Special Election Coverage: An Answer to Gus

Ladies and gentlemen,

It's not election Thursday, but we've had a lively debate going on between me, the Fly, and my best friend, Gus, in the comments section to the Election Thursday post. Last night, I posted a response that HaloScan was apparently too busy to post all of. Wankers. At any rate, I'm reproducing that comment as a regular post, and we will continue accordingly. I haven't bothered to actually put links in here, but if anyone's curious on specifics, either comment or E-Mail your specific queston and I'll respond

Very Respectfully,
The Fly

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Gus,

1. Gus: "Obama is only planning to let the tax rate revert to what it was before Bush's cuts, which amounts to 3 and 4.5% more on the top two brackets, respectively."

First, I don't think your figures are wholly accurate, but I don't have the numbers in front of me. The point I would make in response to this is that when President Bush enacted those tax cuts, two things skyrocketed: the American economy in general, and federal tax revenues in particular. That's right, cutting taxes increased tax revenue - I'm not making this up. If these things hadn't happened, we would have likely stayed in the situation that President Bush inherited from President Clinton: a recession that followed the burst of the Dot-Com bubble. If we go back to these levels, we can expect, at the very least, that the economy under an Obama administration would be less prosperous than the first six years of the Bush Administration.

Also, there's a difference between a "loophole" and a "giveaway", no matter which perspective you're from. Save for jealousy, I have no reason why anyone should be jealous of someone exploiting a tax loophole - that money is theirs to begin with, and I think that we can all agree that the government takes too much of our money - not the government's money, our money, because the government doesn't generate wealth. The specifics of Senator Obama's tax plan are true giveaways because they call for extensive "tax rebates" for people who already don't pay taxes. That's not a tax refund - it can't be, because those people aren't paying taxes. Neither is it a tax break or a tax incentive. It's wealth redistribution. In some cases, you're right that it's a matter of perspective. When you're taxing the most productive parts of society, which already pay more than their fair share due to the asinine tax bracketing system, and you use that money to redistribute wealth to those who are unproductive and don't pay taxes, you'd better believe that it kills profit motive.

Want to know a perfect example of this? In situations where government/socialized health care is expanded to include children who were ineligible before, parents will actually stop paying for their kids health care because there's no point in doing it if the poor schmuck taxpayers will pay it for you. As a result, costs increase, and more people are suckling at the government teat. This is a different side of that same coin, and you and I both know from history that when programs like those that Senator Obama has proposed (and would be able to pass with a friendly majority in Congress) are enacted, people either get lazy or figure out how to cheat, while others get lazy to avoid being the schmuck who's forced to pay more for some other freeloader.

I'm all for civic duty. If the government took less of my money every two weeks, I'd be in a far better position to practice it through churches and charities, which is where the real obligation belongs. It's part of the concept of freedom: letting me keep more of my money, instead of redistributing it to causes I disagree with, allows me to donate to those causes which I see fit to support.

Also, I think you'd be surprised how many people make $250k per year (or in many cases, $125k per year for singles, as $250k is Obama's mark for married couples and small businesses). I think you'd also be surprised not only at how much of the national tax burden is borne by people making at or above $250k, but also with the number of people who were taken off the tax rolls altogether as a result of the Bush tax cuts.

(You said "agree to disagree" and "last point", but if you want the last word, I'll give it.)

2. I'm not sold on a straight flat tax myself, but I think that it would be far simpler and far more equitable than the current system - my opinion is that the current system is infamous not for the amount of loopholes and tax breaks it has, but for the amount of opportunities it opens up for the government to screw you out of your money through complex and unnecessary regulations and caveats. You may or may not remember that during the primary season, Governor Huckabee was advocating the "fair tax", which is sort of like a flat tax, but serves as sort of a national sales tax. The benefit of the fair tax is that it acts as a tax on consumption, not on income; and that certain products like food would be exempted. Either way, a fair tax or a flat tax would be far more equitable, simple, and reasonable than the current federal tax system. I hope that whoever invented the tax bracket is being gang-raped by overweight former jihadi suicide bombers in Hell right now. At its core, though, I don't disagree with you - there's a lot to consider, and all I really know is that pretty much anything is better than what we've got now.

