Libertarian Leanings

The Confused American Public

In its relentless public relations campaign on behalf of President Obama and the Democratic party, the New York Times offers this lame opposition to Republican plans to put some limits on federal spending.

The public itself seems split, or perhaps confused. Americans overwhelmingly say that in general, they prefer cutting government spending to paying higher taxes, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll published last week. Yet their preference for spending cuts, even in programs that benefit them, dissolves when they are presented with specific options related to Medicare and Social Security, the programs that directly touch millions of lives and are the biggest drivers of the long-term deficit.

Oh, take me back to the Carter years.  In those days mainstream wisdom said it was impossible to cut spending.  It simply couldn't be done.  Are we there yet?  In all the realm of government programs where savings might be found, Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg focuses like a laser on Medicare and Social Security. 

That Americans would prefer not to cut those programs, particularly after so many have spent a lifetime paying into them, shouldn't come as a huge surprise.  But Ms. Stolberg sees schizophrenia and confusion.  In fairness to Ms. Stolberg, the bit about the confused American public might be in there at the insistence of editors.  The thrust of her article concedes that some spending cuts are in the cards. 

It's just a matter of where and how much.  Will the budget cuts be be modest, sensible, and fair (Democratic)?  Or will they be drastic, cruel, uncaring, and maybe a little stupid (Republican)? 

In speeches over the past several months, and especially over the last week, Mr. Obama has outlined an approach that emphasizes growth and competition and a slow easing of government intervention in the economy — as opposed to the quick pullback Republicans want.

“To borrow an analogy, cutting the deficit by cutting investments in areas like education, areas like innovation — that’s like trying to reduce the weight of an overloaded aircraft by removing its engine,” Mr. Obama said in a December speech at a community college in Winston-Salem, N.C. “It’s not a good idea.”

We'll know more after the State of the Union, though one thing seems clear to Ms. Stolberg.  The public is deeply confused and should be ignored as this debate goes forward.  Americans hardly ever know what's good for them, so often voting against their own best interests.  Didn't they just do it again when they put a Republican majority in the House of Representatives last fall?  It would hardly do to consider anything so unreliable as American public opinion when government programs may be at stake.  If there are any besides Medicare and Social Security.

Olbermann Out

Per Wonkette,

Look, not only have we never watched Keith Olbermann’s teevee show, but we were actually named “America’s Worst Person” by this guy, on national teevee, for reasons we don’t recall — and by the “royal we” here we mean, “your editor.” So, uhh, who cares? But the guy was apparently “popular with liberals,” so here’s your post about it.

Bill Carter writers in the New York Times:

The host, who has had a stormy relationship with the management of the network for some time, especially since he was suspended for two days last November, came to an agreement with NBC’s corporate management late this week to settle his contract and step down.

In a closing statement on his show, Mr. Olbermann said simply that it would be the last edition of the program. He offered no explanation other than on occasion “all that surrounded the show – but never the show itself – was just too much for me.”

Well, at least he’s still being incredibly melodramatic and self-obsessed!

Intentionally or not, it's a great tactical move on the part of the progressive "journolist" set.  After yammering on about a "rhetoric of violence" creating this "climate of hate," maybe progressives are finally figuring out where it comes from.  Nah.

Repeal!

According to Joan Vennochi, the House vote to repeal ObamaCare is nothing more than political theatre.  She considers it a tragedy, in fact.

On health care reform, here’s how it’s likely to play out: Republicans in the House vote for repeal. It doesn’t happen. Republicans then continue to use the issue as a cynical weapon against Democrats.

The Republican vote to repeal is the first step in the GOP’s self-proclaimed mission to undermine the law, piece by piece.

That’s the mindset that motivates freshman Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota when she stands with a band of House Tea Party members in front of the Capitol and vows to unravel and defund the health reform law. “We’re staying full square behind the repeal of ObamaCare,’’ she said on Tuesday, citing the “arrogance’’ and “close-mindedness’’ of the president and his fellow Democrats.

For more adult conversation, listen for a Republican voice no longer in Congress. Former Senate majority leader Bill Frist of Tennessee told his fellow Republicans they should forget about repealing health care reform and move on to make bipartisan tweaks.

I hope Ms. Vennochi is right -- that ObamaCare becomes a weapon with which Republican bludgeon Democrats.  If Democrats don't like being bludgeoned they shouldn't have passed it.

