What is it with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine and Delaware?

The most-viewed post in the history of this blog came at Gov. Kaine’s expense, when he wrongly asserted (in some detail) that his state of Virginia borders Delaware.  In fact, that moment came when he was justifying Obama’s selection of Joe Biden for Vice President, despite Biden’s penchant for gaffes.

Now, Kaine has the former Senator from Delaware introducing him as “the great governor of New Jersey.”  For the record, New Jersey does, in fact, border Delaware.

Perhaps some geographic payback from the First State?  Biden was using a teleprompter, after all…

h/t The Corner

The Governor...

...and his nemesis.

With the cap-and-trade bill passing the House, Obama’s health care plan gaining heft (at least in pages, if not in votes), and our nation’s balance sheet spurting more red ink than a B-grade horror movie, it’s time to ponder how fundamentally our system has failed us.

Since the advent of the New Deal and the attendant evisceration of most constitutional limitations on Congressional authority by the Supreme Court, we have proven incapable of reducing the size or improving the performance of government — even when majorities of the public have expressed their will to do so.  That is largely because public officials’ interests are at odds with taxpayers’ interests.  Politicians must justify their existence and want to expand their power; citizens want to pay less for government while having it do more for them.

The result has been a shift in the tax burden to an ever-shrinking share of the electorate, so that politicians can play with the most money while incurring the wrath of the fewest voters.  Similarly, voters have often vacillated between candidates who say they will accomplish big things and those who say they will spend less of their money.  Those candidates lose when either the costs or the incompetence become too obvious to ignore.  Thus, politicians hide the costs and the failures in ever-more-byzantine bureaucracies and budgetary schemes, many of which are now becoming painfully apparent.

While none of us were alive to remember it, there was a time when voters and their public servants did not dance to this discordant tune.  Candidates simply understood that the federal government was incapable of acting in certain ways, no matter how much its participants might want to do it.  The elimination of these structural (i.e., constitutional) limitations on government power meant voters were the only thing standing between the politicians and their desire for power was the people.  Ergo, politicians set to snookering the people.  The results have been consistently favorable for the politicians in terms of power-accumulation over the long-term.

This trend has given rise to an unmistakable frustration within the electorate — that “something” isn’t right, and that no matter what they do at the polls, things seem to go wrong (for them, anyway).  This unarticulated discontent, in my view, would best be satisfied by restoring (or creating) structural and constitutional barriers to power-seeking among politicians that would passively protect the public from abuse by government.  In short, voters would agree to limit their (and their representatives’) freedom to choose for protection against abuse of that freedom.

Limitations on freedom, you say?  Surely this cannot be conservative.  But every limitation in the Constitution is a limitation on the freedom of either the electorate, its government, or both, to take certain actions the Founders believed to be inappropriate.  For example, the Founders chose to prevent the states from raising armies or entering into foreign treaties.  That limitation, by its very terms, prevents the voters of Vermont from demanding that their officials enter into a treaty with Iran, or the governor of Texas from raising an army and going to war with North Korea.  But the Founders designed the system to limit those powers, because they had seen them fail in the Articles of Confederation and knew that the federal government must be the nation’s only face to the world.  No one today bemoans South Carolina’s lack of a foreign policy, but these limitations were controversial within ten years of the ratification of the Constitution.  Similarly, we limit the freedom of individuals to vote for the same person for President three times; we limit the freedom of states to impose poll taxes; and we limit the freedom of government to take individuals’ property without compensation.  One can justify the exercise of each of these freedoms in certain circumstances (a great President; a means of paying for an extraordinary election; an urgent need for food by a cash-strapped government in time of war), but we the people have chosen to ignore those circumstances and establish the general rule, because on balance it is more conducive to good government.

In this spirit, I propose five new amendments, intended to make our government run more effectively.  Although my personal principles run to the right, I don’t think these rules would necessarily result in a more Republican government — just one more capable of being run as a republic.  The first of these is detailed below, but more will follow in subsequent posts.

1.  Repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment

The Seventeenth Amendment abandoned the practice of the election of Senators by the legislatures of the several states and provided for the direct election of Senators by the public.  This has perverted the federal system in two significant ways.

Marque’s Note: I know this is a long post with long quotes – anathema in the blogging world.  I also know that the mere juxtaposition of these passages will be considered outrageous by some.  But I think a fair-minded reader will be struck by the troubling similarities in the perspectives and conclusions made by these two bright, accomplished Americans.

“Who am I? I am a ‘Newyorkrican.’ For those of you on the West Coast who do not know what that term means: I am a born and bred New Yorker of Puerto Rican-born parents who came to the states during World War II.

