Blackwater

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Bush's Private Mercenary Force

Tod Robberson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, passes on a report that Blackwater smuggled hundreds fo weapons into Iraq, many of which found their way to the black market. Robberson, reasonably, headlines his blog item, "Why is our money still going to Blackwater?"

The answer lies in a more basic question. Why are George W Bush and Dick Cheney still on the public payroll?

The answer to that is multi-layered. The most obvious answer is that the votes aren't there to remove these two by impeachment and conviction in the Senate.

Why the votes aren't there is because party politics has completely replaced the checks and balances set up in the Constitution by dividing government between the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. Without political parties, Congress by now would have impeached and removed Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution. The indictment would have many counts. Take your pick on which ones to convict him on. But with political parties, the Republicans in Congress see their primary role not as members of a Congress acting as a check on the President, but as supporters of a fellow Republican against the Democrats in Congress. Congress is divided by political party and impotent to act as a check and balance against a runaway Executive. It's a flaw in the Constitution unforeseen by our Founding Fathers. Luckily for us, it has not (yet) been a fatal flaw.

Bailout; Cesar Chavez Blvd; Gay boycott

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Paulson Changes Course

Keven Ann Willey, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, notes that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is saying that the $700 billion financial bailout program will not be used to buy troubled mortgage-backed assets, but will be used to invest directly in banks. Willey says she'd like to see a discussion of this change in course among those who understand it.

That would make for a pretty small conversation. Lest anyone think that comment was tongue-in-cheek, I refer you to the testimony of the one person I would have predicted would have an explanation for what's happening, Alan Greenspan:

"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief."

Reader Eric Brandler suspects the taxpayer was conned and that there's "no theoretical upside, only downside for the taxpayers" in this new direction. It might not be as bad as that. The money the government is investing in the banks is being exchanged for preferred stock, so if the banks prosper, the taxpayer might still get his money back. That's what we're being told anyway. The reality is anyone's guess.

Congress created the position of special inspector general to oversee the bailout program, but the Bush administration has yet to nominate anyone to fill that newly created position. The most worrisome news about the bailout is the quote by the Treasury Department's Inspector General: "It's a mess."

One good consequence of the long wait between the election and the inauguration is that for a few months at least we truly have bi-partisan self-interest in doing something about the problem. We only have one President at a time and, for better or worse, right now that's George W Bush, whose legacy would be even more tarnished with further economic collapse on his watch. Barack Obama is keenly interested in avoiding that, too, to prevent his watch from having quite so deep a hole to dig out of. That all changes on January 20, 2009. Then, the Democrats will be in complete charge of the government and the Republicans go into full stonewall mode, hoping to blame as much of the continuing economic disaster on Democrats as they can. You can get a sneak preview of that from some of the reader comments. "Michael R McCullough" gives a conspiracy nut's view of the landscape -- there's no problem now, but just wait until Obama takes over.

"Unless Obama and congress institute their socialist principles, there is no cause to worry. ... This is a manufactured crisis and nothing more."

"mr.ed" absolves Bush of all blame and explains just what the Democrats are scheming to impose on America:

"Chris Dodd (D), the Senate Banking Committee Chairman IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN CHARGE, not the President...that the Democrat-controlled House and Senate are SUPPOSED TO BE IN CHARGE, but continue to be in absentia. The handouts are a Democrat administration concept...it's called speading the wealth...it's called SOCIALISM!"

If this is all the help Republicans can offer when their own man is still President, maybe impatience for January 20, 2009 is the right attitude after all. Lead, follow, or get out the way. It's time for the Republicans to just get out of the way.

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Street Renaming a Skirmish in Bigger War

Tod Robberson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, gives us a backstory to the news that the Dallas City Council rejected a proposal to rename Ross Avenue after Cesar Chavez. Robberson says that renaming advocate Alberto Ruiz, when he met with The Dallas Morning News editorial board several weeks ago, "could not have been more insulting and abrasive." Robberson says that being successful in politics is about being persuasive and Ruiz lacks the diplomacy to succeed.

I don't know Alberto Ruiz, but my guess is that he wasn't interested in persuading the DMN editorial board as much as he was in doing some good old fashioned consciousness-raising in the Hispanic community. For that, a little controversy goes a longer way than would a quick, polite agreement to put new street signs up in some neighborhood. My guess is that Alberto Ruiz has much bigger goals in mind than just a street renaming and he is more than willing to lose this skirmish in order to rally his side for the more consequential battles to come. And that's a lesson Tod Robberson either never learned or is overlooking as a possibility in this situation.

