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Listen to AaconsIf President Obama wants to be able to govern, he will have to sign into law some ideas that at least a handful of 
Republicans can live with. Following the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts, he (and Pelosi and Reid) no longer have the votes to run Washington as if it were a one-party system. Democrats may still be the party in power, but they can no longer maintain the illusion that they have absolute power. Now they will have to – at least to a degree – compromise.
However, compromising will not be an easy task for Obama and the Democrats, for now they will have to balance the desires of an increasingly hostile American public and an opposition party they no longer have the votes to run over – not completely, at least – with the often contradictory desires of their twin puppet masters: Labor and Big Business.
It has been an interesting sport to see the duel between Labor and Big Business (the label Tim Carney gives them in his latest book, Obamanomics) for the reign of power over the Democratic Party under Obama. One could imagine that the new Prince song, Purple and Gold, was not inspired by the Minnesota Vikings football team so much as it was by the Purple team (which I call SEIUcorn, such as the White House’s most frequent visitor and lobbyist-in-chief SEIU president Andy Stern) and Gold team (those people on his heavily pro-Big Business, Goldman Sachs influenced economic team) Obama assembled when he moved into the White House.
My observation is that Obama’s heart leans towards Purple, based on his long career at their service. Remember: this is a man who became a community organizer and lawyer for ACORN by rejecting Wall Street (though he did work there briefly, an experience he describes as ‘sleeping with the enemy’). However, as president, Obama has had to give more sway over his decision making to the Gold than perhaps he may feel comfortable with, if but for no other reason other than to maintain power.
The healthcare reform debate illustrates this dynamic well. Originally, Obama, as well as many Democrats, favored a Purple bill – meaning a public option. This proposal failed, not because of the Republicans being “The Party of No” as they are described, because the Republicans had too few votes in either the House or Senate to stop Obama, but because of the power of the Gold team and their relationship with Big Business. Big Business — in this case the insurance companies — simply did not want to compete against such a powerful new competitor, the US government, which would not only have a relatively unlimited access to funding with no profit motive and obviously little compunction against running up debt, but would have the power to legislate as well. It would have been like being in a boxing match against both Floyd Mayweather and Richard Steele. That is not is not a fight Big Business would be favored to win.
So Big Business asserted its considerable influence to see that the public option failed. And Big Business influence over the Obama White House is considerable. Remember, the Obama Gold team is lead by Wall Street darlings Larry Summers, who collected millions of dollars from companies like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch under the pretext of being compensated for speeches and appearances; though it strains belief that Summers could have anything so profound to say in a speech that that is what he was really getting paid seven figures for, and Timothy Geithner, who recently was shown to have bent over backwards to protect AIG and Goldman Sachs. Furthermore, let’s not forget that Obama himself received more in campaign donations from Big Business than rival McCain, or any other presidential candidate in history.
So, without the expressed support of Obama and other leading Democrats who cannot afford to oppose Big Business, the public option failed in favor of what the Gold team really wants – the individual mandate, an obvious boon to insurance companies, even if other conditions of healthcare form, such as being forced to cover those with preexisting conditions, is put into law. Of course the Purple team wailed against this in defeat. One of its chief media spokesmen, Keith Olbermann, ranted that “Health care reform that benefits the industry at the cost of the people is intolerable and there are no moral constructs in which it can be supported. And if still in the bill, and this heinous mandate become law, there is yet further reaction required. I call on all those whose conscience urges them to fight to use the only weapon that will left to us if this bill as currently constituted becomes law. We must not buy federally-mandated insurance, if this cheesy counterfeit of reform is all we can buy. No single payer? No sale. No public option? No sale. No Medicare buy-in? No sale.” But these sorts of rants fell on deaf ears in Washington. Besides, the Democrats had the Republicans to blame for the failure of the public option, and that soon became the media narrative.
Republican and public opposition to the individual mandate is not nearly as strident as it was to the public option. I see it as necessary ingredient to any healthcare reform package that hopes to drive insurance costs down, though I have come to believe that it would be better to incentivize those who can afford insurance to buy it rather than to force them to, which may be unconstitutional. Therefore there is only one serious obstacle remaining to a bipartisan healthcare reform bill, and that is interstate competition.
Interstate competition may not be the best option for everyone. But it is almost indisputable that allowing consumers to buy health insurance across state lines will save the consumer money. The Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation released a study showing that it could save some families 30% on their health insurance costs. And because insurance will be cheaper, it will then be more available to the consumer. According to Katherine Kersten of the Minnesota Star Tribune, “One study has found that 12 million more Americans could purchase coverage if this reform were adopted.” However, Obama has opposed this measure, both as a Senator and now as President.
The President recently stated the nominal reason why Democrats oppose interstate competition. At the House Republican Retreat speech, he addressed the issue twice. Once during his speech:
Allowing insurance companies to sell coverage across state lines to add choice and competition and bring down costs for businesses and consumers — that’s an idea that some of you I suspect included in this better solutions; that’s an idea that was incorporated into our package. And I support it, provided that we do it hand in hand with broader reforms that protect benefits and protect patients and protect the American people.
And later while answering a question from Congressman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee:
I think one of the proposals that has been focused on by the Republicans as a way to reduce costs is allowing insurance companies to sell across state lines. We actually include that as part of our approach. But the caveat is, we’ve got to do so with some minimum standards, because otherwise what happens is that you could have insurance companies circumvent a whole bunch of state regulations about basic benefits or what have you, making sure that a woman is able to get mammograms as part of preventive care, for example. Part of what could happen is insurance companies could go into states and cherry-pick and just get those who are healthiest and leave behind those who are least healthy, which would raise everybody’s premiums who weren’t healthy, right?
