Housing Market of Cards . . .

Is Wall Street really that dumb? Stocks tumbled today on the news "that lenders New Century Financial Corp., Accredited Home Lenders Holding Co. and General Motors Acceptance Corp.'s residential unit are facing financial problems. The Mortgage Bankers Association bolstered the belief that the struggles are widespread after it said new foreclosures surged to an all-time high in the last quarter of 2006."

I've been noticing the fragile nature of our housing economy for some time now every time I see a sign with a phone number saying something like "we buy houses." And I see those signs frequently around Knoxville. I also recently saw a commercial for Focus on Forclosure seminar which further eroded my confidence in the health of the housing market.

Perhaps it's time for me to start my own investment newsletter; where for a $200-a-month subscription fee, I can point out the obvious to my readers.

Next Question . . .

Lil Poddy: "So Chuck Hagel Gave A Press Conference . . . to declare he's not running for President . . . yet. How do you spell 'megalomaniac'?"
P-O-D-H-O-R-E-T-Z

Limited Liability

Via Brittney Gilbert I discovered an impassioned argument in favor of private property rights from Glen Dean:

Civil Rights Act, A Disgraceful Infringement On Private Property Rights

If you have ever had the misfortune to hear Sean Hannity speak, then you have probably heard him brag about how Republicans pushed the 1964 Civil Rights Act through Congress. The very fact that he would brag about this infringement on private property rights proves that he and many more like him are much more Republican than they are conservative.
. . .
But how can you support a federal government that has the power to tell a property owner or an employer who he or she should do business with? The whole idea completely runs opposite of the concept of liberty. . .

I'm not without sympathy to this line of argument, but there is a flaw in Dean's reasoning: Walgreens isn't a privately owned business, it's a corporation. Corporations have numerous legal privileges, but the most important is the doctrine of limited liability, which allows ownership of a corporation to be anonymous and transitory.

I used to be a docrinare libertarian -- I worked for Liberty magazine for seven years -- but when I started to think of the problem of the corporation, my beliefs began to unravel. A while back, I quoted Wendell Berry on the subject:

You would find that these organizations are organized expressly for the evasion of responsibility. They are structures in which, as my brother says, "the buck never stops." The buck is processed up the hierarchy until finally it is passed to "the shareholders," who characteristically are too widely dispersed, too poorly informed, and too unconcerned to be responsible for anything.

Limited Liability, and other privileges granted to corporations, amounts to a huge intervention in the economy. In fact, it makes the modern economy possible. It also makes corporation very powerful compared to an individual employee or customer. I think there is room for reform of our civil rights laws, but I don't see anything wrong with the government evening the odds on occasion.

K-Lo's Heartthrob

The latest issue of the American Conservative has an article by Michael Brendan Dougherty about the neocon cult around the Fox program, 24. Dougherty quotes such luminaries as John J. Miller, Cal Thomas and Ben Shapiro. Almost poignant, however, are the quotes from National Review's Kathryn Jean Lopez, who invokes Jack Bauer at the drop of a hat. K-Lo's fans will recall how her heartthrob, Rick "Churchill" Santorum was tragically turned out of by the voters of Pennsylvania last fall.

Fortunately, her fictional hero will never fail her as long as the show remains profitable, even if Dougherty expresses his disapproval.

Hysterical Perspective

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. And then there's Victor Davis Hanson. Hanson writes,

Given all of this country's past wars involving intelligence failures, tactical and strategic blunders, congressional fights and popular anger at the president, Iraq and the rising furor over it are hardly unusual. . .
. . . consider the national mood in 1968 when the United States suffered more than 16,000 American dead in Vietnam (at that rate, we lost more troops in three months than during the entire four-year Iraqi war). In response, riots racked the country. Protesters stormed the Democratic Convention in Chicago. And a polarized country saw both Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. gunned down. . . .
Optional conflicts like the Mexican War, the Philippines Insurrection, Korea and Vietnam all cost more lives than Iraq. Even our most successful wars witnessed far more lethal stupidity than seen in Baghdad. Thousands of American dead resulted from lapses like the Confederate surprise at Shiloh, Japanese surprise attacks on Pearl Harbor and the Philippines, and the German surprise attacks in the Ardennes.

What is the point in mentioning that past wars have been screwed up? Readers of The American Conservative, Chronicles, Antiwar.com and other sources had plenty of warning about potential problems arising in an invasion of Iraq, usually with emphasis on the result of past Western occupations of Islamic countries--something that appears to be problematic. The issue now is whether the U.S. should consider to pour money, blood and credibility into what seems to be an obviously failed occupation and attempted nation building. Referring to miscalculations dating back to the War of 1812 offers little in the way of guidance.

"Ann Coulter"

And then there's Ann Coulter, who uses a judicious combination of scare quotes, bile and insanity to smite her foes:

Even right-wingers who know that "global warming" is a crock do not seem to grasp what the tree-huggers are demanding. Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.

Forget the lunacy of people claiming to tell us the precise temperature of planet Earth in 1918 based on tree rings. Or the fact that in the '70s liberals were issuing similarly dire warnings about "global cooling."

Simply consider what noted climatologists Al Gore and Melissa Etheridge are demanding that we do to combat their nutty conjectures about "global warming." They want us to starve the productive sector of fossil fuel and allow the world's factories to grind to a halt. This means an end to material growth and a cataclysmic reduction in wealth.

There are more reputable scientists defending astrology than defending "global warming," but liberals simply announce that the debate has been resolved in their favor and demand that we shut down all production.

Chickenhawks & Browngreens

The blogosphere has been all atwitter over charges and counter-charges about Al Gore's energy consuption. I won't try to get to the bottom of the issue because I don't care about the former veep's level of personal virtue. I will say that if he doesn't turn out the lights and do other easy things to conserve energy, then shame on him.

What interests me about the whole matter is how it resembles the "chickenhawk" issue. In the lead up to the Iraq invasion, I wrote in Liberty, "the point is . . . that those politicians and pundits and intellectuals who think the U.S. should attack dozens, if not hundreds, of countries, yet failed to serve when they had the chance, are hypocrites. Their failure to serve indicates a lack of seriousness about their values, and members of the political class attack each other on this basis all of the time."

Hypocrisy is the cheapest, and probably most common of political attacks. The fact is that a person's prior military service has no bearing on the quality of his or her arguments for war, although it makes a fun fact to know and tell. Likewise, Mr. Gore's personal virtue, or lack thereof, have no bearing on the seriousness of the global warming issue; even though his political enemies get great pleasure from pointing out his failings.

A New Kid in Pedia Town

There's a new kid in pedia town. A while back, I noted the complaints from Newsbusters about "liberal bias" at Wikipedia. To counter the dreaded bias, we now have Conservapedia. Conservapedia has a page with examples of bias at Wikipedia. Some of the complaints have nothing to do with bias, but are of ommissions that could easily be remedied:

Often key facts are missing from Wikipedia entries in favor of meaningless detail. Wikipedia's entry about Indentured Servitude is massive, but it omits any reference to Bacon's Rebellion, which was the turning point for the use of indentured servants in the New World!

Wikipedia has many entries on "concession", but none explaining its main historical meaning (from imperialism). Quantity is not quality

The obvious solution to these problems is to insert a reference to Bacon's Rebellion into the article on indentured servitude and to create an entry on the "main historical meaning" of "concession."

