Christina Romer: Old Dog, Old Tricks

Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post called "The Great Depression Reenactor" about former White House Economic Adviser and noted Great Depression "expert," Christina Romer. The gist of the post was that, despite the evidence to the contrary, she was still clinging to her failed Keynesian policies, wishing that unemployment was lower but still happy that they were able to get some stimulus into the economy.

Now that it's been another year and the unemployment rate is still above 9%, the US credit rating was downgraded, we appear to be headed for a double-dip recession, stocks are poised for another sell-off after a horrific week last week, and gold is up over $1700/ounce, do you think she's learned her lesson?

Fat chance.

Now she's on Bill Maher's show (watch the 6 minute video) joking that we're "darned fucked," and lamenting that the stimulus wasn't big enough.

See, she's an expert, if you didn't know, and she teaches that government spending drives recovery. It's in all the textbooks, she says, and she teaches that to the undergrads because she teaches the "truth." But don't worry. She says the empirical evidence "is definitely there," and to those who disagree, her thoughts are "that people wanna say that the sky is green."

In a humorous exchange -- though not for the reasons they suspect -- Maher compares her to a climate scientist in that they both "know real things that you study at a college," but the "stupid people" keep getting in the way. He suggests that people who disagree must have been "Palinized" and he asks, "isn't it frustrating when the people who don't know things about the subject you're so well versed in, get an equal vote in the debate?"

Of course, she agreed.

Now, it's easy for Maher to lump free market proponents into the Palin camp (note: this is no defense of that theocrat, Palin) because that's the same way he deals with climate change "deniers": ad hominem, insults, and mockery. Yet, his comparison of Romer to the climate change alarmists is quite apt, for one, because Romer sticks to the conventional wisdom despite any countervailing evidence, and for another, because the proposed solutions always entail a drastic attack on individual.

Let's be thankful that she was frustrated by the stupid people, at least a little bit. And let's hope that her brethren in the administration currently will be similarly frustrated in their attempts at a third round of cheap-money policy, QE3.

The Specific and the General

Random happenstance led me to read two articles today that have connections in ways I wouldn't have otherwise noticed and both articles are worth sharing. The first is the Specific.

In Chipotle Mexican Grill versus egalitarianism, Stephen Hicks examines the recent case against the restaurant chain for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To sum up, a man in a wheelchair sued because he couldn't see the food as it was being prepared. As Hicks writes:

The justices in the Ninth Circuit Court agreed, writing in their decision that Chipotle’s counter “subjects disabled customers to a disadvantage that non-disabled customers do not suffer.”

Let’s set aside some secondary matters to get to the key issues. So set aside the large majority of restaurants at which no customers can see their food being prepared. Set aside the children under four feet tall who can’t see their burritos being assembled at Chipotle. Set aside Chipotle’s offer to bring sample spoonfuls to their wheelchair customers.

Here are the key issues decided by the case, one ethical and one political:
Ethical: Customers should have equal food-ordering experiences as a matter of moral principle.
Political: We must use the law, i.e., physical compulsion, to enforce such an important moral principle.

What follows is a nuanced examination of how the ADA and the court enforce a bastardized form of the concept of "equal," one championed by egalitarianism where "to put it in metaphorical terms: they treat equality as a Procrustean Bed." The take home message is that the rights of Chipotle are being trampled upon by the implementation of bad philosophical principles.

As I was cleaning off my desk today, I came across a print out of the article I refer to as the General.

What happens to a society when it is being eaten alive from the inside out by countless examples like the one above? Billy Beck wrote about that nearly a year ago, and his words are even more relevant now:

This is my working concept, now: that it's over, and that all that's left are the particular details of collapse. That will be a rich story in itself, for sure, but we are living a truly unparalleled tragedy. It is unparalleled in that this was the first country in history founded on rational ideals of individualism (even accounting for the original sin of black slavery), and it is a tragedy in that it has been destroyed from within.

...Their grandfathers could build houses if and where they wanted to once they had accrued the moral authority (that's "money", kids) to do it: these people can barely un-flatpack a bookshelf, but at least they wouldn't have to beg zoning permits for that.

Even as it slides, though...they will notice the cold bite of the state. These are special generations -- the earliest of them just passing now and the last of them alive in albums with long hair and bell-bottoms -- who can see it all freezing right in front of their eyes. Their children are groomed to the cold from birth now. All the time, they know less and less about the sheer gaiety of life that once was this country, and what it took to produce that. They take for metaphysically-granted political (and their consequent cultural) structures emergent right in front of them that were once the stuff of "fevered McCarthyism". The worst part of that is the complicity of their parents, who should know better because they actually lived a great deal of what's been lost, now.

If it's not clear why I draw the connection, read both posts for yourself, especially Billy's. I'm no longer able to marshal arguments against Beck's overall assessment of America. Hick's particular example is one of seemingly infinite reasons.

In light of that, Beck's mention of "the complicity of...parents, who should know better," and that "their children are groomed" to accept the all-powerful state struck a chord. As a parent of young children, I struggle with this daily. How do I open their eyes to the fact that omnipresent government is not a metaphysical absolute, that men can deal with each other voluntarily without a statute or regulation (replete with taxes) to govern it, and that amazing prosperity and happiness are the result, without also passing on my own profound anger at it all? Right now, the anger may be all they understand, really, and that's no way to raise a reasoning, happy child. This is a battle I fight constantly, raising my wondrous, beautiful little humans in this time of decay.

The Great Depression Reenactor

Having done all she can to bring about a country-wide reenactment of the Great Depression, President Obama's chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Christina Romer, is stepping down. Following the standard doctrine of politicized, progressive economists, she believes that heavy government intervention saved the country from the Great Depression, and she relied on that "expertise" in her position for the past year and a half.

Among her challenges was explaining why her prediction that the Obama-backed fiscal stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8% proved overly optimistic. The unemployment rate is now at 9.5%.

"I certainly hoped it would be lower," she said. "The world deteriorated between November 2008 when I started" and the initial estimates were made "and when we took office January 21. Do I wake up every morning and wish it were 8% instead of 9.5%? You bet."

Well, as least she hoped it would be better. But it's not her fault, you see? The "world deteriorated!" "I'm not to blame! It's not my fault!" (Is that Dr. Robert Stadler or James Taggart -- or both -- from Atlas Shrugged?)

I wrote about Romer in November 2008 when she was first picked to lead the Council. I quoted the following passage from a Boston Globe article:

The lesson she drew from that crisis, according to colleagues and a review of her writings, is that strong government intervention is sometimes necessary medicine. That may mean she will urge Obama to act aggressively to keep capital flowing through the financial system and to enact an economic stimulus package that injects government spending into the economy at the risk of ballooning the deficit.