With these answers, Obama is attempting to sell his opposition to allowing the consumer the freedom to buy insurance across state lines as a desire to protect the consumer from his or her own ignorance. To clarify, Obama is saying that if I were allowed the freedom to buy health insurance from one of the 1300 companies other than the 64 or so insurance companies licensed to sell insurance in the state of New Jersey, I would somehow buy a health insurance policy that would be worse for me. Therefore, Obama will only allow me the freedom to buy health insurance across state lines if he can set a federal minimum standard; or, in the words of Rep. Shadegg of Arizona, Obama’s “bill nationalizes federal insurance regulation and gives the average American family no relief from expensive mandates that drive up the cost of health insurance.” So Obama once again has to make sure I will be protected from me, by him and the federal government, with more mandates. Thank you, President Obama. Where would I be without you?
Unfortunately for Obama, his argument falls apart when one realizes that, although each state has differing standards for selling insurance, each state already has an existing minimum standard for selling insurance. So even if Idaho does have a lower minimum standard than New Jersey, that minimum standard I presume is good enough for Idahoans, so why not for me? Conversely, if the Idaho standards for insurance are indeed so poor, why should Idahoans be limited to buying insurance from companies licensed to sell in Idaho? Why shouldn’t they be allowed to buy insurance from a NJ company?
But I don’t believe this is the true reason for Obama’s opposition to allowing me to be able to buy insurance across state lines, or least without expensive new federal mandates. I believe the real reason is that Big Business, specifically insurance companies, does not want it. Many insurance companies have a monopoly over the citizens of a particular state. For example, in North Dakota, Blue Cross Blue Shield has 90% of the market. Obviously, if you are a North Dakotan, you are buying your health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which is how Blue Cross Blue Shield likes it. Why would Blue Cross Blue Shield want to compete for North Dakotan business from another 1300 health insurance providers? They wouldn’t, and they will only accept such a dramatic increase in competition if they can be compensated by a creation of these “minimum federal standards” that will essentially force many consumers to buy more coverage than they either want or need.
We saw the Democrats being influenced by Big Business in the healthcare reform debate several times. When asked why the Democrats would not support tort reform, Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, said that “the reason why tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers.” Another example is in the high salaries of US doctor. As Wallstreetpit.com points out, “One reason we might have a “health care crisis” due to rising medical costs, and the world’s highest physician salaries is that we turn away 57.3% of the applicants to medical schools. What we have is a form of a “medical cartel, which significantly restricts the supply of physicians, and thereby gives its members monopoly power to charge above-market prices for their services. In his classic book Capitalism and Freedom, Milton Friedman describes the American Medical Association (AMA) as the “strongest trade union in the United States” and documents the ways in which the AMA vigorously restricts competition.”
Or perhaps the clearest example of the Big Business’s influence on the healthcare debate is the relationship between Obama and Big Pharma. As a reward for Pharma’s support for healthcare reform – which included spending $150 million in pro-reform ads, not to mention donating $1.1 more to the Obama campaign that any candidate in history had ever received from them – they received (as part of a deal with the White House that was supposed to be secret until it leaked out in August) an $80 billion dollar deal “to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements,” as reported by The Huffington Post. As Tim Carney writes, “Obama’s gift to pharmaceuticals went beyond the pay-offs to get them on board for ‘reform.’ The reform itself would increase their profits through subsidies funded by taxpayers and mandate imposed on individuals and employers. Even outside the reform debate, Obama helped the industry with his agenda of tearing down Bush-era pro-life regulations, including ethical limits on federal funding of embryo research. After the drug makers proved a handy foil for Obama during the campaign, they also proved an indispensible partner once he was in the White House.”
Obama claims he is pushing for healthcare reform for us. At the House Republican Retreat he stated that reform was needed for ‘small businesses that are being gouged and the 15,000 Americans are losing coverage every single day.’ He speaks in the populist language of the Purple. But in deeds, Obama seems to be on the Gold team. And nowhere is that more evident than in this healthcare debate.
– DK
As an African-American male living in a state that is diverse in all ways except for its political affiliation, I can say that I’ve seen my fair share of people from all walks of life. I have seen extremes of wealth and poverty, saints and sinners, liberals, and, okay, even an occasional conservative.
On any given day, I can go sit at the food court at Menlo Park Mall and see people from every ethnic, economic, and religious group, as well as sexual orientation, imaginable – sometimes self-segregated, more often in mixed groups. It is hardly unusual to see groups of teenagers, as diverse as any meeting at the UN, virtually indistinguishable, other than skin color. It is in many ways the fulfillment of Dr. King’s vision — perhaps even an expansion upon it – that even he could not have envisioned.
This is not to say I have not seen, nor experienced, my fair share of prejudice. I have seen people ostracized, ridiculed, discriminated against, and beaten because they are different. There is one thing I have not seen, however. I have not seen prejudice as the exclusive domain of any particular group. No group as a whole – not even the most persecuted – is incapable of it.
My father — who as a young man could not eat at the same restaurant for which he worked, and knew to walk in the street if a White man was on the sidewalk – used to warn me many times not to trust Jews, because “their word don’t count for nothing.” One might think that being from a generation of Blacks, who, when called “nigger” was expected to answer with a “yes sir, how may I help you?” would make one intolerant of intolerance. Sadly just the opposite is true for African-Americans. Nor is it true of any group, however persecuted by prejudice they may be, or may have been.
