Lockdowns Are So Over

Perhaps you have seen these pictures of Virginia Gov. Northam at the beach yesterday on Ian T. Lovejoy's Facebook & Twitter (this is my screen shot of a collage of them).

Saucy people might say that given his history we all thank Gov. Northam for not wearing a mask, but what of "social distancing"?

Two conclusions reasonable people might make from these examples. 

1) See how relaxed and happy the governor and the people he's posing with  look?  As Governor he is getting all the medical reports and he is not afraid of getting Covid-19. So why should I be? 

2) Equality before the law means, as the Oklahoma lyric has it, "I don't say I'm no better than anybody else, but I'll be damned if I ain't just as good."  If the governor can do it, so can I. 

A quick search brings up other examples of our nation's leaders violating their own lockdown rules.

Illinois Gov. Pritzker's family has been traveling to Florida and Wisconsin.  He now says his wife and daughter were in Florida when the lockdowns began and are just sheltering in place, but he was awfully coy about this at first if it is true. And he defends the travel to Wisconsin as essential too -- working their farm. Maybe so, but then anyone else's work to save their business seems to be essential as well.

And the nation's mayors certainly are not locking down.

• Chicago Mayor Lori  "we will shut you down" Lightfoot went and got her hair done. 
• NYC mayor De Blasio went to the gym.  Because his mental health is essential. 
• The mayor's wife in Alton, IL went out partying. 
• Beaumont, Texas Mayor gets her nails done. 

It's not merely the arrogance and hypocrisy on display here that are so galling -- though they certainly are.  It's that these people are destroying respect for the law by teaching that laws are arbitrary, just picky regulations with no basis in reality, so we need have no moral respect for them -- after all, the folks most in the know don't follow them. 

Remember Lincoln? "As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not democracy." If you, as legislator or executive, think you are exempt, then everyone is exempt. That is the meaning of rule of law.

Because you ain't better than anybody else. And they are all just as good. 

In any case, whatever the "Science" may say, between the restiveness of the people after more than 2 months in lockdown, and the financial ruin folks can no longer abide, Gov. Northam's photos are surely the sign that lockdowns are over. What can the state say to anyone at this point? 

P.S. Just because these particular examples are hilarious,  here are some hilarious international examples.  

Here's an Australian mayor who went out drinking under lockdown. 

The mayor in a small town in Peru violated lockdown and then faked his own death to avoid the fine! 

And perhaps the most egregious example: Neil Ferguson, who is the main reason we have any lockdowns in the first place,  felt adultery was an essential task. 

The Many Faces of John Kerry

This will sound so catty but...

L-John Kerry today R-John Kerry's Congressional Portrait via Wiki

How are our allies supposed to trust and our enemies to fear us if they can't even recognize our chief diplomat from day to day? The man today has a completely different brow, nose and jaw than he has had the entire rest of his life.

I'm not trying to take a cheap shot at his appearance or poke fun at his face lift and botox per se, and he is hardly the first career politician to be impossibly vain, but doesn't recourse to such things at his age suggest a certain instability of identity that ought to be disqualifying from the role he has? What are we to make of a 70-year-old man who is Michael Jacksonizing his face?

President "Present"

John Stassel Kimberley Strassel nails it: 

If, however, you are curious about where the most powerful man in the universe stands on Libya, radiation, a possible government shutdown, the future of Social Security, or rising oil prices, don't look to the White House. Those issues are tough. Those issues risk mistakes. Those issues might mean unhappy voters. And right now, it's approval ratings the White House cares about. 

If He Can't Do It, Nobody Can

Many folks have noticed that Obama's come down in the world: from being Christ to being Shiva the Destroyer. What interests me is the subhead here, though
.
Isn't this an admission of Obama's weakness as an executive? No one said Bush wasn't up to the job --they just hated him and his policies. (Ditto Clinton from the other side.) And claims that there's too much power in the executive are perennial from both sides of the spectrum.

But this is a bunch of palaver about how the job's too big for any man.

Can any single person fully meet the demands of the 21st-century presidency? 

Carter is the only other President I can recall who inspired that question a lot.

Refreshing

The last part is the best.

More Adulation of the Fat Man

Gov. Christie discusses the loss of a grant because of a clerical error. It's wonderful that he calls out the stupid bureaucracy, but I draw your attention to his refusal to fire, blame or even name the person who made the error. That's the kind of leader who creates trust and inspires fierce loyalty in his people, because they learn he will defend them.
Curtsy: CMR 

Update: He did end up firing someone though: Bret Schundler.