See my post for Henry Hazlitt's take on how well that worked when FDR did it. Similar policies threw the country into deeper depression which only relaxed when FDR (and the Supreme Court) finally lifted the boot from the neck of American business.

And yet, after seeing the failure of her policies -- even though she wishes! for lower unemployment -- Romer did, in fact, learn something new:

Where we are today is certainly not good. But in the absence of the actions [of the government --ed.] the economy would have been even more terrible."

One thing she says she hadn't realized previously: "The degree to which you often only get one shot at something like the Recovery Act."

See? She learned that as bad as things are, it would have been worse without her. What evidence does she have for that? To quote a favorite phrase of Ayn Rand's, "blank out."

Romer only got "one shot" and it was right on target. She hit America in the jugular and we've been hemorrhaging red ink ever since.

Willing and Eager Subjects in Training

Obama recently cautioned a group of graduating college kids that some of the arguments flowing to them via their "iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations" don't "rank all that high on the truth meter" and are threatening our democracy. One would hope that someone with even a little bit of healthy skepticism about the words spouted by popular figures, elected or not, would at least scratch their head about those statements, and wonder why the first president elected via Facebook "likes" and re-tweets would be calling out their high-tech gadgets and The Internets. Sadly, it looks like the poisonous mix of public, progressive education and a vacuous, charismatic Dear Leader onto which they can project their hopes and dreams has resulted in the perfect generation of young subjects for Obama. From a disturbing story on NPR this morning, "Opposite Of Radical: Today's Youth Trust Uncle Sam,"

A generation ago, young people vowed never to trust anyone over 30. But as it turns out, those under 30 today are actually more trusting of the government of all age groups, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. "As of now, I trust the government," says Brittany Tucker, a poli-sci major at Northeastern University in Boston. "I feel like they are trying to do what's best for us and their constituents."

The nearly unquestioning optimism and trust practically gushes from the kids the reporter interviewed, no matter the slight qualifiers they give. Think of Obama giving a commencement speech in which he openly attacks free speech, and know that this is the mindset of the kids in the audience:

Like so many of her peers, Tucker was inspired to get into politics by the campaign of President Obama.

"It gives you hope, and that hope turns into trust in the government, because you believe that things can change — or like good things can happen," Tucker says.

Analysts say that "Obama-love" may be what's propping up young people's trust. Most under-30s supported Obama in 2008 and still do today.

It must be noted that the reporter, Tovia Smith, states that only 32% of under-30s answered the survey this way, but that is still a significant percentage. Smith also points out that "[p]olls going back to 1958 show that trust always begins to head south sometime after age 30." As people grow up and see how much is taken out of each paycheck, their attitude toward government changes. And yet, Smith and others speculate that "this generation may be different." They don't give a compelling reason why, but I have a theory. Progressive education, an inability to think in fundamental principles, and a lack of any understanding of individual rights has left these kids defenseless when presented with thinly disguised bullshit from someone with a pretty face and soothing voice. They don't just like the Hope 'n Change pablum, they believe it. They accept it on faith -- secular or religious -- because they neither respect nor know how to employ reason. And Obama and his lackeys know this, and use it to full advantage. In fact, they count on it. They are grooming the next generation of willing and eager subjects, and it's working quite well.

Human Ingenuity: The Real Renewable Resource

A recent advertising campaign by the natural gas industry lobby, America's Natural Gas Alliance, states (paraphrasing), "we have a 100 year supply of natural gas and it's growing all the time," and that "we can't revitalize our economy by buying overseas oil," and that "natural gas is twice as clean as coal," and is thus much "greener."

As different sectors of the energy industry try to compete in today's hyper-regulated non-market, this pandering to both environmentalism and mercantilism ("energy independence" is the new "buy American!") is becoming a common strategy. It's an unfortunate, pragmatic, but also understandable reaction to a market that gets less free with every session of Congress and every presidential term.

The crushing weight of governmental regulation isn't the only thing industry is reacting against. As the government dedicates millions of redistributed dollars to "renewable" energy and "green jobs", thus denying legitimate, voluntary investment in the best available opportunities, it's not surprising to see real businesses respond to the distorted market by trying to offer options that try to take advantage of the situation. Producers still need to respond to demand in order to survive and profit, even if government distorts the demand beyond all reason.

An industry that raised the standard of living in not just the United States but in the whole world by a nearly immeasurable margin -- the petroleum industry -- has been demonized by the environmental lobby for decades, and attacked on all sides by government regulation and "reinvestment." And instead of developing a vibrant "green economy," such interference has only inflated energy prices, stifled real innovation, and wasted billions of dollars. Recall that Jimmy Carter tried to birth the solar power industry and its continued failure even during supportive later administrations cannot be dismissed as a partisan issue, or one which simply needs more taxpayer money thrown at it. Decades of government support for renewable energy has gotten us nowhere. [As a side note, if you happen to disagree and think that the oil industry is only an exploiter of the poor and of the environment, may I suggest some required reading?]

Assuming for the moment that we really do need "energy independence" and "green energy," and considering that government involvement has not solved these "problems," what are the alternatives? There just so happens to be a socio-economic system that has been proven throughout history to be perfect for handling just such quandaries.

Capitalism unleashes the political and economic possibilities of the best within humanity. All of the creative, positive, progressive aspects of human activity are fostered -- not oppressed -- by the socio-political framework of capitalism, which means the system that fully and consistently protects individual rights in all areas of human interaction, leaving men free to produce, to solve problems, and to make enormous sums of money in the process. Nearly every modern convenience and life-sustaining technology that we take for granted today is ultimately the product of men who were free, at least in part, to use their minds, to innovate, and to produce.

On the other hand, nearly every seemingly unsolvable socio-economic problem we face today can be traced to government interference. In the energy sphere, government distorts the market by restricting free inquiry and pushing an environmentalist agenda. Using redistributed dollars, government actively promotes one type of solution while regulating others out of existence. Individual rights and the freedom of supply and demand are ignored as irrelevant, while government directs private industry toward supposed socially- and environmentally-friendly goals that continually fail to deliver real return on investment (even the pseudo-investment of "public" dollars). Solar cells, windmills, etc., are subsidized again and again, despite the fact that the market is never there, and the desired innovation never comes.

But it is certainly a fact that there is only so much petroleum on the Earth, and at some point, someday, it could run out. What this should say to a free people is that there is a potential market there for someone ingenious enough to capture it, when the time is right. Is so-called renewable energy the place to look? Who knows? But it certainly isn't the government who knows.

Let us look at renewable resources themselves for a minute. Admittedly, wind is wind, and sun is sun; these things are "renewable" in that they will continue to be available in essentially their current forms until the Earth ceases to exist. But nothing about this means that they will necessarily be economically useful right now, or will benefit human life in the same way that petroleum has. They certainly may, someday, but only on their own timeline, as determined by the individual efforts of creative men, the needs they face, and the values they want to gain.

