Kranz Blunder

On Monday, Argus Leader political columnist Dave Kranz wrote:

Sen. Tim Johnson decided not to support anyone for the nomination. He said he had four Senate colleagues running for the job and thought it was best for South Dakota if he stayed friends with them all by not endorsing anyone.

But then on Wednesday, this was reported:

WASHINGTON (AP) – Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson gave Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a surprise endorsement today after he spoke to constituents in Mitchell, S.D.

Johnson had said over a year ago that he was leaning toward the Illinois senator in the 2008 presidential race, but has remained uncommitted through the early primary season. As the Democratic field has narrowed in the last week, Johnson decided to announce his support.

Oops.

Snow in Baghdad

Some of us have been hopeful about the surge strategy in Iraq.  But no one expected that, in addition to defeating Al Qaeda, it might also prevent global warming.  Yet here is evidence!  From AFP:

Light snow fell in Baghdad early on Friday in what weather officials said was the first time in about a 100 years.

Rare snowfalls were also recorded in the west and centre of Iraq, plunging temperatures to zero degrees Centigrade (32 degrees Fahrenheit) and even colder, an official said.

The snow in Baghdad, which melted as it hit the ground, began falling before dawn and continued until after 9 am, residents said.

But let us be clear: snow falling where it hasn't fallen for 100 years is certainly a sign of global warming. 

SDP Jazz Note: (Mostly) Contemporary Jazz

First let me do my best Jon Schaff imitation:  headphones are no good for the young and the legislature should scrap all plans to distribute them to innocent school children.  Gee, that did feel good!  Anyway, I decided I wanted to put aside my Bose headphones, great though the sound was.  The iPod is clearly meant to be a vehicle for delivering sound to ear buds.  But there are three problems with every version of headphones I have tried: one is that I just don't think they are good for my hearing.  There is an argument to the contrary, in the case of inner-ear models: they exclude all other noise so you can turn the volume down.  I am not convinced.  Second, and this might be the major complaint, they are very isolating.  Finally, I thing that music sounds more genuine when it is bouncing off of walls and such. 

So I bought a JBL radial micro iPod dock.  The gosh darned thing is the size of a small wall clock and delivers marvelous sound.  It isn't dirt cheap, but it's half the price of the Bose alternative that Target was selling.  And now I can listen to jazz while I talk to other persons in the kitchen. 

One of the first things I listened to on the JBL Radial was part one of the 2007 Retrospective, the latest podcast from In The Groove: Jazz and Beyond.  I have frequently complained about hero worship among jazz fans.  But as I have confessed, I am as guilty of it as anyone. Most of my Jazz Notes have been about the celestials who were big on the scene when I was born.  Ken Laster's great radio show helps somewhat to correct this tendency, and bring us the jazz that is being created in this millennium. One very fine piece on the recent show was New York Dream, by the Mike Di Rubbo Quartet.  It features a very strong melody that will be easily accessible to someone who is new to jazz, combined with all the compositional genius that makes authentic jazz so much more interesting to me than most other genres. In fact, I had already purchased the CD, NY Accent: Live at the Kitano,  after hearing several cuts on earlier on ITG podcasts.

Note to Record Companies:  Podcasts like Ken Laster's are not stealing your music.  They are selling it for you, free of charge! 

Another CD I bought after hearing it on ITG was Eric Alexander's Temple of Olympic Zeus.  Another sax man, his playing is so energetic and muscular, I kept picking the jewel case back up as I listened to see just how closely he was related to Jove. 

Another contemporary artist I have been listening to is Joe Lovano.  I can highly recommend two of his CD's: Joyous Encounter (2005), and From the Soul (1991). The latter was listed as part of the Core Collection in the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings, but it is by far the more challenging of the two.  My SDP colleague Jason Heppler and I are going to hear Lovano in Sioux Falls, on January 25th.  If there are tickets still available, don't miss it.  His playing is gorgeous.  A few weeks ago I had  Joyous Encounter playing on my office computer.  In the curved half circle of our new offices, music floats out of rooms and down the hall without drifting back into other rooms.  No fewer than three colleagues walked into my room to ask what that beautiful music was.  Join us on the 25th to listen to Joe.  Your soul will be refined and enlarged. 

Finally, let me recommend a couple of pieces by a certified member of the jazz pantheon.  The ITG Retrospective includes a piece from the new Herbie Hancock/Joni Mitchell collaboration: River: the Joni Letters.  I have always loved Joni Mitchell's jazz songs.  River is one of those rare Christmas songs that is sad and beautiful because of it.  Hancock's most famous disc is probably Maiden Voyage (1964).  It is certainly part of the bedrock of any jazz collection.  But just as good is Empyrean Isles, recorded at the same time with the same band minus George Coleman on tenor sax.  I picked it up in a Borders in Springfield, Missouri, just after Christmas.  Good as each is on its own, together they make up an epic moment in the history of America's music.    

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me

Yesterday I noted Robert Samuelson laying out some harsh but needed truths: entitlement programs, especially Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, are growing at an alarming rate and will soon come to push aside other necessary spending.  These programs represent an tremendous wealth transfer from young people to senior citizens which in the not to distant future will necessitate massive taxation on young workers to keep benefits at their projected levels. 

Today the Financial Times reports that due to these enormous long term liabilities and the lack of action about them may cause the credit rating agency Moody's to downgrade the federal government's credit rating:

The US is at risk of losing its top-notch triple-A credit rating within a decade unless it takes radical action to curb soaring healthcare and social security spending, Moody’s, the credit rating agency, said on Thursday.

The warning over the future of the triple-A rating – granted to US government debt since it was first assessed in 1917 – reflects growing concerns over the country’s ability to retain its financial and economic supremacy.

It could also put further pressure on candidates from both the Republican and Democratic parties to sharpen their focus on healthcare and pensions in the run-up to November’s presidential elections.

Most analysts expect future governments to deal with the costs of healthcare and social security and there is no reflection of any long-term concern about the US financial health in the value of its debt.

But Moody’s warning comes at a time when US confidence in its economic prowess has been challenged by the rising threat of a recession, a weak dollar and the credit crunch.

The suggestion of the candidates ranges from ignoring the problem by the Republicans to exacerbating the problem on the part of the Democrats who want to massively increase government liabilities by promising government health insurance.  Fred Thompson is an exception as he has proposed limiting the increase, as opposed to actual reductions, in benefits.

There's A Tear In My Beer

Mitt, I was kidding.  From NRO.

In his first state campaign stop in Grand Rapids, a voter fondly recalled his father, George, former Michigan governor and CEO of AMC. “He was a great man and I miss him dearly,” said the candidate, choking up.

That’s it. No further coverage. No YouTube video. No pivotal  campaign moment.

Ironically, too, Romney has been criticized for being too mechanical, too slick, on the campaign trail. Many a pundit here has urged him to show his “human” side, to open up, to emote.

Perhaps it’s only news when a powerful woman gets  misty.

Look Out Barack

Peggy Noonan:

Between sobs she is going to try to destroy Mr. Obama. She is going to try to end him. She will pay a price for it--no one likes to see the end of a dream, no one likes a dream killer. But she will pay that price to win, and try to clean up the mess later.

Update: A story on racial tensions in the Clinton-Obama race.  And here's another story with a Clinton adviser saying Barack Obama is who you support if you want an "imaginary hip black friend."  How progressive. 

Dave Newquist: Snow Queen Chair

The South Dakota blogosphere's very own Dave Newquist and wife are chairing the 62nd South Dakota Snow Queen Festival.  Congrats. 

(The following is a parody) What are the chances the professor makes a contestant cry?  "That dress represents a malicious Orwellian degradation of fashion!  That is not fash-ion, it's fasc-ist!  Why not just wear a brown shirt, you scurrilous Hitlerian regressive!"   

New Efforts In Energy

This report from Scientific American touts the potential of switch grass as an energy source. 

