I’ve been lurking around politics since the election. I haven’t been really engaged, that’s all. I mean, I didn’t have a dog in the fight, really, so I couldn’t get too worked up about it and Obama was going to win in a lansdlide over McCain, whether he suspended his campaign to help spend us into Republican endorsed oblivion or not, so what’s the big deal?

Now, though, we are seeing what a real tax and spend agent of change can do! Whatever the muddy middle thought of Obama’s talk of moderation and middle-class tax cuts, they’re getting an eyeful of the real deal, these days.

In the past few years I have kvetched and complained and railed about the big spending policies of our Republican President, knowing all along that he was still a spendthrift compared to the other party’s hopefuls.  Wow! I never imagined this level of spending or this level of government involvement in…well, everything!

There are those who see nothing wrong with the government running a failing business in the interests of the taxpayer-bailers. Then again, there are those that think it’s entirely appropriate to talk about the Constitution when proposing a bill that would set limits for the pay of any employee in the company! Mr. Alan Grayson (D-FLA) does just that in truly numbskulled fashion. Watch this video from Fox News, where Neil Cavuto rips him a new one, appropriately. He actually tries to tell Cavuto how the constitution works, citing “due process and equal protection”, “That’s all the Constitution says”, claims this elected Representative of the State of Florida. Floridians, you should be about as proud of this moron as you are of Debbie Wasserman Schultz!

Who allowed…nay, wrote the provision in the actual bill that guaranteed the AIG execs get their bonuses? Why Congress, of course. So isn’t it a bit, oh…hypocritical for these nitwits to blame CEOs and their greed for this “problem”? Chris Dodd wrote the provision, although he wouldn’t admit it for two or three days after the word got out. Why? Maybe because he also knew something we didn’t know at the time: he had accepted campaign donations in the amount of $103,000 from various AIG executives! Yeah, the kind of greedy bastards that got the bonuses! Oh, yeah, Obama took even more ($130,000), while talking about ending lobbying and the evil Republican way of doing things…he, he, he! To be fair, McCain took some and Romney as well-this is an across the board phenomenon.

But that’s not all, on the Dodd front. He actively asked for money from AIG in 2006, saying (basically) that he was about to be given the powerful chairmanship of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee and would be ever so grateful for the dough. He got it, too. Over $160,000 came in tout suite! Cut to 2008 and see how that paid off for those execs, eh? Check the Washington Times for the actual wording of the memo sent to AIG execs by  Joseph Cassano, AIG Financial Products chief executive, in support of the Senator’s campaign.

Is this the era of transparency we were promised? Is this the “change” everyone voted for? Nope.

The really scary thing, though, is the way they are taking power. This is the biggest power-grab in US history. There is simply nothing beyond the ken of the government, anymore. We all thought the GWOT was a crisis that allowed the government to grab more and more of our freedoms (and we were right about that, by the way), but this crisis-mongering makes Bush/Cheney look like pikers!

Oh well. I’ll be watching and lurking and may even comment once in a while but I really just wish they’d all just leave things alone…just for a while…

In reality, George W. Bush did almost exactly the opposite on all of these promises, didn’t he? Acknowledging  that the attacks of 9/11 (because I certainly realize <i>that</i> was a game changer) made foreign entanglements a bit of a necessity, he still failed miserably in all of his other aims. And it wasn’t simply because of the partisan stooges that opposed him at every turn in the Congress, either. This President ran as a conservative. He said he was going to govern as a conservative. He quite simply did nothing of the sort. Leaving aside his partnering with Ted Kennedy on the No Child Left Behind Act as well as his inablity to veto the many wasteful, government-growing bills Congress sent him over the first six years of his two-term Presidency, look at his behavior recently. He pushed for the panic-driven, mortgage bailout in spite of the people’s opposition. He continues to present big government solutions to problems created by big government every day!

