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So, if your liberal friends or acquintances tell you how great Obama has been, how he's pulled us out of the recession, just remember that, under Obama, the recession was deeper than it would have been and the recovery has been slower than it would have been had he done nothing whatsoever.   He's been a drag, in more ways than one.  

An Unbelievable Jerk (Bill Maher)

Bill Maher, the execrable and unwatchable liberal "comedian" on HBO, had the audacity to say this about Rick Santorum and his wife's decision to home-school their seven children:




I've occasionally commented to friends with kids that people who don't have kids are basically children... you can work with them and you can talk with them about many things, but at some point you realize that they simply don't have the depth of character that raising children brings.   They haven't taken the risk, they haven't had to make the daily decisions, they haven't had to risk decades of complete commitment, they haven't invested their souls in how their kids turn out; they haven't cried the tears or laughed the laughs or felt what it means to be utterly devoted to someone other than themselves.

Which leads me to this:   guess how many kids Bill Maher has?

That's right.   Zero.   Never been married.   A fifty-six year old "man."   His last long-term girlfriend sued him when they broke up.  

Is it any wonder that a man like Rick Santorum, who's raised seven beautiful children with his wife, utterly baffles someone like Maher?

***

Let me also say, as a parent, that one rule I've always lived by is... you don't criticize someone else's parenting and you don't criticize someone else's children.   Now, don't get me wrong... I've run into plenty of people who feel free to criticize other people's children; who run to the principal to criticize other people's children; who, so convinced of their own children's perfections, have no charity for other children's imperfections.   They give me the creeps.   Once in dealing with someone who came into school to criticize the Regular Son, I commented (in a loud voice) to our little nun principal that she could live to be a thousand and she would never have me in her office complaining about someone else's child.    I'm not quite sure she took the point, but that doesn't mean it isn't still valid.   You don't criticize someone else's children.   You don't criticize the decisions someone else makes with their children.   That's code.   It just isn't done.   A gentleman would know that.  

Maher isn't one.  

An Essential Point

If the federal government can mandate that Catholic institutions provide free contraception as part of their health insurance plans, what can't the federal government mandate?   Allysia Finley, writing in the WSJ, makes an essential point through the time-honored rhetorical move of reductio ad absurdum:

Studies show that coffee can ward off depression, Alzheimer's disease, type 2 diabetes and sleepiness—which makes it one of the most powerful preventive treatments. Workers who drink java are also more productive and pleasant. While many offices have coffee makers, some employers—most notably those affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—continue to deny workers this essential benefit. All employers should have to provide workers with freshly brewed coffee. Oh, and workers must also be able to choose the kind of coffee regardless of the price.

Republicans might argue that requiring Mormon charities to serve coffee is a violation of "religious liberty" since the Mormon church's doctrine proscribes coffee, but this argument is a red herring. Leading medical experts recommend drinking coffee. Moreover, 99% of adults have drunk coffee at one point in their lives (including most Mormons).

She goes on to discuss why employers could theoretically be mandated to provide employees with gym memberships, massages, yoga classes, and salad bars.   Now, a lot of employers already do these things.  (For instance, the Regular Guy's law firm makes available massage therapists and yoga classes for the staff, and subsidizes their gym memberships, all in the name of cutting health costs in the long-term.   We also provide free coffee.)   But the point is:  the federal government ought not be in the business of requiring them to do these things.  

Santorum Campaign Memo

Rick Santorum's campaign has released this memo, which details how he can win going forward.   The essential theme mirrors what the Regular Guy said a few days ago here, about how Santorum can build momentum in friendly states over the next few weeks.  

I can't help thinking that both of us are engaging in wishful thinking.   We'll see.  

Two Stories, One Story III

Once again, our new feature on The Regular Guy Believes takes two stories that might seem different on the surface, and drills down to find the same moral of the story underneath both.  

The first story looks at Khairat el-Shater, the head of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is set to install itself as the leading political power in the post-Mubarek Egypt:

With firm control of Egypt’s Parliament, the Brotherhood’s political arm is holding talks to form the next cabinet while Mr. Shater is grooming about 500 future officials to form a government-in-waiting.

As the group’s chief policy architect, Mr. Shater is overseeing the blueprint for the new Egypt, negotiating with its current military rulers over their future role, shaping its relations with Israel and a domestic Christian minority, and devising the economic policies the Brotherhood hopes will revive Egypt’s moribund economy.

