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Government Failure in the Gulf

by Bill O'Connell on June 7, 2010

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Not surprisingly, we hear the administration telling us how they have been in charge since day one regarding the BP oil gusher.  But as I have often said before, if there is a major problem in America look for government to be right in the thick of it and this is no exception.

Statists like to blame the free market for such problems and that more government is the answer.  You will also hear them mistakenly say that conservatives don’t want any government involvement in the marketplace.  Conservatives believe in government, albeit limited government, but we also expect that the government that is in place do its job.  There was plenty of regulation in the BP case, perhaps too much government in that there was no one clear responsible agency but an overlapping mess.  When it comes to regulation I like to use the sports analogy of a baseball umpire.  Congress writes the rulebook and the executive branch is the umpire that makes sure the rules are followed.  If the umpire is looking at an attractive girl in the stands instead of the play on the field, he is apt to blow the call.  Blown calls seemed to be a way of life in the BP case. 

Deepwater exploration progressed faster than the regulations could keep up with the technology, and government was providing incentives to accelerate that exploration.  So there we have our first example of the government acting in a push-me, pull-you fashion, that is, incentives to explore but lacking regulations to make sure it is done safely and orderly.  Rather than looking at deep water drilling where the physics are different as a different animal needing a comprehensive review of the regulations, the regulations were piecemeal approvals of shallow water regulations. 

When BP first looked at drilling in this area they requested from the federal regulators an exemption from a rigorous environmental review.  That exemption was granted.  They also used riskier equipment that deviated from their own company safety policies.  Regulators also approved testing the blowout preventer at a pressure that was lower than federally required.  When BP wanted to delay mandatory testing of the blowout preventer when they lost “well control” in the weeks before the rig exploded, again the regulators granted the delay.

One federal agency, the Minerals Management Service, is in the dual role of both promoting drilling and regulating it.  They both collect royalty payments and issue fines for violations.  Do you think there may be a conflict here?  Is this the most effective form of government?  Here is a core beef of mine and of other conservatives.  The free market should provide the incentives for off shore drilling.  Either it is worth doing from a business standpoint or it is not.  The government’s role should be in the regulation.  When government wades into the middle trying to work both sides, it is doomed to fail.

There are multiple agencies that all have responsibility for regulation in this area in addition to the Minerals Management Service including, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard, and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.  Where there are gaps in regulation, whose responsibility is it to plug the gap?  When there is overlap, whose regulations controls? 

The Minerals Management Service approved BP’s drilling plan that projected a “worst case” blowout as producing 250,000 barrels per day of escaping oil.  However, the agency did not require BP to develop a contingency plan on how they would deal with such an occurrence.  The agency also did not require companies to have a backup systems to trigger in the event a blowout preventer failed.

There were early indications of problems with the well but federal regulators approved proceeding with the drilling rather than order it be halted until the issues were addressed.

So once this disaster spun out of control how did our government respond?  Based on laws written after the Exxon Valdez spill the government and BP were supposed to cooperate.  How did the administration show their cooperation?  They said they were going to keep their “boot on the neck of BP.”  Do you feel inspired to cooperate with someone who tells the world they will keep their boot on your neck, or do you start looking for ways to protect yourself?  Instead of concentrating on giving BP whatever assistance it needs to cap the well and focusing on containing the spread of oil, the administration sends in lawyers to start a criminal investigation.  Can’t that wait until the well is capped?  Why divert attention from the problem and have BP start losing focus on the well and more on assembling a legal team?

When governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana wanted to build a sand barrier to stop the oil from reaching the wetlands in his state, he was told to wait while our federal government dithered for three weeks haggling among the White House, Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency over the best approach.  If this administration, as they have claimed, has been in charge since day one and all of these agencies fall under the administration, why couldn’t this be hashed out in a day or two?  They finally approved one barrier rather than the 23 that were requested but eventually allowed more.  For an in depth story see New York Times

For the last year and a half we have been told we don’t have enough government running our lives and telling us what to do.  Yet here is a classic case of government regulator piled on top of regulator, and regulators trying to promote and control businesses at the same time.  We have regulators granting waiver after waiver of regulations that ultimately led to disaster and our administration instead of stepping up and taking responsibility is trying to look like they are in charge while at the same time blaming everyone else, yes even Bush, for what happened.  The head of the Materials Management Service resigned and President Obama says he learned about it afterwards.  Interior Secretary Salazar said she resigned on her own volition and that she wasn’t fired.  Why not?  For all the exemptions and waivers that were granted by the government that could have prevented the worst environmental disaster in history, this administration doesn’t think anyone other than BP should be responsible.

