Joe Biden’s True Knowledge

My esteemed Keloland Colleague, and NSU colleague emeritus, David Newquist, has this to say about Sarah Palin in yesterday's debate:

[W]hile the TV commentators lauded her for her folksy speech, many people who have some education and respect true knowledge and reason find smarmy references to Joe Sixpack and soccer moms an insult to the intelligence.

Well, one wonders what people who "respect true knowledge" think of Joe Biden's imaginative comments.  Here is Michael J. Totten writing for Commentary:

In Thursday night's vice presidential debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin, Biden said the strangest and most ill-informed thing I have ever heard about Lebanon in my life. "When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know — if you don't, Hezbollah will control it." Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel." [Emphasis added.]

What on Earth is he talking about? The United States and France may have kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon in an alternate universe, but nothing even remotely like that ever happened in this one.

Nobody – nobody – has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Not the United States. Not France. Not Israel. And not the Lebanese. Nobody.

Joe Biden has literally no idea what he's talking about.

A lot of pundits have savaged Governor Palin for her ignorance about foreign policy.  It was certainly fair for them to do so.  She may be one heartbeat away from the big desk.  But what are we to make of Joe Biden, who, when he is ignorant of the facts, just makes them up out of whole cloth?  Is that "true knowledge"?

And then there was Biden's equally imaginative reading of the Constitution:

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he's part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.

Those are Biden's words from the debate transcript, courtesy of Powerline.  Where does one begin?  Article I of the Constitution defines the legislative branch.  And there, the Constitution clearly puts the Vice President as the President of the Senate.  In practice, the VP has rarely presided over the Senate.  Biden could have pointed that out and been on firm ground.  What is clear is that he has not more idea what the Constitution says than he has about Lebanon or the rest of planet earth.  And when he doesn't know, he just makes it up as he goes. 

So who do we want as VP?  Someone who is getting up to speed, as Obama has been doing for the last 15 months, or someone who doesn't need to get up to speed because he can simply invent the truth as he goes?  Some people can't tell the truth.  Biden can't tell the difference. 

Fear vs. Loathing in Washington

Like my esteemed Keloland colleague, Cory Heidelberger, I don't know quite what to think about the $700 Billion bailout package just passed by the House of Representatives.  On the one hand, I am very uncomfortable with big government interventions into markets, and, as a committed Federalist, I am equally uncomfortable with giving the executive branch that much money to use as it pleases, without any real legislative control.  On the other hand, I can't help noticing that economic distress is following financial distress across the globe, and that signs of recession are appearing in our own general store.  A recession with a financial collapse on top of it might be real trouble.  This sort of thing is precisely what Alexander Hamilton thought the executive branch was for.  So what's a Federalist to think? 

Reluctantly, I think that the voting for the "bailout" was the right vote.  It may well be that there were better alternatives, but Secretary Paulson pushed this one for the simple reason that it worked in the past. 

My Keloland colleagues were very interested in how our Congressional delegation voted.  But there is no mystery here.  My equally esteemed Keloland colleague, Todd Epp praises Tim Johnson as a "budget hero."  Allow me to suggest that if the economy slides into recession, the budget numbers will not improve.  Johnson and Herseth Sandlin (twice!) both voted against the bailout for an obvious reason: it is very unpopular, and they are both up for reelection.  John Thune voted for it, because he isn't.  We may be inclined to see this as craven, but that would be a mistake.  These people work for us, and we have every right to pressure them into doing what we want. 

Now we get to see whether Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson can put out the fire.  Ronald Reagan once said that the test of his presidency was not whether his policies were popular, but whether their results were popular.  There is a lot of loathing directed at Wall Street for the current troubles.  There is fear both of the voters' loathing and of the possibility of economic catastrophe on the part of our Congress.  Let's hope they have managed the one and the other. 

So, Who Won? Another SDP Poll

Who won the debate?
	Palin
	Biden
	Pretty close
	Neither
	Debate, what debate?
pollcode.com free polls

Palin v Biden: Post Game Analysis

I won't comment on the debate itself, which doesn't matter, but on the immediate reactions.  Palin seems to have held her own, which counts as a bit victory in the point spread.  Mickey Kaus has this:

In the debate, if it's close Palin won. It was close. In the overall campaign, if it's close, Obama won. It was close. ...

