Is Sarah Palin A Liberal Plot?

That seems to be David Boaz's belief:

"Talk about Sarah Palin running for president continues to mount — in the liberal media. Conservatives smile and look away when the topic is raised. They want to watch her on TV, they want to turn out for her lively speeches, but they don’t see her as a president.

Liberals, on the other hand, are jumping up and down at the prospect of a Palin candidacy. She could win! they urgently insist to skeptical Republicans; you should get behind her. Don’t throw us Democrats in that Palin briar patch! The latest example is the star columnist of the New York Times, Frank Rich. His Sunday column is titled “Could She Reach the Top in 2012? You Betcha.” Palin’s got a huge television presence, Rich says — 5 million viewers for her new TLC series. Which is slightly less than the 65 million it would take to win a presidential election. She’s running, he says; her upcoming book tour “disproportionately dotes on the primary states of Iowa and South Carolina.” Well, yes, she’s going to both those states, along with 14 others."

Oh, poppycock. Liberals didn't put her on the 2008 ticket. We didn't put her on Fox News. And we're not the ones making her books into bestsellers. We're not in the party that's giving her an 80 percent approval rating. And we're not the ones scouting office space in Iowa for her. There's something going on there, and it's not the left's fault.

Undoubtedly there's a few liberals who would like to see Palin win the GOP nomination because they think she'd be easy for Obama to beat in 2012. I'm not one of those people: I'd like to see the Republican Party put forth a credible, non-demagogic leader who is capable of leading the entire country. But the reason many, probably most, liberals talk about Sarah Palin is because she's clearly connected to the id of the GOP, and would seem to thus have a realistic chance of contending for her party's nomination. A conservative friend says: " I'd wager she raises more money for Democrats than she does for Republicans." And that may be true. But one could say the same thing about Hillary Clinton's profile among Republicans for most of the last 20 years; she nearly became president, and it's not because conservatives were secretly trying to push her into being the Democratic Party's mistake. Sarah Palin is a real phenomenon, but she's not a liberal one.

Afghanistan Quagmire Watch

The Washington Post reports from a refugee camp outside Kabul:

"Helmand refugees living in this squalid camp, known as Charahi Qambar, offer a bleaker assessment. They blame insecurity on the presence of U.S. and British troops, and despite official claims of emerging stability, these Afghans believe their villages are still too dangerous to risk returning.

'Where is security? The Americans are just making life worse and worse, and they're destroying our country,' said Barigul, a 22-year-old opium farmer from the Musa Qala district of Helmand who, like many Afghans, has only one name. 'If they were building our country, why would I leave my home town and come here?'"

Republicans Won't Repeal Health Care

New York Times:

"More than a few Republicans know that while the politics of trying to nitpick provisions and curb funding are appealing, any wholesale repeal of major provisions of the health care overhaul is likely to generate a backlash.

Even the Republican-leaning electorate on Nov. 2 was evenly split on repealing Obamacare, the exit polls showed. And many of the major provisions of the bill command broad support or could expose critics and repeal advocates to embarrassing contradictions."

Federalist 40: A Strict Reading of the Rules

In the tradition of James Madison?

The men who created the Constitution didn't gather at Philadelphia with the purpose of creating a constitution, actually. They were there to try to fix the old constitution, the Articles of Confederation, that bound the United States together loosely but imperfectly. This was their commission:

"Resolved -- That in the opinion of Congress it is expedient, that on the second Monday of May next a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union."

But the men who gathered at Philadelphia didn't actually do the specific job they were given. Rather than fiddle around trying to fix the (apparently) unfixable Articles of Confederation, they more or less ripped up the document and started over with a blank piece of paper. And it's important to consider that act, very carefully, because what it means is this:

The Constitution was created because the Founders decided not to be "strict constructionists" about the rules they were given. Instead, they decided to act in the spirit of their commission, for the good of their country. The Constitution -- and the country -- we have is the result of their expansive reading of a plainspoken document.

