Republicans Drink the Tea and Embrace the Hatred and Ignorance

I don’t have to write much tonight. The images and sound bites speak for themselves. The House Minority Leader stands in front of the latest Tea Party gathering in Washington and tacitly gives his support for distasteful and hateful messages. This was no ordinary Tea Party. This one was not instigated by right-wing think tanks or Glenn Beck. This one was organized by an elected official, a woman with whom we trust the important task of governing our nation, Michele Bachmann. Ms. Bachmann has gone from a punch line to a dangerous instigator as she encourages the crowd to walk the halls of Congress and confront supporters of health care reform, to look at them “in the whites of their eyes” in her words. Fighting words. Fighting words coming from an elected official who is sworn to uphold our Constitution and protect the citizens of this country. Instead, she instigates discontent and discord.

Usually, my focus on this movement centers around its sheer stupidity and ignorance. This was on full display as John Boehner, the House Minority Leader waved what he called the Constitution and then quoted from the Declaration of Independence:

Then as the “press conference” neared its end, Representative Bachmann gave the crowd its marching orders, inciting disruption within the Capitol:

But ignorance wasn’t the only thing on display today. Once again, we had a full dose of hatred, the most jarring example of which was this protest sign, which read:

“National Socialist Health Care, Dachau Germany 1945″.

This is your Republican Party, ladies and gentlemen. This is what John Boehner condones by his presence at this rally. This is what your Congressmen and women celebrate while people die from lack of health care, die defending our country overseas, and lose their homes because they can’t find a job. While we twist in the wind, this is what your Congress is spending their time on. Standing in front of the Capitol egging on a hate rally.

To paraphrase the attorney at the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s, at long last have we lost all sense of decency?

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Lessons Learned from Election Night 2009

With 20/20 hindsight, nothing that transpired last night at the polls should have surprised anyone. Let’s look at some of the lessons learned:

It’s the Economy, Stupid

None of us can forget that day in late September of 2008 when John McCain said he would suspend his campaign until the economic crisis had passed. In particular, he was suggesting that his upcoming debate with Barack Obama be cancelled. Obama responded that a President needed to be able to do more than one thing at one time. Well, ten months into his first term, one has to wonder if Obama has taken on too much at one time. Last night’s election of Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia signal that there is one overwhelming concern among average Americans and that is jobs, jobs, jobs. McDonnell ran with the moniker “Bob’s for jobs” and Christie promised to lower taxes. I think it’s fair to say that most people aren’t connecting health care reform with improving the economy. Unless we escalate our war on terror on a par with one of our old World Wars, we won’t see the “war industry” employing lots of people the way it did in the 30’s and 40’s. The push to go green has not yet produced substantial employment opportunities. So with Obama focused on health care, Afghanistan and climate change, many Americans are left scratching their heads on where the jobs are coming from. These gubernatorial elections should send a message to the White House that some economy/job focus needs to happen fast … and show results fast.

Don’t Take Moves from the Republican Playbook

2008 was the year of campaign silly season, led by the Republicans who threw every ridiculous charge at Obama that they could (charges that persist ten months after his inauguration). Sadly, neither the Corzine nor the Deeds campaigns learned that, particularly in serious times, you don’t run trivial campaigns. Corzine made fun of Christie’s weight and ran nasty ads about supposed criminal wrong doing gone unpunished. Deeds made a big stink about some paper McDonnell had written over 20 years ago. If you can’t battle your opponent on current issues, you ought not to be running.

Wash off the Wall Street Stink

This one is easy. Americans hate fat cat wall street veterans with a passion right now. Corzine’s history as head of Goldman Sachs might not have hurt him in his first run, but now it is virtually the kiss of death unless you have a very good story to tell in the “now”. With a very low approval rating, Corzine’s current story couldn’t wash away the Wall Street stink.

Don’t Embrace Endorsements from Ass Hats

In the NY-23 race, the minute Doug Hoffman got his Facebook endorsement from Sarah Palin, he should have known it was over before it started. Then Glenn Beck jumped on the band wagon. Before you know it, Hoffman was being lauded as the Tea Party Candidate. When Republican Dede Scozzafava got pushed out of the race, she had the good sense (and the courage) to back the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens. Hoffman didn’t understand that when people are hurting they want a serious representative to take up their cause in Washington. They don’t want a perceived wingnut. Of course, it is no surprise that Hoffman eagerly accepted the support of Palin. He was essentially a male version of Palin: totally ignorant about the local issues important to his potential constituents. Of course it didn’t help that he was a carpet-bagger. But even carpet-baggers like Hillary Clinton could succeed with hard work, learning about their adopted home, as she did with New York. Hoffman was not that smart.