With power he could only dream of when he padded around Mr. Mubarak’s prisons in a white track suit, Mr. Shater meets foreign ambassadors, the executives of multinational corporations and Wall Street firms, and a parade of United States senators and other officials to explain the Brotherhood’s vision. To the Brotherhood, he tells them, Islam requires democracy, free markets and tolerance of religious minorities.

But he also says that recent elections have proved that Egyptians demand an explicitly Islamic state. And he is guiding its creation from a position that his critics say may undercut his avowed commitment to open democracy: he sits atop a secretive and hierarchical organization, shaped by decades of working underground, that still asks its members — including those in Parliament — to swear obedience to the directions of its leaders, whether in the group’s religious, charitable or political work.

“The Islamic reference point regulates life in its entirety, politically, economically and socially; we don’t have this separation” between religion and government, Mr. Shater said in a lengthy interview.

Egypt will be lost to the West for a hundred years.

The second story deals with the reasons behind the rising gas prices in America, and the Obama Administration's role:

North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple gave the GOP weekly radio address Saturday, and in it he stated bluntly that the Obama administration is "killing energy development" in the country.

Dalrymple was talking specifically about the president's war against the Keystone XL pipeline but the point is true across the country, from the new deposits in the old Rust Belt, south to the Gulf Coast and north to the Canadian border.

The Keystone XL pipeline "would carry oil sands crude from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the Gulf Coast, which would not only benefit North Dakota but the rest of the country," Dalrymple argued, adding "it's the common sense thing to do."

Commons sense has never been the long suit of the anti-carbon environmentalist absolutists, many of whom now occupy key positions in the Obama administration, including in the Oval Office. It is a theology of sorts: that new carbon-based energy development simply delays the dawn of the Solyndra-led golden age of green energy.

That theology is holding back the creation of hundreds of thousands of jobs directly connected to the production of energy, and millions more that will flow from the reinvigorated economies adjacent to the deposits.

We've lost thirty years of energy development to the loony lefties of the 1960s environmental movement.   What would our economic growth trajectory be if we has spent the last thirty years building new, clean coal plans, building new, safe nuclear power plants, drilling on the North Slope of Alaska, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, building new refineries, building new pipelines, exploring and developing new oil and natural gas fields?   What would our deficit look like if we had all that growth and the revenue flowing into the treasury?   What would a generation of poor urban males (read:  young black men) look like if there had been good manufacturing jobs that would flow from cheap energy and the requirements of industry to produce it?   What would the politics of the Middle East look like if we were energy independent?   The mind reels; only the heartless don't weep for their country.   What fools we've been.

Anyway, the thread that binds these two stories together is the Obama Administration's fealty to idealistic abstractions and naive narratives no matter what the cost to America's interests.   In Egypt it was naive "hope and dreams" for a media-created myth of an Arab Spring in which young Islamists would somehow, against all evidence, choose democracy and freedom over sharia.    In America it was naive environmentalism (coupled with corrupt crony capitalism), in which green energy would somehow overnight replace an economy based on oil, natural gas and coal.   In Egypt, the cost is a more dangerous Middle East, with a huge Islamist state on the Western border of our ally, Israel.   In America, the cost is not having Keystone, not getting oil from oil shale in North Dakota, not fracking, not building new refineries and pipelines, not building new clean coal plants, not building new clean and safe nuclear plants.  

We are poorer because of Obama's energy policies; we are more endangered because of Obama's foreign policy.   He's got to go.

Horror in Afghanistan

This story could not be worse for American interests in Afghanistan, which are already in very dire straits:

The Taliban is vowing revenge against the U.S. after an American soldier allegedly shot and killed 16 Afghan civilians in a Sunday rampage. 

In a statement on their website, the militant group promised to "take revenge from the invaders and the savage murderers for every single martyr." 

They added "American savages" committed the "blood-soaked and inhumane crime."

"If the perpetrators of this massacre were in fact mentally ill then this testifies to yet another moral transgression by the American military because they are arming lunatics in Afghanistan who turn their weapons against the defenseless Afghans without giving a second thought," the statement said.

Afghan officials reported nine of the 16 victims were children and three were women. They said some of the bodies were also found to be charred. 

Unfortunately, this might put a period to the story of America's post 9/11 involvement in Afghanistan, like the image of the helicopters taking off from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon put a period to the story of Vietnam.   It's hard to imagine how this story can be spun to have a happy ending.   We've come a long way from the heroism depicted in the book Horse Soldiers about the Special Forces warriors who went into Afghanistan weeks after 9/11 and took down the Taliban. 