3. With respect to fairness with gaffes, one more point I'd make is that while each side has gaffes, my feeling - accurate or not, my feeling, but I think it has some merit - is that part of what makes Senator Biden's gaffes so much more interesting and questionable is that they seem to serve as an indication of what he's really thinking, as if what I perceive to be his outright lies are sometimes interrupted when his real ideas escape the filtration process. However, point taken.

4. I'm not sure that I agree that the "percentages are skewed towards McCain" with respect to questionable fundraising. All accounts are that because of his career-long refusal to seek earmarks (and the fact that he killed that bogus Air Force tanker program - ouch!), he's basically a lobbyists' worst enemy. I'll agree that he received some questionable donations - sometimes hard to track on a person-by-person basis, so I'm sure some of that goes with the Obama campaign as well. However, with respect to widespread fraudulent donation attributions, the ball is firmly in Obama's court. In addition, my understanding is that he may have actually received (or at least, someone tried to send) donations collected by groups like Hamas. I think that in the interest of fairness, both candidates' campaigns ought to be audited by an independent investigation; but in Obama's case, I think there's far more necessity to do so due to indications of both fraud and questionable foreign contributions to his campaign. (If I remember correctly, it's illegal for a candidate to accept donations from foreign sources.)

5. I'm going to have to agree to disagree with you on point five. I think that the various aspects of Senator McCain's experience are undisputed, and will admit that his experience running finances and in administration stopped with his Navy command, although he has chaired the Senate Commerce Committee - basically, I think he has experience in most or all pertinent areas, but his large scale exeutive/administrative and financial management credentials are admittedly soft. Governor Palin's tenure in state-wide government has been somewhat brief, but I feel that she's accomplished a great deal during that time, and similar accomplishments and success can be observed from her time as Wasilla mayor. Little if any foreign policy experience, but as we discussed last night, impressive executive, administrative, and fiscal experience despite her somewhat abbreviated political career.

I don't see that at all with Senators Obama and Biden, and I don't think I'm playing a double standard or trying to have it both ways on this. In fact, I've actually asked several friends who are committed Obama voters to explain to me what it is that qualifies this guy for the presidency, and none of them have produced anything of any substance whatsoever despite repeated attempts to ask them about it. My understanding of Senator Obama's career is that he was an unremarkable high school student, he went to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard Law. Not to overstate on the race issue (because I think it's almost wholly irrelevant), but I understand that Obama himself has acknowledged that he benefited from affirmative action, even though none of his ancestors were ever slaves and by all accounts he encountered little if any racism growing up. Between Columbia and Harvard, his first "real job" was as a "community organizer", which basically translated to Democratic party recruiter, and part of his job actually included pressuring banks to make sub-prime loans. I'm not going to bother looking for the quote unless you specifically ask me to, but I've heard the quote from his community organizer boss several times saying that during this three years, people liked him, but he didn't really accomplish anything, and the community he was organizing saw no real benefit. So at this point, we've got a guy with a B.A. in Political Science from Columbia who spent three result-free years as a community organizer in Chicago.

From there, he went to Harvard Law School - I won't knock it, it's something I'll never do, but I also don't feel that it gives someone a special qualification to be president. He did fine, got good grades, was elected as editor of the Harvard Law Review - great. He does summer associate work for a couple of Chicago law firms, gets a job at a civil rights law firm and as an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School with the understanding that his job there is really to facilitate his intent to write a book and get involved in Chicago politics. During this time, he attends a radical church that claims that Jesus was black, allegiance should be pledged to Africa, that the United States is evil, that Hamas should triumph over the Zionist invaders, and that the American government invented AIDS and crack to keep the black community down - later, he'll claim that he never had any idea of this extremism, despite the fact that Jeremiah Wright is on record saying these things in numerous recordings, Obama describes Wright as his "spiritual mentor", Wright married the Obamas and baptized their children, Obama's second book (also allegedly ghost-written by Bill Ayers) takes its title from one of Wright's sermons, and I think there's some more.

