Girl of the Day - Barbi Benton

If you were a young man in the 1970s, you probably had occasion to see Barbi Benton, the girlfriend of Hugh Hefner, on television with some frequency -- she was, for instance, a regular on the country comedy show Hee Haw.   I'm not sure what her talents were, but in retrospect her softcore personae actually seems somewhat innocent compared to what passes for popular culture today.

In any event, Barbi Benton turns 61 today.   As always, tempus fugit.  

The Great Dictator

George Will's piece on the State of the Union makes an important point about the extra-constitutional grasp of Obama.   From unelected "czars" to recess appointments when there's no recess, to comments about how "if Congress won't act, I will," to entering wars (Libya) without Congressional authorization, to claiming the right to borrow money without Congressional approval, to.... well, the list goes on and on.   The man seems to wish he were a third-world dictator, and he's well on the way to turning America into a third-world power, complete with debased currency and an Evita Peron-wannabe for First Lady.   Here's Will:

Obama, an unfettered executive wielding a swollen state, began and ended his address by celebrating the armed forces. They are not “consumed with personal ambition,” they “work together” and “focus on the mission at hand” and do not “obsess over their differences.” Americans should emulate troops “marching into battle,” who “rise or fall as one unit.”

Well. The armed services’ ethos, although noble, is not a template for civilian society, unless the aspiration is to extinguish politics. People marching in serried ranks, fused into a solid mass by the heat of martial ardor, proceeding in lock step, shoulder to shoulder, obedient to orders from a commanding officer — this is a recurring dream of progressives eager to dispense with tiresome persuasion and untidy dissension in a free, tumultuous society.

I commented to someone recently that what scares me is not the prospect of Obama winning a second term.   What worries me is the prospect of Obama running for a third term.   And a fourth.   And a fifth.

Clark Judge on the SOTU

Clark Judge is a very smart guy who occasionally writes for the Hugh Hewitt web-page.   Here is his commentary on the State of the Union address last night, which nicely captures both the arrogance and the absurdity of Obama's economic agenda:

Let me get this straight: 1) banks will be punished (do I understand this right, by a committee headed by Eric Holder?) if their lending is too risky, 2) and they will be required (by the same committee) to give more home loans (meaning, it must be, to people who would otherwise not qualify for the loans, or else the government would not have to be involved) at lower rates (which means rates that do not compensate them as much as the market says they need to be compensated for the risks they are taking, all of which sounds like a new edition of the policies that brought on the financial collapse), 3) which must mean that they will have to pull back on risky lending someplace other than homes, 4) the only place that most banks would be able to pull back on riskier customers would be loans to small and new businesses, 5) but these are the businesses that have created just about all the jobs over the last 20 years and he said early in the speech he wants to encourage them, 6) so maybe their growth capital will come from selling stock to the kinds of people who invest in new and small businesses, 7) but through the Buffet Rule he’s going to double the tax rate on investment income for those people, meaning that, like the banks, they can’t be fully compensated for the risk of backing small and new businesses, 8) so they will not invest more in small and new companies but in big established firms, 9) so more of those small and new firms will have to turn to the government for capital, 10) which luckily he said would up its investing in early stage businesses with “the best” ideas, 11) “the best” ideas meaning, I guess, as with Solyndra, ideas that advance his agenda through companies whose owners support his candidacy), 11) or maybe it would be companies that agree to invite unionization (since the unions have failed to organize the new and dynamic sectors of the economy, which is why they have been shrinking), 12) but then with the big businesses, he wants to punish American companies if they invest overseas, 13) and he wants to increase exports, 14) but being competitive in the global markets often means having part of your production near your markets, which is why many companies have opened production facilities abroad and many foreign companies (BMW and Honda, for example) have opened their facilities here, 15) so he’ll make these companies less competitive, meaning less able to export anything that might be paired with some other product the company makes abroad in order to attract buyers, 16) and it also means he’ll have the U.S. ignoring many of the international trading rules of which we have been the principal sponsor since the end of WWII, rules that have led to an incredible growth in widely shared wealth all over the planet, 17) which means that, if he follows through, he’ll blow up the post-WWII global economic system, 18) which in the very short run may help the uncompetitive American labor unions but in the not-so-long run would devastate every economy on earth, 19) but it would also mean he would be in a position to decide where big companies could invest, and when, just as he’ll be in control of all new and small businesses, too, 20) meanwhile he is going to tell states and localities what their budget priorities should be, 21) and make them adopt his policies for running their schools, leaving me to wonder, when he’s through, what won’t he control?