Karl Rove agrees.  With some degree of delight, I think.  Republicans have their weapon, and they'd better use it.

Republicans said during the election campaign that they would take this vote. Seasoned Democratic observers like pollster Pat Caddell believe that opposition to ObamaCare helped drive turnout and draw independents into the Republican column. The GOP would have deeply damaged its credibility if it failed to follow through on its pledge.

Moreover, the fight against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, of which this week's vote is but the opening round, once again focuses public attention on the law's flaws. Virtually every claim the Obama administration has made on its behalf is turning out to be untrue. (Recall "If you like your current [health-care] plan, you will be able to keep it.") Or it wasn't credible to start with, such as the claim by the Office of Management and Budget that the bill will cut the deficit. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll this week showed that 62% see it as increasing the deficit, 54% think it'll hurt the economy, and 46% think the law will cost jobs. When Republicans have winning arguments, they should keep pressing them.

At one time Democrats were much more trusted than Republicans on health care issues.  In 1991 opinion polls showed them 34 points ahead of Republicans on it, but by 2005 the Democrats' advantage dropped to 25 points.  Enter ObamaCare, and it's gone.  Press on, I say.

Then There's This Climate of Hate

Joe Lieberman announces his intention to retire, and this is what he gets:

...Why do I loathe, loathe, loathe my 68-year-old four-term senator? My feelings are all the stronger for being fairly irrational. Lieberman's views are closer to mine than many politicians on whom I don't expend one iota of emotional energy...

Is She Ready? After Two Years In Office, Is He Ready?

In an interview on ABC Dick Cheney declined to offer an opinion when asked if he thought Sarah Palin is ready to be president.  Although reluctant to comment on Palin, he had no reservations about saying that he thought Obama would be a one-term president.

Former vice president Dick Cheney, back in the public eye after a major heart operation, predicts that President Obama will be a one-term president because of health care and other big government programs.

In an interview airing this morning on NBC's Today show, Cheney cited Obama's "overall approach to expanding the size of government, expanding the deficit, and giving more and more authority and power to the government over the private sector."

As for health care, Cheney said Obama has "enacted a program that a great many people are very worried about. And that there's a lot of support out there for the effort to repeal that health care package."

The former vice president also talked about his newly implanted heart pump, Obama's national security record, the Arizona shooting and his offer to step aside as George W. Bush's running mate before the 2004 election. He declined to say whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. "There'll be ample time for that in the months ahead."

I wish I were as optimistic as Cheney about Obama's chances for a second term.  Obama wasn't ready to be president when he took office, and he is unfortunately still not ready to be president.  The prospect of a second Obama term is disheartening to say the least, and I say this even in light of his recent Clintonesque pivot to the center. 

For two centuries, America's free market has not only been the source of dazzling ideas and path-breaking products, it has also been the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known. That vibrant entrepreneurialism is the key to our continued global leadership and the success of our people.

[...]

Over the past two years, the goal of my administration has been to strike the right balance. And today, I am signing an executive order that makes clear that this is the operating principle of our government.

This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.

So the leftist community organizer has discovered the virtues of capitalism.  And it took only a short two years of near 10% unemployment and an electoral smackdown of epic proportions.  He's not what you would call a quick study.  

As for Obama striking a regulatory balance, the notion is absurd.  With congress is no longer dominated by Democrats, Obama has made clear that federal regulations are now his vehicle for restucturing the U.S. market economy into something greeener and more union friendly.  Green and union friendly are not going to promote growth that will help the rest of us.

So here we are, two years into his administration, and Obama decides he's had a free market epiphany.  What he really discovered is that voters can be pissed off to a degree he never imagined.  To his dismay he's found that votes still count.  All of his browbeating and armtwisting, all of his demonizing of Wall Street, the banks, and the insurance industry haven't been enough to insulate his team from the perils of re-election.  As he watched his allies in the House move out of the bigger offices, the ones reserved for Speaker and Majority Leader, he must have realized that he may very well be doing the same in a couple of years.

So he reorganized his inner circle with people who can tell him how Clinton did it, and he's doing what they say.  Step one:  Pledge to promote free markets as the way to restore our country's economic health.

It doesn't make for a ringing endorsement of Obama's readiness to govern at the time he took office.  If he's recently discovered the benefits of free enterprise, you have to ask why he's learning about it at this stage in his career. 

