The notion that one party is stupid while the other is evil is something on which activists in both majory U.S. parties can agree. Though the facts aren’t on their side, activists in the Democratic Party use this concept to contend that the passage of their irresponsible financial reform overhaul is in doubt because the legislation was watered down to placate GOP centrists, thereby alienating some progressive Democrats. In this bogus example, Democrats are the stupid party for focusing on reaching out to an “obstructionist” GOP, the “evil party” for them, instead of passing more comprehensive legislation with enthusiastic backing from Senate Democrats, and scant support from Senate Republicans. In reality, lingering uncertainty about the legislation, and broader concerns about the economic policies of the Obama administration are due to an approach to governance focused on enhancing the power of bureaucrats and organized labor at the expense of shareholders, taxpayers, consumers, and entrepreneurs. 

But for Republicans, a rather more concrete example of this concept became apparent in recent days. RNC Chairman Michael Steele offered poignant remarks late last week regarding history, and recent events surrounding the war in Afghanistan. Instead of viewing these remarks in context, however, prominent Republicans and bloggers on the right gave the Obama White House a narrative it desired.

Anyone paying attention would know that Chairman Steele was making the point that President Obama owes the American people an explanation regarding Afghanistan. Regular readers of this blog know that essentially the same point was made here not long ago. It is fundamentally inconsistent for the White House to claim that a military surge will work in Afghanistan when the administration refuses to admit that the Iraq surge was a success.

Furthermore, the current effort in Afghanistan is Barack Obama’s war. To credit the ongoing effort in Afghanistan to George W. Bush would be to attribute Richard Nixon’s Vietnam policy to Lyndon Johnson. President Eisenhower drew to a close the Korean War prosecuted initially by President Truman. Sometimes wars are won or lost very early in the fighting, but even then, the leader then in charge is responsible for how things end. Thus, when President Obama appointed Stanley McChrystal to lead the effort in Afghanistan, he was fully taking ownership of the war.

At no time did Michael Steele directly question the legitimacy of the present conflict in Afghanistan. Rather than come out against the war, as some have suggested happened, Mr. Steele was pointing out that past ground wars in Afghanistan have failed miserably. The last incident of blatant Soviet aggression took the form of a decade-long civil war in Afghanistan, one which ultimately permitted the rise of the Taliban. More than half a century earlier, the British Empire with little success attempted to subdue Afghanistan. The success-if it can be called that-of the British misadventure was the Durand Line, better known now as the wholly artificial border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Rather than promote the idea that Republicans are for war without end, Chairman Steele put forward a realistic appraisal of a very difficult war. Analogies to Vietnam are popular, but “Af-Pak” is fundamentally different from the states of Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, all three party to one degree or another to twenty years of war between 1955 and 1975, are largely culturally cohesive countries. There are ethnic minorities of note in Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, but their cultural and political development relative to the more numerous, neighboring nationalities is quite limited; the Mon, for example are a majority in no country. In Afghanistan, the Pashtun are the prominent ethnic group, and decades of civil strife have only reinforced the sizeable Pashtun population in nearby areas of Pakistan.  The Mekong and Red rivers  provide an impetus for commerce and development in Southeast Asia which has largely never materialized in Afghanistan, despite the presence of the Helmand River and tributaries of the Indus.  

Iraq, a state with a long and proud history of commerce and societal development, is a state lacking in the geographical difficulties of Afghanistan. As a largely urbanized society, the people of Iraq have a sense of belonging that transcends ethnic or religious identity despite local revalries and mistrust. Simply put, if Iraq, despite having been a state sponsor of terrorism and a safe haven for al-Qaeda, was a ‘war of choice’ at the time that it was denounced by Barack Obama, then so too must the present struggle in Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda has been broken, and the forces once supportive of terrorist group have been removed from power.

More essentially, however, if the administration in Washington stands by their campaign rhetoric regarding the Iraq war, and if the surge has not improved the situation there, then the American people are owed an explanation as to why Afghanistan will, despite all odds, be different. Republicans are right to support  military personnel in their endeavors on behalf of this great country. However, the right has been wrong to clamour for an approach to war in which no discernable goal has been established. In so doing, too many Republicans have revealed that they learned nothing from the experiences of the last Bush administration.

For once, it is Michael Steele who is right, and the political establishment that is deeply mistaken. The unwarranted chastising of Michael Steele’s remarks has taken the focus of Republicans away from the pivotal elections set for later this year. Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, it is the ruling party that is politicising this war. The American people are grappling with a recession left unhelped by a big-spending Democratic Party that would rather stick to its bad habits than fund the war and not billions of dollars in special projects. While Republicans have been busy infighting over a non-issue, the other party has continuated unabated trying to implement its unfathomable agenda.

In 1973, the highest court in the U.S. judiciary reached a decision which still today impacts electoral politics. That case was Roe v. Wade. Even at this early stage, parallels are apparent between the Roe and McDonald decisions.

