Jonathan Chait should disqualify himself…

The New Neo Posted on by

…from ever writing about George Bush again. But instead he brings us this piece with the undeniably correct title, “Barack Obama is not George Bush.”

Well, of course not. Was there ever anyone who had a particle of doubt on that score? When I first glanced briefly at the title, not paying attention to who had written the article, I thought for a fleeting moment that the author meant that Obama was worse than Bush. Then I noticed who’d written it, and I realized that Chait must be very threatened by how far the mighty Obama has fallen to feel called upon to differentiate the two and state how much better Obama is than his altogether-blameworthy predecessor.

This tells you how bad it must be for Obama right now, because Chait is the guy who wrote the most famous, no-holds barred, unashamed, and unapologetic ode to Bush Derangement Syndrome I’ve ever read.

It was titled “Why I Hate George Bush”—you certainly can’t accuse Chait of coyness—and was published in the New Republic in September of 2003, over ten years ago. Chait began like this:

I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it. I think his policies rank him among the worst presidents in U.S. history. And, while I’m tempted to leave it at that, the truth is that I hate him for less substantive reasons, too. I hate the inequitable way he has come to his economic and political achievements and his utter lack of humility (disguised behind transparently false modesty) at having done so. His favorite answer to the question of nepotism–“I inherited half my father’s friends and all his enemies”–conveys the laughable implication that his birth bestowed more disadvantage than advantage. He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school–the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks–shoulders flexed, elbows splayed out from his sides like a teenage boy feigning machismo. I hate the way he talks–blustery self-assurance masked by a pseudopopulist twang. I even hate the things that everybody seems to like about him. I hate his lame nickname-bestowing– a way to establish one’s social superiority beneath a veneer of chumminess (does anybody give their boss a nickname without his consent?). And, while most people who meet Bush claim to like him, I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more.

Tell us how you really feel, Jonathan.

[NOTE: Notice also the personal, juvenile quality of Chait’s Bush-hatred. It’s meant to sound tongue-in-cheek, but at the same time it appears deeply felt and rooted (as Chait himself seems to suggest) in some sort of adolescent humiliation and envy.]

Federal judge bans Utah’s ban on gay marriage

The New Neo Posted on by

Those of you who read this blog regularly probably know that gay marriage, pro or con, is not my issue. My basic stance is that states should be allowed to decide for themselves, but that states which follow the traditional view of marriage as between a man and woman are being neither unconscionably discriminatory nor arbitrary.

Therefore yesterday when a federal judge struck down the clearly-expressed will of the people of Utah to defend a view of marriage that until a few short years ago was considered neither unconstitutional nor bigoted nor even controversial, I was troubled by the judiciary’s need to impose its own view on the people of the state (and for those who would compare this to courts striking down anti-miscegenation laws, I’ve already pointed out the large differences between the two in this lengthy article).

Part of yesterday’s ruling:

The state’s current laws deny its gay and lesbian citizens their fundamental right to marry and, in so doing, demean the dignity of these same-sex couples for no rational reason,” wrote U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby in the 53-page decision. “Accordingly, the court finds that these laws are unconstitutional.”

There are many rational reasons to deny this right, although Judge Shelby may not think they’re rational, nor share them. What’s more (as the Utah Attorney General pointed out), no 10th Circuit court has ever established marriage as a “fundamental right.” The people of Utah certainly don’t think so, nor do the last couple of thousand years of fundamental Judeo-Christian ethics, law, and belief.

But isn’t that what this is all about? The trend—whether it be an act as extra-judicial as A&E’s firing Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson for remarks that reflected centuries of Biblical beliefs about homosexuality, or the very-judicial action of Judge Shelby to overrule a popularly-passed law in Utah that affirmed the traditional view of marriage—is to relabel these ideas as unconscionable and unacceptable bigotry. This trend disturbs me far more than either Robertson’s remarks, Utah’s gay marriage ban, other states’ legalization of gay marriage, or gay marriage itself.

[ADDENDUM: I have to mention this excellent Mark Steyn column on the Robertson flap, which includes the following joke Bob Hope made in 1975: “I’ve just flown in from California, where they’ve made homosexuality legal. I thought I’d get out before they make it compulsory.”

Hmmmm. Do you think that, if the folks in California get wind of that one, they’ll petition to rename Bob Hope Airport in Burbank after someone else?]

