Last Huck-a-Whack of 2007

It seems the Governor's play of "we have this awesome negative ad that shows what a lying, cheating, fornicating weasel my opponent Mitt Romney is, but we are way too nice to show it" has not been well-received.

I come to whack the Governor, not bury him. His response lists the positive things he stands for:

I believe in the Human Life Amendment and will work tirelessly for it's passage.

I believe the FairTax is the best way to unleash our economy in the 21st century.

I believe and have always supported the passage of a federal constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

I believe we must secure our borders, end amnesty and end sanctuary cities.

I believe our country must be energy independent.

I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. Radical Islamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life.

I believe in the Surge.

And I believe that Americans aren't interested in politics that divide us, they want their leaders to focus on what will lift them up and make things better.

I almost forgot that today in the face of the withering barrage of criticism we have endured over the last few weeks from my rivals. I say almost, because our negative ad won't run.

I know we believe in the same things. It is these things, these ideas, that have bound us together in this campaign for President. These ideas are why you first became interested in me and these ideas are why I am running for President. Let everyone know, that we are campaigning for these ideas and that we are working overtime to lift America up.

• I believe in the possessive version of "its" and will work tirelessly to promote it's [sic] proper use. (Cheap shot from a guy who types like me, but he has staff!)


• I'll pass on the life Amendment. I'll work to overturn Roe v Wade, but then let's leave it to the States.


• I believe consumption taxes would have been a better choice. If I get a time machine, I'll go back to 1908 and campaign for it. Considering the 16th Amendment, I give up. Maybe it's the way Governor Huckabee tells the story, but I find I have lost interest.


• I believe government should be less involved in marriage, not more.


• I believe the market should dictate energy use, I'm not going to grow my own food, I don't expect my country to generate all of its energy.


• I believe that we are currently engaged in a world war. Radical Islamic fascists have declared war on our country and our way of life. And I believe in the surge, making me two-for-two with the Governor. Yet how does this comport with his claim that the chief prosecutor of the war and the ultimate commander of the Surge has "damaged this country with a bunker mentality?"


• I believe I should probably lay off the Governor, and engage in a more positive and uplifting blogging experience.

Good Economic News for 2007

Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute has a list of the Top 10 pieces of Happy Economic News in 2007.

Hat-tip: Samizdata

You Say You Want a Revolution?

Rep. Ron Paul graces the cover of Reason magazine this month, and the good Doctor gets a positive story inside by Brian Dougherty. The Wall Street Journal reports that the campaign raised $19 million in the fourth quarter.

I have been dismissive of the campaign, suggesting that the support has been quirky. I called the one-day fundraising records "gimmicks." After reading the Reason article, it occurs to me that I need to address why I will not be joining the Ron Paul Revolution. In a way, I have been waiting many years for such a candidate. "I don't want to run your life. I don't want to run the world." Shrink the government to its Constitutional size and purview. Why am I not onboard?

I guess my problem is the Constitution that Rep. Paul so ably defends. I agree with Paul on 80% of the issues. I agree with President George Bush on far less, I agree with Mayor Giuliani on less. Don't you pick the candidate with whom you most agree?

I'd open Ron's well-thumbed Constitution to Article I. The things with which I disagree most are clearly under Executive power. President Paul could close all our bases in the MidEast between Jell-O shots at the first Inauguration Ball. (This is not to say that he would drink Jell-O shots or close all our bases, but he could.)

President Nixon took us off Bretton Woods; I'm guessing that President Paul could put us back on a gold peg by Executive Order or indirectly through his nomination of a Fed Chairman. So, he takes a break from the nude Twister® game at the second Inaugural Ball, and he has already instituted the two policies I object to. We've withdrawn from the War on Terror and gone mettalist. And Sally Quinn is still sober! (This is not to say that President Paul would be playing nude Twister at an Inaugural Ball, but he could!)

The hangovers have worn off, and President Paul takes the rest of his ambitious agenda (the 80% I like) to the 111th Congress. He sits down with Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi and explains "we’re going to stop collecting taxes and paying welfare." "We're going to take all the young people off Social Security, Harry." "We're going to stop SCHIP, Nancy, It's not constitutional."

Am I the only one who remembers the howls from the AARP and the Republican controlled Congress when President Bush asked "Pretty please, could we take a couple of percent of young workers' withholdings for private accounts?" How about when President Bush wanted to expand SCHIP by only $35 billion." Dead. On. Arrival. He could veto some bills, but the 535 wanna-be-incumbents would plow him down.

All the stuff I don't want, none of what I do.

Cui Bono?

A good friend of ThreeSources sends a link to this WaPo story and wonders whom it will hurt. My Latin isn't up to that, so I wonder who will benefit.

New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, a potential independent candidate for president, has scheduled a meeting next week with a dozen leading Democrats and Republicans, who will join him in challenging the major-party contenders to spell out their plans for forming a "government of national unity" to end the gridlock in Washington.

