Advocate Goes Part Time

An open letter to Advocate readers

Feb. 26, 2009

Dear Readers:

This is not the letter I hoped to be posting four months after starting the Advocate, but if an online news service is going to yell 'transparency' at every turn, it had better be willing to play by it's own rules.

Put plainly, as a business venture, the Advocate is failing.

Our business model has four indexes to track growth and predict success of the venture: Readership, community involvement, classified use and, of course, paid advertising. I am sad to report that we are faltering badly on three of those.

While readership numbers have climbed steadily since it's inception, now topping 3000 total page hits, and over 300 readers a week, the sparse use of the 'Classifieds' section, and almost no interest in paid advertising has failed to instill lender confidence, thus denying us access to funding needed to expand the staff, or to go to print with a weekly paper.

These are failures that I blame on my own lack of salesmanship and failure to factor in funding for advertising, believing that word-of-mouth and easy internet linking would be sufficient to get the word out.

Community involvement has to be graded as mediocre. Institutions such as the local colleges, government offices and law enforcement, realizing that every information outlet has value, have been willing contributors.

But surprisingly, organizations like ISD boards, economic development agencies and even chambers of commerce have been less than cooperative, many failing even to return messages or respond to letters of introduction.

In short, the shoe-string budget we were operating on is gone, and the need to pay personal bills now has to override both desire to publish and belief in the need for a service like this for Upshur County.

The site will stay open, but article postings won't be daily events.

In closing, I would like to thank everyone who is providing information and news releases, and the readers who return daily looking for timely and topical news of interest to Upshur County and the surrounding area.

Sincerely,

DeWayne Spell

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Balloon Payments?

"Please bear in mind that the Federal Reserve is only one arrow in the quiver that can be deployed to restore the nation's economic vitality. The power to stimulate activity through taxing and spending the American people's money lies with the Congress of the United States.

"All eyes have been on the stimulus package recently passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Obama. This was no easy task, and it was accomplished with unusual alacrity. Only time will tell if the stimulus will give our economic engine an activating short-term jolt without encumbering or disincentivizing the entrepreneurial dynamic that has made for the long-term economic miracle that is America.

"Next, our political leaders must agree to the funding, if any, of the Treasury's proposals for the resolution of the banking crisis so as to make the system more stable and viable—a resolution, as Thomas Friedman reminds us in Sunday's New York Times, that needs to be done in a manner that encourages winners rather than 'bailing out losers.'

"And, on top of all that, they must begin, now, to dig us out of the very deep hole they themselves have dug in incurring unfunded liabilities of retirement and health care obligations—programs that are already on the books but have not yet been paid for—that Pete Peterson's foundation calculates at $56 trillion and we at the Dallas Fed believe total over $99 trillion.

"If you do the numbers, you will find that some 85 percent of those unfunded liabilities is due to Medicare; a budgetary Heimlich maneuver is urgently needed to keep Medicare from choking off our economic prosperity." -- Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Feb. 23, 2009

Italics ours.

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What Would Lincoln Do?

On the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of our most iconic Presidents, it's a fair question

If Honest Abe was in the Oval Office today, how would he respond to our current difficulties and social conflicts? For students of Lincoln, that question leads to some interesting conclusions, and forces some honest evaluations of the man hailed as the Great Emancipator.

Because of his 1862 Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln is revered as the father of the Civil Rights movement, the original American standard bearer of human equality, and the lion who ended slavery. A rock-ribbed man of principal who defied popular opinion and political pressure to do the right thing.

But was he?

History can be clouded by convenience, and our desire to summarize and condense the events of the past often lead to misconceptions of the motives of the figures who shaped that past, and trivializes the circumstances they found themselves in.

To unravel the man behind the legend, and perhaps answer the question of how he would govern today, it is instructive to first look at the things Lincoln was not.

He was not an abolitionist. In fact, he held prejudices that would be scorned today, and would earn him the title of racist. In an 1862 letter responding to an editorial by the full throated abolitionist Horace Greely, Lincoln wrote

"I would save the Union....If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union."

Lincoln didn't consider the institution of slavery itself to be his problem. Instead, he viewed it's possible expansion as a threat to northern jobs held by white men, and as the catalyst to the one issue he wouldn't concede, that of secession.

Lincoln always held that he believed in the tenet that all men were created equal, but always softened that stand by excusing slavery in some areas. In today's political jargon, we call that triangulation. In Lincoln's day, they called it fence-sitting.

Lincoln was not a believer in the concept of a small, non-intrusive federal government. Neither was he a proponent of free trade. He was admittedly a protectionist, and a blatant one. Early in his career as an Illinois legislator, Lincoln wrote

"My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor of a national bank ... in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff."

His trade policies still today incite debate on whether they succeeded by forcing the growth of the American manufacturing base, or failed by isolating and retarding business access to wider export markets.

It can not be said that Lincoln was fiscally conservative, and he was rarely accused of protecting his tax-paying constituents in Illinois.

Shortly after his entrance into the Illinois statehouse, he led a successful effort to appropriate $12 million from taxpayers (a monstrous sum in those days) to subsidize railroad and canal-building corporations as part of his 'internal improvements' vision. The companies turned out to be disastrous investments that nearly bankrupted the state. The $12 million was squandered with almost no projects completed. Much of the money was stolen, and the taxpayers of Illinois were left to foot the bill.

But while taxpayers were left with little to show for their money, one of the corporations they created became the Illinois Central, which would later employ Lincoln for more than a decade as one its top lawyers and lobbyist. Lincoln would serve in that capacity up until his election.

His support of the railroads sat well with the movers and shakers of the Republican party of his day. The political power brokers that backed Lincoln for election included railroad barons, manufacturing magnates and Yankee bankers. As a group, they backed not only a transcontinental railroad, but the creation of a central banking system as well. In 1860, they hand-picked Lincoln to carry the water on those goals.

Senator John Sherman of Ohio, chairman of the U.S Senate Finance Committee during the Lincoln administration, said of Lincoln's nomination and election

"Those who elected Mr. Lincoln expect him to secure to free labor its just right to the Territories of the United States; to protect ... by wise revenue laws, the labor of our people; to secure the public lands to actual settlers; to develop the internal resources of the country by opening new means of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific."

By 'free' labor, of course, Sherman meant white labor. And 'wise revenue' laws was 1860's code for high trade tariffs. And while Lincoln would gain revered status as a proponent of the equality of slaves, he was no friend to the Indian tribes. When Sherman said Lincoln was expected to secure the land to 'actual settlers', he meant using the army to drive Native Americans off of it.

Despite popular folklore, Lincoln wasn't a simple country lawyer, nor was he a backwoods bumpkin. In his book Lincoln and the Railroads, noted historian John W. Starr, Jr. tells of a scheme Lincoln participated in to inflate legal fees that the Illinois Central paid him.

After Lincoln had successfully defended the company against McLean County, Illinois, which wanted to tax the corporation, he submitted an incredibly high bill of $5,000 to George B. McClellan, the vice president of the Illinois Central. The ruse used by Lincoln and McClellan to trick the company's board of directors to go along with the fee went like this:

McClellan formally refused to pay the large fee, making the board happy. Lincoln then sued the company for the fee. When Lincoln went to court over the fee, no lawyers for the company showed up, and Lincoln won by default. As proof of the deception, Starr points out that Lincoln continued to handle the company's legal work after the suit had been decided, just the same as he always had.