***

By the way, this is on President Obama's watch, just as the atrocities at Abu Ghraib were on President Bush's watch.   Liberal commentators made the abuse at Abu Ghraib into a symbol of Bush's presidency.   Will they hold Obama to the same standard?   I doubt it.  Will conservatives try to return the favor?   I hope not.   Nor should they.   Presidents are responsible for much, but they aren't responsibly for everything, and they aren't responsible when a lunatic decides to murder innocent civilians.   The American military remains the most professional in the history of the world in terms of respect for civilian lives.    But human nature is what it is, and the capacity for some men to snap and do unspeakable violence is always there.

Here is what Obama said about Afghanistan only last summer in announcing the phased withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan:

Girl of the Day - Liza Minnelli

Absolutely not my type... actually a fairly odd and mousy-looking woman.   But her performance in Cabaret is probably the single greatest performance by an actress in a musical.... weirdly the only one in the same league is probably the performance by her mother, Judy Garland, in Wizard of Oz.   (Maybe Julie Andrews in Sound of Music?)   Which just goes to show you that looks aren't everything and soul will out.  

Anyway, Liza turns 66 today.   Here's a showstopper, among many, from Cabaret, performed in concert by a much older, but still great, Liza:

Oh, and by the way, while we were talking about rubbers...

The federal deficit last month set a new record, as it increased by $229 billion.   That's after January's monthly budget deficit of a measly $223 million.   So the Obama Administration managed to spend in the first two months of this year only about $452 billion more than they took in.   On an annualized basis, hmmm, let's see, multiply by six, carry the one....

So I guess while this ship goes down, we might as well rearrange the deck chairs and pass out the birth control pills.

Self-Taught Art

Now, I would generally be wary of "academic" art, particularly academic modern art, because I've always thought that the more intellectual apparatus one needs to interpret a work of art -- the more you need a layer of jargon between the viewer and the work itself -- the less it's real art, and the more it becomes an elitist language game.   I feel the same way about academic literary criticism and, for that matter, academicized literature... the type of self-referential, unlived drivel you get from the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Having said that, learning your craft is different.   The Regular Wife, the Regular Son and I went this afternoon (I was playing hooky, the RS was off school) to the Milwaukee Art Museum to see an exhibit of "self-taught" artists.   The works were generally interesting, but in a somewhat clinical way.   The best of them were obsessive-compulsive doodlings that showed a great deal of vision, but in a way that made me think that the artists were possibly mad.   Indeed, some of them were.   Here's an example by Scottie Wilson:

I see talent here, but it seems talent at the service of obscurity, not at the service of speaking to an intelligent human audience.   I don't see someone who has learned his craft in an adult way, but rather a rather childish, private exercise.  

Anyway, we left that exhibit and walked down the hall to the permanent collection for a refresher in what great art actually can be:

Girl of the Day - Feels Like It's Almost Springtime

Just because.

Initial Take on Wrecking Ball

Well, the Regular Son and I listened to Wrecking Ball last night, and I have to say that Bruce did all right for an old guy.   There are at least a few songs that I think are worthy efforts, including the title tune, the opening tune of the record, "We Take Care of Our Own," "Land of Hope and Dreams," "Shackled and Drawn," and "Rocky Ground."

"Rocky Ground" includes a rap, which the Regular Son did not like, but which I actually liked a lot, because it seemed to work musically in the context of the song, and I liked the girl rapper's voice:



Besides, the way Bruce sings nowadays, he might as well do spoken word records.  :)

Two Stories, One Story II

Here are two more stories that tell one complete story.

The first is this story about Obama's lobbying efforts to kill the Keystone XL oil pipeline, that would create thousands of good American jobs and increase our energy supply with oil from a friendly nation, Canada:

President Barack Obama is intervening in a Senate fight over the Keystone XL oil pipeline and personally lobbying Democrats to reject an amendment calling for its construction, according to several sources familiar with the talks.

The White House lobbying effort, including phone calls from the president to Democrats, signals that the vote could be close when it heads to the floor Thursday. The president is trying to defeat an amendment that would give election-year fodder to his Republican critics who have accused him of blocking a job-creating energy project at a time of high gas prices.

The second is this story about Obama's meeting with Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, in which Obama apparently offered Netanyahu what amounts to a bribe to push Israel's possible attack against Iran's nuclear facilities past the November elections:

 

The US offered to give Israel advanced weaponry -- including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes -- in exchange for Israel's agreement not to attack Iranian nuclear sites, Israeli newspaper Maariv reported Thursday.

President Obama reportedly made the offer during Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington this week.

