Ξ January 31st, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that he fully expects that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be found guilty and executed in an interview over the weekend. This is a sentiment that I’ve heard a couple times coming from the White House. It has always bugged me, as it sounds suspiciously like the Obama administration is conducting a show trial. That isn’t to say I feel that they’re railroading KSM or that KSM is anything other than guilty, but rather that the Obama administration and their supporters are going down a very dangerous path without fully considering the implications of pursing this policy.
Neo-conservatives have always objected to criminal trials for terrorists, but I feel as though their position is terribly misunderstood by the liberals that oppose them. I get the impression that there is the impression amongst the left that the neo-conservative position taken by the early Bush administration and Republicans is borne out of a simplistic, ultra-nationalistic desire to “get ‘em” and “punish the wrongdoers”. In fact (and if you ever watch the Daily Show interviews with Cliff May and John Yoo, one can get a sense of the depth of consideration given to the problem), there are real problems of how to deal with terrorists in a legal and procedural way in such that it does not compromise our moral standing but also does not compromise the integrity of the Geneva Conventions.
(more…)
Ξ January 27th, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
When it comes to political pundits, I choose my battles over who to get worked up over. People like Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity wear their partisanship on their sleeves, and it becomes obvious as to what their biases are pretty quickly. I’m not going to complain that DailyKos is too liberal or that the WeeklyStandard is too conservative. If you are watching or reading them, you know what you are getting. Becoming indignant over what they say doesn’t serve much purpose because their audiences already know they’re getting spin or don’t care.
Whom I do get upset over are people like Joe Klein. He’s a “reporter” and a “respected journalist”. He’s well known in political circles, but not, I suspect, by the public at large. He writes for Time Magazine, and is a frequent guest on This Week and other serious political talk shows. As such he is exposed frequently to the populace at large, and has the ability to drive the discussion on political and policy topics. The credentials he brings to any discussion give him immediate clout, but don’t belie his ideological leanings, or just how wacko the guy is. So when he says something outrageous, that is something I rant about.
Absolutely amazing poll results from CNN today about the $787 stimulus package: nearly three out of four Americans think the money has been wasted. On second thought, they may be right: it’s been wasted on them. Indeed, the largest single item in the package–$288 billion–is tax relief for 95% of the American public. This money is that magical $60 to $80 per month you’ve been finding in your paycheck since last spring. Not a life changing amount, but helpful in paying the bills.
. . .
So, two thoughts:
1. The Obama Administration has done a terrible job explaining the stimulus package to the American people…especially since there have been very few documented cases of waste so far.
2. This is yet further evidence that Americans are flagrantly ill-informed…and, for those watching Fox News, misinformed.
It is very difficult to have a democracy without citizens. It is impossible to be a citizen if you don’t make an effort to understand the most basic activities of your government. It is very difficult to thrive in an increasingly competitive world if you’re a nation of dodos.
Do I think a “magical” $60 a month is nice? Sure. Do I think it actually solves anything? No, and neither, it seems, does Klein. So why is he so dismissive of the argument that adding $288 billion to the deficit, when we’ve managed to add several trillion over the last two years, is probably a bad idea? Because he’s a partisan and an arrogant elite without a sense of hubris (except to point out the flaw in others).
I “get” the idea behind the stimulus. At it’s basic core, it’s Keynesian economics. That doesn’t mean that I agree with it, or that I think that even within the framework of Keynesian economics it would work, but I at least understand the intellectual ground from whence it sprang. It’d be nice if Klein at least gave those of us in opposition to it the same courtesy and at least conceded that we aren’t just a bunch of ignorant hicks that take our marching orders from Roger Ailes. Of course, I get the feeling that Klein isn’t too upset at the idea that we’re ignorant hicks, but that we aren’t taking our marching orders from *him*.
Ξ January 27th, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Politics |
I meant to write about this last week, but the Supreme Court corrected itself when it ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to eviscerate the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, as it should have done earlier in the decade when the law was first passed.
What surprised me was the reaction of the left to the ruling. I’ve rarely seen such widespread knee-jerk anger over something before. I pop over the The Progressive and am greeted with a call to amend the Constitution. DailyKos is ranting about it too. Something about corporations not being people or some such. Which, of course, entirely misses the point. It’s as if when you say the word “corporation”, all they see is Pepsi, GE and Halliburton, and miss fact that the NRA, the ACLU, the New York Times and both Republican and Democratic parties are all incorporated.
Corporations act like individuals for legal purposes, which has it’s pluses and minuses, but in this case is generally irrelevant. The point of the matter is that corporations are collections of individuals organized towards a common goal. In that sense, the ability of these organizations to express their opinions on the issues and politicians in an election seems to me to be pretty fundamental to a healthy civic society. That’s why the ACLU filed an amicus brief on behalf of the plaintiffs seeking to overturn the ban on corporate spending.
The National Review has a pretty good defense of the ruling.