The Regular Son, who is just about ready to turn 15, commented after listening to it that "Obama hates banks, oil companies, and rich people."   Just so.   To me, what Judge describes is truly just a man who has never actually done anything in his life, who simply doesn't know what he's talking about, and who therefore can't grasp the contradictions and patent impossibilities of what he's saying.   Couple that with the fact that he does have deeply ingrained habits of thought characteristic of the hard left, and you've got a dangerous cocktail.

Where I Am Today

Here's where the Regular Guy is today on the race for the GOP nomination.  In my mind there are four or five key themes I'd like the GOP candidate to stress.

1.  The Economy.   And specifically, the fact that the economy was tanked in 2008 because the federal government intervened so much in the housing market by helping create a system, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, where mortgage lenders did not care about risk and loaned money to too many people to buy or build too many houses that they couldn't afford.   In a larger sense, because the financial industry, including the "too big to fail" New York investment banks, were also complicit in the creation of an over-leveraged American economy.   We are now de-leveraging, painfully.

In my mind, Gingrich's association with Freddie Mac as a lobbyist/influence peddler/historian hurts him in making this case.   And Romney's career at Bain Capital hurts him in making this case, because he will be associated -- however demogogically -- with the world of abstract finance that unfortunately scares and angers many Americans.

2.  Obamacare.    Here, both Gingrich and Romney have problems, Gingrich because he in the past supported the individual mandate that, rightly or wrongly, is the provision most associated with Obamacare; Romney because of, well, Romneycare.

3.  Strong national defense, opposition to Iran getting nukes, support for Israel.   Here, Ron Paul would be disqualified.

4.  Traditional moral values focused on the family.   Gingrich loses this issue for us.    I really, really don't like his three marriages and serial adultery.   I don't believe that his second and third wives are the only instances of his cheating, and I predict that more will come out the closer he gets to the nomination.    I cared when Bill Clinton cheated and I said more than once that a man who will cheat on his wife will cheat at anything.   I was right then; I'm right now.   

5.  Competence and executive experience.   Romney is obviously the best on this; Gingrich, to me, the worst.   But competence isn't enough.

So where am I today?   I'm leaning cautiously toward Rick Santorum.    And I'm horrified by the notion that Newt Gingrich at age 68, after all we've seen of him for the past 30 years, and with so much at stake in 2012, could actually be the nominee. 

March for Life

A photograph of the tens of thousands of Americans who came to Washington yesterday for the annual March for Life commemorating the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.   

For extra credit, compare and contrast this joy:

With this anger:  

Girl of the Day - Michelle Williams

The Academy Award nominations are out.   For Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, I think there's no doubt in my mind that The Artist will sweep.   There's an outside chance that George Clooney has enough pull as a heavy hitter in Hollywood to get Best Actor for The Descendants, but he won't deserve it -- Jean Dujardin deserves it, period.   (The only performance I haven't seen is Demián Bichir in A Better Life.)

For Best Actress, I frankly haven't seen the movies, so it's hard for me to guess who will win, but I hope it won't be Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady, because I don't like what I've heard about the film's treatment of Margaret Thatcher's Alzheimer's.   If I had to bet, I'd bet on Michelle Williams playing Marilyn Monroe as the type of biographical role that the Academy will like:

Still, not as good as the original:

Romney's Taxes

Mitt Romney ought to have released his tax returns a lot sooner, both to forestall the ridiculous attacks on his wealth from people like Newt Gingrich who ought to know better, and because they both show several good things about him and also allow him to make some important points.   Anyway, he has now released his 2010 return, and according to a WSJ summary, here's what they show:

Mr. Romney reported $21.7 million in income. He paid $3 million in federal taxes, slightly more than the $2.98 million he made in charitable donations. At least $1.5 million of his charitable donations went to the Mormon Church.

Of Mr. Romney's 2010 income, he noted a capital gain of $12.6 million, taxable interest of $3.3 million, ordinary dividends of $4.9 million and smaller sums of gains and losses on business income, refunds and other income.

To my eye, here's what this information tells me.   First, Romney has been extraordinarily successful.   The capital gains income means he liquidated tens of millions of dollars of stock holdings, money that he had put at risk investing after having earned it in the first place and after having already paid income taxes on it once.   Same with the interest income, same with the dividend income -- this is the second go-round on being taxed on this money.   If I were him, I'd make that point over and over again -- I already paid income taxes on this once, I invested it, put it at risk, in the stocks of companies that hire employees, and now I am paying taxes on it again.   Oh, and by the way, when I die, I'll have to pay taxes on it a third time under current law.   So if you don't like my tax "rate" because it's mostly based on the 15% capital gains tax rate because you don't think that's "fair," we have a different idea of "fairness."

