Lynn Sweet predicts Barack Obama will run for President in 2008. Strangely enough, the first thought that ran through my head when I read Sweet's article was, "this is going to drive John Kass nuts."

As some of you may know, Kass is the extremely talented, prolific, and (lone) conservative columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He's also one of the only columnists in the country - if not the only one - who hasn't completely lost his faculties and fallen down prostrate before Obama over the last couple of years - and if Obama does run for President that'll make Kass one of the country's most important columnists as well.

Here's what Kass wrote about Obama back on November 2, the day after a Chicago Tribune investigation revealed that Obama got a killer deal on some real estate in Chicago done in partnership with Tony Rezko, Governor Rod Blagojevich's rainmaker pal who was recently indicted on charges of corruption:

The Tribune story serves notice to all the national columnists, editorial writers and political reporters who've been genuflecting before their Obama icons. He might not walk on water after all.

So they should stop with the gooey public relations and start reporting before Obamaniacs seed Iowa's presidential cornfields this spring.

Obama isn't a bad fellow. I like him. He knows he's being used by some Democrats who see him as a pretty black candidate first rather than a man and as some empty vessel without a record into which they pour their ambition. There's racism in that, although they can't see it and probably never will.

They see Obama as some horse to ride into the 2008 presidential elections, a horse that's not named Hillary. [snip]

Some pundits will ignore the Tribune report because it doesn't fit the gauzy public relations narrative they've told so often that they've hypnotized themselves. Besides, they're busy helping Sen. John Kerry take his loafer out of his mouth.

Others will engage in fantastic verbal contortions, suggesting Obama is a victim of cynical reporters, a victim of the cunning Tony Rezko. This would suggest Obama is far too naive to become president, so they'll contort some more. Such gymnastics promise to be hilarious.

The fact is the Obamas and the Rezkos bought property in a fashionable South Side neighborhood next to each other on the same day, from the same lot, and the Obamas came out the winners.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kass for the first time just a few days after he wrote this column, and we talked about the Democrats' enfatuation with Obama, a man few in the country know anything about.

Consider just how meteoric Obama's rise has been. In 2000, he lost badly to Bobby Rush in the Democratic primary in Illinois 1st Congressional District. Four years later, with only about a month left in the 2004 Democratic Senate primary, Obama was running tied with Dan Hynes for second place, ten points behind gazillionaire Blair Hull - until the frontrunner's campaign imploded in mid-to-late February amid revelations his wife had filed a restraining order against him for abuse (I think he admitted kicking her in the shin during a spat, if I recall).

Barring that last minute turn of events, Obama would still be an Illinois State Senator and two-time loser for higher office that no one in the country had ever heard of.

Instead, Obama won the primary in March and went on to give an excellent keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in August. Just like that, before he'd even officially been elected to the Senate, Obama became an overnight sensation and suddenly morphed into presidential material among Democrats and the media.

And so here we are. I don't know if Obama is going to run or whether he's presidential material or not. But as history has repeatedly shown, presidential politics is very much about timing and about being the person who rises to meet the opportunity of the moment. 2008 could very well be such a moment for Obama. Then again, maybe not.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:55 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Michael Barone runs down a list of recent unforced errors in Senate races by the GOP - and the Dems.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 09:28 AM | Email Author | Permalink

In his RCP column today, Jed Babbin takes a look at the ongoing investigation involving BAE Systems, a British defense manufacturer, and Saudi Arabia. It seems BAE set up a "slush fund" of some 60 million-plus pounds to bribe Saudi officials into continuing to contract for arms purchases. That money was channeled through "fixer" Wafic Said, a Syrian born Brit and friend to the Saudi Royal Family who has subsequently risen to become one of the country's wealthiest men.

As Babbin notes, the investigation has imperiled a twenty-billion pound contract (close to $40 billion) for 72 Typhoon fighter jets. Executives at BAE and the labor unions wants the probe to end immediately, for fear that the Saudi's will pull the contract and give it to the French.

But yesterday the Guardian reported a new breakthrough in the investigation: the discovery of a Swiss bank account controlled by Said which may show direct payments to Saudi officials. The British government outlawed such payments in 2002.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:25 AM | Email Author | Permalink

From today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Dayna Klein had only her unborn baby in mind when she instinctively covered her belly after a gunman stormed a Seattle Jewish center last summer.

Tuesday, she finally got to meet the son she saved.