Now, in response to a President (and a Party) that has been nearly indistinguishable from the liberal Democrats, the GOP has presented John McCain as their candidate. In the face of a financial crisis that was caused by liberal Democrats, in spite of warnings from regulators and Republicans (who were demonized as racists, at the time), McCain proposes to buy up “those bad mortgages” with our tax dollars! This is his proud liberal, er, conservative solution! Leaving aside the question of what is a bad mortgage, why would a conservative pose a big government solution to a problem cause by big government? And, why doesn’t McCain tell the people the truth about this “crisis”? Well, partly because he wouldn’t know the  truth if it slapped him upside the head, but that’s another story.

Franklin Raines, Maxine Waters, Barney Franks and several other liberal Democrats, Leftist community organizations (ACORN, anyone?), and Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae employees caused this crisis over the past ten years or so, while calling anyone who opposed their schemes (to give bad loans to bad credit risks) racists. It is the banks that bought up these risky investments that are also to blame. They don’t have a thing to worry about, though, because McCain and the Republicans are just as willing to bail them out as their friends the Democrats. They want to follow the example of the European countries, (who, by the way, are in the same trouble as this country, despite much more stringent regulation-how could that be? I thought it was the Republicans pushing deregulation that caused this mess!) and slide this great nation towards socialism. Barack Obama is a perfect candidate for this position but McCain is a close second!

Imagine a candidate that told the truth. Imagine a candidate that, when faced with the obvious lies of the opposition, did not side-step towards the muddy middle, but attacked the wrong-headed ideologies of the Left with facts and figures. Imagine a party that had the best interests of this country at heart, instead of gaining or consolidating Power. Imagine a conservative candidate running for the Republicans. Now, realize that it won’t be happening any time soon.

As clearly dangerous as it seems, perhaps the best thing for this nation is a four year term for Barack Hussein Obama. Maybe after that debacle-if there is a nation left-we can elect the type of government we need.

The Republicans in Congress have been as much asleep on this issue as the Democrats (though, they have not been so intent on destroying the economy for shaky environmental reasons as, for instance Nancy Pelosi) but they saw the nerve this issue twanged with the public and jumped on it fairly quickly. To placate their global warming obsessed base, the Democrats responded to this campaign with a resounding, “No”. The main response was a (sounding ever so reasonable, like a parent explaining to child why they really can’t have a pony), “Tsk, tsk tsk. You can’t drill your way out of this mess”! Some, predictably, tried to blame the energy crisis on Bush and his “failed policies”. Many blamed it on “oil speculators”, who are profiting off the fears of the American people. A funny thing happened, though, when President Bush finally caught ahold of the issue. On the very day he announced the lift of the Executive moratorium on off shore drilling, oil prices plummeted more than 5$ a barrel! See, even the possibility of future oil supply being increased caused the supply and demand engine to move! That’s what speculation does to prices and it’s a good thing.

Yesterday, in the House of Representatives, a pretty interesting thing happened. A check of the news will probably not yield any mention of it. On Google News, the only congressional-related “news” worthy of their front page, was an AP article heralding the Democrats for trying to overcome years of Republican neglect in relation to…you guessed it, the children! A check of other news sites yielded much the same non-reportage. This is unfortunate because the actions of a few Republican Representatives, in response to the reprehensible behavior of the Democrat leadership of the House, was inspiring, to say the least.

Nancy Pelosi, who has stated that she is “trying to save the planet” (to some liberal applause, it seems), has stubbornly refused to allow a vote on any bill that would decide-up or down- whether to lift the ban on off-shore drilling or indeed to promote more drilling anywhere in the U.S. This is itself a despicable assault on free speech and honest debate in Congress, especially from one who claimed, as the first female Speaker of history, that she would pledge “to make this Congress the most honest and open in history”. How open is a debate where, while your opponent is speaking you gavel him down and turn the microphones off, as well as the lights?