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Consequences for California Prop. 8

Rod Dreher is at it again, publishing his soft bigotry in the The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog. This time the target of his complaints isn't Hispanics, isn't African-Americans, it's gays. He reports that a financial supporter of California's Proposition 8, denying gays the right to marry, resigned from his job as a local theater director when customers began to boycott his theater in protest.

Dreher says he's being persecuted for his support of traditional marriage, that angry gays are driving the man out of his job, that this is a return to the "blacklist" and "we don't want to go there again in this country."

Oh, please. Quit claiming he was defending traditional marriage. He was funding an effort to deny the benefits of traditional marriage to gays, a right that was already established. He was taking away rights from others, not defending anything. Reader "leslie" put it best: "He lost his job, but not the RIGHT to have one. I lost the RIGHT to marry."

If customers don't much care to see their ticket money get used to pay someone who funds anti-marriage activities, it shouldn't surprise anyone.

By the way, when the House Un-American Activities Committee starts hauling theatre producers in front of them to demand to know if they employ any anti-gay Mormons, then Dreher will have a historical analogy worth scare-mongering about.

Guilty but insane

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What To Do With The Criminally Insane

Everybody is commenting on the release of Dena Schlosser, the mentally ill mother who killed her baby in gruesome fashion. Jacquielynn Floyd, in a column in The Dallas Morning News, wants courts to have more options than verdicts of "guilty" or "not guilty by reason of insanity." She argues for "guilty, but insane", a verdict that, she believes, would allow a court more options after the insanity is medically treated. I'm willing to go along with that, if courts really are hamstrung by the "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict. I'd like to learn more about that. Floyd doesn't offer any details there.

Mark Davis, in an op-ed column in The Dallas Morning News, offers his own opinion in his column in The Dallas Morning News. I usually don't read Davis, as his column headlines usually tell me everything there is to know about his opinion. I suspect today's column is no exception: "Insane killers need to be locked up for life."

But my favorite comment comes from the usually easy-going, folksy, Steve Blow, who responds to Mark Davis in a blog post to The Dallas Morning News Metro blog:

"Let's take a hypothetical. Let's suppose Dena Schlosser was driving down the road, had a seizure, crashed her car and killed the baby riding with her. Would we lock her up for life for that? Of course not. Dena Schlosser doesn't have seizures. She has a brain illness of a different sort -- one that alters her thinking so radically that killing her baby seemed like obeying God. Should we lock her up for life for that? Of course not. We don't lock people up for being sick. We might forbid someone with seizures from driving. We might prevent someone with hallucinations from being alone with children. But we don't punish illness."

The money quote comes in the title to Steve Blow's blog post: "Lock Mark Davis up for life."

Gay rights; Sex and iPods

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Religious Liberty Does Not Preclude Gay Rights

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, sees an irreconcilable clash between civil rights for homosexuals and religious liberty of traditionalist churches. Dreher doesn't offer any examples of such conflicts. None of the matters currently in the press (e.g., California's Proposition 8 reserving "marriage" for one man, one woman), seem to impose any burdens on traditionalist churches. I see three areas that Dreher might have in mind.

First is whether the government should discriminate against gays with respect to marriage. For me, the answer is clearly, no. Regardless, churches aren't directly impacted by this. It doesn't change what happens inside the church doors at all.

Second is whether private businesses and institutions should be allowed to discriminate against gays. Again, to me, the answer is clearly, no. A restaurant should not be allowed to turn customers away because they are gay. An employer should not be allowed to deny employment to an applicant because he or she is gay. Again, churches aren't directly impacted by this. It doesn't change what happens inside the church doors at all.

Third is whether churches should be allowed to discriminate against gays. In this case, I say Constitutional freedom of religion says they should have this right. If they want to deny the priesthood to gays, deny the sacrament of marriage to gays, or even deny membership to gays, they should have that right.

The only gray area is when churches run secular institutions, like charities, that serve the public at large. The courts are already involved in cases disputing whether a church-run charity can discriminate on the basis of religious belief. If there isn't already a case involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, I'm sure there will be, sooner rather than later, whether or not gay marriage is legally recognized or not. So far, the courts seem to draw the line at whether the function served is primarily religious or primarily secular. That seems about right to me.