However, since I have not seen any group not have members capable of prejudice — even historically discriminated against groups — I must admit some surprise in learning that there was indeed a group from which no person belonging to it was capable of anything other than complete Jesus-like tolerance of all people, regardless of race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. That group, I discovered, is Democrats.
There seems to be an accepted truism that the Right is incapable of anything except bigotry. It is one of the most pernicious myths about the Right, and it has been generally accepted by American minorities for centuries now. Norman Podhoretz writes about this accepted truism while explaining the overwhelming liberalism of American Jews in his book Why Are Jews Liberal?, saying that to the Jews the Right is, “precisely where their worst enemies had always been located.” S.E. Cupp and Brett Joshpe, in their book Why You’re Wrong About the Right, mention how this myth has been generally accepted by stating that, “History has been hijacked and rewritten to implicate Republicans as the most racist folk in the history of the world.” It is also a truism that African-American CNN host Roland Martin reinforced during an interview with Michael Steele, by commenting that, “One of the criticisms I’ve always had is Republicans — white Republicans — have been scared of black folks.” To which Steele, the African-American GOP Chairman, whose job is, ostensibly, to promote his party, responded — to his discredit – by stating that, “You’re absolutely right. I mean, I’ve been in the room and they’ve been scared of me.”
The corollary to this perception is that the Left is the paradigm of tolerance. It is a perception that is enormously beneficial to the Left. While the GOP is being painted as a party of bigots, minorities of all sorts are flocking to the Left in record numbers. In the last election, Obama won 96% of the African-American vote, 78% of the Jewish vote, 70% of the gay vote, 67% of the Latino vote, 63% of the Asian vote, and 56% of the female vote. Numbers like these cannot be explained away solely by pointing to some overwhelming persuasiveness of Obama’s message, or by the fact that Obama is of a minority group himself. Similar numbers were recorded in many elections, even ones in which Democrats did not run a charismatic Black candidate. These numbers speak to a perception that if you are anything other than a straight White Male Christian, you are not welcome in the Republican Party.
As hurtful to the GOP as this perception is, it cannot be denied that there is an element of truth to it. As I’ve said, I’ve seen no group for which every member is free of prejudice, and the Republican Party is no exception. So I cannot argue against Podhoretz’s contention that the Right has not had a history of anti-Semitism, nor do I dispute Steele’s statement there are white Republicans who are scared of Black folks, as unwise as it was for him to say that. And, obviously, the Republican Party is not the party of open borders and gay marriage, so if this suggests bigotry against Hispanics and homosexuals (which I don’t feel necessarily follows) then Republicans must truly be anti-Hispanic and anti-gay.
The mistake, I feel, is not in the perception of Republican prejudices, but rather in the perception that the Left does not share similar prejudices, sometimes to a much greater degree. And this perception runs so deeply that it has long been the primary reason why minorities tend to vote Democrat in such overwhelming numbers, despite evidence that the Republican may be no more prejudiced, or even less prejudiced, against them than the Democrat.
We saw this last year when Miss USA contestant, Carrie Prejean, was demonized for expressing the exact same view on gay marriage that does President Obama holds. Her words on the subject so closely matched his, that one would think, at most, she would lose a point or two for perjury. Instead, since she is a Republican, one judge gave her answer zero points, and then publicly called her “a bitch”.
But the most obvious example of this is in elections that feature an African-American candidate, versus a Caucasian candidate. In each election result that I have seen, African-Americans have supported the Democrat, even in the cases in which the Republican is Black and the Democrat is not. For example, Lynn Swann, an African-American superstar athlete and successful businessman, ran for governor of Pennsylvania in 2006, against Ed Rendell, a Russian Jew. One would think that the majority of African-Americans would have voted for Swann. After all, Swann would have been the first Black governor of Pennsylvania. Given the number of Blacks who admitted to voting for Obama “just because he’s Black” and who called Blacks “race-traitors” who did not find that reason enough alone to vote for Obama; one would think a similar number would have voted for Swann for the same reason.
However, Lynn Swann managed to attract an anemic 13% of the African-American vote. Given that he was able to collect 40% of the overall vote, it is fair to say that Swann did far worse among Blacks than he did among the Pennsylvanian populace in general. In other words, the group that disliked this Black man the most, was other Blacks.
I bet Swann could have gotten more than 13% of Dallas Cowboy fans to vote for him. Why did he do so poorly among Pennsylvanian Blacks? Is Swann anti-Black, bigoted against African-Americans in some way I am not aware of? Were opponent Rendell’s policies so much more Black-friendly that it caused Black voters to run from Swann as though he proposed that Blacks be required to sit in the back of Philadelphia buses? No. Nothing about Lynn Swann – or other African-American Republicans in similar races, such as Allen West, Bill Randall, Les Philip, or Michael Williams – reads “anti-Black,” other than their political party, which, of course, makes them ipso facto anti-Black.
Conversely, the White candidates these African-American conservatives run against, since they are Democrats, must necessarily be treated as though they marched with Dr. King through Selma, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. Take for example the recent comments from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, praising Barack Obama for being “light-skinned” and “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” Reid here projects his feelings on race — specifically on the superiority of African-Americans whose skin color and diction are closer to Caucasian — onto the American electorate. It is also telling that in 2004 Harry Reid called Supreme Court jurist Clarence Thomas an incompetent Negro who could not write good English. This, to me, is bigotry in one of its ugliest forms, because it not only paints Blacks as inferior beings, it furthers the insult by separating Blacks from other Blacks. It echoes the treatment Blacks received during slavery in which dark-skinned Blacks were forced to live like animals, but “light-skinned Blacks,” or those whose pigmentation was closer to the pigmentation of the skin of the “superior” Whites, were allowed to live in the house. This carried over well after emancipation, and was perpetuated by other African-Americans with the Brown Paper Bag test, in which Blacks had to compare their skin to that of a brown paper bag. Blacks whose skin was too dark were considered inferior and denied benefits ranging from employment to admittance in certain organizations that were readily given to Blacks whose features were closer to Caucasian, therefore “better.”
