Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion

It seems that almost everyday I learn more and more about blogging disorders. I really didn't know what I was getting into when I started; I wish someone had warned me.

Early on, I self-diagnosed Blogger Mood Disorder ("a condition in which one's mood swings up and down in sync with the level of blog traffic").

Robert Stacy McCain then called to my attention the concepts of Bloggernoia ("the suspicion that other bloggers have malevolent motives for not linking you") and Sitemeter Fever ("obsessively refreshing your SiteMeter to see if your traffic has increased since the last time you checked it, seven minutes ago"), which led me to identify SiteMeter Envy ("the obsessive refreshing of other bloggers' SiteMeters to see if their traffic has increased since the last time you checked it, seven minutes ago").

Now, I have identified another, more obsessive and negative disorder, Sitemeterenfreude, which I define as "deriving pleasure from the failure of other bloggers to generate traffic."

Here is a perfect example of Sitemeterenfreude in action:

When you're through doing that, go to a Castro Street glory hole, offering up your rump to complete strangers, while bragging that you've got more than 25,000 hits on your blog in the past 13 months.

Losers. They're born that way.

I will never succumb to Sitemeterenfreude. It's not that I don't take pleasure in the misfortunes of others, it's just that I don't have time since I'm so busy traffic whoring, which remains just a moral failing, but not a diagnosable disease.

What to Do About John C. Yoo? That is the question posed in a Wall Street Journal Law Blog post. The post is quite fair and balanced; after all, it's not a NY Times post. But the post does discuss a front-page NY Times article which lays out how many are calling for Yoo to be indicted, disbarred, arrested or otherwise punished for helping frame the rights and obligations of the executive branch in time of a terrorist crisis unlike anything this nation faced before.

I have written before about the lunacy of the attacks on Bush administration lawyers, including the claim that one of the lawyers (now a federal judge) should be impeached. Yoo himself has given a solid defense of his actions:

According to these critics, the overthrow of constitutional government in the United States began with a 37-page memo, confidentially issued on Oct. 23, 2001, which concluded that the September 11 attacks triggered the government's war powers and allowed the president to use force to counter force. Alexander Hamilton saw things differently than critics of the Bush administration. He wrote in Federalist 74: "The direction of war implies the direction of the common strength, and the power of directing and employing the common strength forms a usual and essential part in the definition of the executive authority."

Whether Yoo was correct in his interpretation of the constitutional powers of the executive in time of war -- and this war in particular -- is something about which reasonable people can differ. What is outrageous is the attempt to criminalize what amounts to policy differences for political gain. I don't recall the Bush administration seeking to prosecute Janet Reno and Eric Holder for the killing of dozens of civilians in Waco, Texas. They made the judgments -- as to the legal powers of the government and the policy actions to be taken -- under difficult and to some extent unprecedented circumstances.

The real harm from this political witchhunt is that the executive branch will hesitate to take actions to protect the country. As Yoo pointed out in his defense:

The military does not have the time to obtain warrants before soldiers fire upon enemy targets and personnel; the battlefield does not provide the luxury to collect evidence needed to meet probable cause standards in civilian courts. Even if the Fourth Amendment applied, we believed that courts would judge military action under a standard of "reasonableness" -- as they might review a police officer who fires in self-defense -- rather than demand a warrant to use military force to stop a terror attack.

In releasing these memos, the Obama administration may be attempting to appease its antiwar base -- which won't bother to read the memos in full -- or trying to look good for the chattering classes.

But if the administration chooses to seriously pursue those officials who were charged with preparing for the unthinkable, today's intelligence and military officials will no doubt hesitate to fully prepare for those contingencies in the future.

I applaud the reported reluctance of the Obama administration to go down this path, perhaps because they know opening the door to politicized investigations of the executive branch works both ways. Obama has made, and will have to make, decisions under difficult circumstances which may result in loss of innocent life, or which in hindsight may be deemed unnecessary or unconstitutional. The executive branch, particularly in time of war, does the best it can based upon the best legal and military advice it can get under exigent circumstances. To criminalize this process will cause loss of innocent American lives through failures to act, as took place during the Clinton administration regarding al-Qaeda.

I have a better idea. Rather than indicting Yoo, why don't we give him a medal for helping to frame policies which have largely been upheld by the courts, have been implemented by bipartisan congressional action, and have helped keep the country safe.