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Sex Really Is Like An iPod

Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas preached a sermon last Sunday titled "Why Gay is not O.K." Advertising the sermon on the church's outdoor sign attracted about a hundred demonstrators to Sunday services, who protested the church's bigotry from a public spot across the street.

Jeffress compared having sexual relations to using an iPod, whose instruction manual says that you must plug the iPod into a 120 power source to charge it. Jeffress says we all understand that Steve Jobs issues these instructions for our benefit, not his. Jeffress then says God's instruction manual for sex orders people to engage in it only in a marriage between one man and one woman. Again, this is for our benefit, not His.

Unfair Park reader "John M" had the best critique of Jeffress's flawed analogy:

"Huh, last I checked iPods come with USB cables and you have to buy the wall adaptor separately. Apple will happily sell you a 220 power adaptor, I don't know if the new ones both 120 and 220 but the older larger ones that they still sell are 120 and 220 compatible and they even sell a set of plugs that attach to the adaptor for use around the world. I've charged my iPod using the same adaptor I use at home in at least a dozen countries. They also endorse car chargers, battery packs and hundreds of other devices, cords, docks, and plugs for the dock port that you charge your iPod with that aren't outlined in the instruction manual but are perfectly fine and safe to use.

It seems that Robert Jeffress's understanding of the iPod is right on the level of his understanding of the bible."

Robert Jeffress demonstrates once again why people should steer clear of analogies. They are hardly ever a perfect fit and too often, when examined closely, they better support the exact opposite point the speaker is trying to make. Worse in this case, an attempt to sound current, when it backfires, instead emphasizes how out of touch with the modern world Jeffress really is. But that was already clear when we saw the sermon title on the church sign, wasn't it?

If Robert Jeffress wants to mine iPod again for his next sermon, many I suggest the following Apple slogans for inspiration?
Hold everything.
Everybody touch.
One size fits all.
Expand at will.

Raum Emanuel

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Permanent Democratic Majority

It was reported that Tom Pauken, one-time chairman of the Texas Republican Party, left an Austin GOP gathering early on election night to watch the returns in the privacy of his own home. Perhaps he didn't want anyone to see him crying. More likely he did not want to waste any time before starting the planning for the GOP attack on the new Obama administration.

Pauken's attack comes today in a Dallas Blog column criticizing Barack Obama's choice for Chief of Staff, Raum Emanuel. Pauken calls him "totally ruthless" and "with no ethical compass" who makes "frequent use of the f--- word" (oh my!). Pauken is particularly distressed that, back in the Clinton impeachment days, Emanuel took satisfaction in the revelation that Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Il), then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was an adulterer himself. I'm not sure the logic Pauken uses to think that the fall of Henry Hyde the hypocrite is going to be viewed as a bad thing, even if Emanuel was behind it, but Pauken spends much of his column on just that decade-old subject.

Personally, I find Emanuel to be a savvy political operator, more pragmatic than ideologue, a brilliant choice by Obama to help get his agenda implemented. Pauken's comments are more of the old style politics of personal destruction rather than the politics of solving the problems the voters elected Barack Obama to tackle. The GOP is going to have to change their attitude if they want voters to give them another look in 2010 or 2012. Otherwise, that "permanent Democratic majority" that Pauken fears (that strikes me as Pauken's real objection to the Emanuel pick) is a real possibility.

Advice for GOP

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Not Conservative Enough?

Everyone has explanations for the GOP losses Tuesday and where the GOP should go from here. The Dallas Morning News, which endorsed John McCain and practically every other Texas Republican on the ballot, is free with its own advice, too. The DMN says the GOP shouldn't blame "the liberal media" or duped youths or identity politics for their losses. The DMN says the fault lies within the GOP itself: they weren't conservative enough.

This is yet another dusting off of an old Republican excuse, what political analyst Rick Perlstein first recognized as the attitude that "conservatism never fails; it is only failed."

Modern conservatism is founded on the principles of low taxes and limited government. George W Bush and the Republican Congress delivered on the first, by cutting taxes in good times and bad. The tax cuts benefited primarily the wealthy, but the GOP told us that's only because the wealthy pay most of the taxes.