Those who will be at the Jan. 7 session at the University of Oklahoma say that if the likely nominees of the two parties do not pledge to "go beyond tokenism" in building an administration that seeks national consensus, they will be prepared to back Bloomberg or someone else in a third-party campaign for president.

Conveners of the meeting include such prominent Democrats as former senators Sam Nunn (Ga.), Charles S. Robb (Va.) and David L. Boren (Okla.), and former presidential candidate Gary Hart. Republican organizers include Sen. Chuck Hagel (Neb.), former party chairman Bill Brock, former senator John Danforth (Mo.) and former New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman.

I guess it depends on the final candidate list, but I think this tends to hurt the Democrats. It's an escape valve for those who do not care for Senator Clinton (just last week I encountered two very liberal Democrats who said they cannot support her), and if Senator Obama gets the nomination, a Bloomberg run would bleed off the "nice guy" vote.

The social conservatives and the economic conservatives are unlikely to find a home in a Bloomberg-Hagel ticket. We'll see how many antiwar Republicans there are, but I am guessing that is not a huge plurality.

Who loses? Those who send money to this doomed enterprise. Who wins? David Harsanyi -- sales of his Nanny State book should soar -- Mayor Bloomberg gets quite a few pages.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg links to a David Weigel post that projects a GOP victory if Bloomberg spoils NY for the Democrats and Ohio and Florida for the Republicans. Interstin'...

Predictions?

With the Iowa caucuses taking place on Thursday, I thought that it would be fun (ex post, with a great deal of laughing) for bloggers and readers to make predictions about the results of the Iowa caucus as well as the ultimate nominations. While I am usually pretty good at predicting presidential victories, I am terrible at these types of predictions and thus this should provide some entertainment. With that being said, here are my predictions:

Caucus results:

Dems:
1. Obama
2. Clinton
3. Edwards

GOP:
1. Romney
2. Huckabee
3. Thompson

(Upset special: Ron Paul will do better in Iowa than Rudy)

...with Clinton and Romney emerging as the ultimate candidates for their respective parties.

Post your predictions in the comments...

Review Corner

A couple of good books.

Nanny State: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists, and other Boneheaded Bureaucrats are Turning America into a Nation of Children by David Harsanyi: the title says it all.

Harsanyi collects a diverse crew. They cover a wide political spectrum, but each wants to impede your freedom. From the "No Running!" sign on the kids' playground, to trans-fat bans, he gives a consistent voice for freedom and personal responsibility. I don't think much of the information will be new to ThreeSourcers, although I was interested in the "scope creep" of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and new, zero-tolerance laws that criminalize driving with any measurable blood alcohol content.

One senses Haranyi is preaching to the choir. Still it is amusing, well paced, and chock full of outrageous examples. I give it four stars.

New Monetarism by David Roche and Bob McKee.

I purchased this based on a WSJ Editorial Roche wrote a few weeks ago. It made a lot of sense to me and I wanted to read more. ThreeSources friend Perry Eidlebus pronounced it "a steaming pile of bull." I'd like to buy Perry, and perhaps the Everyday Economist, a copy for a late Christmas present. As proof of disinflation, the book was $10.50 when I bought it, but it is now available for $9.61. It is a small, 80 page paperback -- about as long as an article in City Journal.

But he speaks to something I have long believed and argued on this blog. The existence of "disinflation" and the creation of money supra-central-banks. The diagram on the front speaks to a continuing argument 'round these parts. The bottom of the "liquidity pyramid" is money created by central banks, the next level shows the multiplier of fractional reserve banking, then money created by securitized debt, and lastly the multiplier of derivatives. Though a quick read, it is well documented.

Roche and McKee give voice (and documentation) to the Kudlow-Laffer school, but the authors do not share their sunny optimism. Their concepts of disinflation and their expanded view of liquidity comport, but Roche and McKee expect a cataclysmic bubble burst because so much of this liquidity is based on risk appetite, and that a small correction could bring the entire structure down.

I hate to take all their cheery predictions without the bad, but I think that they discount the fundamental point of derivatives, namely, getting risk into the hands of those that can best accept it. Roche and McKee advise (and let me be clear, this book is positioned more toward investment advice than economics) you to go long volatility. I wonder if they are ignoring the effect of instruments that would allow you to do so.

Interesting. Quick read, Three-and-a-half. Email me an address if you want me send you a copy.

Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism

I have not bought it, so what is it doing in Review Corner?

One of the Kos kids wants to Googlebomb the book, guiding searchers to negative reviews. To prove I can be just as childish, I offer links to this corner post, this PowerLine review, and this Instapundit post. So there, Kossaks!

I will likely buy the book and do a real Review Corner, maybe if my new Amazon Kindle® ever ships. ('Twas a very Merry Christmas for me!)

At Least it Wasn't Marlburos...

When is a scandal not a scandal? Maybe when a company provides advice to another company selling a legal product.