Was sunlight a useful energy source a few million years ago in the same way we think of energy now? Obviously not. What about wind? This is even more absurd. Wind was more of an enemy -- feeding wildfires while killing cooking fires, chilling bodies, blowing away seeds and arrows -- than it was a useful resource, though it was as plentiful then as it is now. The sun and the wind thus share something fundamental with any other resource. Imagine early Homo sapiens stumbling into a pit filled with a black, viscous, smelly liquid. What good was it to him?

Oil, just like sun and wind, is simply an obstacle until and unless the human mind reshapes it to its own purposes. Obviously, the human mind, reason, and ingenuity are the only things that can transform inanimate matter into life-sustaining values.

Human ingenuity, not wind, not sun, is the only truly renewable resource. Without it, nothing in nature would be transformed to further human life. Your car, your clothes, your food -- none of these things are naturally occurring. If all we can do is take what we get, then we are but hunter-gatherers without tools or any remnants of cognition to help us along. But because humans are rational animals, we can identify the materials in our environment and mold them to suit us.

Be it stones or soft metals or iron or oil or electricity or fusion -- or the sun -- the human mind is the inexhaustible resource that makes all others possible. It is time for the government to recognize this alternative energy source, and to unleash it fully upon the world by getting the hell out of our way.

The Negation of Freedom

We do not have two political parties in this country, America. We have one party; called the Big Government Party. The Republican wing likes deficits, war, and assaults on civil liberties. The Democratic wing likes wealth transfer, taxes, and assaults on commercial liberties. Both parties like power; and neither is interested in your freedoms. Think about it. Government is the negation of freedom. Freedom is your power and ability to follow your own free will and your own conscience. The government wants you to follow the will of some faceless bureaucrat.

. . . Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn't care about the Constitution, it doesn't care about your inalienable rights, it doesn't care about the liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, it doesn't even read the laws it writes.

America, this is not an academic issue. If this health care bill becomes law, life as you have known it, freedom as you have exercised it, privacy as you have enjoyed it, will cease to be.

When Congress takes away our freedoms, they will be gone forever. What will you do to prevent this from happening? [bold added]

—Judge Andrew Napolitano, writing about the Congressional vote on Obamacare, and what such a massive usurpation of individual rights will mean.

Our government should be the protector of freedom and individual rights, but Napolitano is dead on with his call; it is now a predator instead.

[HT: Myrhaf at The New Clarion]

"This fire rates more than one alarm..."

Gus Van Horn discusses government corruption scandals, and hits on the much more fundamental issue of it all -- one that people must keep in mind when parsing such stories from the media:

"I find that concerns about corruption too frequently and easily distract from the real problem, which is that too many Americans regard theft as legitimate when performed by government officials in the name of central planning."

That's the crux of it. The moral rot of altruism-fueled central planning just attracts the rotters. Yes, Rod Blagojevich is certainly a criminal, but don't waste your time on him. Direct your efforts at that which makes things like him possible: government thievery by welfare statism.

Go check out the whole post.

Stop Thinking You're So Great

If you've wondered what could have prompted Obama's worldwide apology tour, or gave the Nobel Committee impetus to award him the Prize, look no further than this Boston Globe op-ed: One nation, under illusion.

THE HOARIEST and most oft-repeated cliche in American politics may be that America is the greatest country in the world. Every politician, Democrat and Republican, seems duty bound to pander to this idea of American exceptionalism, and woe unto him who hints otherwise. ... As if this weren’t enough, Jimmy Carter upped the fawning ante 30 years ago by uttering arguably the most damning words in modern American politics. He called for a "government as good as the American people," thus taking national greatness and investing it in each and every one of us.

... The fact of the matter is that whenever anything really significant has been accomplished by our government, it is precisely because it was better than the American people.

The columnist, Neal Gabler, has laid it out pretty clearly right there. "Who the hell are we to think we're great?" he asks, and then says that the only "significant" accomplishments of the government have come in spite of the American people. To his credit, he seems to get that he's operating under a very specific value system and that he's using it to decide what "great" means. He asks, "By what standard is one nation any greater than any other nation?"

He displays his standard of value in the examples he lists. Gabler faults the US for income inequality, citing the egalitarian Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. He cites the UN's "Human Development Index" which lists the American standard of living 15th behind that of the welfare states of Europe. He refers to the WHO's "quality of care" rankings which listed US health care 37th. (To which Richard Ralston said, "When you hear this, always ask, 'Ranked by whom and how?' ")

Gabler's standard of value is quite obviously the same as that of UN and all the organizations he cites: altruism-fueled egalitarianism and cultural relativism. When he asks "By what standard is one nation any greater than any other nation?" he's not looking for an answer. He's implying that it is impossible for one nation to be any better than another. Well, except that the US is actually worse because its welfare programs aren't up to snuff, but let's not split hairs. Still, he assures us, he's not saying that America is bad, per se:

The point of all this isn’t that America doesn’t have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia. [bold added]

China? Russia? Really?

As I alluded to earlier, this view is exactly why Obama has the Nobel Peace Prize. This is why he felt compelled to take a Global Apology Tour. He and Gabler firmly believe that America has no right to think itself better than proto-dictatorial Russia, dictatorial China, or theocratic-totalitarian Iran.

I've said it before, and will keep repeating it because it's unassailably right: the only criteria by which to judge a government is the extent to which it protects individual rights. In this light, all of Gabler's conclusions are completely wrong. Despite the fact that people like him and Obama are trying their damnedest to drag the country into European welfare statism, America is still the freest, most moral, greatest country in existence. It is not "arrogance", "hubris", or "overweening pride," as Gabler called it, but a cold, rational statement of moral judgment.

But because of our hubris, Gabler is concerned that the Gods will visit their wrath on us:

A nation that brooks no criticism, a nation that feels it is always better than any other, a nation that has to be endlessly flattered and won’t face the truth, a nation whose people think they possess some special moral exemption and wisdom, a nation without humility is a nation spoiling for calamity.

He's right that we're headed in the wrong direction, spoiling for calamity. What he doesn't understand (or is evading) is that it is precisely the ideas he champions that are leading us there.

Van Jones: Plucking the Leaves but Leaving the Roots

I recall reading well over a year go about a guy from California who was spearheading the "Green Collar Economy." It was a popular new catchphrase and I believe I heard about it first either on NPR or in the Boston Globe. I went to the website and read about someone named Van Jones who was organizing and trying to spread his terrible environmentalist and statist views on a national scale, with a book and a bunch of slick marketing and social media activities. Still, he was local from way across on the Left Coast, and I put it out of my mind.