What the "real" conservatives complain about is the GOP failure to deliver on the second half of their foundation, limited government. There is a hard-nosed, practical reason the GOP didn't do this. It would mean cutting social programs like Social Security and Medicare and education, all the government programs that benefit primarily the middle class and the poor. So, the GOP agreed to a grand social compact with the electorate. The rich would get their tax cuts and the poor and middle class would keep their social programs. The result was a deepening hole of debt.

It worked... for a few election cycles. But the economy can defy gravity only so long. Eventually the GOP-built house of cards collapsed. The country now faces a hard choice: either reform the tax code so we again start paying for the social programs that a huge majority of the electorate clearly favors, or let the rich keep their tax cuts and give up the no-longer affordable safety net that Americans like. For the DMN to think that the latter is the way for the GOP to win back the hearts of the voters is pure folly. But it is in keeping with the old notion that "conservatism never fails; it is only failed."

Right-wing Pundits; Right-wing SBOE

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Mark Davis Is Still Here

I don't know why I had the feeling. Maybe it's the inevitable letdown after the emotional high of an historic election. But when I opened the morning newspaper (figuratively that is, my subscription to The Dallas Morning News is long expired) and found Mark Davis sounding just like the Mark Davis of old, I involuntarily let out a long sigh. Despite Paul Krugman's wishful thinking...

"Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness."

... the monsters aren't banished at all. They may not be in power anymore, but they are still around, their rants as tired as ever.

Davis says Obama "poses palpable dangers -- to our national security, our economy and our Constitution" as if the hole our country is in is not due to the disastrous Bush administration, but will only begin as Obama starts digging us out of the debacle in Iraq, the economic meltdown, and Bush's suspension of the Constitution through warrantless wiretapping, denial of habeus corpus, and torture.

Today's column is the same old Mark Davis, talking of hasty surrender in Iraq, handing al Qaeda a victory, eternally dishonoring the troops, giving in to the "Islamist-coddling pacifist wing of his party," and Obama's "radical past and socialist instincts." Today's column reveals a defeated conservative in deep denial:

"This election was a slap at the Republican brand of the moment, not the fundamentals of conservatism."

The sun the morning after the election rises on a Mark Davis who is unbroken and unbowed, a Mark Davis who has learned nothing and who still has nothing to say.

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Texas SBOE Is Still Here, Too

Mark Davis may be in the lunatic fringe, but at least he doesn't hold any position of authority. Readers who don't care for his opinion are welcome to line their bird cages with his writings. Cynthia Dunbar, on the other hand, is a member of the lunatic fringe with real power. She's a member of the Texas State Board of Education, the organization that sets the school curriculum used to educate our children.

Linda Campbell, in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram column, tells us that Dunbar spread false and malicious information before this week's presidential election. Dunbar claims that Barack Obama "obstinately refused to present valid documentation" of citizenship, thus violating the Constitution by claiming to be eligible to hold the office of President. This is a scurrilous myth that's been spread by email since the summer. It's been debunked by numerous independent sources, but Cynthia Dunbar continues to present the smear as fact. She hysterically cries that "an Obama Administration would ultimately mean one thing . . . the end of America as we know her."

The State Board of Education ought to be non-partisan and focused solely on the education of our children. Texans should not entrust that education to a woman who spreads lies and fear to influence political elections. Cynthia Dunbar needs to find another job. Voters should insist on it in the 2010 election.

Election Commentary

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Awards for Election Commentary

The "I Saw It Coming" Award goes to Byron York, National Review Online:

"In January, a few days before the South Carolina Democratic primary, I went to a Barack Obama rally in Columbia with a Republican friend who had never before seen Obama in action. This friend’s reaction: 'Oh, s**t.' The super-enthusiastic crowd was about 3,000 strong -- no big deal compared to the audiences Obama would later draw in the general election, but several times what John McCain was attracting in South Carolina at the time. My friend said the scene reminded him of the old clip from Jaws, in which the small-town sheriff, seeing how big the shark really is, says, 'We’re gonna need a bigger boat.' The question, of course, was whether Republicans actually had a bigger boat. Now we can say for sure that they didn’t."

The "Best Campaign Sign" Award goes to an anonymous Mississippi partisan:

"Rednecks for Obama: Even We've Had Enough"

The "Gracious Concession Speech" Award goes to Rod Dreher (just beating out John McCain):

"I am a Republican, and I've had it with my side, who got the thumping we deserve. And all credit to the president-elect for magnanimously reaching out to us bruised and battered conservatives in his victory address, quoting Abraham Lincoln's hauntingly beautiful line, 'We are not enemies, but friends.' Yep, he's my president too. And I'm fine with that."

