Uncommon Commentary #111: Born out of Gridlock

On Ash Wednesday, a formerly prestigious newspaper that's published in New York ran a front-page story titled "Party Gridlock in Washington Feeds New Fear of a Debt Crisis."  It's unclear why what the paper calls "gridlock" should contribute to fear of a "debt crisis" (as if we weren't undergoing such a crisis already), especially since it might help to prevent Democrats from burdening the country with spending programs that would balloon the national debt; the lurid headline, though, exemplifies one of the many annoying characteristics of leftists, which is that they whine about "gridlock" whenever things aren't going their way.  During Clinton's presidency, even before public disgust at his incompetence and corruption resulted in the loss of his party's majority in each house of the US Congress, the Left was condemning Republicans with this same word; an observer who didn't know how our political system is intended to operate might have thought that some sort of gentlemen's agreement bound the opposition not to oppose bills favored by the chief executive, even if those bills would, should they be enacted into law, have a detrimental effect on the country.  Now, however, things are even worse; the same blowhards are complaining of "party gridlock" even when Democrats have majorities of 37 seats (236-199) in the US House of Representatives and 18 (59-41) in the Senate!  What the ruling party seems to not understand (or, more likely, to understand but to not care about) is that when you hold that many more seats than the opposition does, and you're still unable to run the USA in the way that you want without resorting to disingenuous tactics like budget-wreckin'ciliation, your agenda must be really unpopular.

In a way, the Leftists are right to say that "the system is broken" (although, as explained above, they are right for the wrong reason); one of the prime reasons why our government hardly ever gets anything done is that the president and one or both of the legislative majorities are so often of mutually antagonistic parties.  Nonetheless, lack of change is preferable to change for the worse. (Or, at least, it usually is; very often, lamentably, under our system, the only way to discredit a party in the eyes of the voters is to allow it to discredit itself through misgovernance, as the Democrats currently are.)

Uncommon Commentary #110: Obama Goes Non-Ballistic

Most of the current dissatisfaction with Emperor Nerobama has resulted from his foisting upon us the unpopular, unconstitutional, unmanageable, and unwholesome ObamaCareless; for now, though, let's forget about that—I'm sure that most of my readers would like to be able to forget about that forever—because our President's worst legacy might actually be in the field of not domestic but foreign policy.  Take, for example, his recent pronouncement that the USA will not use nuclear weapons even if attacked by such weapons, unless the attack should be made by so-called rogue states like Iran or North Korea. (I say "so-called" because "rogue state" implies the status of an outsider in regard to the world order.  I think that it's questionable whether a "world order," as opposed to a world disorder, truly exists; the countries of the "international community" seem to share little other than an indifference toward everything except making money and clamoring for more "rights.")

President Obombast's declaration is notable in more than one way.  First, he seems to take it for granted that Iran and North Korea will become nuclear powers, if indeed the latter does not already qualify (as Kim Jong Il's regime says that it does).  I must charitably assume that his motivation in making his statement was not to acknowledge that his mishandling of international relations is helping to make such an outcome inevitable, but, rather, to dissuade the polities in question from becoming nuclear powers, for fear of atomic retaliation by the USA; even if that's the case, though, hasn't he betrayed a lack of confidence in his own policy of "engagement?"

Second, and more importantly: In the 65 years that have gone by since the two-ever uses of nuclear weapons, the threat of employing the US atomic stockpile has served the purpose of helping to deter foreign attack upon the USA (and upon our allies).  Has it not occurred to Obama that this very purpose is what he now publicly denies it will serve, with, he says, the two exceptions mentioned above?  I can only hope that Russia, the People's Republic of China, and other non-"rogue states" have learned that what our President says bears no relation to what he does, so that our shrinking and obsolescent nuclear arsenal can maintain whatever credibility it yet retains as a deterrent.  Only God knows how Obama would actually react to an atomic assault upon this country; my guess is that, like Stalin in the wake of the Axis invasion of the USSR, he would fall into a coma-like state, as a result of his inability to reconcile the fact of the disaster with his belief in himself as a sort of secular messiah.

Uncommon Commentary #109: Slaughtering the Rule of Law

The Dumbocrats in the House of Reprehensives chose not to pass the Senate's version of ObamaCareless using an underhanded method; not, of course, because they had qualms about again violating the promise of Nancy Pilosi (see the list of domanisms) that this would be "the most ethical Congress ever," but simply because she and the bizarrely-named Steny Hoyer felt confident that they had the votes to further the Left's anti-crusade for bureaucratized medicine without resorting here to something Democratic but undemocratic, and that to forego violating the spirit of the US Constitution in this instance would somehow be a "public-relations coup."  I'm disappointed with the leftists; since one of the chief objections to adoption of the Senate bill was its provision for federal funding of foeticide (induced abortion), I thought that it would be verbally appropriate for them to overcome that obstacle by means of the "Slaughter rule."

Uncommon Commentary #108

I've just found out that Emperor Nerobama actually did get one thing right in 2009; he picked the Tar Heels to win that year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.  This does not, however, mean that he's a whiz in that respect any more than in any other, since he may have picked them only because he's a fellow heel.

Miscellaneous Musing #21

Even a mediocre film from the golden era of cinema (which came to an end ca. 1966) is usually more entertaining than a critically acclaimed one made nowadays.

Miscellaneous Musing #20

As an historian, I think one can argue that the purchase of Alaska was indeed "Seward's folly."  The investment has repaid itself many times over, thanks to the discovery there of both gold and petroleum (and Sarah Palin), but in 1867 no one knew that the future State contained those resources; furthermore, this transaction meant that the USA, still under a century old, gobbled up thousands-more square miles of faraway territory without having the resources to defend or even adequately govern the area.

Uncommon Commentary #107: Dem Dumb Dems

The election of a Republican to the US Senate from Massachusetts is rightly being heralded as an indication of the turn of the political tide—I can't help observing that it's been eight years since the most recent Republican landslide (2002, for those of you educated in a public school) and that the previous one occurred eight years before then (1994)—but those of us who yearn for good government ought not to become so euphoric as those who term the vote a "revolution."  The rapid reversal of Democratic fortunes is another of the wild oscillations between the major parties that we've seen over the past two decades, and it may not be the last.  Anyway, the current economic improvement (which will probably end next year), in conjunction with the short memories of the voters, means that there may not be a landslide this fall.

Furthermore, although I'd like to see Republicans retake both chambers of the Congress, I don't want it to happen in the upcoming round of elections, which unlikely to happen anyway because of the 18-seat disparity in the Senate.  Recall what happened in the 1990's.  The best thing that could have happened was for Republicans to control the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Oval Office simultaneously for at least four years.  The second-best thing was that the Democrats would control all three for the same period, and inevitably discredit themselves through their inability or unwillingness to govern capably.  The worst that could have happened is what did happen: Republicans gained a majority in each house of the Congress, and made improvements that included the only kind about which people ultimately care (viz., strengthening of the economy), but, because the average voter is unable to distinguish between something effected by the President and something that merely happens during his term in office, a Democrat usurped the credit. (The circumstances are somewhat different now; Obama is a stronger, though no better, leader than Clinton, whose very status as a political cipher facilitated the Republican legislative dynamism to which I referred in the previous sentence.)

Finally, it ought to be admitted that this is no occasion to go sing Yankee Doodle Dandy.  If it's true that, to quote Sen. Scott Brown, "people aren't stupid" (I would say "benighted"), why did they elect Obama and so forth to begin with?