Both Roe and McDonald had companion cases asking related questions which have been (or will be in the latter instance) largely forgotten in the popular discourse. Like abortion rights, the right to keep and bear arms was gaining steady statutory support in the United States already at the time that the Supreme Court reached its decision. Also, both Roe and McDonald reached the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal from lower federal courts. Furthermore, the constitutional justifications offered in the Roe and McDonald cases for the majority position was less than some observers thought should be the case. Indeed, whether or not abortion should be legal remains a very distinct question from whether the reasons put forward by the Court for its decision legalizing abortion were valid.

In both majority opinions, recent court dictrines or approaches to legal evaluation were used so to avoid their application in broader contexts. For the decision reached in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court used a vastly different, privacy related case, Griswold v. Connecticut, decided in 1965. The problem posed by the reasoning offered for the decision reached in Roe v. Wade is that its constitutional foundation, already weak if based on Amendments four and nine, is rendered rather more dubious by being enshrined thoroughly within judicial precedent. The question posed in Griswold dealt with the right of married couples to use birth control, a clear matter of privacy, and one which is distinct from the termination of pregnancy as it dealt with efforts aimed at prevention. Even Cass Sunstein, a lawyer and liberal legal scholar in the employ of the Obama administration, has been of the view that the Roe decision was weakly justified.

As Elena Kagan in the past has noted, the judicial appointment process has its curiosities. Potential appointees routinely dodge questions and distance themselves from past controversies. Both justices appointed by President Obama’s predecessor dodged questions pertaining to abortion rights, or stated that the matter is now “settled law.” As justices, however, John Roberts and Samuel Alito have ruled in favor of restricting abortion rights. Asked about the Court’s holding in McDonald v. Chicago, Justice-to-be Kagan declared that the individual right to keep and bear arms is “settled law.”

In some respects, the decision reached by the U.S. Supreme Court in McDonald v. Chicago renders the controversial judicial doctrine of incorporation more credible and less arbitrary. What the effects will be long term are less than certain, however. To be brief, the doctrine of incorporation has been used by federal courts to hold the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights against state governments citing as a legal basis the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Building on the decision reached in District of Columbia v. Heller, the majority opinion in McDonald v. Chicago assures that Second Amendment protections are fundamental rights of American citizens in good mental health or never found guilty of a felony offense.

In his concurring opinion, Justice Thomas offered a separate justification, more in line with originalist thought, for the decision reached by the majority. As with the majority, Thomas asserted that there is a clause of the Fourteenth Amendment which justifies applying the individual right to keep and bear arms against the states. Justice Thomas sought to apply the effectively nullified “priviledges and immunities” clause, reduced to nothingness in the nineteenth century by jurists to uphold limitations on the legal rights of African-Americans. While use of this clause by the majority in its decision would have been appropriate due to the racially-charged history of gun control laws in the United States, doing so would have opened up challenges to laws and policies having nothing at all to do with gun rights. Justice Scalia alluded to such a possibility in his own concurrence addressing the contentions raised in John Paul Stevens’ last authored dissent.

I join the Court’s opinion. Despite my misgivings about Substantive Due Process as an original matter, I have acquiesced in the Court’s incorporation of certain guarantees in the Bill of Rights “because it is both long established and narrowly limited.” Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 266, 275 (1994) (SCALIA, J., concurring). This case does not require me to reconsider that view, since straightforward application of settled doctrine suffices to decide it.

On the basis of reasoning applied, and the concerted effort of the judiciary past and present to narrowly apply its rulings, it cannot be doubted that gun control will remain a contentious political issue for years if not decades to come. Already this week, Chicago began investigating ways of implementing restrictive new gun laws short of outright prohibitions. Citing her record in the Clinton administration, the National Rifle Association is encouraging senators to vote against the conformation of Elena Kagan.

There can be no doubt that proponents of gun control will fundraise off of the McDonald v. Chicago decision. Needless to say, those dollars will flow into the coffers of candidates and causes inclined against private firearms ownership. Rather than render gun control a non-issue, the U.S. Supreme Court may have actually reignited a policy debate Democrats likely wanted to avoid in an election year as potentially difficult as 2010.

While this author previously supported the choice of McChrystal to command operations in Afghanistan, this controversy necessitated his departure. If a war is not going as desired, a general should be free to say so. However, sharing his concerns with Congress would have been a more appropriate means than openly criticizing the Commander-in-Chief to a columnist. Whistleblowers serve a valuable function, but if the Vietnam War was any indication, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.

The left-wing issue advocacy and political action committee collectively known as MoveOn.org made their weight felt in the last election cycle. The progressive organization backed then-Senator Obama’s candidacy for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party, and subsequently in the 2008 Presidential Election. True to form, MoveOn has been at it again this election cycle with mixed success. MoveOn was among the many groups to back Joe Sestak over Arlen Specter in the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate Primary. Earlier this week, a MoveOn-endorsed candidate won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate in North Carolina where the incumbent Republican Richard Burr may be vulnerable. The more recent attempt to oust another sitting Democratic U.S. Senator, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, was unsuccessful. That MoveOn viewed Ms. Lincoln as insufficiently liberal is itself disturbing, but rather less so than another former MoveOn campaign.

In September, 2007, Move On posed a rather offensive question.