So, after sort of teaching at the University of Chicago, working for a civil rights law firm, possibly writing a book (during which time he and Michelle spent months in Bali on the publisher's dime), he does two things. First, he gets involved in a couple of radical "education reform" groups with ultra-radical Chicago "professor" Bill Ayers (best known for his involvement in the Weather Underground terrorist group during the Vietnam War, best known for bombing federal buildings - Ayers is quoted in 2001, right after 9/11, as being unrepentant for these actions). The groups essentially involve soliciting money, and then using that money to indoctrinate Chicago students with far-left curriculum. Obama will later claim that Ayers was "just a guy who lived in my neighborhood", that Ayers "did those things when I was eight years old", and that Ayers is "just a college English professor". However, the truth is that Obama's political career was launched in Bill Ayers' living room at a reception that preceded Obama's candidacy for the Illinois state senate; and although Ayers may have participated in the bombings during the Vietnam War, he went on the record as being unrepentant in 2001, while Obama was in the Illinois state senate. So, not only does Obama have very close associations with radicals like Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, but he's either A) oblivious to their radicalism, or more likely, B) willing to lie about his cognizance for political expedience. Second, and more prominently, he gets involved in Chicago politics.

In 1996, Obama is elected to the Illinois state senate. Normally a difficult and hard-fought process, Obama accomplishes this when the notorious Chicago Democrat political machine uses electoral trickery and bullying to knock every one of Obama's opponents out of the race, allowing Obama to run uncontested - likely with the campaign slogan, "When there's only one candidate, there's only one choice!" As a state senator, Obama represents south side Chicago, one of the most liberal districts in Illinois. His politics are totally representative of his district. When he's not voting "present", as opposed to the standard "yea" or "nay", his political positions are radical - to include the most radically barbaric pro-abortion legislation possible. When challenged on his support for such unnecessarily loose stance on abortion, Obama answers that he voted for it because he felt that voting against it would "undermine Roe v. Wade", as if a state law can trump a US Supreme Court decision - maybe he should turn in his law degree. The reason that this is important is that Obama's big line is that his support for abortion revolves around the "health of the mother" - this is a lie, because he's supported such loose abortion laws that issues like the health of the mother, rape, incest, and other such reasonable justifications for abortion are irrelevant. He paints himself as a supporter of abortion under only reasonable circumstances, but he actually supports abortion under all circumstances, regardless of the actual conditions.

At any rate, during this time, he fails to author any noteworthy legislation. In 2002, he gives a speech which he now terms "politically courageous" in which he goes on record opposing the Iraq War. In reality, he was taking the standard liberal position (remember all of the protestors on campus in '02/'03?) as one of the most liberal state senators in one of the most liberal towns in a solidly blue state. There was nothing courageous about it at all - it was wholly unremarkable, save for his excellent skills at delivering a speech (as long as there's a manuscript or a teleprompter in front of him - without one, and specifically when answering challenging questions, Obama's oratorical skills fold like a cheap card table).

In 2004, Obama seizes an opportunity opened up by turmoil on the Republican side of the US Senate race in Illinois, and runs. Republican candidate Jack Ryan is disgraced when his divorce records are made public, and he has to drop out of the race. Obama runs unopposed during most of the general election sequence before the Republicans throw up a Hail Mary with the eleventh hour substitution of perpetual embarrassment and all-around stooge Alan Keyes, who would go on to cement his legacy in American politics by being one of only two American politicians stupid enough to be interviewed by Borat for the 2006 film. Obama gets something on the order of double the votes that Keyes is able to pull in, and in another (essentially) uncontested election, Obama finds himself in the United States Senate.

Obama's US Senate tenure is every bit as mediocre as his Illinois state senate career. He authors no legislation, and he fails to hold even a single hearing of his sub-committee on European Affairs. At one point, he gives a speech on religion in which he, a "Christian", basically dismisses the entire Bible and compares James Dobson to Al Sharpton. Although he co-sponsors a handful of high profile bills on non-partisan initiatives with some prominent Senate Republicans, his actual record is rated the most liberal in the Senate by the non-partisan National Journal magazine. Obama is asked shortly after taking office whether he'll run for president in 2008, and he responds that he won't, because he's only been in the Senate for a few days at this point, and to run for president would require him to start running almost immediately, without any real Senate experience. Contrary to his word, he officially launches his presidential campaign in 2006, and the rest is history. I could go with more, but let's recap:

unremarkable high school student

good college student, good law student

three years as "community organizer" in which his own boss said that he didn't accomplish anything

mostly absent law instructor, mostly absent civil rights lawyer

very closely associated with radical preachers Jeremiah Wright and Michael Pfleger, unrepentant terrorist and radical education activist William Ayers, now-convicted felon Tony Rezko

uncontested election and mediocre tenure as Illinois state senator, highlight of which was a "courageous speech" that wasn't really courageous at all

uncontested election and mediocre tenure as US Senator from Illinois, highlight of which has been running for president

