Krauthammer: what a difference a year makes

The New Neo Posted on by

Charles Krauthammer reflects on Obama’s first year. A few highlights of the article [emphasis mine]:

The health care drive is the most important reason Obama has sunk to 46 percent. But this reflects something larger. In the end, what matters is not the persona but the agenda. In a country where politics is fought between the 40-yard lines, Obama has insisted on pushing hard for the 30. And the American people — disorganized and unled but nonetheless agitated and mobilized — have put up a stout defense somewhere just left of midfield.

Ideas matter. Legislative proposals matter. Slick campaigns and dazzling speeches can work for a while, but the magic always wears off.

It’s inherently risky for any charismatic politician to legislate. To act is to choose and to choose is to disappoint the expectations of many who had poured their hopes into the empty vessel — of which candidate Obama was the greatest representative in recent American political history.

Obama did not just act, however. He acted ideologically. To his credit, Obama didn’t just come to Washington to be someone. Like Reagan, he came to Washington to do something — to introduce a powerful social democratic stream into America’s deeply and historically individualist polity.

Saving Haiti

The New Neo Posted on by

“Only the world can come to our rescue,” says a stricken Haitian.

The Haitian government, ordinarily good for nothing save corruption and exploitation, has been hard hit itself. The UN, which would ordinarily coordinate relief efforts, is busy counting its own dead, searching for its missing, and rescuing its own living.

That leaves the people of Haiti on their own, in a rapidly deteriorating situation in which the disease is starting to threaten, and looters are becoming more commonplace.

One of the diseases mentioned is measles. Why is that a problem? Half of Haiti’s children are unvaccinated and therefore at risk. Those terrible villains—Big Pharma corporations—are donating medicines, especially antibiotics.

As is so often the case in disasters, “the world” that might be relied on to help refers mainly to the United States, at least at the moment. We are near, we have the capacity, we have the resources and experience, and we also have the will, although the world even doesn’t always give us credit for it.

Dare we believe…

The New Neo Posted on by

…in this sort of hope and change?

The only poll that counts, of course, is the one on election day. But this is mighty sweet right now.

[ADDENDUM: You can’t make this stuff up (hat tip: commenter “turfmann”). But apparently, Martha Coakley can.

She may just be the Worst. Candidate. Ever. Hope the electorate is paying enough attention to find that out before next Tuesday.]

[ADDENDUM II: Someone posted this quote from Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” on the comments to the poll report:

There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.]

[ADDEDDUM IV: Now here’s a ringing endorsement for Coakley. With support like this, it’s no wonder she’s lost her momentum:

Let’s get this out of the way. You might not want to vote for Martha Coakley. You might think she deserves what’s she’s getting after an absentee, self-satisfied campaign (why should I bail her out?). You likely want to send a message to everyone from the attorney general all the way to every Democratic official in Washington, DC…

You got every reason to be pissed, but it needs to be clear: not voting for Coakley is the same as voting for Brown. And voting for Brown is a very, very bad thing…

Yes it sucks. Yes you have to vote Coakley.]

[ADDENDUM V: “You gotta have heart.” Not.]

New health care “reform” compromises stink

The New Neo Posted on by

Right now we’re not just watching sausage being made—it’s excrement that’s in the works.

Read about the compromises being considered in an attempt to put a bit of room freshener on the stinking pile of garbage that health care “reform” has become.

I don’t usually use such strong language. But I think it appropriate in this case, which involves the possible exemption of unions from the excise tax on all other “cadillac” health plans. Even the commenters at the ultra-liberal TPM are not pleased by that one:

And that’s supposed to make the taxed non-union middle-class workers happy?

This is a tax on the middle-class. Obama has broken a huge campaign promise. The Republican will and should campaign on that theme. It is a fact. It is true.

Politics ain’t beanbag, and most people realize that. But most people would like to see at least a modicum of integrity, from their own side as well as the other one, even if it’s only the appearance of integrity.

The topic of health care and what to do about it is the subject here. But the real subject is the process we are seeing—which indicates that our government has lost all sense of decency and fair play, and is not even trying to hide it.