I saw the photo (right) of Obama over at And So It Goes In Shreveport blog under the headline Time for a Nap. The post concerns the concerns of Obama aides that Obama is not getting enough sleep.


Then I remembered where I had seen this before. It was the Seinfeld "Hellooo" episode, where Jerry decides to continue saying "Hellooo" (in an extended deep-throttle mocking voice) even though his girlfriend hates when he does it. Jerry, after pondering the laughs he gets from the voice versus the good times he has with his girlfriend, decides to take the voice over the girl. The video clip is here.

What does it all mean? I don't knoooooow.

Slow news day. So I'll get to something really important, American Idol. My favorite is Jasmine Murray, from Mississippi. OK, she is not the most likely to win, but she is an undiscovered talent whose abilities have not yet come through.

I first heard Jasmine sing at the Miss America's Outstanding Teen competition in Orlando, Florida in 2007. Jasmine represented Mississippi, and my daughter represented Rhode Island. Jasmine brought down the house with her vocal performance (video here). Everyone in the audience that night had a sense of great things to come from Jasmine, and I expect even greater things from her on American Idol. And Jasmine is a genuinely nice kid, which makes her success so special.

[Note: Video embeds that no longer work have been removed]

President Barack Obama's proposal to give up the missile shield program for Russia's help on halting Iran's nuclear weapons program ended badly. The Russians rejected any link. Obama then denied there ever was a link.

I was at a party last night when a total stranger struck up a conversation with me. He didn't know who I was, or that I had a blog. The crowd was mixed (by political persuasion), so there was no reason for this person to presume I would be sympathetic to conservative thoughts.

The conversation got around to the economy, and his comments went something like this: Since when have people who create wealth become the enemy? I started and grew a business, and thought this is what people were supposed to do. I thought I was one of the good guys, but this administration doesn't see it that way.

When I then told this person about my blog, well you can imagine where the conversation headed. But what is significant is that a total stranger felt comfortable expressing what a lot of people are feeling these days, that the current administration has a warped sense of cause and effect.

Economic success by one individual (provided the success is achieved lawfully) does not deprive any other individual of success. The economy is not a zero sum game. In a capitalist society, there is not a finite amount of economic activity which needs to be divided among a finite population. Growing the pie is possible with free markets and incentives for individual success. In a command economy, by contrast, the budgetary process focuses on dividing up and allocating finite resources (hence called a "five-year plan" and so on).

It is clear that Obama instinctively views the economic system in finite, command-economic terms. This attitude was most clearly revealed in Obama's unplanned question-and-answer session with Joe the Plumber:

"Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?"...

"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody ... I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

Most commentators focused on the "spread the wealth" language used in Obama's response, arguing that Obama sought to use the tax code to redistribute wealth. That observation has proven to be true. Yet in my own commentary at the time, I noted that the "spread the wealth" language was the symptom, not the disease:

The key wording in Obama's response is "I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too."

The disease is that Obama sees the economy as a zero-sum game, where one person's success deprives those "behind" him of success. The only way to ensure the success of those "behind" is taxation of those "ahead."

Obama doesn't seem to understand that Joe the Plumber's success does not deprive anyone of anything. To the contrary, the success of Joe the Plumber helps the economy, helps his employees, helps his customers, and keeps all their families from seeking government handouts. Success is not a crime which needs to be punished, provided that the success is achieved lawfully.

And so it remains. Obama still doesn't understand. Business owners and those who create wealth are not the enemy. Punitive taxation of the "top 2%" for the purpose of "fairness" not only will result in less economic production, it punishes people who did nothing wrong. Just ask Joe the Business Owner.

The full set of comparisons and calculations in hundred dollar bill stacks are here. Keep your eye on the little guy (in this picture) in the lower left, as you work your way up to one trillion dollars:


(h/t Mr. Mike)

Why did Google Ads put this on my blog?
I'm not sure I should complain. Here's what they put over at The Astute Bloggers:

Big beautiful women, or a heart attack? Couldn't one lead to the other?

FULL METAL SATURDAY. Or as Frank Burns said, "It's nice to be nice to the nice."

"Did you realize that President Obama signed his Stimulus package at the same desk where President Clinton got his package Stimulated?”

(h/t Random Thoughts)

The Guardian is reporting that a protestor threw his shoe at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a visit to the north-western Iranian city of Urumiye:

An Iranian website, Urumiye News, reported that a shoe was hurled at the president as his convoy drove through a central square. Security guards waded into the crowds but failed to find the culprit.