Lincoln was not a strict Constitutionalist, at least not in the light of secession. As noted correctly by Thomas J. DiLorenzo, author of The Real Lincoln, Lincoln did not inherit a 'perpetual union'.

The union of the founding fathers was a voluntary compact of the states. The states delegated certain powers to the central government as their agent, but retained sovereignty for themselves. Secession was considered a legitimate option by political and opinion leaders from all sections of the country in 1860.

Lincoln himself said much the same thing in 1848:

"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better."

But in the popular drumbeat leading up to the war, Lincoln appears to have forgotten his earlier beliefs, asserting time and again that he was "saving the union".

Lincoln was not a dreamer or an idealist. He was pragmatist who would have been satisfied with limiting the practice of slavery to the Southern states. He married into a slave-owning family, and up until secession, his opposition to slavery had been only to restrict it's spread into the Northern and Western states.

He maintained that the Constitution did not give the federal government the power to abolish slavery in those states where it already existed. In his 1860 inaugural address, he said:

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

His position mirrored that of the Republican Party's moderate wing, leaving Greely and the 'Radical Republicans' to call for outright abolition.

Despite his accommodating position to Slave Power states, his election became the flash point for their secession the very next year. And here is where popular history again fails to explore the circumstances.

Lincoln had just promised to leave slavery in the southern states undisturbed. He was even backing an amendment that would guarantee the legality of the practice in those states forever. Why then, would the south chose to secede?

The answer is tariffs. Where Lincoln was willing to concede the issue of slavery, he was unbending on raising and collecting taxes. The Republicans, to support their railroad ambitions, were about to increase tariff rates from 15 percent to over 47 percent.

In other less noted, but highly inflammatory comments during his address, Lincoln ominously stated that it was his obligation as president to

"collect the duties and imposts,"

saying beyond that

"there will be no invasion of any state."

The clear message to the south was if they did not collect the higher tariffs, which would almost surely bankrupt the agricultural base there, then the government would invade under force of arms.

It was a shot across the bows of South Carolina, who had nullified the 1828 "Tariff of Abominations", and had faced the federal government down over the issue. Lincoln might have been picking a fight, but it was not over emancipation. And while the issue of slavery dominated contemporary editorial pages and tea party conversation, what sparked secession and started the Civil War was taxation.

Even the Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1862, looks less noble when one remembers two points.

First, the proclamation was a coercive military measure designed to deprive the Confederacy of slave labor and bring additional men into the Union Army. It was not a sweeping end to slavery.

It did not free any slaves in the Union border states (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia), nor did it free slaves in any southern state (or part of a state) already under Union control.

In fact, it would not have freed any slaves at all had the southern states returned to Union control by the 1863 deadline. It was intended by Lincoln solely to bring the Confederate States back into the Union and had the Confederates folded their tents and paid their taxes, slavery would still have been tolerated.

Second, it wasn't Lincoln's plan to simply turn freed slaves loose to wander the country in search of opportunity.

Since the 1840's, Lincoln had been an advocate of Colonization, a plan to ship freed slaves off to live in colonies in Liberia, in much the same way Native Americans would soon be relegated to reservations.

As early as 1854, in a speech in Peoria, Illinois, Lincoln advocated the policy, but acknowledged the logistical difficulties in bringing it about:

"My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land. But a moment’s reflection would convince me that whatever of high hope there may be in this, in the long run, its sudden execution is impossible."

Lincoln continued to support colonization through most of his presidency, going so far as to appoint James Mitchell in 1861 as his Commissioner of Emigration to oversee colonization projects. Between 1861 and 1862, Lincoln actively negotiated contracts with businessmen to colonize freed blacks to Panama and to a small island off the coast of Haiti.

The Haiti plan was scrapped in 1863 after fraud by the agents responsible for the plan forced Lincoln to send ships to retrieve the colonists, and the much larger Panamanian plan collapsed in 1863 after the government of Colombia backed out of the deal.

Finally, rounding out the list of things Lincoln was not, he was not a civil rights activist, and was not above ignoring civil liberties when it suited his purposes. Besides his plan to forcibly relocate freed slaves, there are the minor scrapes he had with the Supreme Court and the Fourth Estate to consider.

In 1862, just as the war was starting in earnest, a group of Democrats, known as the Copperheads, proposed a truce with the South, and advocated calling a constitutional convention to amend the U.S. Constitution to protect States' rights.

Neither Lincoln nor Jefferson took the idea seriously, and the movement foundered. But the Copperheads began to publicly criticize Lincoln's belief that violating the U.S. Constitution was required to save the union.

With Congress not yet in session, Lincoln took an unprecedented step that today would defy belief. He assumed all powers not delegated in the Constitution, and suspended habeas corpus throughout the nation.

And then, in an egregious violation of free speech that popular history overlooks, Lincoln moved swiftly to silence his opposition. He ordered 13,000 Copperheads and other protesters placed under military arrest, believing that Northern civil courts would not convict the influential war protesters. Among those arrested was John Merryman, a Maryland Secessionist.

Justice Roger B. Taney, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, immediately issued a writ of habeas corpus, commanding the military to bring Merryman before him. The union army ignored the writ. Taney, in Ex parte MERRYMAN, then ruled that Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional, saying the writ could not be suspended without an Act of Congress.

Lincoln, along with the military, ignored the ruling as well. It would be 1866, after the war was over and Lincoln had been assassinated, before the Supreme Court restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal.

Lincoln ran afoul of free speech again in 1864, this time trampling the freedom of the press as well. Tibor Machan of the Cato Institute, addressing Lincoln's propensity to bend civil rights out of the way when it suited him, recently noted

"...Lincoln has a blemished record of following the ideal of free government in his political life, as when he issued on May 18, 1864, the following order: "You will take possession by military force of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce ... and prohibit any further publication thereof.... You are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison ... the editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforementioned newspapers."

Armed with these facts, and with a fresh appreciation of the concessionary and supple approach that Lincoln took towards matters of principle throughout his career, we can now proceed to rip him from the library, and place him in modern day Washington, DC.

Since we know our 16th President wasn't allergic to taxing and spending, and that he favored federal involvement in state infrastructure projects, we can assume that he would solidly back the Obama administration's current plans to create jobs by pouring taxpayer dollars into infrastructure projects.

But, since most of public works that Lincoln supported ultimately befitted deep-pocket businessmen, we would guess that he would look more favorably on projects that would enhance business and trade, rather than social or cultural efforts. With that, we would have to say that ACORN would not see a penny from the Lincoln Administration.

And owing to his penchant for backing business interest and dependence on American goods, we can rest assured that Lincoln would take up the "Drill, baby, drill" chant.

We know also that he would share President Obama's tilt in favor of protectionism, and would look favorably on efforts to renew the 'Buy American' restrictions. We can even suppose that he would go several steps farther, recommending import tariffs and urging a withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement on the day he took office.

Lincoln would tackle the illegal immigration problem swiftly, reaching back to the colonization concept for his answer. We can imagine a solid line of buses heading south, while an approving Lincoln marveled at how modern technology solves so many logistical problems.

In light of the fact that Lincoln was a devout man, given to frequent prayer, we can guess that gay marriage proponents would find him less than helpful. But he might assume the same stance he did toward slavery, and be willing to tolerate the institution as long as it didn't spread north of the closet.

Lastly, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would probably be crushed to find Lincoln in Obama's corner when it came to reestablishing the Fairness Doctrine. Lincoln didn't tolerate a vocal opposition well, and what better way to silence protest than to force media outlets to adopt business practices that guarantee their extinction?