The RINO You Have is Better than the Wingnut You Don’t

The fact is Newt Gingrich was right this time. Sure Scozzafava was not chosen in the ideal way (i.e. by primary) but the bottom line is no matter how liberal she was, she was unlikely to buck the Republican caucus in the House all that often. She would have been a reasonably reliable vote. Now thanks to the interference of Palin, Beck, Pawlenty, Armey and others, the 23rd district will send a Democrat to the House for the first time since 1873. This should be a wake up call to the GOP that moderation is not a bad thing.

Liberals are Lazy

Without the galvanizing motivation of putting a ground breaking President in the White House, liberals sat on their asses last night. You can’t win if you don’t play.

The Age of the Referen-dumb

If we had decided civil rights for blacks and women by referendum, we would probably still have a Jim Crow south  and women not voting today. Why in the world are the equal rights of homosexuals being decided by “popular” vote? The gay activist groups need to get this issue before the courts quickly so that eventually the Supreme Court can rule marriage discrimination unconstitutional and be done with it.

The overall lesson learned this year is that voters are not interested in right-wing or left-wing extremism or trivia. They are looking to people to solve problems and the biggest problem right now is finding employment and keeping your home. It’s a bi-partisan lesson that better be learned by both parties as we move into 2010.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Liz Cheney: The Chick of the Chicken-Hawk Should Just Go Away

First Obama is evil for wanting to send a positive message to our school children. Then he is evil for wanting to try to get the Olympics held here. Then he is evil for not outright rejecting the admittedly odd honor of the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, none of that should be too surprising since none of those issues reside in the sweet spot of conservatives. You would think though, that Obama honoring our war dead would be something that even our right-wing brethren could get behind.

Apparently not. On the radio, the former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter, whom MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell called Dick’s “pet attack dog”, found fault with the President’s recent visit to Dover Air Force Base to honor the war dead on their final trip home. She seemed to find it unseemly that the President be there “with the White House press pool”. This stupid excuse for a “patriot” neglected to mention that unlike during her father’s time, families of war dead can now request that cameras be present at their deceased loved ones homecoming. She also neglected to mention that the families who gave and did not give permission for the televised homecoming were unaware that the President would be there.

But Lawrence O’Donnell, who subbed for Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s “Countdown” can tell the story much better than I can:

That’s right. Not only could Bush not be seen at Dover since he didn’t allow cameras there, but he was NEVER there himself to honor the war dead. Vice President Cheney, no doubt afraid to leave his undisclosed location, was also never seen at Dover in the seven years that he promoted the suicide mission that was the Iraq war. Liz says of the war dead that there is no greater sacrifice that someone can make to the nation. How would she know? Her father dodged military service not once but five times.

As I’ve suffered through the increasingly frequent appearances of Liz Cheney in the media, I got to wondering why we don’t ever see Cheney’s other daughter Mary. As you know, Mary is a lesbian. So I did some digging and found what I consider to be a very conflicted woman. With apologies to everyone who finds David Letterman’s recent behavior disgusting, I offer an unusually politically astute interview he did with Mary back in 2006.

Fascinating that Mary put her concern for national security above her own self-interest. Let’s face it, she supported an administration that wanted to amend the Constitution to outlaw same-sex privileges, not just marriage, but any legal protection for same-sex couples. In 2006, with her dad a lame duck VP, she then felt emboldened to write an autobiography calling for equal rights for gays and lesbians, when it was too late to really make a difference. I can’t criticize Mary because her dilemma was understandable. Just look at the brilliant defense her father gave her a year later when she announced she was expecting her first child:

While the Dick was delighted to be getting a new grandchild (who wouldn’t be?), he stopped short of denouncing his supporters who consider Mary Cheney an abomination. He accused Wolf Blitzer of dealing a low blow. Why couldn’t he have said Focus on the Family was full of crap? The organization insulted his daughter and he felt insulted by Wolf Blitzer! After several seconds of receiving the Darth Vader death stare, Wolf sheepishly backed off. I would have persisted. I would have asked Cheney why he was a lousy hypocrite. He cared so much for his grandchild that he would have supported legislation that made that grandchild an orphan upon the death of his daughter.
This is the twisted world of the Cheneys. Why haven’t we seen much of Mary lately? Has she wised up that her father is a disgrace to this country? Or perhaps, in her typically self-sacrificing way, she’s willing to let her “normal” sister do all the talking?  When it comes to talking, most ex-Vice Presidents, unless they are pursuing the Presidency, fade into the woodwork and certainly don’t disparage the current President on a regular basis. This goes double for Vice  President’s children.