So we are supposed to let this administration grow government and control more of our lives when they can’t take responsibility for what is already under their control.  But don’t look for a serious investigation of government’s responsibility unless a large number of incumbents are flushed out of Congress and replaced by new members who actually represent the people.

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Hard Luck Stories – Reading Between the Lines

by Bill O'Connell on April 22, 2010

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You don’t have to go too far to find a story about people suffering in these tough economic times, and your heart goes out to them.  Some have lost houses, are living in cars, really tough stuff.  But there is another story under the surface that reflects common attitudes developed growing up in the nanny state kicked into high gear by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

In the midst of these tough economic times, instead of getting out of the way by cutting taxes and red tape, the Obama administration is focused on piling on more government programs.  Worthless stimulus packages, health care reform, and efforts to push cap and trade have not moved the unemployment needle a whit.  They extend unemployment benefits and keep whistling past the graveyard hoping they won’t get swallowed up.

Personal Responsibility

Since the Great Depression and the growth of the nanny state, more and more people have bought into the myth that the government can provide all, and our responsibility is to enjoy the ride.  An article in today’s New York Times writes about people benefitting from a government program to keep them in their houses if they face becoming homeless.  But there are some subtleties in the hard luck stories that give me pause.

There is the case of Antonio Moore who lost his job as a mortgage consultant that paid him $75,000 per year.  He lost his 3-bedroom house with a Jacuzzi and his Lexus sedan.  He is now faced with eviction from his apartment.  The article doesn’t go into details, but in most cases you don’t lose your house and car if they are all paid for.  Again, it doesn’t say if Mr. Moore bought his car new or used, but when I think of a car like a Lexus I usually don’t think that fitting in the budget of someone making $75,000 living in the San Francisco Bay area.  Had Mr. Moore purchased a Toyota Corolla instead of the Lexus would he be in better shape?  Again, I don’t know the details.  I am just wondering.

Then there is the case of Dawn Martin.

Ms. Martin is mortified to be asking for help. She grew up wealthy, with vacations spent on Caribbean cruises. “I had everything I ever wanted,” she says.

She and her husband have a painting business that until 2008 was grossing $100,000 per year, but in this tough economy it dropped to $38,000.  That’s hard.  But then here is the between the lines story:

Her father has money to help if it really comes down to it, she acknowledges.

“I don’t see him letting his grandkids land on the street,” she says, “but he’d hold it over our heads for a long time. That would lower me to a level that I wouldn’t want to go.”

So she is here, at Samaritan House, filling out the paperwork for the homeless prevention program.

So because of her pride, she turns to your family and mine, through higher taxes to fund a government program, to help her through her rough spot before she will turn to her own family.  But don’t worry.  When our money is gone, she will turn to Dad.  The painting business is picking up so Ms. Martin is confident they will be able to sustain themselves.  She is able to take our money to tide her over and still maintain her pride. 

But what did Ms. Martin learn about money when “growing up wealthy”?  Is Dad responsible for not teaching her or was she a rebellious child who ignored him and perhaps that is why he would hold it over her head for a long time.  Will she do something different this time around or hope for another government program?

Perhaps I was a little torqued before reading this story by another in the Wall Street Journal that wrote about the homes underlying the Goldman Sachs fraud case.  This article talks about a Ms. Onyeukwu, a 43-year old nursing home assistant with pre-tax income of $9,000 per month.  She is having trouble paying her $688,000 mortgage at $5,000 per month which is 56% of her pre-tax income.  Her solution?  Refinance it with a $786,250 mortgage.  But hey, the interest rate is lower so her payments of $5,000 per month will stay the same.  What is she thinking?  I could be way off base here but I’ll bet she could get a nice apartment for significantly less than $5,000 per month.  Sell the house, live within your means.