Mayor Giuliani was on Kudlow & Co, last night. Too bad for him, Larry is off this week. CNBC's John Harwood was auditioning for Chris Matthews's job, asking Hizzoner several questions about this NY Times report. Pretty damning stuff: "Under Attack, Drug Maker Turned to Giuliani for Help."

I think Purdue Pharma was just exercising its Constitutional right to PR (Article VIII, Paragraph xix). The Times, and Harwood, feel that some abuse of a painkiller precludes any responsible people working for the company. I had to go searching for this story this morning to see what he was talking about. Nobody else was talking about it because it is a non-story.

Bad enough to manufacture a scandal against a political candidate, it's part and parcel of the war against the pharmaceutical sector. People are in pain, and firms that develop and distribute products that help should be celebrated, not vilified. Even for the Times, this is bad.

Huck-a-Whack, December 28

Club for Growth (Club for Greed in Huckaspeech) links to the Politico Populist Quiz. Every question is multiple choice. Did Senator Edwards or Governor Huckabee say:

1. “No young person is more equal than another person because he has a higher IQ, or a higher net worth, or because he lives in a nicer home, or his clothes have a label of a designer that the other guy doesn’t have. That’s not what gives us equality.”

2. “There is unfortunately some disconnect between people who have never struggled and those for whom everyday life is a struggle.”

3. “The richest people in America are getting richer. The big corporations’ profits are going through the roof. What is happening to the middle class? What is happening to working people in this country?”

4. “Is it still possible that this country will elect a president not because he had the most money but because he really did represent the most of the ordinary Americans in this nation who understand what it’s like to live to work to try to raise a family? And for many Americans, it’s working with no net underneath us.”

5. “This election is about right and wrong. This election is about what is moral and what is not. … It is immoral to have veterans going to sleep under bridges. It is immoral to have children whose parents have to fend for health care at the hospital. This is not America.”

6. “I’ve been concerned for some time about the fact that the economic growth in the country seems to be completely concentrated at the top, with big corporations and the richest Americans, and middle-class families are struggling.”

7. “There’s nothing unique about me. Virtually everyone in this room has a parent or a grandparent who struggled and sacrificed, and they worked for you, and they did that for a reason. We can’t have that taken away.”

8. “For my family, summer was never a verb. We summered in hay fields and chicken yards and all kinds of stuff."

I Agree With Glenn Greenwald

Stop the presses! Moonbat lefty, Glenn Greenwald, has penned a paragraph with which I cannot disagree. I was going to attack Peggy Noonan's insane WSJ Editorial this morning. Maybe after a few cups of coffee, I might have said something like:

What a stupid and vapid woman this is, but respected and admired by our media class because she fits right in with them — endlessly impressed by her own sophistication, maturity and insight while drooling out platitudes one never hears except in seventh-grade cafeterias and on our political talk shows. As always, this isn’t worth noting because the adolescent stupidity on display here is unique to Noonan, but precisely because it isn’t. This is how our national elections are decided: by people like her, spewing things like this.

Without delving into poof etymology (Rule #2, No Poofters!) I can't fault Grunewald’s distain for today's column. It's a crowning achievement in years of decline for Noonan. Look at my posts from three or four years ago, and you'll see she was one of my favorite writers.

Now I think she is becoming the Republicans' Helen Thomas. Today she enumerates which Presidential candidates are "reasonable" enough to be President. Biden: yes, Dodd: yes, Clinton: yes but no... She dismisses Edwards for the famous YouTube hair care tutorial, but not policy.

I've made the comparison before, but again, read Noonan. then compare to a typically smart column from Kim Strassel comparing Senator Obama's "New Ideas" to classic, boilerplate liberalism.

The torch has been passed, the runner has left the county, the tables have been picked up and the spectators have gone home. Strassel is the political voice of the WSJ Ed page.

Calf Blogging is Back

Great picture.

Huck-a-Whack, December 27, 2007

Mike Huckabee is still giving paid speeches and he is charging up to $25,000 per appearance. When asked about the practice, Huckabee responded,

"Unlike the members of the Senate or Congress who continue to get their paycheck and get a taxpayer-funded salary, and unlike people who are independently wealthy, if I don't work, I don't eat."

Property Rights? Right to Contract?

I laughed when I heard Senator John Kerry pontificating on people's needing cable to watch the Pats-Giants game. (How's the Deep Thoughts line go? "We all laughed at Grandpa when he got up at 6:00 AM to go fishing, but nobody was laughing that night when he came home with some whore he'd picked up in town...)

I ain't laughin' neither. The league has capitulated to Congressional pressure to give away something it purchased. Mortman has the details in Are You Ready for Some Congress? He links to the NYTimes:

The league's decision to simulcast the game came amid mounting Congressional pressure to make the potentially historic game more broadly available.

The Connecticut delegation wrote to Commissioner Roger Goodell that the league’s definition of home markets was "unduly narrow," leaving fans in cities around the state where loyalties are divided between their Giants and Patriots, without the same local broadcast option afforded the New York and Boston markets.