Liz, take a cue from the former Vice President’s children whose names we don’t even know, and just fade away.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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HCR: When is the Fight Worth It?

One of the roles of government is to make the country run efficiently and effectively. Unfortunately, government cannot be separated from politics. Politics, more often than not interferes with effective government. Such is the source of my dismay with the current health care reform (HCR) debate. There is much chatter about Obama needing a “win”. The suggestion is that any health care bill is better than none. With Joe Lieberman now endangering the prospects for passing the bill and with talk of an end run involving reconciliation, isn’t it time for us to take a sober look at what we’re fighting for?

A few nights ago, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did a good job of articulating the various choices before us:

1. Robust public option: A government run reimbursement system similar to Medicare that forces private insurance companies to compete for customers.
2. The opt-out: Every state adopts the public option at first but gets a chance to opt out at a later time. (This creates the interesting scenario of seeing which states would have the balls to opt out after their residents have gotten a taste of the public option.)
3. The opt-in: Only states that want to use the public option have to. Does this go far enough to make affordable health care available to everyone?
4. The “trigger”: The public option gets enforced only after the insurance companies have had time to clean up their act and have failed to do so. Does anyone really believe the legislation could be written strictly enough for the trigger to ever get pulled?
5. No public option under any circumstances.

If the goal is to make insurance available to more people and at lower cost, then option 1 is really the only one that achieves this. Options 2 through 4 provide too much wiggle room to be effective. Option 5 is essentially the Baucus bill out of the Senate that simply puts more customers into the hands of a malicious insurance industry.

Has anyone noticed that all the debate is centered around expanding care to all at an affordable price but little debate revolves around reforming insurance “worst practices” such as exclusions based on pre-existing conditions.  Of course, this gets mentioned in Obama’s speeches and we hear story after story of insurance company abuses against their customers. But no one is fighting over that point. Maybe because only a callous fool would defend not insuring a baby because he was “too fat” or not insuring a woman because her pregnancy was considered a pre-existing condition.

What I fear is that while Washington fights over the money, we may lose important reforms that don’t cost us a dime (other than lowering insurance company profits a bit). I am no longer sure that I agree that any bill will do. I am not sure that the result we are awaiting is a flashy bill signing ceremony at the White House, another notch in Obama’s belt. Finally I am not sure that if reconciliation cannot get us option 1 (the only real option for availability and affordability) that it is worth it to go that route. To run an endgame around the system to get a sad compromise just increases the polarization in our government for no good reason, not to mention the fact that all these options don’t kick in for years to come.

I say if we don’t have the votes for option 1, then let’s strip out all of the affordability/availability legislation and draft a bill that simply regulates the insurance industry to stop abuses. Let’s make the regulatory legislation effective within 12 months. That will be a major step forward. With that done, we can build on that victory and get everything else we want down the line.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Welcome to Socialist Capitalism and Palin Parts the Red Sea

This week, the Obama “pay czar”, Kenneth Feinberg announced that he would be cutting the cash salaries of TARP company executives by 90% and total compensation by 50%. My first reaction to this was utter elation. The part of me that is fed up with arrogant corporate CEO’s who are oblivious to the economic suffering of this country, and their contribution to it, raised his fist in a defiant “screw the fat cats!” It’s about damn time!

Then I paused a moment and thought, wow, I’m no expert on socialism but isn’t this the government controlling the detailed operations of what used to be free enterprise? Well, yes it is. So should we all be wringing our hands saying that Limbaugh, Beck and Malkin were all correct? Is it socialism today and communism tomorrow?

No, I don’t think so. What we’ve got here is an odd mix of socialism and capitalism tossed together and only for the time being. The government doesn’t own a huge stake in these TARP companies, we do! We, the taxpayers own a large chunk of these companies and we should be very pleased that the government, our proxy, is making these companies accountable for their behavior. Once these companies (AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, GM, Chrysler and the two car company financing divisions) pay us back our money, then we will get out of their business. Until then, they should at least partially answer to us.