Then Obama won. Eventually, I heard of a new "Green Jobs Czar" named... Van Jones. Yup, same guy. On top of all the other horrendous appointments he was making, it was hard to say he was any worse than the likes of Cass Sunstein or tax cheat Tim Geithner. Then recently, conservative commentators started digging into Jones' background, he became a liability, and over the weekend he resigned. (Expect a cacophony of claims that the Right was motivated by racism -- I'm betting on a Paul Krugman piece trumpeting that angle in the Times in the next day or two.)

Of course his resignation won't make a bit of difference. In fact, it may be a bad thing, because all that will happen is that Obama will search out a non-controversial person to hide in the background while he doles out billions of dollars of redistributed wealth, stolen from productive enterprises and tossed down the Green Hole of "sustainable" industry.

The Wall St. Journal appears to be cautioning Obama from its editorial page, but all it's doing is asking him to govern from the middle:

No President is responsible for all of the views of his appointees, but the rise and fall of Mr. Jones is one more warning that Mr. Obama can't succeed on his current course of governing from the left. He is running into political trouble not because his own message is unclear, or because his opposition is better organized. Mr. Obama is falling in the polls because last year he didn't tell the American people that the "change" they were asked to believe in included trillions of dollars in new spending, deferring to the most liberal Members of Congress, a government takeover of health care, and appointees with the views of Van Jones. [bold added]

The only item in that list that a Republican administration wouldn't be guilty of is appointing someone like Van Jones (though they'd likely go in the opposite direction and appoint a Christian Fundamentalist).

Still, the longer the radical leftists are sitting in positions of power in Washington, and the longer their explicit and implicit political philosophies are exposed to the harsh sunlight, it is more likely that the American people will start to wonder if there is a real, philosophical antidote more substantial than Reagan-era conservatism. They may, just may, start thinking about individual rights and questioning why both parties are so hellbent on violating them.

It's good to see someone like Jones get run out of town, but until the opposition starts fighting for individual rights and fully laissez-faire capitalism instead of complaining that one of Obama's czars said "Republicans are a-holes," there will be no alteration in the course of the country as it plunges into socialism. Because environmentalist and statist policies were not attacked at their rights-violating roots, one green czarist weed was pulled and we can expect another, stronger, harder-to-pull weed to spring up in its place.

Recruiting Government Informants

It seems that the White House is now looking for Soviet-style informants to report on their neighbors if they hear anything negative about government plans for health care. Here is a blog post from whitehouse.gov:

TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM
Facts Are Stubborn Things
Posted by Macon Phillips

Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things."

Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions.

In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to "eliminate" private coverage, when the reality couldn’t be further from the truth.

For the record, the President has consistently said that if you like your insurance plan, your doctor, or both, you will be able to keep them. He has even proposed eight consumer protections relating specifically to the health insurance industry.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov. [underlining in original, bold added]

I hear that people are sending protest emails to this address, so my guess is that it will be shut down soon.

As crazy as this all seems, this fear of rumors is exactly the kind of thing that Obama and Cass Sunstein hold as a basic guiding premise. Sunstein has been fighting "extremism" and rumor for well over a decade by making vague statements or even writing entire books insinuating that such things are a dire threat to "deliberative democracy."

In Sunstein's book, Why Groups Go To Extremes, he presents the following non-arguments and insinuations about the Internet and extremism, a line of pseudo-reasoning that applies just as well to his fear of rumors (p. 15-16):

Many people have expressed concern about processes of social influence on the mass media and the Internet. ...

If certain people are deliberating with many like-minded others, views will not be reinforced but instead shifted to more extreme points. This cannot be said to be bad by itself—perhaps the increased extremism is good—but it is certainly troublesome if diverse social groups are led, through predictable mechanisms, toward increasingly opposing and ever more extreme views. [emphasis added]

When is "increased extremism" good, in his view? He cites the abolitionist movement as a prime example. When is it... troublesome? Perhaps when people criticize the government's attempt to nationalize the health care market?

I shouldn't be surprised by anything that comes out of the Obama administration, but I honestly didn't expect that they would ask citizens to rat each other out to the secret police. As Myrhaf has said,

Once again, Obama’s radical ideology puts him at odds with reality. It’s uncanny how he gets everything exactly wrong. Barack Obama is Bizarro #1 from the Silver Age Superman comics. Bizarros live on Htrae instead of Earth and get everything backward. They do the opposite of what rational humans would do. [bold added]

It's hard to do, but if you'd like to predict the next absurd move the administration will make, try to think of what should be done, then flip it upside down in the most irrational way you possibly can, and then assume that whatever you come up with will still pale in comparison to what actually happens. Just don't write down or speak any of your predictions, because nosy neighbors good citizens might be listening.

---------
Update:

Gus Van Horn has a good commentary on this issue, and also addresses Obama's fascination with rumor, but from a more fundamental angle. He quotes Ayn Rand on the nature of second-handers and ties that back to Obama's views and goals:

They have no concern for facts, ideas, work. They're concerned only with people. They don't ask: "Is this true?" They ask: "Is this what others think is true?" Not to judge, but to repeat. Not to do, but to give the impression of doing. Not creation, but show. Not ability, but friendship. Not merit, but pull.

Does that last paragraph not sound familiar? And does it not almost perfectly characterize the form which Obama hopes political "debate" will take? Obama does not really have a self, and he hates those of us who do. [emphasis in original, links dropped]

The concern with rumors, "extreme" views, and the anti-concept of polarization can be understood through the lens of second-handedness. "Is this what others think is true?" is the only question worth asking to them.

By the way, it is fascinating to read Ayn Rand's characterization of "polarization" from the early 1970's because it perfectly describes nearly everything that Cass Sunstein has written in the past 10 years.

One of today’s fashionable anti-concepts is “polarization.” Its meaning is not very clear, except that it is something bad—undesirable, socially destructive, evil—something that would split the country into irreconcilable camps and conflicts. It is used mainly in political issues and serves as a kind of “argument from intimidation”: it replaces a discussion of the merits (the truth or falsehood) of a given idea by the menacing accusation that such an idea would “polarize” the country—which is supposed to make one’s opponents retreat, protesting that they didn’t mean it. Mean—what?

Central Planners

Alex Epstein has posted an excellent article at Voices for Reason, called Fix It Again, Barack, in which he blasts the Obama administration for the fiasco of the Chrysler/Fiat deal. The main thrust of his argument is summed up in the last paragraph:

...we should look to the far-reaching, destructive effects of government intervention... that undermines productive behavior and rewards unproductive behavior. The solution, for the auto industry and others, is simple: remove the toxic presence of government “planning” and leave the industry free to produce and profit. [bold added, links dropped]

But the reason for my post is something Epstein wrote in his very first sentence of the piece, and it's something that deserves to be examined more closely. He wrote:

One way in which the central planners of the Obama administration easily acquire and exercise the power to dictate how a 300-million-person economy should run is by portraying entire industries as stupid, short-sighted, and in need of “adult supervision.” [bold added]

I think he's used this terminology before, but it really jumped out at me this time because of how powerful and concise the phrase "central planners" is in reference to what Obama is doing.