The "State of Denial" Award goes to Dallas Republicans, as reported by The Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog's Mark Norris:

"There was about 10 people with me around a TV tuned to the Obama speech. By the end, they had all walked off. Most sighed as they walked away or shook their heads. As the speech ended, there was some yelling from the other side of the room. The one word I was able to discern - 'recount.'"

The "I Lost; You Won; Now Do What I Say" Award goes to The Dallas Morning News editorial board:

"The job now for Mr. Obama is to make good on his promise to govern from the political center, paying particular attention to getting spending under control. The president-elect should strongly consider appointing Republicans to his Cabinet and ensure that conservative voices get a fair hearing in policy decisions."

The "Hoping for Failure" Award goes to Trey Garrison:

"The fun of the Pelosi/Reid/Obama axis train wreck is just beginning and open Keynesianism will be on display in its full, ugly, failing glory."

The "Tell Us What You Really Think" Award goes to the NYT's Paul Krugman:

"For the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer 'therapy and understanding' to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people. ... Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness."

The "First Look At 2012" Award goes to reader Ryan Short on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog:

"A poignant moment for me last night was during McCain's concession speech. I celebrated at the Bishop Arts party, and it seemed there were almost no boos during his very gracious speech... until he mentioned Sarah Palin's name. Then the crowd went nuts. After McCain finished mentioning her, the crowd calmed. I won't say I'm surprised necessarily at the sharp reaction, or that I agreed/disagreed, but the heavy shift in tone from the crowd did pull me back a minute. It's a good sign that the Republicans should seriously think twice before running Palin in 2012."

Finally, the poignant "Barriers Still to Overcome" Award goes to reader "othniel" of the Burnt Orange Report:

"I worked for Obama, for hope. I believed. I donated. I dared to have vision. I celebrated his victory with my sons who cast their first voted for him. I thought I belonged. But those of us who are LGBT have once again simply been sacrificed to the gods of political expediency. Sit down you are rocking the boat, we used to be told. Now we are just thrown overboard. We are tired of being thrown in to your closet after working so hard to get out of ours. It was easier not to hope, and it hurt far less. Sorry to rain on the party, but I am tired of being uninvited, though expected to help pay for it. Never ever ask me for a campaign contribution again, or expect me to be happy with some miscegnated concept of an un'civil' union. Never has any group of Americans been slapped by its friends as horribly as what happened to LGBT Americans last night when the rocket of hope for which we worked alongside our brethren and sisters took off before we were asked aboard. I guess the parade has passed us by after all. Some American Dream this turned out to be. No stars for our ilk on that flag after all."

Halloween

The Nightly Build...

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Rod Dreher Rants About Trick-or-Treaters

Tying up some loose ends while waiting for election returns...
Rod Dreher posted a racist rant this morning complaining about Latinos driving their kids around for trick-or-treating, what Dreher calls "trawling in some other neighborhood's waters." Dreher says "it's no skin off my nose" in a tone that clearly indicates that he thinks it is. So much so that he turned his porchlight out and "put a bench at the top of the steps to discourage trick or treaters". What makes this different from the standard old man "get off my lawn" type complaining is Rod Dreher's habit of always bringing race into the matter ("they're always Latino folks").

That Dreher assumes it's a racist thing is sad. Needless to say, many commenters pointed out, in more polite language than I would use, that this practice is not confined to "Latino folks," but is done by non-Hispanic whites and African-Americans, too. Some expressed displeasure at the practice, but others excused it on the assumption that some of the offenders are parents who live in less safe neighborhoods who want to give their kids a taste of safe trick-or-treating, too. Jim Schutze, who speaks with the wisdom that comes from experience, says:

"This is acually a recurring phenomenon in East Dallas -- the white new arrival who doesn't understand why so many Mexican kids come to his house at Halloween. We did a terrific story about this at the Times-Herald when it happened on Swiss Avenue in the 1980s. I am proud that a majority of Swiss Avenue Historic District residents stood up and told the newly arrived ethnophobes, 'They were here first, and, anyway, we love them and want more of them to come for Halloween.' Mr. Dreher is a type I know all too well."

Look ethnophobe up in the dictionary and I wouldn't be surprised if "crunchy con" didn't appear somewhere in one of the definitions. Rod Dreher, not knowing when to retreat, puts down Schutze as a "sanctimonious liberal who wears his 'tolerance' on his sleeve as a badge of honor."