I call this socialist capitalism. It’s a free market system which when it breaks down based on abuses, stops being totally free and gets a good government slap on the wrist. It’s the answer to capitalism on steroids, which is what I believe got us into our current mess. As long as the government knows when to back off, I see no problem with this approach.

Let’s see what you think:

Republican Schism and the Palin Factor (or How Sarah Parted the Red Sea)

In a recent post, I warned of the imminent demise of the Republican party but I was wrong about how Sarah Palin could be instrumental in it. I’ve always seen Palin as pulling the party so far to the right that they fall off the edge of the Earth. What I didn’t count on was that our darling maverick would go completely rogue on the GOP and back a candidate opposing the Republican Party. But yes friends, that is indeed what has happened. In the 23rd congressional district House race in New York, Sarah Palin has endorsed Conservative Party candidate, Doug Hoffman over Republican Party candidate Deirde “Dede” Scozzafava. By helping to dilute the conservative vote, Sarah may hand the traditionally Republican district over to Democrat Bill Owens on a silver platter.

Wonder how much the GOP loves Sarah now?

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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When to Turn the Cameras Off and Obama Tone Deaf in New Orleans

When to Turn the Cameras Off

One of the big stories in the past 24 hour news cycle has been that of “balloon boy”, the six year old son of an inventor who was thought to be floating in a helium balloon lost in the skies of Colorado. The boy turned out to have been safely hiding in his parent’s attic the entire time that various Colorado rescue officials were trying  to find him. Now attention has turned to his parents and particularly his father with a suspicion that the entire event was a hoax to get him publicity.

I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon of those criticizing the young boy’s family. There is a far more odious culprit to talk about this evening. That is the bottom feeding hypocritical media that covered this story. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, Mika Brzezinski was practically apoplectic over what she considered to be child abuse. To prove her point she and her co-hosts played video tape of the family’s appearances on “Good Morning America” and “The Today Show”, expressing all sorts of outrage that the parents would exploit their child on TV even when he was so sick that he vomited on both shows.

The point that they missed entirely was that the producers and “journalists” involved in both morning interviews couldn’t figure out when enough was enough. On “Good Morning America”, the child named Falcon, excused himself to go to the bathroom and vomit. Diane Sawyer essentially gave the mother “permission” to go see how the boy was.  It didn’t occur to anyone at ABC, ok folks, interview over? On NBC’s “Today”, the situation was even worse. Falcon could not even get to the bathroom on time and vomited on camera. As he left the room, Meredith Vieira announced she still had a couple of questions she’d like to ask. No, Meredith, the kid just tossed his breakfast, time for the interview to be over!

One has to wonder if the child started choking on a pretzel on live TV, would the cameras have kept rolling or would some anchor or producer have had the decency to stop the tape. The only solace I got out of watching this episode was seeing the reaction of Newsweek Editor and “Morning Joe” guest Jon Meacham, who called Mika and her crew “meta-enablers”. He basically told them, they make the story worse by covering it.

They’re angry that the father might want media attention but to get ratings, they give him all the attention he craves. Hypocrites and bottom feeders, plain and simple.

Obama Tone Deaf in New Orleans

The optics were bad enough with President Barack Obama doing a quick stop in still devastated New Orleans on his way to a San Francisco fund raiser. But things got worse than just bad optics when a young New Orleans resident, Gabriel Bordenave, asked the President why help to the region was still only trickling in four years after Katrina and nine months into what was supposed to be a fresh perspective administration. (The following video is poor quality but the audio is clear.)

When Bordenave says that the foot dragging he would have expected under Bush was still going on now, Obama responded with a defensive posture, going as far as to say if he could write a check now he would. Not to be put off, Bordenave asked “why not?” Obama’s surprisingly snide response was that there was this little thing called the Constitution that needed to be accounted for.

Excuse me? We are pouring trillions of dollars into current and contemplated programs, most of which I support. So, why is it so hard to get money down to the people who need it in New Orleans? When Obama could have said that he was sorry for the suffering still going on down there, he took a totally defensive stance, going as far as to say folks oppose spending except when the money is spent on them. True, of course. The right place and time to say it? Hell no. To make matters worse, Obama’s next stop was San Francisco where couples would be paying $34,000.00 each for a lousy dinner to raise funds for the DNC to get Democrats elected to various offices. Why don’t we do some campaign finance reform and funnel all that wasted money down to New Orleans so hospitals can get rebuilt?

