Posted on War on Terror

deal or no deal?

Can we completely trust Kim Jong Il?  The deal that the State Department struck with North Korea and Kim Jong Il to get North Korea to disclose part of its nuclear program –in exchange for no longer being on the list of terror sponsors and the lifting of some economic sanctions on that country — is far from a perfect deal.  That’s because the majority of the compromises were made by the United States.  Sure, we can be pleased that North Korea has one less nuke plant, but if it’s true that the plant had reached the end of its serviceable life, then this is merely a symbolic gesture with no lasting value.  We must be careful before declaring this a successful negotiation, because there is no way to prove that the disclosure information we are given by North Korea is accurate.  How do we know that Kim Jong Il is disclosing everything he’s doing, and why would he surrender this information when it wasn’t part of the deal?

Read this if you still want to believe that North Korea intends to play by the rules after getting all these concessions from the United States.  The UN certainly won’t hold them accountable.  I’m not suggesting military action.  Far from it.  But I remain skeptical of North Korea’s intentions.  As Reagan said, trust but verify.  This should be the strategy going forward in dealing with a dictator with Kim Jong Il’s history of deception.

6 Comments Posted on Democrats, Liberals

always a good idea

When there’s a serious problem that hasn’t been fixed in this country, the first thing we must do is blame all the politicians.  Not a bad source for a designated scapegoat. After all, that’s where many of the folks in a recent Consumer Reports survey placed the fault for the high oil prices.  I’m not sure how exactly they came up with these numbers, since they have 77% for the politicians and 75% for oil companies. (If anyone can figure out these numbers, let me know. ) We do need a comprehensive energy policy.  There are no quick fixes, but the American people understand that increasing domestic supply should be one of many ways we can decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  I’m not convinced that the impact of offshore drilling would be reflected in the price of gas immediately, but it would increase supply while we continue to pursue alternative fuels and more efficient cars.  For those who make the argument that it could take 10+ years to see the impact of offshore drilling on the oil market, I say why wait another minute to get started with it? In addition to that, do we have alternative fuels ready to replace gasoline right now? Or will that also take 10 years or more to develop? Right.

There is more to be done with energy policy.  However, the right approach should always be geared toward free-market solutions, because government has never been known for its innovation or its efficiency.  Most of the best inventions and innovations have come from the private sector.  Oversight is fine, I guess, to make sure that the oil companies are following the rules, but nothing good can come from punishing production with a windfall profits tax.  It won’t make gas cheaper — and that’s the goal, isn’t it? Democrats don’t have many solutions, just a long list of things that they won’t do.  That’s great leadership right there.

1 Comment Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

funny stuff i read today

Rich Lowry on the plight of Sens. Dodd and Conrad and their involvement with Countrywide Financial:

It’s not easy being a U.S. senator. People trick you into taking special favors you didn’t even know existed. Shame on these unscrupulous people!

Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and North Dakota Sen. Kent Conrad, both Democrats, fell victim to the machinations of Countrywide Financial, which gave them breaks on mortgages as part of the “Friends of Angelo” program; the “Angelo” in question is Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.

Of course they are just innocent bystanders in this whole thing, and totally clueless about any additional benefit they would be receiving.  Right.

Michael Graham mocks Mr. Hope and Change.

But I, for one, am hopeful that Obama will at least go through the motions of an election before he seizes power and institutes a new regime of lower tides, healed souls and 53 percent federal marginal tax rates.

Heh.   Whatever you may think of the Bush administration or the possibility of McCain continuing some of the Bush policies, it’s hard to believe that a President Obama could meet these staggeringly high expectations he and his campaign have set in front of the American people.  This difficulty is entirely Obama’s own fault.  He should start smaller and work up to the lower tides and healed souls.  Just my opinion. It also might be a good idea to stop giving the right so many easy targets.