But the real agenda is to create an alternative wikiverse where the right can avoid any accidental contact with reality. Consider the entry on global warming. Conservapedians learn such fun facts as "these scientists are motivated by a need for grant money in their field of climatology. Therefore, their work can not be considered unbiased, though no more than any scientist in any other field." Also, "these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him." That clears that up. The citations (not currently available on the main page) come from sources like Foxnews.com and rightwing think tanks.

I check Wikipedia regularly and I'm fascinated by the entries on a wide variety of topics from pre-code film to Juan Manuel Fangio. I don't accept it as the final word on anything, but it's still a useful tool. Other than being a liberal source of fun and laughter, Conservapedia doesn't appear to have much value.

The Surge is Working!

This should come as comforting news to Iraqis currently being blown up--the "surge" is working:

But something interesting is happening on the way to the "new direction." Early indications are that the troop surge into Baghdad is working. It hasn't been reported on widely, but murders in Baghdad are down 70%, attacks are down 80%, Mahdi Army chief Moqtada al-Sadr has reportedly made off for Iran, and many Baghdadis who had fled the violence now feel it's safe enough to return. The strategy that Congress is busy denouncing is proving to be our best hope for victory.

. . .

This turnaround in Baghdad is confirmed at home by the media's near-deafening silence. If it seems like you've heard less about how Iraq is spiraling into civil war in the weeks since the surge was announced, this is why. Even some discordant voices in the media are starting to wonder what's happening. Time magazine worries that it's "Quiet in Baghdad. Too quiet." That's right -- a dramatic reduction in violence is actually bad news.

Unbeclownst

Memo to the Vast Rightwing Studyhall of the Blogosphere: "Beclowned" isn't the word of the year. It isn't clever. It isn't remotely funny.

Actually it's lame. Continued use of "beclowned" will expose you to the justified mockery and ridicule of your peers. When asked by the teacher to explain what your little clique has been giggling about at the back of the classroom; you will be laughed at, not with.

You have been warned.

Chanel No. Aieeeeeee!!!!

Here is a transcript (scroll down) to the Frank Gaffney interview that I previously referred to:

CARLSON: You really believe that, that it was . . .

GAFFNEY: This is what the Iraq Survey Group determined, hot production lines, and plans to both ramp them up when sanctions came off and to put them into aerosol cans and perfume sprayers to send to the United States and Europe.

Imagine how many times the following tragic event would have occurred in suburban homes across America if we had not invaded Iraq:

HUSBAND: Honey, we need to leave now. The Thompsons are serving dinner at 7:30.

WIFE: I'm almost ready, I just want to put on some Chanel No. Aieeeeee!!!! My Eyes! It burns! Oh the pain! Oh the humanity.

HUSBAND: Oh no! Curse those defeatists who stopped the Iraq invasion and allowed this to happpen!

Parfum d'Saddam

I saw a bit of Frank Gaffney, of the "Victory Caucus" on with Tucker Carlson and witnessed a pathological level of delusion. Gaffney expressed his relief that the US invaded Iraq, otherwise Saddam would be sending perfume bottles filled with biological weapons to America. With Carlson's urging, Gaffney grudgingly admitted that there has been some mismanagement of the war, but that clearly isn't an issue with him. And, of course, Republicans (and others) who criticize the war are endangering our chances of "victory" in Iraq.

Reynolds For Congress

Last week Glenn Reynolds expressed his disappointment that Jimmy Duncan voted for the Democrats' anti-surge resolution. Elsewhere in the blogosphere, there has been loose talk about primary challenges to Republicans who oppose the surge.

While it is difficult to unseat an entrenched member of Congress -- Duncan has been in office since 1988 -- an obvious challenger for Duncan's 2nd district seat suggests himself. So I hereby draft Glenn Reynolds to oppose Duncan in the Republican primary in 2008. A campaign by Reynolds would educate the voters about how wrong Duncan was to vote against the war in 2002 and how well things have gone in Iraq since then. He can call upon the triumphal spirit of April 2003, with its frequent "Dick Cheny I-told-you-so updates." His natural Freeper allies can help with his campaign and his rhetoric:

Dear 'Honorable' John Duncan,
In the 2006 Mid Term elections, there were many issues driving Americans to vote for their new Representatives.

Chief amongst them, was the desire NOT to see a Speaker Pelosi, Democrat (Socialist-Communist) control of the House and/or Senate and a general support of the efforts in Iraq/Afghanistan. While we did lose that effort in general, I was sincerely pleased to see you and a Republican Senator return to DC, I felt Tennessee had done her job in the attempt to hold the traitors at bay. And yet, now, you stand amongst them.

I certainly did NOT cast my vote for a Republican (Conservative????) to stand with the "Cut and RUN", "America is the Bad Guy", "Retreat (I mean Redeploy) crowd of LOSERS that the Democrats are.
. . .

Will you be happier when we are fighting this 'religion' (CULT?) here in America? Are you REALLY sure you thought it was correct to cast your vote the same as Traitor Murtha? . . .

Reynolds shouldn't be discouraged at the failure of Duncan's last primary challenger; or that of Richard Roberts, who ran for an open seat in Tennessee's first district on the basis of his strong support for the war and implicitly rebuked Duncan in his campaign. By the time the 2008 primary rolls around, either the surge will have been a rousing success, or Reynolds (and Bush) will be able point the finger of blame in a variety of directions: Duncan, the Dixie Chicks, the Liberal Media, those Hollywood fat cats, etc.

Of course, Reynolds isn't just a stalwart war hawk. He is practically a Renaissance Man: distinguished law professor, author, and commentator on fine consumer products from digital cameras to New Zealand butter. A real catch for the 2nd district!

The American Book Review

The New Republic hosted an interesting exchange sparked by Jeffrey Herf's call for a new weekly review of books.

Our country and our culture badly need a new weekly review of books. Currently, most of our major book reviews are failing to inform a non-specialist but sophisticated audience about American scholarship. The American Association of University Presses estimates that the 95 university presses in this country publish about 10,000 books a year. The New York Times Book Review, not to mention the book reviews at The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal devote a tiny fraction of their reviews to these works of scholarship. The Times reviews ten or less non-fiction books a week and those are overwhelmingly published by the New York trade publishers who advertise in the book review and who publish books aimed at a mass public.

It's an excellent idea and I would probably subscribe, or at least occasionally buy it on the newsstand, if such a publication existed. I disagree with David Bell about publishing it on the web instead of in print. Web publishing is less expensive, but the ideal length of an article or review on the web is somewhere below 1000 words while a serious book review publication would feature longer pieces.

There is no way that all books will get all of the attention that they deserve, though a few get far more than they deserve, but a publication like the one that Herf calls for would help.

Liberty, Community, and Place in the American Tradition

You marvelled at the blog, you couldn't put the book down. Now attend the conference!

"Liberty, Community, and Place in the American Tradition"
Saturday, March 24, 2007

Program Overview
How have Americans' fundamental beliefs about liberty, community, and place shaped their way of life? This ISI conference will explore this question through a discussion of key American events, persons, and cultural moments. Join us on March 24 for stimulating discussions of the lessons to be learned—or unlearned—from Benjamin Franklin, the course of prairie populism, the later Thomas Jefferson, and the music of Bob Dylan, among other items on the agenda.