Second, Romney gives a hell of a lot of money to his church.   Essentially tithing -- paying 10% or so of his after-tax income to his church.   That's a good thing, in my book.   To put it in perspective, he gives substantially more to his church annually than the 1500 middle-class families in our old parish gave.   Compare and contrast to the charitable giving by Al Gore or Joe Biden, which has been well-documented.   Republicans and conservatives who are churchgoers are generous people.  

Third, Romney also obviously gives a hell of a lot of money to other charities.   Again, a very good thing.   Does it show that Romney is a good man and would make a good President?   Not necessarily.   But it certainly doesn't prove anything bad about him.  

40 Years Since Roe

Rick Santorum has a good article up on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page today talking about the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.   Santorum is the real deal on life -- he walks the walk.    Here he contrasting his record on abortion with President Obama and the other three candidates for the Republican nomination:

I fought in the U.S. Senate against the tragedy of partial-birth abortion. This debate energized momentum for the culture of life in America. I sat in the Supreme Court during the first oral arguments on the constitutionality of the law designed to stop the heinous practice. It wasn't until President George W. Bush nominated conservative justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito, whose confirmations I helped lead, that the Supreme Court changed its position and upheld the law.

We don't judge hearts but we do judge records. President Obama's record of support for abortion is radical and extreme. He stood alone not to defend life but to oppose the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in the Illinois State Senate. He opposed ending the horrific procedure of partial-birth abortion. He supported federal funds for abortion through ObamaCare and told Catholic Charities that there was no room in the inn if they wanted to help women abused by sex traffickers and be pro-life at the same time.

My opponents whisper that they are pro-life, but I fight the battle in the trenches and will continue to do so until every innocent human life in this country is protected. I've dedicated my life as a husband, father and leader to this cause.

Ron Paul embraces the 10th Amendment but ignores the 14th Amendment when he refuses to support federal protections for the unborn. The Constitution protects not only property rights but people, too. What is liberty without the right to life? The federal courts and the federal government are the last resort for protecting this foundational right.

Mitt Romney's passion for life was apparently overwhelmed by Democrats when he put Planned Parenthood on the advisory board for RomneyCare and did not fight government-funded abortions while governor of Massachusetts. He was, it seems, too intimidated to support judges who understood the plain meaning of the Constitution on the right to life.

Newt Gingrich has pushed social issues to the back bench. In a pledge to America that the Congress tried to put together in 2010, my phone was ringing off the hook from people who said he went in and told them to keep social issues out of the pledge for the 2010 elections. Do we want a president who talks on both sides or one who is unafraid to put social issues in the forefront where they belong?

Whenever I am confronted with an immoral law that is unjust or harmful to society, I believe I have an obligation to work toward changing it to comport with what is moral. I agree with the Founders that there is a natural law that can be known through the exercise of reason against which the positive or civil law must be measured and, if needed, amended. For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the Constitution.

I am disappointed that President Obama, who rightfully fights for civil rights, refuses to recognize the civil rights of the unborn in his country. I am disappointed that the other three Republican candidates in this race for president simply check the box. The unborn need leaders who will stand for life; so does the soul of America.

Stupid Non-Story

Rand Paul, Republican Senator from Kentucky, was turned away from his flight out of Nashville by the TSA because he refused a pat-down after he set off the metal detector.   His father, Ron Paul, is making a big deal out of it, calling the TSA a manifestation our how the U.S. is becoming a "police state."  
Rand Paul the younger actually has a decent Constitutional argument that, as a member of Congress, he's exempt from these kinds of regulations, since the Constitution expressly says that "They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same."   The problem for a Tea Party Republican, however, is that members of Congress claiming exemption from the laws that the rest of us have to follow is probably the thing Tea Partiers hate the most.  

Look, no one likes the TSA hassles at the airport.   It's probably fairly useless in terms of stopping terrorist attacks, and, even if it were, the cost in money and man-hours may not be worth it.*  But it's the law for now, and Rand Paul should have just been very polite to the TSA officers, let them pat him down, made some small joke about it, and gone on with his day.   That's what I do, and I've found that the experience of air travel is much more pleasant.  





*If that sounds cold, think about it.   We could stop all terrorist attacks on planes easily -- just make it illegal to fly.   Does anyone want that?   Of course not.   So we've already decided that air travel is worth some risk.   The question, as with everything else (including health care) is simply how much risk are we willing to take and when do the costs of avoiding risk outweigh the risk itself.   