It's more likely that he still hasn't made the connections between free markets, free people, and prosperity.  It's much more likely that he still views the U.S. economy as a magical black box for generating tax revenue that he can spread around how and where he pleases.  He doesn't know or care how it works.  He just wants it to work.

Either way, there's no cause to be encouraged.  Obama may truly have come to understand the power of free enterprise, or he may be just saying so because the Clinton administration retreads are telling that's what he needs to say.  If he's come to believe, why so late?  If he hasn't, why so slow?  Either way, he is not and has not ever been ready to be president. 

Proper Uses Of The Phrase "Blood Libel"

"Blood libel" refers to false accusations made in medieval times that Jews were in the practice of murdering Christian children for their blood which they were supposed to have used for making Passover matzos.  Ludicrous as the accusations were, they were all too often the pretext for persecuting Jews in those times.  Nowadays it's used by all sorts of people to describe just about any false accusation directed at any particular group. 

Recently Sarah Palin used "blood libel" to describe accusations made by progressive pundits that she, the Tea Party, talk radio, and conservatives in general were responsible for creating the "climate of hate" that encouraged Jared Loughner to go on shooting spree that left six people dead in Tucson, Arizona.  Condemnation followed swiftly.  Not of progressives pundits for making their stupid charge, but of Palin for daring to use the phrase.

In recent years pundits have used that phrase in a variety of situations, and oddly enough no one seemed to mind.  Here are some examples.

The date is November 20, 2000.  The setting is CNN's Crossfire.  Co-hosts are Bill Press and Mary Matalin.  The subject is the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election.  The guests are Representatives John Sweeney, Republican from New York, and Peter Deutsch, Democrat from Florida.

MATALIN: OK, Congressman Deutsch, let's talk about the other issue of the day. Late today, this issue was -- this statement was issued by the Democratic attorney general, who was Vice President Gore's campaign chairman in the state of Florida. Quote: "No man or woman in military service to this nation should have his or her vote rejected solely due to the absence of a postmark, particularly when military officials have publicly stated that the postmarking of military mail is not always possible under sea or field conditions."

This, of course, after the Democratic operatives on the ground were challenging and throwing out some 1,420 overseas ballots.

Does this mean that you are now going to go back in and reissue or recount those votes, those overseas votes, or was this just a P.R. stunt?

DEUTSCH: Let me just talk a little bit about the whole, I guess, spin from the Republicans about -- which has been to me the absolute most -- the worst statements I have ever heard probably in my life about anything. I mean, almost a blood libel by the Republicans towards Al Gore, saying that he was trying to stop men and women in uniform that are serving this country from voting. That is the most absurd thing and absolutely has no basis in fact at all.

In the fall of 2006 the Washington Post reported that Representative Mark Foley, Republican of Florida abruptly resigned after it was learned that he sent sexually explicit emails to former male pages, one of whom, at least, was under age.  In an October 15, 2006 New York Times column, Frank Rich found this to be an occasion to excoriated Republicans for their hypocrisy.

The moment Mr. Foley’s e-mails became known, we saw that brand of fearmongering and bigotry at full tilt: Bush administration allies exploited the former Congressman’s predatory history to spread the grotesque canard that homosexuality is a direct path to pedophilia. It’s the kind of blood libel that in another era was spread about Jews.

I didn't happen to notice the fear mongering any more than I noticed Rich's use of the phrase "blood libel."  No matter.

Let's move forward to May of 2008.  In the midst of the 2008 presidential election campaign an opinion piece by Andrew Cohen of CBS took Republican John McCain to task for his opposition to the appointment of "activist judges." 

Did McCain repeat the Shibboleth about “activist judges” and how they are ruining the meaning of the law? You bet he did. Of “activist lawyers and activist judges” McCain said: “They want to be spared the inconvenience of campaigns, elections, legislative votes and all of that. They don't seek to win debates on the merits of their argument; they seek to shut down debates by order of the court. And even in courtrooms, they apply a double standard. Some federal judges operate by fiat, shrugging off generations of legal wisdom and precedent while expecting their own opinions to go unquestioned.”

I wonder if the Arizona senator and his speech writers know that the late, great conservative polestar, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, and perhaps the most popular Supreme Court Justice of all time, Republican-nominee Sandra Day O’Connor, both expressed disdain for the threat of the “activist judge” charge. After all, a judge acts anytime he or she does or does not make a ruling, whether the ultimate result is considered “liberal” or “conservative” or something in between. So-called “judicial activism” occurs, in other words, when it’s your side that lost the case and it is nothing short of a blood libel against judges to accuse them of operating by fiat.

