The Knowing Class

RealClearPolitics - The McNamara Mentality

Will hits a home run here. McNamara and BO have a lot in common -- they are both arrogant and intelligent guys that lack that hallmark of wisdom, "epistemological humility". Humility about what is even knowable by anyone that draws breath. Of course McNamara had a lot more experience than BO before he flamed out and helped Kennedy and LBJ get us into 50K+ deaths in Vietnam where we turned tail and ran with no progress. Bob headed Ford, BO made a good shot at getting some asbestos out of an apartment building and only came up a little short.

Here is George's take:

Today, something unsettlingly similar to McNamara's eerie assuredness pervades the Washington in which he died. The spirit is: Have confidence, everybody, because we have, or soon will have, everything -- really everything -- under control.

The apogee of McNamara's professional life, in the first half of the 1960s, coincided, not coincidentally, with the apogee of the belief that behavioralism had finally made possible a science of politics. Behavioralism held -- holds; it is a hardy perennial -- that the social and natural sciences are not so different, both being devoted to the discovery of law-like regularities that govern the behavior of atoms, hamsters, humans, whatever.

Once God is dead, then the hope is that man, via "science" can "settle things" -- as in "settled science" (an oxymoron) for Global Warming, "Quantization of risk" in the markets and all manner of other "science" in every pursuit of mankind. It used to be that when things failed, it was "God's will" -- in today's randomized atheist world, the answer of the profane to the divine seems to be "Shit happens". We have come a "long way".

So paradoxically, we live in an unordered, purposeless, random universe, yet through some fantastic accident, we are "blessed" with the masterful brilliance of BO who somehow possesses all the right "answers" to the unordered "questions" of our troubled world.

McNamara, like many who leave high office, never left the capital of this nation that believes people learn from history, and that therefore history is linear and progressive. But the capital, gripped once again by the audacious hope of mastering everything, would be wise to entertain a shadow of a doubt about that.

Do the masters of the randomly created ordered universe have doubts? How could they? If they did, there might possibly be a God beyond them, and that just won't do at any cost!

Feeling Stimulated?

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Stuttering Stimulus

If the stimulus passed, the White House vowed, unemployment would peak at 8%. Today, it's 9.5% — and rising.

"The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," said
Biden. He used that phrase — "the truth is," or something similar — at
least three times in a talk with ABC's George Stephanopolous. But the
"truth is" something quite different.

Many voices — including ours — were raised in opposition to the
stimulus when it was debated. We didn't "misread" the economy. We knew
from history that, left alone, it would get better without government
meddling.

How many times did we hear that the Surge was a failure before a single extra soldier had been sent over? Hundreds at least. How much do we hear from the MSM about the "stimulus" being a failure? Virtually nothing, and when we do, the statements are usually that "it probably wasn't big enough, we need another one".

Gee, "EVERYONE misread the economy" ... no, they didn't -- BO and the MSM misread the economy.

One Can't Use Bootstraps to Fly?

RealClearMarkets - Get Ready for 14 Percent Unemployment

Say it isn't so! This guy seems to claim that when the government wants to sell trillions in debt, somebody has to buy it! Wow, what a concept! It is really odd to me how when deficits were down in mere 100's of billions with Republicans in the WH, one heard a ton about how the government debt "crowded out" economic development, and how it was "unsustainable". There was some truth to that, but the reason it was never as bad as the MSM liked to make it at that time was the simple issue of SCALE!

If I tell you that I just spent $10K, the only way that number has any real meaning relative to how "serious" that is if you have some idea of my income/wealth. If I'm a college student with little income and little or no assets, then it is HUGE -- if I'm a 50 year old with a decent job, income, savings, it is "real money", but not "lifestyle changing" -- If I'm Warren Buffett, the relative financial impact is less than if you or I decide to buy a penny gumball (if there was such a thing anymore). The old $300B deficits on a $10T economy were about like the 50 year old case -- serious money, but not life changing. High Multi Trillion deficits on a now shrinking GDP are like the college student case -- code red, we are dead!!

The meaning of deficits is RELATIVE to the GDP of the country. The formerly "huge" deficits were all in the 2-4% range of usually quite healthy GDPs. NOW, we have WWII kinds of 60-80% to God knows where % of GDP without any war to blow up the production with!!! Which means that someone is going to have to BUY the "stuff" that gets bought/stimulated. Except none of this "stimulus" is going to people that buy stuff via less taxes or such, it is going to be spent by the Government for "something". But wait -- how are people going to be employed? In Government make-work jobs? How well do you suppose those will pay?  and how much will those folks buy to stimulate the economy? Like basically zero ...