The Delusion Caucus

The "Victory Caucus" (a collection of rightwing bloggers) is up in arms about "White Flag Republicans" who oppose the surge, including Tennessee's (and Instapundit's) 2nd district representative Jimmy Duncan.

A.C. Kleinheider notes that the Nashville Tennessean ("A Tennessean Joins GOP's Iraq Critics) is under the impression that Duncan is some sort of Jimmy Come Lately to the opposition to the Iraq when he voted against the original resolution in 2002 -- when such Democratic profiles in courage as Senators Kerry and Edwards foolishly gave it their support.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt, a "Victory Caucus" field marshall grills Iraq War General William Odom on some of the benefits of the invasion:

HH: I’m asking whether or not you thought the Libyan disarmament had anything to do with our invasion of Iraq?
WO: None.
HH: And do you believe that the Oil For Food scandal would have been detected if we’d left Saddam in power?
WO: Look, we would have been less worse off, much better off, had the food scandal gone on, and Saddam were still there.

Is Hewitt for real?

Xbox Geeks

The March issue of Chronicles is out with my review of Cort Kirkwood's Real Men. Here is a brief taste:

Kirkwood notes that the subjects of Real Men were made by the "cultural
milieu in which they are raised." When the President (who preferred political campaigning to fulfilling his obligations to the National Guard) and his hawkish neoconservative Vice President (a serial draft dodger) are happy to send American boys and girls to die for "democracy" in the Middle East, it is safe to say that our culture is no longer hospitable
to James' "ideals of hardihood."
Instead, our culture is hospitable to metrosexuals,
swooning neocons, Xbox geeks, and graying perpetual adolescents. Kirkwood's book reminds us of real men--and the culture that produced them.

Speaking of Kirkwood, he has an article in the same issue noting that in his disputes with President Bush and former Sen. George Allen, James Webb is the more conservative:

The struggle of Webb's rednecks against the elites in Born Fighting forshadowed his battle against Allen and Bush and their ilk -- the rootless, plutocratic oligarchs who amass power and wealth by exploiting the fierce, proud patriotism of the country's Webbs in war, then disposess them economically and culturally by advancing the interests of global corporate elites and by helping cultural leftists wage unremitting war against their children in school and their ancestors in history books.

Attack of the Soros Brownshirts!

I left an innocent comment at a Libertas post questioning the wisdom of our Iraq venture, for which I was called a "leftwing nazi" and a "Soros brownshirt."

Now, I can't imagine an insult with less sting that to be referred to as a Nazi, or to be compared to Hitler. Heck, who hasn't been called a Nazi these days? The "Soros brownshirt" part is original though, and if you are reading this George -- donate a few hundred thou to support my "work", and I'll wear any color of shirt that you pick out.

UPDATE: More from Steffanie:

Clarke your a koolaid drinker. Did you mourn for Saddam when he danced his jig at the end of that rope? Did you cry? You probably have never met an Iraqi, I know several. One of which is an Iraqi army officer. How many Kurds have you met? How do you feel about Saddams Anfall campaign or do you know anything about that? How do you feel about terrorists Saddam protected, like Abu Nidal and Abu Abbas? Or do you know anything about them? I doubt it. If you had a smidgen of education about terrorism or the middle east you would actually know something but your here defending an evil evil man, probably because like you he was a socialist and your dictator.
You can’t handle having someone dish out what you dish out everyday to people who don’t agree with you.
You think conservatives will roll over or ignore you and sorry but I won’t. I throw down.
Why? Because like so many now I am sick n tired of being the scapegoat and my country that I would defend to the death being scape goated for things people like have done or allowed to have happen. So yes your a Soros Nazi. You don’t like it. Tough life.

Sedition

Oscar Williams' George S. Schuyler: Portrait of a Black Conservative relates an anecdote of the type of wartime executive power only dreamed of by the Bush administration:

Another reason for the (Pittsburgh) Courier's change of position was the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) pressure on African American newspapers to stop printing stories on racial violence against African American soldiers and civilians. The FBI documented articles they considered seditious and visited the offices to intimidate the Courier staff. Courier journalist Frank Bolden recalled FBI agents visiting the office and lecturing them: "They'd tell us to shut our mouths, you're hurting the war effort, and we'd just laugh at them." Schuyler, however, may not have been laughing, as the FBI's vigorously documented editorials of his that were seen as pro-Japanese and potentially seditious.

. . . Schuyler's articles addressing racial discrimination against African Americans were included in the FBI's investigation. In one such article, in the February 20, 1943, Courier, Schuyler commented on Robert Moses, an African American who, when sentenced to three year's imprisonment for evading the draft, stated, "I have no country." Schuyler noted that, "what Moses said, many Negroes could be thinking and it is up to American white people to make them think otherwise. Jailing them will not change their minds but democracy, fair play, citizenship rights, and equality of opportunity will."

Waste Management

Jonah Goldberg bows before the god of GDP. Americans aren't wasteful because we produce a lot with our energy consumption: "we are actually pretty energy efficient in the United States. The relevant issue isn't our population but our energy consumption as it relates to our contribution to global GDP. And on that score we do pretty well."

I won't argue whether Americans are wasteful or not. Ultimately, that is a value judgement. But Goldberg should read Joseph Pearce before simply dividing American energy consuption by the sum of our economic output:

GNP is the total price (not value, since value is qualitative not quantitative) of all the traded goods and services produced in a country during a year. Any economic activity that does not involve a monetary transaction is not included. On the other hand, any activity that involves the spending of money is included even if it has a detrimental effect in socioeconomic terms. This is a peculiar view of what is deemed "economic."

More from Pearce here.

What If?

What if rightwingers become so deluded that they can no longer think coherently?

Oil For Food Scandal

This is a great example of why we desparately needed a change in power in the last election:

Three key figures in Iraq's reconstruction — Paul Bremer, Stuart Bowen, and Tim Carney — are testifying before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The hearing follows a damning audit by Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, who says that tens of millions of dollars have been squandered.

In the meantime, President Bush is pushing Congress to approve another $1.2 billion for reconstruction aid.

At a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, the panel's Democratic chairman, Henry Waxman, took aim at the Coalition Provisional Authority, and how it handed out huge amounts of cash.

In questioning why the U.S. Federal Reserve had to ship $12 billion dollars — tons and tons of cash — to Baghdad between May 2003 and June 2004, Waxman (D-CA) asked, "Who in their right mind would send 363 tons of cash into a war zone?"

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the American who was in charge of Iraq at the time, said the money was not U.S. tax dollars but Iraqi money from the United Nations' oil for food program. Bremer said that he needed to kick-start the economy and Iraqi ministries needed to pay salaries and pensions. The United States didn't have time to impose financial controls, he said.

Book Notes

I received a copy of Till We Have Built Jerusalem that Rod Dreher commented on the other day. It looks interesting and as an added bonus, it's illustrated.

I have also read the first few chapters of George S. Schuyler: Portrait of a Black Conservative which just came out. I hadn't previously known much about Schuyler, but he was an interesting character. A native of Upstate New York; he served in the Army, wrote a couple of novels, including one considered the first Black science fiction novel. He also wrote for Mencken's American Mercury -- all before the age of forty.