Government as Savior or Government as Pusher?

This is a tale of two government programs and personal responsibility.  We had or still have a massive government program that uses threats, goals, and sleight of hand to help millions achieve the American dream of home ownership.  This is not through thrift, like our parents did it, but by the government threatening banks with charges of racism (there’s the race card again) if the banks didn’t lower their lending standards.  As the housing market took off, the feeding frenzy intensified and everyone was trying to buy houses or finance them with less and less money down.  The Community Reinvestment Act, HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac were all players in this debacle, but don’t expect our elected officials to wade into that swamp to see what happened.  No, they will pile the blame on the banks and Wall Street, while they take Wall Street’s massive donations and do nothing but pass meaningless “reform legislation”.  Now we need new government programs to keep these people hanging on.  How similar is this to the drug pusher who gives you your first hit for free to get you hooked and dependent on them forever.

What About Personal Responsibility?

Unlike the people in the articles, I believe I have responsibility first and foremost for my actions.  If I need help beyond myself I turn to my family and then the charity of my church.  I believe many conservatives share my views, which is why on average conservatives give 30% more to charities than liberals.  It is why I gave the moniker “Buck a Day Biden” to Vice President Joe Biden because in his financial disclosure forms he reported give only about $300 a year to charity.  Here is a man who has been drawing six figure salaries from the taxpayers for years, is a millionaire, but will not reach very deep into his own pocket to help his fellow man, but has no problem reaching into your pocket and mine to create some government program to give your tax dollars to someone else.

There is a man named Dave Ramsey, who was a millionaire in his mid-twenties but later lost it all and declared bankruptcy.  He now teaches others how to live without debt and take responsibility for their financial lives.  It is a lesson all of us should learn and if we do, I’ll have to find something else to write about that sets me off.  But in the mean time we have a lot of work to do.  First we have to stop the federal government’s runaway train.  Next, we have to shrink government.  Then we have to go back to being responsible for ourselves and wean ourselves off the government.

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Dems Scramble on Health Care — Well, That Didn’t Take Long

by Bill O'Connell on April 21, 2010

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This is from today’s New York Times:

“Fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years, Senate Democrats laid a foundation on Tuesday for federal regulation of rates, four weeks after President Obama signed a law intended to rein in soaring health costs.”

With the ink barely dry on ObamaCare, Democrats in Congress are scrambling to keep their masterpiece from unraveling.  As I have pointed out repeatedly, there is nothing in the ObamaCare plan that helps reduce the cost of delivering health care.  It is all about controlling what doctors, medical service providers, and insurance companies are paid.  All the underlying pressures on health costs (tort reform, 3rd party payer, etc.) are still in place.

“We Have to Pass the Bill to Know What’s In It”

Nancy Pelosi’s stunning but famous words are coming into play.  Let’s see what has the senators panicked.

  • To hoodwink the American people that this abomination is cost effective, ObamaCare warms up by hitting us with four years of taxes before the expensive benefits come into play.
  • Every American will be required to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty.  That penalty will initially be $95 per adult in 2014, rising to $695 per adult in 2016 and $2,085 for a family.  This money will be collected by the IRS, not by insurance companies
  • Americans cannot be denied coverage for an existing condition

So here’s the scenario.  If you compare the cost of the penalty of $2,085 for a family vs. the cost of insurance for a family of $10,000, coupled with the inability of insurance companies to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, healthy people will start dropping insurance coverage left and right.  Why not?  On the way to the hospital, you can call an insurance company and say you want to be covered for the pains in your chest and you cannot be denied.  So insurance companies will only have sick people as clients.  With only sick people that they constantly have to pay claims on, their only course of action if they want to stay in business is to raise premiums on all those sick people.  If they start doing it now, they may be able to raise them less than if they wait until 2016.

So the insurance companies are acting rationally to this mess the Democrats dragged across the finish line and now they are shocked, SHOCKED, that they should do this. 

Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a research center that advocates free-market health policies, said the Democrats’ proposal was unlikely to succeed in lowering insurance costs.

“Capping premiums without recognizing the forces that are driving up costs would be like tightening the lid on a pressure cooker while the heat is being turned up,” Mrs. Turner said.

The Democratic fix is to have a new bureaucracy that will provide a check on unjustified premiums.  I think you can look at this in one of two ways, both plausible.  The Democrats were stupid enough to believe, as they typically do, that Americans don’t act rationally to their government policies.  It’s also why they don’t understand that when they raise taxes they never collect as much money as they thought, and when taxes are cut they can’t believe how much money flows into the Treasury due to economic growth.  The second scenario is this new commission will cap premiums to the point of driving private insurance companies out of business and then the Democrats will say, “Geez, we didn’t want to do this, but I guess we have to put in place a public option that, by the way, will be the only option.”

Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said: “Health insurance companies’ profits for one year equal about two days of health care spending in the United States. So even if we were to take away all the profits of the so-called greedy insurance companies, that would still leave 363 days a year when health care costs are expanding at a rate our country cannot afford.”

Now that I think about it, it is probably the second scenario that is more likely, that is, force the public option.  Your government is about to swallow up another big chunk of the economy if  we don’t turn them out in November.

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Dazed and Confused

by Bill O'Connell on January 21, 2010

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Has President Obama lost the one skill he has relied upon so heavily?  Has the magic oratory suddenly gone leaden as indicated by his campaign speech for Martha Coakley?

“Here’s my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts but the mood around the country — the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” Mr. Obama said. “People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.” — New York Times, “Obama Trying to Turn Around his Presidency.” – 1/21/2010

Really?  “…what’s happened over the last eight years.”  Is he kidding me?  Does he not remember that Bush was reelected four years ago.  Is this just one more elitist swipe at the “stupid” American people who are so dumb that they don’t even know things are bad for four years such that they reelect their president? When is he going to get off the campaign trail and start governing?  When, with one-fourth of his term over, is he going  to realize this is his gig now, and stop crying about Bush?  The anti-Bush attacks against Scott Brown by Coakley in the closing days of the campaign fell flat.  That doesn’t work anymore.  This isn’t about the last eight years, but about the last twelve months.  The American people are sick of the Democrats trying to spend us into oblivion.

It seems that he may be betting the ranch on the State of the Union address, which runs the risk of Obama fatigue.  President Obama seems to confuse speeches with leadership.  Coming into office with zero executive experience, he let the inmates (Pelosi and Reid) run the asylum.  With the election of Scott Brown, Reid just lost his iron grip and Pelosi may not be far behind.  So what does Obama do?  Give another speech?  He has given more speeches than any president in memory, but there is time for talk and time for action.  But he seems to avoid holding another press conference as the fawning press may be finding its backbone and he doesn’t have an answer for his C-Span promises on the health care debate.

Boxed In

Reid is losing control of the Senate.  He no longer has  a filibuster proof majority and he will probably not get reelected.  He is one very lame duck.  Many of Pelosi’s party in the House see Brown’s stunning victory as a major wake up call.  Any Democrat in the House who is not planning on retiring, will not be eager to sign on to any more far left government takeovers.  So without Reid and Pelosi setting his agenda, and him still stuck in the anti-Bush mode, what can he do?  As charming as he may be, he promised bipartisanship but really wasn’t serious about it, he hasn’t cultivated any  relationships with conservatives.  As Dennis Miller put it on O’Reilly last night, “I hope he’s an ideologue.  If not, it means we have a dolt in the White House.”

President Obama has to realize that the job entails more than him just strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, and get down to work and that means following Clinton’s lead and working with the Republicans.  There are a lot of ways to improve Health Care without spending  a trillion dollars (e.g., tort reform), stop bashing business when you need business to create jobs, drop cap and trade to fix global warming when oranges are freezing in Florida.

His inexperience continues to glow brightly.  He better figure out what the job entails, quickly, and get busy with it.  The referee just fired the gun signaling the end of the first quarter and Team Obama looks dazed and confused.  Not a good sign, sports fans.