That seems to be about right.  After her last two dreadful weeks, Sarah rose to the occasion.  Barack Obama began in much the same situation, but he is apparently more of a natural, and he has had fifteen months to get up to speed.  Palin is catching up, but she has precious little time.  Paul Mirengoff at Powerline, has this:

I thought that Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were both excellent tonight. Biden hammered McCain relentlessly, which is the traditional role of the vice presidential candidate. Palin, forced by circumstances to prove her merit to an increasingly skeptical electorate, accomplished that mission and then some. Having done so, she is once again in a position to help the ticket by energizing the conservative base and appealing to at least a segment of the undecided vote.

From a technical standpoint, it was Biden who had the more detailed command of the facts (and the greater ability to fudge them). He was able not just to hammer McCain, but to do so at a level of specificity that Palin could not address. And, on occasion, Palin missed easy opportunities to defend her running mate. I got the sense that, while Palin was getting up to speed on the basic issues, Biden was being prepped for an all-out assault on McCain. Palin got in her share of his shots at Obama, and some of them were quite effective. But, as I suggested, she could not afford to be as single-minded as Biden because she had a greater need to sell herself. Nor, it seems, is it in her nature to be purely a hatchet-woman.

If McCain was a little ahead, tonight's debate would be comforting.  As it is, he is a good five points behind.  Palin's showing might not hurt him, and it might not stop the bleeding, as Peter Lawler puts it, but it won't help him catch up. 

Blanchard on Dakota Midday

Yours truly followed John Thune on South Dakota Midday, the South Dakota Public Radio noon show.  You can follow that link to listen if you are so inclined. 

Thune Yes, Johnson No

Senate roll call.  Thune voted for the bailout while Tim Johnson voted no.  It'll be interesting to see the discussion of Johnson's vote during the Senate candidate debate.  Or, rather...

Court Has Jurisdiction in Aquash Murder

It's been a while since I've posted any updates on the Anna Mae Aquash murder trial.  Here's the latest from the Chronicle-Herald in Canada:

The U.S. government has jurisdiction and can prosecute John Graham for the 1975 slaying of Anna Mae Aquash, even though both hail from Canada, federal prosecutors argued in response to a defence motion to dismiss the case.

Graham, a Southern Tsimshian from the Yukon, fought his return to South Dakota under house arrest in Vancouver, but was extradited in December after the Supreme Court of Canada refused to review his case.

Aquash was a Mi’kmaq who was born in Indian Brook. Her family exhumed her remains from a grave in South Dakota in 2004 and reburied them in Nova Scotia.

Graham is scheduled to stand trial starting Monday in Rapid City on a charge he shot Aquash, a fellow American Indian Movement member, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

He’s one of three AIM members indicted for Aquash’s slaying. Arlo Looking Cloud was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to a mandatory life prison term for his role. Richard Marshall has pleaded not guilty to aiding and abetting.

More Decisive Leadership for the 21st Century

Washington Times:  "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has directed nearly $100,000 from her political action committee to her husband's real estate and investment firm over the past decade, a practice of paying a spouse with political donations that she voted to ban last year."  So much for reforming the way Washington does business.

Toward A New Politics

Joe Knippenberg has some sober thoughts today over at NLT.   I wish to concentrate only on one aspect.  Joe writes:

Third, our political and economic elites are going to have to rebuild public trust in our institutions. I don’t have a magic prescription here, but a little less clever talk, a little less pandering, and some genuinely sober action are surely good places to begin. If there is a human nature, courage will be recognized and admired, even by people who don’t see much of it.

May I attempt to sprinkle some pixie dust and produce a magical prescription.  As Jay Cost has been writing all year (for example, here) the weakness of our political parties represents a major defect in our electoral system. 

I draw heavily from the introduction to James Ceaser's Presidential Selection, written at the height of the 1970s reformist atmosphere.  Ceaser rightfully worried that the overly democratized selection system that was the likely result of those reforms would result in a system more responsive to the people's immediate desires (as opposed to long term interests) and provide feeble protection against demagoguery.  Without going into tedious detail, the weakness of parties and the rise of candidate-centered election results in unchanneled ambition, personalized appeals ("what can I do for you" rather than "what can my party do for you"), a decline in serious deliberation and, finally, a more bitter and negative politics. 

We could apply some salve to this bitterness by changing our election finance law to allow more coordination between parties and candidates.  Also, we could move toward caucuses over primaries for candidate selection or, failing that, both parties could erect some sort of "super-delegate" system wherein party leaders have a greater say in presidential selection. Even better, have both caucuses and super-delegates.  On the local level, elimination of initiative, referendum and term limits would buttress party-in-government (which has the coincidental acronym PIG).