Klein, who survived the rampage July 28 at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle that killed a colleague, gave birth to Charley Paz Klein at a Seattle hospital Tuesday night, her spokesman, Howard Bragman, said. The baby weighed 5 pounds, 12 ounces. [snip]

When the gunman pointed his weapon at her and squeezed the trigger, Klein swung her left hand over her belly to protect her fetus. A bullet went through her arm and grazed her thigh before lodging in the carpet.

"It was a split second that I was able to think. I don't know how, but I was," she told the Seattle P-I after the shootings. "The only thing that occurred to me was, how I was going to save my baby? That was my one shot, my one chance of saving my baby."

Even as she was wounded and bleeding, Klein managed to crawl to her desk and call 911. When the shooter pointed his gun to her head, she handed the phone to him and persuaded him to talk to the police dispatcher. He eventually put his gun down and gave up.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:25 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Mary Ann Sieghart wins the award for the intro to her takedown of London Mayor "Red" Ken Livingstone:

There are quite a few useful rules of thumb in life. If something seems too good to be true, it almost certainly is too good to be true. If a book is still boring after 100 pages, it's not going to improve. And if Ken Livingstone violently disapproves of someone, the chances are that they are an admirable person.

Read the rest.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:13 AM | Email Author | Permalink

George Will has fired off a column ripping Jim Webb over his widely reported exchange with President Bush and for his populist rant in the Wall St. Journal last week. Will calls Webb a "pompous poseur and an abuser of the English language" - among other things - in a fairly withering assault from start to finish. The column is embargoed until midnight tonight (Eastern), but you can catch it on RCP starting at 12:01.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:33 PM | Email Author | Permalink

If you haven't already checked out Ethan Wallison's recollections of Nancy Pelosi , I strongly suggest you find five minutes and give it a read.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:01 PM | Email Author | Permalink

In addition to the posts on Wes Clark and John Kerry below, here's more of the latest on 2008:

The Hotline is reporting Bill Frist will announce at 1pm Eastern today that he won't be running for President.

The Boston Globe reports Mitt Romney is planning to set up his '08 HQ in Boston's North End. And elentless Romney booster Kathryn Jean-Lopez points out Mitt's latest "gets."

The Giuliani Blog speculates excitedly over news that California and Florida might move up their primaries.

It only seems like John Edwards lives in Iowa.

Eye on 08 looks at who has the highest favorite son (or daughter, as the case may be) ratings.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 10:25 AM | Email Author | Permalink

At the HuffPo, Stephen Kaus writes an amusing open letter to John Kerry begging him not to run again in '08:

Dear Senator Kerry:

I write as a supporter of yours in 2004, from way before the convention, to suggest that you do yourself a favor and announce now that you are not running in 2008 and will devote your full efforts to helping the Democrats in the U.S. Senate. Ironically, this may be your best bet to be considered Presidential material again some day.

They say that when you are in a hole you should first stop digging. If you keep running for President, please write me from China.

Kaus's final piece of advice to Kerry: " Oh, and don't appear in public doing effete sports that require spandex or harnesses."

Posted by Tom Bevan at 09:47 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Wes Clark says if he runs for President again in 2008, he won't make the same mistake of getting off to a late start.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 09:25 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The news about Nancy Pelosi passing over Alcee Hastings for the Chairmanship of the House Intel Committee came out last night, but in this morning's Washington Post Jonathan Weisman and Peter Slevin do a final smack down of Hastings' claims of innocence in much the same way Byron York did yesterday. Weisman and Slevin write:

He [Hastings] pointed repeatedly to his 1983 acquittal by a Miami jury and wrote that it is "amazing how little importance" his critics give that verdict. The events that followed that trial, he said, "are so convoluted, voluminous, complex and mundane that it would boggle the mind."

In fact, there is a certain simplicity in the conclusion drawn by an investigating committee of five eminent federal judges, each with strong civil rights credentials. Those judges, and later more than three dozen others, concluded that Hastings lied to the Miami jury as many as 15 times to win acquittal.

So who's it going to be? The three candidates being mentioned are Silvestre Reyes, Norm Dicks, and Sanford Bishop. Rush Holt is also in the mix.

Dicks says he hasn't talked to anyone about the Intel Chairmanship and he's not interested besides.

Reyes is the next most senior member on the committee after Hastings, but one can only imagine the anger directed at Pelosi by Congressional Black Caucus, first for ousting William Jefferson and now for passing on Hastings.That would seem to make Bishop a reasonable compromise, especially since he was orgininally bounced from the Intel Committee to seat Harman.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 09:22 AM | Email Author | Permalink

On Thursday, President Bush will meet with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in Jordan. The vast majority of the meeting will undoubtedly focus on the challenges of controlling the sectarian violence in Iraq and achieving national reconciliation, but the President should also get a thorough debriefing on Iraq's recent dealings with Iran and Syria.