There is no doubt that some retraction of Obama’s comments is on the way. He so misread the time and place to be defensive and sarcastic that it is mind boggling. My prescription for the President is to take a break from health care and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He needs to find a quiet place in the White House, put his headphones on, and listen to this warning call from The Who:

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Two Tea Party Witnesses for the Prosecution

Of all the positions I’ve taken on this blog, probably none has attracted so much vitriol as my attitude toward the Tea Party participants. I have called a good number of them uninformed and ignorant and a small minority of them outright racist. In return I have been told I don’t respect the first amendment and that I am un-American because I don’t support the common man in his effort to redress perceived wrongs. Perhaps if I saw a Tea Party participant present himself convincingly, I might be persuaded that the Tea Party movement is something more than misdirected rage and amorphous social anxiety.

This week the Tea Party movement took a far right turn and started to eat its own at a town hall with Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham. Graham, one of the Senators most critical of President Obama, was called a traitor by folks in the crowd.

This odd turn of events demanded an explanation so once again, two “witnesses for the defense” of the Tea Party movement got paraded on national television and wound up simply winning the case for the prosecution. In fact, I challenge anyone to watch the following video and not cringe with discomfort:

Let’s start with some reasonable objections that Tea Party sympathizers might have with the above interview.

1. Chris Matthews is a bully. That is why the show is called “Hardball”. Chris reserves the right to be tough and often rude to his guests in what he believes is a quest for the truth.
2. The two men are relatively ordinary private citizens with no preparation for a TV interview, much less with a tough interviewer with Matthews’ experience.
3. In a corollary to point 1, Chris does not play fair, asking questions far afield from the main topic of why the sudden turn on Lindsay Graham.

With those objections out of the way, let’s look at how our defenders of the Tea Party movement fared:

1. Everett Wilkinson of Florida Tea Party Patriots starts off with the total foolishness that nearly 2 million marched on Washington on 9/12, when reliable estimates place the crowd at no more than 500,000 tops (more conservative estimates come in at about 75,000).
2. Wilkinson could not answer the question that I have repeatedly asked in the comments section of this blog, namely why the sudden need for protest when all of our fiscal problems, e.g. out of control spending, started in the Bush administration?
3. Next comes the old stuff about Iraq being responsible for 9/11 (and some odd comment about Iran thrown in there also).
4. Wilkinson ends up looking like a good natured guy who spouts Republican talking points without much underlying knowledge. He supports my supposition that a lot of Tea Party members are vague, to be kind, about what is really bothering them. Wilkinson’s finest moment, and I say this sincerely, is when he reminds Matthews that he is basically off topic. Wilkinson looks like a pro compared to what comes next.
5. Next up is Allen Olson, a self described South Carolina Tea Party organizer. His first “gripe” is that Lindsay Graham is willing to “meet the Democrats more than halfway” about social security.  OK, good specific gripe there. What about this social security debate has Olson upset? “Well, I’m not exactly sure exactly what the issue was but Senator Graham said he was willing to talk to the Democrats on the issue of social security.” In impolite circles, this is known as not having the foggiest idea what you’re talking about. Matthews exercises incredibly empathetic restraint with this fellow who on the very first question makes it clear he has no business being interviewed about politics. Maybe about the Clemson Tigers, but not about politics.
6. Matthews pours a bit of salt in the wound by suggesting Graham is a “Richard Russell conservative”, a reference to a Georgia Senator who led a conservative movement from the late 30’s to the early 60’s. I had to look Russell up to find out who he was. Olson, as he literally bobbed and weaved in his chair, was as clueless as I. Matthews has studied politics and Olson clearly has not. Unfair fight but again evidence that this representative of the “movement” is in way over his head.
7. Chris then explores climate change and evolution in an attempt to make the guy look like a real neanderthal. Olson handles this pretty well actually, saying he doesn’t believe in climate change (lots of folks agree with him) and that he supports science and religion.
8. While Olson distances himself from those calling Graham a traitor (Olson stops at RINO), he then caps off the interview by proposing a Sarah Palin/Jim DeMint President/VP ticket in 2012. We won’t discuss Sarah, whom I’ve opined on extensively but Jim DeMint? DeMint, the Senator whose only reason to block health care reform is to destroy Obama’s presidency? DeMint, who visited the foreign government of Honduras, not recognized by our government? The same DeMint who compared Obama’s administration to Nazi Germany? Yeah Olson sure does know how to pick ‘em.
9. Like Wilkinson, Olson ended his part of the interview on a sympathetic note, comparing Palin’s bomb of an interview with Katie Couric, to his own nervousness talking to Chris Matthews. An ordinary guy defending an ordinary gal.

