South Dakota Politics

The Right of the People to Keep & Bear Arms

What does the Second Amendment to the Constitution mean? Let's look at it. From ePublius:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Does the 2^nd Amendment establish a right of individual citizens to keep and bear arms? My friend and esteemed Keloland colleague, Cory Heidelberger, argues not. His argument is a familiar one of late, but only of late. Indeed, it is the only coherent argument against the obvious conclusion that the Supreme Court reached.

Cory reads the portion of the amendment up to the second comma as controlling. The 2^nd Amendment empowers the states governments to regulate firearms in pretty much any way they wish, for the purposes of regulating state militias. Thus, it cannot limit the power of the states to ban guns, but only limits the power of the federal government to do so.

There are three basic problems with this argument. The first is that, if you really think this is the way to interpret the Constitution, you would have to conclude that the Establishment Clause empowers South Dakota to establish a state church. The legislative purpose of the latter was clearly to prevent the establishment of a national church by Congress, and to protect the then existing state establishments. I doubt that Cory would endorse that conclusion, but if he doesn't it makes his argument look rather ad hoc.

The second problem is that the argument is inconsistent with the language of the amendment. The 2^nd Amendment consists of an explanatory clause and an operative clause. I applaud Cory for noticing that none of the other amendments has an explanatory clause. But I also notice that the Constitution itself has an explanatory section, the Preamble. As beautiful and priceless as the later is, I don't know that the language of the Preamble controls the legal meaning of any part of the document. It is clear in this case that the explanatory clause does not control the operative clause.

Let's consider an analogous case. Suppose I leave my millions earned by blogging to Cory, by this phrase in my will:

Cory Heidelberger, being the best Keloland blogger, I leave him my estate.

Would that middle clause empower a judge who preferred the posts of David Newquist or the Radioactive Chief to give the money to one of the latter? No. Heidelberger gets the cash, because that's what the last clause plainly states.

The operative clause of the 2^nd Amendment is similarly plain in its meaning:

the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Consider that phrase: "the right of the people." Not the prerogatives of state governments, but the right of the people. We know what that means. From the 4^th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…

The "right of the people" refers to rights of the individual persons who make up the people. Likewise with this clause in the 1^st Amendment:

the right of the people peaceably to assemble.

That is a right of individual persons to come together, peaceably, with others of a like mind. Whatever the explanatory clause of the 2^nd Amendment might mean, the operative clause is as clear as anything in the Constitution.

Finally, the argument that the 2^nd Amendment doesn't protect an individual right to bear arms is at odds with the history of the times in which it was drafted and ratified. As Justice Scalia shows in Heller, the "right to bear arms" in the seventeenth century was understood as a right of individuals to be scrupulously guarded against the designs of tyrannical government.

Under the auspices of the 1671 Game Act, for example, the Catholic James II had ordered general disarmaments of regions home to his Protestant enemies. See Malcolm 103–106. These experiences caused Englishmen to be extremely wary of concentrated military forces run by the state and to be jealous of their arms. They accordingly obtained an assurance from William and Mary, in the Declaration of Right (which was codified as the English Bill of Rights), that Protestants would never be disarmed: "That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defense suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law."

That's what the right to keep and bear arms means. It means the right to keep and bear arms. It means that government cannot disarm the people. If you believe that the language of the Constitution means anything at all, you have to believe that the right to bear arms is protected against the Federal Government. If you believe that the fundamental rights protected in the First Ten Amendments also apply to the states, then the Court was dead spot on in Heller and in McDonald v. Chicago. No creative reading of the Constitution can avoid this.

McDonald v. Chicago: The Right to Bear Arms Affirmed

The Supreme Court has announced its ruling in McDonald v. Chicago. As in D.C. v. Heller, the Court found that the Second Amendment "protects the right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defense". In Heller the Court affirmed that right against the Federal Government. In McDonald, the Court holds "that the Second Amendment right is fully applicable the the States".

Initial impression: as in my previous comments on Doe v. Reed, I agree with the Court's decision but I think that only one member got the reasons right. The Court decided 5 to 4 that the Second Amendment means what it obviously means (I agree with that part). As elsewhere in the Constitution, the right of the people is a right of individual persons. The Court found that the Second Amendment is incorporated into the Due Process clause of the Bill of Rights because it is deeply rooted in American history. That last part is there to avoid the arbitrary creation of new rights (a right to free health care?) that are not so rooted.

Clarence Thomas alone would abandon the "due process clause" as the portal of incorporation, and turn instead to the "privileges and immunities clause. I think he is correct to do so. In that case it makes clear that the Bill of Rights only protects the fundamental rights of all American citizens as they were understood at the time the amendments were ratified. If you want new rights, pass new amendments.

More later if I get around to it…

Shattered Glass at the G20

While the world's economic powers are acknowledging President Obama's leadership, by doing the opposite of what he urged them to do, the streets of Toronto are sparkling with shattered glass, bathed in the light of burning vehicles. I am waiting for all those pundits who complained about violence and sedition in the Tea Party movement to notice this. I am not holding my breath.

While I am waiting, I note that the Krugman approach to economic policy that the President is pushing seems to have come a cropper in Toronto. From the WaPo article:

In a news conference at the meeting's conclusion, Obama said that the world's largest economic powers had agreed on the need for "continued growth in the short term and fiscal sustainability in the medium term."

"A number of our European partners are making difficult decisions," Obama said. "But we must recognize that our fiscal health tomorrow will rest in no small measure on our ability to create jobs and growth today."

I like that bit about the short term, the medium term, and "today". Obama wants the governments of the world, and his own, to spend lots on stimulus packages today, and in the short term. Then they can start behaving in a fiscally responsible way in the medium term. What about the long term? Well, as Keynes said, in the long term we're all dead.

If you are curious about the precise meaning of the terms involved, I can enlighten you. "Today" means the remaining months between now and the November elections in the United States. Creating jobs today is obviously very important right now.

The "short term" includes "today" and extends to the November 2012 elections, when Obama will presumably, but no longer obviously, be running for a second term. Thus, the "medium term" is any time after Barack Obama has been safely reelected for a second one.

Now that we've got that straight, why did the G20 insist on emphasizing deficit reduction, even if

that deficit reduction needed to be "calibrated" to avoid harming growth, paced differently in each country and paired with other reforms to strengthen the economy.

There are three policies tearing at each other's flesh here. One is the idea favored by the President. Cuts in public spending can retard economic growth. Increases in public spending can, Krugmanite believers believe, generate economic growth. So we need to spend today.

Good, but the thing about spending is that you have to spend someone's money. The problem is that the governments of the developed world have run all out of everyone's money. There is simply no reserve of cash in anyone's pockets that they can pilfer for another binge.

Unless, that is, they start cutting the privileges of the voting blocks on which their governments depend. "Calibration" means precisely protecting those voting blocks, or protecting them enough to get deficit reduction passed. But what happens when you threaten to cut the privileges of public union members, or perpetual students enjoying endless apprenticeships?

That would be broken glass as burning cars. It's easy to razz President Obama about his untenable position. It's not at all easy to say what a tenable position would be. That's where fifty years of the welfare state have left us.

Doe v. Reed

Many states allow citizens to challenge a law passed by the legislature. If enough valid signatures are collected, the issue is placed on the ballot at the next election. This is called a referendum, meaning that the law has been referred to the voters. If a majority of voters endorse the referendum, the state law is repealed.

In Washington in 2009, the governor signed into law a bill expanding the rights of "state-registered domestic partners, including same-sex domestic partners." An organization called Protect Marriage Washington submitted 137,000 signatures for a referendum on the law. R-71 was certified for this year's ballot. Opponents of the referendum "invoked the Washington Public Records Act (PRA) to obtain copies of the petition, which contained the signers' names and addresses." Protect Marriage Washington sued to block the release of the signer's names and addresses on the grounds that they would be subject to harassment and reprisals.

The issue came before the U.S. Supreme Court in Doe v. Reed. The question, as the Court read the case, is whether the public disclosure of referendum petitions, with names and signatures, violates the First Amendment guarantee of Free Speech. By 8 to 1, the Supreme Court held that it does not.

The Court read this as a classic example of a balance problem: the public need for disclosure (who is behind the opposition to the state law?) vs. the need to protect individuals who take a stand on such matters. The Court decided that in general, public disclosure is more important. But it did insist that, in some cases, protection for the signers might be in order. It instructed the lower court to consider whether this was such a case. That invites the courts to be involved in every such controversy.

There is obviously a problem with the disclosure of the signer's names and addresses. Why did opponents of the referendum want such information, if not to embarrass and harass the people who signed the petition? Such harassment could be very serious. A signer might be fired or denied promotion if he signed a petition that his boss, or union, or Church, didn't like. That apparently happened in California to someone who favored Prop. 8. This can clearly have a chilling effect on the willingness of citizens to participate in the political process.

I can see no reason that an individual citizen's name and address should be released to the public in such a case. Disclosure of financial contributions by individuals and corporate bodies is altogether another matter. The proper way to deal with this is by sensible state legislation. Washington and other states should act to encourage political participation by protecting the anonymity of individual signers for exactly the same reason as the law provides for a secret ballot.

But to say that it is good policy to keep the names of petition signers private is not to say that they have a constitutional right to such privacy. Antonin Scalia alone (cue up the orchestra) recognized that this was not a free speech question. I haven't fully digested his concurring opinion yet, but I can offer my own.

The Constitution of 1787 did not provide for voting rights. Who got to vote was entirely up to the various states, and many included such requirements as a holding of property in the state. After the Civil War, voting rights were inserted into the Constitution by amendment, but all of these amendments concern who has the right to vote. There are no additional constitutional protections for persons who do get to vote.