The Rhode Island delegation also protested the league’s market designations that would have deprived Patriots' fans in Providence and throughout the state of seeing their team go undefeated unless they subscribed to DirecTV or the Dish Network, or got the NFL Netword from their local cable operators.

The league was also warned by Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and the ranking member of the committee, that it was "exercising its substantial market power to the detriment of consumers."

With this kind of meddling going on, I’m now resigned to joining the bandwagon. My new position: I hope that Congress demand the Washington Redskins beat the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. I’d settle for a sense of the Congress resolution, but if they want to withhold funds from the Iraq war effort until the Redskins win the Super Bowl, I’m fine with that.

Attila! on Rudy!

Attila at Pillage Idiot turns his photo caption skills at Hizzoner, whacking him a bit before admitting "I might actually vote for the guy."

Welcome aboard Team Rudy, Attila, that's pretty much our motto: "I might actually vote for the guy."

UPDATE: How could I have neglected to excerpt the first frame?

Dave Lindorff is Crazy

Dave Lindorff can not only predict the future, but he also has the ability to relish the potential plight of others:

So the future political map of America is likely to look as different as the much shrunken geographical map, with much of the so-called “red” state region either gone or depopulated.

There is a poetic justice to this of course. It is conservatives who are giving us the candidates who steadfastly refuse to have the nation take steps that could slow the pace of climate change, so it is appropriate that they should bear the brunt of its impact.

The important thing is that we, on the higher ground both actually and figuratively, need to remember that, when they begin their historic migration from their doomed regions, we not give them the keys to the city. They certainly should be offered assistance in their time of need, but we need to keep a firm grip on our political systems, making sure that these guilty throngs who allowed the world to go to hell are gerrymandered into political impotence in their new homes.

The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.

I would be willing to bet a substantial sum that these areas will not be inundated in the lifetime of his cats -- and I would even give them nine lives!

Huck-a-Whack, Evening Edition

There is a reason Fred Thompson has a rule against hats...

A Thank You Letter

On Michael Yon's site from LTC Jim Crider, thanking America for letting him serve us so proudly.

The experience of war changes people. For some it is a negative change but most manage to absorb the experience and use it to make themselves stronger. I have said goodbye to a mortally wounded soldier in the hospital, spoken to grieving family members of our casualties, and tried to comfort soldiers who just lost their best friend in a single violent moment. I have been under fire, looked insurgents in the eye, and seen corruption up close. I have also seen people emerge from oppression and live with hope for the first time in years. I have seen children reach up and grasp the hands of American soldiers just because they trust them. I have felt the desire to help and then been given the resources to do it. Finally, I have felt the close knit camaraderie that develops when you serve with a group of people fighting for a cause larger than self. Yes, this experience has changed me. I am stronger, more driven, and humbled all at the same time.

Hat-tip: Insty

Huck-a-Whack, Boxing Day Edition

I hope the Governor enjoyed his Christmas off. I thought of letting the spirit of Christmas pervade me and setting aside the Quotidian Huck-a-Whack® Then I saw this:

But as Huckabee now mounts his closing argument for the Iowa caucuses, he has moved full bore into the rhetoric of economic populism. "I am out to change the Republican Party. It needs changing. It needs to be inclusive of all those people across America for whom this party should stand," he said Sunday, on CBS's Face The Nation. On the trail, he speaks regularly of challenging the "Washington to Wall Street power axis." He frankly acknowledges the suffering of the stagnating middle class, and even offers up government as a part of the solution. "The President ought to be aware that the people struggle," he said in Muscatine on Friday morning. "He ought to be aware every time a decision is made — whether [or not] it's to raise taxes — how it's going to hurt the family out there, who can barely pay the grocery bill as it is."

At some of these events, if you close your eyes, you would think a Democrat was speaking — Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton turned southern Baptist. "I really think that a lot of people who are elected to government forget," Huckabee will say. "They are not elected to the ruling class but to the servant class."

What the GOP definitely does not need is neopopulism, class warfare, and identity politics of the sort Mike Huckabee has been selling the last four weeks. Huckabee's lunge left may not have been premeditated, but it clearly displayed a candidate with no anchor in the GOP's tradition of fiscal restraint, free trade and low taxes and a very limited understanding of the world's most dangerous forces.

More Important Issues

We have talked about Hillary's cleavage and Obama's "blackness", so it is only fitting that we must now turn to Mitt Romney's hair:

Romney has all the advantages: money, organization, geographic proximity, statesman-like hair, etc.

Even Paul Krugman is tired of the main issue of the election:

It’s hard to feel sorry for Mitt Romney — and actually, I don’t. Still, he may be the first candidate to receive two “undorsements” that mention, as one of his flaws, that his hair is too good.

Does 2.4 Really Lack Luster?

The WSJ News pages report "Stocks Drop on Weak Retail." Huh? I had heard that they were up 3.8% YOY -- not bad for the middle of a housing recession that has most Americans living in Tent Cities.

