Can Happy Days Be Here Again?

Now that Congress has rejected the terrible Wall Street bailout, we have two options: enact a good bill or do nothing. Either of these options would be better than trying to pass the bill that was rejected by Republicans and even some Democrats.

If we are going to try to do something before the election, here are some provisions that a new bill must include if Republicans are going to support it:

1. The worst provision of the bailout bill was the cap on executive compensation. Many of these executives are already underpaid and they are suffering terribly as their stock options become worthless. One reason why some companies have not performed as well as they should have was that their executives were too distracted trying to make ends meet to focus on their jobs and they were worried about what will happen to them if they become unemployed. They are no doubt chilled by what happened to AIG CEO Martin J Sullivan when he resigned in July after AIG wrote down $20 billion in losses on assets linked to subprime mortgages. He got a measly severance package that only amounted to $47 million, which will be worth even less in 2009 dollars if the economy continues in the direction it’s headed. What incentive are executives going to have to work hard and pull their companies out of debt if we cap their compensation and how are we going to convince some poorly performing executives to resign if we don’t promise them hefty golden parachutes?

2. Even worse, the bailout bill contained no provisions guaranteeing Christmas bonuses for Wall Street workers. Doesn’t anyone in Congress understand how Wall Street works? Telling Wall Street workers that Santa Claus might not come this year would be devastating for our economy, which depends on the infusion of cash it gets each Christmas as investment bankers spend their bonus checks buying condominiums and boats and indulging in lavish meals in luxury restaurants. How can we hope to get out of this economic slump if we do not guarantee the Christmas bonuses that keep our economy going?

3. As Larry Kudlow pointed out the bailout bill went “beyond France into pure socialism” and we all know that socialism (not to mention anything French) is just about the worst thing there is. “If the U.S. government is going to start to own all of our financial institutions,” wrote Kudlow, “all these markets will sink like stones.” So how can the government buy up all of these assets but avoid owning financial institutions? There is a very simple solution. The government could immediately privatize these assets by giving them away to outgoing members of the Bush Administration, who will be losing their jobs in January and forced to fend for themselves in an uncertain economy. That would kill two birds with one stone: America would be saved from socialism and former members of the Bush Administration would be spared the indignity of having to take jobs as lobbyists or beg their friends for seats on corporate boards.

4. If Democrats expect Republicans to vote for any bailout bill, it must include a gag rule that prevents Democrats from saying nasty things about them. According to House Minority Leader John Boehner, Nancy Pelosi’s very mean and partisan speech “poisoned” the debate and “caused a number of members we thought we could get to go south.” Although Barney Frank promised to talk “uncharacteristically nice” to Republicans who decided not to vote for the bill because of Pelosi’s statements, that will not be enough. Republicans are not fools. They need a guarantee in writing that Democrats will not ridicule Republicans in the days leading up to the election and try to blame them for the financial crisis. “Now is not the time to fix the blame," said John McCain, blaming "Senator Obama and his allies in Congress" for infusing "unnecessary partisanship into the process."

5. The bill must include anti-illegal immigrant provisions. As Rep. Tom Tancredo pointed out, this economic crisis is mostly the fault of illegal aliens. Although he didn’t have exact figures on the number of illegal aliens who fraudulently purchased homes, he is certain that illegal aliens are somehow to blame. “We need to ensure that the ‘American Dream’ remains within reach of American families – and that means enacting some long overdue safeguards that prevent illegal aliens and their unscrupulous allies in the financial industry from undermining its integrity,” said Tancredo in a press release. Although he promised to oppose any bill that did not include safeguards forcing illegal aliens to live on the streets (with an exception, of course, for any “wealthy foreign real estate investor or financier of a vacation home”) and then voted for the bill anyway and deleted this press release from his website, I’m sure he won’t make that mistake again. If Democrats expect Tancredo and other Republicans to vote for the next bill, it must include these safeguards and a statement blaming illegal immigrants for our financial woes, written in English only.

