Libertarian Leanings

Blair's Proper Perspective On Iraq

From the Wall Street Journal:

We're not sure what real purpose the so-called Chilcot Commission—named for its chairman, retired civil servant John Chilcot—is supposed to serve. Ostensibly, its remit is to examine how the decision to invade Iraq was made and consider the lessons learned, rather than the merits of deposing Saddam. But as with the previous two inquiries into the war, it is also political theater designed to shame Mr. Blair and other policy makers who allied Britain with America in March 2003. Judging from his six hours of testimony, it failed to achieve its end.

Instead, Mr. Blair offered a ringing defense of the decision to invade Iraq, and a very different set of lessons for the present. "This isn't about a lie, or a conspiracy, or a deceit, or a deception. It is a decision," Mr. Blair told a packed room that included relatives of soldiers killed in Iraq. "And the decision I had to take was, given [Saddam's] history, given his use of chemical weapons, given the over one million people whose deaths he had caused, given 10 years of breaking U.N. resolutions, could we take the risk of this man reconstituting his weapons program?"

That's a point worth remembering over all the Monday-morning recriminations about "dodgy dossiers" and missing WMD. We have never for a moment believed that the British or U.S. governments deliberately misled their publics over what they thought they knew about Saddam's weapons. Every Western country, including those opposed to the war, believed Saddam had WMD.

But the important point was never so much about what Saddam did or did not possess so much as it was about what he intended. And as Mr. Blair pointed out Friday, "What we now know is that he [Saddam] retained the intent and the intellectual know-how to restart a nuclear and a chemical weapons program when the inspectors were out and the sanctions changed, which they were going to do. . . .

In the Ideological Battle of the Last Decade MSM Won Out

My article on it is up on Pajamas Media.

With the rise of the Internet as a resource for news and information, skepticism over the accuracy and reliability of mainstream reporting grew, and by the middle of the decade bloggers and Internet news websites had cut significantly into the MSM’s influence. But from the perspective of January 2010 it’s clear. At the end of the decade the MSM had won out, successfully imposing its political will on the country.  Read more...

The Massachusetts Pilot Program

When John Fund interviewed Scott Brown after his win over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts special election for the seat once occupied by Ted kennedy, he touched upon an apparent contradiction.  Brown campaigned for and won the U.S. Senate seat by promising to be the 41st vote against the health care reform bill currently before congress.  As a Republican state senator he voted in favor of then Governor Romney's universal health care plan for Massachusetts.

Mr. Brown says he designed his campaign to revolve around four issues: taxes, excessive spending, terrorism and health care. But it's clear that voter angst over ObamaCare was the rocket fuel propelling him to victory. "People got where I was," he says. He was often asked to sign his autograph with the number "41" next to it, meaning he was running to be the key vote to block health-care legislation from final passage.

Nonetheless, Mr. Brown is clearly sensitive—and a tad defensive—about his state's own universal health-care system. It now covers about 95% of the population; but it has also led to the nation's highest insurance premiums. It is driving hospitals towards bankruptcy and making it more difficult for people to see a doctor. Mr. Brown voted for the system in 2006 when it was proposed by then-GOP Gov. Mitt Romney. "Of course, it can be made better," Mr. Brown says today. "But it was bipartisan and it fit our local needs. We were being eaten alive by health-care costs." Universal coverage hasn't changed that, however.

All of those things are what we can expect from the Democrats' national health care plan – higher insurance costs, higher health care costs, reduced access, and in the end it won't really cover everybody.  It is obvious though, that Obama has not gotten the message that was delivered by the voters of Massachusetts.  He has repeatedly promised to push ahead with ObamaCare anyway. 

By implementing its universal coverage plan, Massachusetts has done one of the things state governments are supposed to do – provide pilot programs from which the federal government can learn.  Scott Brown knows he won the special election by promising to vote against ObamaCare, but having voted for universal coverage in Massachusetts it's clear he will be willing, as U.S. Senator, to vote for some kind of national health care reform.  That reform should not be modeled on the Massachusetts plan.