This one simple phrase has a major significance in its obvious reference to the Soviet and Chinese communist dictatorships and their failed economic policies. With a delightful economy of words, and because of its subtlety and unambiguous implications (because of the near universal understanding of the historic failure of central planning), the use of the phrase clearly identifies the activities of the administration as tragically similar, without taking it too far and weakening the argument. If he called Barack and his administration communist or some other name, it would harm his credibility by seeming to go too far.

Referring to this administration as "The Central Planners" is something that I hope will catch on. I certainly plan on using it in conversation and writing, and I think you should too.

A Blind, Indifferent Juggernaut

As Independence Day approaches, and talk of the Boston Tea Party event and OCON heats up, I've been particularly enjoying the fact that I'm reading Ed Cline's Sparrowhawk again. If you ever need motivation and inspiration to step back and truly appreciate the meaning of July 4th, Sparrowhawk is the place you should go. I just started Book Six: War, and the foreword to this volume struck me as particularly timely.

The engine of tyranny is a blind, indifferent juggernaut, insensible to reason, justice and equity, and so necessarily inimical to them. It matters not the good intentions of the hand that launches it into the affairs of men. Once started, it moves almost of its own volition, corrupting, consuming and destroying everything in its path. It is a fundamentally nihilistic phenomenon. Its power is both centripetal and centrifugal, on one hand drawing its potency from that which it can corrupt; on the other, crushing or flinging aside the incorruptible.

The juggernaut of Parliamentary supremacy collided with the American colonies' incorruptible sense of liberty, which could be neither crushed nor flung aside. The result was a spectacular explosion: the American Revolution. That explosion was neither necessary nor foreordained. The colonies could have submitted to that supremacy, and existed for a time in a haze of semi-legality, occasional concession, and dependent prosperity. But British-Americans valued their liberty and were willing to claim it whole, come what may. Therefore, the clash between them and the legislative authority of Parliament could be postponed but never resolved. The colonials would not allow their claim to unabridged liberty to be corrupted. In the course of that political transfiguration, they became Americans.

We are seeing the war engine of tyranny chewing up what is left of our liberties on a daily basis now. Doug Reich just called it a "clumsy but swift campaign" straight out of Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Whereas the juggernaut of tyranny ran up against "the American colonies' incorruptible sense of liberty" two hundred and thirty years ago, it is now finding a relatively compliant and subservient American populace. The Tea Parties offer a spark of the fire that once raged in the colonies, but the question remains whether it is too little, too late, or too isolated in a swampland of irrationality to ignite an "incorruptible sense of liberty" in the minds of Americans today. Are there enough true Americans left, namely, those who understand and value unabridged liberty? (This is, and always will be, the fundamental definition of "American.")

Billy Beck has this to say about what is left of the American sense of life:

The spirit of this place that was not born of the slave's obesience [sic] will require this government to bare its fangs. I still believe that. The ways in which and the singular souls from which Americans select their values are not yet so beaten to any alien molds so well that they will peaceably stand for the conformations that this government will eventually require and demand -- not "ask".

The colonials refused to submit, and the Parliamentary juggernaut bared its fangs. Anyone who thinks our government wouldn't do the same is evading reality and the lessons of history. Such is the nature of any government that rules, because if you have rulers, you have people being ruled, and that means by force.

Beck goes on to say that things will likely have to get much worse before the breaking point is reached. I agree. But the "conformations that this government will eventually require and demand" don't seem that far off anymore. The campaign being waged against liberty is both very clumsy and shockingly swift -- the frightening prospect of a juggernaut traveling at 100 mph.

When thinking about the world I'll be leaving for my children, I used to think that they would be long gone and their great-great-grandchildren would be living their lives before this country might be unrecognizable as a bastion of liberty (at least more so than it is now), and that there was still plenty of time to reverse that course. Events of the past year have me reevaluating that assessment.

I haven't given up on the possibility of a rebirth of reason and a just government in my or my children's lifetimes, and will continue to strive for it and support others who do the same. Working to realize my values has benefits even when the odds seem poor. Perhaps one of the few bright spots in recognizing the nature of tyranny, and how it is at work today, is that history shows it can be stopped.


---------
Update: (06/23/09) Revised closing paragraph.

Rule of Law Takes a Back Seat

This video from WSJ.com is a month old now, but the discussion still applies to everything the Obama administration is doing now. The commentators discuss how the administration is strong-arming California to sweep away bipartisan legislation for state budget cuts in favor of a union. To this, Dan Henninger said "they are trampling the idea of federalism." Then they discuss how the administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress are ignoring Article 1 of the Constitution and bankruptcy law precedent by placing the UAW's claims above those of Chrysler's preferred creditors. Henninger said, paraphrasing, that the Obama administration considers the rule of law just one issue on the table equal to social justice and the public good, that it often has to take a back seat to those considerations, and that they consider this a "legitimate theory of operating the government." Shaking his head, he said that if the courts uphold these actions, "then we're living under a new system." Indeed.

My one gripe is that, though one of them did mention property rights, they didn't take the next necessary step and discuss how the administration's actions constitute a fundamental violation of individual rights and that the "new system" we'll soon be living under is full-blown fascism. As Ayn Rand said, "Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal."

The Aristocracy of Unproductive Zombies

In an in-depth piece on WSJ.com today, writers Bob Davis and Jon Hilsenrath report that Federal Intervention Pits 'Gets' vs. 'Get-Nots' (subscription required). Speaking to a factory worker who stopped into a sporting goods store for a gun case, they informed him that, because of the government bailout money given to Cabela's for its store-issued credit card operations,

The U.S. government helped finance the transaction. Earlier this year, it recharged the credit-card operations of the Nebraska-based retailer of hunting and camping gear with nearly $400 million of federal financing.

Mr. Davis was surprised to hear about the government's helping hand, and hardly pleased. "Anything the federal government, or any government, sticks its nose in fails or makes things worse," he said as he made his way across the parking lot with his son.

This is a common sentiment in large swaths of America. It's difficult to discern if the authors agree, but luckily they make few evaluative comments and instead focus on the disturbing facts:

True or not, what's undeniable is that the federal government has burrowed its way deep into the quotidian workings of American capitalism.

Since the onset of the financial crisis nine months ago, the government has

• become the nation's biggest mortgage lender,
• guaranteed nearly $3 trillion in money-market mutual-fund assets,
• commandeered and restructured two car companies,
• taken equity stakes in nearly 600 banks,
• lent more than $300 billion to blue-chip companies,
• supported the life-insurance industry and
• become a credit source for buyers of cars, tractors and even weapons for hunting.

[converted to a list for emphasis]

When laid out like that, it's truly flabbergasting. What is the effect of this unprecedented interference in the economy on the nature of American business? If you have read Atlas Shrugged, you'll likely be able to answer quickly: the Aristocracy of Pull.