Seems to me that this fact should have some bearing on how we decide to read the rules the Founders gave to us. Do we rely on a strict or originalist reading of the Constitution and bind ourselves very tightly to the vision of men who died more than two centuries ago? Or do we act in what we perceive to be the spirit of that document, allowing the government some leeway in acting for the collective good? And if we do that, where can we say the line is drawn, where the government has gone beyond the bounds a free people should allow it? Tough questions, often treated simply. But the experience of the Founders suggests, really, that there isn't a simple answer.

TSA Backlash Week: Mennonite Backlash!

Young Anabaptist Radicals:

"When you find yourself in a situation of being scanned, you should voluntarily, in public, strip down naked.

This act would not be disobeying the command of the TSA but rather it would be going the ‘second mile’, if you will.  While on one hand it is submitting to the invasiveness of the screenings it is also doing it in such a way that takes control and power back in the situation.  And I would also venture to say that if such an act were done in front of all of the other passengers waiting in line, it would expose the true invasiveness of the procedure and thus place the ultimate shame on the TSA, not on the individual.

Creative.  Non-violent.  Resisting."

Thanks to the friend who shared this with me. Don't know if she wants her name associated with this, but she knows who she is!

TSA Backlash Week: Emmett Tyrrell, Modern Patton

Good stuff: "John Tyner, missed his flight completely owing to his protest. He greeted the Transportation Security Administration staff, camera in hand, in San Diego. He had opted for the pat-down in place of the scanner, but he warned, 'If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested.' Yes, he referred to his genitalia as 'junk.' Well, speak for yourself, Mr. Tyner. Now he is threatened by the TSA with an $11,000 fine. That is a bit stiff. He missed his plane. That is enough, but Tyner might keep things in perspective. America is at war."

Emphasis added. The opening speech of George C. Scott's "Patton," as rewritten by Emmett Tyrrell:

MAN: Ten-hut!

(SILENCE)

(BUGLE PLAYS)

Be seated.

PATTON: Now, I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making some other poor dumb bastard feel him up in line for the 6:25 am flight to Wilmington.

Men all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to take a flight, wanting to stay out of the scanners and security lines is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love a flight. All real Americans love the sting of battling their way through shoe-removal checkpoints.

When you were kids you all admired the champion marble shooter the fastest runner, big-league ball players, the toughest boxers. NOW it's time to find out who really does have the toughest boxers. I kid, I kid.

Now some of you boys, I know are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you will all do your duty -- that you will, in fact, get very comfortable brushing your hands against the inner thighs and genitals of dozens, perhaps hundreds of passengers a day. Thousands per week! Uncountable thousands in a month!

The airline passengers are the enemy. Wade into them! Feel their junk! Carress them in the belly!

There's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any message saying we are "holding John Tyner's testicles. " We're not "holding" anything. We're advancing constantly. We're not interested in holding on to anything except the passenger's balls. We're going to hold on to him by the nose and kick him in the ass. We're going to kick the hell out of him all the time and we're going to go through him like crap through a goose!

All right, now, you sons of bitches, you know how I feel. I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into Denver International Airport anytime, anywhere.

That's all.

(ANNNNND: SCENE!)

Obama: Crony Capitalist or Socialist Hack?

I have a few friends who need to listen to Dave Weigel:

"Since inauguration day the Dow is up 41 percent, and the S&P is up 49 percent.

Can you use this to argue that Barack Obama's presidency has been an economic success? Oh, I don't think so. Unemployment, foreclosures, bank closures, and other much more important metrics are much worse than they were when he was inaugurated. But the recovery of the stock market, outpacing the recovery of the economy, is unusual. Ronald Reagan was inaugurated at the start of a growing recession with the Dow at 950.68; it closed at 1,021.25 on November 19, 1982. That was a rise of 7.4 percent from inauguration to the post-midterm weeks.

I see two things here. One: The lefty critique of Obama as an incompetent crony capitalist continues to make more sense than the conservative critique of the president as a radical anti-capitalist. Two, politicians are hacks who'll use any economic data they can find to make their points, and ignore the data once it stops making the points."