The text which followed the excerpt above (pdf) made various bogus contentions with respect to the war in Iraq and the surge strategy being employed by the Bush administration to draw that conflict to a close. In reality, the successes of the surge strategy led to the ability of the Bush administration to set a draw down plan into place. Indeed, General Petraeus has won wide praise for his keen understanding of what is at stake in Western Asia.

As with Vietnam, there are many just criticisms of the war in Iraq. Like Vietnam, the necessity or validity of U.S. involvement there will be a long debated topic. However, maligning a general serving a free society making the best of a bad situation is an offense not far off from the sort of disgusting treatment offered to American personnel returning from service in Southeast Asia during the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

President Obama was right to have pursued victory in Afghanistan upon taking office. There may be no person better suited to do so than the general responsible for the much-maligned Iraq surge. However, the choice is curious considering that the current President of the United States has never acknowleged the success of the surge strategy in Iraq. How MoveOn and its defenders will address their Petraeus dilemma has yet to be seen.

If it remains the belief of President Obama that the Iraq surge did not work, then proposing Petraeus to direct the ongoing Afghanistan surge and reconstruction is irresponsible. However, if instead the ‘agent of change’ today running this great country now feels that the Iraq surge did work, he owes it to those that elected him as well as those who opposed him to declare such. Making such an announcement would give credibility to the notion that President Obama is above the partisanship that has thus far been the hallmark of the Democratic Party under his leadership.

Going into the contentious primaries on Tuesday, revelations broke pertaining to a state where nomination contests had yet to be held in the 2010 cycle; Connecticut. A piece appearing this past Monday in the New York Times alleged that Richard Blumenthal, Attorney General and Democrat of Connecticut lied about his military service record. Mr. Blumenthal is seeking to fill the seat being vacated by the ethically challenged Chris Dodd. While word has since surfaced that a Republican campaign fed the story to the paper of record, the veracity of the claims made have been verified. Richard Blumenthal remains in the Senate race, and has received renewed support from the leadership of his state party.

The Oregon mail-in primary Tuesday failed to generate much interest. Overall, candidates favored to win in both the Republican and Democratic primaries there did so. This was very much true of Republican primaries held in Arkansas and Pennsylvania as well. Things however were rather different on the Democratic side in the keystone and razorback states.  Pennsylvania party-switcher Arlen Specter was defeated by Congressman Joe Sestak, while in Arkansas, a three-person primary has forced sitting centrist Senator Blanche Lincoln into a run-off against comparatively liberal Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter.

Despite these upsets, the big news of the night Tuesday came from Kentucky.  There, preferred Democratic Senate candidate and Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway defeated Lieutenant Governor Daniel Mongiardo in what was a rather close primary. In the Republican primary, meanwhile, opthalmologist Rand Paul trounced Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson. Rand Paul is the son of Ron Paul, a member of Congress representing the fourteenth congressional district in Texas.

Ron Paul, a physician like his son, is often criticized for his political views. Nonetheless, this particular father and son have more in common than the practice of medicine; they hold many of the same views. The Grayson campaign operated a website highlighting many of the more controversial positions espoused by Rand Paul. However, since the primary results were announced Tuesday evening, one particular set of views held by the younger Dr. Paul has generated national controversy.

A critical editorial in the left-leaning Louisville Courier-Journal published on the twenty-fifth of April this year expressed disapproval of both GOP senate candidates running for Senate this year. One claim made alleged that Rand Paul holds views out of the mainstream on civil rights.  According to the paper:

The trouble with Dr. Paul is that despite his independent thinking, much of what he stands for is repulsive to people in the mainstream. For instance, he holds an unacceptable view of civil rights, saying that while the federal government can enforce integration of government jobs and facilities, private business people should be able to decide whether they want to serve black people, or gays, or any other minority group.

Rand Paul admits to holding such a view, but has reiterated that he would not seek to repeal the 1964 Civil Rights Act if elected. Unlike some earlier civil rights bills passed into law, this particular one sought to end segregation in private businesses. When ruling on the validity of the intervention permitted  under the Civil Rights Act of 1875, the Supreme Court more or less agreed with the view of Dr. Paul, but what resulted was an undoing of the strides made toward racial equality that followed the war between the states. This reversal of fortune for the newly liberated and their descendants culminated in the infamous Supreme Court decision reached in Plessy v. Ferguson that invented the bogus notion of separate but equal accomodations being acceptable under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Contemporarily, federal and state courts have held as constitutional the particular federal regulation of the private sector mandated in Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Many on both the Right and the Left have condemned Rand Paul’s views on civil rights. Those of a rightward persuasion have been particularly scathing. Given the popular narrative of contemporary conservatism in much of the mainstream press, such condemnation of Rand Paul has largely been warranted.

Conservative critics have pointed out that William F. Buckley, Jr., a late pioneering figure on the American Right, saw his views evolve on civil rights. In earlier decades, the esteemed Mr. Buckley held a position not dissimilar from that of Rand Paul, but later in life suggested that federal intervention probably was needed to guarantee the long denied rights of minorities within the United States. Such comparisons are nonetheless a disservice to the late sage of conservatism however valid the underlying contentions put forth may be.