Martha Coakley and the child molesters

The New Neo Posted on by

Just for a moment, forget about how compelling a candidate Scott Brown is. And forget about how nice it would be to have a Republican senator from Massachusetts, and a 41st vote against Obamacare.

Forget? Why?

Because, even if those things were not true, Martha Coakley should be defeated anyway, because of her record.

Most of Coakley’s professional experience has been as a prosecutor in Middlesex County, part of it as Chief of the Child Abuse Prosecution Unit, and some as DA. Compare and contrast the following four cases of child molestation with which Coakley was associated, and I think you’ll see what I’m talking about:

(1) In 2005 Somerville police officer Keith Winfield was strongly suspected of raping and genitally burning his 23-month-old niece with a hot curling iron. As DA, Coakley headed a unit that investigated without taking action at first, and later allowed him to be released on personal recognizance with no cash bail. Winfield ultimately was prosecuted by Coakley’s successor as DA and given two life sentences. And remember, the details of this story critical of Coakley appeared in the ultra-liberal Boston Globe (note the angry tone of the comments to the piece, as well).

(2) In 2008 a father punched out a janitor in a Market Basket supermarket because he found the employee reaching in under a bathroom stall in the men’s room to touch the leg of the man’s 4-year old child while the boy was urinating. The illegal alien janitor was charged with indecent assault (he later no showed at his hearing), but the boy’s father was also charged with assault. Coakley’s comment on a radio show? “We really discourage people from self-help.”

(3) Coakley was originally lax in prosecuting the man who ended up being one of the most notorious of the Catholic priest child abusers, Father Geoghan. In her defense in this case, however, is the fact that at the time the evidence first came into her hands (mid-90s), such cases were very difficult to prosecute. Read the whole thing for the rather complex details.

(4) But Coakley’s worst performance by far came in connection with the Fells Acres day care child abuse case (please read the entire link to get a flavor of the situation). Gerald (“Tookie”) Amirault, along with his elderly mother and sister, had been convicted during the day care child sex abuse scare of the 80s. But he was widely known to be innocent by the time Coakley came on the scene as DA, and his mother and sister had been freed years before.

Gerald had received a unanimous recommendation from the parole board for his release. But in 2001 Coakley lobbied that he be kept in prison, and she was successful. As a result, an innocent man was kept behind bars for another three full years to add to the fifteen he had already served.

If you read the message and comment boards for articles about Coakley, you will note the rage that still exists among locals towards Coakley for her treatment of Gerald Amirault.

Why did she do it? After all, she had not been his original prosecutor, so she wasn’t protecting her own decisions. Most likely, she was determined to defend the actions of her predecessor Scott Harshbarger, as well as reputation of the DA’s office, and to shore up her own creds as tough on crime and child abusers. Unfortunately, for that object lesson Coakley ruthlessly and despicably picked a man known to be innocent.

If you take a look at the history of the Fells Acre case, I think the original prosecutors can probably be forgiven. In the climate of the times, the widespread idea was that children always tell the truth and cannot be unduly influenced by the sort of leading questions the therapists used when interviewing them in the Fells Acres case. Now that we know the opposite to be true—that very young children are highly suggestible in such situations—almost all jurisdictions have put into place restrictions on such methods, and have trained special forensic units to be in charge of the children’s interrogations.

But by the time Coakley was blocking Gerald Amirault’s clemency, all of this was known. Her decision reflected a cold-blooded, small-minded, self-centered devotion to her own advancement at the expense of an innocent man. Let’s hope it backfires on her ambitions now.

Haiti: at least…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it’s warm there. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if this had occurred in a cold climate during winter? On top of all the other problems, people would be freezing to death.

That’s small comfort, though, considering the scope of the disaster. The United States is in the forefront of relief efforts, but this is a grim and overwhelming task.

Some say that we shall never know and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God

””-Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey

[NOTE: Here’s some relief information if you would like to donate.]

[ADDENDUM: Here’s some speculation on why Haiti has been so poor.]

Non-shocker of the day: Boston Globe endorses Coakley

The New Neo Posted on by

As inevitably as death and taxes, the Boston Globe has come out for Martha Coakley for Senator from Massachusetts.