Coming on the heels of Iraqi President Talabani's visit to Iran and Iraq's diplomatic normalization with Syria, President Bush has good reason to wary of these developments - and to hear what Maliki has to say about where these bilateral relationships are going.

It's clear that both Iran and Syria are trying to co-opt Iraq into their sphere on influence. Of course, the first thing Tehran and Damascus will try to get their new Iraqi friends to do is to pull the plug on the U.S. presence there. From Tehran's and Damascus' perspective, the fewer Americans in the region to check their plans for hegemony, the better.

But they also intend to use promises of peace and stability in Iraq as a bargaining chip in advancing other aspects of their agendas as well.

Iran wants to use Iraq as leverage to get the U.N. to back off pressuring Tehran over its nuclear (weapons) program. Tehran's message to the U.S. and other nuclear busybodies: If you want peace and stability in Iraq, don't push us on our nuclear program.

Syria will also try to leverage peace and stability in Iraq for an end to the U.N.'s investigation into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus would also like a green light to re-establish its influence in Lebanon, and, perhaps, even try to get the U.S. to pressure Israel to reopen negotiations over the Golan Heights.

The fact is that if Iran and Syria are really part of the solution to the violence in Iraq, it stands to reason that they must also currently be part of the problem. And considering the trouble Tehran and Damascus are already causing in the Middle East, you have to be very careful that giving Iran and Syria a say in Iraq doesn't create more problems than it solves.

Posted by Peter Brookes at 08:02 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Yessterday Newt Gingrich floated the idea that freedom of speech may need to be curbed in certain circumstances to meet the threat of terrorism.

The newspaper article didn't give much context to Gingrich's remarks, but I suppose you can conjure up scenarios where the public good would be served by abridging some free speech rights in certain instances. Still, the libertarian in me recoils at talk of "re-examining" the boundaries of freedom of speech.

As questionable as Gingrich's remarks on free speech are, however, they pale in comparison to the views of Jesse Jackson, who wrote yesterday that it's time to outlaw the n-word and other "hate speech:"

Our forefathers created the First Amendment to ensure a robust public debate and to prohibit the government from making laws to squelch political speech, even speech critical of our leaders. But obscenity has never enjoyed that protection, nor should it. Yelling ''fire'' in a crowded theater does not have protection. Similarly, hate speech -- like that wielded by [Michael] Richards -- has and should be illegal.

Imagine the sight of someone dialing the cops that night at the Laugh Factory and the police hauling Richards off in handcuffs.

Now imagine what a thoroughly impossible task defining hate speech would be. Who get to decide which words are considered hateful? Jesse Jackson? A "bi-partisan, blue ribbon commission?"

Certainly the n-word would be on the list (though that alone would probably criminalize about half of the rap music sold in stores, and played on the radio and MTV). But what about words that could be considered hurtful to other groups? Could Jesse Jackson be locked up for, oh, I don't know, calling Jews "hymies" and New York "hymietown?"

Since free speech is what you write as well as what you say, would writers and/or bloggers be fined for using or reprinting certain words? And could you be prosecuted for, say, publishing material like this deemed by some to be racially offensive?

What about the Mohammed Cartoons? Would Jackson have classified the cartoons as "hate speech" toward Muslims, thereby making it a crime for newspapers to rerpint them?

Irrespective of whether Jackson's intentions are noble or not - and I have my doubts - the idea of categorizing and criminalizing "hate speech" is nuts. Our job as a society is to define and defend the limits of free speech by shaming and castigating those who go beyond what the majority finds acceptable. That's what happened in the case of Michael Richards, and it's exactly the way things are supposed to work.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:48 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Lots of people have commented on Audrey Hudson's report on how and why the flying imams were removed from the recent U.S. Airways flight. The one passage that caught my attention was this:

There's a rich irony to the story as well, given that Ms. Jackson-Lee has her own history of "terrorizing" air travelers with outrageously rude behavior - so much so she was eventually banned from flying Continental Airlines:

But in February 1998, things finally came to a head. On a flight home to Houston, Jackson Lee became enraged when flight attendants failed to produce the seafood special she liked. "Don't you know who I am?" she reportedly thundered. "I'm Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. Where is my seafood meal? I know it was ordered!"

That outburst prompted a phone call to Jackson Lee from Rebecca Cox, vice president of Continental's government affairs office in Washington and the wife of California Republican Chris Cox. The message? Straighten up and fly right, or don't fly with us.