Now, it would be "nice" if China would just buy all our debt -- but then, we are going to have to be SURE to buy EVERYTHING from them so they have all that money to buy our debt. Therefore, NO JOBS!! The odd thing though is that a lot of the Americans that BO is certain are stupid rubes seem to be figuring that it might be better to just SAVE money!!! That actually IS a good idea for the economy long term, it just doesn't do anything to help short term unemployment. Especially when most of the savings is just going into all the government bonds that BO has to sell -- thus the very apt analogy of taking a bucket of water out of the Hudson river and then putting in back in at a different point. Getting a bigger bucket doesn't really do a hell of a lot.

The idea is to live on less than you make and INVEST the extra in something that goes up in value. Before BO and company decided to start buying up the worst of US industry and destroying the rest, that was usually STOCKS! Now it is most likely government bonds -- but unfortunately, those don't really do much to put people to work. At some point, somebody has to DO SOMETHING -- and that usually means risk/reward/competition/innovation/profits -- all that yucky stuff that BO hates.

So, we just tug on our bootstraps and watch the unemployment numbers rise.

Moon Orbiter

U.S. Shoots for the Moon, This Time to Stay - TIME

Good article, having a booster crash land and flying another satellite through the plume to look for water is an interesting approach! Be cool to finally be able to see the landers sitting on the moon. Let's see -- 40 years ago! So I remember that just fine, it would be like a 50 something when I was 12 remembering back to "the crash of '29" -- egads, '29 seemed like ANCIENT history to me when I was in school -- for that matter, WWII seemed like ancient history!

"The moon will essentially walk around underneath the orbiter," says Garvin. "With the detail we get in the photographs, every picture will be like a mini-landing." That includes photos of the Apollo sites, all half-dozen of which should have their portraits snapped. If NASA gets lucky, Garvin believes the first such images could be in hand by the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, on July 20.

Sarah Palin Resigns

Cutting bait - Mark Steyn - The Corner on National Review Online

I have no idea why she made the move, but the sense of it to me was either what Steyn assumes here -- "fed up", or there is some nasty scandal on the horizon that we are going to hear about "soon". If it is about her running for President, then she is just way out of touch. In my opinion, the odds of her being viable were very low, they are nil now.

I think these three paragraphs capture the essence of one of the many serious problems that beset our nation. It borders on the impossible to get anything like the leadership we need in the envioronment that has been created, and it is difficult to see a way forward for leadership that isn't so deformed by special reasons for wanting to lead that they really ought to be disqualified, but unfortuntatly they are are all that is available.

The idea of the left having any actual compassion is really too much to ask if someone has an "R" next to their name. To the left, that "R" is all that can be seen, and the judgement is swift at total. For the American elite, someone that is willing to identify themselves as a Republican has given up their humanity.

Then suddenly you get the call from Washington. You know it'll mean Secret Service, and speechwriters, and minders vetting your wardrobe. But nobody said it would mean a mainstream network comedy host doing statutory rape gags about your 14-year old daughter. You've got a special-needs kid and a son in Iraq and a daughter who's given you your first grandchild in less than ideal circumstances. That would be enough for most of us. But the special-needs kid and the daughter and most everyone else you love are a national joke, and the PC enforcers are entirely cool with it.

Most of those who sneer at Sarah Palin have no desire to live her life. But why not try to - what's the word? - "empathize"? If you like Wasilla and hunting and snowmachining and moose stew and politics, is the last worth giving up everything else in the hopes that one day David Letterman and Maureen Dowd might decide Trig and Bristol and the rest are sufficiently non-risible to enable you to prosper in their world? And, putting aside the odds, would you really like to be the person you'd have to turn into under that scenario?

National office will dwindle down to the unhealthily singleminded (Clinton, Obama), the timeserving emirs of Incumbistan (Biden, McCain) and dynastic heirs (Bush). Our loss.

Senator Ann Coulter Gives Republican's 60 Votes

Franken 'thrilled' after court declares his Senate victory - CNN.com

Suppose the MSM would like my headline? I've read both Ann's and Al's books and they are both bomb throwers of the same vitriol and partisanship, the only difference being which side they are on. The MSM essentially went crazy when the Republicans had both houses of congress and the presidency in 2002-2006. The Democrats had the kind of majority they have now in the '30s and the '60s. As I've said before, it took from '29 - '53 before the DOW went back above it's '29 highs, and it took from '65-'83 before it broke above the level of '65. Welcome to disaster.