Pinkopedians

Where will the Liberal Bias stop? Dave Pierre, at the rightwing whine, er website Newsbusters, part of the Media Research Center is complaining about the dreaded LB at Wikipedia -- the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. And what has Pierre upset? Wikipedians aren't being nice enough to Bill O'Reilly compared to Rosie O'Donnell!

Take the entry on Bill O'Reilly. Major space in the article is dedicated under the heading "Sexual harassment lawsuits." Major space is devoted to debatable comments that O'Reilly has made on the air over the years. An anti-O'Reilly web site is promoted within the article. Readers can also click on separate entries called "Bill O'Reilly controversies" and "Critics and rivals of Bill O'Reilly." And a fourth article under the heading of The O'Reilly Factor gives critics of the show a prominent voice. (By the way, you'd think an article on The O'Reilly Factor might want to mention the fact that the show has had the largest audience in all of cable news for several years. This fact is buried about a third of the way down in the article on Bill himself.) The Andrea Mackris lawsuit is mentioned in three of the four articles related to Bill O'Reilly. Finally, while the entry on the liberal Rosie O'Donnell devotes an entire section to her charitable causes, no mention is made of the thousands of dollars that billoreilly.com has raised for charity over the years. There's a lot more to this, but I think you get the point.

I can scarcely imagine a more repulsive pair, but if Pierre wants to note O'Reilly's charity work or say bad things (with references from a neutral point of view) about Rosie, he is free to do so.

I Don't Get It

An interesting letter in the latest American Conservative:

WHERE'S PAT?
Is Mr. Buchanan for or against the war? In print, he's obviously opposed. On TV, I can't tell, but he seems determined to defend President Bush's "surge." How can you be against a war but favor something that will prolong it and get more people killed" It's an act of desperation in a lost cause. I don't get it.
THOMAS QUINLAN

I've witnessed this phenomenon before. It's almost as if Buchanan feels compelled to become a Republican loyalist in front of a TV camera. I stopped watching the McLaughlin Group a couple of years ago when he started rooting for a Bush victory in 2004 and I have seen him on Tucker Carlson's show seeming to endorse the surge. Like Mr. Quinlan, I don't get it

The Convenientest Truth . . .

I saw An Inconvenient Truth the other day, about the same time that the IPCC released a study predicting grave consequences due to human-caused global warming. As documentaries go, it is reasonably good. The parts featuring Al Gore's presentation are compelling and disturbing. Those featuring Gore's pensive off-stage thoughts are somewhat less so. I have always found Gore to be an unappealing person -- he seemed to be an ambitious, publicity hog even when he was a junior member of Congress. However, he seems to be less robotic and more human in the aftermath of his defeat/victory/whatever in 2000.

The global warming debate is odd in that it appears to be between climate scientists and rightwing pundits. Columnist, Mark Steyn utterly dismisses the recent report with such claims that thirty years ago, sciences was predicting "global cooling" (here addressed by Real Climate) and that:

. . . if you really don't like the global weather, wait half-a-millennium. A thousand years ago, the Arctic was warmer than it is now. Circa 982, Erik the Red and a bunch of other Vikings landed in Greenland and thought, "Wow! This land really is green! Who knew?" So they started farming it, and were living it up for a couple of centuries. Then the Little Ice Age showed up, and they all died. A terrible warning to us all about "unsustainable development": If a few hundred Vikings doing a little light hunter-gathering can totally unbalance the environment, imagine the havoc John Edwards' new house must be wreaking.

The whole column is simply pulled from Steyn's . . . fertile mind, with not even the second cousin of an argument to be seen -- though he does managed to get in digs against Gore and John Edwards.

Gore's documentary has now been nominated for an Academy Award, which if it wins, will drive these guys into fits of hysteria. For those disinclined to watch the former veep bloviate, even in a good cause, for 96 minutes, Stephen Colbert produced a shorter and funnier response: The Convenientest Truth.

UPDATE: I should also provide a link to this Townhall column by Burt Prelutsky. The opening paragraphs are about turtles in the toilet and how every teen who gets killed is supposedly an honor student, or something like that. The rest is, like Steyn, fact and argument free:

The other big lie that’s caught on in a big way is global warming. I suspect this is strictly an urban legend because in rural America, farmers have the experience and the commonsense to recognize the cyclical nature of climate.

Because of the unusually cold winter we’ve been having here in Southern California, I’ve given a good deal of thought to the subject. What I find so fascinating about it is that Al Gore’s disciples are able to explain all types of weather as a result of it. If it’s unseasonably warm, we not only know why, but we know we can lay the blame on those rotters driving their gas-guzzling SUVs to the supermarket. It might even sound reasonable if you were unaware that changes in the earth’s weather occur on an irregularly regular basis, and that just a short time ago these same junk scientists were warning us about global cooling and the impending modern ice age.

Dick

Why would anyone consult the wisdom of Dick Morris on any issue? It's extremely crowded at the bottom, but I can't imagine anyone in the punditocracy with less credibility than Morris. Yet Richard Miniter of "Pajamas Media" interviewed him about the forthcoming presidential race. "Hillary will be President and she will mess it up!"

I wouldn't trust him with the time of day, much less the political prospects of Hillary Clinton. Three years ago Morris said in the New York Post that forthcoming Democratic nominee Howard Dean Would choose Clinton. Shortly after Dean collapsed, Morris wrote that "The demise of Howard Dean's candidacy opens the door to a Kerry/Clinton ticket in 2004." Yes, tell us more, Dick. Morris has obviously been a great success at being consistently wrong and I won't criticize for peddling his snake oil -- the man's gotta earn. But Miniter would get better answers by consulting a magic 8-ball.

The Treason Card

Bill Hobbs provides a link to a column lamely debunking ten "Iraq Myths." It consists mostly of unsupported assertions but since the web address has "strategy" in it, the author must know what he is talking about. Right? I will only address the first and last "myths."

1-No Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). Several hundred chemical weapons were found, and Saddam had all his WMD scientists and technicians ready. . . .

Yes, a thousand times yes! As former Senator Santorum (I love that phrase!) revealed, our forces uncovered lots of aging, rusty chemical weapons shells in Iraq. Big Deal. I will personally come to Middle Tennessee and eat a pair of shoes selected by Hobbs (perhaps witnessed by A.C. and Brittney) if he can point to where the President stated that the U.S. must rush to invade Iraq because it had dozens or hundreds of aging, inoperative chemical weapons shells, instead of claiming that Iraq presented a "grave" and "gathering" threat with "clear evidence of peril." Yada, yada, yada.

10- The War in Iraq is Lost. By what measure? Saddam and his Baath party are out of power. There is a democratically elected government. . .

Fine, then why all this talk of a surge? Lets bring the troops home and give them a ticker-tape parade. Call it the Aiken plan -- declare victory and go home.

Then quoting somebody named Tigerhawk, Hobbs asserts that "there are two groups opposed to the 'surge' . . . Who, mainly, is against it? The enemy. And Democrats."

Expect more of this. Since arguments about WMD's and such are pretty lame, the Treason card is the only arrow that rightwing Bushbots have left in their quiver (it's my blog and I'll mix metaphors if I want to). Ignore for a moment that a lot more people than Democrats appear to oppose the surge; how do Hobbs and "Tigerhawk" know that the enemy oppose it? I can easily imagine that many al Qaeda types (only one of our enemies over there) feel they benefit from putting more Americans into the line of fire. One could just as easily assert that only two groups favor the surge -- Republicans and the enemy. But I see no reason to sink so low.