The uses of the phrase "blood libel" in the three examples above several things in common.  First, I confess I lifted all three of them from a column by Lesley Lathrop in which she opined that Sarah had gone too far by using the "blood libel" phrase. 

By invoking the blood libel, Palin may have gone too far. Though this is not the first time that the term has been used in a political context—for example, Frank Rich used it in a column in the New York Times, Andrew Cohen used it in a CBS News online op-ed, and Peter Deutsch used it on CNN's Crossfire, back in 2000, to attack Republicans during the Florida recount—even conservatives were reluctant to defend her remark.

The second thing they have in common is that they all accuse Republicans of libeling somebody else.  A third and less important characteristic that they have in common is that they exaggerate to the point of hyperbole.  It's a blood libel to characterize a judge as activist?  Please. 

But now we come to Sarah Palin who reacted to a slew of liberal pundits accusing her, the tea party, talk radio, and conservatives in general of inciting a lunatic to murder.

Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event.

President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.” Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country’s future. President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

When journalists and pundits heard the words "blood libel" they were shocked and outraged.  Well, maybe not.  There wasn't much of a reaction when Frank Rich, Peter Deutsch, or Andrew Cohen used them.  Nothing.  Not even when Glenn Reynolds used the phrase in his Wall Street Journal column entitled, The Arizona Tragedy and the Politics of Blood Libel.

American journalists know how to be exquisitely sensitive when they want to be. As the Washington Examiner's Byron York pointed out on Sunday, after Major Nidal Hasan shot up Fort Hood while shouting "Allahu Akhbar!" the press was full of cautions about not drawing premature conclusions about a connection to Islamist terrorism. "Where," asked Mr. York, "was that caution after the shootings in Arizona?"

Set aside as inconvenient, apparently. There was no waiting for the facts on Saturday. Likewise, last May New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and CBS anchor Katie Couric speculated, without any evidence, that the Times Square bomber might be a tea partier upset with the ObamaCare bill.

So as the usual talking heads begin their "have you no decency?" routine aimed at talk radio and Republican politicians, perhaps we should turn the question around. Where is the decency in blood libel?

I should point out that Glenn Reynolds' "blood libel" column was published in the Journal two days before Sarah Palin posted her "blood libel" video on Facebook.  It's a fact I would not have noticed had I not listened to Reynolds on Da Techguy radio show with Peter Ingemi.

So when is it OK to use the phrase "blood libel" and when is it not OK?  Based on the foregoing excerpts I'd have to guess that it's perfectly legitimate for liberal pundits and journalists to use it whenever they describe Republican complaints about nearly anything or anybody.   On the other hand, judging from the delayed reaction to Glenn Reynolds' column, it seems to be considered poor taste for libertarians or conservatives to say it.

The only hard and fast rule is that it's not OK for Sarah Palin to use the words "blood libel" under any circumstances.  Of course, it's not at all certain that it's OK for Sarah Palin to say anything.  At least not in the view of liberal pundits and journalists.

That's why it's so refreshing when she does.  Whenever she speaks out, whatever she says just lights 'em up on the left.  They go ballistic and it's such fun to watch. 

She gives them fits on the right, too, but not so much.  On the right they only wonder if it was such a smart move for Sarah to use those words, or to say anything at all.  Couldn't she have just let well enough alone?

Not a chance.  Nor should she let well enough alone.  The liberal media are committed to demonizing her in any way they can, but every time they attack they reveal their hypocrisy and damage their own credibility.  They think they're preventing Sarah Palin from becoming president.  She might be running and she might not.  Hard to guess.  But it's easy to see that she's preventing the media from regaining any semblance of credibility of their own.

In fact, whenever they take up the topic of Sarah Palin, the legacy media come off looking quite stupid.  And they are.  They still haven't figured out that it's been her plan all along.  To make them look stupid.  And they do.  Go Sarah!

Da Techguy

Last week a group of New England bloggers met up at the invitation of Pete Ingemi, Da Techguy to hear about his plan to form a blogger panel that would appear on his radio program which airs every Saturday evening at 9:00 on WCRN in Worcester.  Besides Pete and myself, the group included Martin Solomon of Solomonia, Mitch Townsend of Chicago Boyz, Neoneocon, and the Right Wing Gamer.