Reid’s comment clearly was intended to harken back to these sorts of sentiments, and he deserved to be criticized, as would anyone who would make such a vile remark – Democrat or Republican. This would surely be the case during the age of Obama, the first Black president. After all, what better benefit of having a Black president than to have someone who could use the biggest microphone (and teleprompter) in the world to express outrage on behalf of all African-Americans insulted by Reid?
Alas, instead of a defense, Blacks received a betrayal: “I’ve known him for years, I’ve seen the passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice and I know what’s in his heart. As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.” In other words, the President said that because Reid has been so valuable in pushing through my leftist (“social justice”) agenda, I will forgive even his blatant bigotry. Donna Brazile, the African-American Democratic strategist and university professor who was “mysteriously” passed over for the chairmanship of the Democratic party, also chimed in with a tweet, saying again that because of “Reid’s record on social justice issues,” critics – including I guess us dark-skinned Blacks — should “move on.”
Interesting that in supporting Reid, by placing party politics and self-interest above the interest of their race, Obama and Brazile both typified what Blacks who do not vote for Democrats are often called. And, it should also be noted, that Reid’s comments show that not all White people who voted for Obama are free of racism. Just like many — especially in the African-American community — voted for Obama because he is Black, Reid exemplifies the number of people who voted for Obama despite his blackness.
One should also note that the specious, self-congratulatory, hypocritical statements are not limited to “Negros,” light-skinned or otherwise. It was only recently that Democratic senators, along with this president, praised themselves for their racial sensitivity and desire for diversity in nominating Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. What went largely unsaid was not only their continuing persecution of Clarence Thomas – including comments from Reid that Thomas was “an embarrassment to the Supreme Court” – but also their filibuster of Miguel Estrada’s appointment to the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court. The reason Estrada was filibustered was partially due to the fact “he is Latino,” according to leaked memos from the Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois.
Of course this double standard is not new. Conservatives have been pointing it out for years. Imagine, for example, if Sarah Palin had referred to Obama as “clean” and “articulate,” or said that one could not go into a 7-11 without hearing an Indian accent, or referenced Obama’s “Negro dialect.” It is hard to imagine Al Sharpton or George Stephanopoulos rushing to her defense. Bigotry is just an accepted perk of being a Democrat. If Palin was a Democrat, she could say, as did Hillary Clinton, that Ghandi “ran a gas station down in St. Louis,” or, say, as Bill Clinton said to Ted Kennedy, that a “few years ago Obama would be serving us coffee.”
If the GOP is going to survive in a country that is becoming more ethnically diverse, in which the majority of Americans in 40 years will not be White, it will have to learn to not just complain about this double standard but also address it. To this end I must now commend Michael Steele for his comments on Reid’s racial slur: The reality of it is this, there is this standard where Democrats feel they can say these things and apologize as long as it comes from one of their own. And if it comes from somebody else, it’s racism. It’s an old mindset when you are using language in 2008 that harkens back to the 1950s.”
–DK
As parents, we teach our children to be critical thinkers. That said, we generally begin at a common starting point. We infuse our children with our morals, values, beliefs, spiritual practices, political leanings, etc. with the understanding that they will use these things as a framework for making their own choices regarding these areas in their lives.
Instilling a love of country begins with modeling a love of country. Even in times of intense political debate, such as we have now, we are all committed to making our country better, though we may disagree about what that entails, or how to accomplish it. Though we may or may not agree with our President, we respect the office he holds, and recognize the challenges associated with it.
As a homeschooling family, we study the geography of our country. We study the history of our country, and its foundation. We learn about our presidents, and Founding Fathers. We study relevant historical documents, like the Constitution. We hold mock elections, so the children understand the fundamentals of democracy. We also tune into election results, as well as presidential inaugurations, whether the candidate we supported won or not. We talk about holidays that relate to our country’s history: Independence Day, Juneteenth, birthdays of our presidents, and other special days. Most importantly, we pray for our President and elected officials daily.
To instill a healthy love of country, it’s not enough to talk about the things we like or don’t like. Our children need to see us involved in the things we are passionate about: saving a local park, de-littering a beloved beachfront, raising funds for a pet cause, petitioning for longer hours for a club or program, or any number of ways to become involved citizens. You can campaign for a candidate, put signs up on your lawn, go to a city council meeting. In my case, I co-founded African-American Conservatives. My children see me interviewing political candidates for our radio show. They see I am not content with just talking about issues I believe in, but I’m actively seeking to improve the things I like, and changing the things I don’t.
Given that our children will be paying off debts incurred by our generation, and that everyone should become concerned citizens and informed consumers, it is never too early to begin instilling these political values.
–MS
African-American Conservatives Co-Founder, Marie Stroughter, relates a very personal account of why she is against the so-called “public option” in the health care reform debate in our latest podcast. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, or which side of the issue you come down on, you are sure to find this story touching and compelling.
One of the most fascinating conundrums in American politics today is why the Conservative movement – so dominated as it is by Jewish intellectuals and thought – is so routinely rejected by the Jewish population as a whole.