Sadly, the Democrats were not near as far left those times as they are now, and I'm not sure we have ever had anyone in the Senate that was as amoral, partisan, and just plain nasty as Al Franken. Even though I live here, MN can now give up all pretensions to "MN Nice". What a crock.

I think Republicans and just reasonable people in general need to realize that there ought to be limits. The problem is that there AREN'T!! What little is left of what used to be America is so far off the road to the left that we put the left wing equivalent of Ann Coulter in the Senate and it gives the Democrats 60 votes! If this shoe was on the other foot, the MSM and the left would be screaming so loud that it would crush all else!!!

Maybe it is time for the "reasonable" to get UNreasonable!!!

Proof of Amorality

Remind me: Which political party is "decadent" and "sick"? | Salon

It is the LEFT that points out the "high standards" of the right as being "hypocritical", and Clinton is always trotted out as the poster child for "see, his affair was not so bad". Of course the issue for Slick really wasn't the "affair" (and only some perverse lefty would call staining a dress an "affair"), it was the fact that he was under investigation for sexual harassment AND he was having a "sexual relationship" with a current employee. McDonald's managers are fired for having sex with employees at work. a) the job description doesn't include sex at work and b). it's illegal under federal harassment statutes that BILL CLINTON signed into law!!!

The other major league Democrat is of course Teddy Kennedy. Now he KILLED his date, and last I checked, he was STILL in the Senate, and murder was worse than "having an affair". Teddy even came close to getting the Democrat Presidential nod AFTER killing his date, personally, I don't think Sanford has much chance of being elected as a Republican again. John Edwards? The media knew all about his affair for a long time, and since he is a "D", it was a non-story until it was obvious that he was not going to be the nominee.

So does Christianity guarantee freedom from sin? Nope, unfortunately it doesn't even guarantee that the the Christian is "better" than others from the point of view of "earthly judgment". In the Christian view, the important issue is eternity, not the heartbeat spent in this veil of tears anyway. Does that mean "sin boldly"? Absolutely not, but it does mean that we have to TRY for Gods standards and accept that we are sinners -- something that the left generally finds completely abhorrent.

So Gingrich has "retained his position"? Huh? Was he Speaker up until the Republicans lost the majority? Not in my universe. As far as I know, the Ensign affair is just out. Will he survive? I don't know -- I suspect that will be up to the voters. Did anyone say that Senators ought to lose their jobs for affairs?

I guess I would question how he "knows" that Spitzer or Edwards will "never be candidates again"? Is he saying that it IS a good idea to hold up having affairs or paying prostitutes as a "lifetime loss of viability"? But then what about Teddy? or Barney Frank for that matter? Is the Democrat party now setting up a standard by which they WOULD say that Slick Willie and Teddy ought to lose their jobs over sexual dalliances or murder?? I guess if we really do have a change of tune here and are not competing on which party HOLDS to the highest standards, then it is a whole new ballgame.

By the way, while Vitter, Ensign, Gingrich and perhaps Sanford have been able to retain their positions and political viability, the same cannot be said for the most recent offenders on the progressive side. Neither Eliot Spitzer nor John Edwards, each among the most promising figures in the Democratic Party, will ever be a candidate for public office again, although their misbehavior was no worse than what their Republican counterparts did.

If they looked honestly at themselves, religious conservatives might notice that they are morally lax, socially permissive and casually tolerant of moral deviancy -- just like the liberals they despise. So as they wonder aloud why the same salacious nightmare haunts them, year after year, the best advice they can get happens to come from that old sinner Clinton. As he so often says, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different outcome.

The Last Best Hope

The subject book by Joe Scarborough is subtitled "Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise". I like Joe in general and I think the book decently written. He quotes Burke, Russel Kirk's "Conservative Mind", Reagan, and Bill Buckley -- all minds that I respect a lot.

Chapter 9, "The Gipper's Greatest Lesson" is in my view the key "right on" message of the book. If we are going to have a "Conservative/Republican/Libertarian/Constrained" renaissance, then we are going to HAVE to have a solid, simple and POSITIVE message! Lord knows there are PLENTY of basics to build off -- investment vs borrowing, having less than perfectly followed morals vs none, belief in the American People vs remote and massive government, ... the list could go on and on. But if it isn't positive, forget it -- Reagan had that right.

As to the message of the rest of the book -- the facts are right. Way too many entitlements we can't pay, way too much debt from all sources, way too much willingness to put off until tomorrow that which has a strong chance to end our nation. There are good messages there, but I get an uncomfortable feeling that even though Joe has read all the right stuff, at his core he is too much of a compromiser. The line between winning with a smile and giving away the store in the support of comity can be a narrow one. I'm not sure I trust Joe to tap dance down it.