The massive intervention has shifted the way companies do business in a host of ways -- not all of them intended by the government. Increasingly, companies big and small are competing on the basis of their ability to tap government money. A divide is opening between gets and get-nots. ...

Government spending as a share of the economy has climbed to levels not seen since World War II. The geyser of money has turned Washington into an essential destination for more and more businesses. Spending on lobbying is up, as are luxury hotel bookings in the capital. [bold added]

Government intervention has wide-ranging impacts on markets, and on firms that seek and obtain bailouts, those that fail at that task, and with firms who actively avoid government cash. Some even use their defiance and independence as a marketing tool.

Victor Stabio, chief executive of Hallador Petroleum Co., a Colorado coal and oil producer, recently got mail from UMB Financial, a bank in Kansas City, Mo., that advertised it hadn't taken a penny from the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP. Mr. Stabio says he was impressed. He moved $8 million of Hallador's money to UMB. "I didn't like the whole TARP program to start with," he says. [bold added]

But when even admirable companies like BB&T feel compelled to take bailout money because money given to competitors puts them at a disadvantage, what happens to the less admirable, less well run companies who seek bailouts?

Some economists and business leaders worry the intervention will result in rules that hamstring the way some businesses operate, and that it will sustain unproductive zombie firms and burden the next generation with debt or inflation. [bold added]

Were the authors thinking of GM when they wrote about "unproductive zombie firms?" That was certainly the first thing to come to my mind. GM and Chrysler were the beneficiaries of lots of government help, while Ford was not because Ford was in a stronger position. It's not hard to predict that the market-distorting impacts of this government takeover of one of the major players in the auto market will have long-term negative effects on their slightly healthier, and non-bailed out competitors. This whole mess could easily destroy the entire market for American-made cars, leaving only a government-run monopoly, inefficiently producing substandard cars that no one wants.

Competitive advantage is no longer obtained by making the best product at the lowest cost, or in having the best marketing or distribution strategy. Advantage is gained by having the most pull, by being the one to be declared "too big to fail." Witness the perversion of the nature of competition in the following example:

The prospect of dipping into buckets of federal money has ignited competitive scrambles in lots of industries. In the farm-equipment sector, Deere & Co.'s purchase of a thrift years ago qualified it in December for a government guarantee on $2 billion of its debt, through a Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. program to help banks access debt markets.

But the FDIC didn't cover competitors such as Caterpillar Inc. or smaller equipment providers. So the Equipment Leasing and Finance Association, a trade group, lobbied the Fed to expand the TALF program to sales of farm equipment and other machinery. The association's president, Kenneth Bentsen, a former Democratic congressman from Texas, met with the Fed's general counsel and followed up with phone calls and letters. The Fed eventually expanded TALF to cover Deere, Caterpillar and other equipment makers. [bold added]

Welcome to the new face of the American competitive spirit, one fawning and obsequious, pleading for privilege. Mr. Rockefeller, meet your replacement: Wesley Mouch, Washington Man.

The other edge of this double-edged sword is increased regulation. Because of the popular, and seemingly impossible to kill, incorrect notion that it was a lack of government regulation that led to the economic crisis -- when in fact it was the exact opposite -- the Obama administration will be calling for new regulation that they swear will not "hamstring the way ... businesses operate."

One of the most important pieces of the federal intervention is the rewriting of financial regulations, which the administration expects to propose this week. Under the plan, firms deemed "systemically important" would be regulated more heavily than other firms, to limit the chance they fail and threaten the broader economy.

Government backing could help banks, hedge funds, private-equity firms and others considered too-big-to-fail firms to gain an advantage by being able to borrow at rates below their smaller competitors. But there's a catch. The government could demand these big firms hold more capital or limit their dependence on debt, discouraging them from gambling with taxpayer backing. That would limit both their risk-taking and their potential profits. [bold added]

"Systematically important"? Is this a newspeakian euphemism for "too big to fail," but with an implied stick (regulation) instead of a carrot (bailouts)? As we have seen from this administration, it is all too eager to use its new found power impose its will on private business. Just ask the ex-CEO of GM, or see the new "executive pay czar."

As the acceleration of the aristocracy of pull (which has sadly been around for some time) fast becomes the aristocracy of unproductive zombies, while the government continues to prop up the GMs of the world, one wonders how bad it will have to get before people wake up to the fact that government interference in markets is the problem. What will it take for Americans to understand that we need a Separation of Economy and State as badly as we do one of church and state?

Too Big to Fail... 244 Years Ago

While enjoying the cool evening on my patio yesterday, re-reading the Sparrowhawk series, I came upon a passage in Book Four: Empire that really jumped out at me.

As Hugh Kenrick -- one of the series' two main heroes -- and Patrick Henry prepared to attack the Stamp Act in the Virginia House of Burgesses in May of 1765, they first debated a proposed bill for a "loan office." This was a scheme for the wealthiest and most in debt plantation owners to erase some of their debts to the Crown and British creditors. One of the supporters of the shady bill, Edmund Pendleton, stood up and defended it to the House:

"…The depressing circumstances of this colony -- the present low price of tobacco, the recent ban on our ability to issue money, the nullification of so many patents on land west of the Blue Ridge -- all these factors, and others, have obliged so many persons here of substantial property to enter into great debts, which, if their payments were severely demanded, would ruin those men and their families and all who depend on them, and their ruin would certainly harbinge the ruin of men of lesser and other circumstances throughout this colony. A loan office, supervised by men of the strictest virtue, would enable those more substantial persons to pay their necessary debts with greater ease, and help to put this colony on a firmer and unassailable footing." [bold added]

Sound familiar? Here are the arguments for TARP, AIG, GM, you name it, just 244 years ago. The plantation owners were "too big to fail" and so they wanted government to bail them out.

I was prepared to write a long post about this, and then I found that Ed Cline, author of Sparrowhawk and blogger at The Rule of Reason, wrote it better than I could in December of last year. Go check it out!

The Government Killed My Jet Pack

An article on CNN.com seeks to address Why our 'amazing' science fiction future fizzled. After seeing a dazzling potential future at the '64 World's Fair,

Forty years later, we're still waiting for those congestion-free highways -- along with the jet pack, the paperless office and all those "Star Trek"-like gadgets that were supposed to make 21st-century life so easy.

The author, John Blake, makes some interesting observations, such as, well, some of those futuristic gadgets are already here. He mentions things like jet packs and flying cars that already exist but aren't commercially viable, but I contend that PCs and cell phones and the Internet would all qualify.

Still, he points to the fact that our highways are still jammed, and that people are becoming disillusioned with what technology can promise the future. He notes dystopian movies like Blade Runner where "technology creates more problems than it solves," and Battlestar Galactica where "human beings abandon their faith in technology's ability to improve the future. They destroy their fancy machines and start again as simple hunter-gatherers."