Many will object that this moves our system away from open democracy.  Yes, slightly so, although I'd point out that the system is still fundamentally democratic (it is essentially status quo 1960 plus the Voting Rights Act). James Ceaser (drawing from Herbert Storing) would remind us, though, that electoral outputs matter as much as electoral inputs.  We should be concerned with what kind of government and what kind of candidates our electoral system produces.  The evidence right now suggests that the current system is seriously lacking.  The solution is not more democracy but smarter democracy.

I should add on a more policy (and frankly partisan) oriented note that the sheer size of government creates serious problems.  Our government is so big and unwieldy that it is virtually impossible for anyone to govern well.   

A Hymn To Him

I am with Goldberg (and more here).  This video is a little creepy, especially when on considers the fact that the head of NBC/Universal is behind it. 

Go to Exurban League for some witty comment.

And What About Those 95 Democrats?

ABC News:  "Considering that only a dozen votes needed to switch in order to provide a different outcome, and 95 Democrats in the House voted against it, critics are now wondering why couldn't House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have assured a different outcome considering how important she said its passage was? Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told me yesterday that he felt no pressure at all to vote for the bill."

Also:  "Congress lives up to its 10% approval rating."

Gray Monday

Something of a surprise: the House of Representatives voted down the revised bailout package today, after the leaders of both parties had endorsed it. Here is the final tally:

	Ayes	Noes
Democrat	140	95
Republican	65	133
Totals	205	228

 

Our own Herseth Sandlin voted no.

Why did it fail? The answer to that is simple: the United States is a Republic. One Congressman observed that the mail and calls coming in were a thousand to one against. When the Vox Populi is that loud and clear, it is very hard for our representatives to ignore it.

Why was the bill so unpopular with the Populi? The answer seems to be that it was widely perceived as an enormous expenditure of public money, which it probably wasn't, on behalf of a bunch of fat, greedy, money changers, which it was.

That is not a very good reason for voting the bill down. The Administration did a poor job of explaining that this wasn't money spent and gone. The U.S. would have taken a heavy financial responsibility, but it would also have acquired billions in assets. Almost certainly the value of those assets will eventually recover, and most if not all of that money would be returned when Treasury sells them back. We might even make money on the deal, as has happened with previous bailouts.

To be sure, a lot of financiers would have benefited, and some of them are the very people who are responsible for all the bad loans. But if you think that this is a real financial crisis, then that shouldn't matter. If your house is burning because your fat, stupid brother-in-law is a careless smoker, and frankly it would serve him right to go up in flames, you still have to put out the fire.

Should Congress have approved the bailout? If you think that this is a genuine financial crisis, the answer is probably yes. I say probably, because no one really knows if this action would have worked. My favorite economist, Robert Samuelson, argues that current economics aren't of much help here.

What we are witnessing, in the broadest sense, is the bankruptcy of modern economics. Its conceit has been that we had solved the problem of stability. Oh, there would be periodic recessions, but the prospects of a major economic collapse were negligible because we knew how the system worked and could take steps to prevent it. What's been so unsettling about the present crisis is that it has not conformed to the standard model of business cycles and has not submitted to familiar textbook solutions.

If he doesn't know what to do, I am not confident that Treasury Secretary Paulson does either. But at this point you have to ask what else we might try.

If you think that the current financial turbulence is just a case of a failed business model among a lot of businesses, then it is probably best to let it run its course. Weak and stupid institutions will fail and be gobbled up and replaced by stronger, smarter ones.

So which is it? I don't think anyone knows for sure. But it looks like the biggest financial institution in Europe is about to fail, and markets all over the world are tottering. If really big piles of money are smoldering all over the world, then that is a good sign that we have a real crisis.

With some trepidation, I think Congress should have approved the deal. Nobody seems quite sure what to do now. This may be the election that costs us a generation of economic growth before all but a few mail-in votes were received. I am guessing not, but the small part of me that liked the X-Files quivers at this news. The stock market fell 777 points on the news from Capitol Hill. Isn't that the number of the Lord in Revelations? If Christ is really coming back just now, I hope he is prepared to invest.

Media in the Tank for Obama

A view from inside the newsroom.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft Channels for Neville Chamberlain

Lots of intelligent people have an uncharitable view of George W. Bush, for all sorts of intelligent reasons.  The Atlantic's Geoffrey Wheatcroft, writing for the Washington Post, shows the kind of noxious numbskullery that only an intelligent, well-informed person is capable of.  His article bears the title "'Munich' shouldn't be a dirty word."