To sum things up, Lincoln bore very little resemblance to the Reagan model of Republicans, and would probably find most of the plans of the Obama administration much to his liking.

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Washington's Kitchen Table Is Broken

Campaign rhetoric about kitchen table solutions largely forgotten in the rush to impoverishment

Just a few months ago, politicians of all stripes, running on the national level, were reminding voters what it was like to face tough problems, and calling to mind those tough decisions we the people frequently face at the proverbial kitchen table.

We were assured by each and every one of those earnest would-be public servants that if elected, they would be the ones we could count on to make common sense choices that we ourselves would make.

With those assurances in mind, let's look at the decisions many working folk now face, and compare them to the choices being made in our Capitol.


Let's suppose that we run a small business that has fallen on hard times. Profits are down, bills are piling up and the short term market for our services doesn't look all that bright.

The solution for most of us might be to take a hard look at our business, and discontinue services that weren't profitable. To attract new business, we might reduce the profit margin on services that were making money. We could sell off some assets, cut cost everywhere possible, and even, as a last resort, reduce payroll by cutting hours or jobs.

Hard choices, yes, and painful for small business owners who think of employees as friends and family. But those are the choices that reality gives us, and those are the ones we make.

But in Washington, they see a different set of options.

Their answer to mounting debt and blatant evidence of program failures is to borrow money and increase funding to those programs. Further, since the credit is so easy to find, they're going to introduce a few new programs modeled after the ones that don't work.

The spending bill that is being rushed through Congress right now, is tantamount to an ailing small business borrowing money to replace the office carpet and pave the driveway. It just doesn't make sense.

What's worse, if that business manages to keep the doors open, the debt will come back to haunt it, crippling it's competitiveness in the near future.

What is needed now is some real kitchen table logic. What would work are tax cuts and construction incentives to get productive money flowing from the private sector toward projects that promise a profit.

The free market is not evil. Left to it's own devices, without government interference, it is inherently successful. Laws and proper regulation are needed to prevent abuses by those who won't play fair, but programs that attempt to warp capitalism into some sort of social program cause upsets in the basic motive, and retard the entire system.

Rather than building a larger safety net that insures more people will fall into it, let's build pipelines and refineries that would reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Instead of shelving exploration and drilling programs, let's move regulatory roadblocks out of the way, and let those programs flourish.

Infrastructure? Yes, we should modernize that. But let's not call museums and dog parks 'infrastructure'. Instead, give that tag to power lines, communication pathways and high speed railways aimed at moving freight. All generate long term jobs, and all attract private investors looking for future profits.

If Washington insists on spending money we don't have, it should be spent on strengthening control of our southern border, thereby reducing illegal immigration that costs us billions in lost taxes and provided services each year. Instead of hiring more government bureaucrats, hire agents and technologies that make enforcing our immigration laws feasible.

Education, too, could be changed to attract private investment. Vocational training at the high school level would give graduates who don't attend college the chance to move into good paying jobs, and provide industry with a much needed infusion of young, skilled workers.

In short, let's do in Washington what we would do at home. Make sense.

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Media Bias Evident Over Inauguration Costs

Making the rounds on the blogosphere is an arguement over differences in the tone of coverage on Bush / Obama inauguration costs.

OK, I'll admit it. I am one of those conspiracy theorists who sees a blatant bias in the press coverage of conservative and liberal politicians by the main-stream media.

And while the tilt I see in the coverage of congressmen, senators and governors is bad enough, at the presidential level, it's almost criminal.

Having been, of late, more concerned with local headlines than national, I must admit I let the cheerful coverage of President Obama's inauguration cost get by me. Never to fear, though. Some of my hawk-eyed fellow Opinionistas not only spotted the disparity, but they are raising a stink about it.



Clay Waters, a columnist over at NewsBusters, sums up the situation best:

"At a time when the United States is fighting two wars and faces a severe recession and huge budget deficits, the inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation's 44th president is estimated to cost $45 million. Bush's 2004 inauguration cost roughly $40 million. But though the figures are similar, there's been a major shift in the tone of coverage at the New York Times.

While the Times spent much of January 2005 making clear its disapproval of Bush extravagantly celebrating his inauguration during wartime, that concerned tone is conspicuously absent from the Times in January 2009, although the country is not only still at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in danger of a deep recession. The difference? Perhaps because this time, it's the Times's favored candidate who is readying to assume the highest office."

Read the complete piece here.

The internet row quickly devolved into a juvenile game of who spent more, with less credible sources on both sides working cost figures to their own advantage. The commonly circulated figures at right-wing sites are Bush $42 million, Obama $120 million.

About.com ran the numbers, and under the title of "Urban Legends", they concluded that the real tallies, once the higher attendance figures for Obama are factored in, are probably fairly close to even, saying:

"The $42 million cited for Bush, while roughly accurate, doesn't include the cost of security and other incidentals covered by federal and state governments. The $120 million cited for Obama (which is actually a bit on the low side) does include those costs. It's a false comparison.

Traditionally, everything except security, clean-up, and the swearing-in ceremony itself is paid for via private donations. By most estimates, the Bush inaugural committee raised and spent about $42.3 million. At last report, the Obama inaugural committee had raised and spent almost exactly the same amount ("more than $41 million," according to the Associated Press)."

I won't go into the math, because I'm willing to stipulate that Bush and Obama spent roughly the same amount of money.

What I will get into is the difference in tone. For example, a few headlines from the time period surrounding Bush's 2005 inauguration:

"Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops Die in unarmored Humvees"

"Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times"

"Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft"

Now remember, the same wars are still going on, topped with an economic meltdown of global proportions. With that in mind, now take a look at some headlines from the last few days:

"Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million"

"Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party"

"Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate"

"Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration"

Citibank? Can you imagine the outcry that would have gone up had Bush taken donations from a fat-cat bank in this anti-Wall Street climate? I can.

And what Everyman gets to spend $120 million on a kegger?

C'mon, reporters. Play fair. For once.

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The Brink, The Brim, The Cusp

Inaugural poetess Elizabeth Alexander's words left me wondering the same question I had on Nov. 3rd: The cusp of what?

Far be it from the humble editor of a fledgling new-media product to critique poetry, since my meager attempts at rhyming usually involve slang or other unseemly language. But, if the purpose of the Inaugural Poem is to inspire, then Ms. Alexander can claim a success in my listening.

What she inspired, though, was a re-awakening of the same questions I had about Barak Obama throughout his two year campaign. What does he believe, and what will he do?

The mantra of 'Change", so often invoked by our new President, was just vague enough to be captivating without requiring any substance.

As a political tool, it worked perfectly to allow every Obama listener to project what he or she wanted to hear on a blank screen. The only problem with it's use is that it is bound to lead to a reality induced hangover sooner or later. And it won't just be an American morning after.

People the world over are hanging hope and aspirations of all sizes on our new President, who is now saddled with the reality of managing expectations on a global scale.

Sarah Palin made of joke of Obama's healing the planet and turning back the waters during the campaign. Sadly, there are some who expect just those kinds of miracles from him.

Take the economy, for instance, since it is the largest elephant in the room right now. A recent poll found that almost 70% of respondents expect Obama to mend our ailing markets. One has to wonder what they are basing those hopes on?

Surely not more bail-outs and spending packages. Evidence of how well that is working came just today, when the Dow plunged over three hundred points as Obama took the oath of office.