Farmers in Nebraska and the Dakotas brought the U.S. closer to becoming a biofuel economy, planting huge tracts of land for the first time with switchgrass—a native North American perennial grass (Panicum virgatum) that often grows on the borders of cropland naturally—and proving that it can deliver more than five times more energy than it takes to grow it. (snip)

But yields from a grass that only needs to be planted once would deliver an average of 13.1 megajoules of energy as ethanol for every megajoule of petroleum consumed—in the form of nitrogen fertilizers or diesel for tractors—growing them. "It's a prediction because right now there are no biorefineries built that handle cellulosic material" like that which switchgrass provides, Vogel notes. "We're pretty confident the ethanol yield is pretty close." This means that switchgrass ethanol delivers 540 percent of the energy used to produce it, compared with just roughly 25 percent more energy returned by corn-based ethanol according to the most optimistic studies.

If this report is accurate then the superiority of switch grass to corn based ethanol is clear. On the downside, the article advocates transferring Conservation Reserve Program land over to switch grass.  This may be a sacrifice hunters need to make for energy independence.

And here is a report on the ongoing attempts to build an oil refinery in Elk Point.

A Dallas company seeking to build the first new U.S. oil refinery in more than 25 years presented its land rezoning plan to Union County officials Thursday.

Hyperion Resources wants the Union County Planning and Zoning Commission to turn 3,800 acres north of Elk Point into a planned development district so it can build its $10 billion Hyperion Energy Center.

This site has pointed out many times the dearth of refining capacity in the United States.  One of the reasons for high gas prices is this shortage.  You can have all the oil you want, but if you cannot refine it you are keeping the supply of gasoline down, which drive the price up.  This refinery will help constrain the cost of gas.   

Global Warming Gives Me the Shivers

My favorite website is Arts & Letters Daily, a very literate Readers Digest for the web.  It's my homepage on my home computer.  Now they have created a second website dedicated to the global warming issue called Climate Debate Daily.  That very title will offend a lot of folks, for whom the whole Al Gore Global Warming package has become an article of faith.  But in fact it shows how much debate there really is.  Consider this:

South America this year experienced one of its coldest winters in decades. In Buenos Aires, snow fell for the first time since the year 1918. Dozens of homeless people died from exposure. In Peru, 200 people died from the cold and thousands more became infected with respiratory diseases. Crops failed, livestock perished, and the Peruvian government declared a state of emergency.

Unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007. Johannesburg, South Africa, had the first significant snowfall in 26 years. Australia experienced the coldest June ever. In northeastern Australia, the city of Townsville underwent the longest period of continuously cold weather since 1941. In New Zealand, the weather turned so cold that vineyards were endangered.

That was David Deming, a geophysicist at the University of Oklahoma, where the wind sweeping down the plain of late has not been so warm.  Of course, there is the other view.  From Reuters:

2008 will be slightly cooler than recent years globally but will still be among the top 10 warmest years on record since 1850 and should not be seen as a sign global warming was on the wane, British forecasters said.

But that is the point, isn't it.  Nothing can be seen as a sign that global warming is on the wane, not even glaciers mowing down buildings in New York.  Here is how Deming puts it:

If you think any of the preceding facts [about record cold temperatures around the globe] can falsify global warming, you're hopelessly naive. Nothing creates cognitive dissonance in the mind of a true believer. In 2005, a Canadian Greenpeace representative explained “global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter.” In other words, all weather variations are evidence for global warming. I can't make this stuff up.

Well, if you want to ignore all contrary evidence, at least you should be warned about what you will have to ignore.  One of those facts is that global warming seems to have stopped over the last ten years, according to David Whitehouse.  Whitehouse, despite his suspicious name, is the long time science editor for the BBC.  The article I cite is in The New Statesman, a leftist British magazine.

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.

The simple truth of the matter is that we can't predict the weather more than a few weeks out.  It might be important to know this. 

 

Dave Barry Does the Campaign

And he does it better than I am prepared to.  From the Seattle Times:

There are many unanswered questions about the races in both parties. On the Democratic side: Is Barack Obama for real? Or is he, as sources inside the Hillary Clinton campaign have suggested, a hologram formed by laser beams? Is the nation truly ready for a hologram president?

And speaking of Hillary Clinton: When her eyes appeared to well up with tears during a campaign appearance at a New Hampshire diner, was that real welling? Or did she fake the welling? If she did, in fact, well, do we know for certain that those were her own personal tears? Why was no sample made available to the media for testing?

Among the unanswered questions on the Republican side are: Is John McCain, at 117, too old and cranky to be president? Like, during the White House Easter Egg Roll, would he come outside in his bathrobe and yell, "You kids get off my lawn!" Does Mitt Romney contain any human DNA whatsoever? Does he, for example, burp? Can he emit bodily aromas? And is there any TV show that Mike Huckabee will NOT appear on? Are we going to see him one of these nights on "Deal or No Deal"? Why does anybody, aside from Howie Mandel's immediate family, watch that show?

Headlines Worth Noting

The Anti-Christ button is between Popcorn and Fresh Vegetables Soft.   

Idaho man sees "mark of the beast," cuts off and microwaves hand

Obviously they should have booked a flight with Rumors. 

Rumors fly over more 787 delays

First Hilliary Wins New Hampshire, and now this!

John Kerry Endorses Obama

Who knew she was a mountaineer?  And was that last part genuine, or part of the Clinton strategy?

Hillary, First Atop Everest, Dies

Finally: a cure for Catholicism. 

Joy Behar: No More Saints Due to Modern Medicine

Another few minute or so, and it would have been a swimming video.

Iran releases its own tape on Hormuz ship incident

Rounds: For Economic Growth

Gov. Rounds is taking some heat from Sibby for supporting the TransCanada pipeline and the Hyperion refinery near Elk Point (here's the Argus story).  Sibby writes:

I agree with the Governor’s point that the Hyperion project has many benefits. The question becomes, who benefits the most…financial interests of big corporations, or the financial interests of taxpayers? Will this decrease future taxes, or will it only increase the amount of taxes that various government entities get to spend?

Let's take the latter point first.  It might be that these projects, by broadening our tax base, can help reduce taxes on individuals while at the same time adding to the total revenue coming into state coffers. It is hard to see how that is a bad thing.  And as I wrote yesterday, compared to other states South Dakotans could hardly be taxed less or have a government that spends less.  What we do have is a problem of outmigration and these two proposals can be small parts of the solution to that problem.  This is true both in the jobs provided and the tax revenue created for better public services. 

These proposals have other virtues.  We say that we need to ween ourselves off of Middle Eastern oil. Well, here are two proposals to that end.  We say we need to increase our refining capacity to meet the demands of American consumers. And we need that refining capacity to help control prices at the fuel pump.  Well, here you go.   We complain that we are a service economy with no industrial jobs anymore.  Don't these projects create industrial jobs?  Refineries and pipelines can't be built in the sky or in Wonderland.  They have to exist somewhere.  We all say these or similar efforts are necessary, but do we accept them when they come our way?

Who benefits most?  I suppose the corporations will benefit.  But this reminds me of Lincoln's argument for federal internal improvements spending in the 1840s.  As Lincoln put it:

No commercial object of Government patronage can be so exclusively general, as not to be of some peculiar local advantage; but, on the other hand, nothing is so local as not to be of some general advantage.

Lincoln was discussing government works projects, but the point remains.  Just because someone benefits more doesn't mean no one else benefits at all.  What about the people who will work at the Hyperion plant?  Won't they benefit?  How about the people that it attracts to Elk Point for jobs?  Doesn't that help the school district enroll more students and local businesses sell more goods and services? Isn't this what we say we want?   

We have a beef plant and a wind turbine propeller plant opening here in Aberdeen.  I suppose the capitalists behind these projects will benefits most as individuals, but they are also creating about 2,000 jobs for our community.  That's 2,000 more people and their families going to our schools, paying taxes here, building homes here, and buying stuff from local retailers.  That doesn't suck. 

I wrote recently that conservatives should mitigate their support for corporate America.  But this should not turn into an attack on corporations for merely existing and wanting to make a profit. 

More News We Don't Want To Hear

Robert Samuelson has a must read piece from yesterday's Washington Post.  Read the whole thing, but here is the gist:

The big lie of campaign 2008 -- so far -- is that the presidential candidates, Democratic and Republican, will take care of our children. Listening to these politicians, you might think they will. Doing well by children has now passed motherhood and apple pie as an idol that all candidates must worship. (snip)

Our children face a future of rising taxes, squeezed -- and perhaps falling -- public services and aging -- perhaps deteriorating -- public infrastructure (roads, sewers, transit systems). Today's young workers and children are about to be engulfed by a massive income transfer from young to old that will perversely make it harder for them to afford their own children.