"Munich" here refers to Neville Chamberlain's famous capitulation to Adolf Hitler 1938.  Chamberlain agreed to give Hitler a pass for the German occupation of the "Sudeten Land," in Czechoslovakia, in return for a promise from the Fuehrer that he wouldn't eat anyone else.  That is what has since been branded "appeasement."  Chamberlain landed in London and declared to reporters that he had achieved "peace in our time." 

Wheatcroft writes about what he sees as the frequent misuse of the "rhetoric of Munich" by a range of leaders, including British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, President Eisenhower, and of course, George W.  Wheatcroft complains that every time a President or PM wants to use military action, he always claims that to do otherwise would be another Munich.  But often the cause is unjust, and the leader is not prepared to back up his rhetoric.  Fair enough.  Unfortunately, Wheatcroft has the bad judgment to tell us what he thinks about the real Munich event. 

Quite apart from their unhappy consequences, all these invocations of Munich begin by rewriting history. Chamberlain was a democratic leader who knew that most of his people understandably did not want to go to war in 1938, only 20 years after another terrible war in which about three-quarters of a million British men had been killed.

Besides which, Chamberlain was far from alone in thinking that he was addressing a real grievance…  While it's lamentably true that German resentment at "the slave treaty of Versailles" following World War I helped bring Hitler to power, there is another inconvenient truth: Between the wars, British and American liberals almost universally believed that the post-1918 settlement had been unjust. H.N. Brailsford, the leading leftist English commentator on foreign affairs, had written in 1920 that, of all the Versailles treaty's redrawing of borders, "the worst offence was the subjection of over three million Germans to Czech rule." Experience seemed to show that nationalism was the great force of the age and that it needed to be assuaged -- or appeased, a word first used, it should be remembered, by those who advocated doing so.

Now this is rather breathtaking.  It is certainly true that Chamberlain was a democratic leader, and that the British people didn't want to go to war.  Neither did the Americans.  Chamberlain's naïve belief that he could negotiate with Hitler helped to make sure that neither peoples would have any choice.  Moreover, the foolish tardiness in preparing for war in both England and America resulted in terrible costs and near disaster.  Besides, who started that "terrible war" in which so many Brits were killed?  Let me give you a clue: it was the Germans. 

So it's rather remarkable that Wheatcroft mentions, almost in praise, those "British and American liberals" who thought that Germany was the victim.  It is certainly true that a lot of Germans living in the Sudetenland didn't want to be part of Czechoslovakia, nor did the Germans living in Germany want to let go of that territory.  But when you start a war of aggression against nearly everybody, and lose, it usually costs you some of what you want. 

Wheatcroft obviously thinks that Chamberlain and all those North Atlantic liberals had it right: Hitler needed to be appeased.  Strange that that didn't work out. 

It's easy to see why Wheatcroft likes Neville Chamberlain.  He is Neville Chamberlain.  There is a certain strain of liberal (not the whole part, or even the larger part, to be sure) that blames people who resist tyranny for all the horrors inflicted by the tyrants.  Chamberlain was not, I'm sure, fond of Hitler.  But he hated Churchill.  I would not suggest that George W. Bush bears a comparison with Winston Churchill.  But Wheatcroft seems determined to make Bush look like Churchill.  Conservatives have their own Wheatcrofts to be sure.  Pat Buchanan comes to mind.  Conservatives should have nothing to do with them.  Liberals who do not share Wheatcroft's views would do well to recognize that they have a snake in their midst. 

Where the Race Stands: Post Debate

I think that Professor Schaff's reading of the debate was right, and it seems to be reflected in the media.  McCain was weak on the economy, but won most of the rest of the debate.  Jon thinks that McCain was so damaged by the first fifteen minutes that he lost the election right there.  But then Jon always thinks McCain has just lost the election. 

I don't think that first fifteen minutes was all that important, but I agree in general with the conclusion.  Debates are influence the race only in so far as they leave a lasting impression on the voters.  The candidates are very fearful of making a gaffe, but the only mistakes that amount to authentic gaffes are those that affirm or undermine the view that the voters already have of the candidates.  When Reagan made fun of Walter Mondale's "youth and inexperience," in 1984, he neutralized voters concerns over his age.  When Michael Dukakis fudged a death penalty question in 1988, he affirmed the voter's view that he was milk toast. 

Judged by those criteria, the debate was a wash.  Both men looked like authentic presidential material.  Maybe McCain came out ahead overall, but that wasn't enough.  Obama has been steadily gaining in the polls of late.  McCain needed a clean win, and he didn't get it.  Obama just need to show, and he did that.  A tie or a close decision goes to the candidate with the best Real Clear Politics numbers, and that's Obama. 

Just right now I am not sure how McCain pulls this one out.