Hijinks Ensue!

Here are a few brief impressions of movies that I have seen recently:

Little Miss Sunshine: I second (or perhaps third) the thumbs down of Gene Healy and James Wolcott. This movie was basically a sitcom pilot with a cliched wacky family. There is a foul grandpa, a faux-existentialist brother who wants to be an Airforce pilot. The whole family goes on a trip in their VW microbus so that the young girl can enter a beauty pagent. Hijinks ensue, as they say. It's a bad joke that it has been nominated for a best picture Academy Award, but I guess it's better than Titanic.

I was sort of dissapointed after finally seeing Breakfast at Tiffany's. It has such an inflated reputation and who can resist Audrey Hepburn? It reminds me a little of Billy Wilder's The Apartment, but Wilder's picture is far better. Truman Capote suppossedly said that it made him want to throw up. It's not that bad, but then I haven't read the book.

Bombshell, starring Jean Harlow, is a gem from the Turner Classic Movies vault. This MGM classic features Lee Tracy as a studio publicity man who constantly manufactures phony scandals around the studio's sex symbol, played by Harlow, to keep her name in the headlines. Hijinks ensue in this film as well but unlike Little Miss Sunshine, they are funny and they ring true. It's hard to believe that this film is not available on DVD.

The Pledge

I signed The Pledge:

If the United States Senate passes a resolution, non-binding or otherwise, that criticizes the commitment of additional troops to Iraq that General Petraeus has asked for and that the president has pledged, and if the Senate does so after the testimony of General Petraeus on January 23 that such a resolution will be an encouragement to the enemy, I will not contribute to any Republican senator who voted for the resolution. Further, if any Republican senator who votes for such a resolution is a candidate for re-election in 2008, I will not contribute to the National Republican Senatorial Committee unless the Chairman of that Committee, Senator Ensign, commits in writing that none of the funds of the NRSC will go to support the re-election of any senator supporting the non-binding resolution. (emphasis added)

I ought to add that I will not contribute to any Republican senator who votes against the resolution either. I won't contribute to any Republican senator under any circumstances; or Democratic senator for that matter.

I think it's nuts to give money to politicians or political parties.

HATE

This is one of those things that I obsess on, but I couldn't help noticing that in a hysterically hate-filled Freerepublic comment thread, one irony-challenged Freeper opined:

He's already getting a rep as a loose cannon, to say the least. Saying he wanted to "slug" Bush. Love to see him try; Bush and/or the Secret Service, would clock him. He will hit someone, sooner, rather than later. That's why Reagan canned him. Having been a Dem, I know they have always gotten off on abuse and violence towards people they don't agree with... and eventually towards people they DO agree with. The GOP does not understand how much Dems HATE us. We do not hate Dems. We laugh at them, think they are stupid, classless, etc. The mainstream GOP cannot fathom that kind of blind hatred. But blind hatred has always been what the Democrats are about. I only wish the GOP would finally realize it. The Dems are STREETFIGHTERS, and sooner or later they turn on themselves. (emphasis added)

Boots on the Ground

Of all of the dumb comments I saw (and I saw a lot) about the Webb response to the State of the Union address, the thoughts of Wlady Pleszczynski of the American Spectator are the dumbest:

Webb continues to exude coldness. For a former military officer there seems to be little gentleman in him. Consider the opening shot of him which had him seated rather coarsely with his right leg crossed over his left knee -- was that a clumsy effort to show off the combat boot he was wearing? It was black and shiny, but I couldn't tell if it was an actual boot. If it was, he had a political purpose to being seated that way. Otherwise, he just came across as oafish.

Stop the Presses! He crossed his leg! I hadn't watched it until I read Wlady's comment, but I don't think I would have even noticed that he crossed his legs. He didn't appear to me be wearing combat boots, especially since the boots that belong to his son that he wore last year were tan, as in the pictures below.

State of the Onion

It hit me like a ton of bricks last night when President Bush resigned (in disgrace of course) last night and asked incoming President Kauffman to clean up the mess he made after the new president finished planting cabbage in the Whitehouse Rose Garden. But what really blew my mind was when Kathryn Jean Lopez and Rich Lowry announced that National Review is closing down. "After being so consistently and spectacularly wrong these last five years, we felt thate we could no longer . . . .
. . .

Sorry, I must have dozed off. Never mix bourbon and cough syrup. Maybe just one more time, I want to hear President Kauffman's front porch address to the nation . . .

Idiocracy

Kudos to Steve Sailer for alerting the world to Mike Judge's brilliantly stupid look at our dysgenic future, Idiocracy.

In Judge's world, set 500 years in the future; Brawndo (a Gatorade-like sports drink) flows from water fountains and is used to irrigate crops, people who use something approaching standard English are "faggy" and news magazines have titles like Hot Naked Chicks & World Report (Shit sucks! page 42).

My only problem with the film is that Judge felt the need to set it 500 years in the future when it may come true in the next twenty or fifty years. If you happen to be watching a Hardees commercial, it's here now.

Bauer Power?

I finally succumbed to the hype and saw the first four hours of 24 last week. It is easy to see why the show is such an iconic, right-wing fantasy (it even has its own blog) show -- Jack Bauer doesn't let any sissy, Sullivanesque niceties get in the way of getting the truth out of the bad guys. In the first four hours, Bauer is trying to foil a plot by some Islamic (yes, Islamic) terrorists to set off a suitcase nuke in the Los Angeles area. The conventions of the detective/law enforcement tv show dictate that the plot be foiled at the last minute, but at about 9:59 a.m. (the season started at 6) a good portion of Southern California was obliterated.

The violence in 24 is over the top. At one point, Bauer escapes from some terrorists planning to torture and kill him by biting the jugular vein of a guard and taking his key. But the most implausible aspect of the show is the central importance of the main character. When the president says something like "get me Jack Bauer on the phone" it reminded me of Commisioner Gordon dialing the Batphone on the old Adam West/Batman series. When the President went against Bauer's advice, he was wrong and Bauer was right.

I may or may not continue watching. There were numerous compelling aspects of the show. Some liberal do-gooders came to the defense of young Ahmed (or was it Achmed?) only to find out that he actually was a terrorist. An Army sargeant helped a terrorist with critical knowledge escape. Bauer was forced to kill one of his own to keep him from killing a terrorist-gone-straight. All of the killing and torture that Bauer has perpetrated over the years seems to be taking its toll.

Compared to another highly praised series from the last few years -- The Sopranos -- 24 doesn't measure up. I saw LA go up in a mushroom cloud and thought I might tune in next week. On The Sopranos, I was hooked from the moment I saw Tony describing to his shrink having "coffee" with a man who owed him money (hint: they didn't really have coffee) and followed numerous story lines far more compelling that the future of the Free World: will Meadow get into Georgetown?; will Raphie get clipped?; will Paulie's mother get into the right clique at Green Grove?; will the Esplanade get built?; etc.