6. The bill must include a cut in the capital gains tax. Why? Because Republicans will not vote for any finance bill that does not include a cut in the capital gains tax, which will eventually trickle down and help average Americans.

If a bill does not include all of these provisions then Republicans should vote against it, which brings us to Option 2: doing nothing. Some economists believe that doing nothing could result in another Great Depression, but is that such a bad thing? There is a reason it was called the Great Depression and not, say, the Terrible Depression. According to economist J. Bradford Delong, members of the Hoover Administration, influenced by the theories of Austrian economists like Friedrich von Hayek and Joesph Schumpeter, believed “that in the long run the Great Depression would turn out to have been ‘good medicine’ for the economy.” Unfortunately, Hoover was swept out of office before this theory could be tested and Franklin Roosevelt enacted all kinds of socialistic policies that bedevil us to this day. So perhaps the best thing we could do is do nothing and bring on another Great Depression, but let’s do it right this time. Sure, there would be some temporary pain, and some people might be forced to wait in bread lines and sell apples in the street, but in the long run it would be better for our economy to shake out the weak links. Some Republicans might be reluctant to come out in support of triggering a new Great Depression in an election year so John McCain is going to have to show some leadership, the kind of leadership he showed in scuttling the first bill, to bring Republicans in Congress around. Coming out in favor of a Great Depression would show voters that John McCain really is a new kind of leader and it might just be the Hail Mary pass that wins him the election.

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You Have To Be Wrong To Be Right for the U.S. Presidency

To read my latest post head on over to Michael van der Galien's new blog PoliGazette, which just launched this week. Even though Mr. Van der Galien hails from "Old Europe" he knows more about American politics than many Americans do. I think you'll find that he and his co-bloggers have created a site that will soon become one of the must reads in the blogosphere. I was very touched that among the many luminaries he asked to guest post this week to celebrate the launch, he also asked this modest blogger. After reading my post, be sure to take a look around. Or read what I posted at his site below before taking a look at PoliGazette:

To a lot of Europeans, and Americans as well, U.S. presidential campaigns are a mystery. Perhaps three-time presidential loser Henry Clay explained the process best in 1839 when he said, "I had rather be right than President." In other words, you have to be wrong to be right for the U.S. presidency and that is just as true today as it was in 1839. The purpose of a presidential campaign is to give the candidates the chance to repudiate, back way from and explain away as many of their old positions and actions as possible in order to convince extremists and one-issue voters in their parties to nominate them. Then the candidates must run to the middle and regret a few more positions and actions they took in the past in order to get elected. Finally, once they are elected they must never change their minds or admit to any mistakes at all no matter what the situation. President Bush is a perfect example of how this strategy works. While running for President he regretted most of what he had done in his life, from his drinking to his performing badly in school and in business, which just made him more likeable. Now that he is President, he can't think of a single mistake he has made.

The main task of most of the Democrats running for President is to prove how wrong they were (as far as Democrats are concerned) about Iraq. Although New York Senator Hillary Clinton surged to the front of the Democrat candidates on the strength of being wrong about health care and all the other wrongs committed while her husband was President, her inability to completely regret her vote on Iraq, has given other candidates an opening. When it comes to being wrong on Iraq, Clinton can't seem to get it quite right. She says that she made the wrong decision for the right reasons and that if she knew then what she knows today, she would have made the right decision, which is at least better than being right for the wrong reasons, but not good enough for some people. Some Democrats are saying that she isn't the right candidate if she can't just say she was wrong. The early strength she got from admitting that her health care plan was all wrong, or, at least, that it was the wrong plan for the right reasons, has been jeopardized by her stance on Iraq. And now her husband has made things worse by saying he was right on Iraq from the beginning, which blurs Hillary's message that she was kind of wrong.


Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards became the favorite of many progressive Democrats by claiming that he was the most wrong of all on Iraq. Most of his supporters say that the main reason they are supporting him is because he began his mea culpa "The Right Way in Iraq" with these three little words: "I was wrong." But there are other things about him that seem just a little too perfect, from his hair to his marriage, and this has caused his campaign to falter.