Free speech, like free exercise of religion, is a private right to be protected regardless of whether the exercise of such rights involves political participation. Voting, and signing petitions for a referendum or initiative, are not speech. Scalia points out that signing a petition is analogous to an elected representative casting a vote on the floor of a state legislature or Congress. He or she has no constitutional right to anonymity!

I think the initiative and referendum process in state governments is a bad idea to begin with. It has all but destroyed the state of California. If you are going to have it, maybe you should protect voters against intimidation when they participate. But just because I think such protections are in order, doesn't mean they are constitutionally required. I think the Court reached the right decision in Doe v. Reed. Like my hero Justice Scalia, I think it did so for the wrong reason.

Hyde Park Hamlet 2

I just finished a piece for the Aberdeen American News on the McChrystal story. Here is a preview. I think I have been a bit unfair to the general in my previous posts. General McChrystal got in trouble for two breaches of protocol, one on October 1^st of last year, in a London speech, and most recently in the Rolling Stone interview. Either, let alone both, would have been sufficient grounds for his dismissal.

It is only fair to say, however, that in both cases McChrystal was trying to force the President of the United States to do his damn job. It is the President's job to listen to the different points of view, decide what to do with them, and then tell dissenters to shut up and get with the program. McChrystal was commanding men in harm's way, and he desperately needed to know what the United States thinks it's doing. That's the President's call, and McChrystal tried to force the President to make it.

Unfortunately, that is beyond the powers of a mere general, and maybe beyond the powers of any other force on earth.

Kickin' Ass

It's no longer vulgar since the President said it!  Well, at the advice of an unnamed political scientist who used to blog at this venue, I offer this bit by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry.  It ought to cheer the President up.  I am all about that. 

The Hyde Park Hamlet Cashiers McChrystal

President Obama has accepted General Stanley McChrystal's resignation as commander of U.S. and Allied forces in Afghanistan. Conservatives have been mostly supportive of this move and I am not prepared to buck that trend.

It is not true, as some have argued, that the President had no choice. It is certain that he had good cause. This is twice now that McChrystal has embarrassed himself and his Commander in Chief in public, and that is two times too many. The President may have taken this action in order to "look strong," but that is a perfectly valid reason for the action. Presidents need to look strong.

In one way the President is very lucky that McChrystal shot himself in the ass during this Rolling Stone interview. If he hadn't, the Press might be focused on the real scandal haunting our efforts in Afghanistan.

Let's take a stroll down memory lane, back to last December. For a year the President had put off deciding what to do about Afghanistan. For several months leading up to December, the Administration frequently hinted that it was about to announce a decision, and again and again announced that the decision would be delayed.

Finally the President did decide to decide, sort of. He would put in more troops for a surge-like push (the strategy that McChrystal favored), but he also announced that troops would be withdrawn after 18 months. It has been clear ever since that this is a strategy at odds with itself. But how was the decision reached? The Washington Post told the story.

Just after twilight on Nov. 29, Obama gathered Biden, Gates, [Gen] Petraeus, Jones, Emanuel, Cartwright and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in the Oval Office. He had called Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier…

He had made his decision.

Obama then went around the room asking one question: Do you support the strategy?

"If they didn't support the decision, he was going to issue another decision" until there was unanimity, a senior administration official said. "But it was his assessment that everyone could and should get behind it." Each of them did.

I pointed out in a December post how disturbing these paragraphs were. The President is supposed to get contradictory advice from his advisers; otherwise he isn't getting a full picture. His job in such circumstances is precisely to decide which advice to follow. Instead of that, Obama insisted on unanimity from his advisers.

It is starkly clear what happened. Biden and others who opposed an Afghan surge swallowed their misgivings because if they hadn't the President would never have arrived at a decision. The people in that room made the decision for him. Still, he might have put his weight behind it, if he weren't, in fact, weightless.

Now fast forward. E. J. Dionne shows how pitifully weak the President's leadership is within his own Administration.

Everyone on the president's team, including McChrystal, said they had signed off on the Obama compromise: to give McChrystal the troops he said he needed to improve the situation but to place a clear time limit on how long the troops would stay.

In practice, the president's advisers continued to feud, sowing uncertainty about what the policy actually was. Those who had been against McChrystal's proposed buildup said Obama's declared deadline of July of next year for beginning troop withdrawals was firm. McChrystal's backers said the deadline was flexible.

To this day no one in the Administration knows what the Administration's Afghanistan policy really is. No wonder the war seems to be a mess. I don't often quote Tom Friedman approvingly, but here he is dead spot on.

You know you're in trouble when you're in a war in which the only party whose objectives are clear, whose rhetoric is consistent and whose will to fight never seems to diminish is your enemy.

It is scarcely any wonder that the public's confidence in the President is collapsing, and with it, confidence in the government as a whole. From a WSJ/NBC poll:

Amid anxiety over the nation's course, support for Mr. Obama and other incumbents is eroding. For the first time, more people disapprove of Mr. Obama's job performance than approve. And 57% of voters would prefer to elect a new person to Congress than re-elect their local representatives, the highest share in 18 years.

As a lot of us suspected, the touch screen is lit up in front of Obama's chair, but no one is home.

To Spend or Not 2 Spend 2

In response to my last post on this subject, intrepid reader Donald has this:

First, you have left out taxes. Spending that is paid for by taxes doesn't increase debt.

Donald is quite right, but very unfortunately, this doesn't speak to the point. I am simple minded, so let me approach the question in the simplest fashion. Suppose you are looking a cornfield ready to harvest. A lot of time and other resources have been invested in those juicy kernels. Now: what can you do with the corn?

First you can eat some of it. Second, you can sell some of it. Third, you probably ought to save some of it as seed corn for next year's crop. Some uses of the corn contribute to future corn production. Call those uses investment. Some uses do not. Call those uses consumption. Figuring out which is which is complicated. Eating corn is investment in so far as it keeps you and your labor force alive and healthy. Selling corn and buying a machine that doesn't increase production but is pretty or has a better CD player is consumption.

I think that my cornfield is a pretty good metaphor for the economy as a whole. How does government figure in? A king or a congress can seize part of the corn for its own use. That's taxation. It can buy the corn, using money taxed from someone else. It can also borrow some of the corn in return for a promise of future payment. Again, that future payment will have to be got by taxing someone. Finally, it can buy the corn with manufactured money, which has the effect of inflating the currency. That is just another, more subtle as less honest form of taxation.

The only difference between direct taxation and borrowing is that in the latter case taxation is deferred and generally more expensive. People charge interest when they lend you their ears or their dollars. Inflation is one way of reducing the expense, by reducing the value of the debt. Government can divert wealth by all these mechanisms.

What matters for the future of the economy is what government does with the wealth it confiscates. We expect government to perform many services which promote economic production. The king is supposed to clear the seas of pirates and the roads of bandits. He establishes courts that settle commercial disputes in a way that reassures everyone that their labor will be rewarded. That's investment. Government sometimes also builds gaudy temples and palaces with doors and faucets made of gold. That's consumption.

When the U.S. Government built the interstate highway system after WWII, that was investment. When government takes money out of the paycheck of a guy hammering plywood onto the roof of a new factory, and pays it out to a retiree playing golf, that's consumption. I don't mean to say that social security is a bad idea. It is the one of the most effective anti-poverty programs in U.S. history. But someone has to feed the golfers and water the greens, and it is important to recognize that fact.

So here is the question before us: is the massive spending we are doing right now contributing more to investment or to consumption? If, as Paul Krugman and other recommend, we should increase our public spending even more, would that contribute to future economic growth or would it shift even more wealth away from productive enterprises toward consumption?

The argument for more spending is based on the idea that there is a vast potential for economic production sleeping out there, a lot of people with energy, money, and ideas, just waiting for an invitation to jump into action. That was the case when government went deeply into debt during the Second World War. It wasn't government spending, but victory that reenergized the American people. Our soldiers came back home and built lots of stuff and had lots of babies who built a lot more stuff. That's how we paid back the debt.

I find that very hard to believe that we are in a similar situation, except in so far as we are going into debt just as deeply and just as fast. The modern welfare state is all about consumption. It shifts money from workers to retirees, from workers in the productive sectors to public employees. It creates vast blocks of clients who will vote against any attempt to reduce their guaranteed levels of consumption.

The healthcare bill is a case in point. Congress is great at distributing benefits, but dreadful at reducing consumption in any way that might make the distribution affordable. It wants to make cheap energy more expensive, and spend the money on green energy that has no realistic possibility of contributing to actual production in the short term.

It doesn't matter whether we tax, borrow, or inflate. We are eating our seed corn. We are mortgaging the crops that might have been grown with that seed corn. I don't see any way out of this except to stop doing the one and the other.

Women in Science

Women are under-represented in the "math-oriented" sciences. That means such fields as physics, chemistry, engineering, and, I suppose, math. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation to fix this. John Tierney explains at the New York Times:

This proposed law, if passed by the Senate, would require the White House science adviser to oversee regular "workshops to enhance gender equity."

That ought a do it. As I am an academic, I can scarcely question the awesome power of workshops. I've been funded to attend a few of them. I can guarantee you that all of them make the world a better place. But I have a few questions.

First: why is it bad that there are more physicists with a stunted y chromosome than physicists with a couple of x chromosomes? Women are over-represented in biology and psychology. Is that a bad thing? I can't see why it would be. Of course, it doesn't exactly enhance "gender equity," unless you mean by that anything that benefits women at the expense of men.

Second: why are women under-represented in the hard sciences? In a follow-up article, Tierney considers some of the usual suspects. All the evidence suggests that women do not face significant gender bias when pursuing a career in physics or engineering. There has been evidence in the past of an aptitude gap between men and women. One study Tierney considers found

consistent evidence for biological differences in math aptitude, particularly in males' advantage in spatial ability and in their disproportionate presence at the extreme ends of the distribution curve on math tests.

But female students seem to be catching up and passing their male counterparts in math and science classes.