10 Comments Posted on Random Musings

random acts of verbiage

If you’re someone who wants your candidate to be taken seriously on foreign policy, you probably shouldn’t say stuff like Obama advisor Richard Danzig said, “Winnie the Pooh seems to me to be a fundamental text on national security”.  Yes, I’m sure that there was a deeper, broader point to it, because this guy is considered by some to possibly be the National Security Advisor in an Obama administration.  Putting the national security discussion in terms of children’s stories and fictional Star Wars characters might not be the best way to demonstrate a deep level of understanding on that subject.

Meanwhile, the move to end the ban on offshore drilling is picking up steam.   Both President Bush and presidential candidate John McCain have announced that they support ending that ban.  This is a change of position for McCain, but he is not a stupid man, and he knows that the majority of Americans want to start drilling to reduce the price of oil.  According to Rasmussen Reports, 67% of those they polled support ending the ban on offshore drilling.  The poll also said that a significant percentage of those people also believed that offshore drilling was somewhat likely to reduce gas prices.  The American people have now reached the point where their own financial interests are conflicting with their general desire to care about the environment and conservation of resources and so forth.  They are seeing the tradeoff and deciding that cheaper gas is more important than the environment — if being environmentally friendly means $4 + gasoline, that’s where they recognize the insanity of our current policies.  This is important, because all we seem to be hearing from the Democrats is that we can’t drill our way out of this mess, and some Democrats have even suggested that the government should take over all the refineries (!!!).

Offshore drilling won’t completely solve the problem, but it will provide temporary relief while we continue to work on a more comprehensive energy policy.  I know that many Democrats owe their careers to the environmentalists, but surely they don’t want to be seen as opposing anything that has so much public support. As long as there are appropriate safeguards in place, why not do everything we can to mitigate the pain Americans are suffering at the pump?

As far as what we should do to get this elusive energy independence, we could start with producing more of our own oil.  It makes no sense to beg the Saudis to increase production when we refuse to use the resources we already have.  There should be incentives for oil companies to re-invest profits into research into alternative energy sources — not increased taxation for failing to meet some benchmark set by a government bureaucrat. Then we should look into nuclear power and coal.  As far as government oversight goes, I have no problem with that, but we should draw the line way before we get to nationalizing refineries.

Posted on Random Musings

tim russert

Both the political left and the right are joining together today to send along our thoughts and prayers to the family of NBC newsman and Meet the Press host Tim Russert, who suddenly died today at the age of 58.   Russert was someone who would always ask the hard questions, even if it meant that he would ruffle some feathers in the process.  He wasn’t perfect in this, and both the left and right have had reasons to be annoyed with him at times, but overall he was the closest thing NBC will ever have to fair and balanced political coverage.

I don’t know who they will get to replace Russert on Meet the Press, but I’m sure it won’t be the same without him there.

Posted on Random Musings

profits

Guess those high windfall profits aren’t sustainable for Exxon Mobile.  According to CNN, Exxon Mobile is closing 2,220 of its company-owned gas stations, saying that they can’t make enough money on those stations to keep them operational, even with $4 gas.  That can’t be right.  The Democrats tell us that big oil continues to soak the little guy on gas prices to line their own pockets.  If there’s a unending stream of revenue to the oil companies, then why does Exxon Mobile have to close these stations?

Drill here. Drill now.  Pay less.  What are we waiting for?  There should be reasonable environmental regulations on drilling, but it makes no sense to beg other countries like Saudi Arabia to increase production when we aren’t willing to use the resources we already have in this country.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

there he goes again

We should be so proud of our Republican nominee.  He’s very good at sounding like a Democrat.  John McCain opposes domestic oil drilling in ANWR, and I’m guessing that would mean he’s not onboard with this offshore drilling bill that just got killed in the House.  It might actually get some traction if it had McCain’s support.  He also conveniently missed the Senate vote on a windfall profits tax. The House Dems continue to insist that even if we started to drill our own oil, it still wouldn’t make a difference with gas prices.  Are they serious about this?  Are they so beholden to the enviro-nuts that they can’t see how much sense this makes?  I’m at a loss here.  The American people want us to use our own resources to combat high fuel prices, as well as decrease our dependence on foreign oil.  If the Congress even bothered to ask us, I’m confident that the majority would support offshore drilling.