Obama’s half-brother

The New Neo Posted on by

I remember writing about this half-brother of Obama’s a while back. He seemed to be a really decent, straight-up kind of guy—not narcissistic, very different from his brother. Also very smart; a degree in physics from Brown and a Master’s in physics from Stanford.

He didn’t know Obama before the president became famous. His mother was Obama Senior’s third wife, and Ndesandjo grew up in Kenya. Now he’s written a book, and he’s got some interesting things to say while pitching it:

“Barack thought I was too white and I thought he was too black,” Ndesandjo said. “He was an American searching for his African roots, I was a Kenyan, I’m an American but I was living in Kenya, searching for my white roots.”…The 500-page book includes an appendix listing a number of alleged factual errors in Obama’s 1995 memoir, “Dreams from my Father,” such as quotes incorrectly attributed to Ndesandjo’s mother.

“It’s a correction. A lot of the stuff that Barack wrote is wrong in that book and I can understand that because to me for him the book was a tool for fashioning an identity and he was using composites,” Ndesandjo said.

“A tool”—yes. And this especially caught my eye:

When asked how he would describe his relationship with his brother, he said, “Right now it’s cold and I think part of the reason is because of my writing. My writing has alienated some people in my family.”

I can tell you one thing: in any discrepancy between what Obama wrote and what Ndesandjo wrote, my money would be on Ndesandjo.

Yes, let’s

The New Neo Posted on by

The title of Paul Mirengoff’s post on Obama’s announcement of the mandate waiver for those whose policies were cancelled due to Obamacare is “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”

Mirengoff is talking about the mandate, and probably about Obamacare too. I couldn’t be more in agreement about that last.

But the title of his post put me in mind of more pleasant things. One of my favorite movie scenes:

Both were Republicans, by the way.

Now Obama does an Emily Litella around the individual mandate…

The New Neo Posted on by

…for people whose policies were cancelled due to Obamacare:

Some insightful commentary (and no, that “insightful” part is not sarcastic) by Ezra Klein, who seems bewildered:

Today, the Obama administration announced that people whose insurance plans were canceled this year will “temporarily” be exempted from the law’s individual mandate…

…[T]his puts the administration on some very difficult-to-defend ground. Normally, the individual mandate applies to anyone who can purchase qualifying insurance for less than 8 percent of their income. Either that threshold is right or it’s wrong. But it’s hard to argue that it’s right for the currently uninsured but wrong for people whose plans were canceled.

…Put more simply, Republicans will immediately begin calling for the uninsured to get this same exemption. What will the Obama administration say in response? Why are people who plans were canceled more deserving of help than people who couldn’t afford a plan in the first place?

…The same goes for the cheap catastrophic plans sold to customers under age 30 in the exchanges. A 45-year-old whose plan just got canceled can now purchase catastrophic coverage. A 45-year-old who didn’t have insurance at all can’t. Why don’t people who couldn’t afford a plan in the first place deserve the same kind of help as people whose plans were canceled?

Those are questions along the line of what I asked yesterday. Why, indeed? Because, that’s why. Because some animals are more equal than others.

The old inequities of the health insurance system were logical consequences of how insurance works as a business in terms of managing risk. They were not arbitrary discrimination, they reflected logical and unavoidable differences that are inherent in insurance and risk pools. The inequalities and waivers of Obamacare are government-sanctioned and politically-motivated creations of favored and unfavored classes of citizens. Probably unconstitutional as well.

[NOTE: It also would mean, as someone in the comments section of the Klein article observed, that in order to decide whether you should be penalized for noncompliance with Obamacare, the IRS would need to determine whether your insurance policy had been cancelled because of Obamacare. Good luck with that.

One more thing—ever since the cancellations began, I’ve been wondering how Obama would respond if the political reaction to them was negative enough. My leading theory (and it was something of a joke, but also sort of not a joke) was that he’d declare Obamacare to be a disaster and that the people who’d been affected would be eligible for FEMA relief. This announcement of his today and the one last night aren’t far behind.]

Catastrophic insurance for the catastrophe that is Obamacare

The New Neo Posted on by

Obama had a bright suggestion for his insurance companies (they do kind of belong to him, don’t they?):

The Obama administration said Thursday it would allow millions of Americans whose insurance policies had been canceled to purchase bare-bones plans next year, in another 11th-hour tweak to the law likely to cause consternation among health insurers.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a group of six senators in a letter that people whose policies had been canceled because of new requirements under the Affordable Care Act would be allowed to purchase “catastrophic” plans. Those plans previously had been restricted under the new law to people under the age of 30 or those who qualified for a set of specific hardship exemptions.