If he keeps his pledges of transparency and straight talk, President Obama will sooner or later have to tell a country and a world that the solution is to suck it up, suffer the pain, abandon the failing constructs of governmental charity, and to deal with the difficulties of allowing a truly free market to adjust freely.

If he does that, then we are on the cusp of a real opportunity to right some bad policy decisions forty years in the making. And he will be on the brink of a popularity plunge that will make Bush 43 look like a shining star.

If, on the other hand, he chooses to 'spend his way out', as the cliche goes, he stands a chance of maintaining his current global popularity while pushing this country over the brim, and into a pit of debt so deep we might never climb out.

Consider that to spend what you don't have, you have to borrow. That's plain kitchen table Economics 101. With that concept, so illusive to the DC crowd, firmly in mind, ask yourself who the banker might be.

China? Saudi Arabia?

No matter where you find your credit, the banker doesn't have our best interest at heart. And if our children can't make the note, who suffers when the repo notice arrives?

And that's one home ownership we simply can not afford to default on.

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Union Card Checks Defeat The Protection Of A Secret Ballot

As flawed as our election system is, one of the things it does right is to allow voters to cast their ballot in private.

When it comes to organizing unions, Big Labor doesn't think workers deserve that protection.

You can bet that President Obama will be called on to pay back some election favors he owes to Big Union interest very early in his first year in office.

And he has already signaled, by announcing that Hilda Solis would be his nominee for Secretary of Labor, that he intends to square his debt.

Solis has been a vocal supporter of the Card Check bill, cosmetically called the "Employee Free Choice Act", a piece of proposed legislation that union bosses are drooling to push through Congress, and onto Obama's desk. The legislation would end the practice of workers voting to unionize by secret ballot, instead forcing companies to recognize unions once a majority workers signed membership cards.

While that doesn't sound like a big change, the potential for organizers to publicly pressure or harass workers to sign cards and join unions is huge.

Being pressured in the break room at work is bad enough, but imagine sitting in a cafe after work, and having organizers harangue you for not wanting to sign up. Or maybe they caught you at the gas station, or in the grocery store. Maybe they even talk to your spouse, and attempt to get at you that way.

And the time period to apply that sort of public pressure would not be limited by a voting deadline. Organizers would simply continue to work on the hold-outs until they had a majority.

Even worse, if someone in a position of authority, say a foreman, is in favor of the union, and one his subordinates isn't, the possibility of that foreman applying far more serious pressure than embarrassment is very real. Would you swap a vote to keep your job? For many, that might be the choice the have to make.

Free choice? Hardly.

Pro business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are preparing to spend millions in opposition to the legislation. They will face an uphill battle, with Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, and a President favorable to the bill in command of a bully pulpit.

You can expect to see our new president give a lot speeches about the bill, and portray it as being good for the American worker, the middle class, baseball, hot dogs and apple pie.

He won't say it's good for Chevrolet, though. Big Business will be cast as the evil empire in the fight, and their opposition to the bill will be likened to Darth Vader warming up the death ray as he circles the rebel moon.

Opponents of the bill will largely be forced to wage a nationwide grass roots campaign designed to bring voter pressure on Democrat representatives. That means the bulk of their money and time will be spent in democratic districts, attempting to sway pro union voters with an appeal to their basic fairness.

Seasoned political operatives working for the unions realize that, and that will be the reason to push the legislation through early and quickly. The quicker they can move the bill through Congress, the less media attention it will receive. And the earlier they can get it done, the longer voters will have to forget about it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will know that as well. The pair have shown their willingness many times to shut down debate and twist a few arms, and this will be no different.

Couple that effort with a biased national press corp openly infatuated with all things Obama, and it spells disaster for the time honored fairness of the secret union ballot.

The battle will be an early test of how well Republican Senators can play the minority party game. If they can muster a cohesive, enduring filibuster, then business groups will have a shot at spotlighting the vote, and swaying enough public sentiment to stop the charge.

The last thing Obama and company want to do is give the GOP a wedge issue for the midterm 2010 elections. They well remember the Health Care debacle, and what it did to President Clinton's first term.

Business leaders have no choice but to start the local media campaigns early, and hope there are still a few reporters at the national level who are willing to explore both sides of the issue.

And if that exploration is honest, the crux of the matter is plain to see. The issue is fairness.

This legislation is about nothing more complicated than giving Big Labor an open door to bully and strong-arm workers into swelling their membership ranks, and therefore their coffers. It will do that by ripping away the simplest protection that American voters enjoy, the secret ballot.

It is an understatement to call Card Check pro union. The reality is, it's anti-worker.

It's wrong, and for the sake of workers everywhere, it needs to be stopped.

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Teaching Kids To Talk The Talk, The Old School Way

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) won a victory last week at the expense of taxpayer dollars and common sense.

A judge has told the state of Texas that the English as a Second Language (ESL) program is not working for Hispanic secondary students, and ordered the state to fix the problem before the start of school next year.

In a rare bit of legal irony, the judge who issued the ruling last Thursday is the same judge who started the whole mess to begin with.

35 years ago, Judge William Justice ruled that the Texas educational system had a legal obligation to provide bilingual education to secondary level students who didn't speak English proficiently.

That ruling, which flew in the face of what had worked before, set our state on the costly road to ESL curriculums that simply don't work.

Before his ridiculous decision, immigrants learned English the old fashioned way, through immersion. Immersion simply means that they were surrounded by written and spoken English every day, and had no choice but to learn the language.

That method may have been old school and hard-nosed, but it had one thing going for it: It worked. It worked every time, and it worked at no additional cost.

Disregarding all that, Justice ruled way back then that Texas educators had to re-tool their approach to non-English speaking students, and bilingual education was born.

The approach, as most government approaches are, was costly and counter-productive.

Its concept was to teach core subjects in the student's native language, while teaching them to speak and write English concurrently.

The program not only required the hiring or training of bilingual teachers, and duplicating curriculum materials in both English and Spanish, it also birthed brand new monitoring requirements, and brand new bureaucrats to oversee them.

Over the ensuing 35 years, those new bureaucrats, now firmly entrenched in our school systems, determined that the programs weren't working.

While some progress was being made with elementary grade students, secondary level pupils were failing and dropping out in droves.

A twist in the concept was introduced to target those students, English as a Second Language. ESL provides core instruction with limited use of the student's native language, combined with a heavier focus on English immersion.

While all that was going on, the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) testing was started in 2003. And as TAKS scores of ESL students are analyzed, it has become apparent that the ESL model isn't working.

Those results, and that analysis, was fodder for a lawsuit, which brings us back to Judge Justice and his latest ruling.

The lawsuit was filed in 2007 by MALDEF on behalf of about 145,000 middle and high school students who are considered deficient in English. TAKS test scores show far below average scores for those students in core subjects.

Justice first ruled in 2007 that Texas was meeting its legal obligations to students with limited English proficiency, and said other factors besides a failure of ESL programs might be to blame.

But in July of this year, he reversed himself and ruled that the state was not complying with federal law that requires students to get equal education opportunities. That failure to comply, he said, violated the civil rights of Spanish-speaking students under the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act.

He then ordered that improvements had to be in place by the start of the 2009-10 school year, and required the state submit a preliminary plan for the improvements by Jan. 31, 2009.

The state appealed the ruling on the grounds it has not received funding or authority from the legislature to revamp the programs. Texas requested Justice delay the order, while they appealed the ruling.

Judge Justice, in a new order release Friday, denied the request and reaffirmed the deadlines. The state, he said, could requests for additional funding from Legislature when it convenes in January.