Cox did not return calls seeking comment, but a member of Jackson Lee's staff who fielded the call remembered Cox saying, "[Jackson Lee] screamed at the top of her lungs at least a minute. She embarrassed the flight attendants and the passengers in first class. And she embarrassed herself." Cox then joked, "We have already given her the Delta Airlines schedule."

Jackson Lee got back on board with Continental, but not for long. In May 1999, as Continental flight 1961 prepared to leave Reagan National Airport in Washington, Jackson Lee became flustered when she couldn't find her purse. Thinking she had left it in the boarding area, she went back to search for it. Meanwhile, the plane pulled away from the gate. Moments later, her purse was found onboard. According to aviation lobbyists at the time, Jackson Lee demanded that she be let back on the flight. Airline employees explained that FAA rules prohibit planes from returning to the gate once they've taxied away, but Jackson Lee was unconvinced. She accused the gate staff of racism and demanded to see their supervisor, who was a black woman. Her purse, meanwhile, was unceremoniously dropped out of the cockpit window and ferried back to her.

Ms. Jackson-Lee is often referred to as "Hurricane Sheila" because of her rudeness, temper, and the fact she made a big stink a few years ago that the names given to hurricanes by the National Weather Center were too "lily white" and not sufficiently ethnic sounding.

The Washingtonian's most recently "Best and Worst of Congress," list Ms. Jackson-Lee finishes in second place as the chamber's "meanest" member, and she wins top honors as the "biggest windbag" and also the House's "show horse." In dishing out this last award, the editors of The Washingtonian quipped, "Staffers have proposed a drinking game to honor the Texan, who gets more than twice as many votes as others: 'Sheila Jackson-Lee is on C-Span. Do a shot.'"

Posted by Tom Bevan at 12:55 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Two interesting tidbits from this NYT profile of Chris Carney, the new Democrat representing Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District. Carney worked for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith in the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group at the Pentagon, searching for links between Iraq and al-Qaeda:

In the summer and fall of 2002, Mr. Carney was at the center of the storm, briefing George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, and Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, on the Feith unit's assessment of any links between Iraq and Al Qaeda. At the time, the unit was creating controversy within the government for arguing that there was significant evidence of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. [snip]

Today, Mr. Carney says he still believes there were links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, although he is careful not to overstate them.

"On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 was no connection and 10 was operational control, I would say it's about a 2½," he said in an interview. "It was a relationship of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer," he added. "Saddam was a savvy guy, and I think he wanted to make sure that if Al Qaeda someday became a force, that he wanted to keep his options open. I thought that there was a relationship. Whether it was strong enough to go to war, that's the president's decision."

Interesting that Carney admits what other Democrats have flatly denied in public for at least the last two years. And knowing human nature, I suspect Carney is retrospectively downgrading his assessement of Iraq-al Qaeda ties for a number of reasons. I'll bet if you asked him at the time, Carney would have rated the link between Iraq and al-Qaeda more in the 4-6 range, or perhaps even higher.

As with WMD intel, it's easy to sit back with the benefit of hindsight and say what dots we should or shouldn't have connected, and far more difficult to weigh the risks and make the hard choices.

There's also this:

But Mr. Carney is not enthusiastic about the possibility of a new Congressional investigation of prewar intelligence, which he said would be a major distraction.

Of course Carney doesn't want an investigation, since he was right in the thick of the intel operation which the Democrats have gone out of their way over the last few years to malign and exploit as incompetent and nefariously manipulative. Can you imagine the sight of Carney testifying before House Intelligence Committee and watching his fellow Democrats rake him and others over the coals for "lying" us into Iraq?

Posted by Tom Bevan at 10:18 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Yesterday USA Today carried a story titled "Democratic Gains in Suburbs Spell Trouble for GOP."

Democrats carried nearly 60% of the U.S. House vote in inner suburbs in the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas, up from about 53% in 2002, according to the analysis by the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

This isn't surprising, and it comports with other data showing Republicans lost Independent voters. Over the next several months there will be considerable debate about whether the '06 mid-terms foreshadow the beginning of a more significant realignment away from the GOP towards the Democratic Party.

I think it is wise to be careful not to draw too many sweeping conclusions from the mid-term results, because of Iraq's dominating influence over the election. There is no doubt that Republicans lost Independent and moderate voters, and that they lost voters in the suburbs. The real question is whether this is a one-time event or the beginning of a trend. Was 2006 more of a vote of no-confidence on U.S. Iraq policy, or was it the early stages of a real and sustained move among swing voters to the Democrats?