I don't think our culture's disillusionment is coming from a loss of "faith" in technology to "save us" but instead the wholesale abandonment of reason and the ever-increasing power of the state over our lives. The loss of reason and the increase of the state go hand in hand. We are losing our confidence in our individual ability to command our own lives, and instead are turning to government to "save us." Government, in turn, is crushing the productive output of what is left of capitalism.

Let's looks at traffic congestion. The article is right. It shouldn't be an issue. But rather than a technological problem, it is a problem of a lack of property rights and liberty. A traffic jam is a concrete example of a shortage. Demand for driving room outpaces supply. And why is this the case?

Traffic jams are a direct result of a government monopoly of the roadways. If capitalists (road builders, auto makers, etc.) were left free to find solutions to the problems, traffic jams would disappear. Technology alone wouldn't help. Imagine adding flying cars to the current mix... in our mixed economy, they'd have to be regulated of course--EVERYTHING has to be regulated, right? Or else we're left with soulless profiteers preying upon the weak-minded and everything goes to hell!---which means the FAA would get involved. There's already a shortage of air traffic controllers. Need I go on with this example? Same goes with jet packs. They would be personal transportation, but what would you want to bet that the government would rule that people would have to land and take off in special "jet pack ports?" Who will want to drive their jet pack to a government-approved launch pad, fly to their destination, and then be stuck at the landing pad with a jet pack and no way to get where they're going (without added expense)? Not to mention all the licensing, government mandated training, excise taxes, etc., all stifling the market before it even exists.

My point in all of this is that the reason we aren't witnessing amazing technological change in all areas of life is because of government interference. The computer world exploded and continues to (for now) because regulators haven't quite caught up with it yet. When they do, it will slow greatly.

Technology isn't the problem and it isn't the solution. It's not the cause, but the effect. Blake treats technology as some sort of disembodied phenomenon, apart from the humans who create it. But to do so ignores that technology doesn't just appear... it must be created by individual minds, left free to think and create.

The real cause of human progress -- whether embodied in technological advances or otherwise -- is freedom. Freedom to innovate, to produce, to solve problems and make astounding amounts of money doing it. When the country abandons its infatuation with state control and the government is confined to protecting individual rights, we'll see the kinds of mind-blowing changes the optimistic futurists of 100 years ago dreamed of.

That Just About Says It All

In an opinion piece in today's Wall St. Journal, the headline and sub-head succinctly mirror my thoughts on the topic of Obama's new CAFE standards for the auto industry, as I heard about it for the first time on NPR last night.

Car Crazy
Bankrupt companies making 39 mpg autos. Are we nuts?

The rest of the piece veers around a bit, making some good points and missing some essentials about why this is both economically and morally rotten, but the last paragraph is on target about the absurdity of the situation:

One thing seems certain by 2016: Taxpayers will be paying Detroit to make the cars Americans don't want, and then they will pay again either through (trust us) a gas tax or with a purchase subsidy. Even the French must think we're nuts.

Leave it to the Collectivist-in-Charge to out-French the French.

Only a Fool Would Take This Job

The government is having a tough time filling all the spots of the executives and directors it has ousted recently. As Joann Lublin reports in the Wall St. Journal,

The federal government's expanding involvement in finance companies and auto makers has saddled it with another tricky task: executive recruiter.

As part of Chrysler LLC's bankruptcy filing last week, the government has the right to appoint four directors to Chrysler's board. Government agencies are running, aiding or monitoring searches for executives or directors to help lead at least five other companies receiving government aid: General Motors Corp., GMAC LLC, American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc. and Freddie Mac.

But government officials and outside observers fear it will be tough to find seasoned executives to step into high-profile positions with limited authority and limited pay. Executives and directors at these companies will have to balance obligations to taxpayers and other shareholders, all the while under close scrutiny by Congress and the media. [bold added]

Do they really think it will be that difficult? Hmm. Let's see... intrusive oversight by politicians and regulators, low pay, and the possibility that the political winds could change at any moment and an angry busload of ACORN protesters could be outside your door, harassing your kids on the way to school. This of course is on top of the moral culpability of taking part in the creeping (galloping?) fascism taking hold in the country.

With that in mind, Lublin quotes Charles Elson of the U. of Deleware business school:

"No one who has much sense will want to put themselves in that position."

This is undoubtedly true. Despite the fact that it is absolutely wrong that the government is in the position to hire and fire executives at will, they will eventually fill the positions. But if only a fool would take the job...

Obama's Grand Rail Plans

"The president is envious of Europe's speedy railways," the story at ABC.com begins. He looks longingly at the public works projects of Europe, China and Japan, and yearns for the ability to bring high-speed rail travel to America.

Many are quick to point out the bad timing of such a project considering the economy, or the fact that the distance between America's large cities makes such plans unrealistic.

But consider for the moment the specific nature of the countries Obama looks to for guidance and hope, specifically China. This "investment" in high-speed rail is comparable to the public works projects of China for reasons deeper than just similarities in "government infrastructure spending."

To illustrate this, take a look back at a previous post about delays in rebuilding on Ground Zero. New Yorker architecture critic Paul Goldberger lamented, in an NPR interview, that "commercial interests" were delaying both the memorial and general rebuilding efforts.

[NPR's] Siegel then compared the slow progress at Ground Zero with, of all things, the "enormous numbers of structures" erected by the Chinese government since 2001 for the 2008 Olympics, apparently with the point that the act of building shouldn't take that long. Goldberger replied that he was in Beijing too, and that it made him think that "democracy isn't always such a good thing for architecture." Then he laughed, caught himself, and tried to explain, as if he knew he had revealed too much.

It’s a good thing in general, and of course, we don’t want to lose it or trade it, {oh, of course!} but one of the prices we pay is that big projects take a long time. They create a huge amount of dissent in terms of public dialogue and so forth. In China, there was no discussion. It was simply ordained. And this is what would be, and it was. {bold added}

So there we have it. In essence, both men admire and yearn for the type of brutal, deadly steamrolling possible in a totalitarian society. The leftist who wants the state to employ force in the name of "the good" inherently assumes that the state would pursue the same good as he sees it.

Does this sound familiar? This perfectly describes the attitude behind Obama's proposal. He views "the societal good" as government providing high-speed mass transit for the unwashed proletariat citizenry, and sees himself as the Public's Heroic Steamroller. (Is that a steamroller for the public, or of the public?)

Going back to the ABC.com piece, they quoted him saying, while in Europe:

"I am always jealous about European trains," Obama said April 3 in Strasbourg, France. "And I said to myself, 'Why can't we have high-speed rail?' And so, we're investing in that as well."