After all, the Conservative movement has been long been driven by Jewish intellectuals. Who is more respected in Conservatism than Charles Krauthammer or Mark Levin, for example? It can be argued that Jews – either in government or in punditry – are the intelligentsia of Conservatism, as the success of William Kristol, Johan Goldberg, Richard Perle, David Horowitz, and others on the editorial staffs of the Weekly Standard, National Review, and the Wall Street Journal, can attest to.
However, the preponderance of Jewish thought in Conservatism has not translated into Jewish support in the electorate. Jews gave Barack Obama – who was associated with such obvious anti-Semites /anti-Zionists as Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Khalid Al Mansour – 78% of the vote, against a Republican who had a record of strong support for Israel, and antipathy towards Iran. One would think Mr. Bush and his policies would resonate well with Jewish Americans, as well as his close alliance with Senator Liebermann.
It is a puzzle that Norman Podhoretz, one of the most prominent Jewish conservatives, attempts to explain in his book, Why Are Jews Liberals? Podhoretz does so by examining the history of the Jewish people, and anti-Semitism from the dawn of the New Testament to today, generally painting a picture that it was common Jewish perception, rightly or wrongly, that those on the Left were more tolerant of the Jews, than those on the Right.
Podhoretz illustrates this meme by creating a timeline from the ‘enlightened despots’ from early European history to the American presidencies of the last century. Podhoretz focuses strongly on FDR and the Great Depression, in which many of Roosevelt’s initiatives were dismissed by the Right in anti-Semitic terms:
What else were Jews to conclude from all this than that their most rabid enemies were still, and as always, to be found among Christians-Protestant and Catholic alike-and that the religious anti-Semites were, moreover, still in at least a de facto alliance with the anti-Semites on the secular political Right? Conversely, how could Jews fail to conclude that casting their lot with Roosevelt was in their best interests, when the “Jew Deal” had become the prime target of anti-Semitic agitation?
The popularity of FDR because of his New Deal initiatives during a time of great economic hardship for Jews, as well as for his role in the defeat of Hitler, carries over to today (in much the same way that LBJ’s work towards civil rights is a great factor in explaining why African-Americans today are nearly unanimously Democratic voters.)
Podhoretz goes on to argue, however, that there was a “reversal of roles between Left and Right on issues of Jewish interest,” especially in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. From that point forward, the Left’s anti-Semitism became increasingly evident, usually disguised as criticism of Israel. Adding to this, of course, was the even more blatant anti-Semitism of the so-called Black Power Movement of the same period, which was born during the same era, due, in large degree, to “the canard [circulated by the Left] that the legitimate demands of oppressed Blacks were being blocked by a gang of racist Jews”.
Podhoretz concludes by arguing that Liberalism was replacing Judaism among Jews. He writes “that what [the Jews] were doing was converting to a new religion in which Marx’s Capital became an ‘a new kind of Torah’. To this new ‘Torah’ they grew as stubbornly attached-both out of conviction and as a matter of honor-as their fathers and grandfathers has been to the Torah of Judaism itself”
Most puzzling to me, as a non-Jew, is the premise that the Right – despite its clear history of anti-Semitism – was ever perceived as any more anti-Semitic than the Left, which I would argue had an equally clear history of anti-Semitism long before 1967. After all, was there anyone on the Right as clearly anti-Semitic as Hitler (whom Podhoretz argues was of the Right – an assertion I soundly reject) or Karl Marx, who attacked his foes with phrases like “dirty Jews” or “niggerlike Jews?” And was not the KKK – who tortured Jews as well as Blacks – Democrats? In fact, I believe that because the Left is by its nature anti-capitalistic, and because Jews have long been burdened with the stereotype of being the “money-lenders,” or the personification of the demonizations the Left puts upon capitalism and capitalists, that anti-Semitism has always been endemic to the Left.
I do not feel that Podhoretz fully addresses the problems of pre-1967 anti-Semitism on the Left. However, neither does the American Jewish population, as a whole; just as they do not address the problems of post-1967 anti-Semitism. There does seem to be a disconnect between Jewish perception of the Right and reality. And judging by President Obama’s approval rating among Jews, which currently stands at 64%, this disconnect and its corresponding allegiance to the Left, shows no sign of abating.
–DK
Check out our newest podcast, hot off the presses from last night’s upsets in VA and NJ!
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Obama Administration does not like Fox News. Why would it? Fox 
has aired more anti-Obama commentary and negative news reporting — and probably exponentially so — than every other network combined. Two of the three biggest stars and loudest voices on Fox – Hannity and Beck – have both been relentless in their attacks on Obama; one calling him a “socialist” and the other even calling him a “racist” at one point. Even its news anchors have a reputation of asking questions laced with conservative criticisms, especially in comparison to questions that would be asked by, say, a NY Times reporter. So, I cannot be too critical of Obama for not wanting to be friendly with them. No president, Republican or Democrat, would eagerly embrace any organization that appears so openly hostile to his or her agenda.
I am critical, however, of some of the recent declarations against Fox that it is not, because of its bias, “a legitimate news source”, and therefore unworthy of being treated as such. Granting, for the sake of argument, that Fox does, indeed, have a right-wing bias, and is not “fair and balanced” as it proclaims itself to be, such a bias should not dismiss it as a legitimate news source. Fox may make errors, as does every other news organization, and may downplay or omit certain stories that do not support its philosophy, as does every other news organization, but no one could rightfully argue that Fox fictionalizes its news a lá the Weekly World News. If it did, it would be easily dismissible and not subject to the level of consternation it has received from those who oppose it.
