The Washington Post associate editor may not put it quite that way in his new book, "The Price of Politics." But when you've finished reading a published excerpt and summaries, you can either indulge in liberal sympathy, saying the poor president has had the misfortune of having to deal with human beings more...]]> Wed, 22 Aug 2012 00:00:00 -0500 If it's minor, if it's petty, if it's nothing at all to worry about, President Barack Obama is concerned, focused and ready to speak out loud and clear, as on the question of Mitt Romney's tax returns. We've got to have them, going way back and then some, for how, after all, is the nation otherwise going to survive?

The Obama campaign has treated this issue as if it is bigger than just about anything else out there, and the president himself said in a press conference that the hullabaloo was perfectly legit even as he dodges and weaves on something that some of us think maybe matters more: his plans to address the debt.

That would be in addition to a Republican war on women as alleged by zanies not liking perfectly sound criticisms of Obama's health insurance mindlessness.

Let's get serious, because there is a real issue here, namely that the runaway, reckless stimulus is part of an Obama agenda Europeanizing America and bringing us ever closer to a disastrous tipping point.

It would be one in which our program bloat, romance with debt, smothering regulation and other governmental excesses get even more...]]> Thu, 19 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500 President Barack Obama can't seem to get anything right, or at least no more than half right, as when he said the other day that Google and Facebook "would not exist" without government spending on basic science and research. It is true that the Internet arose out of a military project, and it is also true that one of the few places Obama is willing to cut spending is the military. Go figure.

Spending is Obama's first love, ideologically speaking. Like most everyone else of leftward bent, he thinks throwing public money at whatever looks evil will make it good, will make it shine, will render Utopia. What it will actually do is destroy America, and you would think that voters...]]> Fri, 06 Apr 2012 00:00:00 -0500 Almost every Friday morning, a friend and I get together for strong coffee and bracing political discussion, and sometimes he will say journalists lie. No, I respond -- they make mistakes and their biases pop through their reporting, but it's not lying. What am I to argue now that we've learned about NBC News and the doctored tape?

On broadcasts to millions, NBC played a recording of a police officer's conversation with George Zimmerman the night he shot and killed unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. Zimmerman was patrolling his neighborhood as a citizen, called the cops, and, according to NBC's version of the conversation, said he had been following someone who...]]> Sun, 25 Mar 2012 00:00:00 -0500 In his weasel-worded decision to block a perfectly harmless pipeline that would have provided America with jobs, energy and hope, President Barack Obama betrayed his country, lied and then, just the other day, halfway reversed himself, once more fraudulently.

Not so long ago, this country was in a terrible energy fix. Thanks largely to China and India, world demand for oil was going up while supplies remained limited, meaning prices were soaring as dependence on production in the volatile Middle East grew.

I hate to sound so suspicious of all those handwringers on TV telling us that attempts to stop ballot-box shenanigans are a conspiracy to deny a sacred right to the old, the lame, minorities and the poor. Maybe these people are just paranoid – the Left is that way these days – but the arguments are so preposterous that you figure many could themselves be up to some grand...]]> Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0600 In his weasel-worded decision to block a perfectly harmless pipeline that would have provided America with jobs, energy and hope, President Barack Obama betrayed his country, lied and even welshed on a deal with Congress. I am sorry to say so, but it's true. Let's look at some history to get there.

Not so long ago, this country was in a terrible energy fix. Thanks largely to China and India, world demand for oil was going up while supplies remained limited, meaning prices were soaring as dependence on production in the volatile Middle East grew. However, owing in part to new technology, we found vast new possibilities to obtain oil and gas in the United States, and our neighbors...]]> Thu, 29 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0600 Newt Gingrich is slipping in the polls, partly a result of the banana peel he stepped on in the latest debate of Republican presidential candidates. The banana peel had a name. It was Freddie Mac, and the issue was what Gingrich did to earn $1.6 million from this government-backed company that helped wreck the economy.

Michelle Bachman said he lobbied on its behalf, and the great intellectual wit -- this man of fire, facts and fluency -- replied er, uh, hmm, not true, not true, gobble, gobble, gobbledygook, his usually red face turning skull white.

An important story would bounce into sight and I would assign it to a brilliant reporter while overlooking an arrogance handicap, sometimes regretting the decision. The next time I might hand the banner opportunity to a more humble, diligent, eager, helpful reporter perhaps lacking razzle-dazzle ability and rejoice in the outcome. 

That paper was in Denver. I went there at a time when the Denver Broncos were headed for their first Super Bowl, and the city...]]> Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0500 President Barack Obama, who has been working like the devil to wipe out jobs in America, finally said he was going to give us less government to help more, although he soon enough was pledging more government to help less. Union members cheered him while one of their bosses went a step further.