The next article points out that the 3.8 figure was 3.6 and that it included lots of expensive gas.

The 11th-hour rush helped strengthen a weak holiday season. From the day after Thanksgiving to midnight Monday, total retail sales, excluding automobiles, rose 3.6% over the previous year, according to MasterCard SpendingPulse, a unit of MasterCard Advisors. But factoring out spending on gasoline -- which soared thanks to a 27% average price increase since this time last year -- retail sales increased a lackluster 2.4%. Industry forecasts had predicted gains of 3.5% to as high as 4.5%.

Global Schwarming!

For the second Christmas in a row, I am snowed in and cannot attend the family functions. Last year, I missed my family's, my wife's family's, and a rescheduled event.

To be honest, there is not a lot of snow up here. But I heard that there was 6-8" at my destination and it is still coming down. It does not help that I have the world's worst snow car, with bald tires.

I'm not complaining, mind you -- we have food, wine, and broadband. It will be a while before we have to eat some of the weaker ones...

Merry Christmas!

Didn't Ted Nugent Write About Tent Cities?

No. Wait. That was "Intensities in Ten Cities."

ThreeSources friend Perry Eidlebus has submitted the leading nomination to Don Luskin's "most insanely exaggerated news story concerning the housing market slump." It's a goodie:

ONTARIO, Calif., Dec 21 (Reuters) - Between railroad tracks and beneath the roar of departing planes sits "tent city," a terminus for homeless people. It is not, as might be expected, in a blighted city center, but in the once-booming suburbia of Southern California.
The noisy, dusty camp sprang up in July with 20 residents and now numbers 200 people, including several children, growing as this region east of Los Angeles has been hit by the U.S. housing crisis.

The unraveling of the region known as the Inland Empire reads like a 21st century version of "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck's novel about families driven from their lands by the Great Depression.

As more families throw in the towel and head to foreclosure here and across the nation, the social costs of collapse are adding up in the form of higher rates of homelessness, crime and even disease.

Ho, Ho, Ho, Merry Huck-a-Whack

I'm prepared to take Christmas Day off, not sure about hb.

But this is Christmas Eve, and Larry Kudlow has shared some thoughts on Governor Huckabee which closely match my own:

[W]hen I had Governor Huckabee on, what was it, last week or the week before, I had a bout with him. I went at it. He wants to, if need be, have government regulate salaries. I think he’s crazy. I don’t think he understands the free market business system. He’s not good on taxing, he’s not good on spending, he’s not good on free trade. In other words, all the prosperity factors seem to be Mr. Huckabee’s weakness. I don’t think he understands it. He’s just out of tune with all measures of free market, supply side economics. You know, it isn’t his religion, and I admire his religion. I personally am a man of faith. I regard myself as an Evangelical, the fact is. But it’s not his religion, it’s his positions. Condi Rice came out of the State Department. Hell, I haven’t seen her in about a month or two. She came out and attacked him because of his [naiveté] on dealing in international affairs with Iran and others. He doesn’t seem to understand power politics, and that we are in a jihadist global war.

Ron! Visits with Jim!

Just what the Doctor ordered. An aggressive host egging him on in a TV interview. Cramer makes Rep. Paul look quite reserved and presidential.





Congressional oversight from our 535 expert central bankers is the answer? I'll definitely choose a gold peg over that. The Fed Chairman is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

The longest tenure for a Fed Chairman is 18 years, 9 months, and 29 days (I'll take FOMC for 600 Alex), served by William McChesney Martin Jr. from 1951 to 1970. We were under Bretton-Woods the whole time, it's no wonder he was not exhausted.

The position requires a certain freedom from politics. More Congressional oversight? No thanks.

Huck-a-Whack, December 23, 2007

Steven Stark writes:

George Will doesn't like him. Neither, apparently, does Rush Limbaugh. The Bush wing of the party now apparently distrusts him. He hasn't done well by Drudge (at least so far) and today even Peggy Noonan has her reservations.

The good news for Mike Huckabee is that he's doing one hell of a job of reuniting significant portions of the old Reagan coalition. The bad news is that it's increasingly arrayed against him.

Life Imitates The Onion

You may recall that The Onion recently reported that the top issue of the campaign is bullshit. Joel Achenbach apparently got the memo as he writes:

I heard the other day that Mitt Romney is so careful with his weight that he will pick the cheese off his pizza. Then I heard from another source that he eats pizza with a knife and fork. That's two sources, two angles: That's practically confirmation.

I just can't imagine the American people electing as president someone who does that to pizza. I'm not saying a president has to have a special knack for eating pizza - what you call "pizza talent" - but he or she has to respect the pizza, and look comfortable with it.

You want, as a voter, to be able to say, "He looks like he knows his way around a pizza."

There really is practically nothing worse about campaign coverage than Beltway elites imagining how "reglar folks" live and eat and then demanding that presidential candidates pretend that they're just like that!

Who the f**k cares how Mitt Romney eats his pizza?
Just kill me.