A hat was also thrown in Ahmadinejad's direction before his car sped away.

The Guardian noted the irony, since Iran openly cheered when a "journalist" threw his shoes at President George Bush:

After Zaidi's protest in Baghdad, Iranian officials paid tribute by holding several public shoe-throwing competitions in which contestants threw footwear at caricatures of Bush. Iran's main shoemaking federation also offered to supply a lifetime of shoes to Zaidi, who remains in a Baghdad jail awaiting trial.

There do not appear to be any photographs of the incident. Perhaps the Getty Images shoe fauxtographer could set something up.

The incident appears to have been reported only by Iranian bloggers, and was not reported in the Iranian mainstream media. You see, in countries where the mainstream media is in the tank for the ruling administration, not all news gets reported. I pity the Iranians for having such a media. We never would tolerate such media fawning here.

The Guardian and others reporting the story fail to point out that Urumiye is home to a notorious prison at which numerous political dissidents and Kurdish activists have been executed.
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UPDATE: Gateway Pundit has the photo.

I think the British paper The Times of London has it right, in its article, "Barack Obama bets the farm in $4 trillion poker game."

One of the most seductive elements of Barack Obama's ascent to the White House was his unshakeable conviction that he was being called upon, at a time of epochal peril, to bend the arc of history America's way....

Only a man who frequently compares himself to America's greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, would declare that when he was elected, “the rise of the oceans will begin to slow”....

Then came his near-$4-trillion budget last week. It is a manifesto to usher in a new age of government activism that involves levels of borrowing and spending never before seen in the US and is a document of such staggering ambition and risk that even some of Mr Obama's Democratic supporters are suddenly beginning to feel a little queasy.

A keen poker player, Mr Obama is gambling not only his own presidency, but the future wellbeing of the country. If he pulls it off, they might find room for him on Mount Rushmore. If he fails, he could bankrupt the world's largest economy.

I'm not sure if poker is the best analogy. I would compare what Obama is doing more to Russian roulette, with the gun to our collective economic head.

Well, that didn't take long. On March 3, 2009, New York Times columnist David Brooks issued his "Moderate Manifesto" in which he confessed uneasiness with his choice of Obama. But Brooks is back on board the Obama ship of state, with a column in today's NY Times in which he all but asks for forgiveness after some administration officials gave him a talking-to.

Brooks' March 3 article was startling coming from one of Obama's greatest cheerleaders. Brooks expressed concern with the radical budget proposals emanating from the White House:

But the Obama budget is more than just the sum of its parts. There is, entailed in it, a promiscuous unwillingness to set priorities and accept trade-offs. There is evidence of a party swept up in its own revolutionary fervor ...

Brooks' piece generated enormous publicity since Brooks was such an Obama supporter during the campaign, once even comparing Obama's election to a dream come true:

I have dreams. I may seem like a boring pundit whose most exotic fantasies involve G.A.O. reports, but deep down, I have dreams. And right now I’m dreaming of the successful presidency this country needs. I’m dreaming of an administration led by Barack Obama, but which stretches beyond the normal Democratic base. It makes time for moderate voters, suburban voters, rural voters and even people who voted for the other guy....Is it all just a dream? I hope not. In any case, please be quiet and let me have my moment.

Among the people who took note of Brooks' possible turnaround, according to Brooks most recent column, were four unnamed senior administration officials who took the time out of their busy days to set Brooks straight:

On Tuesday, I wrote that the Obama budget is a liberal, big government document that should make moderates nervous. The column generated a large positive response from moderate Obama supporters who are anxious about where the administration is headed. It was not so popular inside the White House. Within a day, I had conversations with four senior members of the administration and in the interest of fairness, I thought I’d share their arguments with you today.

Brooks goes on to spend almost his entire column parroting the administration's position that the budget proposals are not radical. It is the ultimate puff piece (hint, it's Bush's fault). The White House is entitled to get its opinion out there, and it does so every single day with press briefings, press releases, speeches, and sundry other communications. Why does Brooks feel compelled to devote almost his entire column not to commentary, but to serving as a funnel for White House spin?

... the White House made a case that was sophisticated and fact-based. These people know how to lead a discussion and set a tone of friendly cooperation. I’m more optimistic that if Senate moderates can get their act together and come up with their own proactive plan, they can help shape a budget that allays theiranxieties while meeting the president’s goals.