No major candidate of either party proposes to do much about this, even though the facts are well known.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- three programs that go overwhelmingly to older Americans -- already represent more than 40 percent of federal spending. A new report from the Congressional Budget Office projects that these programs could easily grow to about 70 percent of the budget by 2030. Without implausibly large deficits, the only way to preserve most other government programs would be huge tax increases (about 40 percent from today's levels). Avoiding the tax increases would require draconian cuts in other programs (about 60 percent). Workers and young families, not retirees, would bear the brunt of either higher taxes or degraded public services.

I'd like to point out that Fred Thompson is talking about these issues, but he is not suave enough to garner votes.  He also hasn't cried in public lately. 

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville writes of the sort of despotism democracies ought to fear:

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood...

I wrote yesterday in a post on the film Juno that one of the hallmarks of maturity is the willingness to accept responsibilities and to fulfill them.  If we are a nation of adults we will address our responsibility to coming generations.  If we are a nation of children, more interested in our immediate gratification rather than our posterity, then we will continue to ignore this problem. 

Fraudulent Numbers on Iraqi Deaths

The Lancet is a very well-respected medical journal, based in Britain.  In 2006, three weeks before the American election, Lancet published a report on "excess mortality" in Iraq.  The report put forth numbers of civilian Iraqi deaths directly due to the war (i.e., excess mortality) that were many times higher than the estimates of the Bush Administration and the U.S. military.  The U.S. estimated 30,000 deaths.  The Iraqi health ministry estimated 50,000.  Most other accepted estimates fell in that range.  The Lancet Report put the excess mortality at between 392,979–942,636, and for good measure called it 654,965.  In that report, almost all of those deaths were attributed to the U.S. military. 

The report was, of course, was circulated by the mainstream American and British press without criticism, and war critics now cite it as gospel.  I recall an episode of This American Life that was devoted solely to the Lancet Study. It also aired just before the 2006 election.  I mention it in large part because This American Life is one of my favorite radio shows.  This is how a currently uncorrected blurb describes the episode:

Recently, the British medical journal The Lancet published an study which updated their estimate of the number of Iraqis who've died since the U.S. invasion. With that in mind, we revisit a show we did in 2005 about the earlier study published in Lancet estimating the number of Iraqi deaths. That study was mostly ignored in the U.S. Alex Blumberg revisits the original study and looks at the new one.

I seem to recall Ira Glass, the host, informing us at the beginning that the numbers in the study really were true.  Well, if the 2004 study was ignored, the same cannot be said about the pre-election special.  This is how a devastating critique of the study in the National Journal puts it:

CBS News called the report a "new and stunning measure of the havoc the American invasion unleashed in Iraq." CNN began its report this way: "War has wiped out about 655,000 Iraqis, or more than 500 people a day, since the U.S.-led invasion, a new study reports." Within a week, the study had been featured in 25 news shows and 188 articles in U.S. newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

There is, however, a problem with the Lancet Report.  It was a snow job. That is my ungenerous, but I think accurate, reading of the conclusions reached by the National Journal. The latter, by the way, is one of the most respected guides to American government.  You can find it in almost any public library.  Here is how they put it. 

Over the past several months, National Journal has examined the 2006 Lancet article, and another [PDF] that some of the same authors published in 2004; probed the problems of estimating wartime mortality rates; and interviewed the authors and their critics. NJ has identified potential problems with the research that fall under three broad headings: 1) possible flaws in the design and execution of the study; 2) a lack of transparency in the data, which has raised suspicions of fraud; and 3) political preferences held by the authors and the funders, which include George Soros's Open Society Institute.

Allow me to unpack that.  The study based its very large estimates on a very small sample consisting of surveys given to 47 "clusters" of households.  In short, it worked like an opinion poll. There is no consensus that such a procedure is reliable in this sort of research.  Second, when authors of the study were pressed to release their basic data, they refused.  Now anyone in virtually any branch of science can tell you that when someone refuses to release their data, that is the surest sign of fraud.  The dog ate my homework.  So in addition to using questionable research methods, they were very probably cooking the books.  And finally, the study was funded by George Soros, a man who once boasted that he would spend millions of his own money to defeat President Bush in 2004. 

It gets better.  One of the authors of the study, Riyadh Lafta, was part of Saddam's government.

Lafta had been a child-health official in Saddam Hussein's ministry of health when the ministry was trying to end the international sanctions against Iraq by asserting that many Iraqis were dying from hunger, disease, or cancer caused by spent U.S. depleted-uranium shells remaining from the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

In other words, the chief item on this guy's resume was precisely the job of cooking the books for the old regime, in order to advance its political interests. Small wonder then that the activities of this man, solely responsible for the study's basic data, remains shrouded in secrecy. 

Both Lancet studies of Iraqi war deaths rest on the data provided by Lafta, who operated with little American supervision and has rarely appeared in public or been interviewed about his role. In May, Lafta and Roberts presented their study to an off-the-record meeting of experts in Geneva, but other attendees declined to describe Lafta's remarks. Despite multiple requests sent via e-mails and through Burnham and Roberts, Lafta declined to communicate with National Journal or to send copies of his articles about Iraqi deaths during Saddam's regime.

This post provides only highlights of the National Journal  article. Read the whole thing.  When it is done, there is not enough left of the Lancet report to bury in a coke spoon. 

The question here of course is not whether the Iraq war was justified.  If it was not, then one death, let alone 30,000, was way too many.  The question is whether institutions with long histories and decades of prestige can be trusted to be free of political corruption.  CNN and CBS are notoriously shameless.   But Lancet, and the John Hopkins School of Public Health, enjoy the sort of reputations that are acquired only with decades of scrupulous care.  Yet they put all that aside to push a politically jaundiced pseudo-study just before an American election.  That is political corruption, and it is worth knowing about.   

 

Does South Dakota Tax And Spend Too Much?

Mr. Powers and Mr. Sibson both seem to agree that South Dakotans are taxed too much and our government is too big.  Is this true?  Let's look at the numbers.

When one looks at state taxation, as I have reported here before, South Dakota has the lowest tax burden in the nation.  When we include local taxes, this data base (pdf altert, and go to page 41 for South Dakota), says over the last decade South Dakota has ranked about 45th in tax burden, meaning only five states tax their citizens less than South Dakota. 

How about spending?  This chart from 2002 has South Dakota 42nd in the nation in per capita spending, while this one (another pdf) from FY 2005 has us 41st.   Perhaps things have changed since then, but it seems likely that we are in the lowest 10 states for per capita spending.  If anyone has more recent data, send it along. 

So we can see that there are few states that tax less and where the government is so lean.  These are comparisons of course.  It might be that all the other states are ridiculously over taxed and their governments are way too big and so it means nothing that South Dakota ranks below them on these measures.  Maybe.  I suggest that if anything many states, and certainly South Dakota, both spend and tax too little.  The problem is seen in the second chart I linked to above.  State and local government in South Dakota is taking about 9% of our income, but the federal government is taking another 20%.  If the feds would take less and spend less then it would be easier for state governments, where the basics of government should be in the first place, could do more without the concerns of over-burdening their tax payers. 

My Messiah Is A Suit From Massachusetts

Maybe Mitt Romney needs to cry. 

Ron Paul and New Hampshire

Ed Morrissey:  What happened to the Ron Paul supporters?

Juno: Worth Seeing, And Seeing Again

I recall leaving the movie theater after seeing the fantastic Almost Famous and remarking to a friend, "I don't know what I just saw, but I know I just saw something really good."   I had a similar reaction after having seen Juno last night.  While my praise is not as effusive as Prof. Blanchard's, this is a fine film that I can recommend highly.  Like Almost Famous, the writing is so clever and the characters are so interesting that the viewer can hardly keep up.  This is the point of my "I don't know what I just saw" line.  This is the kind of film that rewards multiple viewings as something new and interesting can be found each time. 