Other conservatives continue to wrongly propagage the popular but dubious contention that the two doctors Paul are anything like the late Republican Barry Goldwater whose Senate vote against the 1964 Civil Rights Act won him only the deep south and his home state of Arizona during his ultimately unsuccessful presidential campaign against Lyndon Johnson. On national defense and some social issues, both Ron Paul and Rand Paul diverge considerably from the views expressed by Barry Goldwater. It is more accurate to claim, as another has done, that Ron Paul-and by extension, Rand Paul-is the ideological successor to the isolationist conservatives of the New Deal era.

While criticisms of Rand Paul are justified, he has shown himself to be an independent thinker. The ability of a candidate to think independently is something to be respected in an age when Democratic primary votes actively put ideology above electability in primaries. A consistent if unrealistic current seems to run through the views of Rand Paul. To some extent, this is similarly true of the rather more rightly criticized Ron Paul. Even the Louisville Courier-Journal has praised the sincerity of Rand Paul:

Dr. Paul’s father, Ron Paul, is a well-known congressman from Texas who has run for president twice — in 1988 as a Libertarian and in 2008 as a Republican. But with Rand Paul, it’s not merely a matter of “like father, like son.” Dr. Paul, 48, is an independent thinker, whose articulate, good-humored approach to politics has caught many in the Grand Old Party by surprise.

Rand Paul likely won the Kentucky primary not because Kentuckians support all of views, but due to the sincerity of his convictions. Democratic voters nationally saw much the same thing in Barack Obama two years ago. Buyer beware.

The controversial views of Rand Paul, known since as far back as 2002, pale in comparison to the controversy surrounding Richard Blumenthal. Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal, who has claimed that he served in the Vietnam War as far back as 2007 was once popular with veterans groups in his state. Fortunately, many of these actual veterans, who served their conutry honorably, have since condemned a man once (wrongly) viewed as their champion. Yet, Connecticut Democrats have not done so. Instead, the Democratic Party remains behind a man who has had perhaps too  long of a career in public service. If the national party brass wanted Blumenthal out of the race, they could and would surely intervene, but to date have not.

The real lesson of recent primaries is not that hyperpartisanship is on the rise. Rather, the American electorate longs for authenticity. Senator Bob Bennett, who was defeated for renomination last week at the Republican convention in his home state of Utah,  had once vowed to only serve two terms if elected. He was seeking a fourth. The American people want leaders who are honest about what they believe. That the Democrats in Washington are not such leaders is a tragedy the people of this great country have the opportunity to change by voting Republican in November.

The first of these lessons strikes a personal note. As other contributors to NextGenGOP.com can attest, this author has seen his position evolve on the Arizona controversy. Initially, there seemed reason to be skeptical of the measure. The legislation appeared well-intended but flawed, and conservatives were not helping their cause. While many on the Right were indelicate in their defense of the measure, so were some among its critics. Then, the intricacies of what the carefully-worded Arizona statute meant to do eased the objections of this writer. Nonetheless, further developments would recalibrate where this author stood on the reviled Arizona immigration statute.

Indeed, as delicately worded as the Arizona statute was, the authority it gave to state officials was entirely too broad. This did not entirely change in a subsequent revision of the law.  The ends of enforcing immigration laws are just and to be praised, but the means made law in the forty-eighth state are entirely too broad. As a result, the law is rightly criticised. That this effort in Arizona has generated discussion of an issue more important than trillion-dollar health reform is certainly a good thing. However, the fallout generated from this legislation borders on the absurd.

Despite the problems with the Arizona law, its critics have overreacted. The Phoenix Suns basketball team wore attire displaying the team name as “Los Suns” as a means of protest against the law. Some businesses and other organizations have considered boycotts of Arizona, and may reschedule conferences or large events to other locales. This sort of nonsense has extended to government too.

The Arizona law was roundly denounced in Washington, D.C. Leading figures in the GOP condemned the law soon after the story broke. Senate leaders saw the controversy as an opportunity to promote their immigration reform plan. For some activists on the Left though, any measure that improves border security while also accomodating existing unlawful immigrant populations is unacceptable. A members of Congress from Arizona, Raul Grijalva, called for a boycott of his home state over the new law. Hopefully, the people of his district will see such absurdity for what it is, and put said “representative” out of work when the election rolls around in November. Press reports speculated that Republicans within and beyond Arizona could be hurt by their widespread suport for the law. Curiously, however, national policymakers may have misread the situation slightly. Indeed, Republicans may make gains as a result of the law.

Throughout this ongoing controversy, one thing remains apparent; Americans are obsessed with race. While it is true that the United States has had a rough history with respect to those of other backgrounds, matters are not helped by U.S. laws and policies throughout the country which reward considerations of race in numerous contexts. As has been discussed before, diversity of ideas matters more than diversity of culture or creed.

Several children in California were sent home from school on threat of suspension last week for expressing patriotism on the fifth of May. The students, who wore shirts depicting U.S. flags offended Mexican classmates. Instead of being condemned for their lunacy, however, school administrators have been defended by the very same people who were the loudest in their denunciations of the Arizona immigration statute.