File This Under "What If a Republican Senate Did This?"

Tomorrow will be President Obama's third State of the Union address.   It will also, ironically, be the 1000th day since the Democrat Senate led by Harry Reid last passed a budget.  

Will the MSM let the Democrats get away with this?   Have we really gone so far down as a country that our leaders aren't expected to do the bare minimum of their job?  

I know the Constitution doesn't say that the Congress must pass a budget detailing how it will spend the dollars it collects in taxes.   It doesn't say a lot of things that have been interpreted over the years to be powers of the federal government.   But it does say that Congress has the power to tax, to pay debts, to provide for the common defense and the general welfare, to borrow money, to regulate commerce, to coin money and regulate the value thereof, and to make all laws "necessary and proper" to carry out its powers.   Hard to see how you could do those things without having a budget.   I think it's implicit in the document both as a "penumbra" (as they say) and as a matter of longstanding practice.   So not passing a budget means that the Senate is not upholding the Constitution, which is its sworn duty.

So when do the impeachments start?

A Very Minor Instance of a Very Important Issue

Here are a series of paragraphs from an otherwise innocuous article about yesterday's Bucks-Heat game:

"We can't make no excuses for ourselves," James said. "But no one had energy from the start of the game to the end."

It was the first time Miami lost this season in seven games without Dwyane Wade, out again with a sprained right ankle.

Miami got within 83-80 with 2:15 left on a pair of free throws by Bosh, before Ilyasova restored Milwaukee's five-point lead with 1:50 left. Miami's next two possessions ended with a turnover and a missed layup by James with three Bucks in pursuit, and Jennings - who was 5 for 20 - came up with the clincher.

His putback of a missed 3-pointer by Jackson with 39.5 seconds left sealed the win for Milwaukee, which won despite missing 25 of its 30 tries from 3-point range, including 16 straight at one point.

"We had a great difficulty making shots, but we made up for it with tremendous effort," Skiles said. "Our defense was very, very good again. When we needed a couple big plays, we were able to make them."
It's the first time Milwaukee has won consecutive road games since December 2010.

The Heat sputtered all night, putting up season-lows in a number of categories, and by some wide margins to boot. Miami's scoring low coming into Sunday was 89, field-goal percentage low was .395, low field-goal total was 32 (now 25) and assists was 16.

"We're not going to make any excuses," Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

This is a small deal, no doubt.   NBA player who happens to be black, LeBron James, uses improper English that is presumably accurately quoted.    NBA coach who happens to be white, Erik Spoelstra, uses proper English that is also presumably accurately quoted.   James is a multi-millionaire, a success story, a great player, a hard worker at his craft.   So using improper English hasn't hurt him, and likely won't ever hurt him.  

On the other hand, there are a sum total of 450 NBA players.   There are perhaps 900 black NFL players.   There are maybe another 250 or so black MLB players.   So maybe 1500 total pro athletes who are black, who have careers that probably average around 3-5 years.    Meanwhile, there are something on the order of 13 million black males over the age of 16 in the noninstitutional US population and black male unemployment is pushing up toward 20%.   In an economy that is increasingly oriented toward jobs involving communication skills.  

People don't like to talk about how badly urban culture and the public schools have failed young black males, in particular by creating a culture where speaking proper English is not demanded or rewarded socially.   But they have.  

Downton Abbey Gets Soapy

The Regular Wife and I love Downton Abbey.  But, unlike some of the other great shows on Masterpiece Theater over the years, it is the purest soap opera, generating "drama" from the manipulation of its viewers' natural desires to see lovers finally overcome obstacles, come together, and get married.   Every single plot thread has this same generic structure:  man (Matthew Crawley, Branson the chauffer, Mr. Bates the valet) loves girl (Mary, Sybil, Anna) but cannot consummate the relationship because of obstacles (the war, loyalty to another girl, pride; class distinctions; an evil ex-wife).   It's wonderfully engaging to watch, but I can't help thinking that it's a storyline that absent the British accents and the costumes would fit right in on Dallas or Falcon Crest.

  

Defeat. Jaws. Victory.

Newt Gingrich's victory in the South Carolina primary is a victory for all of the conservatives (like the Regular Guy) who have shouted back at the TV when liberal reporters or commentators make statements we don't like.   We've done it for fifty years (my old man used to yell at Walter Cronkite or David Brinkley), and now we finally have someone who not only will shout back, but will do it in person and to their faces with gusto.   Gingrich is saying all the things we right-wing curmudgeons have wanted to say for decades.   Bravo, we say.   Bravo.  