What news organization does not have some sort of bias in its reporting? CNN? Newsweek? MSNBC, maybe? The New York Times is regarded as a legitimate news organization, yet it has by its own admission, quashed coverage of the corrupt, and possibly illegal, connection between ACORN and the Obama campaign. The standard for being a legitimate news organization should be whether it reports news honestly, and accurately, regardless of what bias it displays. A news outlet does not have to fill its airwaves with reporters who feel a thrill run up their legs, or openly weep with joy at the election of President Obama, to meet that standard. Fox’s critics should be hesitant to throw such stones, due to the glass houses in which they, themselves, live.
It is then false for the Obama Administration to declare Fox as illegitimate. It is also suicidal for the American people to allow them to do so. Recent observations of governments declaring what is, and what is not, “legitimate” all point to the potential dangers to free speech that follow. In Russia, for example, the press, according to the Washington Post, “is a handpicked group of reporters, most of whom work for the state and the rest selected for their fidelity to the Kremlin’s rules of the game. Helpful questions are often planted. Unwelcome questions are not allowed. And anyone who gets out of line can get out of the pool.” Similarly, during a recent pool interview with Pay Czar Feinberg, the White House attempted to declare that all but Fox could have the right to ask questions of him. And this administration seems to make far more frequent use of the ‘planted helpful question’ than most administrations in the past. Is this what we want for our country? Kremlin-style journalism? Or take Venezuela, where Hugo Chavez recently began closing radio stations for failing to be in compliance with that country’s version of the Fairness Doctrine. If we allow government to attack private news organizations in such a way, how long before news organizations generally uncritical, but perhaps not uncritical enough of Obama, or news organizations who are critical of Obama from the Left instead of from the Right, such as those who oppose his position on Afghanistan or gay marriage, become subject to the same treatment?
Yet there are some outside of the Obama White House who are so sympathetic to the White House that they support Obama’s attack on a news organization simply because that news organization does not share in their support of the White House, regardless of the potential consequences of such an attack. One, Jacob Weisberg, writing in Newsweek, even declared Fox News “un-American,” not for trading with the terror-sponsoring Iran, like MSNBC’s parent company GE, but for its anti-Obama bias. Such a charge is stunning in its ignorance of both American history, and the relationship American presidents have always had with the press. It is almost as if Mr. Weisberg thinks attacking the president in the press is a new thing. Look at the criticism our two greatest presidents have had to endure during their administration, which, by the way, make the criticism thrown at President Obama seem relatively mild.
As the blog Mr. Snitch once wrote, “Lincoln was called just about every name imaginable in the press of his day, including: A ‘grotesque baboon’, a ‘third-rate country lawyer who once split rails and now splits the Union’, a ‘coarse, vulgar joker’, a dictator, an ape, and a buffoon. The Illinois State Register [published in his adopted home state] labeled him “the craftiest and most dishonest politician that ever disgraced an [American political] office.” Highly regarded 18th century journalist Benjamin Franklin Bache wrote, as reported in infoplease.com, that George Washington was “treacherous,” “mischievous,” “inefficient;” and complained that his “farce of disinterestedness,” his “stately journeyings through the American continent in search of personal incense,” his “ostentatious professions of piety,” his “pusillanimous neglect,” his “little passions,” his “ingratitude,” his “want of merit,” his “insignificance,” and his “spurious fame.”
Clearly then, criticism of presidents by journalists have been a part of American history since our country’s inception. Although journalists have been punished, here and there, for their attacks, history has also shown us that the general consensus is that attacks on the President are endurable by the nation, and by the president. Further, that the consequence of attempting the alternative of suppressing the voice of the press is far worse. A journalist attacking the president is not “un-American.” A president attempting to suppress the journalist’s right to do so, clearly, is.
So, then, why is Obama doing it? At first blush, the attacks on Fox seem to be Chicago-style retribution on a critic. However, a further look reveals that there is much more to it than that. It is not Fox News’ right-wing commentary, or slant on the news that bothers Obama so much. It is Fox’s actual news reporting that has made it such an enemy to the White House.
Obama,, in my opinion could not care less about a Beck or Hannity screaming in front of the camera about what an awful president he is. He surely knows that this comes with the territory. He will have supporters, and he will have detractors, the same as any president. However, along with their commentary, Beck and Hannity have an annoying habit of supporting their arguments with actual facts and news reporting. It is Fox News’ reporting – not its commentary – that revealed that Van Jones is a communist, that Anita Dunn is a Maoist, that Kevin Jennings is a NAMBLA-sympathizer, that Mark Lloyd is an Hugo Chavez admirer, and so on. It is Fox News’ reporting – with the help of that infamous pimp video shown repeatedly – that revealed that ACORN is a criminal enterprise. It is not how their commentators feel about the Obama Administration; it is how Fox News’ reporting is affecting how the American public is feeling about the Obama Administration.
The tipping point for the Obama Administration came in a September 26, 2009 column by New York Times ombudsman, Clark Hoyt, called “Tuning In Too Late” in which he wrote, “Jill Abramson, the Managing Editor for news, agreed with me that the paper was “slow off the mark,” and blamed “insufficient tuned-in-ness to the issues that are dominating Fox News and talk radio.” She and Bill Keller, the Executive Editor, said last week that they would now assign an editor to monitor opinion media and brief them frequently on bubbling controversies.” The Obama White House’s heart must have stopped when these words were read, because it meant the controversies surrounding them would no longer be confined to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, conservative blogs, or books written by Michelle Malkin. Soon, stories such as the Van Jones story, would no longer be marginalized but rather become part of the mainstream press. It is one thing for Beck to speak about Obama’s ties to ACORN, the SEIU, Soros, and other left-wing organizations. It is quite another for these stories to be on the cover of Time magazine. Heck, even Newsweek mentioned acorn once. True, they were talking about the kind that fell from trees, but still…close enough!