Critics who rightly condemned the excesses of the pilloried Arizona immigration law should be no less opposed to students in a state of the United States wearing patriotic attire if not in violation of a school dress code. To do otherwise is to tacitly validate Governor Brewer and the Arizona legislature and their approach to immigration reform. There is no consistency in condemning the Arizona law for its excesses while defending school administrators in Morgan Hill, California for sending home those five students.

There were protests in Lebanon the week that the Arizona controversy made national headlines. The two events offered a fitting but unexplored contrast to one another. The people of Lebanon were demonstrating against the lack of a civil society in their country. Lebanon is a country so concerned with diversity that it is in practice a segregationist state where members of one community can have little to no legally-sanctioned relationships with those of another. Such an obsession with differences over similarities has left Lebanon a country in name only.

When students attending a school in the United States can be sent home for the day on the basis of offending peers who desire to celebrate the holiday of another country, an excess has occurred, and one no less drastic than a state law meant to enforce existing laws.  Indeed, there are surely those proponents of the Arizona immigration law who would point to the incident in California last week as vindication of their efforts, including the passge of another law in Arizona cancelling the “Chicano Studies” program at a state university.

Promoting differences of culture or appearance over similarities has driven Lebanon to constant instability. Though intending otherwise, too many on the contemporary left would lead the United States down a similar path. This is something the people of Arizona sought to prevent, and something they were right to do, even if the means employed were wrong. Republicans should make the case for civil society even as they criticise governmental excess on the campaign trail this year.

On the left and the right today, there are grandiose motivations offered as to the hidden ambitions or backgrounds of political opponents. Much as some Tea Partiers have accused the current administration of being socialist in outlook, commentators on the left have been throwing around the term fascist to criticize those opposing the policies of the Obama administration. The irony is that fascists would accuse their opponents of socialism, and socialists would accuse their staunchest critics of fascism. Commentators in the employ of  reputable newspapers ought to be smarter than to confuse the legitimate qualms many have with the current administration for the bellicose ideology that dominated Europe in the nineteen thirties. If recent polls are an indication, Tea Partiers too, as a whole, ought to know better than to deride their political opponents in some of the ways that they have.

In reality, there is nothing fascist about expressing concerns over runaway spending in Washington. Though it is curious that on specific costly programs, there is support from Tea Partiers for their continuation, indications are that Americans in general who are concerned about spending are reluctant to alter the cost burdens of Social Security and Medicare in any serious way. Interestingly, those maligned as fascists also seem to be content with present levels of federal income tax if recent polling data is correct. The immediate response to this could be itself frustrating. However, as a group concerned over long-term fiscal policy, Tea Partiers are right to worry about the hidden costs of health reform and financial reform down the road, regardless of how they feel about present levels of federal taxation. Except for differences in overall wealth, education level, and racial composition, Tea Partiers may well be within the American mainstream after all. Indeed, Republicans are not alone in their concern over the fiscal health of the United States in the coming years and decades.

Press accounts offering a fairer representation of the citizens demonstrating peacefully around the country still don’t get the story entirely right, however. While it is true that the Ron Paul supporters have been visible critics of this administration, it is incorrect to identify the socially inclusive and fiscally conservative among Tea Partiers as in any way affiliated with the rather more paleoconservative movement championed by the Texas physician. In that sense, identifying Tea Partiers with Sarah Palin is equally as ridiculous when considering how polling has found them to stand on the question of a potential presidential bid by the former Alaska governor.

Much to the chagrin of some, President Barack Obama cannot accurately be portrayed as a Socialist. In one recent attempt to dispell the myth regarding the ideology of the present U.S. President, CNN failed abysmally. Political ideology is far more complex a picture than mere party identification, particularly in the United States where party discipline is low, and the parties themselves are relatively weak when compared to parties internationally. Nonetheless, CNN reached an accurate conclusion despite making a lousy case for it. President Obama is not a revolutionary, and is committed to maintaining private industry as a significant force in the U.S. economy. Barack Obama, like the allegedly fascist Tea Party set, is committed to the democratic process, in the sense of being firmly committed to  electoral politics.

Pegging the political ideology of Presidents of the United States is a daunting task, though most are pragmatists, governing with only nominal commitments to a party base. George W. Bush presents an interesting example. While not pragmatic in his foreign policy, the latter President Bush sought a middle course in the most significant of his domestic policy pursuits. A national crisis early in his administration put on hold some of the policy priorities of George W. Bush. The most sweeping of Bush-era reforms came in the area of national security policy, reacting directly to the crisis faced. Despite the bipartisan support offered to his domestic reforms, and the similarity of his platform to that of his principal opponent in 2000, George W. Bush increasingly came to be seen as a partisan figure, in no small part due to congressional leaders.

With this in mind, analyzing the Obama administration thus far becomes rather interesting. While not a socialist, the current President of the United States is not exactly a pragmatist either. Nothing in the policy priorities nor approach of the Obama administration thus far suggest pragmatism. While it is true that President Obama has continued the Iraq policy of his predecessor, Bush had committed to a tentative draw-down of U.S. forces in Iraq. If something goes wrong in the coming months of years regarding Iraq, the Obama administration is in the clear to blame it on Bush.