But.   But.   But.     

While Gingrich's theatrics (and they are theatrics:  two hours after he called John King of CNN despicable he was warmly thanking him for conducting such a good debate) play to the blog-reading, TV news-watching, talk radio-listening wing of the party that knows the issues and is stirred by media-bashing, it won't play to the moderates and independents Republicans will need (and who are there for the taking) to defeat Obama in November.   So while his victory feels good in the moment -- and aren't Americans all about feeling good right now? -- in the long run, if it means he ends up the nominee, Republicans are shooting themselves in the foot.   A Gingrich leading the party likely means not winning the Senate, perhaps losing the House, and certainly not gaining the Presidency.   And that would be a tragedy.   

Fast and Furious Gets Faster and Furiouser

While the media agonizes over when to drop the story of Newt Gingrich's infidelity in the 1990s, the Fast and Furious scandal took a remarkable turn yesterday:

The chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Arizona is refusing to testify before Congress regarding Operation Fast and Furious, the federal gun-running scandal that sent U.S. weapons to Mexico.

Patrick J. Cunningham informed the House Oversight Committee late Thursday through his attorney that he will use the Fifth Amendment protection.

Cunningham was ordered Wednesday to appear before Chairman Darrell Issa and the House Oversight Committee regarding his role in the operation that sent more than 2,000 guns to the Sinaloa Cartel. Guns from the failed operation were found at the murder scene of Border Agent Brian Terry.

The letter from Cunningham’s Washington DC attorney stunned congressional staff. 

Well, no kidding.   This ought to be the biggest story right now.   It's a story that, if it were a Republican administration, would have already spawned special prosecutors and impeachment talk.   That it's apparently not a big deal to the current mainstream media shows that they have completely lost perspective and gone in the tank for Obama's reelection.

Think of it:   a federal government program delivers automatic weapons to Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the death of a federal agent and the deaths of many more Mexicans, and a U.S. attorney is forced to plead the 5th.   Does that sound like a news story to you?   Does that ring of Pulitizer Prizes for whomever has the temerity to ask hard questions?   When did Eric Holder know about the program?   When did Obama?  Who authorized it at the highest levels?   And why?   What was the purpose?    Apparently not very many White House reporters care.   Certainly we haven't heard many questions asked about Fast and Furious in the Republican debates.

The letter from the U.S. attorney's lawyer to the House Committee that had subpoenaed him is here.   Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee investigating Fast and Furious made this statement:

"The assertion of the fifth amendment by a senior Justice official is a significant indictment of the Department's integrity in Operation Fast and Furious. The former head of the ATF has previously told the committee that the Justice Department is managing its response to Operation Fast and Furious in a manner designed to protect its political appointees. This is the first time anyone has asserted their fifth amendment right in this investigation and heightens concerns that the Justice Department's motivation for refusing to hand over subpoenaed materials is a desire to shield responsible officials from criminal charges and other embarrassment.

"Coming a year after revelations about reckless conduct in Operation Fast and Furious were first brought to light, the assertion of the fifth amendment also raises questions about whether President Obama and Attorney General Holder have made a serious and adequate response to allegations raised by whistleblowers. Did Attorney General Holder really not know a senior Justice Department official fears criminal prosecution or is this just another example of him hiding important facts? The committee will continue to demand answers."

Free College Education?

A fascinating article up on the Forbes web-page discusses the possibility of providing essentially a free college education for anyone who wants one through greater use of "crowd-sourcing" for instructors -- essentially calling on the vast number of professionals who would be willing to volunteer to teach courses in exchange for the networking and prestige of doing so, much as CLE courses for lawyers are taught gratis by practicing lawyers -- and also through greater use of technology for online courses, automated grading, etc.    I'm not sure that the cost would ultimately be free -- there are still transaction costs (read: friction) in creating, administering an monitoring any such program -- but the ideas are sound.    As Herbert Stein said, what can't continue, won't.   The current arc of college costs can't continue.   Something's got to give.

One note in particular stuck out for me:

A quirky company called Rosetta Stone has largely put college foreign language instruction out of business. For approximately $200/semester one can learn almost any language one wants—not quite free, but much cheaper and (apparently) more effective than the college classroom. Rosetta Stone is a good example of winner-take-all; it has cornered the market not because of some government license, nor because only their employees know languages, but because they are better and cheaper.

Why not do this with calculus, chemistry, psychology and all the rest? This will eventually happen. In each of those disciplines a product (or, hopefully, two or three competing products) will emerge that is manifestly better than anything any individual college can produce in-house.