I grew up thinking tolerance was a virtue. I thought everyone did. More recently, it's slowly dawned on me that tolerance is not valued by conservatives, especially by the religious right, who believe they are blessed with revealed Truth. Diversity of opinion (diversity, there's another word that conservatives despise) is bad because there can be one and only one Truth, and they know what it is.

Yet tolerance is at the heart of the American experience. It was religious intolerance that many of the early settlers were fleeing. Liberty demands tolerance. I've come to believe that this is what is behind conservative's antipathy to government, to an impartial press, to academia. These institutions enshrine tolerance and that is anathema to conservatives.

I've often been troubled by an inherent contradiction in liberalism's love of tolerance. One trait liberalism cannot tolerate is intolerance. Conservatives intuitively pick up on this contradiction and accuse liberals of hypocrisy, since liberals don't let conservatives practice intolerance. I have no good answer for that. It's a valid criticism.

Most recently, I've realized that conservatives offer a solution to this paradox, or at least libertarians do. Libertarians say that, as long as they have their guns, they don't care what others do, whether they practice tolerance or intolerance. As long as the libertarian can blast anyone who infringes on his space, he's willing to let society at large do what it wants. This isn't the kind of Wild West society I want to live in, but it does seem to be internally consistent. That's not a bad thing. As for me, I'm still wearing tolerance on my sleeve as a badge of honor.

Wick Allison's endorsement; Election predictions

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Wick Allison for Obama: Now More Than Ever

In mid_September, Wick Allison, former publish of William F. Buckley's deeply conservative National Review and current editor-in-chief of D Magazine, surprised readers by endorsing Barack Obama for President. Recently, he was asked whether he has had any second thoughts. His questioner, Marty Cortland (yes, the pseudonymous commenter on the Dallas scene) said he's been disappointed in John McCain, but intends to vote for him anyway for "pocketbook reasons."

Wick Allison not only doesn't back down from his Obama endorsement, he is even more forceful in his argument why it is the right decision. His response, published on Frontburner, is so eloquent that I include more of it here than fair use might justify, but I can't find anything to cut.

"Two major events have occurred since I wrote my endorsement: (1) McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin, and (2) the financial collapse.

"On the financial crisis, Obama’s response and his proposed plan underscore my judgment of him as prudent and thoughtful. McCain’s response was that of a jet fighter pilot’s: a quick zig, an immediate zag, and, in this case, a final poof. Temperament is a huge issue in a president, and each candidate’s reactions to the crisis gave an ample demonstration of his. Judgment is not McCain’s strong point, and that is amply demonstrated in the first point, the selection of Palin to be a potential President of the United States. It was cynical -- and disasterous. And it was made in one hour. It will, and should, cost him the election.

"As to your pocketbook, Marty, how’s your portfolio? Eight years of fiscal mismanagement -- and skyrocketing borrowing to pay for it -- are chickens that will come home to roost. How any conservative, or any businessman, could abide that is beyond me. Like you, I fall into the top tier and will pay higher taxes under Obama. I am more than willing to pay them to restore our economy and to restore fiscal sanity to our government. Joe Biden was right. It is a matter of patriotism. We have lost all sense of how the real world operates if we think government can borrow to pay for wars, to pay for increased entitlements, and to pay for its normal operations. Unfortunately, now we’ll need higher deficits to pump the economy. It is a burden that will take years to pay down. Face it: the Democrats have been right, and we -- or those who claimed to represent the conservative philosophy -- have been wrong.

"Marty, gird up your loins. Do the right thing. Vote Obama. Pay the taxes. Help straighten up the mess we Republicans caused."

My respect for Wick Allison is enormous. Allison is an intellectually honest conservative who doesn't let political party trump principle. If the Republican Party has any hope of rising from the ashes of the coming electoral rout, it will be by listening to conservatives like Wick Allison, not by shifting further to the right and lining up behind a Palin 2012 campaign.

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Predictions for Election

Popular vote:
Obama: 53%
McCain: 46%
Other: 1%

Electoral vote:
Obama: 338
McCain: 200

House:
Democrats: 260
Republicans: 175

Senate:
Democrats: 59*
Republicans: 41**
* Counting Sanders (I-VT), Lieberman (I-CT)
** Counting Chambliss (R-GA) who might face a run-off