"President Obama, this is your army," Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa said in introducing the commander in chief at a Detroit rally on Labor Day. After asserting the Tea Party was waging a war on workers, he yelled, "We are ready to march. Let's take those sons of guns out and give America back to an America where we belong."

He was not quoted as saying "guns," of course, and...]]> Sat, 30 Jul 2011 00:00:00 -0500 "Come let us reason together," Lyndon Baines Johnson used to say in negotiating deals everyone thought impossible, and what our current president says when he is not walking out of the room or going back on his word is that the other side is a bunch of children. Boy will that get results.

President Barack Obama is an arrogant mixture of political opportunism mixed with ideological overreaching, and even that might work if he wasn't such an amateur more intent on condescension than reaching compromises crucial in a democratic political system. It's not a formula for success in the real world, and it has been on absolutely scary display during the debt debate.

Let's get back...]]> Mon, 13 Jun 2011 00:00:00 -0500 So what example should America follow, that of deficit-slaughtering, budget-cutting, seriously limited government in Texas, which has added 730,000 jobs in the past decade, or that of regulation-happy, spend-mercilessly, owe-everything, flee-this-place-quickly California, which has lost 600,000 jobs during the same period?

While not a hard question in a nation where unemployment recently shot up over 9 percent again and is dramatically expanding its unfunded entitlement promises on top of its accumulating debt, let's continue to look at some astounding facts about Texas after noting a much-repeated analysis of how it got there.

It has no state income tax, low corporate...]]> Thu, 12 May 2011 00:00:00 -0500 First in the Constitution, then in various laws and such devices as a debt ceiling, we Americans keep trying to keep the federal government from disastrous excess. And our representatives keep backing up -- saying that's OK, overreach all you want. Forget liberty. Forget economic prudence. Go for it.

Consider, for instance, this hot-topic debt ceiling, which has basically one reason to exist -- fiscal accountability to help forestall fiscal atrocity. So what? Congress routinely raises the ceiling when higher debt demands, making the ceiling a joke. It's like having speed limit signs electronically adjusted to however fast cars are going, meaning there are no real speed limits and...]]> Tue, 26 Apr 2011 00:00:00 -0500 The Boeing Co., an innovator in the rebuilding of a recession-ravaged America, found a way to proceed efficiently on a project that would help South Carolina with 1,000 employees already hired, but no.

The National Labor Relations Board has decided that fair play and an improved economy must not get in the way of union wishes. The independent agency, nowadays in the grip of pro-labor Democrats, has filed a complaint to make Boeing desert South Carolina and build the planned 787 Dreamliner passenger planes in the state of Washington.

While making my way through a traffic jam the other day, I could not help being impressed by driver courtesies. Later, I encountered great gobs of gladness while poking around in a shopping mall. Then, on returning home and scouting out news on the Internet, I bumped into three tales of a giving spree.

Again and again, the government throws us lifesavers that aren't lifesavers at all, but weighty, entangling devices that ensnare us, sink us, drown us.

Oakeshott was an English philosopher whose specialty was politics and disposition was to prefer "fact to mystery," and "present laughter to Utopian bliss." He said all this in an essay titled, "On Being Conservative," in which he also trenchantly described politicians of the opposite sort, what I would call the Obama sort.

He can quit coming up with policy ideas like an immediate $50 billion, anti-recession expenditure to be part of the creation of a major new federal apparatus known as an infrastructure bank.

It's an absurdity on all kinds of grounds, not the least of which is that we've heard infrastructure promises before. The original, $862 billion stimulus was supposed to be more than anything a shovel-ready plan to spiff up our highways, bridges, railways, runways and...]]> Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500 A Gallup poll reveals that only 11 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in Congress, and though it's the lowest ranking ever, one wonders what malady afflicts the yea-sayers. Might a review of reality correct their misperceptions?

To do the task justice would require at least as many pages as some of the bills Congress passes, but that itself is a place to start -- mention of a debt-stimulating stimulus bill over 1,000 pages long, of a topsy-turvy health-care remake over 2,000 pages long and of a recent financial-regulation mishmash also over 2,000 pages long.

Members of Congress maybe have some study-guide notion of what's in these bills, but no grasp of...]]> Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0500 Just maybe, possibly, conceivably we've come to a non-violent revolutionary moment in America, and here's one reason I think so: A Denver area conference.

Called the Western Conservative Summit 2010, it impressed me not just because of the recitation of principles to which I subscribe -- individual liberty, limited government, constitutionalism, strength in the face of our enemies -- but because of the mood conveyed by both the audience of some 600 and more than a dozen speakers.