Bottom line, these two gentlemen are the best the Tea Party movement has to offer as public spokespeople. In their cringe-worthy testimony, they prove my supposition that the Tea Party waters are rough but don’t run very deep.

The prosecution rests its case.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Is Glenn Beck an Intellectual?

My first and only exposure to Fox News’ Glenn Beck was through the prism of rival network MSNBC. From that perspective, Beck is a buffoon, perhaps a dangerous one in that he seduces folks who don’t know any better to buy into his theories. The last word I would have used to describe Beck is “intellectual”. Hence, I dismissed him and anyone who used him to prop up their political arguments. I never gave it another thought.

Next thing I know, Beck is Time Magazine’s cover boy with an accompanying article that went pretty soft on him. Its concluding point though could not be denied.  Beck is the fictional character Howard Beale from the movie Network, come to life:

So this establishes Beck’s bona fides as a proxy for American angst and “fed-upness”. But that doesn’t mean he’s an intellectual.

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across an article in the Washington Post, the title of which intrigued me. The title of the article was “Is Conservatism Brain Dead?” A pet theory of mine has been that conservatism is failing right now because it has no intelligent advocates. John Boehner looks half the time like he’s fresh from a bender. Michelle Bachmann ties the census to internment camps. No one seems to present ideas in an intelligent fashion. When I argue this with my conservative opponents, I always cite the example William F. Buckley, so intellectual at times to be almost incoherent. Yet his PBS program “Firing Line” often took the form of a formal debate, where a particular political position was “resolved” and two sides would argue the different sides of the resolution intelligently.  The author of the Post article, Steven Hayward, also mentioned Buckley and his conclusions were similar to mine until he said one thing that shocked me:

The case of Glenn Beck, Time magazine’s “Mad Man,” is more interesting. His on-air weepiness is unmanly, his flirtation with conspiracy theories a debilitating dead-end, and his judgments sometimes loopy (McCain worse than Obama?) or just plain counterproductive (such as his convoluted charge that Obama is a racist). Yet Beck’s distinctiveness and his potential contribution to conservatism can be summed up with one name: R.J. Pestritto.

Pestritto is a young political scientist at Hillsdale College in Michigan whom Beck has had on his TV show several times, once for the entire hour discussing Woodrow Wilson and progressivism. He is among a handful of young conservative scholars, several of whom Beck has also featured, engaged in serious academic work critiquing the intellectual pedigree of modern liberalism. Their writing is often dense and difficult, but Beck not only reads it, he assigns it to his staff. “Beck asks me questions about Hegel, based on what he’s read in my books,” Pestritto told me. Pestritto is the kind of guest Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity would never think of booking.

Okay, so Beck may lack Buckley’s urbanity, and his show will never be confused with “Firing Line.” But he’s on to something with his interest in serious analysis of liberalism’s patrimony. The left is enraged with Beck’s scandal-mongering over Van Jones and ACORN, but they have no idea that he poses a much bigger threat than that. If more conservative talkers took up the theme of challenging liberalism’s bedrock assumptions the way Beck does from time to time, liberals would have to defend their problematic premises more often.

I was so shocked that a man who had up to that point presented an intelligent argument was now lauding Beck, that I joined an online chat session with him the following day. We had the following exchange:

Middlebury, Conn.: But for a summary statement at the beginning of the chat, you haven’t defended Glenn Beck. Does his esoteric knowledge of conservative dogma really outweigh most of his utter foolishness?

Steven F. Hayward: Jury is out on that. As I’ve said to friends the last two days, I know I’ve gone out on a limb offering a partial defense of him, hoping that he doesn’t saw it off behind me.

Hayward acknowledges that presenting Beck as an intellectual is fraught with potential challenges. But I wanted to dig deeper and look up any conversation I could find between Beck and the Woodrow Wilson scholar, Ronald Pestritto. What I found surprised me (note that the camera man points the camera at the wrong people when they are introduced and the YouTube poster even attributes the quotes incorrectly):

While one guest, Matthew Spalding impressed me as a talking points spouter, Pestritto does appear to be a scholar who has considered matters within a historical context.