Offering educators no quarter, his ruling said "The time has come to put a halt to the failed secondary English as a Second Language program and monitoring system".

The state can, and probably will, appeal the ruling and request a stay from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but the die seems cast to spend more money on the problem.

Education committees in both the Texas House and Senate have already said that they are working on the problem. Typically, that is code language for opening the checkbook.

And while no one has gone on the record with a price tag, some knowledgeable observers have guessed that remedial education for the 140,000 secondary students could cost $500 more per student, or $70 million a year. Add another $30 million in new monitoring programs, and the cost hovers around $100 million per year.

In a way, the judge was correct. The time has come to put an end to ESL. The time has also come to end bilingual education entirely.

The fix, however, will not come from piles of money being thrown into "new think" teaching programs. What we need, is some old school thought.

What we need, is the intestinal fortitude to address the problem forthrightly.

Students who don't speak English are entering Texas schools. They are disadvantaged to begin with, yet still expected to meet the norms of English speaking students.

And while this lawsuit, and the vast majority of bilingual and ESL programs focus on Hispanic children, we can't ignore children who come from Asian and European countries.

Do we need coursebooks in Japaneese, Chinese and Russian as well?

No, we don't. The solution is not to attempt core teaching in every language under the sun.

The solution is to intercept those students at the door, and put them into classes that do nothing but teach English. All day, every day.

When they are proficient in reading, speaking and writing English, and able to succeed in an English based educational system. Then, and only then, do we advance them to core classes. That would be real, old school immersion, and that would really work.

Yes, it might take a year or two. Yes, they might graduate a couple of years late.
But the benefit of truly knowing the language of their new country would serve them for a lifetime.

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Shoe Bomber Excercises Freedom To Bear Arms... Err.. Bare Feet

Loafer hurling reporter unwittingly highlights new Iraqi freedoms.

Muntazer al-Zaidi fired the shoe heard 'round the world Sunday. Bush was graceful in his dodge and response, The Iraqi government was embarrassed, and YouTube was enriched. The incident sparked protest over al-Zaidi's subsequent arrest, and provided fodder for countless columns, videos, and even games.

The reporter intended to insult our President, and in that corner of the world, he might have succeeded. But it can be argued that he succeeded, as well, in underscoring the tangible freedoms now enjoyed by the people of Iraq because of the leadership of the man he attacked.

Before Saddam Husein's ouster, Iraqi press conferences consisted of a madman telling a fearful press what to write. Who could forget Baghdad Bob denying the American military's presence, even as our shells whistled through the windows of his office in the Ministry of Information.

And in the face of incontrovertible evidence, the Iraqi press were too cowed to challenge him. Things are different now.

Not only does Iraq have a newly resurgent and hard-nosed press corps, they also have citizens willing to rally in the streets against their own government, which in the long run is a good thing.

True, the incident gave rise to some tongue-in-cheek commentary too witty to pass up, such as this passage from the American Spectator:

Bush acquitted himself well during the incident. He has crashed on his mountain bike a few times and choked on a pretzel, but even reluctant historians will have to acknowledge that his athletic side has proven helpful at several crucial moments during the war on terror. Before the eyes of the world, as Mark Steyn has written, he was able to throw out first pitches at baseball games effectively and now he has calmly dodged Zaidi's pair of shoes.

The Secret Service, however, looked pretty leaden. What happens to an agent who fails to take a shoe for the president? A kernel of a Clint Eastwood-style movie might be contained in this. Zaidi was screened, according to the Secret Service, but perhaps a more astute team would have looked into his eyes and seen his sole. That he managed to get two throws in, with only Maliki's hand to protect Bush, is astonishing.

Heretofore Helen Thomas and Adam Clymer had posed the greatest threats to Bush. But how could he have anticipated this burst of media bias? An administration famous for requiring passengers to take off shoes before boarding planes will now have to ask reporters to do the same before asking questions.

It is funny, but that humor is in stark contrast to what the story would have been had a reporter thrown a shoe at Saddam. That transgression would have resulted in the eradication of the home village of the reporter, not merely his arrest.

We have made progress over there, and the peoples of the world are better off for it.

Future administrations will enjoy a relationship with Iraq Bush couldn't have dreamed of, and history will judge him far better than the shoe bomber does.

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When Will The Senate-Mobile Roll Out Of Detroit?

If it weren't so serious, watching a few senators who don't have enough sense to run a shoe-shine stand tell auto executives how to make cars and trucks would be downright funny.

In my lifetime, The almighty US Congress has dabbled in a lot of things that they had no business dabbling in. Of those, I would say it's a clean sweep the number that they managed to make worse.

Take education, which should be the purview of local and state bodies. The Washington solution is always to protect teachers unions, and throw more money at the problem. Ask any common sense individual, and they'll tell you the solution to our education problem is real discipline in the classroom, real world teaching methods that don't involve student esteem concerns, and getting rid of tenure protected teachers who can't or won't do their jobs.

Health Care is another D.C. success story. Between lawyers running around exploiting every loophole to sue doctors and medical facilities, and insurance regulations so convoluted that competition has died, it's a mess only politicians could have created. Obama's solution will be to nationalize and socialize medicine. The confusion won't lessen, but the quality and extent of services you can hope for will.

The Congress has also "fixed" welfare a number of times, with every repair involving a lessening of benefits, esoteric book-keeping methods, and a denial of the fact the the system is not self sustaining, and must somehow be ended.

They also solved Major League Baseball's steroid problem, only a few years after they liberated Afghanistan from Russia, and created Osama Bin Ladin in the process.

In short, our glorious representatives, for the most part, are a bunch of pompous have-done-nothings with no real hope of ever doing anything meaningful.

It is this august body who will now, with a wave of their checkbook, "fix" Detroit.

Will they use the model of Toyota, who is operating factories on our soil quite profitably?

No, they'll go back to Plan A. They'll protect the UAW, throw money at businesses that don't make profits, and demand Detroit become "Green". By the way, "Green" is a code word that means "Al Gore would approve".

They will create a few agencies, a new "Car Czar", and enough regulations and bureaucrats to insure that every Obama campaign worker will have a government job for life.

In short, they'll do the only thing they really know how to do.

How does that old saying go? If the only tool you know how to use is a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

In Washington's case, the whole world seems in need of regulating.

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Reasons To Be Thankful

This year has been tough, and the next promises to be tougher. Why do we gather to give thanks?

With today's news constantly warning of dire economic time ahead, and a culture that sometimes looks to be unraveling at the seams, it must seem strange to residents of other countries that Americans still pause and find reason to give thanks to God for blessings that seem to be evaporating.

But those blessings are not all material, and the most important have proven to be quite durable and constant. The Pilgrims who started the tradition of Thanksgiving were not giving thanks for riches. They gathered to simply celebrate survival in a new land, and a new freedom to worship and prosper as they wished, without fear of persecution.

With a little thought, one can find several of the most important of these blessings listed in the preamble to our enduring Constitution:

'A more perfect union' - America may have stumbled, and we might have some rocky roads ahead, but we are still a better place to live than anywhere else in the world. Through the protections of our constitutional rights, Americans enjoy more freedom and opportunity than any other citizenry, and we are still that shining city on the hill that Ronald Reagan spoke of.

'Establish justice' - Can anyone argue that we, as Americans, don't enjoy a far better chance for a fair trial by jury, and rights of appeal equaled by none?

'Domestic tranquility' - Sure, we might argue among ourselves, but no one expects Rhode Island to call up their militia and attack Massachusetts. And as bad as 9-11 was, Britain, Ireland and Pakistan all have long histories of internal terrorism that we have managed to avoid.

