June 2002 Archives

Vouchers are in. John Fund and Dean Esmay (among lots of others) are cracking open the champagne, and rightfully so. They, and their cohorts, have worked long and hard for this day. It was a lonely, uphill battle against the Dark Side. Ok, so that last part was a bit of an exaggeration. Actually, I'm not interested so much in revisiting the merits of the case; I don't care much about the dissenting opinion of the losers, er, minority Justices. It's history. Nor do I care much for examining the majority opinion. All of that is a look backward in time; let's look forward now and see if there might not be a set of unintended consequences here. For example.... Jonathan Rauch wrote an interesting article in the National Journal about 18 months ago, right after the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the Cleveland voucher case. Now that the Supremes just reversed that decision, Rauch's words are worth re-visiting. They were interesting then and they are just as interesting now, perhaps more so:

In almost every sphere of life, liberals have championed the notion that competition is good for consumers. Education can't hold out against this notion forever.

That's the part that got me thinking. He goes on:

My guess is that not long after vouchers established themselves, they would be as controversial among liberals as food stamps, student aid, and housing vouchers are today.

Hee hee! It gets better:

My further guess is that, after a shakedown, public schools would compete vigorously and successfully with private schools, just as public universities do. Tomorrow's liberals would wonder what today's liberals were so worked up about.

Stranger things have happened. Slate's William Saletan makes pretty much the same point. But let's not get distracted. Rauch was on a roll:

If you happen to be a New Democrat, say, or some other variety of government-friendly pragmatist, vouchers are a great idea. Increased competition in the education sector as a whole will delight you, and the increased regulation of private schools won't bother you much. The Right's unalloyed enthusiasm for vouchers is a bit harder to justify. Conservatives want to get the state out of public education; they may succeed at getting the state into private education. Twenty years from now, they may be slapping their foreheads and saying, "What were we thinking when we crusaded to hook private schools on public money?" And the teachers unions, which by then may have extended many of today's anticompetitive public school rules to the private realm, may be saying, "Boy, were we ever lucky we lost that fight. Now all schools are public."

Is this so far-fetched? Somewhere out there is a New Democrat itching to run for President. This (so far hypothetical) candidate understands how to be more pro-voucher than the conservatives. After all, the Dems' historic constituency is the same voter "block" that is said to benefit the most from vouchers. Remember what we said about Dems being the War Party? This is the same thing. Tell me what you think. I look forward to your comments.

By now, you have probably seen and/or heard about the snapshot the Israeli Defense Forces found. It shows a baby dressed up as a suicide bomber. Originally, the PA scoffed at it, saying it could easily be a forgery. Never mind that -- there are plenty of other pictures that are obviously for real. Then the family themselves said it was meant to be a joke. A joke? This picture (right) is a joke. That other picture is not a joke. The other thing it brings to mind is a letter from Scott Miller published in the Wall Street Journal:

I want to buy your children. As I understand it, you have seven children still alive (your son Mahmoud killed himself, I'm sorry to hear). I'll offer more than Saddam Hussein has offered; he'll pay $25,000 each, if they are willing to turn themselves into human bombs, but I'll pay $30,000 each. I want to buy them away from the god of death you worship. Perhaps I can help them convert to traditional Islam, a religion that abhors murder and suicide. Maybe they'll wish to become Christian or Jewish or Buddhist or atheist. That will be their choice, if I can raise them as Americans. If you sell your children to Hussein, instead of me, they are guaranteed to die young, to die blown to bits, to die while perhaps killing innocent women and children. I can't guarantee them immortality (neither can that god of death you worship, I can assure you), but I can guarantee to try to keep them safe and allow them to live long, healthy and productive lives. That's our dream in America.