Girl of the Day - Gina Carano

Steven Soderbergh is one of the Regular Guy's favorite directors.   The first movie of his I can remember seeing was Sex, Lies and Videotape, about a damaged man's sexual perversion -- he gets off by videotaping women talking about their sex lives.   In all of his movies, from blockbusters like Ocean's 11 to an odd sci-fi film like Solaris to the weird satire on corporate corruption The Informant! to the horrifyingly realistic epidemic film Contagion, Soderbergh ha sshown me high intelligence without much concern about being "deep."   When he does genre films, like the crime caper Out of Sight with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, they end up transcending the genre with smart dialogue and stylish visuals..

So when I hear that Soderbergh is doing a spy-on-the-run movie a la The Bourne Identity, only with a female lead drawn from the world of mixed martial arts, I'm all in.   The weekend Haywire opens with Gina Carano, a former MMA champion and complete movie novice, taking the lead as "Mallory," a CIA-trained assassin now targeted by mysterious forces, and I'm pretty sure that the Regular Son and I will be checking it out.  Here's the trailer:

This Just In: Santorum Ekes Out Iowa Victory.... Two Weeks Ago!

Iowa announced yesterday morning that Rick Santorum actually appears to have won the Iowa caucuses two weeks ago, by 34 votes, rather than than losing them by 8 votes, as previously believed.   I don't think it would have mattered in the long run -- Romney was still going to win New Hampshire, and Romney still had the best campaign organization, the most money, etc. -- but now we'll never know.   The presidential campaign is an imprecise science, obviously, but does it really have to be this random?   Mark Steyn doesn't think so:

[H]orse-race headlines matter. Just nine days ago, the bigfoot media line on primary night in the Granite State was that Mitt Romney was the first non-incumbent in the history of the planet to win both Iowa and New Hampshire. Wow! Unprecedented! One for the record books! Next question: Will the history-making and increasingly inevitable “Big Mo” Mitt make it three-in-a-row in the Palmetto State?

But this entire narrative rested on nothing more substantial than an incompetent count in a state where votes in eight precincts had gone missing. On the eve of South Carolina, it turns out that Mister Inevitable, Mister Run-The-Board, Mister Sweep-The-Nation has done no more than win one state in which he keeps a vacation home.

If I were Rick Santorum, I’d be feeling mighty irked by the two-week switcheroo. Had he been pronounced the winner of Iowa back when it mattered, who knows the difference it might have made to his fundraising, or to a meaningful surge in New Hampshire, or to the ability to buy airtime in Florida. What First World jurisdiction needs over a fortnight to count a hundred thousand votes? 

Steyn goes on to make a good point.   We give Iowa and New Hampshire extraordinary power over selecting our Presidents.    At the same time, the primary in California, with 37 million residents, has practically no input into the nomination.   Shouldn't Republicans especially be seeking to nominate candidates who can compete in the largest and most important states -- California, Illinois, Texas, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey?   That may mean a more moderate candidate, it may not, but whatever it means, we wouldn't have the charade of letting 120,000 farmers select our candidate.

Keystone

I haven't commented much on the President's decision to postpone the Keystone XL pipeline, which would go through Nebraska's Sand Hills, bringing oil from Canada to Texas.   The President looked at a choice between, on the one hand, more independence from terrorists in oil-exporting nations abroad and tens of thousands of jobs for Americans at home and, on the other hand, more campaign contributions from his elitist environmentalist cronies in the Democratic Party, and the choice for Obama was easy.   Obama will always choose re-election cash and pleasing his elitist left-liberal masters over doing what's best for America, it's just that simple.  

Krauthammer has this nailed too:

The president saying, “this is not in the national interest” was extremely cynical. That statement he made [in 2007] about [America turning to] Canada and Mexico [for oil] is the real key here. It’s not just that it [Keystone] creates tens of thousands of jobs, but that, in a world where our sources of oil are unstable and unfriendly, like from the Middle East… this [oil] would be coming from our nearest neighbor and reliable ally.

And that oil would go to China [if Keystone is not built]. The Canadian prime minister made it clear when he was here a few months ago that if it doesn’t head south, it will head west. And the Chinese will have access to a really important strategic asset.

This idea we heard from [Obama Press Secretary Jay] Carney about the arbitrary deadline — [it is] the president [who] imposed an arbitrary deadline or timeline. He had to make a decision at the end of last year and he decided arbitrarily it [Keystone] needed 12 months of study.

That number gets past the election. It’s all about the election: Not angering his base on the left. It has nothing to do with studies. This is the most studied pipeline in the history of the United States, three years of study that concluded that it would be ecologically safe. This is all about reelection. It’s nothing else.