In addition to what I feel to be a fairly mediocre, and often troubling and radical personal and political history, the theme that I see in Obama's history is that he's essentially been given everything he has. I'll give him credit for graduating from Columbia and Harvard Law - two things I'll never do, and I'm sure that he studied hard - but even he says that affirmative action helped to get him in. There was no challenge for his Illinois state senate or US Senate seats: he's a far-left liberal black man running first in far-left liberal black South Chicago, and then against Alan Keyes for US Senate. I see no history of sacrifice, no history of challenges, nothing. I see a guy whose mother was a flake (for example, his time "on food stamps" occurred when his mother was going to school to get a PhD in Anthropology - great, but not what food stamps were intended for, and in that light, highly misleading for him to cite as evidence of his modest upbringing), but whose grandparents were very successful. Nothing in this sequence suggests to me that this man has done anything that warrants his election to the presidency; not to mention that most of his political positions echo those of Jimmy Carter, one of the two most failed presidents in American history. If you'll remember, at the end of Jimmy Carter's worthless presidency, the American economy was in shambles, there was an oil shortage due to the OPEC embargo that was Carter's fault in the first place; Carter's solution was to lower the speed limit, not to actually fix the cause of the problem. Carter was directly responsible for the collapse of a friendly and Westernized regime in Iran, to be replaced by the current radical Islamist dictatorship we know and loathe. The Soviet Union was winning the Cold War with a then-successful invasion of Afghanistan and robust assistance to Marxists in Central and South America - Carter's solution was to boycott the Olympics. Carter raised taxes, and the unemployment rate was the only thing that rose. Everything I learn about Obama suggests to me that he is Carter Redux, not Kennedy Redux. Obama wants to meet personally with dictators in his first year in office without preconditions. When he describes the crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan, his descriptions leave me wondering if he could even find them on a map. Am I missing something? If so, what?

And what about Joe Biden? He claims that he's a "blue collar", "lunch bucket" Democrat, but the very basis for his election to the Senate is bullshit. Far from being blue collar, his father was white collar management, and you can confirm this by looking up his father's obituary on the Internet. Biden went to Delaware's most expensive prep school, Archmere Academy, where he was a lousy student and spent most of his time playing football and basketball (this will come into play later). He then went to the University of Delaware, where he spent most of his time playing sports and socializing, and was just a few spots above having finished in the bottom quarter of his graduating class with a BA in history and political science - you and I were both history majors, so we both know how hard one must work to finish that low in the class rankings. From there, he went to Syracuse University College of law, where he not only admits to having underperformed, but was also disciplined for plagiarism - a bad habit that he would continue with well into his tenure in the US Senate.

Following graduation from law school, and five student draft deferments, he finally made his decisive escape from the threat of going to Vietnam by getting a medical waiver based on "childhood asthma" - the same childhood asthma that hadn't stopped him from being an athlete in high school and playing sports in college. With respect to his "blue collar" roots, Biden himself said that he didn't join the anti-war movement because he "wore sport coats, not tie-dye". I loathe Al Gore and John Kerry, and I think that John Kerry's exceptionally brief Vietnam service was a joke and a disgrace, but I'll at least give him credit for going. Biden couldn't even bring himself to salvage what little honor he had left and do what Dan Quayle and George W. Bush did by serving in the National Guard - hell, he could have been a JAG lawyer.

The closest thing that Biden has ever come to a real job came upon graduation from law school, when he practiced law for several years in Delaware. He didn't like corporate law, and criminal defense (a la Johnny Cochran?) didn't pay well enough, so he ran for city council and then, in 1972, he ran for US Senate. He was elected, even though he wasn't constitutionally eligible (too young) during the time in which he was running.