NBC Meet the Press anchor Tim Russert’s gift for saying, in effect, “With all due respect, Senator, you’re a lying bastard. Bowling next Tuesday?” — and not any physical resemblance, which is slight at best — is why so many Americans compare his role in our national life to that of Britain’s late queen mother. -----Michael Kinsley Slate Magazine

When I heard that the 9th Circuit Court had ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, I was sure that the report was wrong. I was listening to a talk show that is hosted by a famous conservative. (Ok, it was Rush Limbaugh.) I was sure that Rush was short-handing it in order to milk it for all it was worth. You know, drag the dead lifeless body of the Dukakis campaign out of the grave and trash it some more. It must be a slow news day. But it turned out to be an accurate report. I was stunned. Will they be hauling our kids out of school and marching them single file, in leg-irons, down to the county jail? What about the money? Dick Armey, not one of my favorite Congressman, managed to hit the nail on the head when he asked if the judges would be returning all the money they received from the taxpayers that bore the inscription, "In God We Trust." I read the majority opinion; the judge who wrote it said that the phrase "Under God" was tantamount to saying "Under Zeus" or "Under Vishnu" or .... whatever. I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole. What planet was this, anyway? I read an interview with the man who brought the suit in the first place. I think I understand where he is coming from: in a land of multiple cultures and beliefs, is it not exclusionary (to say the least) that public institutions should promote the open profession of belief in a system that does not include you? But that doesn't go the heart of the matter: the court said the entire pledge was unconstitutional. In other words, it doesn't matter what we are pledging, we aren't allowed to pledge anything at all. This seems to be multiplying folly upon folly. I did some research. I found an article by Dr. John Baer, wherein he quotes Francis Bellamy, who wrote the pledge in 1892:

It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution...with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of the people... The true reason for allegiance to the Flag is the 'republic for which it stands.' ...And what does that vast thing, the Republic mean? It is the concise political word for the Nation - the One Nation which the Civil War was fought to prove. To make that One Nation idea clear, we must specify that it is indivisible, as Webster and Lincoln used to repeat in their great speeches...

So originally the pledge was meant to be a unifying force, a way to bind the many people of this nation together. After all, is not another of our slogans "E Pluribus Unum" or "Out of Many, One?" By the way, this would be a good time to remember that the pledge has evolved over time; it existed for over 50 years before the Knights of Columbus lobbied Congress to include the words "Under God" in the pledge. According to Dr. Baer, Bellamy's granddaughter said Bellamy would have resented this change. Bellamy, a Baptist minister and a Christian Socialist to boot, had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida, he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there. In any case the pledge has survived for over a century. Why is that? Vic Hanson has an observation that builds on Bellamy's original idea:

The United States is different from any country in the world — in that it has no common or official race or religion, or much of anything other that shared ideals to keep as a single united populace. It would be hard for a Mexican or Swede to be accepted as a naturalized Chinese citizen; by the same token, few Christians could find solace in Saudi Arabia. Even Europe is having great difficulty with the multiracialism that we take for granted in the United States....

So it really is exactly opposite from what the Circuit Court implies in its ruling: the pledge is meant to be a unifying force, not a divisive one.

The sanctioning of our oath under God is not merely an assertion of religious belief, but an appeal for divine blessing of this rather strange and mysterious "new order of the ages." In small, symbolic, and easily caricatured ways — our national anthem, our coinage, civic prayers, and the Pledge — our nation struggles to remind our citizens that there are more spiritual ties that bind us than natural affinities that divide us.

Clearly the argument can be made that a public school is not the place to be teaching about God; that should be left to our religious institutions and our private homes and private schools. I can't get too agitated about that, though. The problem it presents is not that great, as far as I'm concerned. Or as Hanson puts it:

Few abroad consider the danger to America arises from religious fundamentalism, excessive indoctrination, or cultural regimentation. No, the slur against us Americans is that we are at times self-indulgent, unwilling to express any notion of transcendence, and apt to put the well-being or even the whims of a tiny few above the general interest of the society at large.

I believe this to be an accurate observation because it cuts across all political parties: there are just as many self-absorbed Republicans as there are Democrats and Independents. Furthermore, it reminds me that Socrates said that a society is eventually destroyed by an excess of its best quality. Our best quality is our devotion to individual liberty. Perhaps we need to be reminded that there is something bigger than our individual selves, or even bigger than our nation. So, this week, remember the pledge. On July 4th, try to remember what it is saying to you. Maybe there is more there than you thought.

Too much religion is worse than none at all. -----Benjamin Franklin

In light of the threat from so-called Islamist terrorism, Franklin's words are as relevant today as they were 275 years ago. Let's also remember Franklin as the original scientific thinker that he was. Legend has it that 250 years ago this month, Benjamin Franklin sailed a kite and a key into a stormy Philadelphia sky and made a shocking discovery: Lightning was a form of electricity. Some historians point out that a French scientist was the first to conduct the experiment, but admit that it was based on a suggestion from Franklin. Whatever the story, it is hard to overestimate the character and genius of Benjamin Franklin. He was an inventor, a scientist, a writer and a political strategist of the highest order; his charisma was legendary. He was a towering figure in American history.