Like many other immigrants to this great land, my parents came because of poverty and to attempt to find and secure a better life for themselves and the family that they hoped to have. They largely succeeded. For that, my brother and I are very grateful. The story of that success is what made me and what makes me the Latina that I am. The Latina side of my identity was forged and closely nurtured by my family through our shared experiences and traditions.

For me, a very special part of my being Latina is the mucho platos de arroz, gandules y pernil – rice, beans and pork – that I have eaten at countless family holidays and special events. My Latina identity also includes, because of my particularly adventurous taste buds, morcilla, — pig intestines, patitas de cerdo con garbanzo — pigs’ feet with beans, and la lengua y orejas de cuchifrito, pigs’ tongue and ears. I bet the Mexican-Americans in this room are thinking that Puerto Ricans have unusual food tastes. Some of us, like me, do. Part of my Latina identity is the sound of merengue at all our family parties and the heart wrenching Spanish love songs that we enjoy. It is the memory of Saturday afternoon at the movies with my aunt and cousins watching Cantinflas, who is not Puerto Rican, but who was an icon Spanish comedian on par with Abbot and Costello of my generation. My Latina soul was nourished as I visited and played at my grandmother’s house with my cousins and extended family. They were my friends as I grew up. Being a Latina child was watching the adults playing dominos on Saturday night and us kids playing loteria, bingo, with my grandmother calling out the numbers which we marked on our cards with chick peas.

Now, does any one of these things make me a Latina? Obviously not because each of our Carribean and Latin American communities has their own unique food and different traditions at the holidays. I only learned about tacos in college from my Mexican-American roommate. Being a Latina in America also does not mean speaking Spanish.

[...]

If I had pursued my career in my undergraduate history major, I would likely provide you with a very academic description of what being a Latino or Latina means. For example, I could define Latinos as those peoples and cultures populated or colonized by Spain who maintained or adopted Spanish or Spanish Creole as their language of communication. You can tell that I have been very well educated. That antiseptic description however, does not really explain the appeal of morcilla – pig’s intestine – to an American born child. It does not provide an adequate explanation of why individuals like us, many of whom are born in this completely different American culture, still identify so strongly with those communities in which our parents were born and raised.

[...]

The focus of my speech tonight, however, is not about the struggle to get us where we are and where we need to go but instead to discuss with you what it all will mean to have more women and people of color on the bench. The statistics I have been talking about provide a base from which to discuss a question which one of my former colleagues on the Southern District bench, Judge Miriam Cederbaum, raised when speaking about women on the federal bench. Her question was: What do the history and statistics mean? In her speech, Judge Cederbaum expressed her belief that the number of women and by direct inference people of color on the bench, was still statistically insignificant and that therefore we could not draw valid scientific conclusions from the acts of so few people over such a short period of time. Yet, we do have women and people of color in more significant numbers on the bench and no one can or should ignore pondering what that will mean or not mean in the development of the law.

[...]

While recognizing the potential effect of individual experiences on perception, Judge Cedarbaum nevertheless believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum’s aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. Whatever the reasons why we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning, are in many respects a small part of a larger practical question we as women and minority judges in society in general must address. I accept the thesis of a law school classmate, Professor Steven Carter of Yale Law School, in his affirmative action book that in any group of human beings there is a diversity of opinion because there is both a diversity of experiences and of thought. Thus, as noted by another Yale Law School Professor — I did graduate from there and I am not really biased except that they seem to be doing a lot of writing in that area – Professor Judith Resnik says that there is not a single voice of feminism, not a feminist approach but many who are exploring the possible ways of being that are distinct from those structured in a world dominated by the power and words of men. Thus, feminist theories of judging are in the midst of creation and are not and perhaps will never aspire to be as solidified as the established legal doctrines of judging can sometimes appear to be.

That same point can be made with respect to people of color. No one person, judge or nominee will speak in a female or people of color voice. I need not remind you that Justice Clarence Thomas represents a part but not the whole of African-American thought on many subjects. Yet, because I accept the proposition that, as Judge Resnik describes it, “to judge is an exercise of power” and because as, another former law school classmate, Professor Martha Minnow of Harvard Law School, states “there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives – no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging,” I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that–it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging. The Minnesota Supreme Court has given an example of this. As reported by Judge Patricia Wald formerly of the D.C. Circuit Court, three women on the Minnesota Court with two men dissenting agreed to grant a protective order against a father’s visitation rights when the father abused his child. The Judicature Journal has at least two excellent studies on how women on the courts of appeal and state supreme courts have tended to vote more often than their male counterpart to uphold women’s claims in sex discrimination cases and criminal defendants’ claims in search and seizure cases. As recognized by legal scholars, whatever the reason, not one woman or person of color in any one position but as a group we will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging.