Independent voters are becoming a more significant slice of the voting public, and to the degree these voters break solidly toward one party - as they did this year - they have the ability to produce dramatic swings in the final election results. However, both parties would be foolish to think that they have an easy "in" with this swing block. Democrats would be naive to think these voters are now solidly behind a Nancy Pelosi agenda and Republicans would be equally naive to assume recent Republican-leaning Independents who deserted them this year are going to automatically return to the fold in 2008.

After the 2000 election Michael Barone referred to America as "The 49% Nation" in the Almanac for American Politics:

In 1996 Bill Clinton was re-elected with 49.2% of the vote. That same year Republicans held the House when their candidates led Democrats by a 48.9% to 48.5% margin. In 1998 Republicans held onto the House when their candidates led in the popular vote by 48.9% to 47.8%. On November 7, 2000 George W. Bush won 47.9% of the vote and Al Gore 48.4%. The same day House Republican candidates led Democrats by a 49.2% to 47.9% margin. Round off these numbers and you have 49%, 49%, 49%, 49%, 48%, 48%, 48% 49%, 48% - essentially the same number over and over.

In the 2004 presidential election 47 out of 50 states voted exactly the same way they did in 2000, with Kerry coming within a tenth, 48.3% of Gore's 48.4%. The favorable political winds from 9/11 and the War allowed President Bush and House Republicans to break out of the 48/49 deadlock with Bush drawing 51% against Kerry, and House Republicans 51% in 2002 and 50% in 2004.

But this year the mess in Iraq and the lack of any clean solution to the conflict destroyed the GOP advantage on national security and provided the catalyst for the Democrats' 52%-53% victory in the House vote.

The size of the Democratic victory is significant, though I think it speaks more to an increase in election volatility rather than a longer-term directional move toward the Democratic Party.

Volatility is retuning to American politics. The "49% Nation" stasis of the last decade is poised to be cracked wide open. This means great opportunity and great risk for both parties. Real world events and the respective leadership we see from each side, along with the choice of nominees for 2008 and the platforms they run on will have massive influence over the voters in the middle who determine the majority.

Depending on the path the parties choose over the next two years, the potential for either an electoral blowout or a significant third party candidate in 2008 is very real.

Posted by John McIntyre at 09:22 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Robert O'Neill is the former Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the former Chichele Professor of the History of War at Oxford, and Australia's preeminent scholar of international strategic studies. Last night at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, O'Neill gave a lecture titled "Prospects and Perspectives on International Security" (pdf) in which he discussed the situation in Iraq in some detail.

Here is how Professor O'Neill began his remarks:

We stand at a very testing time in terms of shaping our security environment. I do not want to be overly pessimistic. We and our forebears have come through worse situations and gone on to great periods of prosperity, relative peace and cultural achievement. But for us at this time, that happy end is by no means assured.

More importantly, here is how Profesor O'Neill described the stakes and the consequences in Iraq:

Given the result of the recent US elections, we need to think hard about the consequences of possible defeat in Iraq. To elaborate on what I said earlier, that conflict can be won only by a much more effective coalition effort, requiring a major increase in US and allied troop numbers in Iraq, substantial improvements in training and operational methods, and a much stronger civil reconstruction effort. This is not likely to happen. The probable outcomes are either a sudden descent into chaos as coalition forces are withdrawn, or a protracted civil war, overlain with an insurgency against remaining coalition forces. In the event of chaos, effective government in Iraq will cease for at least some years, during which terrorist groups will be able to concentrate, rebuild, flourish and reach out to other targets outside Iraq. Enemy forces will be heartened; recruiting will rise; funds and weapons will pour in; pressure will be exerted on regional governments friendly to the West; more young men and women who are willing to commit suicide to harm Western and Israeli interests will become available; and the oil price will rise to new heights.

Defeat in Iraq will be a serious blow to the public standing of the US and will invite other challenges to its authority. US citizens will have to be more careful of their own security both outside and inside their own country. US business abroad will feel more under threat of terrorist action.

Iran will read a message of encouragement for its intransigence in dealing with the West. It will almost certainly go ahead to produce nuclear weapons. It will exercise an overshadowing influence in Iraq, Syria, the Arab Gulf states and Israel. The lesson of US failure in Iraq will be read (perhaps wrongly) as US unwillingness to attempt regime-change in Iran. The North Koreans will probably draw similar conclusions, although with less justification than in the case of Iran because North Korea is nowhere near as strong a state. Nuclear weapons proliferation will become more difficult to control with the threat of intervention against the proliferators dismissed.