Huck-a-Whack, December 22, 2007

Huckabee panders to a seven year old (and fails):

"Who is your favorite author?" Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

"My favorite author is C. S. Lewis," she said.

Putting the But First

No, I'm not offering a lesson on skating backwards, just giving some props to AP Economics Writer Martin Crutsinger. Most AP writers will provide some good economic news, followed by but, as in "GDP growth was revised up to 7.9% today, but concerns about Abu Ghraib, global warming, and lead paint in Chinese toys still rattled consumers."

That's child's play. Crutsinger provides some good news, but he goes butt first, to prevent your giddy enthusiasm from making you drop the paper and missing the dark cloud behind the silver lining:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumers put aside worries about slumping home sales and soaring gasoline prices and headed to the malls in November, pushing spending up by the largest amount in 3 1/2 years. The better-than-expected surge lessened fears of an imminent recession.

Ruffini on Rudy!

Patrick Ruffini remains a shining star over at Hugh Hewitt's site. I like Hewitt but his (may I call it Nativism?) and his unabashed shilling for Governor Romney cause my eyes to roll and my heart to sink. Still, I think he represents a good sized wing of the GOP, and I'd rather hear it from Hugh than most others.

Ruffini gets the Gold Star for his Giuliani support in that hostile environment. But even Patrick has caught the Giuliani Ennui:

I hate to say this, but I don’t think Rudy wants it badly enough. He has a bit of a Fred Thompson problem about him. He hasn’t said anything particularly distinctive or memorable the entire campaign. His lows haven’t been very low, and his highs haven’t been very high. There is no one big thing his campaign is about — first, there were twelve, then there was a laundry list of his accomplishments as a Mayor; then, there were a series of issue spots that failed to move the needle in New Hampshire. You would think the guy who sparred with the media and his opponents on an ongoing basis in New York, who fundamentally got that leadership after 9/11 was all about projecting confidence and strength, would understand that Presidential contests are about narrative and confidence and conflict — not (primarily) about issues.

Huck-a-Whack, December 21, 2007

Can't let the people down, today's Quotidian Huck-a-Whack comes from WSJ's Kim Strassel. In addition to polity qualms, she suggests that the veteran of hardball Arkansas politics has not yet been vetted as closely as other names.

The obscure governor from Arkansas is, in contrast, a deep sea for media diving. Most recent have been stories about his pardons and commutations, as well as the news that R.J. Reynolds contributed to Action America. Mr. Huckabee -- who now wants a national smoking ban in public places -- responded that he never knew he accepted tobacco money, which has inspired a former adviser to claim Mr. Huckabee is being "less than truthful." What's next?

The GOP is still reeling from its financial scandals, which helped Democrats tag the party with a "culture of corruption" in last year's congressional races. A Huckabee nomination would also neutralize one of the biggest weapons against nominee Hillary Clinton -- her own ethically tortured past. If the subject came up at all, it would be a race to the Arkansas bottom. A matchup with Barack Obama could be worse, since the "politics of hope" senator has so far avoided scandal and could bludgeon Mr. Huckabee on his past.

Democrats know it. Here's an interesting statistic: Since the beginning of 2007, the Democratic National Committee has released 102 direct attacks on Mitt Romney. Rudy Giuliani has warranted 78; John McCain 68; Fred Thompson 21. Mike Huckabee? Four. The most recent of these landed back in March. GOP voters may not have examined Mr. Huckabee's record, but the left has -- and they love what they see.

So far, GOP voters do, too. Most appear attracted to Mr. Huckabee's image as a "sincere" and "genuine" guy. The former governor may be both of those, but he's also got a past. Voters are going to want to look before they leap.

Never Mind.

Byron York wonders "Why Isn't Anyone Paying Attention to This?" The NYTimes, not exactly in the bag for Giuliani, now admits that the non-scandal is a non-scandal.

The headlines have dogged Rudolph W. Giuliani's presidential campaign for weeks. "Security costs for trysts draw attention," said one. The articles questioned whether, as mayor, Mr. Giuliani tried to hide his visits to Judith Nathan in the Hamptons by burying the associated security costs in the budgets of obscure mayoral agencies like the Loft Board.

The answer is not likely, according to a review of the city records originally cited as the basis for the assertion.

Hat-tip: Insty

Huck-a-whack, December 20, 2007

Jonah Goldberg, on spotting the Arkansas Governor as another "compassionate conservative:"

One of my favorite movie scenes is from Jaws 2, when Roy Scheider (an underrated actor) is trying to convince the town council that he’s spotted yet another shark lurking off the waters of Amity. “But I’m telling you, and I’m telling everybody at this table, that that’s a shark. And I know what a shark looks like, because I’ve seen one up close. And you’d better do something about this one, because I don’t intend to go through that hell again!”

If you’re wondering why some of us have become so vexed by the sightings of Mike Huckabee’s dorsal fin above the choppy waters of Iowa-caucus polling and even out in the high sea of national polls, poor Chief Brody’s panic might help you understand. We’ve seen this before.