So, has my opinion of Beck changed? Only in part. While I cannot swear that Beck runs all that deep, it does appear that unlike some of his peers, Hannity, O’Reilly and even Limbaugh, Beck wants to plumb the depths of academia to support his points. It appears that the man actually reads. He does not, at least on occasion, treat his audience as a league of dumb followers. He presents them with ideas to chew on.

This may make Beck, far from a buffoon, one of the most dangerous men on television. Behind the tears and the nutjob theories, are some arguments presented cogently enough that liberals must take him seriously and work hard to pick him apart. The only thing more dangerous than people following a fool, are people following a wise one.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Obama’s Biggest “What the Hell?” Moment So Far

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I love the President as much if not more than the next guy but what the hell was the Nobel Prize committee thinking?

First, and I’m sure many will not  agree with me, when your country is at war with two other countries, that should immediately disqualify you for the Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t care how righteous the wars are, that’s a show-stopper in my book.

Second, the Obama presidency is a work in progress. Many readers of this blog have pounded me for not challenging every single one of their criticisms about Obama. I am in wait and see mode. To say that Obama is a failure nine months into his presidency is absurd. To say we haven’t seen many tangible fruits of his labor yet is not so absurd.

The prize committee cited Obama’s outreach, particularly to the Muslim world as a deciding factor. Outreach is only an achievement if it changes hearts and minds. Judging from the continued violence being perpetrated in Muslim countries, that change has not occurred yet.

These observations are not a condemnation of Obama. Change takes time. The Nobel committee was simply premature in a big way.

Obama is no fool. He is well aware that he is considered an empty suit by his harshest critics. As a result, when he got the news I have no doubt his first thought was “oh great, I need this like a case of H1N1 right now.” His “acceptance speech” given at the White House moments ago reflects this.

His speech can best be paraphrased as: “This is total BS. However, it would be rude for me to decline the honor, so let me spin this the best way I can to say that the purpose of the prize in this case is not for achievement but for fueling the momentum toward goals shared by the civilized global community.” Short of declining the award, I think Obama handled it the best way he could and I’m sure he hopes this disappears from the news radar as quickly as possible.

As a side note, at the conclusion of Obama’s speech, some yahoo in the crowd shouted the question, “what are you gonna do with the money?” What did he expect the President to say? “I’m gonna buy me some bling and a big white Cadillac”?

The Nobel Prize this time, is just another distraction. Let’s get back to figuring out health care, the deficit and the war in Afghanistan.

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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Health Care Reform: Our Declaration of Independence Demands It

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Thomas Jefferson’s words kick started this great experiment we call the United States of America. Our country is founded on the notion that we have a right to live.  Tonight I watched MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” in which he devoted the entire hour to a “special comment” on the health care debate raging right now in our country. He presented the issue in stark and easy to understand terms. We are talking about life and death.

The truth is that Barack Obama has made a mistake. He has framed the health care debate in dollars and cents. Reform will lower our deficit. Baloney. Maybe reform, done properly, will lower costs down the line but that is NOT the reason to pursue health care reform. This is a moral issue.  By focusing on finances we obscure the fact that it is morally criminal to let people die because they cannot afford to get well. Quite frankly if we double the deficit, so what? Isn’t it time that we stepped up and ensured people their unalienable right to live?

A close friend made an observation tonight that really resonated with me. She asked about our military spending. She pointed out Conservative’s eagerness to throw more money and more bodies into Afghanistan. Why do we fight wars? Ultimately, we fight wars because we do not want to die. We fight wars to preserve life in America as we know it. Yet these same hawks do not want to spend a dime of government money to fight the enemy right here at home, namely disease.

Near the end of Keith Olbermann’s impassioned plea for empathy among his fellow Americans, he told a heart breaking story. On the way out of the hospital visiting his father, he ran into an old childhood friend whom he had not seen in some time. The friend said that his daughter was in ICU with a case of Lyme disease that had gone from bad to worse. He would now have to sell his farm to pay her medical bills. Olbermann contrasted that with his own case where he could afford the best medicine money could buy for his father. This brought to the fore a question plain as day. What is wrong with a country that decides who lives or dies based on one’s position in society? That is India with its caste system. That is not America.

There is a small amount of momentum building toward changing this shameful state of the American health care system. We can only hope that the momentum continues to grow and that our politicians forget about the deep pockets of the insurance industry and do what is right for our country.

Liberty and the pursuit of happiness may be lofty goals but is it too much to ask that we just get a chance to stay alive?

Respectfully,
Rutherford

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