But The Worst Of It Is...

He was wrong.  I'm talking about President Obama and his utterly classless attack on the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address.  He said,

"With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests -- including foreign corporations -- to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

What has it come to when the reliably liberal Linda Greenhouse explains in the New York Times, a century of law was not overturned.

The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election.

Obama indulged himself in a bit of fake populist demagoguery that was immediately applauded by the rest of the political hacks in his party who were on hand to listen, including his Attorney General Eric Holder.  Of course, this sort of attack is just we expect from our Community-Organizer-In-Chief, unfortunately it is unbecoming of a president. 

It also calls his competence into question, yet again.  Here's a guy who called himself a professor of constitutional law while on the presidential campaign trail.  He graduated from Harvard Law School and spent 12 years teaching at the University of Chicago, eventually achieving the title of senior lecturer. But wouldn't you expect a senior lecturer to get it right?

But could a graduate of Harvard Law School at least get his facts right? "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests, including foreign corporations, to spend without limit in our elections," Mr. Obama averred. "Well, I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

Let's unpack the falsehoods. The Court didn't reverse "a century of law," but merely two more recent precedents, one from 1990 and part of another from 2003. Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce in 1990 had set the Court in a markedly new direction in limiting independent corporate campaign expenditures. This is the outlier case that needed to be overturned.

Mr. Obama is also a sudden convert to stare decisis. Does he now believe that all Court precedents of a certain duration are sacrosanct, such as Plessy v. Ferguson (separate but equal, 1896), which was overturned by Brown v. Board (1954)? Or Bowers v. Hardwick (a ban on sodomy, 1986), which was overturned by Lawrence v. Texas (2003)?

The President's claim about "foreign entities" bankrolling U.S. political campaigns is also false, since the Court did not overrule laws limiting such contributions. His use of "foreign" was a conscious attempt to inflame public and Congressional opinion against the Court.

I think that last sentence captures Obama and his purpose.  Community Organizer Obama intended to inflame resentments, stoke public opinion, and smooth the way should his opportunity to nominate a radically leftist ideologue to the Court materialize.

But I wonder if it's going to work for him.  No doubt there will be some who will be suitably outraged, but there is a growing number of people who notice Obama's mistakes.  He panders and it's obvious.  But he's not even good at that anymore.

This Is The Health Care Reform I Want

Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin briefly outlines his plan for health care reform in his Wall Street Journal column entitled A GOP Road Map for America's Future.

• Health Care. The plan ensures universal access to affordable health insurance by restructuring the tax code, allowing all Americans to secure an affordable health plan that best suits their needs, and shifting the control and ownership of health coverage away from the government and employers to individuals.

It provides a refundable tax credit—$2,300 for individuals and $5,700 for families—to purchase coverage (from another state if they so choose) and keep it with them if they move or change jobs. It establishes transparency in health-care price and quality data, so this critical information is readily available before someone needs health services.

State-based high risk pools will make affordable care available to those with pre-existing conditions. In addition to the tax credit, Medicaid will provide supplemental payments to low-income recipients so they too can obtain the health coverage of their choice and no longer be consigned to the stigmatized, sclerotic care that Medicaid has come to represent.

• Medicare. The Road Map secures Medicare for current beneficiaries, while making common-sense reforms to save this critical program. It preserves the existing Medicare program for Americans currently 55 or older so they can receive the benefits they planned for throughout their working lives.

For those under 55—as they become Medicare-eligible—it creates a Medicare payment, initially averaging $11,000, to be used to purchase a Medicare certified plan. The payment is adjusted to reflect medical inflation, and pegged to income, with low-income individuals receiving greater support. The plan also provides risk adjustment, so those with greater medical needs receive a higher payment.

The proposal also fully funds Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs) for low-income beneficiaries, while continuing to allow all beneficiaries, regardless of income, to set up tax-free MSAs. Enacted together, these reforms will help keep Medicare solvent for generations to come.

The bill Ryan is sponsoring is called the Patients' Choice Act.  The full text of it can be found here.