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Inexperienced AND Clueless

by Bill O'Connell on January 2, 2010

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“The Obama administration’s $75 billion program to protect homeowners from foreclosure has been widely pronounced a disappointment, and some economists and real estate experts now contend it has done more harm than good.” – New York Times, January 2, 2010

“The Treasury Department publicly maintains that its program is on track. “The program is meeting its intended goal of providing immediate relief to homeowners across the country,” a department spokeswoman, Meg Reilly, wrote in an e-mail message.” — same article, NYT

Hot on the heels of Janet Napolitano’s performance at the Department of Homeland Security, that things worked just swell and then, er, no it was a catastrophic failure, we have another example of this administration’s ineptitude.  Let’s not let the marketplace work by flushing out the bad loans, have banks face up to the reality of their bad lending decisions, allow housing prices to reach a market level, all in a reasonably short time, no, let’s get another massive, taxpayer funded program in place to gum up the works and drag this out for years. 

A Habit of Ignoring History

In 1929 Hoover mishandled the economy in a similar way bringing in the leaders of major industries and jawboning them to keep up production even in the face of falling demand so that jobs would not be lost.  The businesses went along until that policy hit their financial statements in the form of plunging profitability.  Stock prices fell sharply and more disastrous policies followed, first by Hoover and more by Roosevelt.

In 1920-21 there was a very steep and serious recession.  However, companies cut wages and government didn’t interfere.

“The annual unemployment rate peaked at 11.7 percent in 1921, but it had fallen to 6.7 percent by the following year, and was down to an incredible 2.4 percent by 1923,” Murphy writes. “That is how a market with flexible wages and prices quickly corrects itself after a Fed-induced inflationary boom.”

 

Roosevelt’s policies followed Hoovers’ with more and more government interference.  Throughout the Great Depression the programs didn’t work, government grew tremendously leaving us saddled with that legacy.  On the other hand Reagan in the 1980s pursued a policy of cutting taxes and shrinking government.  Roosevelt needed World War II to end the Great Depression, Reagan ushered in 25 years of unprecedented economic growth.  Which one does Obama choose to follow?  That’s right, Roosevelt.  Brilliant!

Inexperience on Full Display

President Obama rides into town with no executive experience, but with wondrous rhetorical skills and a hard left agenda.  He jams through a stimulus package that doesn’t stimulate.  His security policy is to undo everything that worked under Bush to keep us safe.  One of the first things Janet Napolitano does is  release a report saying that the real threat is from our returning military that might become right wing zealots,  Meanwhile Islamic terrorists, correct that, isolated extremists, continue to plot to kill us.  Now the New York Times points out that the Emperor’s mortgage program, Making Home Affordable, has no clothes.

“Whatever the merits of its plans, the administration has clearly failed to reverse the foreclosure crisis.” — NYT

When asked by a Congressional Oversight Panel what the administration was going to do in the face of this lasting not a year or two but for many years into the future, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said:

“What to do about it,” he said. “That’s a hard thing.” — NYT

Sounds like the seeds of another government program to fix the other government program.  Just like FDR did all through the 1930s.  Trying to stop the market with government programs is like trying to stop the tides.  You may divert it and you may end up with water in places you didn’t want it, but you are not going to stop it.

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Surprise! Smaller Class Sizes Haven’t Improved Education

by Bill O'Connell on February 22, 2009

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But while state legislatures for decades have passed laws — and provided millions of dollars — to cap the size of classes, some academic researchers and education leaders say that small reductions in the number of students in a room often have little effect on their performance.  — New York Times, Feb. 22, 2009

Well shut my mouth!  School taxes have been growing at an extraordinary rate and at the same time a high school graduate comes in for a job interview who cannot even put together a comprehensible sentence.  We created a federal Department of Education that since it’s inception has spent over $1.3 trillion dollars, with improvements in education that are marginal at best.

What happened?

This has not been an effort to improve education.  If you cut the size of the class in half, you have to double the number of teachers.  This has been a jobs program for the teachers’ union and the Democrats have wholly supported it because the teacher’s unions are in the Democratic camp.  Once again we have our government conspiring to empower themselves at the expense of the American people.