It is this fear of mainstream exposure that compelled David Axelrod to go on television and say to ABC that Fox News is “not really news … [and]… other news organizations, like yours, ought not to treat them that way”. After all, Axelrod must have been thinking, who wants Fox, with its impressive history of revealing too many things that the Obama White House does not want to be revealed, getting treated like a the legitimate news organization that it is?
–DK
Anita MonCrief is the courageous woman who came forward to expose the corruption at ACORN. She paved the way for James O’Keefe & Hannah Giles, and others who are now coming forward with their tales regarding this organization.
However, Anita’s courage incurred the wrath of ACORN, and she is being sued for her statements. Today, Anita unveiled her Legal Defense Fund: Fight For Anita. The site offers a newsletter, banners and graphics to place on your website or blog, as well as specific ways to get involved, the primary way, of course, being to donate to the cause yourself!
Please place this information on your blog and/or Facebook page. On Twitter, please tweet, re-tweet and use hashtag #FightForAnita.
We must help preserve our First Amendment right to free speech, as well as the integrity of the process by which individuals with information about alleged corruption may come forward for the greater good. Fight For Anita!
It is hard to measure the impact Michelle Malkin has had on the world of Internet political investigative journalism. She is not only the founder of her own site, michellemalkin.com, as well as the invaluable hotair.com site, but she has also been the inspiration of countless of other political sites. It is difficult to imagine that there would be a Newsmax, or a Smart Girl Politics, or even an African-American Conservatives, without the trailblazing of Ms. Malkin. She is to political blogging what Rush Limbaugh is to talk radio, and what William F. Buckley is to punditry. We are all in her debt.
Malkin continues to demonstrate her gift of investigative journalism with an exhaustively researched Culture of Corruption, in which she juxtaposes the “Hope and Change” message of President Obama with his actions and the actions of those he has chosen to surround himself with as president.
On czars she writes: “Moreover, in a grand end-run around the public confirmation process, President Obama created a “historic” and “unprecedented” number of “czar” appointments through executive orders – essentially creating a shadow cabinet of secretaries overseeing every aspect of domestic policy with unchecked powers beyond congressional reach.”
On Biden she illustrates how “while Biden boasts of being on the Senate’s least wealthy members, he has profited mightily from the perks of entrenched incumbency – earmarks, sweetheart real estate deals, and lucrative positions for his children.”
Even Michelle Obama is exposed for being a hypocrite, as someone who profited well from the Chicago patronage culture, compassionless health care system, and “the evil lure of corporate America” that she so condemns in her public speeches.
Malkin also brings to light the troubling history of Eric Holder, the SEIU, ACORN, the Clintons, and many other figures in the Obama Universe – both major and minor.
I would have liked to have seen more attention paid to both Valerie Jarrett and George Soros, who, as Obama’s most trusted advisor, and primary source of funds, respectively, deserve much more scrutiny than received in this book. Perhaps this will be forthcoming it later editions. Michelle Malkin makes clear in the interview she granted to our site that she considers Culture of Corruption to be a work in progress.
Others might have liked to have seen more of a right-wing attack on Obama. But I don’t see this as a “Conservative” book per se. True, there are numerous examples of Ms. Malkin wearing her conservatism on her sleeve throughout the book; but at heart she is not a Conservative pundit, philosopher, nor a political partisan. She is not Mark Levin railing against the statists or Ann Coulter explaining how if Democrats had brains, they’d be Republicans.
At heart, Michelle Malkin is a reporter, reporting what the mainstream media often will not. She lays out the facts for the reader; leaving it up to us to draw our own conclusions as to what significance this culture of corruption has on the country, and on our own lives.
–DK
The most ironic and frustrating aspect of health care reform is the controversy surrounding it. On the face of it, health care reform should be easy. Every American believes in health care reform. Each of us could benefit from it. All of us want it. Yet the proposals put forth by this government have set off the most heated debate since the worst point of the Iraqi War.
It is remarkable that attempting to resolve a problem that Americans want resolved should produce such rancor. And yet it has, and it is because Americans know instinctively that the solutions proposed do not treat the problem, which we agree should be treated, and know should be easily treatable, but rather create worse problems. The majority of us, despite our desire for healthcare reform, see what is coming out of Washington as something that should be facing a death panel.
One does not have to be an expert on health insurance, economics, or government to realize this. One does not need a medical degree to know that when a patient goes to see a doctor with a bloody nose, and the doctor proposes leg amputation, something is wrong. And this is where we find ourselves now. Government is like the doctor in the example used by our president, who described how patients with sore throats are getting tonsillectomies because the doctor has an ulterior motive. Instead of treating the sore throat, we find ourselves being prepped for surgery which may bankrupt us and may not treat our problem. Instead of treating the problems of our current health care system, which are availability and affordability, we are finding ourselves being offered a mandatory, government-run health insurance system.
We know such a draconian solution is not necessary. We know, for example, that despite the screaming of the liberal politicians, the health care system is not “broken.” Most of us are insured and relatively happy with our insurance. Furthermore, we know our health care is the best, or among the best, in the world. We have the best doctors, we have the best hospitals, we have the best drugs and the best medical equipment, and, as a result, as the CDC just reported, our life expectancy continues to climb to all-time highs.