Under the proposed deal, Israel would not attack Iran until 2013, after US elections in November this year. The newspaper cited unnamed Western diplomatic and intelligence sources.

Netanyahu said Monday that sanctions against Iran had not worked, adding that "none of us can afford to wait much longer" in taking action against Iran's controversial nuclear program.

What's the unifying narrative?   Everything is about Obama's re-election.   Jobs don't matter.   Energy independence doesn't matter.   The existential security of a beleaguered ally, Israel, doesn't matter.   The nuclear ambitions of our sworn enemy, Iran, don't matter.   Nothing matters except giving this guy four more years to transform America into a quasi-socialist, crony-capitalist, racially-divided shell of its former greatness.  

Two Stories, One Story

These two stories tell one complete story.  

The first story is simply that Stephen Chu, the Energy Secretary, and former Cal-Berkeley physics professor, does not own a car!



When GHW Bush didn't recognize a grocery price scanner in the early 1990s, he was labelled as out-of-touch.   At a time when gas prices are rocketing upward, will anyone in the MSM notice how out of touch this elitist, limousine-liberal (literally) Secretary of Energy is?   Do you think he has any keen grasp of what $5/gallon gas means to a commuter in Southern California?

The second story is this one, in which it is learned that the District of Columbia,which received nearly a billion dollars in stimulus funding, has a unique technique for measuring how many jobs were created.... they have no fucking idea!

Despite receiving more than $885 million in federal economic stimulus funds since 2009, the D.C. government — whose residents face one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation — cannot say how many jobs it actually created for those who live in the District.

Most of the money has been spent, and data suggest that overall regional job growth did occur as a result of the massive infusion of capital. But a review by The Washington Times of figures provided by D.C. officials shows that the city spent hundreds of millions of dollars without being able to demonstrate any significant improvement in the city’s jobs outlook.

If anything, the employment picture has worsened in the District. At the end of 2011, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the city’s unemployment rate was 10.4 percent, ahead of only three states: Nevada (12.6 percent), California (11.1 percent) and Rhode Island (10.8 percent).

That figure contrasts sharply with a 5.5 percent unemployment rate in the metropolitan D.C. area, which includes parts of Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia.

In the District, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate has increased by 8 percent since 2009, as the D.C. government was receiving historic levels of federal stimulus funding via contracts, grants, loans, tax benefits and entitlements.

The complete story?   In a nutshell:   An out-of-touch, elitist governing class is perfectly content to confiscate billions of dollars in taxpayers' money -- your money -- but can't be bothered to use it responsibly, and instead are comfortable simply losing track of it.  

Wrecking Ball

The new Bruce Springsteen album arrived today.   The Regular Son will be reviewing it over the weekend... at first listen, all I can say is:  It ain't Born to Run.   It ain't Darkness on the Edge of Town.   It ain't The River.   But hopefully it isn't Human Touch either.  

Ron Johnson Schools HHS Secretary on Obamacare

Apparently the Secretary of HHS, Kathleen Sibelius, has no idea whether Obamcare adds to the federal deficit or not.   Look, wouldn't that be sort of a basic thing you ought to know?   If you're enacting a giant new federal entitlement program, wouldn't it be your fiduciary duty to the American citizenry you're supposedly representing to have some idea about what the cost of the program would be?   Sheesh!

Here's Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson's questioning in the Senate:

In Case You're Wondering Why We're Talking About Birth Control...

Gallup, which does an employment survey that parallels the government's monthly surveys by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, reports that unemployment spiked to 9.1% in February:

Just in case you were wondering why the Obama Administration wants all of us talking about how Rick Santorum and the Republicans want to take away your right to rubbers.  

Dollar Shave Club

I'd almost subscribe to this service just because this Internet ad is so awesome:

Here's the Roadmap for Santorum

The Romney campaign yesterday put out a spokesman to say in a loud voice that all of the other candidates for the GOP nomination should drop out because they can't win as a matter of basic delegate math.   The position has some validity to it... as math.   It will be extraordinarily difficult for Rick Santorum (and even more difficult for Newt Gingrich) to get enough delegates to win the nomination outright before the convention.   But the position is ludicrous as politics, since, if either Santorum or Gingrich (or both) merely start to do slightly better, they could get enough delegates to deny Romney the nomination on the first ballot, and after that, all bets are off.

