No Feingold in '08

You've heard the news by now: Russ Feingold will not be running for the presidency in 2008. Two questions come to mind for me immediately. The first is, did the failure of Ned Lamont in Connecticut and the general success of moderate Democrats play into this decision? The other is, since Russ had pegged himself as the anti-war candidate, does this mean that he doesn't think there will be a war to be against in 2008?

New York Times gets nostalgic for Saddam

No further commentary necessary: Could a New Strongman Help?

Democrat majorities for a generation

No, I don't think that this election will result in that. This administration can get the ball rolling in that direction if the Baker Commission results in this, though.

The Baker commission seems to be doing a lot more than just re-thinking Iraq. It appears to be copiously a Vietnam-type cut-and-run plan that will leave the Gulf far more dangerous than it is now. The Vietnam model looks like a “face-saving” retreat by the United States—just like that one that left Vietnam a Stalinist prison state with tens of thousands of boat people fleeing and dying, and next door in Cambodia, two or three million dead at the hands of Pol Pot.

I am increasingly concerned by the Bush Administration's potential turn in Iraq policies. Iraq is in a crucial strategic location in the Middle East. If the administration loses its nerve and bails on Iraq, in effect handing it to Iran and Syria in some grand deal, they best have someone on hand to take the saif out of our backs.

Second thoughts on public schools

While I am no booster of the public school system, I've come to view it as an entrenched, underperforming product of government on which we should place continual and unrelenting pressure to improve, but also a product of government that society doesn't have the will to completely scrap or rebuild. I am a product of public schools and I am familiar with public schooling's weaknesses as they were in the 1980's and early 1990's. I was comfortable enough with the system, however, to anticipate that I will one day send my own kids to public schools. I have long felt that as long as I was involved in my children's lives and their educations, we could overcome some of the weaknesses of the public schooling system. This past Friday night some seeds of doubt were planted in my brain.

I was at an area watering hole on Friday night, and at one point the conversation turned to the schools. To be specific, the conversation turned to the goings on at a smaller south central Wisconsin school district. I learned of some small programs for difficult children that disturbed me. For instance, at the elementary level, the school has in place a couple of policies. For angry children there is a room set aside. In this room there are pillows. The kids with anger management problems can go to this room anytime they feel angry and take out some of that anger on the pillows. They can stay there until the anger in them subsides. I'm sure that some genius bleeding heart thinks that this is a great way to get these kids to vent their anger without hurting anyone. Unfortunately, these kids need to learn how to control their anger and deal with it. This kind of pillow therapy does neither. All it does is forestall the day when they will be confronted with their own anger. Second, one would have to think that this teaches those kids how to game the system. Don't feel like sitting in class? Say you are angry and go off to the pillow room for a while. These kids aren't stupid. The second thing I was told about was the gum policy in the school. It is not allowed. Well, it isn't allowed for the well behaved kids, anyway. The not so well behaved, that's another matter. If they are chronic pen chewers, then in order to discourage that behavior, they are allowed to signal their teacher when they need to chew on something. They may then go up in front of the class and get a piece of gum from the teacher's desk. Nothing like signaling to the well behaved kids that their good behavior comes with fewer immediate benefits than bad behavior does.

Now I know these are both small little issues, but I find both troublesome. They are both weak-kneed policies that were not in place not so long ago when I was going through the public schools. I'm sure that there are other policies at other schools that will upset me more. That is what is concerning me now, many years ahead of when I'll need to worry about. I want my kids to go to a school that teaches kids that there are serious and significant consequences to bad behavior. I have no confidence that public schools are capable of this. I realize that this is only partially the school's problem. We also discussed how many parents refuse or are incapable to instill discipline in their children and the schools get stuck with problems and how, in many of those cases, the parents come to expect the schools to somehow 'fix' these kids when they've made no effort themselves. I'm sympathetic to what school employees have to deal with, but at the same time I don't want my kids learning the bad lessons examples like the above can teach. Perhaps I'll give private schools a little more thought in the coming years.

Lovin' that Wisconsin weather

If you don't find a way to love Wisconsin's odd weather, it'll drive you nuts. It got dark as night here at about 3:15, started to lightning and thunder, and then it iced. Yep, iced. Not rain, not snow, not hail, but ice. I guess the technical term would be sleet, but even sleet doesn't do justice to the iced rain drops that were falling.