Here's the pitch as described by Pete on his blog.

 The nitty-gritty is that I’m hoping to have all of these fine bloggers as part of a rotating series of panelists on my second hour starting in February. All of this is in the semi planning stage but right now I’m leaning toward a panel for the first 2 segments of the 2nd hour and a final guest for the end or maybe going with 4 segments with a half hour with the panel, and two short guest segments, maybe an author and an advocate. I’m also thinking a local pol for a regular panelist to promote local readership since most advertisers are local.

I told Pete he can count me in.  To my blogging colleagues in New England, Pete would welcome your participation as well.  You can leave a comment on his site or email him at [email protected].

Not Pragmatic Issues?

In what I'm sure he considers a masterful performance, Paul Krugman assumes an air of reasonableness while he demolishes strawmen left and right, but mostly right.

By all means, let’s listen to each other more carefully; but what we’ll discover, I fear, is how far apart we are. For the great divide in our politics isn’t really about pragmatic issues, about which policies work best; it’s about differences in those very moral imaginations Mr. Obama urges us to expand, about divergent beliefs over what constitutes justice.

And the real challenge we face is not how to resolve our differences — something that won’t happen any time soon — but how to keep the expression of those differences within bounds.

What are the differences I’m talking about?

One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.

Hard to miss which side he's on when he talks about "capitalism red in tooth and claw."  It clarifies the moral differences.  On his side we have folks who would create that "morally superior" modern welfare state, and on the other.  Well, let's see what he has to say about them:

The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.

But just are who those guys on the other side, so stingy, so fond of violent rhetoric?  Nobody I know, actually, and I've been to some Tea Parties.  No matter to Krugman.  He presses on, framing the debate in terms of the eternal struggle of good versus evil.  When, he wonders, did Republicans lose their way and turn to the dark side? 

This deep divide in American political morality — for that’s what it amounts to — is a relatively recent development. Commentators who pine for the days of civility and bipartisanship are, whether they realize it or not, pining for the days when the Republican Party accepted the legitimacy of the welfare state, and was even willing to contemplate expanding it. As many analysts have noted, the Obama health reform — whose passage was met with vandalism and death threats against members of Congress — was modeled on Republican plans from the 1990s.

I think he's confused.  Republicans were busy trying to put some limits on federal spending in the 90s.  The most notable health care plan was HillaryCare, and we all know what happened to that.  As to the rest of the welfare state, the 90s saw Bill Clinton and the Republican congressional majorities push through reform legislation that dramatically cut the welfare rolls.  The left went ballistic at the cruelty of it all.  No, the 90s was not the decade when Republicans were into expanding the welfare state.

For that, we have to look to the late 60s, early 70s, and into the Carter administration.  By the time of the 1972 presidential election, Democrats and Republicans were coming to be known as Socialist Party A and Socialist Party B, as they strove to out-compassion each other. 

The eventuality that logically followed that compassionate lovefest was the election of Jimmie Carter.  Carter represented something of a culmination of the American welfare state expansion in the last century.  He was all about love and compassion.  His big problem was that he came along when the economy was crumbling under the strain of it, and he was hopelessly ilequiped to deal with it.  He blamed it all on a malaise in the American people.

It was right then that Republicans sold their souls.  To Ronald Reagan.  Reagan campaigned, won the presidency, and governed on the promise that lower taxes, increased defense spending, and regulatory overhaul would restore America.  His income tax reform included indexing tax rates to inflation.  Progressives unsuccessfully opposed all of it, calling it mean spirited, but contrary to all of their predictions Reagan did not lead us to more hardship and deprivation. 

On the contrary, inflation came under control.  After a spike in unemployment the U.S. economy began what was to become the longest period of economic expansion in history. Welfare rolls shrank as more people found jobs. 

The unprecedented growth created a tax base that, much to everyone's amazement, made possible the first balanced federal budget in decades. By that time we were into the Clinton administration, and because the deficit went away during his term progressives credited Clinton and his tax increases.  We don't all agree on that point.

Cato's Stephen Moore disagreed in an article published on August 7, 1997 where he wrote, 

The galloping economy has played a major role in reducing the deficit by sweeping record levels of tax revenue into the treasury over the past two years. This year, federal revenues are running about $110 billion above those of 1996.