One should see the film because it is funny and entertaining, but it is more than that.  One edifying aspect of the film is the argument for adulthood.  The film stresses the need to live up to one's responsibilities and for leaving childhood behind.  I don't think I give away too much when I say that the prospective adoptive father of Juno's baby resists the necessary responsibilities that come with adulthood while his wife, albeit in a yuppie sort of way, is sincerely trying to take on the trappings of adulthood (job, home, family).  One of the hallmarks of maturity, psychologists say, is the willingness to take on responsibilities and to fulfill them.  Some characters in the film are willing to do this, others are not.

The depiction of sexuality in the film is packaged in a similar way.  One is struck by the caviler and clinical way sex is discussed by some characters, particularly those in position of authority.  For example, no one in the film speaks of "making love."  It is all about "sexual intercourse" done in a "responsible manner,"  which means with a condom.  This stands in stark contrast to Juno's condition.  I don't just mean her pregnancy, surely a result of sexual intercourse done in an irresponsible manner, but her quest for a true father for her baby and for love.  The film connects sexuality with responsibility by looking at the consequences of a culture that is strictly concerned about how sex affects the body while ignoring how it affects the soul.  In this sense the character of Paulie, the biological father of Juno's baby, is instructive.  He believes that his sexual encounter with Juno was more than something they did because there was nothing on TV.  Overall, while not entirely consistent, the film seems to depict sex as something that should occur only when one is prepared for the responsibility for what might happen to one's body and one's soul. Here the fact that Juno is named after the Roman goddess of marriage takes on greater meaning.   

I am skeptical that these lessons were intended by the film.  I don't trust the intentions of Hollywood anymore than I do the intentions of the local drug dealer.  Prof. Blanchard is correct that the film can be read in a profoundly pro-life way.  Was that intentional?  I don't know.  I do want to take issue with Prof. Blanchard's interpretation of the film's depiction of religion.  Prof. Blanchard gives great weight to the fact that the plus sign on the pregnancy test is a cross.  Well, sometimes a plus sign is also a cross, and sometimes a plus sign is just a plus sign.  I'll see Prof. Blanchard's pregnancy test and raise him the sticker of the band Bad Religion prominently displayed in Juno's locker. The band's logo is a cross with the international "anti" symbol of a circle with a slash superimposed on the cross.  This is a film like most modern films where religion, particularly Christianity, is non-existent if it is not mocked. I suspect that this film is edifying in spite of itself. 

Whither The GOP

Robert Novak argues that Mitt Romney's early primary strategy has failed and John McCain is the presumptive nominee.  Romney's plan was to spend big on the early states and gain momentum to carry him to victory in later states.  Romney, of course, finished second rather than winning the first two contests giving him no-mentum rather than momentum. 

Here is an counter scenario.  The events of the last week have left all of the GOP candidates relatively even yet dead in the water.  Let's see who starts paddling first and hardest.  That fellow will gain that all elusive momentum. 

Just one more thought on last night's events.  You look around the net today (no need for links as the stories are everywhere) and what you see is another bunch of predictions about what the future holds for each party.  Perhaps the lesson of last night is to stop trying to predict the future and simply enjoy the present.  It has been a long time since we have seen an election like this, and it will be a long time before we see one again.  Surely we should analyze what has already occurred, but maybe we should all stop trying to be so clever in our predictions for the future.  Let's let the voters figure it out while we enjoy the show. 

New Hampshire Post Script

Two things, of unequal weight.  First, who is left standing?  Not Edwards, after tonight, I think.  Good.  His angry man routine was entertaining, but no one thinks its good for four regular seasons, let alone eight.  Besides, he is the kind of politician to give the word phony a bad name.  No one else on the Democratic side was in enough to fall out. 

Fred Thompson ran even with Dennis Kucinich, whom I finally got around to adding to my spell check dictionary.  Thompson got beat seven to one by Ron Paul.  That's about as dead as it's possible to get without actually dying.  Giuliani, like Thompson, made the mistake of waiting for some grand moment to enter the stage.  I'm guessing he fades rapidly. Huckabee and Romney are still in.  I am guessing the Huck fades soon, but that is only a guess. 

As to the second thing, democracy in America is alive and well.  This is all very exciting.  Consider, by contrast, our jaded cousins across the Atlantic pond.  Janet Daley of the London Telegraph notices the difference:

I followed most of the Iowa primary and its spectacularly surprising outcome on the American television networks through the miracle of digital technology.  The sense of joyous excitement, whatever the political preferences of the analysts, was palpable. Then occasionally I would switch back to the British coverage to see how events were being refracted through the home perspective. It was like watching a cloud passing in front of the sun. Perhaps it was the BBC's embarrassment that Hillary Clinton - whom it had elected to the presidency months ago - had gone down in flames. You could almost hear the gears grinding as expectations and prejudices were confounded: US contemplating first black president; we thought a Clinton was as liberal as it could get; what on earth do we make of this?  ...

I tuned into the Today programme the morning after Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee had staged the most spectacular upsets in recent American history, and heard the languid voice of James Naughtie claiming to someone on the Huckabee team (who must be an evangelical Christian and therefore a moron, right?) that his man's success represented some sort of vote for ideological faith rather than competence. Huckabee's man, perhaps unused to the subtlety of the BBC's brand of condescension, was utterly lacking in defensiveness. He replied with the common-sense point that the two were not mutually exclusive.

I have, to be sure, my own partisan sentiments.  I would rather my side win than lose.  I think that there are very important things that are decided, for better or worse, by American elections.  But I love the Republic and I take great joy in the whole electoral mess apart from the particular outcome.  Consider the words of Alexander Hamilton as he begins to make the case, to the people of New York, for ratifying the new Constitution of the United States. 

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

It is an unfortunate habit of conservatives and liberals alike to imagine that the founders were much better or much worse creatures than we.  But of course they were the very same sort of creatures, and what happened in New Hampshire today was exactly what Hamilton and Madison were trying to achieve. 

 

Clinton, Obama, 08

While my colleague is right that both he and I were skeptical about Ms. Clinton's early demise, I won't pretend that I saw this one coming.  Nor, I think, did anyone else, including the Clinton, Obama, and Edwards campaign staffs.  The fun thing is that there is no way to know what happened, below the blunt fact of the numbers. On the Republican side, the polls were pretty accurate: McCain first, followed by Romney about five paces later.  On the Democratic side, the polls (all of them, even at Fox) were wrong in exactly the right way to turn what would have been a modest victory on Ms. Clinton's part into an immortal triumph. If you have been trained in classical Greek philosophy and literature, as I have, it almost makes you believe that the Clinton's have the right gods. Or maybe it was just the work of those peevish poltergeists who make up the New Hampshire electorate. 

What looks ominous for the future is this: between them Clinton and Obama managed to rake in nearly every demographic group that a Presidential ticket would need to win.  Senator Clinton got the elderly, women, the Unions (sorry Edwards!), and the less educated, less affluent voters.  She also got the independents, who apparently trusted her establishment status more than his sexy new thing appeal.  Senator Obama got the young in a big way, men, and pretty much everyone with an IRA and some form of post-graduate training.  What happened today was by far the best thing for the Democrats.  If Ms. Clinton clinches the nomination, with Barack Obama as a close second, she would be crazy not to offer him second chair.  As the younger, junior senator, the ticket would be properly balanced.  It would also offer nearly every Democrat and a lot of independents exactly what they want. Assuming neither of them snatch defeat from the jaws of victory (a big assumption in Ms. Clinton's case), and that nothing happens to really frighten us between now and November, I am not sure that such a ticket is beatable. 

I am not sure it works the other way around.  An Obama-Clinton ticket would look too much like a May-December Marriage.  It would require Ms. Clinton to swallow her pride early on, and for Mr. Clinton to accept the role of second lady.  But if the Black vote does go hard for Obama, that is precisely what we may end up with.  The Democrats will be lucky if Ms. Clinton continues to win and the two top contenders do not open an irreconcilable breach between each other over the next month. 
Maybe Ms. Clinton will blow it yet.  And maybe Clinton fatigue will eventually set in.  But it is a sign of the strength of the Democratic position right now that I can't find anything interesting to say about the Republican side. 

Another Good Night for Public Opinion Polls?

So much for Obama's supposed astounding victory over Clinton backed by an overwhelming amount of polling showing her trailing Obama.