What’s far more interesting than the completely expected endorsement is the way the paper did it: tepidly. The editors could barely muster up an ounce of energy for the job. What a lackluster writeup! It reads as though it took them every ounce of spin they possessed in order to find some semi-nice things to say about Coakley, and some semi-bad things to say about Brown. They barely made it, and to do so they had to leave out a host of negatives about Coakley, some of them previously covered in the pages of their own paper.

But best of all are the comments. A locustlike swarm of Brown supporters seems to have descended on the Globe to feed off its rotting carcass.

Here’s an idea: get Joe Kennedy to drop out of the race

The New Neo Posted on by

[UPDATE: I got word from a commenter that Kennedy’s campaign manager, Dave Galusi, had written back to him that Kennedy is forbidden by law to drop out. Perhaps a better tack, then, would be to write to Galusi (dave@joekennedyforsenate.com) asking that Kennedy endorse Brown. E-mail to Kennedy himself is not getting through.]

Those of you who’ve been following the increasingly close Coakley vs. Brown special election in Massachusetts may not have heard there’s a third party candidate, an Independent libertarian named Joe Kennedy. He could be the spoiler in the race, drawing enough votes from Brown to allow Coakley to go to the Senate.

I’ve been mulling that one over, and I’ve come to the conclusion that flooding Kennedy’s office and email address with calls for him to drop out of the race wouldn’t be a bad thing. Not that he’s likely to do so, of course.

Third-party candidates tend to be purists who don’t think the perfect is the enemy of the good. But Kennedy got into this race when he didn’t see himself as a spoiler. Brown didn’t seem to have a chance back then, and Kennedy probably saw the campaign as a way to get his own message heard in a larger forum.

But now things have changed. And if there’s even a miniscule chance of getting Kennedy to withdraw, it’s worth a try.

Here’s the contact info. And here are some of the most important addresses and phone numbers:

Joe Kennedy: joe@joekennedyforsenate.com

His campaign manager Dave Galusi: dave@joekennedyforsenate.com

Press and events: Press & Events: 617.899.0846

Fund Raising: 907.250.5503

Address: Committee to Elect Joe Kennedy
P.O. Box 368
Needham Heights, MA 02494

Here’s Kennedy’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joe-Kennedy-For-Senate/141067507133

And Twitter: http://twitter.com/joek4Senate

[NOTE: And please spread the word. Volume is important.]

[ADDENDUM: And Queen Coakley shows her elitest bona fides by dissing Fenway and its fans.]

Haiti devastated by earthquake—and more

The New Neo Posted on by

As if tiny Haiti didn’t have it bad enough, now it has been hit by an earthquake of magnitude 7.0. Buildings in Haiti are flimsy even without a temblor, and many have fallen, with extremely high casualties very likely. Communication is so poor we don’t know what the death toll might be, but it looks very bad.

Haiti has had a bad time of it almost since its beginning. Violence, corruption, poverty, thy name is Haiti, and it’s been that way for centuries.

Haiti is a very beautiful country, as I know from personal experience. I was there for a single day on a trip with my parents at the age of fourteen, during the rule of corrupt dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. I well remember the island’s exotic, lush vegetation; its attractive people, the graceful women going to market with huge loads on their heads; the green mountain that constituted its landscape; and the grinding poverty that was everywhere visible.

We don’t ordinarily think of the Caribbean as a huge center for earthquake activity, but they occur there with some frequency and severity. Jamaica, for example, was once the home of a large and flourishing city of 6,000 known as Port Royal, destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent landslide and tsunami in 1692, during which the bulk of the city virtually slid into the sea.

This 2005 article describes the considerable risk of earthquake in the Caribbean:

With nearly twenty million people now living in this tourist region and a major earthquake occurring on average every 50 years, scientists say it is not a question of if it will happen but when…In a new study published December 24, 2004 in the Journal of Geophysical Research from the American Geophysical Union, geologists…report a heightened earthquake risk of the Septentrional fault zone, which cuts through the highly populated region of the Cibao valley in the Dominican Republic…In addition, they caution, the geologically active offshore Puerto Rico and Hispaniola trenches are capable of producing earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 and higher…The Hispaniola Trench parallels the north coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti…The island of Hispaniola faces a double risk: an earthquake from the Septentrional fault on the island itself as the plates move past each other, and an earthquake deep in the earth in the subduction zone on which the island sits.

