Friday, November 02, 2007
U.S. Politics Seen Through U.K. Eyes
The London Telegraph assess the American political scene by listing the top 100 liberals and 100 conservatives.
It's best to read the lists as they were released -- as a countdown (so start with 81-100 in both charts). The choices are interesting to say the least: Find out where Arnold Schwarzenegger ranks (and on what list)! See where David Petraeus ends up!
Sure to start much debate!
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It's best to read the lists as they were released -- as a countdown (so start with 81-100 in both charts). The choices are interesting to say the least: Find out where Arnold Schwarzenegger ranks (and on what list)! See where David Petraeus ends up!
Sure to start much debate!
Labels: conservatives, England, liberals
Friday, June 08, 2007
Border IN-Security
The Washington Post's Dan Balz goes to that favorite Beltway bete noire, the D.C. political culture in assigning blame to the collapse of the immigration bill:
But blaming "the culture" is like blaming "the system" or "The Man." It clearly manages to ignore the actual real-world factors that are at play. Real-world factors such as:
1) A president with a below-30 approval rating has no political capital with which to push a bill that he has considered a priority since his earliest days in office. He had no strength with which to bring along recalcitrant members of his own party.
2) With the narrowest possible majority in the Senate (essentially 51-49 Democrat), there could not be a worse "bipartisan" duo than Ted Kennedy and John McCain to have their names on the bill if the idea was to get Republicans and conservatives to sign on. For nearly four decades, Kennedy has been the poster child for liberal America. Amazingly, even with Hillary Clinton in the Senate, Kennedy likely retains the heavyweight championship belt of Most Hated Senate Liberal. John McCain (unfairly, in my view -- except for campaign finance reform) is the conservative base's most despised Republican.
3) Despite what they say for the cameras, Democrats had absolutely no reason to be supportive of this bill. They are confident that they will win the White House next year and get a bill more liberal and more to their liking. Far better to let this one collapse, blame it on the Republicans and the helpless White House -- and go for an even-greater-amnesty bill next time around.
Finally, conservatives and libertarians (as represented, in this case, by The Wall Street Journal's editorial board) need to have their own discussion on the issue immigration -- illegal and otherwise. Michelle Malkin's video exposes the truly raw sentiments within the right-wing base. Her "gotcha" on the, ahem, "diversity" at the WSJ ed. board is a cheap shot -- but quite funny.
I was mildly more supportive of this comprehensive bill. However, Malkin makes a number of fair points (memo to Michelle: for the love of God, lose the gorilla schtick) -- and the Journal shouldn't just dismiss the claims of "the right" as being purely cultural (though, yes, "fear of a brown planet" does factor into the immigration issue; it's not all just "law-and-order").
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The collapse of comprehensive immigration revision in the Senate last night represents a political defeat for President Bush, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), the bill's most prominent sponsors. More significantly, it represents a scathing indictment of the political culture of Washington.
The defeat of the legislation can be laid at the doorstep of opponents on the right and left, on congressional leaders who couldn't move their troops and on an increasingly weakened president and his White House team. But together it added up to another example of a polarized political system in which the center could not hold.
The partisan blame game was already at fever pitch as the bill was going down yesterday. But to those far removed from the backrooms of Capitol Hill, what happened will fuel cynicism toward a political system that appears incapable of finding ways to resolve the nation's big challenges.
But blaming "the culture" is like blaming "the system" or "The Man." It clearly manages to ignore the actual real-world factors that are at play. Real-world factors such as:
1) A president with a below-30 approval rating has no political capital with which to push a bill that he has considered a priority since his earliest days in office. He had no strength with which to bring along recalcitrant members of his own party.
2) With the narrowest possible majority in the Senate (essentially 51-49 Democrat), there could not be a worse "bipartisan" duo than Ted Kennedy and John McCain to have their names on the bill if the idea was to get Republicans and conservatives to sign on. For nearly four decades, Kennedy has been the poster child for liberal America. Amazingly, even with Hillary Clinton in the Senate, Kennedy likely retains the heavyweight championship belt of Most Hated Senate Liberal. John McCain (unfairly, in my view -- except for campaign finance reform) is the conservative base's most despised Republican.
3) Despite what they say for the cameras, Democrats had absolutely no reason to be supportive of this bill. They are confident that they will win the White House next year and get a bill more liberal and more to their liking. Far better to let this one collapse, blame it on the Republicans and the helpless White House -- and go for an even-greater-amnesty bill next time around.
Finally, conservatives and libertarians (as represented, in this case, by The Wall Street Journal's editorial board) need to have their own discussion on the issue immigration -- illegal and otherwise. Michelle Malkin's video exposes the truly raw sentiments within the right-wing base. Her "gotcha" on the, ahem, "diversity" at the WSJ ed. board is a cheap shot -- but quite funny.
I was mildly more supportive of this comprehensive bill. However, Malkin makes a number of fair points (memo to Michelle: for the love of God, lose the gorilla schtick) -- and the Journal shouldn't just dismiss the claims of "the right" as being purely cultural (though, yes, "fear of a brown planet" does factor into the immigration issue; it's not all just "law-and-order").
Labels: conservatives, George W. Bush, Illegal Immigration, liberals
Sunday, March 25, 2007
24's Politics
Kevin Drum restarts the debate.
Actually, the depiction of the vice-president this season caused me to think on similar lines: This guy is acting like a left-winger's idea of Dick Cheney -- on steroids.
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Actually, the depiction of the vice-president this season caused me to think on similar lines: This guy is acting like a left-winger's idea of Dick Cheney -- on steroids.