I have no problem with his basic idea that "conservatives conserve", but signing up with the Global Warming team because "that battle is lost" sounds too much like leaving being "reality based" behind and deciding that "truth doesn't matter". That seems like a bridge too far. It is too easy to squander hundreds of billions, whole industries and millions of jobs on government wishful thinking relative to climate. There is a very good reason why all the "progressives" are signed up for it -- it allows them to politicize everything in your life including the odss that your toilet is going to flush (federally mandated reduced flow toilets).

If leaving the truth behind is price to pay for getting in power again, it sounds like Joe is willing to say "go for it" -- I'm not at all sure that I'm there, even if it is obvious that BO is a horrible alternative. I think that is one of the other reasons that I balk -- Joe is pretty willing to castigate the Republican majority and Bush administration for falling prey to the ways of Washington. While they are certainly guilty as charged, if the "Republican 2.0" model comes out as against SUVs and believing in Global Warming isn't that pretty much just a version of "branding over substance"?

Sadly, I think our problems are even deeper than Joe's diagnosis. They didn't start with the Republican majority and Bush, they started with Reagan if not before. Reagan supported the Ponzi scheme of FICA in a big way with massive taxes -- TRUELY the "largest tax increase in history", and one that keeps on growing. It can't save a broken program though, and a party that seeks to be reality based can't ignore that fact.

The road to bankruptcy led through Reagan -- although it is longer than even that. The idea that it was somehow moral to pass massive federal debt on to succeeding generations is one of the core pieces of reality that has to be taken on directly. The truth needs no "rebranding", and neither does reality. I'm not sure that Republicans can be that party, but we desperately need one!

I recommend the book -- it isn't perfect, but it is an easy read that covers some key pieces that people need to know.

Glenn Beck's Common Sense

The subject book is currently on the bestseller lists and driving the left crazy, which means it can't be all bad. There is nothing "wrong" with the book, I just don't particularly like his style, but the message is more or less fine -- in my opinion he may be too hard on politicians! I know that is hard to believe for readers of this blog, but Joe Scarborough's Mom has a good point -- "you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar", and I fear that in our mourning over the direction that America has fallen, too many Republicans have switched to vinegar. Let the left be angry, we have too much to be thankful for to be angry! They can kill home, country, friends, family, and fortune, but they can't take faith, so our lot is still better than theirs even in death.

The book covers pretty much the factual litany -- out of control spending, the loss of individual freedoms, the Ponzi scheme we can't pay for of FICA and Medicare, the way the tax code is used to reward cronies and punish political "enemies", investing in dubious pollution ideas over people, the horror of gerrymandering ... etc.

It's all true, it is all sad -- I just don't really see a plan for action in it and worry that Beck is going to create more eneimies than he does converts to the cause. But, I may well be wrong on that, so if you don't think you have a full bead on just how bad things are, it isn't very long and it covers a broad spectrum of the current disaster.

No Morality Is Better

Op-Ed Columnist - Genius in the Bottle - NYTimes.com

Maureen makes it clear, the problem is "sanctimony and Republicans", certainly not bad behavior.

The Republican Party will never revive itself until its sanctimonious pantheon — Sanford, Gingrich, Limbaugh, Palin, Ensign, Vitter and hypocrites yet to be exposed — stop being two-faced.

So why is it that Palin is hypocrite? Daughter getting pregnant? I really don't know, but actually, I agree, she IS a hypocrite and Maureen is not. Maureen has successfully subscribed to that difficult position of absolute amorality -- there is nothing she could do that would show she has somehow acted against her principles, since she has none! It is a solution that certainly "works", yet I fail to see that it is the superior one.

The alternative is as Maureen points out -- to have morals, standards and principles and to almost certainly fall short of them -- sometimes horribly and publicly, sometimes in small and private ways. All those with standards bear that burden of hypocrasy, and usually not all that lightly.

I see the benefit of Maureens position relative to ease, but somehow it seems that it has it's own price. Sure, there is the enjoyment of bashing those with standards when they fail, but where is the joy in your own libertine existance? Is it only that vicarious pleasure in pointing the failings of others relative to their standards? or do you take joy at pushing some new boundary in your own unfettered world? Is it even "cheating" when one has no morals at all? Does breaking some old tired standard held by prudish (and almost certainly hypocritical) others gain the standard of "virtue"?

I'm sure I lack the sophistication that it takes to even understand that liberal thought nirvana where no standards reign and those that hold any are cretins whose failings are to be gloated over with a sort of joy in the misfortune of others that is in itself enough to give human nature a bad name to those of us too small minded to leave all thought of morals behind.