Lorie Byrd has a column up at Townhall making the case that the popularity of 24 and American Idol proves the viability of "conservatism" (whatever that means). 24 is "conservative" because it provides "politically incorrect terrorist-thumping entertainment" and American Idol fills the bill because some snotty Brit tells "hard truth as he sees it" and the program . . . "highlight[s] the American dream"(click the link if you think that is too dumb for Byrd to have actually written). I won't comment on American Idol because I haven't seen it; but the four hours of 24 that I have seen (along with the commercials that interrupt it) lead me to the conclusion that most of the audience of the show consists of the coveted 18-34, taco-burger-soft drink obsessed male demographic who tune it to see the explosions and killing, and for whom the subtle points about whatever Byrd et al. see in the show are lost.

Adventures in Ethnic Casting

From the website of Turner Classic Movies:

Overview for Black Hand (1950)
Brief Synopsis:
In turn-of-the-century New York, an Italian seeks vengeance on the mobsters who killed his father.

Starring : Gene Kelly

Excellent

Michael (of the very good) 2Blowhards demonstrates his discerning taste:

Pearce and some co-conspirators (including the excellent Clark Stooksbury) will be blogging for a time here. Here's the Schumacher Society. Here's Schumacher's most famous piece, "Buddhist Economics." The most Schumacherian publication I know of is Orion Magazine, which regularly publishes New Urbanist (and Peak Oil) firebrand James Kunstler. Here's a recent interview with Kunstler.

Uncle!

I received a patently ridiculous direct mail piece from Human Events today. The envelope features the heroic image of President Reagan and says:

He made Iran cry "Uncle!"
(It took him all of . . . 20 minutes.)

This refers to the way that Iran waited until Reagan took the oath of office to release the hostages taken from the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. If one desires to make President Reagan look tough against Iran that is pretty much the highpoint. Not Surprisingly, the Human Events mail piece ignores most of the other important moments in Reagan's dealings with Iran. Through out most of his adminstration, the president handled Iran by supporting the murderous dictator, Saddam Hussein in his war of agression against Iran -- HE doesn't mention that. Later he would begin a program to secretly sell weapons to the Iranian regime (in return for the release of hostages in Lebanon). This caused a crisis among conservatives when it came out. Michael Kinsley compared it to the dilemma faced by Communists after the Hitler/Stalin pact: "a sudden policy reversal put devoted ideologues to such a severe test of their devotion. A party line of stark moral simplicity -- no dealing with terrorist states -- has suddenly gone all gooey and geopolitical. . . . As in 1939, many are falling off the train as it rounds this sharp bend. But a tenacious few hold on."

It wasn't all appeasement of Iran during the Reagan years. In 1988, an American Cruiser patrolling the Persian Gulf shot down an Iranian jet killing 290 civilians -- another event that Human Events neglects to mention.

It would be a full time job to document all of the ways that rightwingers have constructed a fantasy world for themselves, this Human Events effort to reduce Reagan's record on Iran to his first hour as president is exhibit A.

The Powers That Be

Chronicles has put my review of Sean Scallon's Beating the Powers that Be on line. Here is a clip:

After the New Deal and World War II, there was little room in America for the kind of movement that Scallon describes. As the federal government grew, taking over many of the functions of the states, Cold War conformity narrowed the scope of acceptable opinion. On occasion, broad discontent with the status quo bubbled up in the form of presidential campaigns by such candidates as George Wallace and Ross Perot, but Scallon notes a more interesting phenomenon occurring in political movements at lower levels of government. He focuses on three such movements—two in the New England states of Vermont and New Hampshire and a regional movement in the South, where the League of the South seeks to promote the “independence of the South ‘by all honorable means.’” I remain somewhat skeptical of the prospects for success of this last enterprise. Nothing about the quality of political leaders that the South has produced in the last few years, including our sitting president and his immediate predecessor, inspires my confidence (as a Tennessean) in a Southern regime. Decentralization of our monstrously overgrown federal government, however, remains an excellent idea, while dissolution of the Union should be a legitimate topic of discussion, not a hate crime.

"Surge"

Quin Hillyer, offering advice to the right:

Support President Bush's expected call for a troop "surge" in Iraq. It is impossible to be a true conservative and, at the same time, to accept defeat in a military endeavor in a key strategic area of the world. Forget the arguments about whether we were wise to topple Saddam or not in the first place. (We were right, by the way.) The fact is that we are there now, and if we don't secure the peace, we will have lost, and the loss will have horrific repercussions for stability in the Middle East and for American standing in the world. Every other option on the table (other than a troop surge) is, in effect, a strategy for managing a defeat, rather than for securing a victorious peace. Those other strategies are therefore unacceptable. Utterly unacceptable. And cowardly to boot.

Translation: Continue to ignore the reality that the policy we favored has seen tens of thousands of Americans maimed and killed, largely for the benefit of Moqtada al-Sadr; and support a "surge" that has no earthly chance of success. Continue to throw around words like "cowardly" to make ourselves sound tough and maybe people will fail to notice how consistently wrong wh have been and we will be able to keep our phony-baloney jobs.

Focus on Forclosure!

Another sign of the Great American Economy:

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• How to Negotiate & Buy Real Estate at Up to 50% Below Market Value
• How to Find Foreclosures First & Beat the Competition
• The Keys to Using Other People's Money & Where to Find It
• The 5 Steps of Foreclosure Investment Success
Whether you're looking for a way to generate extra income on a part-time basis, or just looking to find a home for yourself at a below market price, Focus on Foreclosure™ can help you turn your dreams into reality.

Your Financial Future Is About to Come into Focus!

Up, Up and Away!

What perfect timing. Only yesterday I was reading Joseph Pearce debunk the notion that a rising GNP shows that everything is great. "GNP is the total price . . . of all traded goods and services in a country during a year. Any economic activity that does not involve a monetary transaction is not included. On the other hand, any activity that involves the spending of money is included even if it has a detrimental effect in socioeconomic terms."

Today, I saw a column by Kevin McCullough arguing that we must be winning in Iraq -- their economic growth is through the roof!

The nation and economy known as the new Iraq is succeeding, and those who dispute this are simply lying.

Call it whatever you'd like - a quagmire, a country torn by violence, the next Vietnam, etc. - but it is dishonest to say is that this nation is not a success. Government corruption, uncontrolled militias, and (as the drive-by media likes to remind us) daily attacks using improvised exploding devices - but it is not an economy going under.

McCullough doesn't dwell on how much of the economy is devoted to providing security, selling burial plots, or procuring the weapons of war and terror. If somebody in Baghdad sells a stick of dynomite or a blasting cap, that adds to the Iraqi economy but will greatly detract from the wealth and well-being of Iraqis.

There is a class of people in the punditocracy who will never admit that the Iraq war was a failure of the Bush administration, the neocons and the broader political Right. They will attempt to blame the media, antiwar activists and Democrats (too many of whom shamefully went along with the war). I find it encouraging that many Townhall commentors don't buy McCullough's argument -- although Freepers, being willing to swallow any rightwing crap imaginable take a much more positive view of the article.

Small is Beautiful

The good folks at ISI Books sent me an early Christmas present today in the form of Small is Still Beautifulby Joseph Pearce. On January 8, 2007, I will be participating in a group blog, Small is Still Beautiful to discuss the book. Over the next couple of weeks -- in between downing egg nog and unwrapping collectable Malibu Stacy dolls -- I hope to be able to post some comments about the book. Right now, I will include a bit of Crunchy Cons author, Rod Dreher's cover blurb:

E.F. Schumacher shows where liberals and conservatives go wrong, and Joseph Pearce makes Schumacher relevant for a new generation -- one that despaerately needs to hear Schumacher's message. Pearce shows why "small is beautiful" is the only sane and humane response to our insane "supersize me" culture

Webb Derangement Syndrome . . .