'The common defense' - Our military troops are the bravest, best equipped and best trained force in the world. By bringing the battle to terrorists on their soil, they prevent those battles from being fought here. And not to be forgotten, the men and women of our law enforcement agencies fight a quiet, often unheralded war of their own, succeeding in alleyways and boardrooms to keep the lawless from preying on the defenseless'.

'The general welfare' - While the cradling arms of our welfare system may seem too extensive to many, starvation, pestilence and plague have been virtually eliminated within our borders.

'The blessings of liberty' - The freedom to speak out and question our elected leaders is one few people realize the power of. In many places of the world, the debate and dissent we enjoy are cause for mass executions. When we vote, we exercise the power to change the directions and policies of a nation from a curtained booth. This is an awesome privilege few have, and many hunger for.

And lastly, 'Our posterity' - All that we do as citizens and parents can be summed up in a few words: "To make things better for our children than they were for ourselves." And there is, and never has been, another place like America to make that a reality.

This year, while we offer praise, prayers and thanks for health and wealth, let's remember the underlying reasons we enjoy these things, and give thanks for those as well.

Happy Thanksgiving, and God bless!

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Are Failing Auto Makers The New Katrina?

New Orleans sat paralyzed while it's levees broke, and the rising tide of sludge and apathy ruined thousands. Have politicians and Detroit's automakers taken the same approach?

Just as New Orleans was warned before Katrina struck and the levees collapsed, the rising tide of red ink surrounding the big three automakers has caused numerous alarm bells in Detroit and Washington, and no one listened.

The unions have a stranglehold on the auto companies, and refused to relinquish it even when management turned blue in the face. The issues for years have been wages and health care. The unions, of course, want both increased.

Management is trapped between the threat of massive labor strikes, and a new global market that chugs merrily along, happily cutting it's competitors throats with the sharp edge of market based wages.

The Big Three are paying their workers $20 more per hour than Toyota, and losing $500 for every car they turn out.

Auto prices rose, lining the pockets of foreign manufacturers with easy profits. Despite the increase, American companies were losing money on every car they built, and the unions chose to ignore that in contract talks. While politicians who could have broken the death grip fiddled, the storm tide began to rise...

Gas prices shot up and stayed there, the housing bubble burst, consumer confidence ebbed, and new car dealers began noticing some rust on their inventory. Higher still, the waters rose...

Fanny Mae, Freddy Mac and Lehmans all toppled. We all learned what a collateralized debt obligation was, AIG wobbled and credit seized up. Even people wanting to buy cars were having trouble getting loans. Dealers laid of salesmen, and finally the waters crested against the weakened levees of Detroit's capital reserves.

Stockholders finally took notice of the money leaks, and bailed themselves out by dumping stock. Washington doled out $25 billion, but it was like sending Ray Nagle a couple of boats. Nothing remained to halt the disaster.

Well, the levees are broken, and automakers are busted. As with AIG, it isn't just a case of large companies folding. The problems are much deeper than that.

Faced with a massive surge of laid off workers, the state of Michigan sees itself unable to cover the potential unemployment cost in an area that is far from labor-hungry. The state would also be saddled with the health care of millions of retired union workers whose insurance plans will collapse when union dues stop funding them.

A perfect storm has hit, and the rising cries from the rooftops begin. It will be taxpayers who are expected, once more, to break out the life rafts and row in a boatload of rescue funds. Only the nagging question of Washington agreeing to a bail-out remains.

Be serious.

The Democratic party is neck deep in debt to Big Labor. Even Obama, who raised enough money to single-handedly bail out Ford, relied heavilly on Labor for the grass roots work of his campaign.

And Republicans, who should be the party decrying the government's involvement in any capital enterprise, remember all to well the political damage inflicted on them for appearing unable or unwilling to help suffering Americans during Katrina.

They won't risk long unemployment lines appearing nightly on the news, while Wolf Blitzer wonders how the minority party could ignore such suffering on the part of middle class, blue collar Americans.

Upshot is, politicians in both parties can be relied on to reach into the back pockets of taxpayers for the pay-off. All the debates, posturing and committee meetings at this point are purely for show.

After much public angst, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will pass a bail-out bill. They will pretend to pressure Bush to sign it, and whether he does or not, its a win-win for the Dems.

If Bush signs, the automakers and unions will have been 'saved' due to congressional action and pressure.

If Bush veto's the thing, then it will languish until January, when Obama will ride into Washington, sign the check, and save the day.

We citizens don't have a lot of say in the matter. Calling our Congressmen will do no good. Already short on numbers in a lame duck session, the Republicans who represent our neck of the woods are essentially powerless.

So the question is not should we shore up an industry based on a failing business model with no hope of recovery. The question is when will it happen.

So break out those checkbooks, folks. Higher taxes are coming, and coming fast.

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Has Obama's Test Already Started?

In the waning days of the U.S. Presidential campaign, Joe Biden ominously predicted Obama would be tested early in his term. Has it already started?

Less than twenty-four hours after Barack Obama was elected, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced plans to deploy Iskander missiles within striking distance of Poland.

To be fair, what prompted the move was heartburn in Moscow over a U.S. proposed missile defense system to be placed in Poland. The White House says the system is to counter an Iranian missile capability, and the Kremlin says it reduces Russia's nuclear deterrent capability.

The conflict has been brewing between Washington and Moscow for almost a year, and wasn't prompted by Obama's election.

What does seem to be driven by the election, or at least coincident with it, is a resurgent willingness in Moscow to rattle it's saber any time world events don't go it's (read that Vladmir Putin's) way.

Take, for example, the recent show of power by the Russian navy, steaming around the world to Venezuela, and violating the long respected Marshall Doctrine in the process. Russia doesn't need oil from Hugo Chavez, and they can ill afford a client state headed by a madman in this hemisphere.

So, why the cruise?

The opportunity to beard the U.S. in it's own back yard, and get a good read on both of the men who might lead it the next four years must have been irresistible.

Take note that Russia is rejecting out of hand current overtures made by Condoleeza Wright to resolve the issue, preferring instead to settle the problem when Obama takes office.

And finally, today, Putin sounded threats that Russia might reduce oil production to shore up the falling price of crude. This would be an unprecedented action. Moscow has traditionally backed away from OPEC involvement or OPEC style maneuvering in the world crude market.

So, why the waiting game, and why the threat?

Emboldened by Obama's hesitancy to denounce Russia's invasion of Georgia, judging that to signal inexperience or weakness, could Putin be thinking back to the glory years of Nikita Khrushchev? If he is, was it Obama that reminded him?

During the campaign, as Putin was making he-man news in his karate gi, Obama chose the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit as an illustration on why talking to our enemies early in his administration, without preconditions, would be a good idea.

Khrushchev, the fabled hardliner who pushed a young John Kennedy to remove NATO missiles from Turkey during the Cuban Missile Crisis, may well be the history chapter Obama needs to brush up on.

Kennedy is fondly remembered by pop culture history, but that summit was a foreign policy disaster from every contemporary or serious historic perspective. Khrushchev abused and berated the young President endlessly, and ended the meetings by telling Kennedy "We will bury you!".

Kennedy, who told his aides that Khrushchev had "just beat the hell out of me", left worried, knowing that the Russian thought he, and by extension, the U.S., was weak.

That perceived weakness came back to haunt him less than a year later, when Kennedy quietly traded away the missiles in Turkey to buy Khrushchev and the Russian nukes out of Cuba.