Here's a roadmap for Santorum to win the nomination.   Admittedly, it involves some longshots:

1. Win Kansas' caucus on Saturday.   He ought to, as the state is very conservative (a la Nebraska).
2.  That gives him momentum going into next week, gives him free advertising on Sunday news programs, etc.   The storyline will be:  Santorum has mo, Romney can't close the deal with conservatives.
3. Win the Alabama and Mississippi primaries next week on Tuesday.   Again, he has a good chance of doing this, although his main conservative rival, Gingrich, will fight hard there.   Romney could come third in both states, which again would support the meme that Romney can't close the deal with "real Republicans," i.e., the conservative base.
4.  If Santorum wins both Alabama and Mississippi, that will mean he is the presumptive conservative not-Romney candidate, and Gingrich will be under pressure to drop out.   I think there is a decent chance that Gingrich dislikes Romney enough that he will do so.
5. Win the Missouri caucus on Saturday, March 17th.   That's St. Patrick's Day, and I would expect a low turnout, which aids the conservative Santorum.   Note:  none of these are longshots, yet.   All of this I fully expect to happen (with the possible exception of Gingrich dropping out... he's that arrogant).   Which means....
6.  Ten days from now the Sunday news shows will all be talking about Santorum having won four straight contests, Santorum having momentum, Romney fading, etc.    Romney will still be way up in the delegate math, but he will be severely damaged, the national polls will show another downward sine wave for him, and another upward sine wave for Santorum.  
7. There will be a debate on Monday, March 19th, in Oregon.   At that point, Santorum and Romney will be essentially mano-a-mano.   If Santorum can hold his own, or even score a debate victory -- although the MSM will be spinning against him -- he can keep his momentum.
8. The Illinois primary is on March 20th.   Illinois, a significantly more liberal state, ought to be good Romney territory.   Romney ought to win.    But, if Santorum can somehow pull off a good showing, or even win, he could generate even more momentum.   And, in any event...
9.  The Louisiana primary is on March 24th.   Another Southern state, so with Gingrich out, Santorum should win.
10.  That gets us to the end of March.   If I'm right, Santorum will be sailing into April having won, at a minimum, 5 of 6 contests since Super Tuesday.
11.  The first week of April is the Wisconsin primary in the Regular Guy's backyard.   The biggest conservative talk show host in the state, Mark Belling on WISN 1130, has recently been talking up Santorum.   I think Santorum could win there too, and at that point, Romney will be severely wounded.
12.  The next big set of primaries is on April 24th:  New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Pennsylvania.   Romney should win the first four, but they are all states that Republicans won't win and don't need.   Santorum ought to win (and if he can't, then I'm all wrong) his home state of Pennsylvania, which will offset the narrative of "Romney's big night."   Santorum will be able to say:  I can win swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Romney can only win liberal states like New York and Connecticut.   (We will have all conveniently forgotten that Romney won Ohio and Florida.)
13. May shapes up well for a conservative alternative (meaning Santorum), with primaries in very conservative states.   There are primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Oregon, Arkansas, Kentucky and Texas.   Only Oregon looks like a Romney win, but by then, if Santorum's momentum continues, he may be running the table.
14.  Which means Romney will be hanging on by his fingernails for the June winner-take-all primaries in California and New Jersey.   Which he will likely win.   And which will mean....
15.  The Republicans would be in danger of nominating a candidate who, in head-to-head matchups with a conservative alternative, was only able to win in states like New York, Connecticut, Oregon, California and New Jersey that are Democratic strongholds no Republican has won since Reagan!   At that point, with a brokered convention looming, will Republican powerbrokers really say to themselves that they want to get behind someone that the base has obviously rejected?  

All of this is conjecture, of course.   But, looking at this schedule, I see this thing going all the way to the convention.  

What could derail it would be if Gingrich, and not Santorum, wins Mississippi and Alabama.   Gingrich can't beat Romney out of the deep South, but that would keep him in the race, and that would mean a split conservative vote, which in turn would mean a Romney nomination sooner rather than later.

Girl of the Day - Cyd Charisse

Probably the greatest dancer in movies (and certainly the dancer with the best legs), Cyd Charisse is one of the Regular Guy's favorites.   She was the femme fatale in the great ballet sequence at the end of Singin' in the Rain (pictured above), the very apex of the American musical, dancing step for step with Gene Kelly.  It's her birthday today, so let's celebrate with some great, but less well-known dancing from a later musical that I've always liked, The Band Wagon, with Fred Astaire:

Girl of the Day - Mad Men Is Coming! (Christina Hendricks)

Only two and half weeks until the premiere of Mad Men.   I.   Can't.   Wait.  

Does that make me bad?