I should expect such behavior from the Democrats,  but John McCain has gone out of his way to parrot their rhetoric and copy their talking points.  Today he’s taking on the overpaid CEOs, just like Barack and Hillary before him.  Those CEOs make too much money and they need to be more accountable to their shareholders, McCain says.  While I’m not entirely opposed to more accountability for CEOs,  I’m not convinced that he has the best solution to that with giving shareholders a vote on CEO pay.  John McCain seems to think that he won this nomination without many conservatives, and therefore he can do and say whatever he wants — but maybe the reason for this mind meld with Barack on these issues isn’t because he wants payback from us.

My theory is that the whole point behind McCain’s strategy is to say loud and clear to the former Hillary supporters and others — “I’M NOT BUSH”.  See…I believe in global warming, windfall profits taxes, not drilling for our own oil, and punishing the producers in this country for their success.  I’m not so scary.  That’s McCain’s new message, and I hate it.  Maybe he can convince enough people of his own worth that he can become president in spite of himself.   But at the end of the process,  we are all going to go into the next 4-8 years with our eyes wide open about both candidates, and that’s not a bad thing.

Posted on '08 Election, Republicans

uneasy relationship

Bob Novak has a column today about McCain’s attempts to reach out to Christian conservatives.  He argues that McCain hasn’t managed to close the deal with them.  There are a variety of reasons for this, and Novak lists a few of them.  There’s one he overlooked.  McCain, despite his personal faith in God, does not have much in common with evangelicals.  He doesn’t speak about his faith very much, if at all.  He doesn’t speak their language, and he’s not George W. Bush (who was much more comfortable doing both of those things).  McCain isn’t one of them, and they knew that before he (out of political necessity) threw John Hagee and Rod Parsley under his bus.

McCain may have gotten popular with some Democrats and with the media by opposing some of the policies of the Bush administration, but those days are long gone.   It doesn’t help him to lose leading evangelicals from his camp, but losing conservatives would be far more damaging in November.  I hope that the McCain people recognize this weakness, and that they try to fix it.

Posted on UK

but it’s all working SO well

According to the BBC, the struggling Labour government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown is considering allowing private firms to run NHS hospitals.  You know…because the National Health Service has done such a smashing job with providing quality health care and efficient service to the good citizens of the UK.  But you know that innovator and inspiring leader Gordon Brown — can’t settle for perfection.  Pay attention.  This is what the ultimate goal of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is for YOUR health care.  Sure they come up with slightly less scary proposals than what the UK’s got with the NHS, but that’s where they are headed. Make no mistake about that.

On the subject of Gordon Brown himself and his struggle as PM, I’m not sure what exactly his endgame is to keep his job.  He keeps throwing ideas up against the proverbial wall and watching to see if they stick.  Not much is sticking for him these days.  Of course, let’s be honest — if I was one of the lucky folks to get a phone call from the British Prime Minister — that would turn my head a little bit in favour of the guy.  But Gordon Brown will never have the sizzle of Tony Blair, and there’s nothing he can do about that.  It’s my humble opinion that the guy’s in over his head.  He was fine in his supporting role in the Blair government, but he showed nothing special in that role that suggested he was ready for the top job.  He was the guy who Labour deemed as next in line, and he was never seriously challenged as Blair’s successor.  Maybe that was a mistake.

Posted on '08 Election, Democrats, Liberals

smart move

Barack Obama and his team of advisors don’t really want to pick Hillary as VP.  We all know this.  So how does he deny her a spot on the ticket without alienating her supporters?  Simple.  Jackie Calmes reports in the Wall Street Journal that they would ask Bill to disclose donors to his presidential library, and both of them would have to go through a thorough vetting process (that could potentially disclose more skeletons in the Clinton closet) in order for her to even be considered as a potential VP.   Looks like a deal-breaker to me. Genius move.