Labels: 24, conservatives, liberals
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Mother Africa's Left-Right Children
James Wolcott goes after conservatives for applauding the wonderful spine shown by the Ethiopian government by going after the Islamists in next-door neighbor Somalia:
However, Wolcott has missed the big point here: Arguably, this embrace of Ethiopia's tactics with respect to Somalia may actually signal rare cross-ideological agreement by members of America's Left and Right elite.
Even as the bloody soil Right sees the possibilities of the War on Terror done correctly in the Ethiopia-Somalia onflict, the bleeding-heart Left sees in Africa just the "correct" sort of poor people that are worthy of their largesse.
Angelina and Brad decide that Namibia was the ideal place for them to give birth to their golden spawn.
Then Lady Madonna decides that, well, yes, an African baby would be just the perfect complement to her own Anglo-American offspring.
Now, comes this philosophical insight from the Queen of Daytime Pacification herself as she prepares to open a $40 million school for 152 girls outside of Johannesburg:
Heaven forfend that American kids ask for sneakers or iPods -- instead of uniforms!
Clearly, Africans have their priorities straight: The Ethiopians know how to fight Islamists in a war -- and those nice South African girls know that it's better to ask for uniforms rather than money or toys! Let us thus sprinkle down proper rewards on these Africans for showing Americans the correct way to go!
The judgment rendered by those on the Right and the Left seems the same: Americans have forgotten their way, obsessed with their own materialistic lifestyles to either focus on defeating the Islamist threat -- or concentrating on our schoolwork. Enough is enough! Throw your hands up in the air and give up on Americans and let's train our focus where the primitives understand what's truly important.
Now, I don't want to appear dismissive about what Oprah is doing for these kids in Africa (though, notably, the South African government has separated itself from the school -- believing that, well, $40 million might go a little bit further than for 150 kids). And, yes, she does do much charitable stuff for American young people. However, her arrogance concerning the students at inner-city American schools is rather, um, rich.
Are America's kids too materialistic for their own good? Yes, definitely.
But where do they get that attitude from? Surely, it couldn't be from a woman who decides to give all of her (primarily middle-class female) audience members a brand new car?
Surely, it wouldn't be from a woman who throws a fit because she wasn't allowed into a fancy Parisian boutique after closing time -- and then uses her show to protest about how she was dissed by Hermes?
Nah, no way that kids' sense of materialism might be influenced that way, right?
Ah, wonderful Africa -- the perfect little toybox for wealthy and ambitious Americans to play in!
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Of course, an ideologue will jump at the opportunity to see the success of his or her vision even if the evidence doesn't exactly support it.Scarcely a day into the New Year and the right blogosphere was already floating a new theme song:
Why oh why can't the US be more like Ethiopia?
Yes, these are the depths to which the debacle in Iraq have driven them: extolling the martial virtues of plucky little Ethiopia. Unlike we in the West, they are not o'ercast with the sickly pallor of thought and handcuffed with the legalisms that have made the West such a haven for dhimmitude, whatever that is.
However, Wolcott has missed the big point here: Arguably, this embrace of Ethiopia's tactics with respect to Somalia may actually signal rare cross-ideological agreement by members of America's Left and Right elite.
Even as the bloody soil Right sees the possibilities of the War on Terror done correctly in the Ethiopia-Somalia onflict, the bleeding-heart Left sees in Africa just the "correct" sort of poor people that are worthy of their largesse.
Angelina and Brad decide that Namibia was the ideal place for them to give birth to their golden spawn.
Then Lady Madonna decides that, well, yes, an African baby would be just the perfect complement to her own Anglo-American offspring.
Now, comes this philosophical insight from the Queen of Daytime Pacification herself as she prepares to open a $40 million school for 152 girls outside of Johannesburg:
Oprah also knows that some people will complain that charity should begin at home, even though she has provided millions of dollars to educate poor children in the United States, especially via her Oprah Winfrey Scholars Program. But she sees the two situations as entirely different. "Say what you will about the American educational system—it does work," she says. "If you are a child in the United States, you can get an education." And she doesn't think that American students—who, unlike Africans, go to school free of charge—appreciate what they have. "I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn't there," she says. "If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod or some sneakers. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school."
Heaven forfend that American kids ask for sneakers or iPods -- instead of uniforms!
Clearly, Africans have their priorities straight: The Ethiopians know how to fight Islamists in a war -- and those nice South African girls know that it's better to ask for uniforms rather than money or toys! Let us thus sprinkle down proper rewards on these Africans for showing Americans the correct way to go!
The judgment rendered by those on the Right and the Left seems the same: Americans have forgotten their way, obsessed with their own materialistic lifestyles to either focus on defeating the Islamist threat -- or concentrating on our schoolwork. Enough is enough! Throw your hands up in the air and give up on Americans and let's train our focus where the primitives understand what's truly important.
Now, I don't want to appear dismissive about what Oprah is doing for these kids in Africa (though, notably, the South African government has separated itself from the school -- believing that, well, $40 million might go a little bit further than for 150 kids). And, yes, she does do much charitable stuff for American young people. However, her arrogance concerning the students at inner-city American schools is rather, um, rich.
Are America's kids too materialistic for their own good? Yes, definitely.
But where do they get that attitude from? Surely, it couldn't be from a woman who decides to give all of her (primarily middle-class female) audience members a brand new car?
Surely, it wouldn't be from a woman who throws a fit because she wasn't allowed into a fancy Parisian boutique after closing time -- and then uses her show to protest about how she was dissed by Hermes?
Nah, no way that kids' sense of materialism might be influenced that way, right?
Ah, wonderful Africa -- the perfect little toybox for wealthy and ambitious Americans to play in!
Labels: Africa, black, conservatives, liberals, Oprah Winfrey