It is widely believed that in an effort to regain some prestige, Kennedy later decided to force the issue by committing to direct conflict in Vietnam, and we all know what a brilliant foreign policy move that was.

Actually, when a dispassionate study of the Kennedy presidency is made, it is hard to find anything he did right in the foreign arena. Rather than backing the Russians down, he bought them off. The Bay of Pigs was bad, but Vietnam was worse. One could argue he spent his remaining days in office after that crucial summit trying to impress Khrushchev.

And here we are, forty years later, in another game of chicken with Moscow, defending a fledgling democracy from the Russian bear, each side using missiles as bargaining chips, and a young, untested Democrat president set to mount the world stage and talk the problem away over a Mocha Latte.

Deja Vu? In spades.

I, for one, don't believe that Georgia's admission into NATO is in our interest, and it is the subject of another essay whether the Bush Doctrine promotes an expansion of freedom, or is simply an excuse to go and build an empire of influence.

I don't even think it debatable that Bush's lack of attention to the old Eastern Bloc, and to our relations with Russia, has forced this conflict. Neither do I think that the issue at hand.

What is at hand is how to defuse and normalize relations with Russia, without wasting the little political capital we have left with them. What Reagan started, Bush 41, Bill Clinton and Bush 43 have squandered. Russia's path into democracy has been ugly, and they now seem to be retracing their steps.

I believe we are looking at the beginning of the new old Soviet Union, with Putin at the helm. The hardliners are coming back into power, and the Brezhnev Doctrine won't be far behind.

It might behoove our President-Elect to tear a page from Sarah Palin's playbook, and spend an afternoon talking with Henry Kissinger.

Kissinger might have misjudged Gorbachev. He surely wouldn't have known what to make of Boris Yeltsin, but he knew exactly what Khrushchev was made of, and Putin is cast in the very same mold.

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Is America Lurching Left?

Do the election results spell the end of a center-right country?

I have heard many pundits recently saying we are a center-right country. Most of them were speaking in context of yesterday's elections, and most of them now appear ridiculously wrong.

How could their assertions possibly be true? This election was a seismic shift to the Democratic ticket. According to all analysis, the move cut across every demographic, and was independent of region or party. In short, a mass migration to the left.

It is the largest electoral move since the Gingrich revolution in the early 90's, and decidedly opposite in it's direction.

Not only did we overwhelmingly elect a Democratic president, we increased the majority of a Democrat controlled Congress that enjoyed the lowest approval ratings in history. Democrats in both the House and Senate realized gains, although it seems Harry Reid will still have to contend with the filibuster option on the Senate side.

The left also picked up several governorships, and increased their contingent in almost every state house.

So, are we now, as a country, leaning left?

The answer is no. Voters in California, Florida and Arizona all either passed Gay Marriage Bans, or defeated efforts to redefine marriage to include homosexual unions. This fact serves as a cultural bellwether, at least in California and Florida.

Both of these states went to the Democrats, and California vies with Oregon as the most liberal state in the country. The youth vote was huge in both states, and gay marriage was still not able to gain the popular nod.

Voter anger over federal intervention in the business sector, including the recent 700 billion dollar bail-out package, indicates we still don't want Washington in our business.

The uproar over Obama's comments regarding his plan to "spread the wealth", a remark that almost cost him the election, indicates we don't like politicians in our pocketbook, either.

So why the swing? George W. Bush.

This election was nothing more than a referendum on the sitting President. In fact, the parallels between this year, and Jimmy Carter's victory in 1976, are striking.

In both elections, the nation had a choice between a young, inexperienced populist and the party of an unpopular, embattled President who remained shuttered up behind the gates at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Both elections featured an experienced Republican who had trouble finding a message, and a media reluctant to investigate their opponent on any substantive issues.

Both elections were characterized by a groundswell of young, angry voters, and both decisions went to the newcomer, along with gains in congress.

This year, Obama's promise of 'change' was enough to seal the deal. Even an undefined and nebulous sort of change sounded better than "four more years of the same".

Conservatives can blame the defeat suffered in 2008 on a President who refused to communicate his thinking to the country, and refused to engage in any debate on ideology or principals.

Bush surrendered the domestic arena to a Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. They used every crisis as an opportunity to pin blame on Bush, and he never defended himself or his party.

He never used his veto pen to arrest an out of control spending binge, and he never sounded the alarm over the economic crisis.

Bush and his economic team knew the crisis was coming, and their last two budgets to Congress included strong statements warning of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae's impending collapse. While they did plead with Congress to reform the giant lenders, Bush never took to the national pulpit to warn us voters. Had he done so, he would have looked like a genius when it happened, and Republican's could have seized the initiative of change and reform that rightfully belonged to them from the Democrats.

Pelosi and Reid immediately pointed to deregulation as the problem, and a useless national media joined in the ploy. Talking heads populated the airwaves, discussing the evils of deregulation, when the real problem was a failure of congress and federal agencies like the SEC to exercise the expansive regulatory powers they had, and still have.

When "two more years of the same" should have been a nationwide Republican attack ad, congressional candidates were instead scrambling to hide their party affiliation with an invisible president who rivaled Nixon in his fortress mentality.

This failure to preside cost the Republicans the election, and will probably result in a larger, more intrusive federal government who feels a mandate to reach deeper into our wallets.

As Joe Biden said, we will all be forced to "be part of the deal", like it or not.

Liberals now have two years to compile a record that will be judged strictly to their account, and conservatives have the same two years to tailor their message of smaller government and traditional values to a younger electorate.

Republicans must also find a way to bypass a hostile, liberal media in order to broadcast that message, or the party will whither on the vine. That can only be done by direct communication to their constituents, and that means packing up every weekend, leaving Washington, and hitting the stump in their home districts.

Obama ran as a centrist, disavowing any connection with extreme members of his party, and promising tax cuts to the middle class. His promise is to be a pragmatic and communicative leader. How he responds to the wild-eyed liberalism of Pelosi-Reid will be key to his success or failure.

How will he meld a centrist pragmatism, when he has an 800 million dollar election debt to members of the hard left? He will have a swooning media to assist him, and we can expect an instructive display of how the Presidential bully pulpit really works.

It should be an interesting two years.

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When The Talking Points Are Pointless

Barring a mass revolt by the lawyers, we'll have a new President-Elect by tomorrow. Regardless of who is elected, do we know how he will govern?

No. We don't.

We have all heard the speeches, and if you listened to more than one, you probably heard the same thing every time. And, I bet that sounded a lot like what what you heard in the debates. Or maybe it was the same as what you heard on Meet The Press, Face The Nation or Larry King.

And therein lies the problem with how we select our President. Softball debates and set-piece speeches don't test the skills needed to do the job. All the time and money wasted on domestic policy debates (taxes, energy, education, etc.) would be much better spent learning what the candidates believe, and what makes them tick.

What is their core philosophy of government? How do they make big decisions? Where do they see America on the world stage? When, if ever, do they believe our national interest trump the needs of the world?

Here's a for instance: Obama and McCain have told us, time and time again, what they want to do about taxes. And we all know that come November 5th, everything they said goes out the window.

The President has no power, beyond a veto threat and the bully pulpit, to shape domestic policy. Congress does that. Where the office does have power, is in how to administer the programs Congress sends up, and what direction to take foreign policy.

Which is why the record, character and core beliefs of the candidate matter far more than any tax policy they spout out.