UPDATE:  Some questions to ponder.  Did McCain hurt Obama?  Will Hillary's win overshadow McCain's win?  Will a Romney victory in Michigan be enough for him to be competitive on Super Tuesday?  What happens to Thompson and Giuliani now?

The Dead Shall Rise Again

This is not one of Blanchard's zombie posts.  Fox News is calling New Hampshire for Hillary Clinton, as I see Prof. Blanchard notes below.  Being humble I will not point out that both Prof. Blanchard and I (see here and here) were skeptical about early calls of Sen. Clinton's demise.  In late November I wrote:

Let me predict that just as people in Iowa and New Hampshire are getting ready to vote, this "Hillary is on the slide" story will be old and the new story will be "Hillary on the comeback."  A shiny new donkey to the first reporter to relate Hillary's odyssey to Bill's "comeback kid" performance in New Hampshire in 1992.

OK, I was a week late.  But do not underestimate the Clintons.  I suspect all the internet talk this afternoon about Sen. Clinton shaking up her campaign or even dropping out was planted by the Clinton campaign to both lower expectations and perhaps set the stage for an amazing comeback. 

Another note.  Some of the Fox News post-game was concerned with the impact Sen. Clinton's tears had on the election.  The consensus was that Sen. Clinton helped herself, especially among women, by making herself seem more human.  If this is case then we should be ashamed of ourselves.  If voters are truly this fickle and willing to have their choice for president turn on such a trivial matter, then it doesn't matter who we elect president because we are done for.  I mean this as a comment on voters, not Sen. Clinton. 

Last point.  Sen. Clinton's surprise win will take away any bump John McCain should get because all the news tomorrow will concern Sen. Clinton's comeback, not McCain's big win. 

Clinton by a Nose in New Hampshire

Boy did she ever win the expectations game!   Fox just called it for Senator Clinton, by about 3%.  McCain over Romney by about 5%. 

Huge Turnout in New Hampshire

Our friends over at Power Line note that New Hampshire precincts are reportedly running out of Democratic ballots.  Possibly bad news for Hillary, who polls well among the party's base but Obama carries support among independents and young voters.  If young voters turn out the way they did in Iowa, expect Obama to carry New Hampshire.  Note that Edwards also polls well among young voters, meaning the long-time frontrunner may end up with another embarrassing third-place finish.  However, don't count her out either.  Anybody who says Hillary is toast is expressing blind optimism.

I'll be blogging through the evening on New Hampshire's results, so stick around here at SDP as the evening progresses.

The Politico is running live primary results.  At 6:26 pm with less than one percent of precincts reporting, Obama leads Clinton and Edwards 58%-24%-10%.  McCain is up front with 46%, leading Huckabee (17%) and Paul (14%).

UPDATE:  The New Hampshire Presidential Watch and the Graniteprof, both bloggers in New Hampshire, will be following the primaries and commenting on the results.

UPDATE:  Bill Bradley started his coverage of New Hampshire earlier today.  Mark Blumenthal has some thoughts on what to expect from exit polls.  Polls close in fifteen minutes (7:00 CST).

UPDATE:  Journalists love Obama:  "[I]t's hard to stay objective covering this guy." 

UPDATE (6:52): Liveblogging from the Captain.  With 8% of the precincts reporting, Clinton has a 38-36% lead over Obama.  McCain leads Romney by nine, 37-28%, with Huckabee at 12% and Giulaini at 9%.  Far to early to comment much on those numbers, but they are intriguing...

UPDATE (7:13):  CNN has called the election for John McCain.  Their exit polling must show a significant gap between him and Romney.

UPDATE (7:36):  Clinton has edged ahead of Obama, 40-36% with 14% of precincts reporting.  Interesting.  For Republicans, Romney leads Huckabee, 28-12%. Paul is behind Giulani, and Thompson has barely registered.  This'll probably change as the night marches on.

UPDATE (7:40):  Fox News and ABC News are also projecting McCain as the winner.  More live results from ABC News.  Pajamas Media has a huge roundup of New Hampshire coverage.

UPDATE (7:48):  Blowback on the idea of Hillary going negative over at DailyKos.  And, is the entertainment industry ready to ditch Hillary for Obama?

UPDATE (7:52):  MSNBC calls it for McCain.  Apparently, it's still too close to call on the Dem side.

UPDATE (8:00):  With one quarter of the precincts reporting, Clinton leads over Obama and Edwards 39-34-16%.  Among Republicans, McCain leads Romney and Huckabee 37-28-12%.

UPDATE (8:14):  Extreme Mortman:  "If Barack Obama really does finish in second in New Hampshire to Hillary Clinton by single digits after leading in the polls for days, he should copy the Clinton playbook: He should declare himself the Comeback Kid." 

UPDATE (8:15):  Ed Morrissey:  "McCain's win is a lot larger than anyone thought earlier today.  Did independents break Republican instead of Democrat, assuming that Obama had the race sewn up?"

UPDATE (8:32):  The race is tightening between Hillary and Obama, 39-36% with 42% of precincts reporting. 

UPDATE (8:33):  Morrissey writes:  "CNN is now reporting that none of the college towns have reported yet. That may be a big problem for Hillary, whose lead has never gotten more than 3,000 votes ahead of Obama."

UPDATE (8:58):  Little change between Clinton and Obama with 56% of Democratic precincts reporting, 39-37%.  The gap between McCain and Romney has narrowed slightly, from nine points to six.  McCain still carries the state, but the narrow gap helps Romney. 

UPDATE (9:18):  Eric Scheie:  "McCain is speaking now. He radiates something too rare in politics. Whether you like his politics or not, he's an optimist, a brave man, and an American original."  I would agree.  I haven't endorsed anyone yet because there are three or four guys I would be happy to see nominated, but McCain makes my list. 

UPDATE (9:34):  Fox and CNN are reporting that the Associated Press called New Hampshire for Hillary.  The race between Obama and Clinton is close enough that both will stay to fight another day.  It hasn't been a good night for Edwards. 

UPDATE:  It's been exciting but I'm off for the night.  Stay tuned in at Ed's for live updates.  Also watch the Graniteprof, who's giving breakdowns of the areas candidates are winning.  More in the morning.  Thanks for tuning in.

Ron Paul: A Bigot?

On this day of the New Hampshire primary The New Republic publishes a piece describing comments on race that appeared in various iterations of a newsletter put out under Ron Paul's name.  Pajamas Media helpfully lists the most explosive quotations.  I would describe these quotes as varying from benign to racially insensitive to outright racist.  Taken as a whole they depict a man who is more than happy to play with racial stereotypes and fears. This is the low politics of racial demagoguery. 

You might say, "But this is The New Republic and, umm, they've been known to make up stuff."  But Ron Paul's statement on the matter does not deny the authenticity of the report.  Instead he says,

When I was out of Congress and practicing medicine full-time, a newsletter was published under my name that I did not edit.  Several writers contributed to the product.   For over a decade, I have publically [sic] taken moral responsibility for not paying closer attention to what went out under my name.

It is sad that Paul's own argument is that he was incompetent in managing a second rate newsletter, but we should elect him president. 

Washington Post Blasts Democrats over Iraq

When Fred Barnes writes that the Democratic candidates "can't handle the truth about the surge", well, that's Fred Barnes. 

THERE'S A TRUTH THE Democratic presidential candidates can't handle: the success of the "surge" in Iraq. The addition of American troops and the adoption of a new strategy of protecting the civilian population has now dramatically reduced the level of violence in Baghdad and pacified other parts of Iraq as well. But the Democratic candidates insist on pretending otherwise.

It isn't clear whether they were uninformed, out of touch, mistaken, politically fearful, or knowingly dishonest when they were asked to comment on the surge during an ABC television debate Saturday night in New Hampshire. In any case, their refusal to acknowledge success in Iraq marked a low point in the Democratic campaign.

When the Washington Post makes the same argument, it's pretty clear that there is a hole in the Democrat's swing. 

AT SATURDAY'S New Hampshire debate, Democratic candidates were confronted with a question that they have been ducking for some time: Can they concede that the "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq has worked? All of them vehemently opposed the troop increase when President Bush proposed it a year ago; both Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama introduced legislation to reverse it. Now it's indisputable that the surge has drastically reduced violence. Attacks have fallen by more than 60 percent, al-Qaeda has been dealt a major blow, and the threat of sectarian civil war that seemed imminent a year ago has receded. The monthly total of U.S. fatalities in December was the second-lowest of the war.