When I went to K-12 school, my classroom was typically 28-33 students.  My friends who went to Catholic school had some classes that numbered 50 students in a class.  I learned, they learned.  You would think that cutting class sizes in half would double academic performance or better.  If not, why on earth would you do it?  Why would you spend twice as much on teachers, since compensation is typically 80% of a school’s budget, if you were only going to get a 10% improvement in performance?  If that is the extent of the return, you would probably look elsewhere such as in techniques or methods.

The Collapse of Discipline and the Supremacy of Self Esteem

I submit the reason for the lack of educational performance is lack of discipline.  If a teacher can’t control their classroom, no one learns.  The marginal improvement in performance with reduced class size is not because they are a significantly better learning environment, but because you have reduced the teacher’s span of control.  Why can a class of 50 students in Catholic School still learn?  Because when the nun snapped her finger, everyone came to attention.  Everyone wore uniforms.  Everyone paid tuition.  If you got out of line, the nuns would put you back in line, pronto.  If the nuns weren’t able to put you back in line, either your parents would or you would get bounced out of school. With a 50% drop out rate in the City of New York, John Cardinal O’Connor asked the mayor of New York to give him the bottom 10% of the students in the New York City school system and he would educate them.  The mayor declined.

The other half of the problem is the focus on making sure everyone always feels good about themselves.  When my daughter was three years old she got a trophy for playing soccer, not for outstanding performance, but just for playing.  The trophy was almost as tall as she was.  I asked, “What do they get if they actually achieve something?  A car?”.  I played Little League baseball because I loved baseball.  When I got a paper certificate it was for making the All Star team or the World Series.

Today, in a relatively affluent school district I see about a dozen yellow jacketed security guards when I go to my children’s school.  We never had security guards at our school and I grew up in a less affluent district.  “Well, you can never tell, you know, with Columbine and everything.”  People talk about Columbine and say it’s because of those kids had access to guns.  Well kids have had access to guns since the Mayflower.  Why did it take until 1999 for Columbine to occur?  I believe it is because we are raising a generation of kids with eggshell egos.  If you tap them they crack.  That’s probably what happened to Klebold and Harris.  They didn’t know how to take a hit to the ego and bounce back.  They probably were never told, “Sorry, kid, you want the trophy you actually have to achieve something.”  Life’s little failures build character.  As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”  But if mommy and daddy are always jumping in to make sure little Johnny never has a bad day, look out.

Low Cost Way to Improve Education

  1. Ditch the smaller class sizes.  The marginal improvement is not worth the cost.  Hire fewer teachers and lower school taxes.
  2. Re-institute discipline in classes.  Teachers shouldn’t be afraid of students.  Have the student’s wear uniforms, if the half-naked girls, and the boys walking with their pants around their knees are a distraction.
  3. Stop pampering the students.  To get a prize you actually have to achieve something.  That way you won’t have a mental breakdown the first time someone says no to you.
  4. You are not entitled to a “B” grade for showing up.  The teachers don’t give out grades, the student earn them.
  5. Close the Department of Education and put $1.3 trillion back into the economy in the form of lower taxes

We tried it their way for almost thirty years.  Why not give this approach a try for 30 years.  Oh, wait, we did try this for 360 years and it worked before we lurched off toward focusing on keeping Democrats in power rather than educating our children.

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Screaming Inexperience

by Bill O'Connell on January 23, 2009

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Guantanamo

In less than one week the lack of experience of Barack Obama, that the media chose to ignore, was on radiant display this week.  His two executive orders, one, to close Guantanamo Bay, and two, to only interrogate enemy combatants as per the Army Field Manual, began the process of compromising our safety.

Today’s New York Times carries a story about a Saudi, who was released by the U.S. from Guantanamo is now a deputy leader of al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch.  He was suspected of involvement in the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.  He was released to Saudi Arabia to go through a rehabilitation program in that country before being released.  He is back on the front lines, ready to kill Americans.