The cabinet members they would appoint mean a great deal more than whether they stutter or stammer now and then. And would it hurt us to discover that they really do have a 'litmus test' for judges? I know I do, and I bet you do, too.

The media calls it "going negative" when one candidate questions the other's truthfulness, associations, record or decision making process. Then, they run countless polls to discern if the negativity drives away voters. While bemoaning the denigration of the process, they ignore that they should be the ones 'going negative'.

A reporter's job is to be respectfully cynical and distrustful of every candidate. It is to ask the hard questions, and to dig around in dusty old archives looking for errors in judgment the candidates have made.

If they did that job correctly, office seekers wouldn't have to wallow in the mud in front of the world. They could speak about their vision for the country, and their approach to getting there. And when a skeleton fell out of the closet, it should be up to the skeleton owner to answer the hard questions in a press conference.

The media did us a huge disservice by not really investigating Obama's association with Chicago's radical elite. They shorted us when they didn't ask him about the hubris required to run for president after serving in the Senate only 145 days. They didn't ask about his meddling in foreign policy before he was elected, and after Joe the Plumber outed him, not one reporter mentioned the word "socialist" to Obama. That's just plain malpractice.

The press also failed us by never forcing McCain to explain his pick of Sarah Palin. I never heard a`reporter challenge him about the erratic decision to suspend his campaign during the bail-out negotiations. And besides the fact that he served for a long time on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, do you know anything about how he voted on that committee? Not if you were counting on CNN, you don't.

During the debates, we should have heard more hypothetical questions. Imagine how much better informed we would be if both men had been asked 'If Israel attacks Iran, how will you respond?'

The only candidate that was asked anything like that was Governor Palin, and she declined to answer, saying we shouldn't second guess Israel. Palin was also asked to list some Supreme Court decisions that she disagreed with. She famously fumbled the answer, but the point is that would have been a great question for all four candidates.

It's funny that both Vice Presidential candidates were given more fastball questions than either of the guys at the top of the ticket. Biden went into a wobble, and blathered his way through most of them, while Palin just blinked and offered a retreaded position speech.

McCain, nor Obama, was ever put in a position to reach any deeper into their thinking than a well parsed talking point would cover, and we are all the worse for that.

Let's hope we get lucky, and the wisdom of the crowd gets it right, because we damn sure don't have a good reason to vote for either one.

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Polls Confuse The Issue

Is it just me, or has everybody had enough of dueling polls?

I know the polls we see daily are supposed to be 'scientific'. I know Zogby and Rasmussen and the rest work very hard at getting the adjustments right. I also know that we all seem to concentrate on the horserace instead of the stakes.



What if we had an election, and the pollsters didn't come? Imagine, if instead of thirty second candidate sound bites, followed by ten minutes of "poll analysis", you could here a candidate say more than two sentences on a newscast. Would you listen pay more attention to the candidate's words? Would the numbers we discuss be tax breaks and spending plans, instead of who's leading who where?

In the main, the polls tend to disagree and contradict each other, adding fodder to an already over excited national media. The polls become the news, and the candidates are reduced to soundbites. That's bad for us all.

Let's face it: We all want to be on the winning side, and polling data tends to herd the independents and undecided towards the candidate perceived to be leading. That muddies the waters of the election, and turns our most solemn duty as citizens into a football pool.

For the same reason that news organizations shouldn't call results until the polls close, opinion polls should be left to the campaigns, and opinions should be left to voters.

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Why Start The Upshur Advocate?

The reason I started this little online experiment is because there is a whole county full of news going unreported. And there is a whole new breed of citizen-reporters out there, with the desire and where-with-all to see the successes and missteps in their part of the county documented and addressed. People who are party to the happenings that often are only told by word of mouth.

How many school board meetings, volleyball games, orchestrated acts of kindness and citizenship have you witnessed or been a part of, that never made the printed page? I'm betting plenty, and now, we have a way to link up, share our piece of Upshur, and keep everyone up to speed.

I'll be honest with you. I'm not a reporter. What I am, is a concerned parent and citizen who thinks we are all less informed and proactive than we should be.

Do I think we have huge problems in Upshur? No, I don't. In fact, I think, in the seven years since my family and I moved here, we have met some of the most honest, hard working and down to earth people anyone could ask to meet.

I am a little ashamed, though, that when I voted today, there were people on the ballot I didn't know, and had never heard speak. Why do they want the job they are running for, and why do they think they are the best person for it? I can't answer that tonight, but I hope this site will have a chance to rectify that. If you feel the same way, help me get this thing going.

What it takes, are fair people with a little time, a little civic pride, an internet connection, and maybe a digital camera. When you have an opportunity to attend a civic event, the privilege to witness a good turn, the pleasure of watching your child kick some butt in a school activity, or the misfortune of finding a problem that needs fixing, send me an email, or comment in the 'Letters To The County" section.

Ask some questions, take some notes, snap a few pictures and send it here. I'm hoping we develop a large enough readership that we can follow up and get some answers.

We're going to develop contacts with pastors, principles, superintendents, commissioners, coaches, teachers, business owners and others. We're going to ask them to contribute their thoughts and knowledge to the site. The dialog will be polite and respectful, like I think our broader political and social discourse should be.

The thing I think that we all forget nowadays, is that we are all in this together. We citizens and voters are the ultimate bosses, that's true. But it is also true that we are the best resource this county, and indeed, this country has. An engaged, informed, and active citizenry is the only way we maintain, grow and prosper the promise that started in Philadelphia over two hundred and thirty years ago. When we ask our elected officials to work with us, and are willing to work with them, we all win.

I believe America is essentially a centrist country, but I also think partisanship has an important place in process. What we see at the national and state level, however, isn't partisanship, it's polarization. Partisanship should be the competition of ideas in the marketplace of what works. These days, it's defined as a concerted effort on both sides to demean, demonize and nullify people and ideas. That's not competition, it's warfare, and it's tearing this country apart.

What we see in debates are endless talking points, a few flare-ups, and everyone waiting for the "gotcha moment". And more and more, the guy who can round-up and turn-out the biggest number of angry, greedy, or clueless voters is the guy that wins.

When we are at our best, is when we face challenges like 9-11. The times we look around, and realize that sixty percent of us are closer to the middle than we thought; When we ignore the radical fifteen percent on either side, and set our minds to do what is best for the whole one hundred percent, we shine. And what that takes, it seems, is simply a common goal.

That's why I chose the name 'Advocate' for the site. We need to advocate for common sense solutions and basic decency in discourse and dissent, We need to exhibit the neighborly concern for our communities that we hope our children will attain. And short of dishonesty or thievery, we need to realize that the people who lift the mantle of elected burden are, after all, just people. We need to stop looking for the 'gotcha' and the 'gimme', and start looking for results and progress.

Maybe I'm thinking big, but the next election cycle, I would like to see this site in a position to sponsor some candidate forums, so there are some faces and facts to go with the names the next time we pull we the lever.

To accomplish that, it takes enough voices to be heard. The only way this site does that is to generate a consistent, interactive readership. And the best way I know to accomplish that is to put you to work for the cause, and give you some benefit for doing it.

The work part, we've already covered. Get out there, get involved, and let the readers of this site hear about it.

The benefit? Well, we will have classified ads, lost and found listings, and even some business ads for free. We'll announce church, school, civic and social events for free, and we'll make sure our kid's pictures show up prominently when they sink that last second outside jumper.

And we'll turn up the heat when something just isn't right, and try to shed some collective light on the things that are.

Till next time!

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