about him, though, is that A People’s History of the United States is required reading material at most universities in America and in Europe. This even though it’s nothing more than a crappy piece of propaganda by a neo-communist apologist for totalitarians such as Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Zinn was a polemicist masquerading as a historian. Let’s keep that in mind whenever we talk about the guy.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Radical historian Howard Zinn has died. My sympathies go to his family. I will offer some thoughts about his work as a historian at a later time. This is not the time for a critical analysis of his work as a scholar. It is worth reporting that Mr. Zinn was a World War II veteran of the US Army Air Corps. Like Senator George McGovern, another World War II veteran Mr. Zinn went to college on the GI Bill, and majored in history. He made a career out of teaching, while McGovern did not teach history, but made a career out of politics. Both Senator McGovern and Professor Zinn reached the conclusion that the United States was wrong to become involved in Viet Nam.

While it is important to honor and respect Mr. Zinn’s service to his country in the Air Corps, it is worth noting that his negative view of the U.S. use of military power was distinctly a minority view compared to that of most of his World War II comrades in arms.

UPDATE: PoliSnark has a characteristically off-beat take on this story.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is None Darwish, the co-founder of FormerMuslimsUnited.com and the author of Cruel and Usual Punishment.

FP: Nonie Darwish, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

I would like to talk to you today a bit about the Muslim voices for change that are increasing through the Islamic world. There is an unprecedented defiance taking place behind the Islamic Curtain.

Can you tell us what is transpiring?

Darwish: As you know, Jamie, I lived for 30 years in the cocoon of the Muslim world and I can see a huge change going on inside the Muslim world. More and more people are challenging the status quo.

After 9/11 and with constant recurring explosive Islamic terrorism, it has become harder for the Muslim establishment to keep the lid on Muslims questioning their system, religion and holy wars. Criticism of Islam is coming at them from every direction, putting Muslim clerics in a quagmire unable to honestly answer questions. Muslim scholars were never trained to answer questions critical of Islam or engage in hostile debate. But now, suddenly, they are challenged to the core like never before, not by Western critics, but by brave hosts of Arabic language shows from unidentified locations in the West and hosted by former Muslims and/or Egyptian Christian Copts.

Read the whole interview at FrontPage Magazine.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Discussion about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has once again come about after President Obama’s vow to end it during the State of the Union tonight, and the report by ABC that Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs of State Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen will testify about what steps they will take before Congress and Obama move to end the law. (H/T Hot Air).

Combing through the Hot Air comments, I’ve noticed one recurring theme amongst those against repealing the policy: That they will be forced to shower with the now openly gay servicemen (it is unclear whether or not this is also a fear among  socially conservative women as well).  Apparently these commenters are unaware of the fact that straight and gay servicemen are already showering together.

Whatever the case may be, the fear seems to be that, no longer closeted by DADT, gays will now be open to jump their fellow servicemen.  When countered with the fact that gays have the ability to restrain their sexual urges in the presence of other men, they say, “Haha, I can certainly restrain my sexuality, too, so maybe showers should be co-ed!”

Besides this only being an attempt to change the subject, this shows is that the problem is not so much with the gay servicemen and women as it is with some people’s discomfort with the idea of gay people being around them.  Rather than admit their problem, they try to invent worst-case scenarios that won’t actually happen to help them justify their support for DADT.  Meanwhile, more and more Arabic translators are getting kicked out of the military at a time we need them, just because of who they are.

These social conservatives just need to live up to the fact that a non-DADT military doesn’t mean gay people are going to sexually assault their fellow servicemembers.  And if a gay person suggests they have feelings for one of their fellows, so what?  The latter can just tell the former what straights have been telling each other for centuries: “You’re not my type.”

Update: Commenter Interested asked why President Obama can’t just rescind the Executive Order issued by former President Clinton early in his presidency.  Because the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy isn’t just an Executive Order.  It actually is law; specifically Title IV, Sec. 524; Subtitle G of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994.  So Congress must get involved in order for this policy to be repealed.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve been trying to get my mind wrapped around the arrest of journalist James O’Keefe – best known for his exposé this past July of several ACORN offices offering advice on prostitution-related crimes – for allegedly attempting to interfere with the phone system of Louisiana Senator Mary Mary Landrieu’s office.  Note that earlier reports that said they were trying to bug the system should not be followed, as this has not been said to be the case.  Yet, I’ve been racking my brains, trying to figure how else these guys could have tampered with the system.  After seeing this MSNBC article, I’m coming up with only one other explanation.  Otherwise, I don’t know anything else they could do to “tamper” with it, short of ripping it apart.