My first reaction when I read something like this (Virginia Sen.-elect Jim Webb said President Bush is a 'failed president'. . ."), is to ask myself, "what will the freepers say?" They rarely dissapoint:

. . .

This Webb punk is way too hot and will make himself look like a major jackass, very soon . . .

"senator made clear his antipathy toward Bush"

Now, right here and now, let me make clear my antipathy of this dimwitted, boorish, immature and impudent demokaRat. . . .

I was at a party last weekend, and Webb's son came home from college. In the hallway, Webb called out, "Hey, son! How was school? Now come over here and let me suck on that d*&%!" He said it was a custom he picked up overseas. Freaky. . .

War For Elba

I was pleasantly surprised to see a review of Look Homeward America in the January issue of Reason, where Bill Kauffman was briefly employed in the 1980s. The review was written by John McClaughry, who is the subject of a chapter in Kauffman's America First! The review is mostly positive, but it takes a strange turn towards the end. McClaughry writes that "none of us can flee from the . . . menacing fact that in a cave in Pakistan, a coffeehouse in Cairo, a mosque in Riyadh . . . well armed and inventive villains really, really want to kill the peaceful people of Elba, New York."

I have read and heard much about the aggressive designs of Islam in the last few years and generally believe it to be true; but I have noticed that most of the actual aggressing -- the dispatching of invading armies and ships, planes and missiles have gone in the other direction. Osama bin Laden became a problem for the United States after we established bases in Saudi Arabia. The Bush administration's response to bin Laden's mass murder of Americans was to make a token effort to attack him in Afghanistan and then launch and invasion of Iraq. The crowd that supported that invasion is now calling for war against Iran. There are numerous justifications for our foreign policy -- spreading democracy, access to oil, enhancing the self-esteem of neocons -- protecting Elbans is not among them.

Miller/Dole in '08

This Jonah Goldberg column has to be experienced to be believed. It is the sort of thing I would have enjoyed reading in study hall -- complete with doodles of Goldberg's dream chopper. He mentions Airplane! and makes a War Games reference. He uses a phrase, "gormless popinjays", that should only be deployed by the most skilled of writers. All of this is to help him make the point that voters are tired of politicians with names like Gore, Clinton and Bush.

I especially enjoyed this little factoid:

The Republicans have the higher hurdle because Bush fatigue is more acute than Clinton fatigue these days -- owing to the simple fact that Bush is in office right now (though remember: there's been a Bush or a Dole on every Republican presidential ticket since 1976).

I'm not sure what he gains by including Bob Dole, who has done nothing to add to Bush fatigue. He could have just as easily -- and just as relevantly -- said that there's been a Bush or a Dole or a Nixon or a Miller on every Republican presidential ticket since 1952.

Failure is an Option

Scott McConnell surveys the wreckage of neoconservatism in the December 18 American Conservative and concludes: "The millionaires who fund AEI and the New York Sun will not abandon neoconservatism because Iraq didn't work out. The reports of the movement's demise are thus very much exaggerated. " I think he is right. In the world of politics and punditry, merely being completely wrong doesn't mean that you lose your positions of power and influence.

Dining With Bob

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: Jim Henley adds:

Just as Bush’s nicknaming hobby is a dominance game, so is his behavior with Webb from the very start. First, he butts in on a man who is trying to avoid him. Then he picks a guaranteed bone of contention as his “pleasantry.” Bush knows where Webb’s son is; Bush knows Webb wishes his son weren’t there. Bush also knows that Webb knows that Bush has total control of whether Webb’s son is in Iraq or not. As “commander-in-chief of the armed forces,” Bush is the younger Webb’s ultimate boss. Bush is taunting Webb here. He’s trumping him. No wonder Webb wanted to slug him.

More fallout from the Bush-Webb flap, this time from R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. of the American Spectator. Tyrrell compares Webb to such personality challenged Democrats as Howard Dean and John Kerry and remembers an unpleasant dinner with Webb some years back.

At any rate, I invited him to dinner for what turned out to be a gruesome evening. Webb is one of those people of whom it is said he is uncomfortable in his skin. At first I thought his discomfort might come from the fear he was going to have to pay his way. It was a classy eatery. I reassured him that he was my guest. I went on to make clear I considered him a fine writer. Nothing I said reassured him, not even my insistence that he have dessert. I left baffled. Most of the military men I have known are gents. Many writers are cads, but I thought a writer who had also served high up in the Reagan Administration might be civilized. After that dinner I never made the mistake of inviting him anywhere again.

There is no surer sign of a social outcast than not enjoying a fancy, expensive, free dinner with the witty and brilliant founding editor of the American Spectator; but then it's remotely possible that Webb got tired of constantly having to say, "why yes Bob, you are another H.L. Mencken."

UPDATE: Several American Spectator readers take exception to the magazine's recent lame attacks on James Webb. Here's part of a good one:

RET's account of his dining experience with Webb, albeit humorous, appears to be a major factor in his evaluation of the senator to be. But how many who question Webb's ability to handle properly his fork and knife (he is, after all, a graduate of the Naval Academy), or his excessive pugnacity, have ever met the man? Allow me to raise my hand.
. . .
During the luncheon held in the ambassador's residence, Webb spoke of the Soviet naval threat with precision and knowledge; his responses to all questions were carefully thought out and measured; in short he was in his element. If memory serves, he did not drool or talk with his mouth full of food either. But what followed I retain, twenty years after, as an indelibly etched memory: I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with him, and Webb, always a gentleman, allowed your scribe to question him, among other things, about his article, "Why Women Can't Fight," the plight of the military academies, as well as the state of the Cold War. He was nothing short of impressive, and quite comfortable in his own skin.

How's Your Boy?

Rightwingers sure are whiny these days. Their latest complaint is over an exchange between Senator-elect Webb and the President:

At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia's newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn't long before Bush found him.
"How's your boy?" Bush asked, referring to Webb's son, a Marine serving in Iraq.
"I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.
"That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?"
"That's between me and my boy, Mr. President," Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.

In a post labeled "Webb of Classlessness," Kathryn Lopez complains "It's bad enough it all happened -- but for Webb to continue it . . . A leader knows getting into a bitchfest with the president isn't the best way to start things off."

I'm not sure I can trust my judgment on this since I detest Bush and actually kind of like Webb, but the President seems to be the classless one here -- he tracks someone down who is avoiding him and then addresses him in an overly familiar manner ("how's your boy?"); and then responds condescendingly ( "That's not what I asked you," Bush said. "How's your boy?") when he doesn't like the first answer.

I would take a different view if Webb had sought out Bush for a confrontation, but he didn't. He told the Post, "I'm not particularly interested in having a picture of me and George W. Bush on my wall." I assume that the number of people who are is rapidly dwindling.

The War Against Peace Signs

This will confuse Bill O'Reilly. (via to Talk Left) A homeowners association in Loma Linda, California is threatening to fine a resident if she doesn't remove her Christmas wreath made in the shape of a peace symbol.

The Hillbilly "Christianists" Are Coming!