Now, the next item is a bit of a toss-up, but I think it's worth mentioning. Shortly before he was to take office, his family was in a horrible traffic accident. His wife and young daughter were killed, and both of his sons were severely injured. He considered resigning his Senate seat, but he was convinced by Democrat leaders not to do so, and was famously sworn in at his sons' bedside. Now, I understand better than most people that when your loved ones die, at some point life must go on; but to take a Senate seat and commute daily from Delaware to Washington while not one, but two of your sons are convalescing? That strikes me as remarkably poor judgment.

As a US Senator, Biden has been on the wrong side of numerous foreign policy issues. He opposed the now-crucial ballistic missile defense program, voted against the 1991 liberation of Kuwait, voted for the Iraq War (he considers it a mistake, I just consider it a vote in bad conscience for political expediency), and opposed the surge. He suggested before the surge that Iraq should be divided up into three pieces with a weak central government, apparently ignoring the fact that the three pieces would be dominated by their powerful regional neighbors (Turkey/Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia). Despite his "experience", he continues to be wrong on foreign policy well into recent history. Whereas Obama is rated as the most liberal Senator, Biden comes in at number three.

When he's not training his sophisticated palate to appreciate the subtle differences in various types of boot leather, Biden is also well-known for being one of the poorest members of the Senate. Despite his $300k+ per year salary, and having received the equivalent of the same (adjusted for inflation) since 1973, his personal assets are estimated at between $59k and $366k, with no outside income or investment income. With all of the self-made tycoons out there, as far as I'm concerned, this alleviates any obligation anyone may have felt to listen to him on fiscal and tax matters. He's also run two presidential campaigns, both of which failed abysmally due to a complete lack of political or financial traction. And yet, even though even the Democrats, his own party, didn't want him to be president in 2008 (his poll numbers never went above single digits), he's now supposed to be a good choice for VP, whose major job is taking over if the president dies?

Biden has excellent ratings from the ACLU, the NEA, and the AFL-CIO. He also has a history of voting for environmentally protectionist legislation, and he is against the privatization of Social Security.

So, to recap on Biden:

lies about working class roots, actually from a white collar family

shitty high school student, shitty college student, shitty law student - points to overall laziness

stayed in school and lied to get out of going to Vietnam, or even serving in the National Guard, even though his colleagues like John Kerry and Al Gore went

closest thing to a real job was a few years of practicing law in the late 1960's/early 1970's

elected to Senate in 1972, been there on the public dime ever since, has almost nothing financially to show for it

has a history of plagiarism, voting on the wrong side of history, firing off his mouth*

Now, in Senator Biden's defense, my understanding is that despite his intensely liberal voting record and views, he is apparently well-liked by most of his colleagues in the Senate on both sides of the aisle, to include Senator McCain.

So, in Joe Biden, we have experience and foreign policy expertise, if you call being on the wrong side of history with respect to numerous issues, having shitty personal finances, plagiarism, making shit up in debates and speeches, and a complete lack of a filter between his brain and his mouth "experience and foreign policy expertise". Am I missing something here? If I am, once again, please tell me.

Now, you implied that I'm trying to have it both ways, or live by a double standard. I don't think that's the case. I see a man in his late forties who has been handed much of his success in life, whose only real personal accomplishments are graduating from college and law school, and writing two autobiographies (if it was him who wrote them, and not his buddy Ayers as been alleged by some literary analysts who have compared the literary style of Obama's books to Ayers' book); and whose policies mirror those of failed president Jimmy Carter very closely. I see another man in his sixties who was lazy in high school, college, and law school; who didn't like actually practicing law so he ran for Senate; whose history in the Senate has produced few, if any, real accomplishments; no occasions in which he showed singular wisdom, vision, or leadership; and no personal wealth despite having been paid the equivalent of about $9.6M by the public treasury since 1973.

Compare that lack of experience (and again, correct me if I'm wrong) with Sarah Palin. She's run a successful business, run a small town, been the Oil and Gas Commissioner of an oil- and gas-producing state, and run that state. She's decisively ousted an incumbent governor in her own party, eliminated corruption in her own party, cut government waste, and actually administered something. Despite her relatively brief tenure, she has a list of impressive accomplishments, and she's been able to accomplish it with bi-partisan support by cooperating with political rivals and independents. Her parents weren't successful bank executives like Obama's grandmother, or white collar managers like Biden's dad; she didn't go to prep schools like Obama or Biden. She's gotten where she is with only three things: a solid family, hard work, and good old fashioned gumption, you betcha. I'm not saying she's perfect, and there are certainly areas where her experience and background are very thin (the big one being foreign policy). However, when you compare Sarah Palin's accomplishments in a short time to Obama and Biden's lack of real accomplishments during ten and thirty-two years in office respectively, I don't know how you can even compare.

