IF YOU SCRATCH a Democrat this year, you will probably find someone who feels like they are waking up out of a bad dream, the bad dream of 28 years of conservative backlash against rational, progressive governance.

To put it another way, Democrats have learned nothing from the last 30 years. They still believe in top-down expert-led central government programs to organize and direct the commanding heights of the economy, politics, and the culture.

But here’s my prediction. After Barack Obama gets elected president and the Dems increase their majorities in Congress they are going to get a wake-up call. Americans really don’t know what they want, but they don’t want liberals bossing them around.

Here are four issues that show the Dems just don’t get it.

Universal Pre-K It’s not just Hillary Clinton with a lovely wrapped present of universal pre-kindergarten schooling and care. It’s Obama. Writes Terence Jeffrey about Obama’s plan to raise our kids for us:

We used to do it ourselves. Now, convinced we have better things to do, many of us leave the job to others.

Encouraging this flight from parenthood, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has proposed what he calls his "Zero to Five" plan. It is a collection of programs aimed at getting the government involved in the raising of your children from the moment they are born.

Are you really sure about that, Sen Obama? Given what a wonderful job government has done with K-12 education, do you really think that a centralized, top-down, bureaucratic approach to early childhood education is really going to be anything other than a big plum for the education blob?

Energy and Global Warming Sen. Obama has said that $5 per gallon gasoline is inevitable. He just wished it hadn’t happened all of a sudden. As Sheldon Alberts reports, Obama is against “dirty oil” like the Alberta tar sands play that is ramping up north of us in Canada.

Barack Obama on Tuesday vowed he would break America’s addiction to "dirty, dwindling, and dangerously expensive" oil if he is elected U.S. president — and one of his first targets might well be Canada’s oil sands.

Obama says "The possibilities of renewable energy are limitless." Well, yes, Senator. But until renewable energy actually comes in cheaper than fossil fuel it is just a possibility. You can’t commit the people of the United States to a possibility. And that means that you can’t commit the United States to a radical move away from fossil fuels merely on the prediction of advocates that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will have catastrophic results a century from now. What if they are wrong?

What you can do is spend a little here and there on research and on easing the development hurdles for new technologies. But a rigid top-down energy program is going to fail. “Plans are useless, but planning is essential.” That’s what President Eisenhower said about military plans. The same applies to any top down plan. It doesn’t survive the first few minutes of battle, but it’s essential to have thought and planned about the future, so you can adapt when you find out that your assumptions were all wrong.

Fairness Doctrine

Nancy Pelosi told a group of journalists recently that she was in favor of reviving the Fairness Doctrine, according to John Gizzi. It’s understandable that Democrats are frustrated by the success of Rush Limbaugh and talk radio. But the answer isn’t to try and shut them up. The answer is for elite liberals to think seriously about their agenda and about why “liberal” has become a dirty word.

Actually, Rush gives the impression that he is hoping for a revival of the Fairness Doctrine. It would make him the most popular man in America, and probably propel a Republican into the White House.

Universal Health Insurance Democrats still can’t get beyond the century-old idea of cradle-to-grave government-controlled health insurance. What will it solve? Not much. But it will create a crisis in health care that will reverberate through the political system with unknown results.

Raising Tax Rates Senator Obama is promising to raise tax rates on the wealthy, by extending the FICA payroll tax and by increasing capital gains taxes and dividend taxes. Apart from the fact that the rich are already paying a bigger share of income tax than before and the bottom half of taxpayers are paying nothing, there is the international problem. Worldwide, governments are lowering tax rates. Does Obama really think he can raise tax rates in the US without a negative hit to the economy?

All these issues tell me one thing. Democrats haven’t really tried to think about the meaning of the last 30 years of American politics. They just want to forget the nightmare of Reagan and Bush and get back to politics as usual. That means that they are in for a nasty surprise.

Monday, June 23, 2008
Boumediene: A Supremely Problematic Court Decision
Author;Fred Thompson

As I pointed out last week, and as legal scholar John Yoo did earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal, the “Boumediene Five” have done our nation and our Constitution no great service. But beyond the rhetoric, we really need to understand the real world impact of this ruling on the war we are waging against our enemies.

In Boumediene v Bush, besides, for the first time in history conferring habeas corpus rights on alien enemies detained abroad by our military during a war, the Court struck down as inadequate what Chief Justice John Roberts called “the most generous set of procedural protections ever afforded enemy combatants.” Consider the rights that our country provided to the enemy prisoners in question before Boumediene:

The right to hear the bases of the charges against them including a summary of any classified evidence.

The ability to challenge the bases of their detention before military tribunals modeled after Geneva Convention procedures. As Robert’s pointed out, some 38 detainees have been released as result of this process.

The right, before the tribunal, to testify, introduce evidence, including exculpatory evidence, call witnesses, cross examine the government witnesses and secure release if and when appropriate.

The right to the aid of a personal representative in arranging and presenting their cases before the tribunal.

The right to have the government search for and disclose to the detainee any evidence reasonably available to it tending to show that the detainee is not an enemy combatant.

The right to appeal an adverse decision from the tribunal to the Federal DC Circuit Court along with the right to employ counsel and secure release if entitled to it.