So was it our racial or religious bigotry? I'm referring to the recent election in Tennessee between Harold Ford, Jr. and Bob Corker. An Andrew Sullivan reader writes:

For those who believe Bob Corker won because of racism, rest assured he won on religious fundamentalism. Proof in point: last night in Chattanooga, TN (Bob Corker's hometown) NBC aired "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" instead of the Madonna concert. Our children and grandchildren learn to cut school, be cool, borrow Dad's Ferrari and tell a few harmless lies. But by the Grace of God, our community protects impressionable youth from that sexual and religious deviant Madonna. Our children will know only the true Virgin Madonna not the "Like-A-Virgin" Madonna.

Maybe I have breathed in too much smoke from cross burnings or have been bitten at too many snake handling services, but I hadn't previously considered how the post-election decision of one Tennessee network affiliate to preempt a Madonna concert for such "Christianist" propaganda as Ferris Bueller's Day off would have on the election in Tennessee two weeks earlier. But Sullivan and his correspondent should consider other possibilities -- Maybe potential Ford Supporters were out marrying their cousins on election day, or were too busy tending their stills -- there are a lot of potential reasons.

Sullivan and his correspondent should consider the nature of politics in the Volunteer State. This is the state that sent Howard Baker to the Senate. In the primary this year, the least favorite candidate of social conservatives was Bob Corker. They preferred Ed Bryant, who has now lost two Republican senate primaries in a row in Tennessee. The other big election in Tennessee was for governor. We reelected Phil Bredesen, the son of a Tennessee dirt farmer who became a Pentecostal preacher. No wait, Bredesen is actually a New Jersey born, Harvard educated health care executive who was overwhelmingly reelected this year -- he carried every county.

The List

Christopher Hitchens says that James Baker is the last person we should listen to about Iraq. Actually, there are a few people who should be on the list ahead of Baker, such as Hitchens himself; Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. Don't forget the guys at National Review and the Weekly Standard. The list could go on and on.

Question of the Day

Why would anyone take a cruise? Ever. Under any circumstances:

The Carnival Cruise Lines' Liberty arrived in Fort Lauderdale Sunday with hundreds of passengers and crew still weak from an intestinal virus which swept through the ship.

The cruise company reported 534 passengers and 142 crew were treated in the ship's infirmary with illness symptoms over the course of the 16-day voyage from Rome to South Florida's Port Everglades.

At the end of the cruise, there were 14 passengers and 5 crew still exhibiting symptoms and in isolation.

"It was a horrible cruise," said Eddie Amico of West Palm Beach as he disembarked.

Brief Encounters

Scott McConnell writes of an interesting encounter with Jim Webb in the latest issue of The American Conservative:

My own Webb bandwagon moment occurred in Late September at a fundraiser in Northern Virginia. The Candidate arrived, slightly late, while a suburbanite audience awaited the chance to shake his hand, size him up. He worked the room for a few minutes, our host introduced him to me, and he stopped for several minutes to converse about a Paul Schroeder essay that had appeared in TAC. This was thrilling, of course, and it's impossible to imagine any other major-party candidate (even among the coterie of TAC readers in the House GOP) who would have behaved the same way.

Actually, I had a similar experience with Congressman Duncan, of Tennessee's 2nd district. The big difference being that Duncan wasn't on the ballot at the time, and even if he does he usually wins with about 80% of the vote.

Free Market Baloney

I saw a couple of pieces touching on problems with the "Free Market" today. Michael at 2Blowhards notes the role that mostly hidden subsidies play in the exurban/bigbox/fastfood/ lifestyle. "For one thing, the already-existing real-estate and housing industries have been complicit with the government for decades. Should the New Urbers be kept from the trough that their competitors are pigging out on? Besides, what most feet-on-the-ground New Urbers are spending their time doing is trying to get locales to loosen up already-existing top-down regulations that make it impossible for New Urbanist developments to be created."

Meanwhile, Senator-elect, James Webb (in the Wall Street Journal, of all places) notes the role of corporate boards in escalating executive pay. "Incestuous corporate boards regularly approve compensation packages for chief executives and others that are out of logic's range. As this newspaper has reported, the average CEO of a sizeable corporation makes more than $10 million a year . . ."

Back in the glory days of Reactionary Radicals, I quoted Wendell Berry on the elephant in the room in terms of government intervention in the economy -- limited liability:

You would find that these organizations are organized expressly for the evasion of responsibility. They are structures in which, as my brother says, "the buck never stops." The buck is processed up the hierarchy until finally it is passed to "the shareholders," who characteristically are too widely dispersed, too poorly informed, and too unconcerned to be responsible for anything.

This intervention becomes more important the less it is mentioned. Shareholders are free to sell their stock if they decide that the board is overpaying the CEO, but the diffuse, transitory and anonymous nature stock ownership makes that an unlikely check on the behavior of boards and executives.

Oh Yeah!

While scrolling through a comment thread at the Contra-Crunchy site, I found several excellent comments from my spiritual leader, "Bubba." Such as, "is it wrong to suspect that Rod thinks Iraq's a disaster because he wants it to be a disaster?" An excellent analyis on Bubba's part explaining why Rod Dreher, and Rod Dreher alone, seems to believe that the Iraq war hasn't gone well. It has nothing to do with the ethnic and religious violence that continues to tear the country apart, just Rod's wishes.

Bubba pegs "truly reactionary paleos" as well. "If they actively desire a failure in American foreign policy because such failure would vindicate their ideology, it can't be said that they're truly patriotic." That would be a real stinger if ideology wasn't antithetical to the tendency called "paleoconservatism."

He also adds, "And am I the only one who finds it funny that both Rod and Stooksbury are invoking children's books and movies to express their truly childish glee?" To which I can only reply, eat my shorts.

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

For some reason, my thoughts keep returning to the Wicked Witch of the West:

You cursed brat!
Look what you've done!! I'm melting, melting.
Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world.
Who would have thought that some little girl like you could destroy my beautiful wickedness.

Suspicious TIming

Since the Liberal MSM/Drive-by-Media/Jihad Media won't mention it, I will: this election was suspiciously timed to occur when George W. Bush's credibility was swirling down the drain.

Republicans? We Hardly know those Guys

Expect a lot of commentary along the lines of these from Philip Klein and Michelle Malkin. Conservatism didn't lose, they argue, Republicans did. Klein thinks that the GOP should try "returning to their small government roots and once again becoming the party of ideas." Which would work except for the fact that there is no constituency for their "small government roots."

Malkin argues that,

The GOP lost. Conservatism prevailed. "San Francisco values" may control the gavels in Congress, but they do not control America. Property rights initiatives limiting eminent domain won big. MCRI, the anti-racial preference measure, passed resoundingly. . . Gay marriage bans won approval in 3 states. . .

John Kerry's late-campaign troop smear galvanized bloggers and talk radio hosts, but it was not strong enough to overcome wider bipartisan voter doubts about Iraq. I'll weigh in further on the war and the GOP in the morning.

I wonder if in thirty years she will be arguing that conservatives prevailed because initiatives passed outlawing the "man on dog" sex that Rick Santorum so feared. That most Americans still oppose gay marriage hardly says that conservatives are winning. Note how she attributes the loss to "wider bipartisan voter doubts about Iraq" as if invading Iraq wasn't central the central issue for the Right in the last few years.