Ah, sophisticated policy by people who know how to lead a conversation. Well, that must be true, since in one conversation they pulled you back on board. And they are so, so friendly and cooperative. Where have you been these past six weeks?

And who were these senior administration officials who persuaded you to go back to being an Obama cheerleader, after a day of guilt pangs? Did one of them have the initials R.E., and did he mention a fish wrapped in newspaper?

I was right to write, after Brooks' partial mea culpa, that Brooks' apology was not accepted. My advice to Brooks remains unchanged: "Get lost. And don't come back, while the rest of us work our ways through the problem you helped to create." Oh, and stop shaking, now that you are back on team Obama you won't get the Rush-Cramer-Santelli treatment.
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UPDATE: Check out Robert Stacy McCains The re-education of David Brooks:

The reason David Brooks is the White House's favorite columnist is because, by the fraudulent pretense that he is a "conservative," Brooks provides key assistance in the Democrats' most essential mission: Obscuring truth.

World gone mad item of the day, from Britain. Under new school rules, teachers are not allowed to run after and stop grade school children who run from school. Under "safe handling" procedures, the teachers are only allowed to "track" the child and call police to stop the child. This is deemed safer, because if the teacher ran after the child, it might cause the child to run faster, putting the child in danger of falling.

This from the Telegraph Newspaper, on the case of a 4-year old who was permitted to run from school unimpeded much to the anger of the child's mother:

Teachers are being told they cannot chase children who run away from school, and must "track" them and call police instead.

They have been told that running after primary age pupils breaches "safe handling" rules because it can lead them to flee faster.

The advice came to light after a mother criticised teachers for calling officers rather than stopping her four-year-old son themselves when he ran away from school.

This young lad apparently is a habitual runner-away:

On one occasion River and another boy of similar age were followed as they walked near a busy main road and five police vehicles turned up to pick them up, she claimed.

Five police vehicles to pick up a runaway 4-year old because the teachers are not allowed to stop the child themselves, so the child does not hurt himself from running too fast. Ah, government efficiency at its finest.

The Politico article (and AP Photo, right) "Obama's safety net: the TelePrompter," on how President Obama doesn't go anywhere without his teleprompter, is quite disturbing.

The article reminded me of the Michael Jackson song, Man in the Mirror:

"I'm starting with the man in the mirror
I'm asking him to change his ways
And no message could have been any clearer
If you wanna make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make that change"

Please President Obama, change your ways. No more class warfare. No more talking down the markets. No more enemies list. No more Clinton war room tactics. No more Carville-Begala-Emanuel politics of personal destruction. No more Bush bashing. No more arrogance. No more insulting our allies. You can do it. Just drop the teleprompter. At least try.
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UPDATE: Now The New York Times is on the case, and the full and nauseating extent of Obama's use of the teleprompter is becoming known for the first time. Among the interesting anecdotes, are the following instances when Obama used a teleprompter:

• "Mr. Obama uses them for routine announcements and even for the opening statement of his only news conference so far."
• "He used them during a visit to a Caterpillar plant in Peoria, Ill."
• "He used them to make brief remarks opening his “fiscal responsibility summit.”"
• "He used them to discuss endangered species, even recalling a visit to national parks as an 11-year-old. “That was an experience I will never forget,” he said, reading from the teleprompter."
• "After one speech, he was spotted in a tense exchange with an aide, a flash of temper a spokesman later attributed to a teleprompter malfunction."

This is creepy, people. Sure, most Presidents use the teleprompter for major speeches. But did Obama need a teleprompter to remember that he once visited a national park?
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UPDATE No. 2: Good point from Newsbusters, that this isn't new, just been covered up by the mainstream media until now:

This isn't the only time the media has raised its eyebrow about the president's TelePrompters (I even covered it myself not long ago), so the story isn't a new one, but one little thing that Lee wrote reveals how the media goes out of its way to help Obama's image by keeping the devices out of Obama's photography.

His use of the teleprompter makes work tricky for the television crews and photographers trying to capture an image of the president announcing a new Cabinet secretary or housing plan without a pane of glass blocking his face

In other words, the Old Media puts in a herculean effort to make sure The One still looks like he is speaking extemporaneously by working overtime to make sure those speech prompters are NOT in the picture.

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UPDATE No. 3: Obama mixes up teleprompter speeches, ends up thanking himself.
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UPDATE No. 4: Obama's teleprompter has its own blog.