While socialism is the wrong label, so too is liberalism. Just as it is not pragmatic to overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. economy merely to provide insurance to ten percent of the American people, it is not liberal to establish new business monopolies. Republicans are not wrong that the new health care law practically amounts to a government takeover of healthcare with respect to the sheer levels of regulation imposed on insurers. Indeed, insurance companies are to remain in the private sector, however nominally, under Obamacare. While this would ordinarily seem to be a bad deal for any business, the effect is to prevent potential new competitors from entering the market, and prop-up existing businesses as costs inevitably rise. In essence, the health insurance industry now constitutes a federally-managed, regulated utility.

Thus, Barack Obama is perhaps best characterized as a proponent of the Third Way, that trend in politics popularized by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton. While billing itself as “centrist”, the Third Way is better described as a progressive acceptance of the realities of globalization. The problem with the Third Way approach is that it retains all of the wrong assumptions made by champions of stronger state control over the economy while also seeking the benefits of the free market. Indeed, the third way is an ideology in which no crisis can be allowed to go to waste. However, the Third Way is an idea which seeks progressive ends through crony capitalist means.

What makes the free market strong is not private ownership alone, but its coupling with private management. Bailouts render private businesses little more than government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The United States Senate this week is tackling the topic of financial reform. Lacking in these discussions is a narrow, precise focus on the causes of the housing bubble that triggered a worldwide economic slump. Instead of focusing on a narrow problem, Democrats are once again using a crisis to try and get their pet causes put into law. It is this that will make elections in 2010 and 2012 so interesting, and that has diminished the credibility of President Obama with the American public.

I’ve held off jumping into the iPad fray for the most part, waiting until I can actually buy the 3G version outright before making my own conclusions. But there was always one thing I knew the iPad could truly revolutionize- and it’s already in development.

According to Tech President via TechRepublican-

Project Vote, which describes itself as a nonpartisan organization that promotes higher voter registration rates in low-income and minority communities, announced last week that they are working on a mobile-device-friendly voter registration application, according to a press release, that will work on anything from the BlackBerry to the magical iPad.

But a magic wand it ain’t: In the release, Project Vote admits that there are only four states (Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington) that allow electronic voter registration. …

Using a mobile voter registration application, a volunteer canvassing a neighborhood […] is supposed to be able to collect the information of a prospective voter right there on his iPad, then electronically transmit that information along to that state’s board of elections, or secretary of state, or whichever group is responsible for administering elections and voter registration.

Pretty impressive, no? This could truly revolutionize the way we think of political volunteerism. This has already been used in small part in several races recently- from the McDonnell to the Scott Brown race- I even was able to use a blackberry in a local special election.

However, while the Project Vote organization calls itself “a nonpartisan organization”, when you do more digging you find this little gem-

Working with our field partner, the community organization ACORN, Project Vote in 2007-2008 conducted the largest and most comprehensive voter registration drive in the history of our two organizations, a 21-state community-based operation that succeeded in collecting over 1.3 million voter registration applications.

That’s right- the same Acorn that was recently involved in the prostitution scandals, and more importantly, embroiled in the voter fraud scandals over the last few elections. Project Vote claimed responsibility for the surge in support for Obama campaign in the last election, and was also critical in the 1992 election, bringing in more than 150,000 new African American voters. While Politifact says that Project Vote is was directly an arm of ACORN in 1992, their relationship since then has been rather murky, with Project Vote defending accusations against ACORN as “absolutely false”- even as the FBI launched a probe into the allegations of fraud.

The simple truth is that it’s just a matter of time before we have an entirely paperless campaign experience. Volunteers might be able to download an application onto their own devices and head out to targeted areas near them via their GPS-enabled Google Maps service. From there, they can go door-to-door, armed with an entire visual interactive experience for constituents. Or perhaps they’ll collect names and signatures for ballot initiatives or primary ballots, showing a compelling video that leads directly into a signup form. All of this will come directly from a single paperless device that broadcasts the signature to the database instantaneously.

But what happens when this tool is first used by the same people who infamously enrolled the Dallas Cowboys to vote in Nevada? The potential for abuse is tremendous. This will be something Republicans need to watch carefully, as oversight on matters like this will be hard to scale. As a developer of iPhone applications, the potential excites me- I would love to have a client that would recognize the potential of such a service, but I am also concerned about the potential impact on elections when people attempt to use this for more nefarious purposes. We need to move political volunteerism into the future, but not at the cost of election fraud and manipulation.

In the week since the passage into law of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, much has been written about vandalism and threats of violence targeting public officials. Such acts of vandalism and threats of violence are inexcusable. For the rational, there are nonviolent ways to justly express objection to the new health reform law. The irrational, however, have been the focus of recent press accounts. Unfortunately though, too many otherwise intelligent people have taken a disturbingly one-sided view to recent events.

While the left has long sought to portray critics of President Obama and the present Congress as bigots and conspiracy theorists, reporting in support of such a perspective picked up from the day of the narrow House vote for passage, and has continued unabated ever since. On March 21, three Democratic members of Congress claimed to have been the victims of bigotry on their as they passed protesters near the Capitol. Two members claim to have been subjected to verbal attacks, and a third was allegedly spat upon. To date, no video of the incident as described by the legislators has surfaced. One cannot help but wonder if the reports of these allegations influenced any of the votes for reform cast by House Democrats. Throughout the week, there were press reports of harassing phone calls and acts of vandalism perpetrated against Democrats and their families. One Democrat, Bart Stupak, was harassed and accosted when it appeared that his might have been a vote against reform.