Tom Curry of MSNBC.com writes:

Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, a contender for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, let loose a blistering critique of President Bush’s Middle East policy Sunday, saying the president had made “a catastrophic mistake” by not building on President Clinton’s Camp David negotiations and by sending confusing signals to Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

If this is the best the Democrats can come up with, then Bush really has been lucky in the choice of his opponents. The timing of Kerry's statement was unfortunate for him; Bush's call for democracy and freedom in the Palestinian territories swept Kerry off the map. What's worse, though, was Kerry's followup statement:

There is no fundamental plan, and they have restrained the State Department and Colin Powell from effectively being the State Department and being the Secretary of State. I think they’ve got to announce a vision. They’ve got to put something on the table and take advantage of this new dynamic that exists in the Arab world.

My feeling is that Colin Powell's vision is a non-starter. It is predicated on the failed idea that you can trust Arafat. The American people can see through that. Kerry should see through that too.

Associated Press is reporting that CNN has lost its way, and knows it:

CNN erred in giving more programming time to the family of a Palestinian suicide bomber than to his Israeli victims and tried to rectify the mistake, the network's top news executive said Sunday during a damage-control visit to Israel. CNN's coverage of recent suicide bombings has provoked anger in Israel and led a local cable company to start carrying CNN's chief U.S. competitor, Fox News Channel. Fox said it expects others to follow suit. Recent comments from CNN founder Ted Turner describing both Israel and the Palestinians as terrorists have fueled Israeli anger.

This reminds me of NPR's idea of "balanced coverage" of Mideast affairs: Interview an Arab who hates Ariel Sharon and then, for equal time, interview an Israeli who hates Ariel Sharon.

The Army Corps of Engineers' dumping of toxic sludge into the Potomac River protects fish by forcing them to flee the polluted area and escape fishermen, according to an internal Environmental Protection Agency document.

...and carbon monoxide protects city-dwellers by forcing them to move to the suburbs.

Ever wonder why the Palestinian homicide bombers strike just as a political solution in their favor is in the offing? The current wave of bombings began in December, 2001, when 26 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in a pair of bombings just as U.S. envoy Anthony Zinni was beginning his first push for peace talks. In March, 2002, less than 48 hours after President Bush announced that he would send Zinni back to the Middle East, Hamas killed another 11 Israelis and injured 54 in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem. On March 27, just as U.S. officials were boasting of an imminent cease-fire agreement, a Hamas bomber massacred 28 more Israelis in Netanya. Remember just a few weeks ago when PM Sharon was in the Oval Office with the President when another homicide bomber struck in Israel? And on and on ... Conventional wisdom says that Hamas et. al. do not want a political solution: they do not want the peace process to proceed and/or suceed. So, the thinking goes, shouldn't Pres. Bush push forward even harder to negotiate with Arafat to make it happen against their wishes? The answer is no. Because Hamas' (and Arafat's) plan is to destroy Israel. And it believes it can do that whether or not the peace process is successful. Here's how it works: 1) Every morning when they wake up, the terrorists' plan is to destroy the fabric of life in Israel. By bombing buses or discos and pizzerias, the homicide bombers and their sponsors hope to succeed in demoralizing the Israelis. They want to eventually drive everyone away from Israel. With this simple but brutal plan, Arafat and his terrorist cohorts hope to achieve the eventual destruction of Israel. It's a long shot. But they have a back-up plan... 2) The alternate plan envisions the driving of a wedge between the US and Israel. By stepping up the frequency of the murderous terror attacks, Hamas et. al. believes they can force the notoriously fickle US government to cry uncle and restrain the Israeli government. So far it has worked: Sec. Powell is in control of US foreign policy and the Bush administration views the violence in the Mideast, not as a front in the war on terror, but as Sharon's vendetta against Arafat. Powell sees the two of them as a couple of barroom drunks thrashing at each other in the alley outside. Powell believes it is up to him to open a can of whup-ass on both of them. As if! So, in order to bring peace in our time, Powell stubbornly advocates the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state, sooner rather than later. Make no mistake: the idea of a Palestinian state is inevitable. But timing is everything. To establish such a state now, ruled as it would be by terrorist thugs, would only send a clear signal that terror has its rewards. If you doubt any of what I've said, recall the events since the Oslo accords of 1993. Under the Oslo accords, Arafat was resucitated. His moribund terrorist infrastructure was given another chance. Arafat got the PA. He got lots of guns and money. He got political support from the entire world. He gained unprecedented entry to the White House. He even got the Nobel Prize. Terror has its rewards. His response? To continue his life of terror. To continue his unyielding drive toward the destruction of Israel. Back in 1993, Rabin/Peres gambled that Arafat could be the agent to quell the violence, to be the buffer between the Israeli Defense Forces and the terrorist underground. At the time, the wisdom of that gamble was debatable, but they rolled the dice. It came up snake-eyes. And knowing what we know now, the world would be foolish to repeat the mistake. To believe that we should negotiate with Arafat, again, in order to resist the destructive impulses of Hamas, well, that is proven folly. Because Arafat and Hamas want the same thing, whether it is now or later: they want the destruction of Israel.