Girl of the Day - Mary Tyler Moore

Fifty years ago today, the first episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show was filmed.   Van Dyke was a great talent and the show remains one of the best comedy shows in TV history, but to me the key player on the show was always Mary Tyler Moore playing Van Dyke's young suburban wife, Laura Petrie.   She was 24 when the show started, and it was hard to ignore how hot she was, no matter how they drabbed her down on the show.

Occasionally, they would let her dance:




I'll bet she still has great legs.

Strange Times

Rick Perry, who ought to have been a formidable candidate, has now withdrawn from the GOP presidential race.    Newt Gingrich has an ex-wife problem -- his second wife is scheduled to appear tonight in an ABC interview in which she will make the case that Gingrich is unfit to be President because of his immoral conduct in cheating on her.   Ron Paul is still Ron Paul,.    And Mitt Romney increasingly has problems with the perception that he is out of touch with Americans because of his personal wealth, as Charles Krauthammer suggests here:  

***

If somebody running in a state like South Carolina, with 10 percent unemployment, with median per capita income in the mid-30s, to say what he got from speeches — $370,000 — is not a lot, is like the George H.W. Bush at the checkout counter. Here’s a guy who’s not in touch. And that I think is a lot more serious [that] he pays the [15%] rate that is required by law for cap gains…. It’s not a major issue in the campaign, but anything, any anecdote, that supports a narrative, a preexisting stereotype, of a rich guy [who] is out of touch and looks a little stiff — who everybody agrees doesn’t have the common touch — I think hurts him.

That leaves Rick Santorum.   I'm OK with that, if that's how it turns out.   And I'm OK with Romney if he can survive -- there's worse things than having to defend how incredibly successful you were in the private sector against a President who has essentially never left school.   But I can't help thinking that there is a list of Republicans out there who are thinking that they could have pulled this off if they'd just gotten in.  




Mild update:  Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard has a faux "exclusive" about a fictional Mitch Daniels' speech in response to the upcoming State of the Union address by Obama, in which Daniels announces dramatically that he is open to running for President.   No sale.   Not going to happen.   Daniels got cold feet when we needed him, just as Tim Pawlenty chickened out when he lost the Iowa straw poll (to Michellle Bachmann, remember her?).   It's too late.   So, by my reckoning, it's either Romney or Santorum.  

The Walker Recall

Opponents of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker filed petitions supporting a recall election yesterday that included more than 1 million signatures.   The thrust of the recall is against Walker's successful efforts to balance the state budget, which prior to his term was facing a $3.6 billion deficit; to hold down property taxes (again, successful); and to restrain the growth of government spending by restraining the benefits paid to government employees, including teachers (again, successful, as Walker pushed through provision requiring modest contributions by Wisconsin public employees to their own pensions and health care).   Opponents also decry the Walker administration's support of a new voter-ID law requiring voters to have a suitable form of identification prior to voting as a means of curtailing voter fraud (of which there were many examples in the 2008 and 2010 cycles in Wisconsin).

This may be the first time in American history where a politician has faced recall, not for corruption, and not for failure, but for success in doing exactly what he promised to do.   And what are the Democrats really offering as an alternative:   "A vote for us is a vote for deficits, higher taxes, Cadillac benefits for public employees and teachers, and election fraud."   Is that really a platform that can win in Wisconsin?   If it can, then we are doomed.

Two notes on the 1 million signature figure seem in order.   First, of course that seems like a lot, and the Democrats (and their union bosses) clearly wanted to get to that number for PR value.   But there are roughly 4.3 million voting age residents of Wisconsin.   In the 2008 Presidential election, roughly 2.9 million people voted.   So the 1 million figure represents perhaps 35% of so of the likely voters, and around 23% of the voting age residents.    That won't be enough to defeat Walker, not even close.  

Second, of course the 1 million figure is inflated with fake signatures by "Mickey Mouse," by non-residents signing, by individual signing multiple times.   In California in 2003, when Gray Davis was recalled, eighteen percent of recall petition signatures were set aside as fraudulent.   Here I would suspect that the figure might be even higher.   But say 20% of the signatures are fraudulent.   Think what that says about the people supporiting the recall.   They hate the idea of losing their government benefit gravy train so much that they are willing to commit felonies!   Will any be prosecuted?   Why shouldn't there be an immediate call by Republicans for a federal investigation focused on the large-scale conspiracy to commit election fraud that is staring us in the face?