So, then, our health care system does not require surgery. It does not have to be decimated, but rather tweaked. Below are five very simple solutions, all of which are already on the table, which could easily increase availability and affordability, which is all we really want.
1. Allow national portability in buying health insurance: If I needed a mortgage, and I was limited to New Jersey banks, the best offer I may be able to find is a rate of 10%. If I was as restricted in obtaining a mortgage as I am in buying health insurance, I would have to take the 10% rate. Instead I can go on the Internet and find a much better rate. Perhaps there is a bank in Wyoming that would be willing to offer me a rate of 5%. Not only would that save me money, it would eventually force the banks of my state to offer a more competitive rate. Yet our Congress, even those who say that we need a government-option because, despite there being over 1,300 health insurance providers in this country, there is not enough competition in the health insurance market because some in certain areas may only have access to one or two, finding themselves limited to an uncompetitive rate, do not want to make national portability available to us.
2. Institute tort reform: Critics of tort reform argue that medical malpractice damage awards are only one or two percent of what Americans spend on healthcare, but given that Americans spend $2.5 trillion a year on health costs, one or two percent is a significant number. Furthermore, in order to protect themselves from those medical malpractice damage awards, doctors must buy very expensive medical malpractice insurance. This restricts the number of doctors available (especially considering how many doctors relocate from high insurance rate states and avoid specialties like obstetrics that have a higher malpractice insurance premium), restricts the number of services doctors offer, and results in many expensive tests performed on us for no other reason than to protect the doctor from malpractice liability. Also, some economists estimate that the high cost of malpractice insurance – as much as $200,000 a year in premiums, depending on the doctor’s specialty and location – gets passed on to the patient. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, an economist and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, estimates that “an average of ten cents out of every dollar you pay goes to the malpractice insurance doctors must have to protect themselves in case a patient sues them.” Again, considering that we spend $2.5 trillion of annually on healthcare, “ten cents out of every dollar,” is a very significant amount of money.
3. Fight medical fraud: The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association estimates that the cost of fraudulent and overpriced claims may be as much as $240 billion in 2008 alone. Other reports say the cost of medical fraud ranges anywhere from $60 billion a year to $600 billion a year. Unfortunately, much of the FBI taskforce created to fight medical fraud has been taken off that mission to engage in anti-terrorism activity. We clearly need more resources dedicated to fighting fraud, yet year after year something gets proposed – this year for example President Obama proposed a Department of Justice/Health and Human Services taskforce to fight fraud – and year after year, nothing gets done.
4. Require all Americans to have some form of health insurance: According to the Congressional Budget Office, “Most of the uninsured are young and in good health … roughly 60% are under the age of 35, and fully 86% report that they are in good or excellent health.” According to a study by Mark Pauly of the University of Pennsylvania and Kate Bundorf of Stanford, “nearly three-quarters of the uninsured could afford coverage but chose not to purchase it.”
These people, who are either too cheap, or feeling too invulnerable because of their youth, are hurting us in two ways. One is because the larger the pool of insured an insurance company has, the lower their risks will be and the lower they can charge for premiums. Secondly, when one of these people do get sick or get into an accident, they must seek emergency room treatment, which transfers an enormous cost to us the taxpayer. According to the California Health Care Association, “Providing uncompensated care to the 7 million uninsured Californians only adds to the relentless and increasing financial pressures on hospitals. In 2003 alone, California hospitals provided more than $5 billion in uncompensated care (adjusted for cost) to low-income and uninsured patients.” This cost gets passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher insurance premiums, as well as giving us access to fewer emergency rooms (as many who are unable to continue to shoulder these costs simply close) and more crowded emergency rooms which results in us having longer waits for and a lower quality of emergency room medical treatment.
I would also require insurance companies to accept those of us with preexisting conditions. Of course this will be a tremendous short-term burden for insurance companies, but it is short-term, and it will be offset by the benefit of having millions of people being forced to buy insurance. Furthermore, if the government is going to mandate XYZ Insurance Company to provide insurance to someone with, say, terminal cancer, then XYZ should be compensated in the form of a tax credit to do so.
5. Encourage the creation of Health Savings Accounts for those who have been means tested and found to be unable to afford health insurance: Let’s say we take the 47 million we are told we are leaving uninsured, and subtract from that the number who are either not citizens or could afford health insurance – that leaves us with 20 million people (out of a nation of 300 million) who cannot afford health insurance. Let’s estimate that the average cost of health insurance is about $4,000 a year, which is high as an estimate, but let’s go with this. Therefore, creating these health saving accounts will cost the taxpayer about $80 billion dollars a year. Or, as I’ve pointed out, about a third of what the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association says we spend on medical fraud. If you take into account savings we will create with the national portability, tort reform, medical fraud reform, and the millions of people added to the insurance pool, the cost should be far less than $4,000 annually for health insurance premiums. So let’s say $2,500 per individual put into HSAs for the poorest among us – that would be a cost $50 billion. And the owners of these accounts will be free to choose any insurance company they like.
And…voilá! Just using five simple measures – all of which are already on the table, some of which have been on the table for decades now, some already put forth as legislation in Congress by Republicans and Democrats – we have healthcare reform. Health insurance would be dramatically less expensive and more available, and it would be done at worst in a deficit-neutral way and perhaps could even decrease the deficit. And it didn’t take a 1,300 page bill for a bureaucracy that would intrude into our personal lives, or bankrupt the nation.
–DK