So what is the president’s plan?  He doesn’t have one. Over the course of the next year, he’ll get back to us with whatever plan a commission or a committee recommends.  Maybe it was a political bone that he felt he had to throw to the left to keep them at bay.  Speaking of hope….

Interrogation

After more than seven years where President Bush kept us safe, President Obama rushed to put us at risk.  He abolished the practice of aggressive interrogation.  Now the enemy with whom we are engaged has no qualms about decapitating a prisoner (Daniel Pearl), no concern about torturing people and hanging the remains from a bridge for all to see (Blackwater contractors), and has one objective, that is, to see us all dead.  How do you negotiate with someone whose only demand is that you die?

The techniques used in very rare circumstances, were thoroughly reviewed and legal opinions issued that permitted their use.  Information was obtained that saved lives.  But now, the CIA has a much harder job to keep us safe.  In the Clinton administration the FBI was prohibited from sharing information with the CIA and vice versa.  Over 3,000 Americans died when those two agencies could not share information and connect the dots.

It was encouraging to hear President Obama in his inaugural address say that this enemy will be defeated.  But to follow it up by closing Guantanamo and taking an important tool away from the CIA.  You can almost envision Osama bin Laden, sit up in his cave and smile and say, “Just like Clinton.  The paper tiger is back.  Now is the time to strike and the dog will run with its tail between its legs just like in Somalia.”

I hope not.  This is not the change we were waiting for.

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Much Ado About Nothing

by Bill O'Connell on January 1, 2009

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An editorial in today’s New York Times, the editors with high dudgeon opine about the parody “Barack the Magic Negro,”  and how inappropriate the Republicans are to stoop to these levels.  This absurdity is on par with someone setting a house on fire and then wanting to be hailed as a hero because they dialed “911″.  Let’s break this down.

Which conservative made up the “Barack the Magic Negro” moniker?  Uh, none.  Actually it was the L.A. Timesthat published an opinion piece on March 19, 2007 entitled, “Obama the ‘Magic Negro’”.  The LA Times is hardly a bastion of conservatism, being among the most liberal newspapers in the country.  In the piece it lumped Obama in with Sidney Poitier, Morgan Freeman, Scatman Cruthers, Michael Clarke Duncan, Will Smith and Don Cheadle as examples of “white America’s idealized, less-than-real black man.”  In other words, Obama was an unworthy presidential candidate because “He has no past, he simply appears one day to help the white protagonist.”  So let’s re-cap this.  The LA Times says that Obama shouldn’t be running for president because he is not sufficiently “in-your-face” anti-white, and that somehow makes the Republicans out of touch?

Paul Shanklintook the LA Times article and made a parody out of it.  In the parody (def: any humorous, satirical, or burlesque imitation, as of a person, event, etc.) Shanklin imitates the voice of Al Sharpton speaking through a megaphone.  The Sharpton character refers to the LA Times as calling Obama the “Magic Negro” and laments that people are going to vote for Obama and not Sharpton, even though Sharpton has “paid his dues” and comes from “the ‘hood.”  Where’s the racism?  Sharpton has run for the presidency.  Sharpton was unsuccessful.  Does Sharpton resent Obama for seeming to make it look so easy?  I don’t know, and he probably wouldn’t admit to it if you asked him, but let’s look to someone from a similar camp to Shapton, Jesse Jackson.  While not realizing he was within range of an open mike, Jackson was taped as saying the wanted to “cut Obama’s n**s off,” for apparently talking down to blacks.  Again, so how is this racism by conservatives ?  If you live in or around New York and have witnessed the antics of Al Sharpton over the years, this is a dead-on parody.

I disagree with Chip Saltsman’s judgment in publicly sending this parody around while running for the chairmanship of the RNC, for the simple reason the Magic New York Times would twist a liberal position into racism by conservatives.  But the New York Times fiddles as its readership collapses, because of patently ridiculous editorials such as this one.  Oh, by the way, did you see where the New York Times is being sued for $27 million in a deformation of character suit, for printing a misleading article alleging an affair between a lobbyist and John McCain?  As thin as the story was, they ran it on the front page, above the fold.  Do you think they were trying to influence the election, not on the editorial page, but on the front page?  Once known as the newspaper of record, the New York Times is now a disgrace.