The real problem seems to lie in two things. One is that women have babies, and when they do they are more likely to sacrifice career for family than fathers are. That is a social fact, and it isn't clear what Congress can do about it. Academia already does more than other industries to favor working parents.

Another problem is a difference in female and male interests.

The gap in science seems due mainly to another difference between the sexes: men are more interested in working with things, while women are more interested in working with people. There's ample evidence — most recently in an analysis of surveys of more than 500,000 people — that boys and men, on average, are more interested in inanimate objects and "inorganic" subjects like math and physics and engineering, while girls and women are more drawn to life sciences, social sciences and other "organic" careers that involve people and seem to have direct social usefulness.

Perhaps, as Tierney considers, this might be due to nurture rather than nature. On the other hand, it might not. Lawrence Summers lost his job as President of Harvard because he dared to suggest that biology might be part of the reason for female preferences in science careers.

I will dare to say what he said. It might well be the case that men and women are, on average, biologically oriented to different things. It might be the case that this orientation has consequences for the distribution of sexes in the math-oriented sciences and in the non-math-oriented sciences. We should do everything we can to encourage budding scientists of both sexes to bud, but maybe then we have to let the flowers grow as they will. Whatever is wrong here, it is probably not something that Congress can fix.

My Father’s Day

Allow me to bore you by telling you how I spent father's day. This morning I cleaned up the kitchen. Later, I mowed the lawn. This afternoon I cooked a leg of lamb on my barbeque smoker. The meat had been resting in a marinade that I prepared last night. Chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, cumin, caraway seed, and fresh thyme transform protein and mess up the cutting boards in equal measure. One of my offspring joined us for dinner. Another called me from Grandma's house where she is visiting.

That's a pretty typical father's day in America, except maybe for cleaning the kitchen. I don't seem to remember my father ever doing that. Here at Casa Blanchard the cooking and the cleaning are shared equally. There are two reasons for that. One is that I practice zazen (Zen Buddhist mindfulness) and part of that practice involves mindful cleaning. Another is that the roles of mother and father have changed in America, in large part because of the influence of feminism.

Let me say it: I owe one to feminism. I doubt that my father ever changed many diapers. I changed more diapers than my wife did, due largely to the schedule we kept when our children were wee. She worked to help put me through graduate school. It had as much to do with the modern idea that fathers should invest as much in the care of infants as mothers, whenever possible. This was a big win for me. As my children grew I was there, a lot more than my father got to be there. I am not at all sorry for this change in the responsibilities of fatherhood.

My father was there for me, at evenings, weekends, and holidays. I never for a moment doubted his love or his support. I knew his face and his voice, his frequent smile and occasional frown, his love of puns and the bald spot on the top of his head, as well as I knew anything in my childhood.

Fatherhood is very simple. It means that a man's life is about his wife and children. Their flourishing is his success. It speaks well of us that we devote a day to this, as we devote days to thanksgiving and to the honor of our heroes. My father passed away last January. This is the first father's day in my life that I cannot call him or, better yet, polish that bald spot with my hand. But I say: if you look up father in the dictionary, you will see his picture.

Cutting Corners

Many writers are suggesting that Obama may have overstepped his authority while attempting to punish BP. Among these are long-time critics, such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck - but theirs are far from the only voices. Indeed, The Economist, which endorsed Obama during the election, is now calling him "Vladimir Obama."  The magazine says the following:

His reaction is cementing business leaders' impression that he is indifferent to their concerns. If he sees any impropriety in politicians ordering executives about, upstaging the courts and threatening confiscation, he has not said so. The collapse in BP's share price suggests that he has convinced the markets that he is an American version of Vladimir Putin, willing to harry firms into doing his bidding.

Furthermore, says The Economist, Obama has informed BP that it must "put adequate funds to meet all compensation claims into an escrow account beyond its control, although he has no authority to do so."

The Economist has often praised Obama in the past and even in this article, the writer goes out of his way to state that Obama isn't the socialist the right thinks he is. It would be hard, therefore, to construe this as a partisan attack. It is serious and legitimate criticism. But none of it matters to WendyNYC at The Daily Kos, who says the following:

BP loves this trust fund, and loves Kenneth Feinberg. The ultimate claims paid out will be about the $ame as they eventually would have been anyway, but without having to pay 50 hours of legal fees per claim. Without dozens of their senior executives having to be deposed for a week at a time, 30 or 40 times. And without entire clerical departments being tied up with document production. As for BP's shareholders -- investors appreciate predictability. That's why BP's stock price went up $7 when this deal was announced.

So to Joe Barton, Michelle Bachman, Rush Limbaugh, and every other wingnut bloviator who claims Obama overstepped his authority, to every supposedly pro-business conservative who says it should have gone through the courts, to every Fox personality who accuses the President of shaking down BP -- please be advised that there's not a single Fortune 500 company that would want any one of you to ever make any decisions on their behalf.

What Wendy appears to be saying is that it's alright to overstep one's authority and to cut corners, as long as doing so is profitable. Going through the court system is just too expensive and too much of a hassle. But if Wendy is right, then the administration has no cause to punish BP, as the company was doing precisely the same thing as the administration is now, that is, cutting corners to increase profits. Furthermore, if cutting corners with oil can lead to such a disaster, we may not want to experiment in the same way with a right as precious as due process.

To Spend or not to Spend: that is the Question

Is the world economy to be saved by increasing spending or reducing debt? The alternatives are mutually exclusive. Even if you believe that spending now will result in sufficient future growth to render national debts manageable, that won't happen until the present crisis has been passed. Likewise with debt reduction strategies. We have to decide without knowing which path leads to salvation.

Paul Krugman thinks he knows the answer. Tightening our belts will have us all cooking rats on sticks over fires in barrels. The argument is as governments reduce spending and debt, government workers will stop buying cars, houses, and new refrigerators and firms that have government contracts will lay off workers. That isn't nonsense. Krugman might be right.

The contrary view is that reckless spending is precisely what got us into this mess. The mortgage crisis that triggered the recession was caused by too many people buying houses they couldn't afford, with encouragement from Congress. That was critical only because the major governments of the world were swimming in debt. Borrowing can stimulate economic growth only so long as lenders believe that they will eventually be paid back. The current crisis is really a result of the fact that the economic policies of Washington, Europe, and elsewhere, are unsustainable, and that everyone is finally being forced to recognize the fact.

It matters a lot whose right. There is no real evidence that government spending and regulation can rescue failing economies. Thomas Sowell shows that the history of the Great Depression, on which Krugman relies heavily, tells exactly the opposite story. It was government intervention in the economy that turned an ordinary recession into a fifteen year long Woody Guthrie song.

David Brooks has an excellent column present the case for deficit reduction.

Alberto Alesina of Harvard has surveyed the history of debt reduction. He's found that, in many cases, large and decisive deficit reduction policies were followed by increases in growth, not recessions. Countries that reduced debt viewed the future with more confidence. The political leaders who ordered the painful cuts were often returned to office. As Alesina put it in a recent paper, "in several episodes, spending cuts adopted to reduce deficits have been associated with economic expansions rather than recessions."

This was true in Europe and the U.S. in the 1990s, and in many other cases before. In a separate study, Italian economists Francesco Giavazzi and Marco Pagano looked at the way Ireland and Denmark sharply cut debt in the 1980s. Once again, lower deficits led to higher growth.

But a more powerful, if unintentional statement against government spending as a recession remedy comes from a Washington Post article by Keith B. Richburg.

In late 2008, with the financial crisis rippling through the global economy, China's leaders embarked on a two-year, $586 billion spending program to try to stave off a recession and keep the Chinese economy growing.

Unlike in the United States -- where President Obama's large stimulus plan became the subject of protracted congressional wrangling and was shaped to include tax cuts and aid to states -- Chinese leaders followed a simple mandate: Spend and build.

This should please Tom Friedman. The Chinese Mandarins don't have to worry about opposition parties or public sentiment. When they decide to spend, they spend. How did that work out for them?

The result, 18 months after the stimulus was introduced, is an astonishing frenzy of building -- highways, subways, airports, bridges, high-speed rail lines and even new cities constructed, literally, in the middle of nowhere.

Unlike Obama's stimulus, the Chinese weren't propping up the salaries of public employees unions, they were building real stuff. But too much real stuff, or stuff in the wrong place, doesn't pay real dividends in economic growth. Instead, it has to be paid for by absorbing the proceeds of real growth elsewhere.

Now a year and a half into the spending spree, and with the stimulus set to end in just six months, many economists and others here are asking pointed questions: Does China really need all this infrastructure? And what's going to happen when the bills come due?...

Economists estimate that out of the 4 trillion yuan (about $586 billion) stimulus package, the central government spent just over a quarter of the money, with the rest coming as bank loans to local governments. Also, many local governments took out additional loans on their own to finance public works projects. As a result, economists said, local governments are now sitting on a total potential debt bomb of 7 trillion to 11 trillion yuan.

"There's tens, or hundreds, of Dubais waiting in the pipeline," said Xu, referring to the debt-laden Persian Gulf emirate. "It was a panicked reaction to the global crisis. So they rushed out to spend money wherever they could. They borrowed from me -- and from every Chinese." He added another ancient proverb: "You eat your dinner at noon, you have to starve at night."

Richburg, I think, wants to believe that our stimulus was better because it was financed by Federal and not state borrowing. That is not comforting, considering how many of our state governments are going insolvent all by themselves. It also doesn't matter. Government borrowing is government borrowing, regardless of how it is distributed. Like our own stimulus, the Chinese spending spree wasted a lot of wealth to put off the day of reckoning.

The real question is how to restore public trust in the economy. Maybe running deficits of a trillion dollars a year isn't the way to do that.

A Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy…

Against Obama. Cherished reader Donald accuses me of hate and bias against the President and Cherished reader Braden accuses me of being part of the right wing attack machine. I do not in fact hate Obama at all. I just think he isn't up to the job. I am no part of any machine. I discovered the hero thing last night all by myself, and put my foot in my mouth all by myself.

But I note that, right now, the President has more to fear from the left wing attack machine. I noted in my last post the scathing reaction to the President's speech by Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews. Yeah, they aren't the most respected names in political journalism, but they were fully anointed Barackites last year.

They aren't alone. Consider this, from Maureen Dowd:

How can a man who was a dazzling enough politician to become the first black president at age 47 suddenly become so obdurately self-destructive about politics?

President Obama's bloodless quality about people and events, the emotional detachment that his aides said allowed him to see things more clearly, has instead obscured his vision. It has made him unable to understand things quickly on a visceral level and put him on the defensive in this spring of our discontent, failing to understand that Americans are upset that a series of greedy corporations have screwed over the little guy without enough fierce and immediate pushback from the president.

And then there's Eugene Robinson:

Less than a minute into President Obama's Oval Office address, my heart sank. For the umpteenth time since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill began, an anxious nation was informed that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has a Nobel Prize. Obama's speech pretty much went downhill from there.

The president was cool, determined, forceful -- stylistically, all the things that the braying commentators said he had to be. But where was the substance? Specifically -- and urgently -- where was the new plan to contain the oil spill and protect the coastline? I wish I'd heard the president order the kind of all-out marshaling and deployment of resources that now seems imperative. But I didn't.

And David Broder:

If there is any value in President Obama's knocking himself out to dramatize on prime-time television his impotence in the face of the Gulf of Mexico oil leak calamity, I wish someone would explain it.

Ouch. Best of all, here is Robert Reich:

The man who electrified the nation with his speech at the Democratic National Convention of 2004 put it to sleep tonight. President Obama's address to the nation from the Oval Office was, to be frank, vapid. If you watched with the sound off you might have thought he was giving a lecture on the history of the Interstate Highway System.

Ouch, ouch.

My point is not that these criticisms are all valid. Only Robinson and Broder are on target, I think. What the nation wanted from Obama is a solution to the problem. The President didn't offer one, as Broder recognizes, because he doesn't have one.

My point is that has lost the confidence of a healthy part of the left. The Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows that 24% of likely voters strongly approve of the President's job performance, while 48% strongly disapprove.

The standard response to these numbers from the left is that it includes a lot of voters who think that Obama has been too conservative. Of course. But that is hardly good news for the left. It explains the enormous enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans, and that is the sort of thing that can ripple all the way down come November.

The best thing I have seen on this is the "Respect My Authoritah" monologue by Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. Don't miss this. It is devastating. But I would add that, on almost all the points that Stewart complains about, the problem isn't that the President's heart isn't in the right place or that he isn't really trying. The problem is that he's responsible for keeping the next bomb from going off, and that has a way of narrowing your choices. Stewart and other liberals cannot forgive the President for recognizing reality.

UPDATE  For another example of Obama disaffection on the left, see Joan Walsh's piece on Salon.  Then scroll down.  Ouch, ouch. 

My Bad

"Hero", it turns out, is photographer's lingo for the best picture in a set, which is to say, the one you will actually use for a cover or something.  That is a satisfactory explanation for why the photos of Obama were labeled "hero".  I owe the administration an apology. 

Having said that, the hero label is a bad idea for reasons I stated in my last post. 

Obama the Hero.jpg

I noticed, while capturing an image of Obama from the Official White House website, that the image was labeled hero_oval-bp_PS-0974.jpg. Doesn't this strike you as a bit narcissistic? I went back to the White House site and looked at the other images of the President. Sure enough, they are all labeled hero_. hero_ws.cloture, and hero_wheton.

Now it could be that the website is managed by an overly-worshipful employee, but surely someone in the Administration might have noticed this and suggested a less boastful name for the President's web images.

The more disturbing possibility is that this is an artifact of the current White House culture. If so, it explains a lot. The Obama Administration continues to think that He is not any ordinary president. He is the hero, the deliverer. If so, we are in big trouble.

American Presidents are better or worse as administrators and chiefs of state, but their majesty is entirely a result of the fact they are elected by the people. No one comes to the office with a majesty of his own.

A President with a Great Future behind Him

It is approaching the certainty of a physical law that the number of words the President speaks on behalf of any policy he favors is inversely proportional to public support for that policy. That was amply demonstrated during the healthcare reform debate, and it will be confirmed, I think, by the President's speech tonight on the Deepwater oil spill.

I didn't think the speech was all that bad, taken as a piece of rhetoric; but rhetoric is important only in some context, and there the President seems to have failed badly. He gave the speech because the oil spill has clearly damaged his office at a moment of peril for his party. He needed to rally his base and reassure the rest of America that he is a competent chief executive. It is evident that he failed at both tasks.

One piece of evidence is that the kindest assessment of the speech came from Charles Krauthammer, who has risen to the status of super-pundit by his clever and relentless criticisms of Obama. You can hear Krauthammer's remarks at this link, from Real Clear Politics. Krauthammer was pretty gentle in reviewing the President's remarks, but pointed out that no speech, however eloquent, can overcome the reality in the Gulf. That was fair enough.

By contrast, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews tore Mr. Obama a new asshole. Pardon my crude remark, but I don't see any other way to accurately describe their reaction to the speech. You can view their remarks at Real Clear Politics. In his opening comments, Olbermann said this:

It was a great speech if you were on another planet for the last 57 days.

It got better after that. Olbermann and Matthews and Howard Fineman accused the President of saying nothing specific, of having no direction, of not acting like a Commander in Chief. Olbermann said "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all. It's startling."

It was Chris Matthews, amazingly enough, who said the most interesting thing.

[The President] said we had to accelerate this thing, accelerate the transition to renewables. That's the hardest thing in the world. That's what broke Jimmy Carter. That's what Ronald Reagan took a bye on completely. Bill Clinton didn't deal with it. It's the hardest thing in the world. He's saying I'm going to do it and then no more information.

Matthews is right of course, though it is startling to hear it from him. It is all well and good to invest in "green" energy for the future. For now it is a money pit. It consumes wealth and jobs and probably increases the damage to the environment from total energy production. For the foreseeable future we are stuck with coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power as major sources of energy. You can't have a rational energy policy without facing that fact, and the President can't face that fact.

If the President can't win over MSNBC, who can he win over? I think the President's speech was a mistake, but it is clearly a mistake that he can't help repeating. Without faith in his person, what is there to his Presidency? It's true, as Olbermann and Mathews complain, that the President said very little that was specific, and said a lot about what we should do and nothing about how. They don't tell us what he should have said.

There was one passage in the President's speech that seemed to me to be unintentionally revealing.

The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet. You know, the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon. And yet, time and again, we have refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom. Instead, what has defined us as a nation since our founding is the capacity to shape our destiny -– our determination to fight for the America we want for our children. Even if we're unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don't yet know precisely how we're going to get there. We know we'll get there.

Now consider that that passage was produced by a gaggle of professional speech writers working up to the last minute. It amounts to self-refutation. In World War II, and in the Apollo program, we knew exactly what "destiny" was supposed to look like. It was supposed to look like the defeat of Germany and Japan, and a man standing next to an American on the moon. Obama wants us to shape our destiny without having any idea what it supposed to look like. Way to rally the troops, Barry.

ps.  I note that the image above, captured from the White House Official website, is labeled hero_oval.bp.  Hero?  The rest of the Obama images are similarly labeled.  Okay, I am ready to say it.  There is something wrong with these people. 

Noem Leads Herseth-Sandlin 53%-41%

In the latest Rasmussen poll. Part of that, no doubt, is post-primary bounce. On the other hand, HS has been stuck in the forties all year against pretty much every Republican contender.

When challengers take on an incumbent member of Congress, they almost always get a bounce in the polls following a victory in a contested primary. That appears to be the case in South Dakota following State Representative Kristi Noem's Republican Primary victory last Tuesday which earns her the right to challenge Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin.

The latest Rasmussen Reports statewide telephone survey, conducted two nights after the primary, finds Noem attracting 53% of the vote, while Herseth-Sandlin earns just 41%. Just five percent (5%) prefer some other candidate or are undecided.

Prior to the primary, the incumbent held a three-point advantage over Noem. In April, Noem trailed by 15 points. It remains to be seen whether the bounce reflects a temporary aberration or signals a lasting change in the race.

These are very weak numbers for HS. Even if Noem loses some of her primary, bounce, I think she still comes out ahead. Short of a big misstep by the Noem campaign, it's Representative Herseth-Sandlin has her work cut out for her.

Meanwhile Senator Thune leads his opponent by… wait a minute! He has no opponent.

The NYT on BHO 2

The New York Times is right about one thing. It isn't just a matter of stagecraft. The President has no good options. Nor does the Times itself know of any.

We cringed when he told the "Today" show that he had spent important time figuring out "whose ass to kick" about the spill. Everyone knew that answer on Day 2.

I think this means that the President should kick BP's ass. The problem is, he can't. Ceci Connolly at the Washington Post has this:

Waves of crude oil reached the Alabama shoreline Saturday as the Obama administration announced it has given BP until the end of the weekend to devise a more aggressive strategy for collecting oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico.

Yeah, and then what? Is Rahm Emanuel going to come up with a f*#$ing better capture technology? Well, at least the President can kick BP's ass financially. No. Not unless he wants to go to war with Britain.

Thousands of Britons are invested in the oil giant through pension funds: Analysts estimate that 1 of every 7 pounds paid in dividends to British pension funds comes from BP. Under pressure from Washington, however, BP appears set to suspend that dividend at least temporarily. Fears are also mounting that the plunge in BP's share price has made the company susceptible to a takeover.

"When you consider the huge exposure of British pension funds to BP, it starts to become a matter of national concern if a great British company is being continually beaten up on the airwaves," London Mayor Boris Johnson told BBC Radio.