Former Speaker Gingrich started this debate. He is a credentialed intellectual, a college history professor, a prolific author and a political consultant. The man has bona fides, gravitas. He is a student and teacher of history. When he speaks, one knows he is listening to a man of intellect and character. Nancy Pelosi, on the other hand, seems more interested in lead paint in toys (admittedly important but certainly there are very few provable casualties of this latest public health “disaster” than, say, people who drown in buckets of water…) than financial and energy freedom for Americans. This Speaker is more interested in the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, fast friend of Fidel Castro, than in the history we need to know in order to avoid repeating. She is more interested in scoring points against the Bush White House and Republicans (and both, as in McCain = Third Bush term) than in the cause of bipartisanship she loudly proclaimed at becoming Speaker.  She is a disgrace. And she proved it yesterday in the House.

I was thinking about that concept and how it relates to so many other political issues in our time (Iraq War, Patriot Act, Immigration Reform, Gun Control, etc.), when I received an email from the Obama Campaign, asking for donations. This campaign is itself one of the most emotional and least rational of any I’ve ever experienced. I wondered if fear and irrational hatred might sweep Obama into the Presidency.

I guess this concept of irrationality also encompasses the “cult of personality” concept, doesn’t it? Barry certainly has achieved that status. Here is a candidate that announced recently that he was going to accept the nomination on the final day of the Democrat Party’s National Convention. That in itself is a departure from all of the previous candidates I’ve ever seen. Isn’t Obama still the presumptive Presidential nominee? A bit presumptive of him to announce that he will accept said nomination on the final day of the convention, isn’t it?

He also announced in the video accompanying the donation pitch, that he wants as many supporters as possible to be present when the announcement of the nominee is made (after all, the party that holds fast to ideas such as “Super Delegates”, would want anyone left out or treated as less than equal, right?). So they are going to move the entire convention to a stadium for that final historic day. I’m sure Obama will have his new presidential shield placed in an appropriately advantageous spot for this occasion.

Even if this candidate was suitably prepared to seek the Presidency, I would have to conclude that the hysteria involving his candidacy (Hope and Change being emotional concepts)and the manner in which he and the party continue to play upon voters fears and hatred (of Bush and McCain’s Third Bush Term), illustrates a need for a pause and a reflection before jumping into the feel good flow. Post a Danger sign: Here there be Hype.

Oh, the title of the blog refers to a statement made by Benjamin Franklin in 1787. After debating the new form of government at the constitutional convention for some months, Franklin was leaving the hall and was approached by a Mrs. Powell (that’s all I know about the lady), who asked him, “Well Doctor, what have we got a republic or a monarchy?” His answer was, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” I hope we can…

Here is a recent article I wrote in Beer and Firkins:

OK, people, here we go again! All you’re gonna hear about (at least from the Clinton faction) is that “every vote must count”. You’ll be hearing about disenfranchisement of different segments of the community and how the sanctity of our democratic process rests on the “one person, one vote” principle. All of this because of the I-75 corridor cancellation. Michigan and Florida failed to play by the DNC rules and held their primaries early. The candidates agreed to follow the rules and not campaign in those two states. No one figured the vote (and elector) totals would be this close and actually make those two states…important. Oh well, now they are. They could be so at any time. So, really, isn’t the calendar placement of each state’s primary a wash? More on this later…

Essentially, the entire problem rises from the idea that the primary system unfairly boosts the importance of the states whose primaries occur the earliest. Historically these are Iowa and New Hampshire, with a few others thrown in over the years. The argument (and it’s a good one) is that these states enjoy an importance far beyond their meager populations in paring down the number of candidates early in the primary races. I see nothing wrong with this but most do. The Founders did not plan on our nation being infatuated with “democracy” when they crafted our Constitution. They warned specifically against the tyranny of popular opinion. The idea that some of the less populous states might have more power than their population dictates would not have fazed them in the least. In fact that is the entire reason behind such facets of our system as the electoral college and the assignation of at least one U.S. Representative per state, regardless of population.