The president most deserving of credit for balancing the budget was not Bill Clinton, but Ronald Reagan.

Reagan's legacy affects us dramatically today in two ways. First, Reagan's anti-Communist foreign policy and his military buildup hastened the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In the past eight years, America's victory in the Cold War generated a half-trillion-dollar peace dividend. That peace dividend grows every year, and it fell like manna from heaven into President Clinton's lap. The budget deficit is falling, not primarily because Clinton raised taxes and not primarily because the congressional Republicans committed themselves to a balanced budget, but because the defense budget is nearly $100 billion lower today than when the Berlin Wall came down.

The second effect of the Reagan years was to launch America into what is now widely regarded as a remarkable 15-year low-inflation, high-employment bull market (the Dow was at 800 in 1982, 8,000 today)--interrupted only mildly in the middle Bush years. These 15 years of prosperity were propelled by Reaganomics: lower tax rates, a long-run decline in inflation and interest rates (which also lowers tax rates), freer international trade and a strong dollar. Even with the anti-supply-side Bush and Clinton tax hikes, the top tax rate today of 40% is far below the towering 70% tax rate that disabled the economy in the 1970s.

This moment is so reminiscent of the Carter years, with progressives squawking about fairness while the economy teeters on the edge of depression.  Obama's prescriptions urge us to continue down that path, even as he himself repudiates them, as he did when he reversed himself on extending "the Bush tax cuts."  That was a move that Krugman deplored.   

By claiming that fiscal and tax policy choices are simply moral issues, Krugman only demonstrates his commitment to partisanship.  As an economist he should know that tax policy decisions have consequences.  They affect economic growth.  Some policies promote it.  Others don't.  Right now, we desperately need growth.  By framing the debate as a discussion of fairness, Krugman reduces it to nothing more than a partisan attack.  Nothing new in that.

The Tucson Sheriff

Charges that talk radio, the Tea Party, and Sarah Palin were guilty of inciting Jared Loughner's shooting rampage in Arizona are simply remarkable.  Or they would be if they came from people who might be considered reliable.  But the flood of charges that immediately belched forth from progressive mouths really can't be taken seriously for several reasons, one of which is the very fact that progressives are making them.  That by itself ought to be enough to discredit them, but for more we go to Charles Krauthammer.

As killers go, Jared Loughner is not reticent. Yet among all his writings, postings, videos, and other ravings — and in all the testimony from people who knew him — there is not a single reference to any of these supposed accessories to murder.

Not only is there no evidence that Loughner was impelled to violence by any of those upon whom Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann, the New York Times, the Tucson sheriff, and other rabid partisans are fixated. There is no evidence that he was responding to anything, political or otherwise, outside of his own head.

A climate of hate? This man lived within his very own private climate. “His thoughts were unrelated to anything in our world,” said the teacher of Loughner’s philosophy class at Pima Community College.

“He was very disconnected from reality,” said classmate Lydian Ali.

It's no surprise to find Paul Krugman and Keith Olbermann among the first to divine that villainous conservative thought was somehow culpable in the massacre.  In typically progressive fashion they act as if the absence of any kind of evidence really just demonstrates the sheer brilliance of their penetrating theories.  Progressive intellectual firepower cracks the case?  Hardly.

The Tucson sheriff is another story.  We've come to expect nonsense from Krugman and Olbermann.  It's getting to be welcome comic relief.  What we don't expect is to hear from law enforcement, especially somebody in the midst of it all. 

Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik, who is investigating the shooting that left six dead and U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords with a critical head injury, agrees that speech from the far-right has a tremendous negative impact.

At a press conference on Saturday, Dupnik cited the “atmosphere of hatred and bigotry” and called out Arizona which he characterized as “a mecca for prejudice and bigotry.” In subsequent interactions with the media, Dupnik has also called out Rush Limbaugh and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. In an interview with Fox News' Geraldo Rivera, Dupnik cited Palin as being responsible for what he calls "political vitriol."

Yes, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has been all over the climate of hate angle, and they were lapping it up at the Daily Kos.

Happening right now.  You can live stream.

Dupnick is doing a great job condemning hate talk and vitriolic personalities.  Gabby in critical condition.  bullet went through her head.

Dupnick reiterated 19 victims, all shot.  6 people have died.

No sooner did he open his mouth when a Tucson blogger named James Kelley published a post accusing the sheriff of deflecting attention from his own office.