"Costs Exhorbitant, Results Insulting"

My love for the fat man grows.
Update: here's a link to the video I first had here; but I'm subbing in an even better one. Same topic, different audience (citizens, not activists), and that's why I prefer it --it shows how a politician can educate an audience about what he's doing and why.


Curtsy: American Digest

Barto Calrissian

Compare: Stupak reduced to denouncing his own amendment as anti-life:



And: Lando Calrissian strikes a deal with Vader (warning, rude language):


Curtsies to Gateway Pundit and American Digest

The New Secession Crisis

In spite of the moral and legal parallels between slavery and abortion and the long cultural battles to end those respective crimes against humanity, I have always maintained the fight over abortion would never trigger a civil war because there was no geographic divide between pro and anti abortion forces.

However, Virginia and some 37 other states are working on what amount to secession laws if this health care bill passes. (Well: only some of the proposed laws are secessionist. Idaho is passing a law requiring the state AG to sue if the bill passes. But the VA bill sure is.) Abortion's not the direct reason for state opposition, but it is the reason the House can't easily pass the bill. What we have here is more than a wicked and unpopular law; it is an incipient constitutional crisis. And I can assure  you no matter how skillful the photoshops, and no matter what he says in his new Gettysburg address, Obama is no Lincoln.

I take heart only because I'm among those thinking they won't get the votes. (Here's why.)
Update: Ruh-oh. 11 am presser w/ Stupak & other pro-lifers. 

The Big Man Is A Big Man!

I read about Gov. Christie's budget cut speech, but am just getting around to reading it. Let him lay 9 minutes of righteous truth on you. Especially love his echo of SOTU with "is it any wonder the people don't trust the government?" intro. And adore him for saying, "I am not happy, but I am not afraid to make these decisions, either. "



Here's the text, which is a thing of beauty, plain though it is. It's a change that's truly hopeful.

Behold The US Policy On Human Rights

Message to Iranian students & Afghan tribesmen

He Doesn't Vasa-llate

Bishop Vasa rocks.

I find, very frequently, when I speak a bit more boldly on matters of morality or discipline, there are a significant number of the faithful who send messages of gratitude and support. It is their gratitude which stirs my heart for it makes me realize how much there is a need to support and affirm the clear and consistent teachings of our Catholic faith for the sake of the faithful. While the press may caricature such bishops in rather uncharitable fashion, I trust that they are men devoted to true compassion and to the truth itself. Their compassion extends to those who are misled and to those who, while not misled, are discouraged when their faith is attacked without rebuttal. This discouragement of the faithful is not insignificant. When we look at the word itself we see that its root is “courage” and allowing someone’s courage to be dissipated, or “dissed” as the young might say, is harmful to the person. En-couragement, by contrast, builds up the courage of the faithful and increases their strength for doing good. It is life giving and revitalizing. Allowing error, publicly expressed, to stand without comment or contradiction is discouraging.

RTWT, but this is related to the first part of Bill Whittle's video, though Whittle is obviously speaking humanly and secularly.

Support The Prez On This One

Robert Kagan makes a good case that Obama's Afghan surge takes more courage than Bush's Iraq surge.

what explains two presidents who could not be more different making the same lonely decision? I suspect that it is because they, and they alone, have to bear responsibility for losing. Congress is brilliant at never taking responsibility. Its members always voted for the war before they voted against it -- in Vietnam, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. The foreign policy establishment and intellectual world are much the same. They fully supported intervention in Vietnam, mostly supported intervention in Iraq and fully supported the war in Afghanistan -- until the wars got hard, or embarrassing and difficult to defend in polite company. Then they bailed, desperately trying to cover their tracks along the way, and offering reassuring images of what losing would look like. Somehow they never mention the helicopters taking off from the roofs of abandoned American embassies; the rout of Afghans, Iraqis or Vietnamese who made the mistake of trusting America’s word; or the collapse of America’s reputation as a serious world power.

Since presidents and military commanders have to take responsibility for losing, they are less inclined than congressmen and pundits to paint losing in rosy hues.

So we can thank goodness that the buck really does stop somewhere, and that the people we elect to the presidency, whatever their failings, do not want to be the ones who presided over American defeat in battle.

Good point about the Congress and military industrial complex, too. If you want to get me going, tell me about "Bush's" war --when Congress could have ended it any time it chose, but backed him with its purse strings over and over again. These are our wars, and a majority of us citizens chose them through our elected officials from the instant the orders were given until this very day.