We are a nation of laws. That was the lesson of the 2000 debacle in Florida. The laws were violated by the Florida Supreme Court in favor of the argument that our government is a democracy. The Florida Supreme Court knelt at the altar of “the will of the people” and decided that that concept overruled the law. Even the U.S. Supreme Court failed to firmly establish the fact that this concept is unfounded. It is not the will of the people-in the form of a popular vote-that decides our governmental makeup. We are a republic, not a democracy.

The rule in the primary system-and I would be happy to entertain arguments that the entire primary system is wrong and serves to do nothing but maintain the power of the two dominant political parties, but that argument is for another day-is that you follow the party and their rules for the primaries. When Michigan and Florida violated those rules, they were told their delegates would not be seated. “Well, they won’t really do that”, said the party faithful in those states. “They can’t do that, it would disenfranchise all those voters”, said the pundits. So they went right ahead and had their primaries early. They never expected them to count for much anyway, it was the principle of the thing, you know. They WILL take Michigan and Florida seriously in the next election, by golly!

Now, I understand that there is a good argument that this primary process does not necessarily give Michigan and Florida their due. But the outcome in this year’s process is the exception that disproves that point. You can’t have it your way every time. Now what do we have? I love the fact that this mess is stirring up dissension in the ranks of the Democrats, because I disagree with their agenda on almost every point, but it could just as well have been the Republicans who were in this mess. Then I would have been upset. Of course, with a candidate like John McCain, I’m not sure the Republicans have a candidate in the race, but that, too is another argument for another day. The point is that we didn’t play by the rules, the rules were explained to us before we changed our primary dates, and we did it anyway.

Look at the deliciousness of this situation! Those people who most favor the idea that “every vote should count” and that we have a duty to ensure that no voter is disenfranchised (including felons, illegals and dead people), are actually hollering for disenfranchisement! Obama’s folks think the results should stand and those delegates from Florida and Michigan should not count. He is winning without them and counting them would only hurt his position. Hillary-the only person on the ballot in Michigan-wants those votes, even though she agreed not to campaign in Michigan and (it could be argued) shouldn’t have even had her name on the ballot. We all know that a Clinton is not beyond quibbling over the definition of “is”, if it might benefit their political ambitions.

Watching Debra Wasserman Schultz and Debbie Dingell on Fox News Sunday this morning was so much fun! First of all, is there a congressperson any more dingbatty than Ms. Wasserman Schultz? I would put her against anybody for the least rational, most ditzy congressperson award. Thank you, people of Florida, for electing this entertaining goof! I don’t watch American Idol, so I appreciate a good laugh every now and then and watching her squirm over trying to sound dignified and reasonable in debating this situation was much better than watching the latest untalented hack get reamed by Simon! In contrast, Debbie Dingell looked reasoned and intelligent! People, if a popular vote can elect people such as Debra Wasserman Schultz, is that not in itself an argument against such a system?

Obama is going to be forced to argue against seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida. He is going to argue FOR disenfranchisement! Should be fun! Hillary is going to be forced to argue that blacks and young white college students in those two states should not have a place at the table of national politics. That should be fun! What will be the compromise in this decision? What Solomon-like carving can make both sides “happy”? Is a “win-win” even possible? I would argue that it isn’t, because people are under the impression that the mechanism of the vote is the same as on American Idol. The most votes wins. I’m sure most people think that is not only morally right but also technically and legally correct. Well, it ain’t.

Here’s a novel idea and one that you WILL NOT hear anyone arguing for; not in this age of “every vote must count”, anyway: Why don’t the Democrats allow the two state legislatures to elect their electoral college electors? That’s the way it was originally meant to be, anyway. It would be a return to original intent. It would allow the people’s elected representatives to choose the electors who will vote for their President and Vice President. Article II, Section I: “Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.” What could be more fair and true to the concepts set down in our Constitution?
Oh, wait a minute. We’re talking about the Democrats, here…
Never mind.