So, to recap once again, we have:

McCain-Palin: McCain's military and foreign policy experience, economic experience on the Commerce Committee, and experience in Congress in which he's been on the right side of nearly every issue. Sarah Palin's business ownership experience, executive experience as a mayor and governor, energy expertise as Oil and Gas Commissioner, numerous accomplishments during her brief time in these roles.

Obama-Biden: No noteworthy accomplishments for Obama, save for being friends with radicals, winning uncontested elections, and writing two autobiographies. No noteworthy accomplishments for Biden in fiscal, domestic, social, or foreign policy despite thirty-two years of trying.

I don't think that's a double standard. Again, if I'm missing something, or you have some perspective that I ought to try and see, I'm open to it.

Also, I'd like to make one more point on this one. I know that I mentioned numerous times how liberal Barack Obama and Joe Biden are according to non-partisan analysts. I have plenty of friends who are either centrist, left-leaning centrist, or flat out liberal. I can work with, enjoy, and appreciate all of them. For me personally, "liberal" is a "soiled" (vice "dirty") word, but that's not the point of citing it. In the last several elections, the American people have been begging for candidates who can abandon partisanship and bickering, and come together for the common good of all Americans. The reason why the Obama-Biden ticket's partisanship is so troubling to me is that they have displayed no real willingness to compromise on divisive issues, which is what the American public so desperately wants and deserves.

During the Republican primary, the favorite to win was Mitt Romney, who commentators claimed was the "real conservative". Ron Paul, who's hyper-partisan (and bat shit crazy), was also able to do massive fundraising (lots of money in those neo-Nazi and 9/11 Truther groups, I guess!). Who won? Was it the guy with all the money, or the guy who was the most partisan? No: it was John McCain, the guy who the media had dismissed early on because his campaign nearly went broke. Why did he get the nomination? Among other reasons, it was because Republicans and independents liked that he had a long and proven record of accomplishing important things by working closely with political rivals, and doing so without compromising his conservative principles (unlike Romney, who flip-flopped on the abortion issue and ushered in a massive government entitlement program in Massachusetts). It demonstrated that the guy who could work with his opponents was a more desirable candidate than the ones who were the most partisan (like Paul or Tom Tancredo), or the one who spent the most money (like Romney).

Now, ask yourself: is there any evidence of this from Obama or Biden? Obama essentially got the nomination because nobody knew anything about him, and many voters were conflicted about Senator Clinton. Once people actually began to learn just how radical Obama was, they flocked to Clinton's campaign in droves, but by then it was too late. Senator Clinton won primary after primary, particularly in battleground states and districts, but between the Michigan and Florida fiascos, and Obama's early surge, it was impossible for her to recover. At any rate, the point is that Americans are desperate for someone who can unite us, the contested 2000 election prevented President Bush from accomplishing that, and now could be our opportunity. I don't see that potential for compromise, bi-partisanship, and cooperation from the most and third-most liberal senators in America.

6. No disagreement on the composition of the House of Representatives, or Joe Lieberman.

7. We agree on checks and balances, gun control, the composition of the House, and Joe Lieberman! That's progress!

8. I think it's Obama's to lose, too, but I still think he's still going to lose it. In 2000, the race was Gore's to lose, and he lost it, albeit narrowly and essentially by the Atomic Bomb of legal technicalities, the Electoral College. In 2004, it was John Kerry's to lose, and lose it spectacularly he did. All indications say that this should be a banner year for Democrats, but I think I see it slipping through their fingers like so many grains of sand. Interesting thing about the kids, though.

9. I had a Sam Adams Octoberfest, a gin and tonic, a California Chicken Burger, and I got to shut Police Fan out of horning in on a conversation he had no business horning in on. Game, set, match.

The Fly

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Well, at least I didn't have to write all of it from scratch. Have a great weekend, folks.

* I know what you're going to say. The difference is, I'm not running for public office.