Democrats were quick to use the anger narrative spun for them by allies in the press to fundraise all this week. Minority Whip Eric Cantor, who opposed the health reform bill with all other House Republicans and 34 of his Democratic peers, criticized the politicization of these attacks by Democrats. Cantor too was the target of a  death threat during the past week, after gunfire erupted adjacent to his Richmond office. In his case, however, an arrest was made. The man arrested had twice donated to the Obama campaign, and the DNC has since the arrest forwarded those donations to charity.

Fundraising was not the only stunt pulled by the Democratic Party in the wake of threats against members of Congress; the paty brass proposed cosigning a “civility statement” with the Republican National Committee to discourage hostile rhetoric at political events. Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee, now facing unrelated controversies, refused to partake in the deal. With respect to the civility statement, the RNC was not wrong. Civility is sorely lacking in contemporary discourse, as has been noted here not infrequently in the past. When it comes to the lack of civility in the public arena, however, those in glass houses ought not to chuck stones.

Democrats readily denounce protesters who wave signs suggesting that President Obama is a socialist or a fascist, but are selective in their objection to such epiphets.

If Olbermann being himself is not convincing enough, a refresher on protest signs waved during the previous administarion ought to be demonstrative. 

The example provided here is one of the more civil signs waved in opposition to President Bush during his administration.

Yet, to read the New York Times, one would think that such absurdities are the sole providence of the GOP and conservatives. A recent opinion piece by Frank Rich in said paper openly propagated such falsehoods. Despite the fact that it was Democrats and not Republicans who were fundraising off of these instances, Rich accused the Republicans of metaphorically instigating an American Kristallnacht. Joining this chorus of ignorance was the bombastic Florida favorite of progessives, Congressman Alan Grayson. He too suggested that Republicans are Nazis, drawing parallels to the Reichstag fire. While it is unfortunate that neither man has a better grasp of political history in nineteen thirties Europe than Pat Buchanan, more disturbing is the rank hypocrisy of their rhetoric.  

Now that the reconciliation bill is also law, Republicans must be better about emphasizing process in protesting the actions of the other party. Process in protest matters as much as process in legislating. However, conservatives should be keenly aware that treading carefully is essential to the presentation of ideas in the great American marketplace. Indeed, the lack of civility among some is not just disruptive to people, but to causes. Republicans can and must be better than Democrats have thus far on matters of conduct if a change in direction for the country is to occur following the November elections this year.

To be clear, there are positive aspects of the legislation, but they are heavily outweighed by the negative. Thus, Paul Ryan is right to argue that any future repeal by Congress of this travesty should be coupled with the passage of a much more sound reform alternative. Already, some are seeking judicial recourse for the injustice that is the Obama health reform law. However, if history has been any indication, the judiciary has been unable to stop presidential excess, just ask members of the Cherokee nation, or those justices on the U.S. Supreme Court much later during the “switch in time” in 1937.

The remarks of the respective party leaders on the House floor Sunday evening provided all that is needed to know about where the two parties stand on the latest imposition on the American individual and his essential liberty.

For Nancy Pelosi, passing this legislation is about fulfilling the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a president who gave the nation the social security obligations it cannot meet is the very same who Pelosi all-too-appropriately praises with respect to the intrusive and even more costly new health care entitlement. The Speaker turns on its head the promise of the legally irrelevant Declaration of Independence. Essentially, her understanding of history is no less warped than that of Pat Buchanan. Reasonable observers, especially those concerned about civil liberties, should be wondering why it makes sense to overhaul one sixth of the economy to insure ten percent of the American public.

John Boehner, who is never this eloquent, offers a much more measured historical analysis for this legislation. The partisan press has harped on his angry tone rather than the substance of his charges. This instance is one where the anger was justified, and should have been helpful to the cause of reason in the national political discourse. Boehner was effective here in reiterating that Republican opposition is not to reform as a concept, but rather to this particular proposal. Unfortunately, reality does not satisfy the anger narrative pushed by so many who should really know better. His point about having each member cast votes via a roll call demonstrates how cowardly the majority caucus was in passing the landmark reform bill. Ultimately, the intensity of Boehner’s remarks reflects the long legacy of contentious Congressional battles; one can no more condemn his intensity Sunday evening than one can Congressional abolitionists before the civil war for the passion of their views.

By the end of voting on Sunday, there were 219 votes in favor of Obamacare. Among them was Bart Stupak and some of his group who still have the audacity to claim that they are pro-life. Like it or not, the language of the passed Senate bill will allow for taxpayer funding of cosmetic abortion (pdf), and requires insurance plans to offer abortion coverage. Supposedly, Stupid Stupak changed his vote after assurances from the White House of an executive order to impose abortion funding restrictions satisfactory to “pro-life” Democrats. As the White House certainly knows, however executive orders lack the force of law.