If BP goes belly up, it could destabilize the retirement system in one of the world's more important economies. The President can threaten to kick BP's ass, but realistically he is more likely to end up proposing a bailout bill to Congress.

Well, at least the NYT knows what the President should do about the economy.

It is well within Mr. Obama's power to keep his administration and Congressional Democrats focused on what the economy needs: jobs and stimulus. Voters are anxious about the deficit. But the president needs to tell them the truth — that without more spending the economy could remain weak for a very long time. Unless Mr. Obama says it, no other politician will.

More spending. Great idea. Except that, we are already spending in a way that would shrink the testicles of a drunken sailor. No one knows how to spend more in a way that would be effective. The real threat to the world economy and our own is a loss of confidence in our economy. Our spending right now is doing just that. Michael Barone offers a clue.

Here's something I didn't know, from financial blogger Bruce Krasting (via John Ellis): Social Security tax receipts for the first half of 2010: $346.9 billion; Social Security benefits payments for the same period: $347.3 billion. Before this year, projections have always been that Social Security wouldn't cross that line into negative cash flow for five years or so. Now it's a reality. Congress has been spending Social Security's positive cash flow for years. Now there's no positive cash flow to spend.

To see how the negative trend has accelerated, consider the same figures for the first half of 2009: Social Security tax receipts were $366.0 billion and Social Security benefits payments were $334.3 billion. A positive cash flow of $31.7 billion has disappeared in the course of just 12 months.

At the very moment that our major social entitlement programs were going into the red, we are digging whole under the rest of the budget at a rate of a trillion dollars a year. The Times wants to spend more? From what planet are we going to borrow the money to do that?

The NYT is right that President Obama inherited a mess. It is puerile to blame it on "George W. Bush's ineptness and blind ideology." Nearly a century of unrealistic promises are coming due. I do not know what a President with a solid grasp of history, strong instincts, and enormous reserves of courage would do. I don't know how such a man would get us out of this mess. We have to rely on President Sponge Cake.

With Friends like the New York Times…

President Obama has less need of enemies. The New York Times writes about their hero in the spirit of an exasperated baseball fan. Yeah the team is great and all, but gee the pitching and fielding and hitting and base running all leave something to be desired. Consider these lines:

Americans need to know that Mr. Obama, whose coolness can seem like detachment, is engaged. This is not a mere question of presentation or stagecraft, although the White House could do better at both…

But a year and a half into this presidency, the contemplative nature that was so appealing in a candidate can seem indecisive in a president. His promise of bipartisanship seems naïve. His inclination to hold back, then ride to the rescue, has sometimes made problems worse.

One wonders to whom and why "a contemplative nature" seemed appealing in a candidate for President. We were electing a chief executive, not a poet laureate.

The Times says that the President's problems are "not a mere question of presentation or stagecraft" when it clearly wants to say that that is exactly what they are. The problem is that the President doesn't seem engaged, that he can seem indecisive. Okay. But if this is not, in fact, "a mere question of presentation or stagecraft," doesn't that mean that he sort of isn't engaged, and is indecisive? The Times can't quite bring itself to say that.

In between the passages above is a paragraph that approaches self-parody.

Any assessment of the 44th president has to start with the fact that he took office under an extraordinary burden of problems created by President George W. Bush's ineptness and blind ideology. He has faced a stone wall of Republican opposition. And Mr. Obama has had real successes. He won a stimulus bill that helped avert a depression; he got a historic health care reform through Congress; the bitter memory of Mr. Bush's presidency is fading around the world.

The cognitive dissonance between the first and last sentences is wide enough to steer an oil tanker through. Among Obama's successes is that "the bitter memory of Mr. Bush's presidency is fading;" yet the Times and Obama himself keep reminding us over and over again how bad Bush 43 was.

They have to. Without a jaundiced "assessment" of the Bush Administration for contrast, how does the Obama Administration look so far? The Times implicitly admits that it has been a pretty poor spectacle.

Even that totally unsupported claim about the stimulus bill contains the weasel word "helped". There are no grounds at all for thinking that the stimulus bill made any difference.

The Times is congenitally incapable of facing the situation. We have a President with about as much substance as a slice of sponge cake. He has spent his career reflecting the opinions of Harvard academics, Chicago machine politicians, a crackpot pastor, and most recently an electorate mad at George W. Bush. When faced with a problem that isn't addressed by the party line, he is at a loss. The Times editorial is how this looks to a bunch of deeply invested believers.

Best New TV Drama: Justified on FX

There's a place called Hell,
It's in Eastern Kentucky…

Let us state a sad truth. There has never been, nor will there ever be again, a TV drama as good as HBO's Deadwood. Excellent film making for TV or the theater has six basic components, in descending order of importance: characters, context, story lines, composition, dialogue, and cinematography. Deadwood is the only show I have ever seen in which all six were rich and nearly perfect. Its cancellation while the third season was filming is one of the tragedies of my life.

There, I've vented. FX's new drama, Justified, immediately invites comparison with Deadwood. The show's star, Timothy Olyphant was born to play the angry good man with a badge. He was Seth Bullock in Deadwood and a small town sheriff in the recent horror film, The Crazies. In Justified, he is Raylan Givens, a federal marshal sporting a cowboy hat. After shooting a very bad man in Miami, Givens is exiled back to his home town in Eastern Kentucky. Guess what? Old ghosts, unforgotten girls, and a bad dad arise to complicate his battle with redneck neo-Nazis and hillbilly godfathers. What's not to like?

Olyphant's Givens is a very solid leading character. His ambiguous nemesis, Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) is a very interesting creation: a man whose ruthlessness might be worse rather than better for his desire to be a better person. His boss Art Mullen (Nick Searcy) is a stock character, but a very good one. He is the shrewd guy who has to manage Givens, and knows exactly how delicate a weapon Givens is. The rest of the characters are serviceable enough. It's clear the writers don't know quite what to do with them all yet.

Storyline progress followed Blanchard's Law of Third Episodes. In the third show the writing firmed up, the characters achieved definition, and I was hooked. The rest of the season was very solid. The season finale was toe-curling good. I was thinking about it for three days after I watched it. It ends with Givens not pulling the trigger. The look on his face tells the whole story: I didn't do what I didn't do because that's the kind of man I am. But I am probably going to be very sorry that I didn't do it. That is powerful composition.

The most interesting feature of the show is the context. It is based on the novels of Elmore Leonard, set in Eastern Kentucky. In this kind of place, the gangsters look like they fell off the cover of a Lynyrd Skynyrd album, the bookies operate from tables at the back of hotel restaurants, and the country club golfer is one law degree removed the moonshine and the meth lab.

I have to confess that I know something about this. There was a time in my life when I was not so good as I ought to have been. I occasionally rubbed shoulders with some of these trailer park rascals. Allow me to tell a story. One of my friends was a short, stocky, and ridiculously strong fellow with long blonde Greg Almond hair. I'll call him TM. He started smoking when he was eleven. Months I mean, not years. I'm kidding, but by age 14 he had consumed every drug that the DEA cares about. A few years ago he was found dead in his truck. According to the police report, he had shot himself in the chest and set himself on fire. Well, if anyone could do that, it would be TM. I asked a few questions, and a different story emerged. TM was selling drugs on behalf of the County Sheriff's office. He decided he wanted out. A bullet and a burning was his retirement package. I wanted to know what had happened. I wasn't stupid enough to try to do anything about it.

I got out. TM didn't. But I am in a position to tell you that the characters in Justified are twenty four karat real. Below the world you live in, there is another. The lyrics cited above have meaning. There is in fact a place called Hell in Eastern Kentucky. It's a town locally called Hell for Certain. Justified is a rocking good crime drama that gives you a tour in that place called Hell. If you missed it, you can catch up on Hulu. But don't imagine that it is all imagination.

Coming Home

Grab a hanky and watch this one. 

Soldiers Coming Home Compilation - Watch more Funny Videos

The Anti-Science President

The Bush 43 Administration was frequently accused of being "anti-science," largely on the grounds that it did not follow the New York Times party line on climate change, stem cell research, and Darwinian evolution. I happen to think that Bush was right about the first, half right about the second, and wrong about the third. In any case, it's not "anti-science" to disagree with political interpretations of science.

It is anti-science to distort legitimate scientific literature for partisan purposes. The Obama Administration has done that at least twice. It did so in its mad dash to secure healthcare reform. From the New York Times:

In selling the health care overhaul to Congress, the Obama administration cited a once obscure research group at Dartmouth College to claim that it could not only cut billions in wasteful health care spending but make people healthier by doing so.

That is in fact the core of the Administration's argument for healthcare reform. We can deliver better medicine to more people and reduce healthcare spending at the same time. Here I cite Blanchard's First Law of Rhetorical Evaluation:

Gratification is inversely proportional to plausibility.

In more common speech, if it sounds too good to be true, it ain't true. All the Dartmouth College Atlas showed is that Medicare spends a lot more in some places than others.

The atlas's hospital rankings do not take into account care that prolongs or improves lives. If one hospital spends a lot on five patients and manages to keep four of them alive, while another spends less on each but all five die, the hospital that saved patients could rank lower because Dartmouth compares only costs before death.

In other words, if healthcare spending is guided by the study the Administration relied upon, it could easily shift money from the most effective hospitals to the most lethal ones. But of course, the Administration had no intention of relying on this study. It merely distorted it for partisan purposes.

Now we have another case. Obama announced a moratorium on deepwater oil wells and based his decision on a study by fifteen experts in the field. These experts, the Administration said, "peer-reviewed" the decision to shut down the wells. Well, they didn't.

Eight of the 15 members of the review panel are charging that the administration misrepresented their position by suggesting they supported a blanket moratorium that they actually oppose. Their criticism, and the administration's response, are evidence that the six-month stoppage is based on politics rather than on science.