The only major Democrat running for President who won't admit he was wrong about the war is Illinois Senator Barack Obama. He still obstinately clings to the position that he had before the war, that the war was wrong. In October 2002 he said, "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars."

Obama's stubborn insistance that he was right on Iraq has led some to believe he doesn't have enough experience to be President. He hasn't had enough time to admit to any big mistakes. The fact that he has so few past positions to repudiate, misstatements to regret or scandals to apologize for has led some people to believe he lacks substance. Though he has made a few missteps during the campaign, none of them have gone far enough to convince voters that he is truly wrong enough to be President. Many worry that he may be saving all of his mistakes until after he is elected President.

By contrast, on the Republican side the candidates are falling all over each other trying to prove just how wrong they have been. Arizona Senator John McCain has had a years and years of experience of being disastrously wrong at the right times. Early in his career he got caught up in the Savings & Loan Scandal and was one of the Keating Five who received illegal campaign contributions from Charles Keating, the chairman of the corrupt Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. "It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do," he later said of the scandal. In the aftermath of this scandal he made up for his mistakes by becoming a staunch supporter of campaign finance reform and co-sponsoring the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill. But to many Republicans his advocacy of campaign finance reform was even wronger still, so now he has been trying to make amends for that mistake by hiring as the co-chairman of his national finance committee A. Jerrold Perenchio, a man he once accused of trying to "evade and violate" the campaign finance law he sponsored.

Although McCain ran against President Bush in 2000 and has occasionally been a thorn in his side on such issues as torture, for the most part he has embraced the President, both figuratively and literally. As strongly as he appears to oppose torture, which is a big sticking point with many Republican voters who believe that being pro-torture is the most important issue in the campaign, he has reassured Republican voters by capitulating easily to the President when push comes to shove. Ironically, his support for the President's immigration plan, the one issue that most Republicans oppose the President on, has also been a huge problem for McCain. Somehow, he can't even seem to pick the right issues to support and oppose the President on. But if he just made a few pro-torture, anti-immigrant speeches, the nomination could be his.

McCain may ultimately decide he had rather be "right" on these issues, but he is making other efforts to appeal to the right-wing. McCain, who took the Straight Talk Express to Nowhere in 2000, is hoping that he can ride the Double Talk Express right to the White House this time, after taking one small detour to refuel. "Are you going into crazy base world?" Jon Stewart asked him about his efforts to cozy up to the late Jerry Falwell, a man he once denounced as one of America's "agents of intolerance." "I'm afraid so," McCain replied. Deep down McCain knows it's wrong to pander to the Christian Right, which he once attacked, but by admitting it, that makes it right. When the Christian Right was at the apex of their power, McCain took them on. Now that their power is beginning to wane, he is sucking up to them. His strategy seems to be to do everything exactly wrong, a strategy pioneered by George Costanza in the famous Seinfeld episode, "The Opposite." It just might be the key to victory.

But McCain has quite a bit of competition when it comes to being wrong from former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
Romney and Giuliani are now in a battle to see who can repudiate more of the liberal stances they took on social issues in the past to appeal to the conservative wing of the Republican party. Both hail from liberal states, where they took liberal positions on such issues as abortion, gay rights and gun control. Now they are claiming that it was all just a ruse. By admitting their inauthenticity in the past they look more authentic now. "He tricked liberals into voting for him," Ann Coulter said when she endorsed Romney shortly before trying to sabotage his campaign by calling Edwards a "faggot." Having demonstrated their ability to fudge their positions once, while winking at conservative voters that they really believed something different all along, they aim to show that they can win by doing the exact same thing again in the general election. Like post-modern advertisements that mock the idea that they are selling you a bill of goods, even as they successfully sell you a bill goods, Romney and Giuliani hope to turn being double-talking politicians to their advantage.