The sheriff has been editorializing and politicizing the event since he took the podium to report on the incident. His blaming of radio personalities and bloggers is a pre-emptive strike because Mr. Dupnik knows this tragedy lays at his feet and his office. Six people died on his watch and he could have prevented it.  He needs to step up and start apologizing to the families of the victims instead of spinning this event to serve his own political agenda.

Jared Loughner, pronounced by the Sheriff as Lock-ner, saying it was the Polish pronunciation. Of course he meant Scott or Irish but that isn’t the point. The point is he and his office have had previous contact with the alleged assailant in the past and that is how he knows how to pronounce the name.

Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system.

[...]

The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact.

Kelly's charge, that the Tucson sheriff muffed his opportunities to head off a disaster, was understandably met with some initial skepticism.  But today the New York Times confirms that Tucson police were called to the Loughner house on more than one occasion.

TUCSON — The police were sent to the home where Jared L. Loughner lived with his family on more than one occasion before the attack here on Saturday that left a congresswoman fighting for her life and six others dead, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said on Tuesday.

A spokesman, Jason Ogan, said the details of the calls were being reviewed by legal counsel and would be released as soon as the review was complete. He said he did not know what the calls were about — they could possibly have been minor, even trivial matters — or whether they involved Jared Loughner or another member of the household.

It's still too soon to judge the sheriff's actions, but it's unlikely that progressives will drop their story of a Tea Party induced climate of hate.  That will tend to give the sheriff a bit of cover, but we'll see how long it lasts.  His story may unravel quickly.

Something Offensive And Pointless

That would be Jacob Weisberg.  Pointless, anyway.  Yesterday in Slate Mr. Weisberg explained how offensive and pointless was "the politically charged inquiry into what might have been swirling inside the head of Jared Loughner." 

That was by way of introduction into his own politically charged analysis in which he concluded that the Tea Party didn't actually cause Jared Loughner to go on his shooting rampage, but Tea Party politics increased the odds that he would.  You just can't make this stuff up.

First you rile up psychotics with inflammatory language about tyranny, betrayal, and taking back the country. Then you make easy for them to get guns. But if you really want trouble, you should also make it hard for them to get treatment for mental illness. I don't know if Loughner had health insurance, but he falls into a pool of people who often go uninsured—not young enough to be covered by parents (until the health-care bill's coverage of twentysomethings kicked in a few months ago), not old enough for Medicare, not poor enough for Medicaid. If such a person happens to have a history of mental illness, he will be effectively uninsurable. To get treatment, he actually has to commit a crime. If Republicans succeed in repealing the Obama health care bill, that's how it will remain.

There you have it.  Oppose ObamaCare and you are an accomplice to murder!  Dare to complain that your congressional representative doesn't represent your wishes, and promise to take back the country by voting him out, you are an accessory to assassination. 

The injustice of Weisberg's charge would be infuriating if it weren't so pathetically stupid and ineffectual.  It's funny instead.  I'm delighted at so many distraught lefties kicking the hell out that dead horse.  They just can't stop themselves.  

Rush Limbaugh's been keeping score.

Here's a partial list of some of the incidents the left has tried to pin on conservatives.  The Columbine shooters. The 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (specifically they tried to blame me for that).  The DC sniper.  The New York City Times Square car bomb attempt.  They tried to blame that on some Tea Partier angry at the health law, then we find out that was radical Islamists.  The February 2010 IRS plane attack in San Antonio. Remember that? It had to be an anti-government clown that flew that plane into the IRS office, had to be.  The Pentagon subway shooter. The Fort Hood attack. The Discovery Channel hostage taker.  And this guy [John Patrick] Bedell who went into the Pentagon and wanted to shoot these people up.  This guy, by the way, is a dead ringer for Loughner.  Amy Bishop who shot her colleagues at that Alabama college.

The list goes on and on and on. They are countless.  The list actually is never ending of incidents like this where the media is damn certain, damn well certain they can give Obama his OKC bombing.  They can give a Democrat president some kind of massive murder or disaster caused by conservatives.

If we can just get the lefty pundits to keep doing what they're doing, they might just kill off the progressive movement altogether.  Imagine.  We could be on our way to generations of common sense government.  Government that's not buried under myriads of loony leftist experiments in social and economic engineering.  If it wouldn't be too inflammatory to suggest.