Predictions Recap

The Regular Guy's predictions for Super Tuesday were pretty much right on the mark.  

I predicted that Romney would win his home state of Massachusetts, the neighboring state of Vermont, and Virginia, where he only had to beat Ron Paul.   He did (although the victory over Paul was a lot closer than anyone would have thought, roughly 60-40).

I predicted that Gingrich would win his home state of Georgia handily.   He did.   But he finished third or last in every other race.   What is the rationale for him continuing?  

I predicted that Santorum would win Oklahoma and Tennessee.   He did, with a bigger than I expected win in Tenneseee.

Finally, I predicted that Romney would pull out a win over Santorum in Ohio, which he did, although more narrowly than I would have thought (1% rather than 3-4%).  

Romney also won caucuses in Alaska and Idaho, while Santorum won the North Dakota caucuses.   Romney won by far the most delegates, which is what matters.  

I have some minor feeling that Santorum will win next week in Missouri, Mississippi, Kansas, and Alabama, and that will generate some momentum for him.   But at this stage, in terms of delegate math, Romney clearly has the edge.   The only real wild card would be if Gingrich would drop out, leaving Santorum as the only non-Romney still standing.  

Which leads me to the following conspiratorial view:   Is Gingrich staying in to make sure that Santorum doesn't have a fair shot at beating Romney one-on-one?   Gingrich, for all his talk, is an establishment figure.   Could denying Santorum, who is perceived as too far right, be part of his plan?

Birthdays Today - Artists (Milton Avery and Piet Mondrian)

Two relatively famous artists were born today, Milton Avery and Piet Mondrian.   Mondrian is better known, for the audacity of his works, which are purely geometric abstracts:

Avery, an American, is less well-known, perhaps, perhaps because his work doesn't necessarily fall into a neat category of abstract painting; it's still representational, although obviously not realistic, and obviously more interested in planes of color than depth or perspective:

I tend to like Avery a little better, but still not too much.   Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but it seems to me that this sort of thing is both harder to accomplish and much more beautiful:

By the way, this is Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son.   A great work of art about a monumental subject.   Isn't that what art is supposed to be doing?

Another County Heard From

I'm always amazed and appalled how liberal feminists will claim to speak for all women.   Nearly all the women I happen to know are conservative and pro-Life, so these feminists certainly don't speak for them.   Nor do women like my wife, who was summa cum laude graduating for college, appreciate the condescension of these liberal feminist women, who nearly always arrogantly assume that theirs is the intellectual, "progressive" position, while women who think differently must be under the thumb of some patriarchal male.   (Believe me, in my house I may be the titular "patriarch," but I'm about four steps down the "under the thumb" chain, just up from the hound.)

Anyway, it's nice to see an article like this one in the WSJ by a woman graduate of Georgetown Law taking to task the position espoused by Sandra Fluke and others last week that Georgetown, a Catholic Jesuit institution, should sacrifice its religious beliefs to provide free birth control to its women students.   The highlighted sentence at the end puts the issue in the clearest possible perspective:

In her testimony, Ms. Fluke claimed that, "Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school." That's $1,000 per year. But an employee at a Target pharmacy near the university told the Weekly Standard last week that one month's worth of generic oral contraceptives is $9 per month. "That's the price without insurance," the employee said. (It's also $9 per month at Wal-Mart.)

What about Rush Limbaugh? I won't defend his use of epithets (for which he's apologized), but I understand his larger point. At issue isn't inhalers for asthmatics or insulin for diabetics. Contraception isn't like other kinds of "health care." Yes, birth-control pills can be prescribed to address medical problems, though that's relatively rare and the Catholic Church has no quarrel with their use in this circumstance. And the university's insurance covers prescriptions in these cases.

Still, Ms. Fluke is not mollified. Why? Because at the end of the day this is not about coverage of a medical condition.

Ms. Fluke's crusade for reproductive justice is simply a demand that a Catholic institution pay for drugs that make it possible for her to have sex without getting pregnant. It's nothing grander or nobler than that. Georgetown's refusal to do so does not mean she has to have less sex, only that she has to take financial responsibility for it herself.

Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first-year law student should know where the Constitution comes down on that.

Girl of the Day - So Little Time (Kathryn Grayson)

I'm re-reading a very good World War II-era novel, So Little Time, by one of my favorite authors, John P. Marquand.   It's about a somewhat cynical middle-aged writer who is fearful that his sons will be caught up in the war (and they are).   Marquand is a great writer, and his people (at least his central characters) always seem alive in the present day, despite the fact that the novels are set now sixty to eighty years ago.   Alas, Marquand, along with James Gould Cozzens and John O'Hara -- the great "middlebrow" authors of the mid-century, are, for the most part, forgotten.  