The language endorsing the Interior Department's moratorium policy was added to the report after the scientists signed off on it. If true, that isn't distortion, or misinterpretation, or spin. It is deliberate fraud. The whole point of signing a report is to make sure that every single word is endorsed by the signers. That is the very substance of scientific integrity. To falsify a report by amending its language after it is signed, without the knowledge of the signers, is a blatant violation of that integrity. The Obama Administration is anti-science in a way that the Bush people could scarcely imagine.

Kristi Noem Rises

If Kristi Noem makes the big time, I'll remember three moments that tipped me off. One, and perhaps the most significant, was in the Aberdeen Target store. On the way out, a woman was pushing a cart with, I think, three kids in tow. It might have been four. She turned to me and asked: "are you Dr. Blanchard?"

After I confessed, she told me that she had been in my American Government class many years before. "I wasn't interested in politics back then," she said, and indicated that she hadn't done so well in my course. She is interested in politics now. She told me that she was hosting a gathering for Kristi Noem. I believe she said it was in Britton. If so, it did the trick. Noem carried Marshall County 45% to Nelson's 37%.

The second moment was when William Kristol mentioned Noem favorably on Fox Special Report. That meant that Noem is interesting to the conservative leadership outside the state. The third occurred tonight, when I read a praise of Noem's candidacy on Powerline. Granted, John Hinderaker is a native South Dakotan, and so has personal reasons for his interest. Noem, he notes, "is a farmer and rancher who also runs a hunting operation and a restaurant, all just a few miles from my home town." But Powerline is a major conservative blog and his attention might matter.

Money is going to pour into South Dakota from both sides. As I have pointed out several times, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin is well below fifty percent in every poll I have seen. That usually spells trouble for an incumbent. Unless she falls very low in the polls, national money will be available to support her. Likewise, Noem will be able to compete as she gains national attention.

If I was working for the HS campaign, I would certainly view Noem as the most dangerous opponent. The mere fact that she is a she will neutralize a powerful advantage Herseth-Sandlin has enjoyed in previous elections. Our at-large Congresswoman also has to repair a very weak state party. They couldn't even come up with a candidate to run against John Thune. The more liberal core of the state Democratic Party is so dissatisfied with HS that they brief attempted to run a primary challenger against her. By contrast, the Republican Party is going to unite enthusiastically behind Kristi Noem.

If you need a fourth indication that Kristi Noem is a serious contender, consider what my esteemed Keloland Colleague and friend Cory Heidelberger has to say about her.

I just heard SDPB's Dakota Digest interview with U.S. House candidate Kristi Noem. She really is South Dakota's Sarah Palin: all slogans and imagery, all anti-intellectualism, no substance…

Kristi, there really are experiences other than your own. Those diverse experiences are as valid and valuable as your own. A professor, a soldier, a lawyer, a meatpacker, and an artist may be just as qualified to participate in government as you. To say that your particular class is better qualified for elected office than other exposes both arrogance and insecurity (remind you of any former Alaska governors yet?).

The thing is, this works both ways. Of course the experiences of a ranch wife and entrepreneur aren't necessarily more valid than those of a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington D.C., but they might be at least as valid. A lot of folks in South Dakota who couldn't afford to go to off to college in D.C. may think that they have just as much right to have a say in government as those who did. They may suspect, rightly or wrongly, that people like Cory are contemptuous of them. Now they have a champion.

I'll have to ask my friend the Election Shaman about it, but just right now Kristi Noem looks like the coming thing.

Election Shaman Rolls the Bones of June

My friend the Election Shaman is back to divine the meaning of the political winds and the subtle voice of invisible spirits.

South Dakota

ES notes that the Gubernatorial Republican Primary seems rather insulated from the currents of the election year. Lt. Governor Dennis Daugaard steps up to run for governor and he easily wins the nomination. That is exactly what you would expect in a typical election year. No insurgent candidate, Tea Party affiliated or otherwise, got any traction.

The House Republican Primary is rather different. In a typical year, you would expect Chris Nelson to win. Kristi Noem, all but unknown a few months ago, beat Nelson by a healthy seven percent. ES says: this year the spirits nationally (if capriciously) favor newcomers against more established candidates, and they seem to have a fondness for women.

The Shaman also says more than I would say about the South Dakota race. He says that if you ask the bones who would have made the best Representative, they point to Nelson. If you ask them who would make the best candidate in the fall, they point to Noem. Noem is intelligent, ambitious, and seems to have the wind behind her. She is very photogenic, and has a large, equally photogenic family. She is a ranch wife who, she reports, was compelled to return to the ranch before she could finish her college degree. There is powerful political magic in all that. The Shaman thinks she will be a formidable candidate in the fall.

California

The Shaman notes two more women winning Republican primaries. Meg Whitman flattened Steve Poizner in the Republican Gubernatorial Primary, and Carly Fiorina did likewise in Senate Republican Primary. The Shaman thinks that Whitman has her work cut out for her against perennial politico-mage Jerry Brown. Fiorina has a real chance against Barbara Boxer, whose powers have seemed perilously weak of late.

Nevada

Another event in the year of the Republican woman occurred in Nevada: Sharon Angle, a genuine insurgent candidate, won the primary and will face Harry Reid in November. The Shaman thinks that the mark of doom is on Reid's forehead: he sees the words "health care reform" written in blood across a skull. Or something like that. I am not so sure, but I am sure that's what it looks like.

Arkansas

Blanche Lincoln defeated Bill Halter in the Democratic Senate runoff. This might be the most interesting race today. Halter was a Democratic insurgent, the champion of the Left and especially unions. He tried to punish Lincoln for being insufficiently leftist, thus testing the thesis the Democrats can win by being true to their more liberal instincts. Well, it's been tested. Arkansas Democrats decided that racing full speed toward the precipice was not a strategy they had confidence in.

The Shaman thinks that Lincoln is doomed. She is running about 25 points behind solid conservative John Boozman, the Republican nominee. Senator Lincoln may get a bump from her runoff victory, which many thought would not happen. A bump won't do it.

Wrap Up.

The Shaman sees a number of spirits at work here, at different levels in different places. Women are doing well, challengers are doing well, and outsider candidates are doing well against established candidates. Overall, the conservative spirit seems to be very strong.

It is not easy to test the strength of the Republican spirit in these primaries, but fellow election shaman Michael Barone takes a shot at it.

Primary turnout is a useful measure of enthusiasm, particularly in a state with no party registration. Take Virginia 8, the heavily Democratic Northern Virginia district just across the Potomac River from Washington. This is the only district in Virginia that has had a contested Republican primary in the last three congressional elections. Turnout in 2006 was 4,409 and turnout in 2008 was 5,863. Turnout in Tuesday's primary, with 2 of 156 precincts yet to report, was 13,531. In other words, more than double 2008 and triple 2006; and more than both put together. Another indicator of Republican enthusiasm this year.

Republicans are polling well ahead of Democrats generically across the nation. They are doing very well among independents. All polls indicate a much higher level of enthusiasm among GOP voters. Virginia 8 confirms what the polls are saying about that. The Shaman sees big changes ahead in November.

ps. My friend and grad school buddy John Eastman seems to be losing his bid for the Republican nomination in the California Attorney General race. This is a shame. Eastman is one of the most intelligent conservatives I know, and he would have made an excellent Att. General. I think he is a rising star in the California Republican Party.

pps. Despite my endorsement, Mickey Kaus somehow failed to defeat Senator Barbara Boxer in the California Democratic primary. He must have run a bad campaign. That's another terrible shame.

South Dakota Republican Primary Results

Kristi Noem wins the Republican Primary 42% to Nelson's 35% and Curd's 23%.

 

Dennis Daugaard wins the Republican nomination for Governor with 50% of the vote. Munsterman 18%, Knudson 16%, Howie 12%, and Knuppe 4%.

Source: South Dakota Secretary of State. Percentages are rounded up.

Robin Hood & the Tea Party

Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe, is a thoroughly enjoyable movie, if you like to see Englishmen shooting arrows through the necks of perfidious Frenchmen. I do. It's also a good movie to show before a Tea Party gathering, which is both a strength and a weakness of the movie but, either way, is very interesting.

The movie might have been more accurately entitled Robin Hood: The Prequel. It follows Robin Longstride from the end of King Richard's adventures in France, to the beginning of Robin's exile in the Greenwood. That's right. It is not until the very end that Robin is finally in the woods.

What occupies the film are the tensions between national unity in the face of foreign threats and loyalty to kings who ain't what you'd want them to be, on the one hand, and liberty and self-government on the other. If that sounds abstract and boring, the movie clothes all of it in chain mail with swords singing, arrows whizzing, and peasants locked in burning buildings. Here and there a lot of attractive flesh manages to squeeze out of both cheap and very expensive garments. Trust me: you won't be bored.

Unlike most versions of Robin Hood, the Lionheart is not lionized. He has bled his kingdom dry committing atrocities in lands far from England, and he don't put up with honest opinions even when he solicits them. Still, it's hard not to like him a little. He knows exactly what he is and what his limits are. The same cannot be said for his brother John who is, as usual, a piece of work.

There are some egregious flaws in the movie. One of them is not that the writers distorted the legend. The legend is all over the place, so why not tie it into the drama of the Magna Carta? But when Robin comes down among the other lords to lecture King John about rights and social contracts, the language is so thoroughly American that they might as well have been playing baseball. And there is a latter scene where Cate Blanchett shows up where she has no business being, and it is so goofy that it almost ruined the movie for me. But it didn't.

Robin Hood is great swashbuckling fun. All the stuff about lambs becoming lions and kings having need of their subjects, we Americans really believe this stuff and that isn't a flaw in our character. I am pretty sure that any red-blooded tea party activist will come out of the theater with spirit roused to scare Democratic incumbents away from townhall meetings. One wonders if the producers had political motivations of their own, which would suggest a change in Hollywood, or whether they shrewdly sensed that there was a market for complaints about kings who tax and spend too much.