Meanwhile, Democrats and other liberals are besides themselves with glee, with Media Matters taking it upon themselves to start a smear attack on Andrew Breitbart of Big Government and Big Hollywood fame.  Of course, this was not the reaction of most liberals when the ACORN videos were released.  Mostly, they tried to sweep it under the rug, assuring us that it only happened in a few isolated circumstances, rather than admit that ACORN had a real problem on its hands.  Now they are happy the O’Keefe has been arrested, because he is a conservative, and for them, he was already a bad, bad guy.

On the other side of the issue, Republicans and conservatives have generally been more realistic in their response, or at least they were until today.  Yesterday, when the news was that O’Keefe, Joseph Basel, Stan Dai and Robert Flanagan had attempted to bug the Senator’s office, they rightly admonished the four.  Today, however, with the release of the affidavit, their response has suddenly become a lot different.

Allahpundit is probably the most realistic in his posting:

I assume the defense is going to be something like, “We never intended to tap the phone, we simply wanted to show how easy it would be if someone wanted to do it,” but even so: Ohhhhhhhhhhhh boy. Ten years.

Patterico, on the other hand, is banking on this being “a big nothing.”  He, no doubt, will point to this MSNBC report as proof that it is nothing (update: he did):

Instead, the official says, the men, led by conservative videomaker James O’Keefe, wanted to see how her local office staff would respond if the phones were inoperative.

Why, then, go up to the tenth floor and proceed to further their plan?  Why not, having recorded the conversation with the staffer, not just left the building?  Well, MSN doesn’t spell it out, but I expect the expanded explanation will include a plan to disable Landrieu’s phones, while O’Keefe records the re-actions of the staffers, who are presumably supposed to freak out in this situation.  Perhaps O’Keefe would ask a few questions to the staffers to find out if they were concerned by the outage, and then post their response, hoping that they would not register any concern that callers could not come through.

Even then, the four would still have committed the crime of tampering with the phone system.  This would, perhaps, turn it more into the category of a “prank” rather than an attempt to listen in on a Senator’s private conversations, though I suppose in these more secure times they could have winded up with a tele-terrorism charge on their record.

So I do believe that O’Keefe and his co-conspirators were planning to do something to Landrieu’s phones, even if it wasn’t to tap it to gain incriminating information, and I think conservatives are in a lot of denial about that right now.  While I’m with them in that the four men should be treated as innocent until proven guilty, I just don’t think the situation looks much better for them than it did yesterday.

In the end, we will need to wait to hear O’Keefe and company’s version of events before we pass judgment on his actions.  Anything else is just wild theorizing, including my wild theorizing.

P.S. Patterico is supporting a theory by Jawa Report’s Good Lt. that they were looking for evidence of a previous disconnection or re-routing.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Megan McArdle sums up the dilemma progressives face in trying to force through health care reform using single-party dominance. Quite simply, the “power to the people” pose of post-modern progressivism is increasingly exposed as a sham, and the progressive agenda revealed as fundamentally elitist — they know better than you what is good for you. Thus, the more you oppose it, the more strident many progressives become in trying to force the issue through.

The belief that the public is simply too stupid or evil to understand its own best interests is a serious barrier to progressive success. It causes them to actively reject the idea or compromise out of the belief that compromise constitutes a betrayal of a higher principle. And the belief that disagreement is can only be explained as either ignorance or actual maliciousness facilitates the move towards demonization — compromise is betrayal, dissent is heresy, and no quarter is given.

It is, however, precisely that arrogance that exacerbates the political problems progressives face in trying to force through a health care reform program. Because they have proactively rejected the mere suggestion of compromise and have moved further to characterize those who disagree as not only in error, but actually bad people, it becomes hard to spin that message. The ranks of those who actually disagree are inevitably swelled when those who merely have questions or doubts encounter the whirlwind of hatred that so many progressive activists put out. That is the reason that every time the debate over health care happens, it tends to result in a steady increase in opposition.

It is not, as many conservatives say, that America is by nature an inherently “center-right” country at all. Rather, the seemingly inevitable increase in opposition to health care reform is an inevitable result of the bad communicative choices that progressives have made. They have, it far too many cases, destroyed their own cause.

©2010 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.