Todd Beamer's Dad Wants To Know

Mr. Holder said that he and his boss had not spoken in person about this decision. This matter only involves upholding the constitutional rights of Americans, establishing a precedent with battlefield impact, and the safety and security of our citizens in a time of war. What are the criteria to make something a priority with President Barack Obama? How can it be that this matter didn't make the cut?

RTWT. But seriously: we all know that claim has to be a lie, but how could Obama & Holder think it would be a good defense?

Update: Mr. W. writes:

remember when Reagan was considered to be "disconnected" and "out of touch"?

Speaking of which, widely covered, but here just for the external hard drive's sake: Elizabeth Drew on Obama's insularity; David Gergen on his weakness; and David Broder catches on.

"We're Here For You." Not.

Last night I heard on NPR this clip from the President's remarks at Arlington Cemetery yesterday.

when your tour ends, when you see our flag, when you touch our soil, you will be home in an America that is forever here for you just as you've been there for us.

I thought to myself: "we're here for you?" The sophomores are at it again." Bill Clinton never said, "I feel your pain" in a formal speech.

The entire speech isn't so bad, so maybe it's more a reflection on NPR that its reporter thought that was the best line. The speech is highly self-referential --not about the President himself this time, but it's about our suffering: the nation's suffering, the soldiers' suffering, their families' suffering, how good it will be when everyone is at home and at peace. Nothing to disagree with in what was said, but there is not one line which is ennobling, either. It reads flat and condescending: "Oh, you poor lads," as if the vets are "them" and not "us."

People are noticing more and more that Mr. Obama comes off cold and uncaring, but I had resolved not to make a cheap snarky remark about the speech. We have to accept a man's limitations for what they are. It makes no more sense to hate a cold man for not appearing warm than it made sense to hate an inarticulate man for not being eloquent. "Down, Girl," I thought.

Until I saw this story. in Wednesday's pivotal war council meeting,

Obama wasn't satisfied with any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, one official said.

The president instead pushed for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government. In turn, that could change the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official.

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward commander McChrystal's recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama's resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.

The man is dithering, and our troops in Afghanistan have just suffered their highest casualties since the war began. That is not "being there for them." Seems to me he knows what he wants to do: let him just do it and not talk about it endlessly.

Everyone mocked W for saying the President was "the decider." Yet even Bill Clinton knows that is pretty much right.

You know the second President Bush got made fun of for saying that the President was basically the Decider in Chief. Everybody thought that was funny. But it's not, it's true.

Update: a military man writes in to the Corner:

I have been in the military while a president dithered or failed to make a tough decision, it is eviscerating, and a rot settles in. “Commander in Chief” is not just a fancy title. The president is the ultimate officer and like any poor officer his failure to make tough decisions is seen as a weakness by his NCOs and men. Morale, that most fragile base of any good military unit suffers immediately. When our officers are fearful and indecisive, we become fearful and indecisive.

NCOs find reasons not to patrol or to avoid high-risk areas, Convoys are diverted to avoid possible confrontation, our allies desert us and the advantage is ceded to the enemy.And this happen quickly, weeks are all that’s left to keep the advantage in Afghanistan. After a certain point in time “mission weariness” begins to settle in and the edge is lost ... and almost impossible to regain.

Having someone's back does not primarily mean hugging him when it's over, Mr. President.

Update: Mr. W. takes a darker view in comments.

O's "dithering" is calculated, has nothing to do with being undecided. He INTENDS the situation to deteriorate...he has decided that he wants NOT to send troops and hopes his time-wasting will push the cost too high for most Americans to tolerate sending more of our forces "to die in vain for a corrupt government." This is deeply disgraceful, not to mention dangerous in the extreme. Let's not say he wants his country to lose this war...let's just ask IF he wanted to lose, how would he behave differently?

Over at American Digest, broad agreement.

There are two benefits to Obama’s decision not to decide in Afghanistan:

1) It increases the instability of Pakistan and makes the likelihood of a radical Muslim coup in that country greater. This would, in one day, bring the control of nuclear weapons into radical Muslim hands. No waiting for Iran to get its act together. It also means that a vast sector of the world, from India to England falls under the spectre of a nuclear holocaust on a hair trigger. If you believe that great creation arises from great destruction, this is to your benefit.