But what can a poverty-stricken, disorganized country like Haiti do about such warnings? Nothing. It already had more than enough to worry about, and precious little money and organizational ability with which to do it. This is a terrible blow to a people who have already suffered more than most. If you’re the praying sort, now might be a good time to do so.

Humanitarian aid is already streaming in, and there will be more. But Haiti has always been a broken country, even before the earthquake. And once countries are so broken, can all the king’s horses and all the king’s men ever put them together again?

[ADDENDUM: Richard Fernandez reflects.]

Coakley would fit right in

The New Neo Posted on by

If Sarah Palin had said what Martha Coakley did, it would be headline news everywhere, and Saturday Night Live would devote at least one program to it, maybe several.

Here’s the quote from Coakley’s debate with Brown:

“I think we have done what we are going to be able to do in Afghanistan. I think that we should plan an exit strategy. Yes. I’m not sure there is a way to succeed. If the goal was and the mission in Afghanistan was to go in because we believed that the Taliban was giving harbor to terrorists. We supported that. I supported that. They’re gone. They’re not there anymore.

Coakley has never held national office, but she’s also never held any office except Middlesex DA and Attorney General for the state of Massachusetts. I would imagine that her background on foreign affairs is abominable, and unlike Sarah Palin she’s probably not felt the need to bone up because Coakley did not foresee a high level of scrutiny in this race. But even for an intelligent layperson with a modicum of interest in the foreign policy of the US for the last couple of years, her level of ignorance is shocking.

Coakley’s treatment of subsequent questions about her Afghanistan/Taliban response is congruent with the current “transparent” climate in Washington, however:

A reporter asked Coakley about that [Taliban] claim after a Capitol Hill fundraiser on Tuesday. “Do you stand by that remark?” he asked.

Coakely, standing before a small cluster of reporters and cameras, listened to the question, then quickly looked in a different direction.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did anybody else have a question?”

Coakley then went on to mention, in response to the next question;

We are facing a candidate from Massachusetts who is being supportive by extreme right groups including many Republican groups who are pouring money into Massachusetts attacking my record and distorting my record. I’m doing everything that I need to be competitive in this race.

It’s almost comical that Coakley accuses others of “distorting her record” while at the same time she distorts who those others are. Much of Brown’s support is from independents, as her polling must tell her, not “extreme right groups.” Much of it is from individuals and small donors rather than groups, as she also must know. And as for distorting the record, it’s Coakley who has tried to do that to Brown, in a fairly egregious manner (i.e. she flagrantly lied about it; see this).

I hope Coakley never gets a chance to sit in Ted Kennedy’s seat—or anyone else’s seat—in the United States Senate. But if she does, unfortunately she’ll fit right in.

[ADDENDUM: Here’s some video of a Weekly Standard reporter getting roughed up while trying to question Coakley (hat tip: Bill West).

Michael Meehan, Boston Democrat and Obama appointee, was the shover to reporter John McCormack’s shovee. And—no surprise—Democratic spokesperson Eric Schultz says it’s all a Republican dirty trick. Nothing to see here, move right along.

Here’s a thought-provoking comment to the “Republican dirty tricks” article above (can’t do a link, but it came in today at 11:29 AM):

The new tone in Washington DC, ”¦good old fashion Chicago thuggery. Physically attack a reporter if you do not like their line of questions, and then blame it in the opposition. These bullies have the balls to cry foul and blame this on GOP dirty politics. The GOP had nothing to do with this Democratic staffer, Bostonian, and Obama appointee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors shoving that reporter to the ground. This is the stuff of Saul Alinsky. These liberal thugs if they cannot whine their way of their dirty deeds, then shift the focus of their dirty deed and blame the opposition. This is truly pathetic. Can you imagine if a GOP staffer had shoved a reporter to the ground? The fact is the liberals are being who they always have been; they have just taken things up a notch since Obama has been elected, because they have been emboldened by this president’s thugocracy that is operating out of the White House.]