[...]

Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O’Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

– Judge Sonia Sotomayor, ‘A Latina Judge’s Voice,’ Berkeley La Raza Law Journal (Spring 2002)

*****

“A black, after hard labour through the day, will be induced by the slightest amusements to sit up till midnight, or later, though knowing he must be out with the first dawn of the morning. They are at least as brave, and more adventuresome. But this may perhaps proceed from a want of forethought, which prevents their seeing a danger till it be present. When present, they do not go through it with more coolness or steadiness than the whites. They are more ardent after their female: but love seems with them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient. Those numberless afflictions, which render it doubtful whether heaven has given life to us in mercy or in wrath, are less felt, and sooner forgotten with them. In general, their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection. To this must be ascribed their disposition to sleep when abstracted from their diversions, and unemployed in labour. An animal whose body is at rest, and who does not reflect, must be disposed to sleep of course. Comparing them by their faculties of memory, reason, and imagination, it appears to me, that in memory they are equal to the whites; in reason much inferior, as think one could scarcely be found capable of tracing and comprehending the investigations of Euclid; and that in imagination they are dull, tasteless, and anomalous. It would be unfair to follow them to Africa for this investigation. We will consider them here, on the same stage with the whites, and where the facts are not apocryphal on which a judgment is to be formed.  It will be right to make great allowances for the difference of condition, of education, of conversation, of the sphere in which they move. Many millions of them have been brought to, and born in America. Most of them indeed have been confined to tillage, to their own homes, and their own society: yet many have been so situated, that they might have availed themselves of the conversation of their masters; many have been brought up to the handicraft arts, and from that circumstance have always been associated with the whites. Some have been liberally educated, and all have lived in countries where the arts and sciences are cultivated to a considerable degree, and have had before their eyes samples of the best works from abroad. The Indians, with no advantages of this kind, will often carve figures on their pipes not destitute of design and merit. They will crayon out an animal, a plant, or a country, so as to prove the existence of a germ in their minds which only wants cultivation. They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never see even an elementary trait, of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. Whether they will be equal to the composition of a more extensive run of melody, or of complicated harmony, is yet to be proved. Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. — Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar roestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately; but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism. The heroes of the Dunciad are to her, as Hercules to the author of that poem. Ignatius Sancho has approached nearer to merit in composition; yet his letters do more honour to the heart than the head. They breathe the purest effusions of friendship and general philanthropy, and shew how great a degree of the latter may be compounded with strong religious zeal. He is often happy in the turn ot his compliments, and his stile is easy and familiar, except when he affects a Shandean fabrication of words. But his imagination is wild and extravagant, escapes incessantly from every restraint of reason and taste, and, in the course of its vagaries, leaves a tract of thought as incoherent and eccentric, as is the course of a meteor through the sky. His subjects should often have led him to a process of sober reasoning: yet we find him always substituting sentiment for demonstration. Upon the whole, though we admit him to the first place among those of his own colour who have presented themselves to the public judgment, yet when we compare him with the writers of the race among whom he lived, and particularly with the epistolary class, in which he has taken his own stand, we are compelled to enroll him at the bottom of the column. This criticism supposes the letters published under his name to be genuine, and to have received amendment from no other hand; points which would not be of easy investigation. The improvement of the blacks in body and mind, in the first instance of their mixture with the whites, has been observed by every one, and proves that their inferiority is not the effect merely of their condition of life. . . .”

– Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82

In yesterday’s item in On The Marque, we learned some very nasty things about Chas Freeman, the Obama Administration’s apparent pick for chairman of the National Intelligence Council.  I say “apparent pick” because today, the Washington Times is reporting that Freeman, who was announced as the choice for the job by the National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair a week ago, hasn’t even been vetted yet:

Mr. Freeman has not submitted the financial disclosure forms required of all candidates for senior public positions, according to the general counsel’s office of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Nor did Mr. Blair seek the White House’s approval before he announced the appointment of Mr. Freeman, said Mr. Blair’s spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi.

“The director did not seek the White House’s approval,” Ms. Morigi said. “In addition to his formal background security investigation, we expect that the White House will undertake the typical vetting associated with senior administration assignments.”