2) It lowers the morale and effectiveness of the US military from the Joint Chiefs of Staff down to Private Grunt on patrol in Kandahar. Since the ultimate check to a politician’s power is always found in the military, anything that decreases that element is always to the politician’s benefit. If you can reduce the budget for the military at the same time you increase its responsibilities, so much the better.

None of this makes much sense if your goal is the improvement of the nation you are sworn to protect and defend. If, however, your goal is to enter history at the level of an Alexander or a Caesar deciding not to decide is a decision you will implement for as long as possible.

In light of which thoughts, the Veterans' Day speech linked above seems positively ominous. No wonder the emphasis on Viet Nam.

If we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that there have been times where we as a nation have betrayed that sacred trust. Our Vietnam veterans served with great honor. They often came home greeted not with gratitude or support, but with condemnation and neglect. That's something that will never happen again. To them and to all who have served, in every battle, in every war, we say that it's never too late to say thank you. We honor your service. We are forever grateful. And just as you have not forgotten your missing comrades, neither, ever, will we. Our servicemen and women have been doing right by America for generations. And as long as I am Commander-in-Chief, America's going to do right by them.

It's like an announcement: you're going to be our new Viet Nam vets, but we won't spit on you this time.

Pro-Life Fail

Behold, pro-life Democracy (capital D) at its finest:



This is the strongest, pluckiest pro-life Democrat in the Congress, and it turns out his position is: I'm going to vote against abortion funding until the moment I vote for it. What's the old yarn about having established the profession, now just haggling over the price?

See Hadley Arkes, below.

Curtsy: CMR

How To Take A Senator Down

Harry Alford of the Black Chamber of Commerce takes no guff. Here he is offended --rightly so-- that he is an expert on the matter under discussion and Senator Boxer attempts to refute him with amateur opinions of other black men --as if race were the point, and not subject mastery.



Curtsy: Michael Goldfarb

Obama's First Foreign Policy Failure

Lots of folks have noticed the President's decision to stand with OOOgo & Fidel against the Hondurans, who chose in the past few days to send their usurper president packing. Former President Zelaya tried to alter the Honduran constitution to become President For Life. The Honduran constitution can only be altered by people's referendum, but Zelaya ignored that and illegally called for a referendum himself. The Honduran Supreme Court and the people and institutions of Honduras Just Said No to that and invited their dictator-wanna-be to step down.

President Obama's calling it an illegal coup.

It would be a terrible precedent if we start moving backwards into the era in which we are seeing military coups as a means of political transition, rather than democratic elections.

In the sense that the military removed the president from office, I suppose it is technically a coup, but I don't know about illegal. Zelaya was acting to become president for life. The military acted under orders from the Supreme Court and the Honduran legislature; it removed Zelaya from office, but then ceded power to an interim president of Zelaya's own party, duly appointed by the Honduran Congress after it formally removed Zelaya from office. What can a nation do with a tyrant but overthrow him? --and Honduras appears to have done that constitutionally.

I've never been as ashamed to be American as I have been since January, but let that pass for the present. At first I assumed Obama, stung by criticism of his handling of the Iranian uprising, was ignorantly glomming onto a chance to stand against tyranny elsewhere. Alas, no, he knew what he was doing --his administration has been actively trying to prevent this exact outcome for weeks. I haven't seen anyone focus on this. According to the WSJ:

the Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya, said senior U.S. officials. Washington's ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, sought to facilitate a dialogue between the president's office, the Honduran parliament and the military. The efforts accelerated over the weekend, as Washington grew increasingly alarmed. "The players decided, in the end, not to listen to our message," said one U.S. official involved in the diplomacy. On Sunday, the U.S. embassy here tried repeatedly to contact the Honduran military directly, but was rebuffed.

So US non-meddling in other people's affairs apparently includes working to keep tin-pot Friends of Fidel in power and returning them there if they're tossed out. The kind of thing that really does get us hated in the 2nd world. But I digress.

Isn't this a massive humiliation for the administration and for the US generally? The Great Persuader's administration can't even get Honduras to return our calls?

Conservatives Twice As Kind As Liberals

It's been established many times over that Conservatives give vastlymore to charities than do Liberals. Red states give more than blue ones; households led by Conservatives give 30% more than those headed by Liberals; Conservatives on average give double what Liberals do to actual needy people and causes. Insight Scoop rounds up the evidence.