An Out Of Touch Press

In yesterday's Media Notes the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz explained how the "mainstream media were lulled into complacency by Coakley's big lead in the polls."  Under the headline, Media Notes: Howard Kurtz on the Scott Brown story, he wrote.

Media outlets had some fun with the story, noting that Coakley didn't know Curt Schilling had played for the Red Sox and that Brown had posed nude for Cosmopolitan in 1982. But much as journalists were slow to recognize the significance of the "tea party" movement last summer, most didn't treat this race as a serious contest until the final 10 days.

Even the Boston Globe seemed caught by surprise. To the paper's credit, it asked on Dec. 17: "Can Scott Brown actually win this thing?," while quickly adding that he was still "considered a long shot."

The press had not taken the Tea Party seriously and was caught napping.  They say the first step on the road to recovery is recognizing that you have a problem.  In his very next piece, "Honeymoon is History", Kurtz unintentionally demonstrates that the mainstream media still don't get it.  My emphasis below.

It's hardly a news flash that President Obama's media coverage has turned sour. But he still outshines his recent predecessors.

Obama still outshines his recent predecessors?  What a stunning claim, coming as it does right after Massachusetts voters delivered an historic smackdown in the special election that took away his filibuster-proof senate majority.  Could there be a more accurate gauge of his performance than that?

But Kurtz is really talking about something else.  It's not Obama's performance that shines.  It's press coverage of Obama's performance that shines as it works tirelessly to polish him up for an increasingly skeptical public. 

Obama wound up 2009 with balanced coverage -- 49 percent positive, 51 percent negative -- according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which studied the network newscasts, Time, Newsweek and the New York Times front page. But he swooned from 59 percent positive in the first four months of the year to 39 percent positive from August through December.

The researchers, from George Mason and Chapman universities, found the president drawing 46 percent positive evaluations on the NBC, ABC and CBS evening newscasts. By comparison, those networks were harder on George W. Bush (23 percent positive), Bill Clinton (28 percent) and Ronald Reagan (26 percent) in the first year of their terms.

"Media coverage has turned sour," said Kurtz, and by "sour" he meant balanced.  Still out of touch.  The sad part is this.  When the mainstream media begin to take the Tea Party seriously, they won't give it objective coverage, but instead will continue to actively oppose it.  Kurtz's unspoken complaint is the same one as Obama's.  Had they been quicker to see the massive voter discontent, they might have been able to counter it and get Coakley elected.  It would have been historic.  The first female senator from Massachusetts.  Too bad.

Boy, Are We Dumb

As Mark Steyn points out, we're still just too stupid to understand the magnificence of Obama.

So what went wrong? According to Barack Obama, the problem is he overestimated you dumb rubes’ ability to appreciate what he’s been doing for you. “That I do think is a mistake of mine,” the president told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “I think the assumption was if I just focus on policy, if I just focus on this provision or that law or if we’re making a good rational decision here, then people will get it.”

But you schlubs aren’t that smart. You didn’t get it. And Barack Obama is determined to see that you do. So the president has decided that he needs to start “speaking directly to the American people.”

We don't get it.  That, you see, is why Scott Brown got elected in Massachusetts.  So in order to prevent any more such disruptions to his agenda Obama plans to to speak directly and more effectively to us, and to do that he's decided to make significant changes.

WASHINGTON—Coming off one of the most difficult weeks of his presidency, Barack Obama has beefed up his political staff and is expected to deliver an uncompromising State of the Union address. Aides said Sunday that the White House wasn't making any abrupt policy shifts, even as the message was retooled to focus more sharply on job creation.

No policy change? Retool the message to focus more sharply on job creation?  You know, I'm not sure we're smart enough to get that message.

The Campaign Finance Decision

Last week was a banner week for libertarians and conservatives.  The upset election of Scott Brown to the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy quite effectively put the brakes on Obama's takeover of the health care industry.  That it occurred in true blue Massachusetts was astonishing.  But the bigger story and the one that should have us cheering loudest was the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.  This video by the Cato Institute explains what was at stake.