Public opinion is everything. Without it, nothing can succeed. With it, nothing can fail...The first task of statesmanship is not legislation but the molding of that opinion from which all legislation flows. ---Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln wrote these words nearly 150 years ago, long before the news media, as we know it, became an entertainment medium, long before the practice of "push-polling" became prevalent. That said, much of Lincoln's point remains valid. And those who dismiss the reliance on polling should think twice about their own biases. Lee Bockhorn writes in the Wall Street Journal saying this:

...our reliance on polling has truncated the deliberative process of republican government. Constant polling rewards "messages" that appeal to voters' emotions rather than their reason...

As if! First of all, I think it unwise to focus on intellect versus emotion when appealing to voters; this is a false choice. All successful politicians will tell you this. In fact, when you have two candidates running against each other and one is the candidate of emotion (Clinton, Bush 43) and the other is the candidate of logic and reason (Dole and Gore) we know who wins. Polling is neither good nor bad any more than a hammer or a stapler is good or bad; they are tools to be used to get the job done. Use them properly and you will gain an advantage. Although Bockhorn chooses to discount polling per se, he does ask a good question:

Where should our leaders look for wisdom? Whom should they seek to please?...Statesmen like Churchill and Lincoln are teachers who remind their fellow citizens of first principles, not misty visions. They serve not by giving us merely what we want but persuading us to want the right things--to think of the public interest, rightly understood.

The right things. Easier said than done. The latest example of this difficulty is George W. Bush's recent effort to become the President of Iowa.

Mark Levin writes in the National Review about the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, the event that is popularly known to have led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

You'd have to be living in a cave in Afghanistan to have missed all the media hype and hyperbole [about Watergate] of the last few days. And, of course, Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein, and Ben Bradlee are reminding us that Richard Nixon was the most contemptible man to ever serve as president.

Well, no. I don't recall that being their message. Clearly, Nixon was a complex man of enormous intellect, skills and ambition; unfortunately he was also a hugely cynical and bitter man. The net result was that he engaged in a series high crimes and misdemeanors that rightfully forced him from office.

There's a minor brouhaha about White House Chief of Staff Andy Card spilling his guts to Esquire magazine:

"The whole balance of the place, the balance of what has worked up until now for George Bush is gone, simply gone," Card was quoted as saying. "My biggest concern? That the president will lose confidence in the White House staff because, without [Karen Hughes], we'll no longer be able to provide the president with what he needs, what he demands."

The really shocking thing is not what he said; the thing is that he talked to Esquire at all. What's up with that? Leo McGarry would never have done that.

Finally someone in the PA who can see straight. In an interview with CNN, Saeb Erakat says this:

I don't think that [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon cares if we are ruled by the Boy Scouts or Attila the Hun. And I think the only meaning of Sharon when he speaks about reform is to get rid of the elected Palestinian president, President Arafat.

No sh-t, Sherlock. ...and by the way, Stalin and Hitler were elected, too. And Hitler actually had an opponent!

If you had any lingering doubts that the world has just absolutely gone to hell, then you'll want to know that the Queen (of England!) is going to bestow knighthood on Her Satanic Majesty, Mick Jagger. I knew if I lived long enough, I'd eventually see everything.