Sen. Salazar Responds

To my letter:

Dear John:

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me regarding federal agriculture subsidies. I appreciate hearing from you.

As someone who grew up on a family farm and ranch, I recognize the importance of ensuring the viability of our small producers and the future of rural America.

I understand your frustrations with large farms receiving the vast majority of federal agricultural dollars. I believe it is important to provide a strong and efficient safety-net for our small and medium-sized family farmers, and do all we can to direct agricultural payments to those who need them most.

The 2007 Farm Bill makes a number of important reforms that will improve the integrity of federal subsidy payments. The bill lowers the Adjusted Gross Income eligibility limit by seventy percent; eliminates the three-entity rule; requires direct attribution of subsidy payments; cuts the maximum annual subsidy payment allowance by five percent; and denies subsidy payments to owners of land that had once been used for agricultural production but is currently used for residential purposes. All told, these reforms will help reduce federal spending for the commodity title by $7.5 billion over the next five years.
I supported these reforms, and I also joined an overwhelming majority of my colleagues in the Senate to pass the 2007 Farm Bill by a vote of 79-14. The Farm Bill now awaits action in a House-Senate conference committee.

Again, thank you for taking the time to share your views. Please rest assured I will keep them in mind as Congress continues its work on the 2007 Farm Bill.

Sincerely,

Ken Salazar
United States Senator

"Crass" Commercialism

Don Boudreaux writes a letter to USA Today Editors, responding to an article about "crass consumerism:"

Commerce is peaceful. It involves sellers working hard and taking risks to bring to market goods and services that consumers want to buy. No one forces anyone to do anything; all is voluntary.

What truly is crass is politics - that sorry spectacle of power-seeking ego-maniacs who, when not pronouncing platitudes, are promising to help group A by picking the pockets of group B. While commerce is honest, politics is duplicitous. While commerce is peaceful, politics inevitably pits citizen against citizen.

Oh Happy Day!

Rep. Tancredo has dropped out of the GOP Presidential race, Senator Trent Lott has resigned his Senate Seat -- can Sen. Ted Stevens's arraignment be far behind?

Seriously, I thank Tancredo and Lott for their service, but I am happy to be moving on.

Me and Vlad

As a former TIME Magazine Person of the Year laureate myself, I was saddened by this year's choice. I don't line up with Hugh Hewitt and Governor Romney too frequently, but they are right this time.

General David Petraeus should have been the pick. Putin will use the cover to propagate totalitarianism, Petraeus -- and the troops -- should be rewarded for their unexpected and improbable accomplishments.

Rudy!

I liked it. Ann Althouse laughed through burning retinas caused by the vest, Glenn Reynolds was glad there were no floating crosses.

UPDATE: K-Lo at NRO Corner links to Senator Clinton's version, pointing out that "[a] Republican candidate could play the footage pretty much straight and have a negative ad."

UPDATE II: Insty also links to Ron Paul's. It's very good. But I kept expecting the kids to sing about the Gold Standard or the "illegal war in Iraq!"

Lock Up Your Daughters!

I know and appreciate that Americans are a forgiving people. But am I the only one who thought that a Bill Clinton - Magic Johnson show may not be the most female-empowering message that Senator Clinton's campaign can send?

Taranto links to this WaPo column. He is amused that the candidate is not mentioned until the third paragraph. I encourage any ThreeSourcers who do not value Senator Clinton's candidacy to read it. Were the Weekly Standard this dismissive, it would be called hate speech:

What's missing? Try kids. You might have expected that an event at the Boys & Girls Club would feature hundreds of screaming children running around singing Hillary victory songs. Except for a few young ones, it was a crowd, of Hillary supporters in the latter stages of life. A large number of them were members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a union that has endorsed Clinton.

"Look at the crowd here," says Dhirendra Vajpeyi, a 61-year-old political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa. "It's older than Obama's. I talk to my students and they have real reservations about Hillary and her sincerity. They don't have a good feeling."

[B]oth men have suffered public moral lapses only to find redemption. When Johnson disclosed he was HIV-positive, it brought to light his private misdeeds, but in time he became an advocate for AIDS research and health. Likewise Clinton weathered the storm of the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment and has become involved in humanitarian causes.

Ain't You Glad You Joined the Republicans?

That's an Abraham Lincoln quote, and the title of a funny book.

I thought of it reading John Fund in the Political Diary on the importance of turnout and weather in the Iowa Caucuses:

One reason some Democrats may skip the event is that Democratic caucuses are not the businesslike affairs the GOP caucuses are. At a Republican caucus, voters show up, listen to very short speeches, fill out a slip of paper, drop it in a box and leave. At a Democratic caucus, voters show up at 6:30 pm and vote for delegates for each candidate. But first they must listen to short speeches on behalf of all the candidates. With a half-dozen or more candidates, that takes time. Then everyone breaks into "preference groups," with voters gathering in various corners of the room to express support for a given candidate. If a candidate doesn't receive 15% or more support, his or her supporters must join another candidate's preference group. In most of Iowa, this effectively means only Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards will elect any delegates to the local county convention, which is held later. It also means that a voter's second choice can be highly important in who actually wins. Ominously, while Mrs. Clinton has many supporters, she's not the second choice of many Obama or Edwards backers.