Needless to say, the decision in favor of Citizens United was was not universally applauded.  In the view of New Jersey pundit John Farmer, Justices were blind to the corrupting influence of cash when they arrived at their decision. His is a very leftist view, couched in terms of redistribution. Few things are more fundamental to our notion of political liberty and equality than freedom of speech. We’re all supposed to enjoy it more or less equally. Ideally, no one’s supposed to have too much more of it than anyone else, or it isn’t very equal. We all know that’s not how it works, however. Some individuals or groups will, for one reason or another (usually money), always enjoy more of our constitutional freedoms. The Constitution, in its majesty, guarantees the pauper as well as the prince the right to a lawyer. But it’s better than even money that the prince is going to get Clarence Darrow while the pauper is likely to get the last guy in the class in law school. That’s why federal courts are there, to smooth out at least some of these inequities. Is that why the federal courts are there?  I never knew.  Farmer seems not so much opposed to the influence of money as much as the danger that such influence would fall to the wrong people.  He would prefer that party leaders handle all the money.  These things often have unintended consequences. Ben L. Ginsberg, a long-time lawyer for GOP conservative causes, counsels caution. "It’s going to be a wild, wild West" in future campaigns, he warned, "with a lot more voices and the loudest voices are going to be corporations and unions." In the process, the power of both parties, Republicans as well as Democrats, could be diminished as corporations and unions run their own campaigns and give less cash to either party. Why run money through the parties — the middle men — when corporations are free now to spend all they want on their own more tightly targeted campaigns for issues and candidates? Conceivably, they could now spend enough to dominate party primaries, denying Democrat and Republican leaders the power to nominate preferred candidates. It sounds a vote for the good ol' boy network.  Funneling all the money through party bosses would more likely have the effect of further insulating them from donors and voters.  Let's not overlook the fact that government is itself a special interest.  By allowing corporations to bypass party poobahs we might actually limit the growth of that particular special interest.  And it's safe to say Farmer's own interests were curbed by this decision.  As a journalist Farmer was accorded special privilege by McCain-Feingold, which would have effectively silenced competing voices during the days immediately before an election.  As an individual Farmer was exempt from McCain-Feingold prohibitions, but unless he is independently wealthy his political speech would reach only a small audience.  However, as a member of his media corporation he was allowed unfettered political speech and the means to deliver it to a wide audience because of his corporation's special status as a member of our free press.  Other corporations were denied this right of speech.  That is, up to now. A justification of such denial rests on the definition of a "legal person".  A corporation is a legal person, as opposed to a natural person.  According to some opponents of the decision, our founding fathers intended that only a natural person be entitled to first amendment protections, but according to Professor Bainbridge, the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision reaffirmed corporate first amendment rights. The legislative history of the Fourteenth Amendment suggests that Congress substituted the word ''person'' for the word ''citizen'' precisely so that the provisions so affected would protect not just natural persons but also legal persons, such as corporations, from oppressive legislation. We see this view further confirmed Roscoe Conkling's recounting of the relevant legislative history in Conkling's arguments in San Mateo County v. Southern Pac. R.R., 116 U.S. 138 (1885). Conkling had been a member of the Joint Congressional Committee that drafted the 14th amendment and in Southern Pacific argued to the Justices that it had been the intent of Congress for the word "person" to include "legal" persons (corporations) as well as "natural" persons within the protective scope of the due process and equal protection clauses of the amendment. The Court accepted Conkling's argument. As Larry Ribstein argues, this development made policy sense: ... corporations are people – the owners and others the corporation represents in litigation. These people have speech rights, rights not to be discriminated against, and so forth. I’ve written on this ...: The Constitutional Conception of the Corporation, 4 Supreme Court Economic Review 95 (1995); Corporate Political Speech, 49 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 109 (1992) and in my book with Henry Butler, The Constitution and the Corporation (1995) .... So the African-American owners of this SBA-certified minority-owned contractor shouldn't lose their civil rights because they chose to do business in the corporate form. They might be required to sue as a corporation, as in this case, because that’s a convenient way to handle litigation, but that doesn’t determine their individual rights. But courts also should recognize that, by the same principle, people shouldn't lose their speech rights just because they exercise these rights though the corporation in which they have invested. One practical effect of the decision may be to afford corporations some protection from bullying by elected officials.  As the Cato video explains, the power that needs to be curbed is government power, not the power of its people whether they are natural persons or legal persons.