Because McCain, Romney and Giuliani have not yet convinced voters that they truly regret most of what they said and did in the past, some voters are taking a look at former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Huckabee is a living embodiment of the "Before" and "After" ads for weight loss products that used to run in cheap magazines, having lost 110 pounds. His release of a serial rapist who went on to murder someone would seem to be a perfect mistake to regret, an opportunity to propose draconian measures against crime and perhaps connect these proposals somehow to torture and immigration to win over the base. Unfortunately, Huckabee has neglected to seize this opportunity, claiming he did nothing wrong and attempting to blame the criminal's release on his predecessors, Jim Guy Tucker and Bill Clinton. Is that any way to win an election?

Even worse, some people believe Huckabee might be too morally upright to be President. Paul Mirengoff of Powerline believes that while Huckabee supports the War in Iraq, he supports it for the wrong reasons. As if that weren't bad enough, Huckabee opposes waterboarding and would close Guantanamo because he believes they are morally wrong. Mirengoff argues that Huckabee's reluctance to compromise his moral values could undermine his ability to fight terrorism. "Waterboarding and long-term detention aren't very 'Christian,'" says Mirengoff. "They merely keep terrorists out of action and, in special circumstances enable us to find out where we're going to be attacked next and/or where we can find those who are planning the next attacks." And on immigration Huckabee has opposed denying state benefits to illegal immigrants, calling it "un-Christian." Most Republican voters prefer Christians who don't have such a highly developed sense of right and wrong.

Like Obama, Huckabee seems to have adopted an odd strategy that is puzzling pundits who believe that Americans are not ready for a President who will not turn his back on his principles to get elected. They worry that a candidate who is not willing to bend his principles to win an election won't be able to bend his principles to fight our enemies, who have no principles at all. Obama and Huckabee should remember that in 1964 Barry Goldwater ran for President with the campaign slogan "In Your Heart You Know He's Right," and he lost in one of the biggest landslides in American history. And yet, sometimes I wonder if maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a President who stuck to his principles throughout the campaign and didn't change his positions just to get elected. Maybe it would be a nice change of pace to vote for someone who was right about a few things instead of one who now says he was wrong about everything. But I suppose, as President Richard Nixon once said, "That would be wrong."

Are We Tasering People Enough?

The tasering of a student at a John Kerry speech at University of Florida has many people confused. At first conservative bloggers seized on the story of Andrew Meyer's tasering at the UF forum as another example of the unjust treatment of conservatives in our society, not to mention another chance to attack John Kerry. As usual Michelle Malkin led the way. She likes to get on top of a story and draw conclusions as soon as possible because she can always backtrack later.

"You know what the lamest part is? Listening to impotent John Kerry's voice droning apathetically during the entire incident," wrote Malkin. If it had been her giving the speech and a liberal had asked her rude questions and been tasered by police, she no doubt would have leapt into the audience and come to the obnoxious questioner's defense, even at the risk of being tasered herself. That's the kind of person she is. Kerry did later condemn the arrest, saying that he and Meyer were engaged in "a good healthy discussion," apparently not realizing that the reason their discussion seemed so one-sided was because his discussion partner was being electrocuted.

But according to Ace of Spades the police would never have tasered a liberal disturbing a speech by a conservative. Because conservatives are treated like second-class citizens in our society and women refuse to date them, at least judging by his experience, conservatives are the only people who ever get tasered. Stop the ACLU joked delightfully that the ACLU should get involved, knowing, of course, that the ACLU never defends conservatives, other than Nazis, that is. Conservatives were outraged that the civil liberties of one of their own were being trampled.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the blogstorm. It turned out that the student was not conservative but was in fact so liberal he was to the left of Kerry. The initial enthusiasm for Meyer began to wane with this revelation. "No, he isn't one of ours," wrote Dan Riehl, saving his long, self-pitying treatise on how unfair the world is to conservatives, which we are all looking forward to reading, for another day. "Good for the campus police because Meyer deserved what he got," said John Hawkins at Right Wing News. Somehow the idea of a liberal getting tasered didn't seem quite so outrageous after all. And certainly no one minded all that much when a Muslim student got tasered last year in the UCLA library where he may have been reading books on bomb making or something. Eventually, Malkin would change her position 180 degrees and start attacking Meyer. In the midst of reconsidering her initial reaction to the tasering, Malkin even managed to find an anti-immigrant angle. "Speaking of tasers, did you know that immigration officers cannot use them against illegal aliens in federal detention facilities?" she said, pointing out that Tom Tancredo (who is opposed to immigration despite his suspiciously foreign-sounding name) is doing something about this unfair "differential treatment." When the victim of tasering is an illegal immigrant, suddenly it doesn't seem so bad.