BO's Persian Education

Obama's Persian Tutorial - WSJ.com

Good article, I found the ending to particularly insightful. First paragraph is very important. If the MSM isn't going to make sure that our new failed community organizer gets educated on world affairs, he is just going to go on being a fool. What history is it that BO thinks he remembers? The one in the first paragraph is the one I lived through. If only the BO problem was as soluble as the Jimmuh problem. Wishful thinking. Carter was a simpleton from Plains, the elite didn't revere him as a messiah and there isn't a Reagan waiting in the wings that I can see. No, this debacle has already far exceeded the Jimmuh disaster economically -- I just pray it doesn't result in the loss of 100's of thousands or worse of American lives in a nuke or chemical attack.

Days into his presidency, it should be recalled, Mr. Obama had spoken of his desire to restore to America's relation with the Muslim world the respect and mutual interest that had existed 30 or 20 years earlier. It so happened that he was speaking, almost to the day, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution -- and that the time span he was referring to, his golden age, covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American standoff with Libya, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Liberal opinion would have howled had this history been offered by George W. Bush, but Barack Obama was granted a waiver.

Little more than three decades ago, Jimmy Carter, another American president convinced that what had come before him could be annulled and wished away, called on the nation to shed its "inordinate fear of communism," and to put aside its concern with "traditional issues of war and peace" in favor of "new global issues of justice, equity and human rights." We had betrayed our principles in the course of the Cold War, he said, "fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is quenched with water." The Soviet answer to that brave, new world was the invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979.

Mr. Carter would try an atonement in the last year of his presidency. He would pose as a born-again hawk. It was too late in the hour for such redemption. It would take another standard-bearer, Ronald Reagan, to see that great struggle to victory.

Iran's ordeal and its ways shattered the Carter presidency. President Obama's Persian tutorial has just begun.

People Who Disagree are Crazy and Dangerous

Roger’s Rules » Announcing the Save Frank Rich Society

I've commented on the left view that there is only one sane and intelligent view of the universe (theirs) and those that disagree are by definition either incredibly foolish/uninformed, or flat out insane. Here we have more of that from slightly different sources.

Safer With BO?

Gates: U.S. ready for North Korea missile - CNN.com

There are few stories getting less air play than the North Korean threat to put an ICBM "close to Hawaii' sometime in the July 4-10 period,  but at least CNN is acknowledging that "something is up". It is hard to imagine how the North Korean government could show much less respect for BO than if they just nuke Honolulu -- I'm nearly sure he would find that "unhelpful" and he might given them a "stern warning", or potentially go so far as to have the UN give them another "stern warning". Say what you want, that BO is one tough cookie!

Nice to have a media so much enslaved to you that even when the military is deploying missle defense systems that they have been consistently against and claimed to be useless (as has BO), they don't point out the foolishness of that!!Why deploy what you swear doesn't work, and what would not exist at all if you have your way?

Punish Success, Regulate Risk, Reward Failure

Too Big to Fail, or Succeed - WSJ.com

Those of the unconstrained mental model believe that a centrally managed beauracracy can produce "moderate everything" -- no success that is too big, no risks that are too scary, and no failures that harm any.

His plan, if adopted, will fundamentally change the nature of our financial system and economy. The underlying concerns and assumptions are clear, and they are made clearer by considering other ways that his administration has dealt with the consequences of competition -- particularly the faux bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler and the impending change in antitrust policy. Although the president said in his speech that he supports free markets, these initiatives confirm that the administration fears the "creative destruction" that free markets produce, preferring stability over innovation, competition and change.

In the lefty BO world, nobody would love and lose, death would certainly be outlawed and all our children would be "above average". True, we would need to regulate out the Jordans, Woods, and Favres, but "small price" for a "fairer, blander, better managed" world.

But what about BO? Would not the world be a less wonderful place in the lefty's eyes without the brilliance and startling leadership of their blessed BO? Certainly they have to allow for SOME to rise above the grayish plain of post-leveling "fair existence"?

Cheerleading for Red Ink

IBDeditorials.com: Editorials, Political Cartoons, and Polls from Investor's Business Daily -- Media's Mask Is Slipping As Deficits Surge

The "media's mask is SLIPPING?" ... ha. When did they have any "mask" other than complete cheerleaders for the BO National Socialist parade?? While the MSM provides hours and hours of supportive time for the leftward slide into a deep deep ditch, the Democrats flirt with the idea that ANY opposition voice is too much! Get rid of Fox News, get rid of Rush Limbaugh! ANY voice of anything but the party line is just too DANGEROUS!