Further complicating matters is that rural areas are given more weight than urban ones in selecting delegates. In a small town, 25 caucus-goers might carry as much impact as 250 who stop by a downtown Des Moines caucus.

A Tale of Two Tales on the Omnibus Spending Bill

First, as is my custom, I read the Wall Street Journal. The Editorial page offers "One Budget Cheer" for the President. (free link)

As we at the Journal debated Washington's latest spending deal yesterday, one of our tribe noted that it is the best budget of the Bush Presidency. To which someone else quipped that that was "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

The good news is that Democrats conceded to Mr. Bush's spending cap of $933 billion in domestic discretionary spending for 2008--or $22 billion less than Democrats proposed in their spring budget resolution. Over five years, that $22 billion will save about $205 billion because it won't become part of the annual "baseline" that the pols use as a starting point for next year's automatic budget increases. This is a modest but real victory.

[...]Gone are limits on union disclosure reports. Gone, too, is an expansion of Davis-Bacon demands to pay prevailing union wages even on non-union work sites[...]

Oh, and Congress is also funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of $70 billion--something Democratic leaders had vowed not to do.

And yet this is hardly a lean or mean budget. When combined with the Defense spending bill that has already been signed, Congress will still exceed Mr. Bush's $933 billion "top-line" thanks to about $11 billion in budget gimmicks and "emergency" spending.

I was planning to post this with a contrarian pragmatist commentary, even though I got "bit in the ass" a couple of days ago. We have two houses of Democrats, the President needs to fund the war, I figured this as a pretty good day's work. But I'm still a little sore form that bite.

Don Luskin gives me cover. He calls it Sweet Victory and says that the good guys are going to win.

Following repeated veto threats, the compromise now -- approved 76-17 by the Senate -- cuts $17.5 billion from prior House-passed bills or about 80% of what Democrats once hoped to add to the president's top line.

The Democrats’ yearlong fight to boost federal spending on children’s health insurance ended with a whimper Tuesday.

After coming up short in their efforts to enact a $35 billion expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) — enduring two presidential vetoes along the way — congressional Democrats signed off on Republican demands to extend the program until 2009.

The war is important. The SCHIP battle was important. The Democrats control both houses. Most Republicans are completely worthless. Factor all this in, and count me in the victory party with Mr. Luskin.

UPDATE: Make that Three Americas. The Club for Growth won't go as far as the WSJ. They list the no votes with congrats.

Tale of Two Cities

A good friend of this blog emails a video link. Drew Carey finds one SoCal town (out of two) doing development right:

The Cackle

Just a thought. The more I hear Senator Clinton's "Cackle," the more I start to miss Governor Dean's "Scream.'

Quote of the Day

Samizdat Perry DeHavilland points out the popularity of multi-bird roasts, then shares a comment he left on the site to which he links:

This year for Christmas we are having one of these wonderful multi-birds and I am very much looking forward to it. However after reading some of the comments here, next year we are going to eat a PETA activist stuffed inside a Greenpeace activist stuffed inside a Animal 'Rights' activist stuffed inside Gordon Brown's voluminous carcass (with a non-'Fair Trade' apple stuffed into his mouth).

Merry Christmas and God Deliver Us All... from priggish activists of all stripes.

Review Corner -- Last Minute Gift Idea

I make no secret of my appreciation for James Lileks. I think I have bought all of his books, and have given many as gifts -- some of the biggest gift hits.

I bought Gastroanomolies when it came out even though I was concerned. After The Gallery of Regrettable Food was there enough material? Was the master going back to the well too many times?

NO! I finally picked it up yesterday to flip through a few pages. I read it cover to cover and laughed out loud through most of it. It is even better than TGORF. I ordered it for a gift today and recommend it highly as a gift or personal purchase. I cannot imagine anyone who would not enjoy it (it's probably too PG-13 for the very young or delicate). Five starts -- it's Lileks.

Will on Subprime (Hillary Picture)

George Will has a pretty good column on subprime bailouts. It's worth a read. Mostly, it is worth reading on the NY Post's website, because they illustrate it with the worst picture of Senator Hillary Clinton ever displayed. Keep in mind the sites I frequent, I have seen some bad pictures. This one takes the art form to a higher level.

In case they change it, here's the pic.

UPDATE (Including change to title): Ann Althouse says this photo is up on Drudge and she wonders:

We make high demands on women. A picture like this of a male candidate would barely register. Fred Thompson always looks this bad, and people seem to think he's handsome. We need to get used to older women and get over the feeling that when women look old they are properly marginalized as "old ladies." If women are to