Finally, you can't defeat Walker, who has only gained support among Republicans and independents in Wisconsin, without running a good candidate against him.   Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett already lost big to Walker in the first go-around.   Other names touted are right out of the Madison left-liberal playbook: Kathleen Falk, the Dane County Executive; State Sen. Tim Cullen; Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca; State Sen. Jon Erpenbach.

 

Good Stuff from Marky Mark

Mark Wahlberg has become one of the Regular Son's favorite movie stars, after seeing The Fighter last year, and then Contraband just last weekend.   I think if he watches this interview, he'll like him even more.   Wahlberg is a devout Catholic who credits his faith for turning him around from a violent and criminal youth to a responsible and successful family man.   Good stuff.

Shout Out to the Regular Wife!

The Regular Wife (pictured below) has apparently finished shoveling the driveway and walks.   Way to go, RW!

OK, so maybe that's a "mind's eye" kind of thing.   But she is a wonder!

Speaking of Sell-By Dates and Jumping Sharks

Jim Carrey turns 50 today.   Isn't he a little bit old to be doing.... nearly everything he's doing?

On the other hand, he's made a ton of money, so who's the fool in this scenario?   C'est moi, probably.

Girl of the Day - Zooey Deschanel

It's Zooey Deschanel's birthday today.   She turns 32, which strikes me as about the "sell by" date for her brand of 20-something cuteness.   I haven't seen her new show, The New Girl, and don't intend to... methinks she's jumping the shark. 

The Real Iron Lady

Forget about Meryl Streep.   This is the real Margaret Thatcher, handing it to the socialists in Parliament:





The formulation she articulates here, that the liberal politician would rather the poor be poorer, so long as the rich aren't richer, is a perfect rebuttal to the Occupy Wall Street mob.   Liberals are energized, not by sympathy for the poor, but envy toward the rich; they care less about making the lives of poor people better, and prefer to make demands and cast aspersions at those who have done well.   A perfect example is the minimum wage law -- liberals are happy to enact a law that keeps poor young black men in our inner cities from getting paying jobs, so long as some "rich" man (or even some relatively poor person who owns a shop in the city) doesn't "exploit" them.  

Hat tip:   Polipundit.

Blizzard!

It's snowing and blowing here in Milwaukee, as you can see.   Good day to do desk work; good day to go home and put the feet up by the fire; good day to cuddle with the kids and play Scrabble.   Bad day to be outside.   Naturally, the Regular Son, who is genetically and morally a good deal tougher than Dad (comes from his mother), is planning a run after school today.   Ah, youth!  (I probably shouldn't have let him watch Band of Brothers... he thinks he's in the 101st Airborne at Bastogne and should just tough it out!)

Birthday Today - Ethel Merman

It's Ethel Merman's birthday today.   Whenever I talk to my daughters about what it means to have a Broadway voice, I tell them about Ethel Merman:

Happy MLK Day

The Regular Guy is not big on Martin Luther King day.   It's not that I'm critical of MLK himself, it's just that it makes me a little mad that MLK day has become truly the only national holiday dedicated to an individual, while Lincoln's Birthday or Washington's Birthday are given short shrift as "President's Day," and even then it's mostly uncelebrated.  

Today, however, since our offices were closed, I took the Regular Family to the Milwaukee Public Museum to see an IMAX show on the Mysteries of Egypt (about the tomb of King Tut), and then for a stroll through an old-fashioned natural history museum replete with tableux of stuffed animals indigenous to North America, including a famous (in Milwaukee anyway) diorama of a buffalo hunt: 

Maybe it's me, but that sort of thing really gets me (maybe that's why Night at the Museum was such a big hit too). 

Anyway, the museum was packed with a lot of young families taking their kids out for the day, having fun looking at the stuffed animals, and a lot of those young families happened to be black.   And that brought home, better than any speeches or commemorations or politically-correct feature stories could, what the real message of MLK was -- that, underneath our skins, we're all the same.

In short, we're all members of the great race of Parents Looking for Something to Do With The Kids When School Is Out. 

Girl of the Day - Faye Dunaway

Faye Dunaway turns 70 today, which is not necessarily a sign of Armageddon, but close.   Not really my type, Dunaway nevertheless was in a series of movies in the 1960s and 1970s that have only gotten better with time, including Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair, Chinatown, Three Days of the Condor, and Network.   Great stuff,and she held her own with some great actors in some of their best performances:  Warren Beatty, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, William Holden.   Thomas Crown and Condor are movies that I will watch whenever they are on, and Dunaway's entrance in Thomas Crown is one of the great movie/fashion moments of the 1960s: