The Bosque Boys

I recently received this gem from Tocqueville:

Don Luskin at the blog "The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid" (among the best out there) reminds us of this idiotic Paul Krugman (a redundancy) quote (it's hard to pick just one), which would hover near the top of any list of the greatest idiotic quotes of all time (the collection of which is perhaps a worthwhile project and we already know where to look):

"I predict that in the years ahead Enron, not Sept. 11, will come to be seen as the greater turning point in U.S. society."

--Paul Krugman, January 29, 2002

Wow! How does a lame clown like that get to be a lead columnist at a newspaper that claims some authority? Don't you just love the New York Times? If it weren't there to prove that it exists, I would never credit a mere report of its existence.

Thanks, Tocqueville.

Liberal candidates, columnists and bloggers all across America are asking two questions this morning:

One officially: why do so many media outlets give so much face time to the vituperative queen of calumny, Ann Coulter?

One unofficially: how can we best publicize and exploit the actions of Ann Coulter to our advantage?

As for the latter question, Elizabeth Edwards, wife of candidate for president, John Edwards, with the aid of Chris Matthews, knocked one out of the park last night on Hardball.

This morning the leftwing blogs are all abuzz with the big political score. Shakespeare's Sister here is typical with this headline: "Elizabeth Edwards Smacks Down Ann Coulter." And this encouragement: "Go get her, Elizabeth." On Coulter: "she really is a soulless beast."

An aside: Over at Shakespeare's Sister, evidently, they really hate hate speech, so much so that there is a warning to friendly commenters not to call Coulter a "tranny."

What Happened on Hardball?

In an extremely cheesy and clumsily orchestrated moment worthy of Jerry Springer, Elizabeth Edwards called in to the show to confront the longtime John Edwards tormentor (view the YouTube here).

Mrs. Edwards, are you there? A pause. Is she there? What will she say? Wow! This is great TV.

"Stop the personal attacks!" Mrs. Edwards says. All these personal attacks are ruining the country.

An aside: is Mrs. Edwards calling for a new standard by which candidates and prominent figures should be judged? If so, she is advocating a revolution. How much ad hominem will need to be stricken from the record in re George Bush? And the next GOP candidate?

Does Ann Coulter have a point?

It is incumbent on candidates of personal tragedy to avoid making said tragedy a central part of their campaign. Elizabeth Edwards is battling a form of incurable cancer. John and Elizabeth Edwards tragically lost a young son.

Are the Edwards's prone to converting their tragedies into political capital? As Coulter pointed out, they are currently using Coulter's comments on their website to raise money. Does this "unplanned" attack, of which Mrs. Edwards claims the candidate knew nothing, play well? I think it does. Is it a publicity stunt? Who knows.

An Aside: The assertion that the Edwards brain trust did not approve this call into Chris Mathews stretches my credulity.

Is Ann Coulter a soulless beast debasing our political dialogue?

Quoting myself, quoting myself, quoting myself (this actually goes back to March of 2006):

"I think [Ms. Coulter] is often uproariously funny and sometimes very insightful, but I also think she can be crude and mean-spirited. Although I give her credit for outwitting Katie Couric (in all seriousness, that was a bravura performance), I think Coulter is something akin to our Maureen Dowd (funny, attractive, possessing a rapier wit but lacking compassion and judgment). Ann Coulter, for me, will forever be the woman who judged John Roberts unfit for the Supreme Court and attempted to reinvent Joe McCarthy as a great American hero."

In a nutshell: Ann Coulter is serially inappropriate and often completely erroneous.

She drew sufficient ire from conservatives following the last run-in with Edwards. Back then I refused to sign the Conservative Bloggers Anti-Ann Coulter Online Petition for reasons you may review here.

Having said that, my guess is that conservatives, many of whom are still waking up to this blow-up (in general, we are not regular Hardball viewers or Ann Coulter watchers), will, in fact, rally around the right to say intemperate things and react against the staged-hit aspects of this particular encounter.

From the floor of the United States Senate on the evening of June 25:

Senator Richard Lugar, (R) Indiana, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

"I rise today to offer observations on the continuing involvement of the United States in Iraq. In my judgment, our course in Iraq has lost contact with our vital national security interests in the Middle East and beyond."

Read the full speech here.

Highlights:

"The prospects that the current surge strategy will succeed in the way originally envisioned by the President are very limited within the short period framed by our own domestic political debate."

"The current debate on Iraq in Washington...is being driven by partisan calculations...[and does not] addresses our vital interests...."

"[We must all] make adjustments to [our] thinking. Each of us should take a step back from the sloganeering rhetoric and political opportunism that has sometimes characterized this debate."

"[W]e do have viable options that could strengthen our position in the Middle East, and reduce the prospect of terrorism, regional war, and other calamities. But seizing these opportunities will require the President to [change policies, and i]t will also require members of Congress to be receptive to overtures by the President to construct a new policy outside the binary choice of surge versus withdrawal. We don’t owe the President our unquestioning agreement, but we do owe him and the American people our constructive engagement."

The Plan? Read the full speech here.

In a nutshell:

1. In terms of the timetables, admit that the Iraqi reality does not conform to the domestic American political reality.

2. Redeploy, refresh and rebuild.

3. Protect American vital interest in four basic areas:

--no safe haven for terrorism

--prevent regional instability

--check the rising influence of Iran

--restore American credibility and influence in the region

The surge is not working.

Key Quote: "Its failure, without a careful transition to a back-up policy would intensify our loss of credibility. It uses tremendous amounts of resources that cannot be employed in other ways to secure our objectives. And it lacks domestic support that is necessary to sustain a policy of this type."

Total withdrawal is a disaster.

--risks a wider regional conflict stimulated by Sunni-Shia tensions
--severe blow to U.S. credibility
--potential for armed conflict between Turkey and Kurds
--exposes our loyal Iraqi friends to retribution
--refugee flows
--economic and development projects currently underway
--Iraqi territory will be used as a terrorist base.

Withdrawal more complicated than the slogans imply.

Key Quote: "An immediate withdrawal aimed at getting out of Iraq as fast as possible would take six months. A carefully planned withdrawal that sought to preserve as much American equipment as possible, protect Iraqis who have worked with us, continue anti-terrorist operations during the withdrawal period, and minimize negative regional consequences would take months longer."

4. Downsize and redeploy (to areas outside of Iraqi urban areas as well as outside of Iraq)

5. Replace the sagging military strategy with a diplomatic offensive

6. Solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and reduce dependence on Persian Gulf oil

In conclusion:

We must change policy. We must come together.

End coverage of speech.

A couple of questions immediately arise in my mind:

1. I suspect the hand of Robert Gates in all this. Is the President behind this monumental speech from the Senate floor? If so, it is a very positive development.

2. If this signals that the President is willing to consider a "thoughtful Plan B," are the Democrats willing to forego political advantage to save the country?

UPDATE: Lugar's current analysis does not ignore the reasons why we are where we are. Here for your review is my previous summary "Restating our Rationale for War."

Also, for extended Bosque Boys conversations on our policy in Iraq click here and scroll down.

"Let not your heart be troubled."

This is an oft-repeated Sean-Hannity-ism, which he offers up to frantic callers predicting the end of the world (or, worse, the end of GOP dominance in Washington).

However, these days it is Sean who is convinced that the sky is falling, and he has a whole host of prominent conservatives ringing the same note.

Why is Sean Hannity so frazzled? The Democrats are attempting to resurrect the "Fairness Doctrine," which would end conservative talk radio as we know it.

Sean, let not your heart be troubled.

I completely agree that the old "Fairness Doctrine" (which was definitely doctrinaire--but not at all fair) stifled conservative opposition. I agree that a return of the erroneously titled "Fairness Doctrine" would mean a mortal blow to free speech in this country. And I agree that the Democrats would re-enact the hated ancien regime in a heart beat--if they could.

But now the good news--they can't. Not now. Not for a long time. Maybe not ever.

Regardless of Trent Lott's intemperate remarks recently, it is nearly impossible to imagine a United States Senate so dominated by Democrats in which legislation to reinstitute the "Fairness Doctrine" could muster anywhere near the sixty votes needed to pass. And, while a more significant worry might be a Clinton-44 FCC re-regulating the airwaves, such an attempt to capture the conservative genie and return it back to the bottle would face a dubious judiciary chocked full of free-speech-supporting conservative appointees.

Most importantly, such a move would incite a massive popular revolt that would dwarf the grassroots rebellion engendered over immigration. There has never been a more democratic apparatus in American political culture than talk radio, and fly-over country loves and appreciates this conduit to the centers of national power. Perhaps it is true that America grows more apathetic everyday--but an enormous portion of the remaining fighters and patriots listen to talk radio. Red-blooded, Red-State America can be mobilized in a single afternoon. I pity the fool who takes them on.

Dianne Feinstein and Hillary Clinton are foolhardy, indeed, for introducing this red meat subject into the arena. On the other hand, we should not look a gift issue in the mouth. If they want to threaten the conservative base with this scenario--let's kick it around.

More notes on the "6th Annual Making of America Issue" of TIME Magazine, which features a "new take on JFK."

The special issue asserts that we have much to "learn from JFK." In addition to understanding "how to lead in a dangerous world," and "what candidates should say about faith," we can also come to understand, through a careful study of the 35th president, exactly "why civil rights can't be compromised."

I am critical of TIME and this project in terms of editorial judgment, methodology and objectivity. You may read those introductory comments and a skeptical appraisal of TIME's hagiographic depiction of Kennedy as a foreign policy visionary in my previous post here.

Part II (from the TIME headline): A Slow Road to Civil Rights:

"As President, Kennedy initially moved cautiously on segregation. But by the spring of 1963, he knew that more was needed."

Read the article (by Robert Dallek) in its entirety here.

Dallek's thesis:

"[The] Kennedys—John and [Bobby]—have been given too little credit for progress on resolving America's oldest and greatest social divide. Even if J.F.K.'s passion for the cause came late, it made it possible for his successor, Lyndon Johnson, a white Texan, to become the architect of desegregation."

Dallek, a noted public intellectual and celebrated biographer of JFK and LBJ, seems in a good position to offer special insight and perspective on this topic.

However, Dallek's account omits events absolutely essential to a full understanding of the story (events, unfortunately, that conflict with his thesis). His negligence is so egregious, in fact, that the narrative comes very near to historical malpractice.

Dallek rightly prefaces his reappraisal with the admission that "historians have tended to believe that little more than political cynicism ever animated John Kennedy's response to civil rights."

Dallek further acknowledges:

Kennedy was reluctant to support civil rights legislation before his election (Civil Rights Act of 1957) and afterwards.

Kennedy ignored civil rights in his famously idealistic stirring Inaugural Address.

Kennedy broke a campaign promise to civil rights leaders to sign an Executive Order to desegregate federally financed housing.

Kennedy pleased segregationists with his judicial appointments, most of whom were likely to maintain the racial status quo in the South.

In 1962, Kennedy offered only tepid support for a crucial demonstration in Albany, Georgia, and he tarried too long before intervening to protect James Meredith at Ole Miss. Then 1963 began with the President's flat refusal to ask Congress for a comprehensive civil rights bill.

Dallek rightly characterizes Kennedy as less than a "moral crusader" on the issue of civil rights, more interested in counting Southern votes than righting racial injustices. Dallek characterizes him, "more of a civil rights opportunist than a passionate convert to the cause."

But all that changed, according to Dallek, as a result of the "crisis in Birmingham, [which] changed his mind about the imperative of civil rights, and thus was born Kennedy's real legacy on this front." According to Dallek, the barbarity of the white power structure in Birmingham unleashed on the black demonstrators (attack dogs, fire hoses, cattle prods, etc.) precipitated a Kennedy epiphany. The South will never reform itself, Kennedy decided. "The only solution Kennedy saw," reports Dallek, "was a major federal civil rights statute that outlawed segregation in...public accommodations."

Kennedy then rushed to make a national speech addressing the crisis on 11 June 1963 in which he called civil rights a "moral issue" and proposed a bill, the essence of which would, indeed, become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Kennedy's heart, Dallek asserts, now "trumped any self-serving political calculations."

Dallek's glorious conclusion:

"Although Kennedy's assassination five months later deprived him of the chance to sign the civil rights bill into law, he had finally done the right thing. That its passage in 1964 came under Johnson's Administration should not exclude Kennedy from the credit for a landmark measure that decisively improved American society forever. Although J.F.K. had been slow to rise to the challenge, he did ultimately meet it. That gives him a place in the pantheon of American Presidents who, in his own words, were profiles in courage."

Wow! That is high praise worthy of Ted Sorenson.

What does this article neglect to mention?

1. Kennedy's "political calculations" were not wholly absent from these deliberations. Convinced that Barry Goldwater would gain the Republican nomination in 1964, the Kennedy brain trust was already writing off the Deep South. A civil rights bill was not political suicide for a campaign looking to win moderates in the heartland and cognizant that the formerly "Solid South" was increasingly hostile.

2. Kennedy's epiphany was less than complete. By the summer of 1963, Kennedy was convinced that nothing greater than a watered-down version of his bill had any chance in Congress. Moreover, the President used all his powers of persuasion (unsuccessfully) to convince civil rights leaders that a March on Washington in support of the legislation that summer was a horrible idea.

3. By the fall of 1963, the bill was dead. The March on Washington had been a monumental success (contrary to the President's pessimistic predictions)--but Kennedy had failed to bring Congress to a legislative consensus--not even the "watered-down" variety. With the election coming in 1964, a civil rights bill looked extremely unlikely for a long time to come.

The truth is that full honors rightly belong to Lyndon Johnson for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act the following year. True, Johnson employed the ultra-emotional moment of national mourning to leverage Congress into finishing the work of the "martyred President," but credit LBJ, the former majority leader, for his legislative genius and commitment to securing these monumental steps toward equality.

Why did Dallek allow himself to be a party to this egregious mischaracterization of events? Good question. The events omitted in the TIME encomium are covered in Dallek's 2003 much-acclaimed Kennedy biography, An Unfinished Life.

A bad edit? I can only hope.

My worst fear is that Robert Dallek would be willing to pervert his sacred responsibilities as an historian to get along with the in-crowd.

As for TIME, my contempt grows stronger with each article. Next: "The Catholic Conundrum: Kennedy's 1960 campaign as a master class in how a candidate of any faith should address questions about religious belief."

Read my earlier critique (Part I) here.

I received the "6th Annual Making of America Issue" of TIME this week, which features a strikingly handsome portrait of John F. Kennedy.

An aside: please note the absence of any computer generated tears a la the Ronald Reagan cover from a while back.

The Cover Text reads:

What We Can Learn from JFK:

How to lead in a dangerous world;

What candidates should say about faith;

Why civil rights can't be compromised.

Quick Thoughts:

1. Before reading one word of the coverage, I was disturbed that TIME has now published six special issues celebrating essential Americans in this series, and they have not yet featured George Washington. All five of the previous choices have been respectable (Ben Franklin, 2nd year, and Abe Lincoln, 4th year, were stellar), but Jefferson before GW--and now JFK? Come on. Does anybody over there have any respect for American history?

An aside: The team at Newsweek seems to have a much better handle on the essence of our national story.

While I agree with TIME managing editor Richard Stengel's assertion that the study of history is a two-way conversation between the past and the present, I am always suspicious of persons who manipulate history as a cudgel to achieve current political goals. Without having read all of this issue, the exercise seems more concerned with exposing the faults of figures, policies and philosophies currently out of favor with TIME rather than offering a critical retelling of the Kennedy years.

2. I like JFK. I always rank him as an extremely talented president. However, he was only in office for 1,000 days. Yes. I understand his afterlife is more important than his life span. However, the list of untapped monumental figures who cast a shadow over the American political landscape is long and much more distinguished than JFK. FDR? Andrew Jackson? Ronald Reagan?

3. Even more disturbing, looking at the table of contents, the editors seem to be checking their healthy historical skepticism at the door.

First TIME Article: A Warrior for Peace:
"His Presidency included some of the tensest moments of the cold war, but he was convinced that our true power came from democratic ideals, not military might" (story here).

According to TIME, the 1960 Campaign forced Kennedy to play the role of a hawk on the Cold War, although he and his family had long since come to understand that war was unnecessary and "stupid." But facing Richard Nixon in 1960, who TIME calls "one of the dirtiest fighters in the American political arena," JFK decided to fight fire with fire. "Kennedy had no interest in becoming another Adlai Stevenson," TIME reports, "the high-minded liberal who was easily defeated in back-to-back elections by [a] war hero. JFK was determined not to be turned into...a punching bag for two-fisted GOP rhetoric."

So, according to TIME, Kennedy lied. Inventing a "missile gap" and disingenuously "championing the cause of the Cuban 'freedom fighters,'" Kennedy secured election, which TIME implicitly condones (a justifiable means to a necessary end). Once in office, the "Warrior for Peace" assiduously battled his hardliner generals to bring sanity to relations with our noble but misunderstood Soviet adversaries.

Embattled, the President leaned on his only two friends in the administration: his brother Robert and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, who, like him, sought "non-military solutions" to the "most dangerous moment in human history," the Cuban Missile Crisis. While the Washington hardliners pushed for a nuclear showdown, Kennedy courageously resisted the intense pressure from his military advisors. TIME blithely accepts the speculation that only Kennedy's steady hand averted a catastrophe which would have reduced "a vast swath of the urban U.S. within missile range...to radioactive rubble."

Of course, all of this is very much in dispute, and it also begs the question: would the humane Soviets leaders, who only wanted to do the right thing, really have brought down nuclear cataclysm on American cities and innocent civilians?

What of Vietnam? Again, JFK was caught in a vise between his insane military leaders and politics. With every intention of withdrawing from South East Asia after his reelection in 1964, the President let us get a little bit pregnant in Vietnam--but always fully understanding, according to TIME, that the war was unwinnable, and unalterably determined to get us out.

Later, according to TIME, "Lyndon Johnson was able to [disingenuously] portray his own deeper Vietnam intervention as a logical progression of JFK's policies." But TIME and Robert "McNamara know the truth: Kennedy would have withdrawn."

As proof of Kennedy's overall sincerity, TIME reports that his Soviet adversary, Nikita Khrushchev "broke down and sobbed [upon hearing] the news from Dallas in November 1963." TIME relays that Khrushchev saw JFK as "a real statesman" and together, Khrushchev believed, "the two men could have brought peace to the world."

Again, TIME feeds all their reportage through the assumption that Khrushchev was our friend and only Kennedy et al were wise enough to understand this now apparent fact of history. It is the same logic that credits Mikhail Gorbachev with ending the Cold War while Ronald Reagan looked on red-faced in his befuddlement and early-onset Alzheimer’s.

In a single declaratory sentence: This is bad history. SHAME on TIME.

The other pieces:

"A Slow Road to Civil Rights: As President, Kennedy initially moved cautiously on segregation. But by the spring of 1963, he knew that more was needed."

This also looks like a ridiculously facile and convenient reading of history--but it will have to wait until I have another moment to engage. As will the story on Kennedy's Catholicism, which also strikes me as overblown and too finely engineered to speak authoritatively to present politics. Until next time.

A few notes on this story from yesterday, which has been worked hard on the blogosphere and talk radio:

The MSNBC headline: "Journalists dole out cash to politicians (quietly);
News organizations diverge on handling of political activism by staff."

The text of the article here.

My quick reactions:

1. A misleading lead. Although the lead offers one CNN reporter who contributed $500.00 to John Kerry in 2004 and one Forbes editor who gave $2000.00 to Republicans and one more Dow Jones editor who gives money to MoveOn.org, we do not learn that Democratic giving outnumbers Republican 125 to 17 until the last sentence of the third graph. The lead and headline imply a sense of proportionality that the facts do not bear out.

2. Later on we learn that many of the great liberal-leaning news orgs (NYT and CBS, for example) absolutely ban political contributions. An obvious inference (although it is never stated explicitly): even with the liberals trying to tamp down the glaring disparity in political giving, THE DEMS STILL OUTNUMBER THE REPUBS 125 to 17.

3. Why have liberal-leaning news orgs soured on political giving? Not because there is anything wrong with supporting the candidates you really want to win. No. It is a matter of perception.

Quoting the article:

"First came the conservative outcry labeling the mainstream media as carrying a liberal bias. The growth of talk radio and cable slugfests gave voice to that claim. Finally, it became easier for the blogging public to look up the donors."

Why? They've been caught.

And this sublimely revealing response from the Times (within the story):

"Given the ease of Internet access to public records of campaign contributors, any political giving by a Times staff member would carry a great risk of feeding a false impression that the paper is taking sides."

The Times doesn't want to feed the false impression that a huge majority of their objective reporters are partisans. Priceless.

4. PR over substance. The simple answer for the knotty public relations problem confronting left-leaning news orgs seems to be concealing their biases by outlawing personal contributions to candidates. However, with all due respect to the Orwellian logic of the New York Times, this self-imposed ban will in no way reduce the prevalence of liberal reporters spinning the facts through the prism of their core beliefs and political agendas; it will merely give us one less tool with which to hold them up to critical evaluation.

5. After a decade of close scrutiny, I am surprised the liberal-leaning media did not shut down this embarrassing window into their inner workings long ago. I guess they just could not help themselves.

Note: Thanks to Tocqueville for pointing me to this story early on yesterday morning. My delay in weighing-in is my own fault. And, frankly, I have not followed all the blogging and commentary on this, but I can imagine that many observers have had similar reactions.

Previous Bosque Boys conversations concerning politics and media:

What Liberal Bias? (here)

and

The Genius and Humor of Fair and Balanced (I'll opine, you decide) (here).

As many of you know, I have a semi-regular gig on our local CBS affiliate offering political analysis. In the wake of the Bloomberg announcement yesterday, KWTX-Channel 10 [Waco, Texas] called me in to discuss Campaign 2008. Our conversations are usually fairly general, but, just in case anyone is interested, here is a synopsis of the exchange (and a few additional facts and some further analysis):

1. An unprecedented National Primary. Texas (along with Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio and Vermont) will hold its primary on 4 March 2008. Front loading? Think again. Thirty-eight states will have already held primaries by that date.

FYI: A 2008 Countdown:

January:

14 Iowa Caucus
19 Nevada
22 New Hampshire
29 South Carolina & Florida

The Mother of all Super Tuesdays is 5 February, in which 23 states, including California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Tennessee, will conduct primary elections.

Although it is possible that the nomination will still be in doubt after 5 February, it is unlikely, if recent history is any indication.

More importantly, and this part is relatively new, what we have, in fact, is a national primary on 5 February. What does that mean? The candidate with the best organization, enough money to mount a campaign in 23 different venues and an appealing message that transcends a few specific locales will secure the party standard.

In other words, gone are the days of concentrating on a specific state (e.g., Iowa, NH or SC) and making a big splash and gaining momentum from an unlikely victory. That is, Jimmy Carter-style insurgencies are now impossible.

The candidate with the best national organization? Democrats: Advantage Mrs. Clinton. Republicans: we'll see.

2. The role of Texas in the general election? If Texas is in play for the Democratic candidate in October and November, it means a national landslide. Over the last few state election cycles, no Democrat has been elected to statewide office. There is no redder state in the Union that the Lone Star State. Having said that, nobody knows anything. Looking down the road, I would not bet the house on any outcome this time around.

3. Pandering to the base. For most of American political history, it has been necessary for candidates to craft positions that attract true-believers who make up the base of their parties early on, and then tack to the middle for wider appeal in November. Campaign 2008 is no exception. Candidates who skip the first step do so at their own peril.

Mrs. Clinton spent an entire senate term positioning herself as a moderate (even as a hawk on defense and terrorism) so that she might win the hearts and minds of movable security moms. Now she is paying the price and trying to appear just enough of a lunatic to propitiate the left wing of the Democratic mainstream. She will not make it with the "nutroots"--but, thus far, she seems to be striking an acceptable balance among her party stalwarts, who, for a number of reasons, want to vote for her in spite of her uncomfortable Iraq history.

John McCain, perhaps a viable general election candidate, never found a way to overcome the suspicions (even hatred) emanating from the conservative base of the Republican Party. Immigration was the final nail in his coffin.

What of Rudy? Thus far, Rudy has defied the conventional wisdom that a pro-abortion, soft on gun control, double-divorcee cannot appeal to the Republican base. The base is not attracted to his liberalism--but they are considering forgiving his apostasy because they admire his bravura in the aftermath of 9-11 and his sincerity. Rudy is a straight-talking, hardliner and pragmatist. It is an attractive combination, and he continues to lead the national polls among Republican primary voters.

Of course, the advent of Fred Thompson changes everything. All bets are off until we see if Fred is the "Mr. Right" the GOP is searching for.

4. How big is immigration? The grassroots rebellion over immigration is huge. It is more than powerful enough to preclude any reform legislation in the near term. However, immigration has not played a large role in recent elections. No Democrat lost a job in the last midterm election over a stance on immigration. But some hardliner Republican challengers failed to gain traction concentrating on the issue, at least one hardliner incumbent, J.D. Hayworth, lost his seat in Arizona, and the jury is certainly still out as to how this volatile issue will play in a national election.

I don't expect immigration to be the issue that saves Republicans in 2008.

5. The defining issues of 2008? All roads seem to lead back to Iraq. Currently, our frustration in Iraq has cast a pall over the American people. Huge numbers of Americans voice disapproval with the President. The ongoing lack of success in Iraq permeates all other programs, initiatives and governance with an air of incompetence and impending doom. No matter how encouraging some of the traditional economic indicators appear, voters continue to complain that we are on the wrong track in overwhelming numbers.

All roads lead back to Iraq, which is why 2008 could be a disastrous year for Republicans. Although recent polls indicate that Americans are also frustrated with Congress, we generally hate Congress but love our Congressman. Don't look for those numbers of general disapproval to presage a massive turnover on Capitol Hill.

On the other hand, voters quite often punish a President and his party for poor decisions and leadership. Get ready to get punished.

Will Michael Bloomberg run for president in 2008?

My answer, like my answer to whether Chuck Hagel will run for president (the question of the day a few months ago) is...

Who Cares?

Bloomberg was a Democrat, then a Republican and now an Independent.

Who Cares?

Bloomberg is a media mogul and current mayor of New York.

Who Cares?

Mark Halperin, chief political correspondent for Time Magazine, and a smart fellow, seems to agree that this is a media-driven story. But Halperin at least entertains the possibility of a run.

An aside: these days you need a big ego and a lot of money to run for president. In that sense, Bloomberg is a viable candidate.

Halperin asks: Would Bloomberg Have a Chance?

Full story here.

Short answer: None whatsoever.

Can he have an impact?

Perhaps. Halperin believes he is more likely to help Republicans, if he wages a serious campaign. I agree.

However, I am hyper skeptical that he will actually mount a campaign. We'll see. At some point, this race is going to take shape, and all these novelty acts are going to recede from the discussion.

Six years ago I would have been hard-pressed to identify Michael Bloomberg. Six years from now, I suspect, it will take a furrowed brow and a pensive moment to remember exactly who he was.

Important Prefatory Admission: I am a community college history teacher by day.

Making use of his line-item veto power, Texas governor, Rick Perry unilaterally struck from the budget over $126 million in Legislature-appropriated revenue designated for health benefits for community college employees.

Why? According to Governor Perry, community colleges falsified their appropriations requests (relevant portion of Perry's veto message here).

Sounds like a case for the Attorney General. Is this a scandal? Should we expect indictments, trials and jail sentences?

Not likely.

First Perry asserted, "institutions come to expect pork as a permanent way to support operations. They rely on pork to sustain operations above levels they can safely expect from equitable formula funding...appropriate to maintain an academic program or physical facility."

Perhaps. I suppose reasonable people might disagree on that proposition--but, then, Perry aimed his veto pen at health benefits for community college personnel (not exactly the "bridge to nowhere").

Perry, evidently, is shocked to find that "community colleges have [been] using millions of state dollars annually to pay the benefits of non-state paid employees."

Perry is reinterpreting the long-established status of community college personnel and applying a budget rider prohibiting expenditure of General Revenue funds for non-state employees. But this action completely ignores a long history of partnership between the state and the community colleges. In other words, we have all done business this way for decades. As the percentage of Texans attending community colleges continues to rise, the governor is suddenly and arbitrarily turning his back on the premise that we are all in this together.

As Representative Warren Chisum, Republican from Pampa and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee points out, "[community colleges serve] over half of the higher education enrollment and [receive] not even a third of the higher education budget."

My other beef with Perry:

This line item veto, applied after the conclusion of the legislative session, denies our duly elected representatives the opportunity to right this wrong. The Texas legislature will not be back in session until the spring of 2009. This is a cheap shot and a dirty trick, and it violates the principles of balanced government. Unfortunately Governor Perry's edict is the final word.

Moreover, I resent the accusation in the fine print. If, indeed, community colleges practiced malfeasance, Governor Perry could have asserted his charges in an open and honest way, instead of obfuscating his real purposes (whatever they may be). Let facts be submitted to a candid world. But, instead, the governor fired off a shot from his perch and then ran for cover, not returning calls or offering further comment to subsequent queries.

Again, for those of you who don't read italics (above), I am personally invested in this dispute. And for those of you who don't read between the lines, I am livid. Having said that, and admitting my emotional attachment, I am very disappointed in my Republican governor for whom I voted.

As for the bigger picture, all of this points to the problem with conservative government. We are all for cutting spending until our ox is gored. More on this greater dilemma in the days to come.