You might think that at this point the liberal blogosphere would have rallied to Meyer's defense. At first they seemed to be ignoring the story or even justified the police conduct because the idea of a conservative activist getting tasered at a Kerry speech didn't seem like anything to get worked up about. Plus, liberal bloggers are just as happy to bash Kerry as conservatives are since they blame him for botching the election. Although some liberal bloggers are now tentatively saying that the police may have gone a bit too far, they don't seem quite so outraged as the conservative bloggers almost were. Something seems to be holding them back. Sure, the First Amendment sounds good in theory, but perhaps tasering some annoying people might not be such a bad idea and it wouldn't be prudent to come out against tasering per se. There are a few conservative bloggers, some liberals must be thinking, who could use a good tasering.

While many conservatives and liberals seem to be shifting their positions so quickly it would take a quantum mechanic to sort it all out, I have maintained a very consistent point of view ever since I first heard about the incident. I am 100% in favor of tasering obnoxious people, whether they are conservative, liberal or radically moderate. In fact, I don't think we are tasering people enough and that this country would be better off if we had more tasering not less.

I think we have all seen political events where someone talks on and on or is irritatingly impassioned about their narrow agenda. If we armed security at all of these events with taser guns, I'm sure people would think twice about hogging the microphones and boring us with their speeches about issues we don't care about. Tasering has a remarkably calming effect on people as you can see by the reaction of the crowd at the UF event. Instead of becoming angry at the police or trying to intervene or speak out about the treatment of Meyer, they all became quite docile.

If only we had had tasers in the 1960s, I think we might have avoided a lot of the campus unrest during that turbulent decade. They seem to be much more effective at pacifying people than tear gas, German shepherds, firehoses and bullets. If the police had tasered a few anti-war protesters during the 1960s, we might not have lost the Vietnam War.

Although tasers do reportedly hurt -- a lot -- they are an effective means of nonlethal force, if you don't count the 148 people who have died from being tasered, and their effects are not permanent, the way shooting people sometimes is. If more people were tasered at public events, it would have a big impact on lessening the coarsening of our culture.

Throughout the 2004 presidential campaign, for example, President Bush had to screen the people attending his events to make sure that no one would ask him a rude or difficult question. But it would have been much easier if the Secret Service were armed with tasers and simply tasered anyone who got out of line. I don't think anyone would have asked any impolite questions if they saw that all the Secret Service agents carrying stun guns. The judicious use of tasers might make the 2008 election a lot more tolerable.

But tasers would not just have a calming effect on our political discourse. Just as concealed carry laws reduce crime as criminals become aware that anyone could shoot them, making tasers more available to the general public would make people think twice about being discourteous. Taser International is marketing a fashionable pink taser for women that should keep overly flirtatious men in check. And widespread use of tasers would reduce the number of both surly waiters and annoying customers arguing over every little charge on their restaurant bills.

Tasers also have the potential to transform future generations in a way that could be even more far-reaching than drugging our kids with Ritalin. If our teachers had tasers, students would be much better behaved and we might avoid incidents like Columbine and Virginia Tech. And I can't tell you how many times I have wished that parents had tasers to discipline their unruly kids. In New York they are actually doing something about this problem. Teenagers there are going to think twice about disturbing the neighbors with rowdy barbecues after the 17-year-old son of a retired policeman was tased four times last month after beating him and choking him was not having the desired effect. In Great Britain police are pioneering the use of tasers to pacify impudent little tykes, having just been given the go-ahead to use tasers on children.