There are also the tax releases of Al Gore ($353 to charities in 1997); John Kerry (0$ in 1995, although he started giving more after he married Teresa); the Obamas (less than 1% of their income 2000-2004); Biden (less than $400/year in 9 of 10 years) as opposed to McCain (26% of his income); Cheney (close to 7 million dollars last year) & Bush (12% of his income.) This amused me, however.

“When I started doing research on charity,” Mr. Brooks wrote, “I expected to find that political liberals — who, I believed, genuinely cared more about others than conservatives did — would turn out to be the most privately charitable people. So when my early findings led me to the opposite conclusion, I assumed I had made some sort of technical error. I re-ran analyses. I got new data. Nothing worked. In the end, I had no option but to change my views.”

Forced by facts to change his views? Is that even allowed?

The Post-Racial Republic Stands

This is nice, and about how I think about it.

For me, Obama’s negatives outweighed the great positive of electing the first black President. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t find some pleasure in the fact that we have done so.

One would have to have a heart of stone to fail to be moved by the emotion of black announcers such as Juan Williams, or another black media guy (I didn’t catch his name; heard him on the car radio) who was crying when he explained that his own father had told him solemnly when he was young that a black man could never, ever be President in this country. And now this.

Wonderful as these moments were, they won’t mean much to me if Obama governs in a way that undermines our economy or our liberty. But for now I will enjoy them, as I will enjoy imagining the stunned shock of those Europeans who have insisted until now that the US is such a racist country.

Eh. I don't think Europe actually cares about racism --certainly I never heard more routinely racist remarks than when I lived on The Continent: things Americans not only don't say, they don't think. There are just pieties elite people utter, and "America is naive and racist and cowboy" is one of them.

But look at this:

I didn’t see it myself, but a friend told me of a post-election TV interview with a group of young black men in an inner city, who each said something like this, “Well, now we have no excuse if we don’t make something better of our lives.” If that sentiment translates to action rather than wearing off, it would be a powerfully good thing not only for that group of men, but for the country as a whole.

In further at least chill out until after Christmas news, David Forte points out most of our presidents have been terrible. It's a weird way to go about making a gal feel better, but it works. The wind-up:

The people have chosen their electors, and the electors shall choose Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. For many [me! me!], it is a woeful prospect: abortion, embryonic stem cells, cloning, the fate of Israel, the danger to free speech, activist judicial appointments, the loss of economic freedom, the weakening of the military, the threat of terrorism. In such a parlous mood, we should pause and repair to Madison, the Madison of Publius. Men are not angels, and angels do not govern men, he counseled. Against that reality, the republic was erected.

A list of bad and even tyrannous things Presidents did:

The Presidency has been peopled by fools and knaves, as well as by heroes and more ordinary men. Many of the less worthy, or those who did less worthy things, were carried by waves of adulation. At the height of his popularity, John Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson sought a one party state, assisted by his aide James Madison, the erstwhile defender of checks and balances. And in his ultimate quest, Jefferson largely succeeded—for a while. Jefferson’s embargo of 1807 beggared the country and had no benefit to our foreign relations. He attempted to raise 30,000 troops, not to battle Britain, but to enforce the Embargo Act against the American people, but Congress said no. For his part, James Madison, when president, blundered into an unnecessary and nearly calamitous war with Great Britain.

The wildly popular Andrew Jackson destroyed the bank that anchored the American monetary system, and proudly proclaimed his success in cleansing the eastern United States of Indians, showing no regret for the thousands who died on their trek as forced refugees. During his tenure, Jackson’s manner and favoritism reduced the Presidency to its meanest state. No President from Jackson until Lincoln did anything to stem the growing plight of the slave. In fact, they were often complicit in giving political and legal cover to the practice (as, of course, was the Congress).

Andrew Johnson’s presidency was founded on the touchstone of personal bigotry

Not to mention:

We have had Presidents who were inept or incompetent: Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan—a remarkable run when you think of it—Harding and Carter. And those that were venal: Jackson, Nixon, Clinton.

In fact, by Forte's lights, we've only had 3 great presidents: Washington, Lincoln, Reagan. Not to worry, though: it's not a bug, it's a feature. As he reminds us, our system was designed for bad men and that is precisely its genius.

In January, the four-year miracle will again take place. One president, at the direction of the people, will witness the transfer of power to another. It should remind us that our republic and our Constitution give us the means to resist, deflect, or even convert bad executive policies and bad executives.

The times ahead may well be difficult. But we are not cast adrift. The republic still stands.

See, don't you feel better?