Now the success of the surge doesn't mean that the war was a good idea, or that we shouldn't pull our troops out.  But before you can decide what to do next, you have to honestly acknowledge what is happening now.  That was the WaPo's point.  The entire Democratic presidential field seems utterly incapable of that. 

Bad News In Aberdeen

The Aberdeen American News rings in a new legislative session with a rotten idea: subject not-for-profits to property tax or a "fee for service" for the fire and police protection they receive. 

Here is an idea that we have suggested before, and we still think it merits exploration by legislators: Some properties assessed as non-profit, such as independent living centers, could - and should - have a financial responsibility for services such as police and fire protection.

Over the course of the past five to 10 years, local governments - particularly counties - have struggled to make ends meet. The primary source of funding for counties is property taxes.

Millions of dollars of property annually go untaxed in Brown County - and every other county in the state - because the property and its buildings are classified as not-for-profit.

Apparently the American News thinks that nursing homes and animal shelters aren't paying their fair share.  These institutions are exempt from taxes because they perform important public services that we want to encourage.  For example, the Aberdeen Humane Society takes in unwanted animals so they are not treated cruelly or left roam our streets.  They then place animals in homes that will care for them.  This is a public service that the Humane Society provides without a view towards profit.  It performs an important public service so the government doesn't have to.  I'd say they, and others like them, have earned their fire and police protection. 

Think You Know Barack Obama? Think Again

This piece from the American Thinker gives some useful background on Barack Obama's radical past. As to his present, the author points out that Obama's church recently gave an award to Louis Farrakhan, the proto-fascist head of the Nation of Islam. 

And when one takes into account that the Reverend Wright, whom Obama [calls] his spiritual mentor and still claims is his sounding board, is also a former Muslim who has taken trips abroad with none other than Louis Farrakhan, one might be led to wonder if this "church" isn't all it makes itself out to be. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan received the "Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright,Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer" Award at the 2007 Trumpet Gala at the the United Church of Christ.

Does Barack Obama denounce Louis Farrakhan in no uncertain terms?  Do he scold his church for giving Farrakhan an award?  Does he distance himself from his pastor's association with a blatant racist?  We don't know because no one in a position to do so seems to be asking. 

Impeachment: Last Word

The difference between Prof. Blanchard and me is that he sees "high crimes and misdemeanors" as defining actual crimes as the basis of impeachment while I see it as a common law term of art.  As this short article explains, the term entered the Constitution as a way of saying the president can be impeached for breaking the law and also for "bad behavior."  As Hamilton puts it in Federalist #65:

The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself.

The impeachment power was designed for criminal acts and more.  I do not think that the impeachment of Andrew Johnson was unconstitutional, although it may have been foolish.  Similarly, if Congress had chosen to impeach Bill Clinton strictly for his sexual peccadillos it would have been on firm constitutional grounds, albeit also acting carelessly. 

Things Fall Apart for Ms. Clinton

As I write this post, the long arc of midnight has since passed over the tiny New Hampshire hamlet of Dixville Notch, home to 17 stout voters and, until moments ago, many more employees of the various news networks.  It is apparently one of the advantages of living in New Hampshire that a small town is not "itty bitty," it's a hamlet.  Another is all this disproportionate attention. Here is how the hamlet voted:

McCain with 4 votes, Mitt Romney with 2 votes, Rudy Giuliani with 1 vote. Those were the only Republican votes cast.

On the Democratic side, Obama won a landslide 7 votes compared with 2 for John Edwards, one for Bill Richardson and none for Hillary Clinton.

Those results mean nothing of course, but it looks like New Hampshire will deal a crushing blow, perhaps fatal, to the ambitions of Senator Clinton.  Second place would not be fatal.  Second place by a lot may very well be, and that looks to be in the cards. 

If you watched cable news today you got to see and hear Ms. Clinton choke up and move to the very edge of a sob.  This has the analysts analyzing the genuineness of the incident.  I am certain that Ms. Clinton was expressing genuine emotion.  Her moment in history may be about to slip through her fingers, and that is the sort of thing that can move anyone of us to cry.  On the other hand, there is no way that a Clinton cries in public if he or she doesn't want to.  When millions of people have seen the Senator produce several identical versions of a cackle during interviews on the same weekend (courtesy of YouTube), a certain presumption of innocence with regard to emotional displays has been lost forever. 

This illustrates the problem with Ms. Clinton's candidacy.  She carries all the baggage of a Clinton, with none of the charm.  She might make a reasonably good President.  Once you get to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, you acquire tremendous resources for public presentation.  But she is in fact a very bad candidate.  Barack Obama is much better, and that may make the difference this time round.  It is clear that the Clinton machine has no idea yet how to get their candidate back on track. 

Michael Barone, a superb analyst of voting behavior, has discovered an interest pattern in American elections.

In 1992 voters elected a 46-year-old Arkansas governor as president, and in the spring of that year, if the polls are to be believed, they were ready to elect a Texas billionaire whose governmental experience included serving as a junior naval officer and running a firm that provided computer services to local welfare departments. In 1976 voters elected a one-term former governor of Georgia who'd served as a state senator and a naval officer.

The metrically minded will see a common thread. Every 16 years--in 1976, 1992 and now in 2008--American voters have seemed less interested in experience and credentials and more interested in a new face unconnected to the current political establishment.

I am more than a little suspicious of these types of things.  It is too much like the Kennedy-Lincoln parallels.  But historical cycles do exist.

I wouldn't count Ms. Clinton out yet.  She will certainly last until Super Tuesday, on February 5th. Maybe Obama will yet have his Howard Dean moment.  And I still think that if she had her husband's personal charm, or Obama had her own, she would be cruising to an easy victory.   But if she loses by a lot tomorrow, it will be hard to come back.   

Impeachment 2: A Reply to Professor Schaff

My SDP colleague, Professor Schaff, has a reply to my post on George McGovern and his call for the impeachment of President Bush.  I think in fact that we are largely in agreement on the matter, but I try to clarify a few points.

Professor Schaff is certainly correct that the removal power (impeachment in the House followed by conviction in the Senate) is always a political power.  Congress has no power to impose fines, imprison, or execute any public official or judge.  That is explicit in the text.  Removal of an official, like the original appointment, is a political act. 

However, the removal power seems clearly to have been designed to deal with acts of ordinary criminality by public officials, which was what I said.  Consider Art. I, Section 3, Clause 7, which supports both points:

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

And then there is Section 4 of Art. II:

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

One might read these clauses to limit the removal power to finds of misconduct that are against the law. In fact, Congress has only impeached sixteen federal officials, including two presidents and a handful of judges. Almost all of these cases involved illegal acts such as bribery, tax fraud, perjury, and obstruction of justice.  So the record provides considerable support for my view that the Founders were contemplating violations of ordinary law and not the sort of thing that Justice Story wrote of. 

But I would not read the clause so narrowly.  In severe cases it might be necessary to impeach an official for an egregious abuse of power or a neglect of responsibilities, in cases where no criminal law had been violated but where all ordinary political avenues were exhausted.  A judge who made openly racist statements and expressed his sentiments in his decisions and opinions might be such a case.  The impeachment of Justice John Pickering, an alcoholic and perhaps insane, may have been such a case.  The removal power is clearly a last resort, which is indicated by the fact that it is mentioned last in the three sections where it occurs.

Even if the removal power is necessarily political, it is not necessarily partisan.  The impeachment of Andrew Johnson is an interesting case.  This was a clearly political action, aimed at the President's contempt for an act of Congress. But the act in question was, in my view, unconstitutional and it was declared so in 1926.  Johnson's impeachment was, in my view, an obviously partisan action.  President Clinton's impeachment fell into the more common category of illegal actions, but the public suspected partisan motivation (not without good reason).  That is why the Senate failed to convict, and the Republicans suffered afterward. 

As Professor Schaff and I make clear, the charges raised by Senator McGovern were clearly the stuff that is vetted through ordinary political procedures.  I agree that it would not be unconstitutional for the House to impeach President on the grounds that McGovern provides.  But it would not fall into either of the categories described above and it would have obvious partisan and perhaps pathological motives.  It would clearly be an abuse of the House's impeachment powers.   