A Must Read Essay

A great essay by Doctor Zero on Hot Air's Green Room talks about the real causes of middle class frustration.   

The frustration of the middle class is the angry confusion of people who can appreciate the opportunities Big Government denies them. It is the anxiety of those who hear the businesses who employ them relentlessly demonized, while the ruling class is never held responsible for its foolishness, waste, and theft.

It's really good.  Read all of it.

Thank You, Massachusetts!

Union Leader:

BOSTON – In an epic upset in liberal Massachusetts, Republican Scott Brown rode a wave of voter anger to defeat Democrat Martha Coakley in a U.S. Senate election Tuesday that left President Barack Obama's health care overhaul in doubt and marred the end of his first year in office.

The loss by the once-favored Coakley for the seat that the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy held for nearly half a century signaled big political problems for the president's party this fall when House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates are on the ballot nationwide.

More immediately, Brown will become the 41st Republican in the 100-member Senate, which could allow the GOP to block the president's health care legislation and the rest of Obama's agenda. Democrats needed Coakley to win for a 60th vote to thwart Republican filibusters.

Washington Post:

State Sen. Scott Brown won a remarkable upset victory over state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) tonight in a Massachusetts Senate special election, a victory likely to spawn broad-ranging political and policy consequences heading into the midterm elections.

"Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken," Brown said to raucuous cheers at his victory rally.

Brown's victory is the first for Republicans at the Senate level for Republican in Massachusetts since 1972 and he becomes the lone GOPer in the 12-person federal delegation from the Bay State.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama called Brown and "congratulated Senator Brown on his victory and a well-run campaign."

While it is a historic win within Massachusetts, the implications of Brown's victory for the national political scene are even more critical.

Brown will give Republicans a 41st seat in the Senate, robbing Democrats of the filibuster-proof majority the party had used to pass President Obama's health care plan late last year. In the immediate lead-up to tonight's vote, Democrats -- including the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) -- insisted that the party would move forward on health care but it is unclear whether that bravado will carry over in the coming days as the party seeks to deal with Coakley's stunning upset.

Washington Post (in denial):

Tuesday's upset Republican victory in Massachusetts may well have less to do with ideology and more to do with old-fashioned retail politics: Scott Brown was a charismatic candidate with a old truck, an intriguing narrative and a promise to shake every voter's hand.

Yeah right.  Keep dreaming.

New York Times:

BOSTON — Scott Brown, a little-known Republican state senator, rode an old pickup truck and a growing sense of unease among independent voters to an extraordinary upset Tuesday night when he was elected to fill the Senate seat that was long held by Edward M. Kennedy in the overwhelmingly Democratic state of Massachusetts.

By a decisive margin, Mr. Brown defeated Martha Coakley, the state’s attorney general, who had been considered a prohibitive favorite to win just over a month ago after she easily won the Democratic primary.

With 98 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Brown had 52 percent of the vote to Ms. Coakley’s 47 percent.

Boston Herald:

State Sen. Scott Brown blasted Bay State expectations today with a bombshell victory over his Democratic rival to capture the open U.S. Senate seat by a 5-point margin.

“I bet they can hear this cheering all the way to Washington, D.C.,” Brown said tonight.

“Tonight the independent voice of Massachusetts has spoken,” he added. “I am ready to go to Washington without delay.”

Boston Globe (can't bear to report it):

All eyes on Bay State ballot

Brown, Coakley make final push before high-stakes election today

From Pittsfield to Framingham, North Andover to Dorchester, the candidates for US Senate made a last dash across the state yesterday, issuing their final pitches to voters ahead of a special election today that has drawn the eyes of the nation.

Thank you Massachusetts!  Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you!