It's a good afternoon, and you can be sure that there are sequels coming.

Farewell, Helen Thomas

Helen Thomas retired today and I am genuinely sorry to see her go. Although I disagree very vehemently with Thomas on most issues, she was a valuable asset to American Journalism. She was direct and unafraid. She asked questions others would not - even of those who shared her political sympathies. I remember well her questioning of Robert Gibbs on the White Houses's unprecedented control of the press. She said not even Nixon had tried to do what the Obama administration had. Because Thomas's liberalism is well known, the criticism meant more coming from her than it did from a conservative. It would have been hard to argue that Thomas was just playing politics. Journalists willing to set aside politics for a moment for the good of the country are invaluable. In this instance, that is what Helen Thomas was.

Furthermore, Thomas made politics interesting. Her fiery exchanges with Ari Fleischer helped establish my love of politics and I am grateful for that. Thomas was a journalist many conservatives loved to hate. I admit that I was one of these. I was glued to C-Span whenever I noticed Thomas asking a question. While I agreed with Fleischer most of the time, I loved the debates, the back-and-forth and the visibility of the practice of Democratic rights.

I also admired Thomas's commitment to real journalism. While she was very obviously biased, she was, at least, willing to truly pursue stories. She was not an arm-chair journalist, rather, she seemed to love being on site, doing a reporter's job. That is becoming somewhat of a lost art, but Thomas with her wit and intelligence, was a true master.

I believe that Thomas's comments regarding Israel were wrong. But I think that, if Thomas's view of the world were right, her comments would be too. Those on left who oppose Israel, yet have chosen to throw Helen Thomas under the bus ought to be ashamed. Thomas, I think, believes what she said. She sees Israel as an oppressive nation and the Palestinians as innocent people, defending their homeland. Were this true and were there not more to the story, Thomas would have been absolutely right to say what she did. And she has the right to voice her opinion.

Thomas is wrong about Israel, which benevolently treats its enemies' wounded and which has every right in the world to exist. Its people have fought and died for that right and they have undergone more persecution than I suspect Thomas can fathom. Meanwhile, the Palestinians have broken almost every cease-fire and turned down generous peace offers. But why not allow the discussion of it? Why not simply challenge Thomas's statements publicly? Why not show her she is wrong rather than trying to have her silenced? I think the answer may lie in this excerpt from an article in The Economist:

She had become one of those people who, during question time, needs to be reminded to make sure their comment comes in the form of a question. She seemed more concerned with making her own point than hearing the president's or holding him to account. And, frankly, her columns weren't all that interesting (when was the last time you read or heard about one?). Julian Sanchez sums it up well: "Her banality is way more offensive than anything she's said about Israel."

I could not disagree more. It is precisely what she said about Israel that is the problem. Helen Thomas is less banal than most of the press. She is unpredictable and interesting. And even if she were banal, how could banality be more offensive than antisemitism? The idea is ludicrous. Yet Sanchez may be right. Maybe Thomas was not thrown under the bus because she was an antisemite. Perhaps she was thrown under the bus because the left felt that her questioning had gotten old.

I wish I could believe that Thomas now faces criticism from her side, simply because the left is appalled by antisemitism - but I don't. The Obama administration has gone out of its way to snub Israel. It originally excused antisemitic and other racist comments from Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright. But maybe the administration, like Sanchez, had grown tired of Thomas's questions. Maybe what really sunk Thomas was her willingness to question those on her side. And if that is the case, I'd like to say thank you. Thank you, Helen Thomas. I will miss you.

A Tale of Two Rachels

Rachel Corrie was an American woman who was killed in Gaza in 2003 and was subsequently canonized by the anti-Israel Left. Here is a description of the circumstances, from Commentary:

The twenty-three-year-old American from Olympia, Washington, died in Gaza in March 2003 when, as a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she tried to obstruct an IDF bulldozer that, according to the IDF, was destroying rocket launchers in the overgrown brush near a Palestinian home.

An official Israeli investigation concluded that her death was an accident. The driver, in the 10 foot-high bulldozer with its limited visual field, could not see Corrie, who was hidden by a mound of dirt or standing in a trench in the military security zone. The Israeli autopsy report determined that she had been killed by a blow to the head from debris probably dislodged by the bulldozer.

Ms. Corrie's death was a tragedy to be sure, but it is the kind of thing that can happen when you get in front of a moving bulldozer. Because the bulldozer was operated by the Israel Defense Force and she was a member of a pro-Palestinian organization (allied with Hamas and Islamic Jihad), she achieved international status as a martyr. Her journals have been published (Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie) and a play based on those journals (My Name is Rachel Corrie) was staged at the Royal Court Theatre in London. Numerous website shrines exist.

Some slaughtered Rachels are not so important. Powerline directs our attention to this post at TomGrossMedia, in 2005:

In Britain, where the play is being staged, how many people even know the name of Rachel Thaler, a British citizen who was murdered by a Palestinian suicide bomber in an Israeli shopping mall at the age of 16?

"Not a single British journalist has ever interviewed me or mentioned Rachel's death," her mother Ginette Thaler told me three and a half years after her murder. Below, an article of mine published in the weekly British magazine, The Spectator, explores these phenomena and also marks the first time Rachel Thaler's name has been mentioned in the mainstream British media.

When an American citizen is killed by an Israeli bulldozer, that is an international scandal. When a British citizen is killed by a Palestinian bomber, that isn't news even in Britain.

We shouldn't be surprised. When grand lady of the American Press Helen Thomas was asked about Israel, she had this to say:

"Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land. Not Germany. Not Poland."

When the questioner, who knew he's caught a live one, asked what Jews should do, Thomas didn't miss a beat, saying "They go home. Poland. Germany. And America and everywhere else."

Of course, Thomas later apologized. She should have. She committed an intolerable sin: saying what the International Left really thinks about the Jews.

The First Law of Cartoon Physics

In case you weren't paying attention in class:

A body suspended in space will remain in space until made aware of its situation.

When Wile-E Coyote walks off a cliff, he doesn't fall until he chances to look down. I think this has something to do with quantum mechanics. At any rate, a lot of us thought that the Democratic Party was walking toward the edge when it nominated Barack Obama, and that it ran off the edge when it passed a health care bill opposed by a solid majority of the voters. It might be just now that the Democrats are noticing that there is nothing under their feet but air.

The President's biggest problem right now is the oil spill, something that he can do nothing at all about. He realizes that he needs to appear presidential and to demonstrate leadership, but all he can think to do is scold British Petroleum and talk about the need for an energy bill that wouldn't help and isn't going to pass. None of this would be critical if it weren't for the fact that a lot of Americans, and more than a few Democrats, are beginning to suspect that the President is an empty suit. He isn't stupid, he is just vacuous. That is what all the recent concern about his lack of passion is about.

In an interview with CNN's Larry King, the president said he is "furious at this entire situation" but added that anger alone will not solve the problems. "I would love to just spend a lot of my time venting and yelling at people," he said, "But that's not the job I was hired to do. My job is to solve this problem, and ultimately this isn't about me and how angry I am."

When the President has to tell you that he is furious it means that otherwise you wouldn't know. But it isn't passion we need or want in a President, it is some kind of inner substance that he can rely on when the going gets tough and the partly line runs short. For all his shortcomings, George W. had it. If Obama does, he has kept it a secret.

And then there is the economy. In the latest monthly report, the economy added 431,000 jobs. In fact it added only about 41,000. Almost all the job growth was temporary census positions.

And then there is the national debt. The CBO informs me that "The federal budget deficit was $941 billion during the first eight months of fiscal year 2010, CBO estimates, $51 billion less than the shortfall recorded over the same period last year." Well, I suppose it is progress that we are a hair under rather than a hair over a trillion dollars in the hole over eight months. Gallup finds that Americans are more concerned with the deficit than any other issue except terrorism. That's a tie.

And then there is the healthcare legislation. It is clear now that it is going to be much more expensive than advertized. Better yet, the New York Times now reports that the Administration's claim that billions in wasteful healthcare spending could be cut was based on a single, bogus study. Now they tell us! This means at least one of two things: either that the legislation will prove much more expensive than it looks even now, or that it will result in diminished healthcare for a lot of Americans. I am putting my money on all of the above.

The Administration and the Congressional Democrats spent Obama's first year running full speed, with the press carefully avoiding any mention of the precipice or gravity. But what goes off, must come down.

Gallup has the President's job approval at 48% favorable, 45% unfavorable. But that is half the story. Rasmussen shows that 25% of likely voters strongly approve of the President's performance, and 41% strongly disapprove. That matters more than the balance.

Better yet, Gallup reports that, on the generic question (do you intend to vote Republican or Democrat), Republicans lead Democrats 49% to 43%. That's the largest Republican advantage ever recorded. That means larger than 1994, when the GOP captured both houses of Congress.

The Democrats, and maybe the whole country, are suspended in air. It is getting harder and harder not to look down.

The Right is Right. The Left is Wrong.

One of the most sacred opinions among American liberals is that crime is largely the result of social injustice. People are poor because they don't have any money. People commit crimes because they are poor. Give people money, and both poverty and crime will diminish and disappear.

It's an attractive view because it tells you what to do about crime. Unfortunately, it's wrong. Richard Cohen, a liberal in good standing, but also a genuinely independent thinker, had the courage to point this out.

The good news is that crime is again down across the nation -- in big cities, small cities, flourishing cities and cities that are not for the timid. Surprisingly, this has happened in the teeth of the Great Recession, meaning that those disposed to attribute criminality to poverty -- my view at one time -- have some strenuous rethinking to do. It could be, as conservatives have insisted all along, that crime is committed by criminals. For liberals, this is bad news indeed.