Anyway, reading Marquand makes me think of women of the 1940s who were young then and for whom everything was new.   That's something we forget when we think of the past sometimes -- that the things that seem so antiquated for us were the newest and latest things.   For instance, in 1943, when the Marquand novel came out, Gene Kelly was starring in his first big musical, Thousands Cheer, with a twenty-one year-old named Kathryn Grayson.   I don't think I've ever really registered Miss Grayson, but she had a nice little career and, at the time, I'll bet doing an MGM musical was about as exciting as things could get in Hollywood:

Follow the Money

Near the climax of All the President's Men, Deep Throat tells Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) to "follow the money."   Since then, the line has become a mantra for political analysts who observe that, whatever the surface issues of a political dispute might be -- "religious liberty," say, or "women's health" -- the real issue lurks beneath the surface, and the real issue is always:  who gets paid.

It is in this light that Peter Schweizer at The Daily Beast brilliantly cuts through the cant of the debate surrounding the HHS mandate on contraceptions:

Forget for a minute the religious question and look at who wins big here: Big Pharma. This mandate is not really about condoms or generic versions of “the pill,” which are available free or cheap in lots of places. This is about brand-name birth control drugs and other devices that some consumers swear off because they are too expensive. The Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate requires health-insurance companies provide contraceptive coverage for all “FDA approved contraceptive methods.” It does not insist on generics. And it does not offer any cost containment.

What’s more, the mandate prevents health-insurance companies from having copays or deductibles for the benefit. This is the perfect set up for Big Pharma. Since the drugs will be paid for by a third party (insurance companies, who will pass the cost on to employers and the rest of us), the consumer won’t worry about the price. Expensive brand names will no doubt see demand rise. Ask more health-care analysts why the cost of medical services continues to rise so rapidly and near the top of the list is the fact that a third-party payment system won’t contain costs.

Back in 2009, many observers were surprised when Big Pharma came out in favor of President Obama’s health-care reform bill. The industry spent millions running television ads in favor of the law and industry lobbyists pushed hard for it.  One important reason they did so was the promise that with the new law they would have a new market of millions of new customers. The contraceptive mandate is a perfect example.

Predictions for Super Tuesday

A mixed result will be good for Mitt Romney in his inexorable (and boring) march to the GOP nomination.   And that's what Super Tuesday will give.   Romney can't help winning three primaries at a minimum -- his home state of Massachusetts, which none of the other candidates will contest; the neighboring state of Vermont, which is very liberal, and which would never have been fertile ground for either Santorum's Catholic conservatism or Gingrich's southern brand; and Virginia, where Santorum and Gingrich unaccountably failed to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot.   (More about this later.)

Gingrich, meanwhile, will win his home state of Georgia handily.   But what will that mean in the long run?  Not much.   Perhaps, if Santorum drops out, Gingrich can hang on as the nominal conservative alternative to Santorum.   But Gingrich can't win, so why is he still in the race?   Ego?   Yes.

Which leaves Santorum.   He will win Oklahoma, but that won't mean much.   An ultra-conservative state that Republicans will inevitably win anyway in November doesn't provide much of a boost to him.    He ought to win Tennessee too, although I could see Gingrich or Romney picking that state off.   So what Super Tuesday boils down to, really, is whether Santorum can hang on and beat Romney in Ohio, where Santorum, the former Pennsylvania Senator, ought to have a natural constituency.   Looking at the polls, he had a big lead there two weeks ago, but two weeks is a lifetime in this race, and Romney's momentum has been building since then.   Romney has more money and a better organization.   I see him pulling out Ohio over Santorum, which will give him 4 victories to Santorum's 2 and Gingrich's 1.   At that point, the rationale for Santorum's candidacy evaporates, because the math will mean that he can't win, and the money will dry up.  

It was a good run for Santorum, and he has a future in national politics, methinks, but he was a day late and a dollar short this time, I'm afraid.

That's how the Regular Guy sees it.   I've been wrong before.  

***

Re the Virginia ballot fiasco:   it also appears that Santorum screwed up in Ohio and that, even if he wins the popular vote, he won't have enough slates of delegates up for election to win a majority of delegates.   This is the sort of thing that happens in a campaign run on a shoestring.   But organization matters, and follow through matters, and attention to detail matters.   This sort of debacle ought not to happen in a national campaign, and it says something about the leadership skills of the candidate who allows it to happen.   I like Santorum.   But maybe at the end of the day he wasn't ready for prime time quite yet.  