As Fouad Ajami writes, America's involvement in Iraq is "has been unimaginably difficult, its heartbreak a grim daily affair." The Bush administration has been wrong about a number of things regarding Iraq, and it bears full responsibility for underestimating the difficulty we've encountered there. However, one thing they've been right about for some time, as O'Neill and other experts continue to agree, are the stakes of the struggle and the consequences of defeat.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 07:47 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Ben Stein's latest tax the rich article in yesterday's New York Times is so tragic because Ben is such a good guy, such a smart guy, that it pains me to say he has the story totally wrong.

Warren Buffett's secretary may have a higher tax rate than Mr. Buffett himself, but that's because Buffett made all his money from the 15 percent marginal tax rate on dividends and capital gains. Very few Americans live and work like this.

And anyway, jacking up taxes on capital investment is a completely dumb idea. What the American middle class needs is more investment to create new companies, new jobs and new technologies--all of which raise our standard of living.

Alan Reynolds, who has a new book out called "Income and Wealth," reminds me of a key reason why the top 1 percent saw their income share double to 16 percent from 8 percent. (By the way, the top 1 percent's tax share burden over the past 20 some odd years has gone from about 17 percent to 35 percent.) That is, that until recently, S-corps and LLC small businesses exploded to capture a personal tax rate that was lower than the corporate rate.

S-corp type income was only 7.8 percent in 1982, but was up to 28.4 percent in 2004, according to IRS reports. So it's just a tax shift, that's all it really is--a tax shift that is mistaken for outsized income gains.

What's more, transfer payments like the earned income tax credit, FSA and other welfare payments, as well as social security income, are not counted as low income resources.

Additionally, at lower income tax rates over the past twenty some odd years, there's been a lot less income tax evasion and a lot more income declaration--all of which shows how sensitive folks are to lower marginal tax rates.

Ben Stein says we can't cut spending. But in fact, as a share of GDP, Ronald Reagan cut spending from about 23 percent down to 20 percent; Clinton and the Gingrich Congress lowered spending to 18 percent.

Only recently, under the Bush Republicans, has spending jumped back to slightly over 20 percent. So it can be done. This is why I recommend a spending cap-spending limitation approach for Republicans. (And by the way, while many believe that CEO pay is just a continuous vertical line upward, the reality is CEO pay actually fell three straight years in the early 2000s.)

In the end, class warfare and higher tax rates will make the U.S. more like France. I don't want to be like France. Neither does Ben Stein--if he would think things through.

Posted by Lawrence Kudlow at 06:03 PM | Email Author | Permalink

For years the common refrain was that racism was rooted in ignorance and fear. In that frame, combating racism, whether individual or institutional, was always seen as a matter of enlightenment, not pathology. But Michael Richards' outburst seems to have changed nature of the discussion a bit.

Richards says he's not a racist and claimed that his outburst was a product of rage and a defensive reaction to being heckled:

"This rage has no color. I know that what I said hurt an African American. I will take full responsibility for this and promote apology and go for healing. I was in a place of humiliation, and I came out with uh, a tirade to humiliate. There's no justification for the things that I said."

Richards has said that he's seeing a pyschotherapist to deal with anger management, but the issue of his anger and the racist comments it inspired are so closely linked it's hard to separate the two.

Jesse Jackson clearly thinks Richards' racism is a sickness from which he needs to "get well", a point he made repeatedly on CNN yesterday after interviewing Richards earlier in the day on his radio program.

Is Richards "sick" because of a general deep-seated anger that caused him to snap on stage, or because his rage was directed at African-Americans, or a combination of the two?

Posted by Tom Bevan at 04:06 PM | Email Author | Permalink

Incumbent Republican Deborah Pryce is declared the winner in Ohio 15 by 1,055 votes. The race will now go into a mandatory recount.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 03:59 PM | Email Author | Permalink

While in London two weeks ago, I visited with Dr. Liam Fox, MP, the Conservative Party's "shadow defense minister." We spoke about Iraq, Iran's nuclear program and NATO. The NATO meetings this week in Riga are important because NATO's operations in Afghanistan are stretching its resources thin, and there - even now - insufficient cooperation between nations' forces, reducing their effectiveness. I asked Dr. Fox why.

He said that one basic problem is the French, whose intransigence in cooperation with NATO is an historic fact. But more than the French problem, most of the nations that provide forces to the NATO operation don't really operate as a unified force. He said, "More of a worry (than French intransigence) is the fact that we have 37 countries in Afghanistan but with more than 70 operating caveats. The [NATO] Secretary General's view is not that our need was for more troops but the need to be able to use the troops that are there already." The Brits view themselves part of a NATO force, as do the Americans, but other nations' take the opposite view. Fox said, "The Germans, Italians and the Spanish are not as maneuverable and deployable for our commanders as they need to be to make an effective NATO operation." This lack of cooperation in the biggest out-of-theater NATO operation bodes ill for NATO's future. NATO is facing a big challenge: the European Union's planned defense force. It would compete with NATO for resources, and would break the Atlantic relationship between Europe and the United States. Fox isn't in favor of it.