Come on, folks.  This is getting absurd.  First, Obama loses Bill Richardson to a pesky pay-to-play scandal in New Mexico within weeks of the Blago blowup.  Then we learn about Geithner’s tax fraud (who, by the way, is now scolding “wealthy Americans” about tax fraud).  Gen. Anthony Zinni (Ret.) gets kicked to the curb as Ambassador to Iraq after being personally invited to take the post by Hillary Clinton.  The press gets wind of Daschle’s tax mess a week before the hearing, leading to a furious week of questions and rationalizations before a messy divorce.  Obama’s “efficiency czar” is caught in the Daschle crossfire and goes down before she even goes up to Capitol Hill. Sen. Gregg is invited to take the Commerce Secretary job, then told he’s going to be allowed to run the Census like all previous Secretaries – exit Gregg.

Now, it appears that high-ranking officials are making rogue appointments for positions with direct White House access that get discussed all weekend in the editorial pages and the blogosphere, and which result in a request for an Inspector General investigation from Congress…and it still takes the White House a week to realize they never meant to appoint the guy?!?!  In filling out my Administration victims scorecard, I don’t know whether to tally Freeman, Blair, or both.  At some point, this bus is going to crash from rolling over all these people.

There was a time when the Obama Administration was going to signal a return to “competence” in Washington.  Right now, I just hope someone’s watching the nuclear football.

(h/t John McCormack)

I’ve been both slammed at work and incredibly negligent about this blog, so in an effort to get myself back in the swing of posting, I’m starting a new feature here at Marque’s Letters — On The Marque.  In it, I’ll highlight the two or three articles or posts that I found most insightful on the day, along with some brief comments thereon.  Hope you find the selections as interesting as I do.  And for the first installment:

• One of the more underreported nominations of the Obama Administration has been Charles “Chas” Freeman’s appointment to head the National Intelligence Council.  Since the position doesn’t get approved by the Senate, you’re not likely to hear much more about it, either — and as such, it’s a politics-free window on Obama’s foreign policy soul.  This guy will be picking and choosing what he wants the President to know.  Sadly, Freeman’s discretion seems a bit off.  He thinks China didn’t crack down on the Tiananmen Square protesters quickly and violently enough.  He thinks the country needs to be more introspective about its own role in the 9/11 attacks.  And he thinks the Israel is the cause of most Islamic terror.  Angry yet?  I’ll let National Review’s editorial board finish the job in its precise and powerful way.

• When I saw articles in histrionic tones today at the AJC, the Washington Post, and several liberal blogs, all about a misunderstanding between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh that was dead and over two days ago, I knew there must be a liberal echo-chamber campaign afoot.  The Politico confirmed it (and Drudge amplified it), saying that the effort to attack Limbaugh and tie him to Republican officeholders comes straight out of the White House.  I expressed my thoughts on the matter in a comment to one of my favorite college football blogs earlier today, but then I read Jonah Goldberg’s piece on the topic and realized he said it much better than I.  If the Bush Administration had tried to circulate a preferred attack on its liberal opponents, is this how the media would have responded?  To Time’s credit (I can’t believe I’m writing this), Michael Scherer tells us they have no patience for it.

• I don’t know about you, but our country (and our world’s) present predicament has sent me to my deep thinking place more than once.  How can we have gotten here?  What fundamental failing(s) are at work that could cause society to be in such dire straits?  Matt Continetti must have gone to the same place, and he comes back with a lot more answers than I did — some of which are pretty scary, all of which are brutally honest.

Senator Jim DeMint has highlighted a nasty little morsel in the Democratic stimulus legislation:

(2) PROHIBITED USES OF FUNDS.—No funds awarded under this section may be used for—

(C) modernization, renovation, or repair of facilities—

(i) used for sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity; or

(ii) in which a substantial portion of the functions of the facilities are subsumed in a religious mission; or construction of new facilities.

That’s right — the Democrats are insisting that if stimulus funds are used by a university to repair or renovate a campus building, that building is forever banned from housing “sectarian instruction, religious worship, or a school or department of divinity.”

Think about that for a minute.  If a Syracuse dining hall has its windows replaced by the bill, students will be prohibited by federal law from saying a prayer before their meals.  If Duke University builds a classroom building to house its art department with stimulus money, in the year 2120, the local U.S. Attorney can go to court to enjoin the school from moving its Divinity School into the structure.  If the University of Georgia so much as changes a lightbulb purchased with stimulus money in its Chapel, it can arguably never host another marriage ceremony.  And perhaps most importantly, no sectarian university could ever contemplate receiving funds from the stimulus bill, because the bill would require it to establish a “no God allowed” building in the middle of its campus.

