Eighteen people in the presidential race–nineteen once Fred Thompson makes it official–but turn on Cable News lately and you’ll see a lot of talk about who will be number 20. Gore came out with a book, lost a little weight, and went on the obligatory talk-show tour, and that resparked plenty of Gore ’08 talk. Never mind the fact that Gore has said repeatedly that he has no plans to run, it’s hard to find a Democratic primary poll that doesn’t include his name… which, by the way, means that all of those polls are completely invalid. And for all you Republicans out there, don’t worry, we’ll be talking plenty about Newt Gingrich and Chuck Hagel in the months to come. This week, however, has been about the independents, specifically Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City.
The current incarnation of the post-hippie counter-culture is absurd. There are more than six billion people on the planet, and almost half of them have to struggle to even feed themselves on a daily basis. Of course, there is plenty of food out there. It’s just a matter of distribution. The United States and Europe have the technology and the capital to make food production insanely efficient. But for a wide variety of reasons that capital, the technology, and even the surplus food that we produce, often doesn’t get to the places where it is needed most. And it’s not just a matter of rich vs. poor. Deciding to feed the third world might mean sacrificing family farmers or low income laborers in our own countries, and even then we have to balance grants of food and money to keep people alive today, with the incentives and training necessary to produce viable local industries. Yeah, the current system is broken, but real reform is hard, it’s going to require a lot of sacrifice, and it’s going to require that we convince our politicians that we actually want to make those sacrifices. But all too often I’ve been told by my more liberal friends, or by liberal media outlets, to make meaningless symbolic gestures that don’t even begin to address the real issues. Let me give you a few examples.
The Bush Administration has always had an expansive view of executive authority. This is old news. So when I read this article in today’s Boston Globe, I wasn’t horribly surprised. The GAO found that the Bush Administration had ignored six out of the nineteen randomly chosen laws about which the president had issued signing statements. I would expect nothing less out of this presidency. What caught my attention was the justification for breaking one of those laws in particular.
The law in question requires the Border Patrol to frequently relocate checkpoints in and around Tuscon, AZ “to prevent persons subject to inspection from predicting the location of any such checkpoint”. The rule itself sounds eminently reasonable, although perhaps one could argue that this is an area where Congress ought to defer to the Border Patrol Agents themselves. The Bush Administration issued a signing statement in response to this rule arguing that these kinds of decisions are “part of the executive power vested in the President” and therefore Congressional rules of this nature have no standing. They are trying to argue that Congress is overstepping its Constitutional bounds. So let’s look up those Constitutional bounds, then, shall we?
Here’s what I don’t understand. The press keeps talking about a looming humanitarian crisis in the Gaza strip if Israel doesn’t allow food in, or Palestinians out.
But Gaza isn’t landlocked. It’s long and thin, and has a nice stretch of border along the Mediterranean Sea. Why can’t aid workers bring food and supplies to Gaza by boat? And why can’t refugees leave by boat?
I can understand Israel’s reticence to allow random Palestinians from a territory controlled by Hamas (which maintains a vow of the destruction of Israel to this day and has a history of suicide bombings and attacks on Israeli civilians) free entry into Israel. Its dangerous. And given the security issues, why don’t aid organizations operate by sea instead of land?
I’m sick of seeing all this press about Romney being a Mormon. Because it plays right into his hands. The thing is, there aren’t all that many people in this country who would refuse to vote for somebody based on the candidate’s religion. Sure, there are some, but those are people that Romney won’t get the vote of anyway because of his past stances on abortion and homosexuality.
But there are a LOT of people, who wouldn’t vote for Romney if they knew what a disaster he was as governor of Massachusetts. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t vote for him if they realized how little experience he has. There are a lot of people who wouldn’t vote for him if they paid any attention to his history of saying different things to different audiences, and being entirely untrustworthy.
But the media doesn’t talk about any of those things – they’ve chosen to focus on his Mormon faith as his “negative” trait. And since most people couldn’t care less about that, it makes him look really good. The more people focus on Romney’s Mormonism, the less they’re looking at the real flaws that he has. And since he looks presidential, and his real flaws aren’t being pointed out, he has a real shot at the nomination.
So news flash to the press: Romney is Mormon, I get it. Now lets move on to something substantive, shall we?
Recent Comments