Obama, McCain Ahead in New Hampshire

A new poll out today shows some interesting developments for tomorrow's New Hampshire primaries.   Mitt Romney and Hillary Clinton, both seen as front-runners in the state early on, are being challenged by John McCain and Barack Obama, respectively.  USA Today reports:

Amid frenetic last-minute campaigning, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds the onetime front-runners in New Hampshire lagging as Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain have surged to leads before Tuesday's primary.

Obama vaulted to a 13 percentage-point advantage over New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton three weeks after they were tied here. McCain gained a four-point edge over Mitt Romney, a former governor of neighboring Massachusetts who has campaigned almost as a favorite son.

This is shaping up to be an exciting, and surprising, campaign.  If McCain pulls off a substantial win over Romney, such as Huckabee's nine-point victory, voters might question whether or not he can successfully complete against anyone, even with his organization and fund-raising prowess.  The polls are more damning for Hillary Clinton.  If Obama maintains a double-digit lead tomorrow, Hillary's "inevitability" might face serious problems.  Add in her third place finish in Iowa and Democrats might question how she can beat a Republican when she can't even achieve victory over a freshman senator still working on his first term.

UPDATE:  Ed Morrissey asks about Mitt Romney:  "Sandbagging Or Adjusting Expectations?"

UPDATE:  Rasmussen has more on Democrats and Republicans in the Granite State, suggesting the same trend as USA Today reported.  Also note the Real Clear Politics averages, which gives Obama a 7.7 point lead over Clinton and McCain a 4.3 point lead over Romney.

UPDATE:  Keep an eye on this blog, which is devoted to tracking New Hampshire presidential politics.

Anti-Corporation, Anti-Big Government

The Huckabee candidacy should serve as a warning to Republicans.  Huckabee, whatever problems he may have as a candidate, is touching a nerve among the GOP electorate that is both anti-government and anti-corporation.  As Cory points out, many Republicans have been more than happy to line the pockets of corporations in recent years (and, not coincidently, corporate PACs have lined political pockets).  But as Cory cites the libertarian magazine Reason to bolster his argument, this indicates that the issue of corporate welfare and influence should be a conservative/Republican issue. 

Yet I read in conservative circles not critiques of corporate influence, but defenses (just one example here).  And apparently Mitt Romney is running as the candidate of corporate America.  I get the argument.  Corporations create a lot of wealth and a lot of jobs for Americans.  Attacks on corporations are attacks on American prosperity.  Yet corporations, many conservatives note, are not necessarily defenders of the free market.  Indeed there is such thing as corporate socialism wherein corporations align with the state to keep out competition.  It should not be forgotten the Progressives saw the corporation as an advance in evolution.  Centralization of power was efficient, they thought, and so power should be centralized in big corporations under big government regulation.  But what has that created?  A system of influence peddlers spending copious amounts of time and money trying to manipulate a large and intrusive government for the good of corporate America. 

The conservative attack on corporate welfare points out that corporations promote anti-competitive policies in the form of subsidies for themselves and/or regulations on their competition.  For example, many corporations loved the idea of Hillary Care in the 1990s.  Under Hillary Care, the government would force businesses to grant health insurance to employees. Well, most large corporations already offered health insurance.  So many of those large corporations supported the bill based on the belief that government mandated health insurance would drive out of business the smaller companies that couldn't afford these mandates.  Presto! Less competition for big business. 

While conservatives need not play the populist game of attacking corporations, they should point out that big government encourages the proliferation of interest groups who seek to manipulate that government to their own ends.  Corporations have a lot of money and naturally they spend some of it to influence Washington.*  Only by shrinking government can you reduce the influence of corporate America.  The sooner Republicans make this argument and actually act on it the sooner they start winning elections.  Don't hold your breath.      

*Note that corporate contributions to campaigns have been illegal for a century.  However, corporations can form political action committees that can legally contribute to campaigns and political parties. And naturally individuals form corporations can give money within federally regulated contribution limits. 

On The Religious Right...And Left

Joe Knippenberg has some thoughts on the essentials that divide the religious right and religious left.   Joe sees the religious conservatives as wishing to use public policy to strengthen the family and the institutional church (making the essential public policy one of getting the government out of the way).  The religious left seeks to use government to promote religiously mandated justice and equality.  As the religious left is more likely to use the activist state to promote a religiously inspired vision of justice, it is actually closer to theocracy than the religious right. 

I'd add one thing more to this analysis, with which I generally agree.  The essential difference between the religious right and left has to do with a view of sin. The religious right is more likely to focus on the fallen nature of man and thus concentrate on individual sin.  Thus its concern with public morality.  The religious left is more likely to see sin in a social phenomena, e.g., structural racism.  Thus the goal of policy is to make institutions moral.  In short, the religious right seeks to reform individuals, while the religious left seeks to reform society.  This formulation is crude, but I think true enough. 

On a different by related matter, see Dr. Pat on why the left, as a matter of a kind of faith, seeks to regulate the least particulars of our material lives while leaving our souls to the wolves. 

Reducing government regulation increasingly to the sphere of prolonging life is, in many instances, based on a deeper set of liberal commitments that the only value of living is longevity itself. Such laws aren't propounded to govern our appetites: they are enacted so that we come to embrace the ultimate Hobbesian appetite, the overriding secular commitment to the belief that life of the body overrides all other considerations. The only "moral" laws that are permissible are those that have to do with extending our lifespans; the only "sin" you can commit is purposefully compromising your own longevity. (snip)

The very institutions once charged with helping to shape character no longer recognize the legitimacy or even existence of such a responsibility: they are in the business of making you into good consumptive liberals who will someday obsess about your cholesterol levels but heaven forbid a word should be said about what might constitute a good marriage.

What matters above all is that we crave life, that the physical status of our bodies overrides every other consideration. Only then will it be possible to build the universal and homogenous State of satiated and peaceful last men.

Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead

The Golden Globes award show is reportedly being canceled due to the writers' strike.  Could this happen to the Academy Awards?  I dare not even dream something so delicious. 

McGovern, Impeachment, and The Constitution

I have a mild disagreement with my colleague Prof. Blanchard over the meaning of "high crimes and misdemeanors" when it comes to the impeachment of presidents.  Prof. Blanchard reacts to George McGovern's call to impeach President Bush.  Prof. Blanchard writes:

The procedure by which a sitting President can be removed from office, impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate, is explicitly aimed violations of ordinary criminal law.  That is what "high crimes and misdemeanors" clearly means.   

I disagree.  Impeachment is essentially a political, not legal, act.  As Justice Story wrote in his Familiar Exposition of the Constitution of the United States:

The offences, to which the power of impeachment has been, and is ordinarily applied, as a remedy, are of a political character. Not but that crimes of a strictly legal character fall within the scope of the power, (for, as we shall presently see, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanours are expressly within it;) but that it has a more enlarged operation, and reaches, what are aptly termed, political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests, in the discharge of the duties of political office. These are so various in their character, and so indefinable in their actual involutions, that it is almost impossible to provide systematically for them by positive law.

There is no constitutional objection to McGovern's plea for impeachment.  Therefore the grounds must be political.  Most of what McGovern objects to is policy difference. As Prof. Blanchard points out, Bush's opposition has had countless opportunities to change Bush's policies and has, by and large, failed to do so. Impeachment in this case seems less a move against an abuser of public trust than a move by perennial policy losers to punish someone who keeps winning. There is little we know today that the American people did not know in November of 2004.  And protestations from the left wing fever swamps to the contrary, the American people chose George W. Bush as their president with eyes wide open.

It is telling that it is largely those with no real political responsibility, such as George McGovern, who call for impeachment.  Impeachment is a political act and those Democrats responsible for the political viability of their party are staying away from it. They know that impeaching George Bush would serve no purpose other than to make his enemies feel good about themselves.  Impeachment of Bush, responsible Democrats know, would constitute a foolish abuse of the impeachment power and those pushing the use of the impeachment tool would suffer the scorn of the vast majority of the American people. 

I will take Prof. Blanchard's compliment about my knowledge of the career of George McGovern and run with it.  George McGovern has many virtues, but he has one prominent vice.  Sen.McGovern is a moralist, meaning he often choses feeling good over doing good.  This is another example. 