Their disposition struck me as cheerful, positive and informed more by an idea of mission than anger at the other side.

Dennis Prager, a radio talk show host, told the crowd that liberals...]]> Wed, 23 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500 Here it was, the crystallizing moment that told us who is who and what is what in the Gulf oil spill disaster and that also signaled that there really is reliable leadership to be found in this country.

Not that there was high drama when Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal got 16 barges busy dredging up BP oil that was otherwise going to wreak havoc. He has been ever alert, ever in motion, ever figuring out new ways to save his state from ruin, and this decisive action was nothing new for him.

Then, however, we had a counter-attack. The Coast Guard put the operation on hold for fear the barges might not have life jackets or fire extinguishers aboard. To find out the hard way,...]]> Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500 If, sometime prior to the Gulf oil spill you had heard the word "boom," you might have thought of a drum being banged or an economy taking off. And if the word "skimmer" had been uttered nearby, you might have thought of a certain kind of spoon or particular sorts of birds.

Those words have different meanings to many of us now, and they could be words that sink the presidency of Barack Obama.

What we have been learning is that "boom" and "skimmer" can also refer to equipment used to confine and collect oil in water. And what we have also discovered is that the Obama administration initially turned its back on foreign countries that were saying: "Look, we have some terrific...]]> Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500 The enemy within. That's what Robert F. Kennedy called the then corrupt Teamsters union in the title of a 1960 book. Just maybe it's time to use that phrase again, referring not to one union especially, but to a whole bunch of them, and employing the words in political speeches, debate and commentary as a rallying cry.

The bunch is those representing public employees. They constitute an extraordinarily powerful special interest that could all but bankrupt any number of local and state governments and vastly increase federal spending.

Why? So members can live much better on average than those of us in the private sector.

To get a better idea of how this works, meet...]]> Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00:00 -0500 The self-contradictions are catching up with the Obama administration. We will be transparent, they said. Only they aren't. We will be accountable. Anything but. You will find us nonpartisan and above politics as usual, they insisted. Hardly.

The job offer to keep Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania out of a Senate primary is instructive on this score.

While it may be more a mouse's squeak than a lion's roar as scandals go, the administration dodged questions about it for months and then finally put out a memo so vaguely worded as to arouse still more suspicion. That's a far cry from transparency, and about the only excuse for the approach to Sestak -- which seems pretty...]]> Sat, 15 May 2010 00:00:00 -0500 Hail Greece, the final denouement of the liberal project, the welfare state in all its subsidy-happy, business-stifling, nation-ruining glory and the direction in which the United States is headed just as fast as it can go. The evidence is not hard to find.

Just look at the federal deficit for April, a reported $82.69 billion that was four times as high as the deficit in April of 2009. An anti-recession stimulus tax cut and stimulus spending along with bailout spending obviously had something to do with what turns out to be a new record, but don't figure on this being a one-time deal that will go away when the recession goes away.

Another recent report tells of how the...]]> Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0600 When a White House statement refers to a "bedrock principle," it means something slushy and soft and not really a principle at all, but a gimmick, still one more fraud to fool the public, a joke of the kind that must keep presidential aides rolling on the floor in laughter at all the fools who cheer them on.

The "principle" referred to was what would bind Congress if it passed a pay-as-you go law: It could then "only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere." But when the legislation actually became law and Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky tried to have Congress observe its provisions, the Democrats were outraged and Vice President Joe Biden portrayed the Republican in one...]]> Wed, 03 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0600 Like a hero rescuing a damsel tied up and lying on the railroad tracks as a train approaches, the tea party movement has been trying to save America from runaway leftism. But this hero, instead of being applauded, is taking it on the chin from critics who will invent any calumny and revise any truth to make their case.

The movement consists of ignoramuses, it's said. It's a tool of the Republican party, some contend. The comedian Bill Maher, who thinks all Americans are stupid, calls it a cult. Its lineage is traced by a Prospect magazine article to Joe McCarthy and George Wallace. We've now had a tea party terrorist, we're informed. Some critics point to kooks in the party and...]]> Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0600 President Obama's health care plan is beginning to seem like Grigori Rasputin, the evil, crazy pre-revolutionary Russian monk who was poisoned and lived, was shot in the back and lived, was shot twice more and lived, was beaten up and lived, and was finally tied up and tossed in an icy river, where he lived long enough to try to get loose.

This health plan has so far endured expert analyses telling us it could be economically ruinous without fixing much of what ails us. It has hung on during one of the most extraordinary outbursts of dissidence by ordinary citizens in recent history.

It has refused to die even when independents told pollsters they had had it with this...]]>