Girl of the Day - By Way of Contrast (Gina Carano)

Sandra Fluke, the feminist activist/Georgetown law student/victim of her own incompetence at finding cheap birth control is 30.   Gina Carano, the MMA fighter/movie star, turns 30 next month.  Not to cast aspersions on Miss Carano, but I would imagine that she is a good deal more capable of finding (and paying for) her own birth control than Miss Fluke.

Which model for feminism would you want your daughters to aspire to?

***

By the way, a few questions a real reporter would ask of Ms. Fluke:

1) Have you been in contact with feminist activist/liberal political organizations within the last month in connection with your testimony before Congress?   When?   Before?   After?

2) Have you received any offers/payments of money in connection with your testimony before Congress?

3) How are you currently paying for Georgetown law school?   Living expenses?

4) Do you own a car?  What make?

5) Do you have a cell phone?   Cable TV?

6) Have you been on a vacation in the past year?  To where?

7) Do you have a summer associate position lined up for this summer?   At what firm?   How much will you be paid?


I could probably think of some more questions if I spent, oh, five more minutes thinking of them.   Which is apparently five more minutes than anyone in the MSM has spent coming up with questions for her. 

Deciding to Go to Law School

This is funny... and sad... and pathetic... and funny some more... and even more pathetic.... and true.

Time to Go.

The Regular Guy's nephew spent two tours with the 101st Airborne in Afghanistan.   The mission there originally was to oust the Taliban, get Osama bin Laden, and eliminate Afghanistan as a base for worldwide terrorism.   That mission appears complete.   The mission then mutated into a series of plans and surges and strategies to transform Afghanistan into a functioning, peaceful nation-state.   That mission has been an epic failure, as the recent idiocies of Afghanis murdering Americans for the alleged crime of burning Korans that their own people had already defaced.   Mark Steyn captures the problem in a nutshell:

They can breach our security, but we cannot breach theirs — the vast impregnable psychological fortress in which what passes for the Pashtun mind resides. Someone accidentally burned a Koran your pals had already defaced with covert messages? Die, die, foreigners! The president of the United States issues a groveling and characteristically clueless apology for it? Die, die, foreigners! The American friend who has trained you and hired you and paid you has arrived for a meeting? Die, die, foreigners! And those are the Afghans who know us best. To the upcountry village headmen, the fellows descending from the skies in full body armor are as alien as the space invaders were to Americans in the film Independence Day.

The problem is not our strategy.   A one-year surge is not the cure for what ails Afghanistan.   Nor is a ten-year occupation.   Perhaps a hundred years of incrementally increasing contact with the West might help?   I doubt it.   No, what Afghanistan needs, sadly, is about a thousand years of evolution until they become modern human beings.   But we can't wait around for that.    It's time for us to go.   I don't want my nephew, or someone else's, or their sons, or someone's father, losing their lives in that godforsaken place.   

Girl of the Day - Sandra Fluke

The Regular Guy was out of pocket the last two days, so I missed this big story.   Apparently some silly young Georgetown law student named Sandra Fluke went to Congress to complain that her Catholic university, which costs her something on the order of $60k a year to attend if you add in room and board, doesn't also supply her free birth control as part of their health plan.   She thinks the extra $9/mo. or so birth control pills cost at Walmart is simply too much for her to bear.   Pretty pathetic, actually, but this is the kind of infantile behavior you get when the government infantilizes people.   You would think some feminist somewhere would make the point that real feminism was about empowering women to be able to fend for themselves, not turning them into meek schoolgirls with their hands out asking for charity.*

Well, apparently, she's now a full-fledged victim because Rush Limbaugh had the audacity to joke about her willingness to prostitute herself -- making the point that she's essentially wanting someone to pay her for having sex.   Not all that funny, but clearly a joke.

So, since her fifteen minutes of fame will soon be over, we'll make this silly young person our Girl of the Day:

* How do I know that this story turns feminism on its head?   Consider:  wasn't the point of feminism to argue that women were just as strong and capable as men?   But could you ever imagine that a young man would come to Congress to whine about how someone else ought to be obliged to pay for his rubbers?   Wouldn't grown up men laugh him out of the room?   But, somehow, because this is a young woman, we're supposed to bow down at her victim status and not notice that the premise of her whole argument is that she's completely incapable of managing her own contraception purchases and completely incapable of coming up with an extra $100 a year on her own.   Sheesh!