Juno: The Best Movie in Years

I went to see Juno this afternoon and I can't stop thinking about it.  Roger Ebert calls it "just about the best movie of the year." Obviously, I am willing to go further.  In the first place, it is persistently and deeply funny.  When you get lines like "she's not the brightest bulb in the tanning bed" about three per minute, that is first rate writing.

Secondly, it is exquisitely scripted.  It is a straight-forward story of a sixteen year old girl who finds herself looking down the business end of a pregnancy test.   After running out of an abortion clinic, she decides to give the baby up for adoption.  In the most unforgettable moment, Juno (Ellen Page) is seated with her father (J.K. Simmons), facing prospective adoptive parents Vanessa and Mark Loring (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman).  Juno blurts out how lucky Vanessa is that she doesn't have to suffer the physical burden of pregnancy.  Vanessa, who obviously wants to be a mother with every fiber of her body, winces.  And that's it.  There was no dwelling on it, and the dialog went on.  The writers had the courage to let the moment go right by a lot of the audience.  But no one who has ever dearly wanted children, and wondered, even for a moment, whether it might not happen, would miss the innocent but terrible cruelty of that remark.

Thirdly, the casting and acting were superb.  Page works magic with her character, presenting us with a character who is at once magical in her reading of life, and down to the flesh real in every situation.  I especially liked Simmons as her father.  When Vanessa says: "have you ever thought for your whole life that you were destined for something," she has in mind motherhood.  Simmons pipes up and says: "air conditioning!"  His ironic but nonetheless tender handling of his daughter should go on family counseling tapes.  Her stepmother (Allison Janney) ..., well, I'll let you find out.

Fourth, I would be remiss not to mention that this is a profoundly pro-life movie. The scene in the abortion clinic is brief and not dwelt upon.  But the piece of information that saves Juno's baby, and redeems the story and everyone in it, is so clever and unexpected that I remain in awe.

Finally, religion enters the picture in the only way that it can do so effectively in modern movies: subtly, but with genius.   Juno, it turns out, is named after the Greek goddess of marriage. The image on the pregnancy indicator is a plus sign, which is to say, a cross.

McGovern on Impeachment

My SDP colleague Professor Schaff knows more about George McGovern than I know, or want to know.  But I do know something about the Constitution, and that seems to be more than McGovern knows.  In the Washington Post he advocates the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. 

American democracy has been derailed throughout the Bush-Cheney regime. The dominant commitment of the administration has been a murderous, illegal, nonsensical war against Iraq. That irresponsible venture has killed almost 4,000 Americans, left many times that number mentally or physically crippled, claimed the lives of an estimated 600,000 Iraqis (according to a careful October 2006 study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) and laid waste their country. The financial cost to the United States is now $250 million a day and is expected to exceed a total of $1 trillion, most of which we have borrowed from the Chinese and others as our national debt has now climbed above $9 trillion -- by far the highest in our national history.  All of this has been done without the declaration of war from Congress that the Constitution clearly requires, in defiance of the U.N. Charter and in violation of international law.  ...

Now the complaints in this laundry list constitute perfectly reasonable challenges to the Bush Administration's policies.  But even if you accept the challenges as conclusive (and I, no surprise here, do not), they cannot possibly constitute grounds for impeachment. The procedure by which a sitting President can be removed from office, impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate, is explicitly aimed violations of ordinary criminal law.  That is what "high crimes and misdemeanors" clearly means.   

Policy disagreements, by contrast, are to be settled through elections (we have had three of them since Bush took office), and votes on the floors of Congress (we have had a lot of those).  The Congressional majority has tried dozens of times, using its legitimate powers, to force the President to end the war that McGovern opposes.  It has so far failed to do so. But no one can say that the issue has not been vetted by the national legislature.  That is what the Constitution requires.

Impeachment could be justified in a political crisis only if that requirement were not met. If the President were commanding the armed forces to move against the Democrats or the Supreme Court, then Congress would have to remove him as Commander In Chief.  So far as I can tell, Nancy Pelosi is still at large, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg continues to snooze on the bench. 

It is difficult to know what McGovern can mean by the derailment of democracy, since the Democrats took control of Congress in the last election.  And it is utter nonsense to say that the Constitution "clearly requires" a declaration of war in the present situation.  The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, but says nothing about when such a declaration is required. It certainly says nothing about how many military casualties are too many, or how big the national debt ought to be.  Only Supreme Court Justices, if anyone, are allowed to act as if their own partisan opinions are automatically enshrined in the fundamental document.

Senator McGovern believes that the Bush Administration violated the Constitution in its efforts to prevent another terrorist assault on American soil.  He is certainly entitled to that belief.  But that question too has been vetted in Congress and in the Courts. 

Impeachment is unlikely, of course. But we must still urge Congress to act. Impeachment, quite simply, is the procedure written into the Constitution to deal with presidents who violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. It is also a way to signal to the American people and the world that some of us feel strongly enough about the present drift of our country to support the impeachment of the false prophets who have led us astray. This, I believe, is the rightful course for an American patriot.

That bit about "false prophets" is unintentionally revealing.  McGovern is not content to accept the authority of the American electorate or that of a lawfully elected Congress that he finds lacking in courage. What he wants is for Bush's policies to be defeated by declaring them crimes, if not heresies. What is really going on here is that McGovern despises Bush, and wants to see him humiliated.  The last chance for that to happen legitimately was 2004, but John Kerry let it slip away. McGovern would put the nation through the crisis of impeachment, with all its distractions from the nation's business, during an election year, at the end of which Bush must leave office anyway.  Such is the price that McGovern is willing to pay for his own emotional gratification.  This is not his finest hour. 

Tax Reform Coming To The Legislature

As I indicated recently, property tax reform is going to headline this year's legislative session in Pierre. See this article from the American News for some background.  You can ignore the bit about Jim Hundstad's threat of an income tax as it isn't going to happen. Of more importance is Al Novstrup's proposal for reform of the property tax.

Novstrup prefers a method with which assessments would be based on fair market value. He will present such a bill during the session.

Under current state law, ag property that sells for more than 150 percent of its assessed value cannot be used to determine the value of similar property. County directors of equalization say that leaves them unable to do their jobs.

As a result, the 150-percent rule is probably going to go away, some legislators say.

Members of the task force want a method that would look at how productive land is. The value would be figured by a formula determined by Farm Service Agency and/or South Dakota State University.

Novstrup said that basing property value on market price is simpler and makes more sense. If lawmakers wanted to give some type of break to a certain type of land, that could be done with mil levies after a value is determined, he said.

Sen. Alan Hoerth, D-Aberdeen, likes Novstrup's plan. Too much ag land is undervalued, he said. That means people are treated differently. Sales of commercial properties aren't tossed out if they are higher than 150 percent of assessed value, he said. Neither are home sales.

There are decided advantages to Rep. Novstrup's bill over the bill touted by the Legislature's leadership.  The main advantage of Novstrup's bill is that is represents a more accurate assessment of the value of a piece of land.  Let me give an example.  If a farmer has a piece of farmland near Sioux Falls that farmer could sell that land to a developer for considerable amount.  But the "productivity" bill promoted by the leadership only looks at the agricultural production value of the land, not all the other value. So another farmer, say in Hyde county, who produces the same value as the farmer near Sioux Falls will pay the same tax even though the land owner near Sioux Falls can sell his land for considerably more than the guy in Hyde County.  Does that seem fair?  The same would go for a farmer who owns land in Fall River county, for example.  One farmer owns land near the Black Hills and could sell for big money, but he will pay the same tax as a farmer in the same county whose sale value of his land is considerably less.  The unfairness of this proposal becomes more apparent when one considers the fact that a lot of the owners who would benefit from this inequality are not actually farmers, but simply city dwelling land owners who have bought property specifically for its development value. 

Rep. Novstrup's proposal allows for county directors of equalization to determine the value of agricultural land using its sale value, production value, and the value of all built structures.  This is how the value of other property is determined. The winner under Rep. Novstrup's proposal is the actual productive farmer, i.e., the typical South Dakota farmer.  The winner under the so-called "productivity" plan is the non-farmed development land.  You decide which is fairer.