Basically, this means they’ve expanded the definition of “hardship” to include “screwed by the Obamacare regulations.” Come to think of it, that makes sense.

In fact, though, it’s even later than the eleventh hour. Many insurers are saying this move would amplify the chaos in an already chaotic situation.

I have a question for Obama, Sebelius, and the rest: if the individual policies cancelled were such terrible “junk,” why are you allowing those who originally had them to purchase one of the very types of policy you defined as “junk” in the first place? Might it be because catastrophic insurance can be a valid choice for some people depending on their circumstances, and not “junk” at all?

Another question for Obama and company: why not just let anyone purchase a catastrophic plan who wants to do so? Wouldn’t that be a novel idea?

I think I know what their answer would be.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

Lately there’s been so much news that I don’t have the time to write in depth about all the things I’d like to. So I’m going to put on my “linker” hat and turn into Mini-Instapundit for the day:

This judge made a potentially important ruling, especially considering the fact that she’s a Clinton appointee (see also this).

Is this the tip of a larger iceberg?

Hispanics are turning on Obamacare.

I haven’t had a chance to really follow the PC flap about the Duck Dynasty guy, but here’s William Jacobson on the subject. Ace has a good take, too.

And here’s the Obamanation of the day.

This documentary…

The New Neo Posted on by

…bring tears to my eyes.

Say what you will about Mitt Romney, he was one of the best men—on the personal level—ever to run for president in my lifetime. Maybe the best. And I believe he would have been a very good president, for all the reasons I’ve stated in the million or so (give or take a few) words I’ve written about him on this blog.

Looks interesting, but oh so painful (for me, anyway; perhaps not so much for you):

NOW they make it.

And here’s some snarky yet interesting commentary from the left:

…[I]n the end, Romney wasn’t as easy to hate as some other politicians might be.

So a year after he joined that small, melancholy club of presidential losers, it’s time that even those of us who thought it would be a terrible thing if he became president can see Romney as a human being. In January, Netflix will be releasing a behind-the-scenes documentary called “Mitt,” and the preview is surprisingly endearing…

Not so easy to hate? They certainly gave a good imitation of it, didn’t they?

NOW they can afford to admit that the man they slandered (and continue to slander*) was a good man, because it doesn’t cost them anything. They got their Obama second term, by hook or by crook. Hope it turns out to be a Pyrrhic victory.

[NOTE: *I’m using the word “slander” in its colloquial rather than legal sense. Legally, however, slander is spoken and libel is written, and the entire kit and caboodle is legally known as defamation.]

Yes, Rush Limbaugh mentioned me yesterday

The New Neo Posted on by

Sort of.

But I’ll take it—I’ll take it. Close enough:

RUSH: Now, I got a post here at Legal Insurrection. And the poster, the writer is somebody that calls themselves Neocon, but it’s actually just a post pointing to something in the Washington Post, and they point to the headline, and they say, “Look what’s gonna happen here. They’re gonna make Obama a victim. That’s how they’re gonna explain this,” and the Washington Post headline: “Obama Suffers Most From Year of Turmoil, Poll Finds.”

It’s a Washington Post/ABC poll, and the article goes on to describe the precipitous decline in Obama’s standing in the approval numbers and how that is causing Obama to suffer. Not people who’ve lost their health insurance, no. Not people who are going to be. Not people who’ve lost their jobs. Not people who can’t pay off student loans. Not people who are trapped because of the Obama economy.

No, no, no! We’re not worried about them. “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Obama! Oh, Obama is suffering more than anybody from this.” This is perverted, and it is sick, and it is their way of dealing with this. I went and researched my website, and it’s all the way back on October the 16th where I first made reference to this fact that the Democrats, the left, the media were going to start portraying Obama as a victim.

There’s quite a bit more at the Limbaugh link. I believe he regularly posts transcripts of his entire shows.

So to those of you who asked me about it: no, the Rush mention didn’t drive any traffic here that I could see. After all, the link was to Legal Insurrection, a site where the powers that be (Professor William A. Jacobson of Cornell) kindly allow me to cross-post.

Actually, it’s the second time Limbaugh has discussed work of mine. The first reference was to a piece I wrote for the Weekly Standard.

It’s always extremely nice to get some recognition from the biggees—even if yesterday Rush did call me by the dread n-word: “Neocon.” And so: many thanks!