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Hope and Change, Well, Never Mind

by Bill O'Connell on November 28, 2008

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As Barack Obama builds his Administration team you can sense the frustration starting to build on the left and among those who are still paying attention.  In an article in yesterday’s New York Times, Obama Describes Team as Experienced Yet Fresh, you can anticipate the eloquent gymnastics you are about to read as you would watching the young Chinese girls at the Beijing Olympics.

The Perception of Change

As the agent of hope and change, some people are beginning to wonder that if this is so, why is he populating his administration with so many people from the Clinton administration, causing one pundit to ask if we wanted a return to the Clinton Administration we would have voted for Hillary.  The master politician responded to this line of thinking thusly, “Americans would be ‘rightly troubled’ if he overlooked experience to create the perception of change.’”   Let me see if I have this right.  If you actually change, it is a perception of change, but if you don’t change, it is real change?  I got it.

He went on to elaborate, “What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking.  But understand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost:  It comes from me.”  Okay, let me take a hack at that one.  Barack Obama is bringing together all these people with long resumes in government, with years of experience, and confident in knowing what to do and how to do it, but they are all going to follow Barack Obama’s direction and apply fresh thinking to their settled ways.  Or might they say, yeah kid, go back to the Oval Office and we’ll call you when we need you.

The Voice of Experience

Painting the picture further Obama says, “I suspect that you would be troubled and the American people would be troubled if I selected a Treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever.”  But an inexperienced president?  No problem.  Even JFK, who was elected the youngest president in our history, had served one full term in the Senate, was reelected, and was two years into his second term before becoming president.  And he had a pretty rocky time between the Bay of Pigs, his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Viet Nam, in less than three years.  Barack Obama was four years into his first term and half of that time he spent running for president.  Should we not be concerned at the lack of experience at the top?

The Definition of Freshness

To prove his point about the freshness of hope and change, he spoke of Paul Volker.  Now, I think very highly of Paul Volker.  I believe it was he who got inflation under control after the disasterous Carter Administration economic policies.  Obama appointed Volker to lead his economic advisory board.  At 81 years old, he is the epitome of freshness.  How is that you wonder?  Obama masterfully spins it this way, “Paul Volker hasn’t been in Washington for quite some time and that’s part of the reason he can provide a fresh perspective.”  So where does that leave Obama?  Is he stale because he has been in Washington or his he fresh because he has been out campaigning for the last two years?

To cap it off in a question and answer period Obama said, according to the Times, “his [Obama's] call for new ways of thinking on the economy should not be interpreted as a reflection of frustration and disappointment with the Bush administration’s recent economic-recovery efforts.  He signaled his support for the latest $800 billion government bailout plan, which is intended to provide new lending for consumers as well as push down home mortgage rates.”

Anyone Out There Feeling Buyer’s Remorse?

So the purveyor of hope and change wants us all to believe that bringing back the Clinton administration is change; that 81 year old Paul Volker is fresh, but 72 year old John McCain is ancient; that Bush is the cause of all that is wrong with America, but fresh thinking should not be interpreted as frustration with Bush.

My sense has been that Barack Obama was painting himself into a corner.  All the while he believed that with his adroit political and verbal skills he would be able to slip out of the corner unnoticed.

The Democrats have only held the White House for eight of the last twenty-eight years.  So realistically, where else would Obama go for experienced executives?  With no executive experience himself, it’s not like he can bring colleagues in from his past executive positions, like Carter from Georgia, Reagan from California, Clinton from Arkansas, and Bush from Texas.  With only four years in Washington, two of them spent on the road campaigning for president, it’s not like he built a network of experienced executive branch contacts there either.

He is also in the precarious position of having built up expectations so high, there is really no where for his job approval ratings to go, once he takes office, but down.  In addition to all this, he has to watch his left flank.  There are a lot of grumbling noises coming from that direction from a bunch of people with balled up IOUs in their fists, thinking we got you here, where’s the payback?

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