He's jealous, realizes he can wish it into existence with the power of the state, and on whim says "let it be so." Back to the architecture critic and China's awesome power over the individual he so covets:

Rather than celebrating the fact that the World Trade Center was, and should be again, a thriving center of capitalism and productive energy, and that this would be the greatest monument and memorial possible, Goldberger wishes that we could be more like China. Rather than identifying government involvement as the problem, getting rid of the Port Authority and "public ownership", and then seeing what the real "timetable of the commercial world" is when private property rights are upheld, Goldberger wishes for the absolute power of the government to simply ordain a solution, bulldozing all buildings, objections, and individual rights that stand in its way.

Goldberger and Siegel unintentionally provide us with a clear picture of the conflict, and it's not the one they think it is.

On one side stands the founding principles of our Republic, chief among them the individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of our own happiness, the political system of capitalism that springs from those rights, and the blinding and unlimited wealth and progress that it all makes possible.

On the other side stands the admirers of the all-powerful State, those who long for the use of government force to crush all opposition and impose their own jaded view of the "public good" whether we like it or not.

Which side do you think is best equipped to build a proper memorial for the victims of the 9/11 attack and a monument to American greatness?

And which side do you think is best equipped to evaluate whether high-speed rail is a viable enterprise, and to make it actually work if it is? Capitalists left free to judge the market and invest of their own free will, without the crushing regulatory burden of the state? Or Obama and his magical vision of Amtrak II: No Seriously, It Will Work This Time, I Promise, and the inevitable steamrolling of private interests and rights that will result?

When you hear that the president is looking enviously to Europe or China as a beacon of progressive change, that's when the alarm bells should go off.  Being envious of China's public works projects really means being envious of the dictatorial power China holds over the individual.

Survey of Obama's Critics on the Left

Camille Paglia at Salon.com

Responding to letters from readers, Paglia discusses Obama's first days in office, the brain trust around him, and his early "painful missteps." A reader asked about Paglia's earlier statement that Obama has been "ill-served by his advisors" and suggested that "the responsibility for their failures should be laid at the feet of the person who was ultimately responsible" for selecting them. Paglia responded:

You are absolutely correct! The buck stops with the top executive. ... For better or worse, Obama is learning as he goes -- and surely most fair-minded people would grant him reasonable leeway as he grows into the presidency, one of the hardest jobs in the world.

At a certain point, however, Obama will face an inescapable administrative crux. ...

Obama's staffing problems are blatant -- from that bleating boy of a treasury secretary to what appears to be a total vacuum where a chief of protocol should be. There has been one needless gaffe after another -- from the president's tacky appearance on a late-night comedy show to the kitsch gifts given to the British prime minister, followed by the sweater-clad first lady's over-familiarity with the queen and culminating in the jaw-dropping spectacle of a president of the United States bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia. Why was protest about the latter indignity confined to conservatives? The silence of the major media was a disgrace. But I attribute that embarrassing incident not to Obama's sinister or naive appeasement of the Muslim world but to a simple if costly breakdown in basic command of protocol. [emphasis added]

Paglia is ultimately too soft on Obama -- despite later mentioning the "bungled handling of the grotesquely swollen stimulus package" -- but it was interesting and refreshing to see a prominent figure from the Left call him out for his disgraceful dhimmitude.

Even more interesting is the flood of vitriol leveled at her by Salon.com commenters. For instance:

go away for God's sake
This is just too freaking much. Is this some sort of performance art? Are you a 'literary' Tony Clifton? 'Painful missteps'? THE GUY HAS 66 PERCENT APPROVAL and just conquered Europe! The onmly people in pain are Salon readers subjected to your crap and of course, your life-force jazz-musician-of-language, Limbaugh. Joan -- PLEASE stop this madness!!!
-- tangerine

Excuse me?
Who is this stupid woman, Camille, and why does she get to write such sophomoric drivel? My God! Having an opinion is one thing, but basing everything with a grade-school mentality is another. Let the grown-ups play here ....
-- Renman [misspelling and grammar from original comments]

Those were some of the comments without swearing or inarticulate ranting. I gather from some of the comments that Paglia is not seen as an ideal representative of the Left.

Steven Stark at the Boston Phoenix

At the Boston Phoenix blog, Stark Ravings, Steven Stark looks at the question of whether voters picked a Harvard Law grad (Obama) when the country needs a Yalie (Clinton). Responding to a New Republic article by Noam Scheiber about the same topic, Stark presents the options thusly:

He argues that different institutions produce different kinds of leaders, just as the military produces a different leadership style than, say, the political world. In a unique crisis like the present one, it makes all the difference what a leader's intellectual instincts are. And, taking off from where Scheiber began, it may well be that, at least now, Obama has exactly the opposite instincts we need.

It all has to do with how each of these two major institutions structures its approach to legal education and public policy. According to Scheiber, the much smaller Yale sees its mission ... to encourage its students to be more creative — "to unlock students' innate brilliance in an atmosphere of freedom, intimacy, and intellectual ferment."

In contrast, Scheiber wrote, Harvard was more formulaic and traditional, priding "itself on instilling discipline . . . [It] was, in certain respects, a three-year hazing ritual." And Obama "absorbed the dispassionate, conservative, relentlessly logical mode of analysis a Harvard legal education was meant to convey."

Stark accepts this thesis and justifies it in the following way:

What's needed is something new, dramatic, and unusual. All things being equal, a group of Yale Law graduates is likelier to come up with something outside the box than their Harvard counterparts.

That, in fact, is the lesson of the early days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's administration. At that time, Columbia Law School was the Yale of its era. In the 1920s and early 1930s, it was the center of the Legal Realist movement, with future New Dealers... on the faculty. ... Vastly oversimplifying, the Realists believed that the law was not something determinate but whatever any particular individuals (judges, legislators, etc.) decided at a particular time.

FDR, a fellow Columbian, relied heavily on a Columbia "Brain Trust"... when he constructed the largely experimental programs of the early New Deal. ...

Experimentation or the tried and true? Creativity or discipline? The truth is we need a mixture of both. But if one is to be preferred to the other, when the Democrats had a choice this past spring between a graduate of Harvard Law and a graduate of Yale Law — namely Hillary Clinton — did they pick the wrong school? [bold added]

So Stark's lesson from history is that FDR followed the "radical," "creative," and "dramatic" model, and that Obama's Harvard-ish "dispassionate" and "relentlessly logical mode" is the opposite of what the country needs right now.

I suppose he's right, that the Obama administration is following a "more... a LOT more... of the same old same old" model -- though it's anything but logical -- and is simply trying to crush the country with a dramatic expansion of the same programs that have been around for decades. But what Stark is suggesting is that the Left yearns for leadership that will come up with new, innovative, and "dramatic" ways to rip the beating heart of the country right out of its chest.

Apparently recycling New Deal ideas isn't enough. I'm left wondering, while shuddering... what would be enough?