A trio of bothersome headlines

Al Qaeda crows over Rumsfeld
Enemies cannot stop our nuclear work: Iran
Khamenei calls Bush defeat a victory for Iran

It works, but does it work as well as it should?

I've read a number of columns and posts this week in which right leaning, right sympathizing, and conservative writers have said that this election shows that the system still works. In a macro, big picture sense I guess they are correct...the election showed that no one party is entrenched in power and the voters are still in charge. But just because something works does not mean that it necessarily works well. This election was what I would call a "passions of the people" election. It proved that the people can still change the government, but it did not necessarily prove that the change was for the better. Some Republicans deserved to go, no doubt. The party may not have even deserved to maintain a majority. What is concerning though is how the passion of the people was so uniformly applied against just about anyone with an 'R' next to their name. A lot of voters did not rationally choose the better candidate but instead they voted against a party. There were a number of individual Republicans who lost at the Federal and state levels not because they were the lesser candidate but because the fickle public opinion was running against the party. I don't think that is what our Founders envisioned for this system, but that is the system we now have.

Now I'm depressed

The Republican losses this week disappointed me but they did not make me depressed. Sometimes you lose, that's just the way it is. Then you regroup, march forward, and win the next time. The more I think about the potential Bush 41 team's influence on Bush 43 for the next two years, though, the more depressed I get. I didn't vote for the policies of Bush 41 two years ago, I voted for the policies of this administration. If they have to adjust then they should adjust, but going back to a team that got tossed out on its butt after one term ain't the way to do it. If W is worried about his legacy, going back to his dad's team and policies is only going to ensure that nobody thinks much of him when he leaves office, except his dad and his dad's old advisors.

Additional thought
Who could be the most politically damaged by a 43 turn to 41? The most conservative member of the family, Jeb Bush. His odds of running and winning the presidency were already slim, but something like this could crush any future chances he would have.

This is an injury I've never heard of before, and I have relatives who have worked in emergency rooms.

A spokeswoman for the North East Ambulance Service said: "We received a call stating there was a male who had a firework in his bottom and it was bleeding. He was attended to and taken to Sunderland Royal hospital."

The man, whose injuries include a scorched colon, is still in hospital.

Here's a couple of tips for you. First, don't shoot fireworks from your bum. Second, if you are dieting and looking for a effective appetite suppressant, talk to someone from an ER about the things they've seen.

Even more musings

Note: This post was recreated yesterday. This is the original version that hung up in the ether for 36 hours before it kicked loose. I'm leaving it up to make a futile point about Blogger.

-I think Fair Wisconsin’s intentionally misleading campaign against the marriage amendment backfired in some regards. I’ve talked with a number of people who were undecided and sympathetic to gay marriage who ended up voting yes to the amendment. The reason? They disliked Fair Wisconsin’s tactics and that pushed them from on the fence to yes. It didn’t necessarily change the outcome, but it widened the gap.

<>-We are a strange people, we Americans. A recent survey said that something like 60% of us think government does too much. This in a country where the majority of people criticized the Federal government, not state and local governments and individuals, for not doing enough before and after Hurricane Katrina. This is also a country that just placed the original party of oppressive government back in legislative power. <>

-I’m tired of hearing about bi-partisanship. Issues and ideas are not like porridges. You cannot mix a hot bowl with a cold bowl to come up with a tasty warm bowl. Issues and ideas usually don’t have utopian middle grounds, and when middle ground is found, the result is usually worse than the original ideas.
<>-Every Blue Dog has its day. In fact, right now a number of Blue Dogs find themselves in very advantageous positions. <>
-This election, soon to be discovered by the nut roots, dragged the Democratic party towards the center. With no strong conservative Presidential candidates in the wings for 2008, will that election drag the Republican party towards the center, too?

Empowerment and control through the ballot

I noticed something today. In talking with a few politically unaffiliated voters, I got the sense that they felt empowered by and proud of the results. They felt like their votes mattered and that they were actually able to hold people accountable and make change through the polls. Republicans just happened to be the ones in power. I can't help but wonder if part, just part, of Tuesday's results were born of some voters trying to assert control over a world that feels pretty uncontrollable lately.

Where's the bird flu when you need it?

I'm fatigued by the 'Republicans' Loss' storyline. It's so yesterday. Bring on the bird flu over-coverage, please.

Bush 41's second term?