"NATO is really at an important crossroads here," Dr. Fox said. "We Conservatives still believe that our relationship with the United States is still the most important defense relationship that we have and to move away from that transatlantic defense identity towards a European defense identity would be a huge mistake for a number of reasons.

"Our European partners don't spend enough on defense...The idea that we would be able to make up for the protective defense umbrella that we get from a partnership with the United States would be laughable if it weren't tragic. Second reason is that, of course, there is no coherence in European foreign policy outlook as was shown adequately by the situation in the Balkans...Third, we could never see the EU take over a defense role because we couldn't accept a supranational body ever committing our troops to battle."

There is a value to NATO, Fox said, that goes beyond its charter as a military alliance. It has a "brand name" and reputation that puts it on a special level. Fox said, " In public opinion polls in the United Kingdom, NATO has the same...is regarded as having the same ability to confirm moral legitimacy as the United Nations has...NATO is regarded as a force that has not only moral but legal legitimacy."

Fox believes in the Atlantic partnership, and in NATO. Divorcing America from Europe - by action of either side - is, in his view, a bad idea. "American isolationism is a bad thing for the world. Like it or not, America is the global superpower and that position by itself confers duties as well as benefits," he said. One of these duties is to hold NATO together.

I hadn't appreciated that NATO's reputation was one that could, like the UN in so many American and European minds, be a source of international legitimacy for its actions. We should be thinking of NATO in those terms, and building - and rebuilding - its abilities to make best use of it.

Posted by Jed Babbin at 08:47 AM | Email Author | Permalink

John Edwards's crusade against Wal-Mart hits another bump in the form of this editorial smackdown by the New Hampshire Union-Leader:

Former Sen. John Edwards is to spend an hour at the Manchester Barnes & Noble tonight promoting his new book. We find his choice of venue very interesting.

In Manchester, the local Wal-Mart store sits right behind the Barnes & Noble. It has more floor space, a parking lot several times the size of Barnes & Noble's, and is easier to access by car or public transportation.

But Edwards would not be caught dead inside a Wal-Mart. Saying that the company pays its employees too little, Edwards has embarked on an anti-Wal-Mart crusade. He instructs his staff members and all Americans not to shop at Wal-Mart.

"Wal-Mart makes plenty of money. They need to pay their people well," Edwards said at a Pittsburgh anti-Wal-Mart rally in August.

So naturally Edwards is holding his book signing at Barnes & Noble instead of Wal-Mart. Which is too bad for his anti-low-wages campaign, because in Manchester Wal-Mart pays hourly employees more than Barnes & Noble does.

The Barnes & Noble where Edwards will hawk his book pays $7 an hour to start. The Wal-Mart that sits just yards away pays $7.50 an hour.

Oh, the humanity!

It gets better. Read the rest.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:26 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Curt Weldon lost his seat three weeks ago, but the FBI investigation into dealings between Weldon, his daughter's consulting firm, and businessman John Gallagher continues apace. The Philadelphia Inquirer has the details - and they aren't pretty. Here's one example involving Weldon's daughter's consulting firm Solutions Worldwide and the Russian natural-gas giant Itera International Energy:

Weldon set up a Library of Congress dinner for Itera in 2002 and, on the floor of Congress, pushed for a federal grant to the firm. A month later, Itera hired Solutions for $500,000 a year.

Whether or not this meets the legal standard of a quid pro quo, it sure seems like an obvious bit of influence peddling. Even more apparent, it's a grotesque violation of common sense for a Congressman to be in any way involved with a party - or even the process - that may result in the awarding of business to a family member.

Weldon isn't alone. One of the consequences of spawning a professional legislative class in this country is the development of family connections in government-related businesses. Tom Daschle's wife was a high-powered lobbyist engaging in business while he was setting the agenda for the minority in the Senate. John Murtha's brother currently works for a firm that lobbies the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee (which Murtha will Chair in the new Congress) on behalf of defense contractors. John Doolittle's wife banked a bunch of money from Brent Wilkes as a "campaign consultant" for her husband. Tom DeLay's wife and daughter made a half-million in salary and consulting fees between 2001 and 2006 for helping run his campaigns and political action committees.