Ideas have to mean something to be ideas, and if the liberal idea means anything it is that increased poverty and crime should be correlated, and prosperity and decreases in crime likewise. As Cohen shows, they aren't. As the American economy went south in 2008, crime went south with it.

It now seems fairly clear that something akin to culture and not economics is the root cause of crime. By and large everyday people do not go into a life of crime because they have been laid off or their home is worth less than their mortgage. They do something else, but whatever it is, it does not generally entail packing heat. Once this becomes an accepted truth, criminals will lose what status they still retain as victims.

In fact, this has been clear for many decades. The American economy enjoyed phenomenal growth between the end of the Second World War and the 1980's. During that same time we suffered an explosive growth of violent crime. But Cohen, at least, is finally seeing the writing on the wall.

[Liberal social policy] made victims of criminals and criminals of victims (all wealth comes from theft, etc.) -- and in so doing, insulted the law-abiding poor who somehow lacked the wit to appreciate their historic plight. This ideology was mocked by Stephen Sondheim in his lyrics for the "West Side Story" song "Gee, Officer Krupke":

"Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, you gotta understand,
it's just our bringin' up-ke that gets us out of hand.
Our mothers all are junkies, our fathers all are drunks.
Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks!"

In other words, all the gang members were the unavoidable products of their environment.

Common sense tells you that the environment has to play a role and the truly desperate will sometimes break the law -- like Victor Hugo's impoverished Jean Valjean, who stole bread for his sister's children. But the latest crime statistics strongly suggest that bad times do not necessarily make bad people. Bad character does.

As conservatives has insisted all along, it isn't society that is responsible for crime, it's criminals.

The lesson learned here isn't restricted to crime. Barack Obama ran on a promise that he would restore America's image in the world by being less arrogant and belligerent than his predecessor. He would reach out to the problem children of the new world order, Iran, North Korea, Syria, the Palestinians, etc., and really listen to their concerns. They in turn would realize that we don't really want to hurt them, and real progress would be made on all fronts.

How's that workin' out? Can one point to progress on any front of American foreign policy? In these pages I have praised Obama for putting his cards on the table. Now we can test whether a kinder, gentler foreign policy will melt the hearts of hardhearted dictators. Well, we tested. It turns out that the root cause of international criminality isn't American arrogance and belligerence. It's international criminals.

The difference between the left and the right in America isn't that there are better people on the one side than the other. There are honest, thoughtful, and decent people on both sides, and both sides have their share of scoundrels. The difference is that, on the important questions, the right is right and the left is wrong.

Slow Boat to Gaza

A flotilla of ships, carrying humanitarian relief to Gaza (playground equipment, cancer medicine and milk powder), financed by Turkey, and manned by "a motley collection that included European sympathizers with the Palestinian cause… and Turkish Islamic activists," is boarded by Israeli commandos. Mayhem ensues, and ten "peace activists" are killed by the Israelis. What should we make of this?

It's hard not to think that Israel screwed the pooch. The whole purpose of the flotilla was to provoke a confrontation and the Netanyahu government obliged. They could have let the flotilla dock in Gaza and then examined the cargo as it came ashore. Instead they roped down Commandos from helicopters. The commandos were armed with paint guns. Oh, and they also had real pistols in their belts. The Israelis were not expecting serious resistance, and they clearly didn't want to kill anyone. That humanitarian attitude invited violent resistance. Moral of the story: if you can avoid sending in the commandos, avoid it. If you can't, send them in fully armed with rifles and prepared to lock down the deck.

The Israelis gave the world one more excuse to hate Israel and the Jews. But if that tells you that something is wrong with the government of Israel, and it might, it certainly tells you that something is wrong with the world. The UN/European press conceit is that barbarians ought to be treated like wayward children. They can't help being the way they are, so you have to use kid gloves when dealing with them. If anyone gets hurt, it's your fault and not theirs. The Israelis, being a modern nation, can't help trying to keep to that script. Can you imagine Hamas or Hezbollah soldiers going into action armed with paint guns? Can you imagine Hamas rushing the wounded to the hospital, instead of throwing them off a roof?

The flotilla was not a humanitarian enterprise. It was an anti-Israel enterprise. The people on board were not "peace activists" but anti-Israel activists singing about death to Jews. When they attacked the Israeli commandos with knives and crowbars and the commandos responded by shooting some of them, that is exactly what they had intended. So whose fault is that? The pro-Palestinian activists were not children, they were adults. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they ought to be held responsible for it.

The world's condemnation of Israel plays into the hands of the enemies of peace. It encourages barbarism. Israel's enemies don't want a "two state solution," they want a no Israel solution. Treating them like special children doesn't advance the cause of peace.

Is God Knowable?

Miranda and I have been carrying on a philosophical/theological discussion. I thought I would bring it forward on its own post. Anyone interested in this can use the link above to see previous comments.

Here I respond to Miranda's last post. I had claimed that there are certain limits to philosophy in the sense of questions that philosophy probably can't answer and might not even be able to address properly. For example: what is God? Or why does anything exist at all? Miranda says this:

I concede the point about the limits of philosophy, although the study seems somewhat duller when framed in such a way. I prefer the idea of a passionate, limitless search for answers over a series of limited questions, designed to answer only what fits inside certain boundaries. Still, if that really is what philosophy is, then I can't argue its definition away.

I reply that the greatest period in the history of philosophy (Socrates, followed by Plato, followed by Aristotle) was precisely a result of Socrates' decision to limit his questions to those he could get a purchase on. I think the passionate pursuit of the what is questions (What is justice? What is beauty? Etc.) is lustrous enough.

It's not that the largest questions can't conceivably be answered; it is just that the only way philosophy could answer them would be by answering all the limited questions. That would be possible only if the world is complete, self-contained, and fully rational. If, on the other hand, there are powers outside the world that are beyond human intelligibility… .

I can and do take issue with your idea that the biblical religion paints God as unknowable. In fact, it does the opposite. In the New Testament, we have verses such as these:

John 10:13, "I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine."

Luke 4:8, "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you."

The term "to know" admits of more than one meaning. For example there is this verse, Gen. 4.1:

And Adam knew [yada] Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

Presumably one cannot know God in the same sense as Adam knew Eve. So how does one know God?

The passage from John uses the Greek term γινώσκω, which can mean understanding but also recognition and acquaintance. I think the shepherd/sheep metaphor provides the right guidance here. Sheep know the shepherd in the sense that they recognize Him and respond to His call. That doesn't mean that sheep have any clue what a shepherd is.

I certainly do not deny that the Biblical God is knowable in the one sense. Human beings can know Him in so far as they can respond to him and have a relationship with Him. That doesn't mean that we can know what He is in the way that we know what a triangle or a rabbit is.

We can know the latter in the sense of intellectual understanding because the one is a characteristic of this world and the latter a thing in this world. We know things in the world in terms of other things in the world. We can know them precisely because they are limited. A triangle has no more nor less than three angles. A rabbit is a mammal, composed of flesh and bone, and in turn of molecules. Our minds can encompass that. Can the human mind encompass God?

I am no Biblical expert either but I hold, with Aquinas and his Jewish counterpart, Maimonides, that the Biblical God is unknowable in that sense. He existed before the world and created the world; therefore is he outside of and beyond the world, however much he intervenes in it. Unlike the things in the world, God has no limits. He is infinite in power, wisdom, compassion, and I dare say, in duration.

The human mind can probably not grasp real infinity. For example: suppose you had a hotel with an infinite number of rooms. Suppose that every single room is occupied. Now Miranda shows up and wants a room. No problem! The manager just has to ask every guest to move into the next highest numbered room. Since there is always a higher number for every guest, this is possible. Now room number one is free. Can we understand a hotel of which these two things are true: every room is occupied and there are as many free rooms as necessary for any number of new guests? I think not.

God created the world at some moment in time. How long did He wait to do that? Forever, since He has existed forever. But when you wait forever to do something, doesn't that mean you never get around to doing it? Moreover, if God were a knowable thing, then one could set Him beside other knowable things (the Grand Canyon) and say: these two things together are greater than God.  But nothing can be greater than God. 

I do not think that these things are intelligible. To say that they are nonetheless real and true (which I am not denying) is precisely to set limits on the scope of philosophy.

There is a term for the view that the Divine is knowable in the way that worldly things are knowable: paganism. Pagan gods exist in the world, in trees, on inaccessible mountain tops, in the circuit of the night sky. Frequently they get into trouble, because they are limited (if really big and powerful) beings. We have no trouble understanding why Apollo wanted to know Daphne.

By contrast, it is always perilous, and perhaps impious, for human beings to presume to know the mind of God. Therein lie great evils. The prohibition against naming God in the same way that Zeus is named, the prohibition against idolatry, these are, I think, connected with this.

I doubt that we really disagree on any of this, but I thought it worthwhile to lay out my thoughts. Your last comment, quite properly, brings us back down a notch.

I am not sure the idea of a giant bear is so far fetched. If we can observe the Devil's Tower and theorize that it has eroded because we know that other things do, then why can't look at the bears of our time, compare them to the fossils of Ursus spelaeus (the giant, extinct cave bear), and conclude that since bears have, indeed, gotten smaller over time, there may very well have been a giant, tower-scratching bear at some point in time?

Cave bears, as far as I know, weren't much larger than existing bears. They were smaller than polar bears. But even if giant bears existed, they could not have been large enough to scratch the sides of Devil's Tower. Bone and muscle can support only so much weight, out of the water. The largest animals today are whales, animals that swim in the ocean and eat massive amounts of really small things. What did Ursus Maximus eat? Giant honeycombs made by giant bees? That's what I mean about things in the world being limited.

The Devil's tower story is entertaining, but it belongs in story land. As an explanation it is ad hoc, conjuring into existence a creature for whom no independent evidence exists. It is not consistent with the world as it presents itself.