No one wants a return of the campus unrest we witnessed during the 1960s and I'm sure everyone was pleased with the very passive reaction of the students at the UF event. Imagine a society where everyone was as calm and peaceful as the very well-behaved UF students were. It's easy if you try.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Andrew Meyer, John Kerry, Tasers, Michelle Malkin, Politics
Carnivals: BOMS, Carnival of Principled Government, Carnival of Injustice, Educational Technology Carnival, Carnival of the Liberals

Give Scooter Libby a New Job

Conservatives have not been very happy with President Bush lately because of his support for immigration reform and his apparent disregard for the fate of Scooter Libby. Although his commutation of Libby's sentence should reassure the President's base, many conservatives believe that the President did not go far enough. I think the President needs to do more to win back the base and I have an idea that will do just that.

Many were shocked by the harsh sentence that Judge Reggie Walton gave Libby. To give him a sentence that was within the sentencing guidelines was to treat him like a crack dealer or some other common criminal. It sent a terrible message to those who criticize the administration that no one can do anything to stop them without risking jail time. In his statement commuting the sentence President Bush called the sentence "excessive." But oddly the President did not pardon Libby and he did not absolve him of having to pay a hefty $250,000 fine.

Ed Morrissey, who was not very happy with President's immigration bill and wanted Congress "to find a solution that respects the rule of law," compared the President to Solomon. "In opting for commutation, Bush has attempted a Solomonic decision to split the baby," Morrissey wrote. "Unfortunately, like Solomon, Bush will probably find neither side satisfied." Although I agree with Morrissey that Bush is as wise as Solomon, I'm not sure he is interpreting the biblical story correctly. As I recall one of two women who claimed the baby was perfectly happy to settle for half a baby and it was only the real mother that objected. To tell you the truth I never understood why the other woman thought having half a baby was a pretty good deal, but I guess times were different back then. Morrissey thinks that half a baby is all the President could give Libby for now.

Ace of Spades, who in post after post rallied his readers to jam the phone lines of their congressmen to protest the "amnesty bill" for illegal immigrants, was glad that the President ended what he called a "silly fantasia." However, he thinks that the $250,000 fine should have been lowered to something more reasonable. Undeclared presidential candidate Fred Thompson said he was "happy" for Libby though he had "urged for a pardon." Thompson, who was on Libby's defense fund, had also split with the President on immigration, saying that illegal immigrants from Cuba are potential terrorists. Glenn Reynolds, who thought the immigration bill sent a message to legal immigrants that "laws are for suckers" predicted that Bush would rise in the polls as some conservatives rallied to his side for commuting Libby's sentence. Michelle Malkin who has excoriated the President over what she called "shamnesty" for illegal immigrants has been largely silent on the Libby case.

If Bush wants to win back the Republican base, there is something he could do that would win them over on both the immigration issue and on justice for Scooter Libby. He could appoint Libby as the new Immigration Czar and give him sweeping new powers to ruthlessly enforce the rule of law. Working with Federal and local law enforcement, Libby's new agency could round up illegal immigrants that break our laws just by being here. At the same time his recent experience with the legal system would give him the compassion and discretion necessary to deal leniently with the small businessmen and homeowners who just needed workers for their restaurants and factories and day laborers to tend their gardens and lawns. And the annual salary for this new job should be $250,000, which would take care of Libby's fine. With this bold move, the President would be killing two halves of the baby with one stone, something even Solomon couldn't manage. It would send a powerful message that the President does not condone law-breaking unless it is absolutely necessary for national security. That's a clear message that I think conservatives could rally around.

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Technorati Tags: Jon Swift, Cheney, Scooter Libby, Bush, Immigration, Politics