These are just a few examples that come to mind, though with a bit of investigation I'll bet the list of spouses, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters who are in government-related business and/or on a political payroll would run another few pages at least. That doesn't make all these relationships illegal or unethical, mind you, but it certainly does raise concern - especially when the concept of a "conflict of interest" appears to be so foreign to many publicly elected officials.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 08:08 AM | Email Author | Permalink

America is still the most charitable nation on earth. According to the Christian Science Monitor, a new book on the subject of charitable giving by Syracuse University economist Arthur Brooks also comes to the conclusion that "conservatives are better givers than liberals:"

This pattern is less about politics, he [Brooks] says, than about charity-linked lifestyles that are most common to people who call themselves conservatives: religious commitment, marriage and children, and entrepreneurship.

Posted by Tom Bevan at 06:14 AM | Email Author | Permalink

The conventional wisdom in Washington is the Democrats have a winning issue with the public on whether the government should negotiate with the drug companies to set prices. I'm not so sure.

This exchange from Brit Hume's roundtable by Mort Kondracke illuminates how Republicans can win on this issue.

KONDRACKE: J.D. Power and Associates, the consumer satisfaction people, have surveyed this and 75 percent of seniors say that they are happy with the prescription part D, the prescription drug program as it exists.

HUME: Well, that may mean they're happy with the help they're getting, but that doesn't mean they think they're paying fair prices.

KONDRACKE: Well, they're paying lower prices than anybody expected. The average premium was expected to be $34 a month per average Medicare premium it's down to $27 a month.

HUME: And this gives them an insurance policy that pays for their drugs?

KONDRACKE: Right, I mean look, what I'm tempted to say and I will say is that, you know, Milton Freedman has passed away in more ways than one. I mean, the Democrats do not belief in the private market -- private competition. The way the Medicare prescription drug plan works is that private insurance companies negotiate formularies with these various drug companies and they have lowered the price.

The Medicare system will not negotiate the price; it will set the price, the way it sets the price for regular Medicare procedures, doctor procedures. And what you have then is government control of the pharmaceutical industry, which is going to be a disaster.

The reason that V.A. prices are lower is, it's basically a socialized medical system. You go to a V.A. doctor, you go to a V.A. hospital, you go to a V.A. pharmacy and the V.A. pharmacies only have 25 percent of the drugs that seniors actually use all the time. So, you know, it doesn't work.

The private market does work. But the Democrats don't believe in it.

This is an issue Republicans can win with the public, and more importantly, can win with voters in the middle where they lost this election. Independents and moderates understand exactly the point Kondracke is making that the private market works better the government when it comes to their health care. The Democrats will have the PR carrot of lower prices, but if Republicans can credibly counter that the lower prices will come at the expense of the quality of care and future medical advances this issue will work well with independent voters they will need to get back in the majority.

Posted by John McIntyre at 09:10 AM | Email Author | Permalink

Erin Aubry Kaplan offers a misguided effort comparing Michael Richards to O.J. as proof there is "greater tolerance for a white man's unsavory behavior than a black man's." Kaplan writes:

I'm not equating racist invective with charges of double homicide. But the reality is that there is far more tolerance for a white person's unseemly behavior than for similar behavior of somebody who isn't white, especially if the unseemliness involves race. Richards' "racist rant" has been described as a terrible but isolated incident. O.J., meanwhile, is condemned for his character.

What a terribly weak argument. Kaplan is so desperate to shoehorn these two things together to prove some sort of racial double standard she completely misses the point. Michael Richards is finished as a performer - if he wasn't already. Richards is stained forever by his behavior this week. No one will be able to sit through a single rerun of Seinfeld from this point forward without making a mental note of Richards' racist rant.

In that sense, Richards is exactly like O.J.: you simply can't look at anything O.J. has ever done, whether it's a football highlight or a clip from the Naked Gun, without seeing him as an utterly unrepentant double-murderer. (Unlike Kaplan, I'm not ambivalent about whether O.J. is a killer or not).

Kaplan says she's "not equating racist invective with charges of double homicide" except that that's exactly what she's doing. And by that measure, Michael Richards is paying a much greater price for his sin than James Orenthal Simpson is paying for his.

So Kaplan's comparison is bogus, but what about her larger point? Is there a greater tolerance for the "unsavory behavior" of whites than blacks?

When it comes to racially insensitive language, I'd say the answer is just the opposite. It seems to me that whites are generally held to a higher standard, for obvious reasons, and there is more scrutiny and less tolerance for anything that might possibly construed as racist or bigoted.

(One notable exception that springs to mind is Robert Byrd using the "n-word" on television a few years back. Even though Byrd used