It’s an outrageous violation of the free exercise clause of the First Amendment, which any Senator should understand upon first reading.  Established Supreme Court precedent has plainly prohibited government entities, such as public schools, from preventing individuals from exercising their religious liberty in orderly ways on public property.  But Sen. DeMint has already tried to remove the language via amendment, and the AMENDMENT FAILED.

In case you wondered if liberalism had truly run amok in this bill, this should decide the matter for you.  Even I never expected the Democrats to sink this low in week 3 of the Obama Administration.  Get on the phone, folks, and put an end to this madness.

Campus transit during the Obama Administration?

Update: Malkin and the Corner are all over this.

This morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama took the occasion to make some comments about religion and respect for human life:

There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

So, Mr. President, speaking as a professing Christian and a supporter of abortion, does God consider infants in the womb to be (a) corrupt and guilty or (b) not human beings?  And if they aren’t human beings, what does God think they are?

Given that this was a prepared address, I continue to question the benighted Jon Favreau’s much-lauded skeelz.  There is no way that Obama intended to open this can of worms in the middle of what has been a wretched week for the Administration.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have been remarkably successful at demonstrating that the current spendulous bill doesn’t stimulate anything.  The popularity of the bill has dropped from 45-34% to 37-43% in two weeks’ time.  Perhaps most troubling for Democrats is that, among independents, the bill is now supported by 27% and opposed by 50%.  Did it really take only three weeks for Obama’s precious center to collapse?

The same Rasmussen poll shows that many voters still want the government to do something, although they fear that it will be the wrong thing:

Forty-six percent (46%) of voters remain concerned that the government will do too much in reacting to the nation’s economic problems. Forty-one percent (41%) are concerned that the government will do too little.

And to bolster all those who confirmed that President Obama still leads a center-right nation, Rasmussen tells us that a rather solid majority would support a stimulus plan consisting entirely of tax cuts:

A stimulus plan that includes only tax cuts is now more popular than the economic recovery plan being considered in Congress. Forty-five percent (45%) favor a tax-cut only plan while 34% are opposed…and voters strongly believe that tax cuts are good for the economy. Most Americans believe that a dollar of tax cuts is better for the economy than a dollar of government spending.

We all know it’s easier to attack than to lead, and the President may be far better at the former than the latter.  But these numbers show that there is an opening for an alternative proposal that will score well with the CBO as stimulative, focus heavily on tax cuts, and eliminate the long-term “transformative” spending that Obama is now selling the country (”This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending — it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education.”).

Enter Bill Kristol, who outlines this approach in an insightful blog post for the Washington Post:

The Republican position should be: We’ll pass on this emergency timetable a real stripped-down emergency stimulus. But if Obama insists on legislation incorporating an alleged “strategy for America’s long-term growth,” then the country deserves hearings and debate that obviously will take some time. And Republicans should make clear they cannot agree to limiting debate to a couple of days on such momentous long-term legislation.

In other words: If Obama wants a stimulus, Republicans will give it to him tomorrow. It’s the president’s and the Democrats’ insistence on incorporating a huge and problematic policy agenda in this one bill that’s delaying action. Why then, Republicans can ask, is President Obama delaying a necessary, short-term, emergency growth package?

Listen to this man, Mitch McConnell.

What was that our new president said about ending the politics of fear?

And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.

That’s President Obama, explaining why we absolutely must immediately spend $650 million for digital-TV coupons, $350 million for Agriculture Department computers, $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship, $55 million for a Historic Preservation Fund, and $150 million for “producers of livestock, honeybees, and farm-raised fish,” among other urgencies.

The President apparently believes the way he is going to get this spendulous bill passed is to give another campaign speech, although I would argue that now is not the time for that:

Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.

Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.

Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.

And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway.

I do agree with the President on one thing — that we shouldn’t “let Washington’s bad habits stand in the way of progress.”  Unfortunately, Americans are coming to realize that Washington’s bad habits are what Obama is offering as “hope” and “change.”

Now is not the time for bashing Republicans, Mr. President — they are not your problem.  Now is the time for fixing the mess of a bill Nancy Pelosi wrote for you.  To date, your leadership has been evident on one occasion – to strip out the absurd family planning “stimulus” spending Madame Speaker tried to sell on the Sunday shows.  If that’s the best you have to offer, your prediction of doom for the country may well come true.  But our doom will come because we may have a spineless sophist as our president for the next four years.

I was going to write a post or posts today about Obama’s missed political opportunities with the stimulus bill, and the growing gap between his words and his deeds, and the fact that our current predicament needs solutions beyond the same old, same old.

But Peggy Noonan said it all already, and better than I ever could.  Read her in the entirety.