Yesterday my biggest concern for the next two years was government gridlock at a time when we need government to operate efficiently for security's sake. Today my big concern for the next two years is the creeping influence of the Bush 41 crew. History hasn't really vindicated their approach to foreign affairs outside of Europe, and I'm skeptical that it will. But I'm sure by this time tomorrow, I'll already have a new biggest concern for the next two years.

The intertwined destinies of conservatism and the GOP

I think John Hawkins hit the nail on the head here:

Just as the Republican Party can't win without conservatives, conservatism cannot win without the Republican Party. When the Republican Party cratered on Tuesday, the ability of conservatives to shape and influence government policy cratered with it.

That's an important thing to understand because a lot of people on the right, I'm not talking about Ivy here, seem to have the mistaken impression that the fate of conservatism and the Republican Party are not intertwined. So, they errantly believe that if the Republican Party loses an election, conservatism isn't affected or if they go off and vote for some loser Third Party, that they're still doing their part to move conservatism forward. Sorry, but that's just not true.

Although merely having Republicans in power doesn't guarantee that a conservative agenda will be enacted, for a conservative agenda to be enacted, Republicans need to be in power.

I think a lot of conservatives understand this, but many others don't. Hitting the self destruct button on the GOP does not really help conservatism all that much unless your goal is to
perpetually be the minority party. If a Republican truly does not deserve his or her job, you get rid of them, but getting rid of Republicans out of ideological spite is petty and unproductive. If you want to make a change within the party, you had better get it done in the primaries because the general election is exactly the wrong time. As hard as it is to beat an incumbent in a primary, it is even more difficult to rebuild and regain the majority and then hold it.

Spelling corrections

My spelling was terrible today. I blame the new Democrat run Congress.

I've corrected most of the errors.

Thanks for your service, Mr. Rumsfeld

The time is probably right for those fresh eyes, though. The nomination of Robert Bates is probably a good indication that the Bush administration is going to act on whatever comes out of the Baker Commission.

Still more post election thoughts

*It would have been nice if President Bush had invested some of that political capital he bragged about in January 2005 instead of squandering it on the political equivalent of gum balls and belly button lint.

*I was wrong in my prediction that Republicans would hold slim leads in both houses of Congress.

*It is now put up or shut up time for Democrats. The floor is theirs and they can no longer merely oppose Republicans.

*I'm optimistically hoping that a little ownership in dealing with the threats this nation faces sobers the Democrats and creates a little healthier rhetoric from them.

*The whole "united country" idea is largely a myth. I don't think I've ever seen this country united in my 30 years.

*You can remove George Allen and Bill Frist from your 2008 Presidential hopefuls list. They still might be hopeful, but they both have no chance.

*How long before Justice Ginsburg or Stevens (or both) retires? They don't have to wait out President Bush anymore.

Even more post election musings

-I think Fair WisconsinÂ’s intentionally misleading campaign against the marriage amendment backfired in some regards. IÂ’ve talked with a number of people who were undecided and sympathetic to gay marriage who ended up voting yes to the amendment. The reason? They disliked Fair WisconsinÂ’s tactics and that pushed them from on the fence to yes. It didnÂ’t necessarily change the outcome, but it widened the gap.

-We are a strange people, we Americans. A recent survey said that something like 60% of us think government does too much. This in a country where the majority of people criticized the Federal government, not state and local governments and individuals, for not doing enough before and after Hurricane Katrina. This is also a country that just placed the original party of oppressive government back in legislative power.

-IÂ’m tired of hearing about bi-partisanship. Issues and ideas are not like porridges. You cannot mix a hot bowl with a cold bowl to come up with a tasty warm bowl. Issues and ideas usually donÂ’t have utopian middle grounds, and when middle ground is found, the result is usually worse than the original ideas.

-Every Blue Dog has its day. In fact, right now a number of Blue Dogs find themselves in very advantageous positions.

-This election, soon to be discovered by the nut roots, dragged the Democratic party towards the center. With no strong conservative Presidential candidates in the wings for 2008, will that election drag the Republican party towards the center, too?

Blogger's law

At the exact moment that you have a lot of things you want to write, you can count on Blogger going down.

One additional thought

I'm curious to see how the conspiracy theorist nut-rooters spin this election to fit their warped beliefs in a Bush-Rove election rigging machine. And whatever happened to that martial law order they were whispering that would be invoked? Fools.