Beyond the integrity of pro-life Democrats,  another significant casuality of the reform vote Sunday was the Hyde amendment. Dating from the 1980’s, and and named for a Republican former member of Congress, the Hyde amendment was a legislative provision governing the public funding of abortion. It was a reasonable compromise by both sides, allowing public subsidy in this area of policy in only the most dire of circumstances. Due to the sheer policy expanse of the new law, the longstanding, sound compromise is no more, and the abortion policy battle is renewed once again. Hopefully, this vote will have electoral consequences for those of the 219 who are not retiring this year.

The consequences for the American public of this new law are only now being tackled by the popular press. Conservatives have lately taken to heart the mantra that members of Congress read the bills on ehich they vote. These members, when they offer a response to the charge, suggests that they have staffers to review the contents of proposed legislation when they cannot. While true, the press can only serve a responsible role in society if it reports on what the members have not read, or their hard workong employees have overlooked. Potential consequences of landmark legislation ought to be a matter of easily descernable public record well before the prospect of final passage. Such would distinguish journalists from mere reporters. Of course, either should have done more to dispell the hollow notion that the failure of the legislation passed Sunday and signed into law Tuesday actually meant the end of health care reform.

Had the reform plan failed Sunday, the administration would have been forced to do what it should have all along; focus on smaller, more broadly popular policy ideas. Unfortunately, in Washington, legacy still matters more than principles. Some things never change.

In two separate U.S. Supreme Court cases (here and here) the majority has held that the federal constitution requires a specific process for the passage of legislation; an identical text must pass in each house of Congress prior to going to the president for signature. What has been called the Slaughter solution in press accounts, for Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), would deem the Senate bill to be accepted by the House as is without a formal vote on the text of the bill itself. Democrats, in effect, are proposing to use a stunt to pass legislation while being able to claim that they did no such thing. In reality, legislators sworn to uphold the constitution will be remaking one sixth of the U.S. economy through parliamentary gimmickry. Yet, it was precisely this sort of thing that the framers of the United States Constitution opposed.

There are now, and will forever be, disputes over what precisely is allowable or not under the federal constitution. However, rational people on the left and the right generally agree that its provisions offer broad support for personal liberty. For this reason, the first and fourth amendments to the U.S. Constitution are well known. The broad interpretations offered over many years of the fourteenth amendment to said constitution define rather broadly its guarantee of due process of the laws. The amendments to the U.S. Constitution, usually crafted to defend one’s rights against excesses of government power, are not the only portions of the world-renowned document safeguarding personal liberty.

Disputes over due process often arise in instances of criminal law. However, its pertinence applies to the law generally, and the framers of the U.S. Constitution had a precise reason for establishing two legislative chambers to comprise the Congress. Nearly any student of the U.S. political system knows that the two houses of Congress are apportioned differently to prevent any one state from dominating the national government. Inferring though that such is the reason why the Congress is bicameral would be inaccurate. Indeed, James Madison’s Virginia Plan called for a bicameral Congress wherein both chambers were elected on the basis of population. The formation of the United States Senate resulted from a compromise between that Virginia Plan and one offered by William Paterson of New Jersey which would have given each of the thirteen states equal representation regardless of population. The purpose of bicameralism on the federal level was to better secure the liberties of individuals and the states within the Union. To pass health insurance reform through the Slaughter solution, or its proper name, the “self-executing rule” would undermine bicameralism and fundamentally go against the best values of the U.S. political system.

One thing was actually correct in the justly maligned changes proposed to the Texas school curriculum; the government of United States of America is a constitutional republic, not a democracy. While this constitutional republic functions democratically, unbridled democracy can produce the greatest of human tragedies. The pure democracy affirms the interest of the collective over that of the individual in every possible instance. A purely democratic system is one in which the leader can be voted more power without checks on his new authority.

Civil libertarians were correct to criticize the excesses of the previous administration in its efforts to combat terrorism. Yet, there has been little more than silence from them now that the party and president in power are engaged in every activity imaginable to grow the power of the state in another area of public policy. This is particularly disturbing when considering the expanse of the present measure and its lack of any real fiscal constraint. The use of the self-executing rule in the House and budgetary reconciliation together to pass health reform would be the largest single abuse of federal authority since FDR proposed packing the Supreme Court with sycophants in 1937 to further his partisan agenda.

Democrats, to defend their legislative shenanigans, have argued that Republicans used the budget reconciliation process numerous times in the past. Quality, however, matters more than quantity; adjusting rates of taxation or adding a prescription drug benefit to an existing program is substantively different from overhauling the entire health insurance system. Using reconciliation, as has been proposed, for health care reform would go against the fiscal policy nature of the process. Senator Byrd (D-WV) opposed using reconciliation for the aborted 1993 health reform plan precisely because of its substantive reach beyond short-term fiscal policy, and the constraints on debate imposed by such a process.

The Tea Party movement has been widely criticized. For the record, this author has shown concern over its excesses in the past. Speaker Pelosi in recent weeks suggested that Democrats share some sentiments with the Tea Partiers. Unfortunately, it seems the sentiments shared aren’t those pertaining to personal liberty, but rather those disdaining good governance and bipartisanship.