The right to petition the DC Circuit to remand a detainee’s case for new tribunal consideration if the petitioner comes up with newly discovered evidence.

The right to require the Department of Defense (DOD) to conduct a yearly review of the status of each prisoner including the right to have the Secretary of Defense review any new evidence that may become available relating to the enemy combatant status of a detainee.

As a part of that yearly review, the opportunity for the detainee to explain why he is no longer a threat to the United States, which could lead to his release.

The DC Circuit can order release of the prisoner, and the head of the DOD Administrative Review Boards can, at the recommendation of those panels, order release upon an appropriate showing.

Again, these are the rights terrorists and battlefield combatants had before Boumediene was decided. These provisions provide more process than any that has ever been afforded prisoners of war in history. They go substantially past the rights afforded by the Geneva Convention. These are the rights that the majority decided were insufficient — and the result?

Their decision granting them the right to habeas corpus relief in federal courts.


Look, this issue isn’t going to go away, so consider these things the next time you hear someone defend the Supreme Court’s majority opinion as an attempt at “basic fairness” and to help prevent an innocent sheepherder from being improperly detained:


First, the Court left total confusion and uncertainty as to what rights these habeas petitions will vindicate. What will be the nature of the review under these new habeas rights? Will the Court review the constitutionality of the detention hearing procedures? What will be the burden of proof in these new proceedings? Will they have a factual hearing in order to try to recreate the circumstances in the field at the time of the detainee’s apprehension?

The answer is no one knows. It will all be dumped into the laps of some federal district judge and his or her law clerks. These are unprecedented circumstances and there is no way to predict what some judge might see as his or her new mandate under the constitution.

Again, it will be a federal judge — not the President or the Congress or a military tribunal — who will decide the appropriate extent to which the detainee will have access to classified military information, as just one of the more troubling examples. In other words, the branch of our government least qualified to make determinations on national security and foreign policy will now do just that. One other thing is certain. Whatever comes out of this new habeas corpus mish mash will generate a new round of appeals and our avowed enemies will work their way deeper and deeper into our court system.

Second, the majority opinion throws into question whether the tens of thousands of detainees in Iraq and the more than 1000 in Afghanistan are now entitled to habeas. Is the Court going to extend habeas protection to all foreign detainees held in foreign territory over which the United States is not sovereign, but has de facto control? We could be looking at tens of thousands of military detainee habeas cases in federal court.

Third, the Court’s decision encourages al Qaeda to continue in violation of the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions are designed to protect civilians and to reward combatants with certain protections if they abide by the Conventions. Al Qaeda specifically targets civilians and wears no uniform to distinguish themselves from the civilian population. Our policy now is to give al Qaeda combatants privileges that exceed the Conventions in terms of access to our court system without requiring al Qaeda to abide by these conventions themselves. This, of course, is an incentive for them to violate the law of war. They receive no penalty for not doing so, and by not wearing uniforms, makes any standard of proof requirement with regard to enemy combatant status more difficult for the United States. We are literally giving the enemy the means by which they can do us great harm.

Unfortunately it is not uncommon for a majority of the Supreme Court to make new law based not upon precedent but upon policy preferences of members of the Court. But this time it’s part of a much bigger picture. It is about power, and who gets to exercise it in an area that is vital to the security of this nation. This time it’s not only wrong, it’s dangerous.

It should also be noted that Senator Obama thinks that the decision in Boumediene v Bush is an excellent one. I don’t know what’s worse: that he doesn’t understand what the Court has done … or that he actually does and still thinks this was a sound ruling. Good luck to all of us.

From time to time we hear on the news some foreign leader whining that he didnt get his way and that Americans have a "cowboy" mentality. Really? Does George Bush remind anyone of Clint Eastwood? Does Dick Cheney have the presence of John Wayne? I think not. Furthermore if we had characters like those played by Clint and John meeting with foreign leaders who would come out on top?

What would ol Kim Jongs reaction be if instead of the usual niceties our president just walked up to the negotiating table and said "if ya tell me its a fine day ill shoot ya"? Talk about setting the tone! Imagine if the next time the North Koreans tested a few missiles the president flew over to Kim Jongs pad and said "well pilgrim ya started a lotta trouble this mornin coulda got a lotta people killed" and then slugged him right in the piehole.

Oreily, Hannity and the boys would abandon fair and balanced and start jumping for joy proudly proclaiming "finally we have a foreign policy that works" and even hardcore Lefties like Olbermann would giggle a little, if only off camera.

Now obviously i dont support this kind of behavior but admit it its fun to think about.

Now the next time ahmadinejad starts spouting off about wiping Isreal off the map the president should just say; do what you need to do Mahmoud but remember "dyin aint much of a livin boy." If brother Mahmoud wants to keep enriching uranium, building centerfuges, and interfereing in Iraq I say we should negotiate. Send in the airforce to blast a clear landing site in Tehran and land the president with marine 1. The presidents first statement in the negotiation should be; ok Mahmoud I told the VP if Im not back in 10 minutes "get three coffins ready" and continue, while he wonders who the other two coffins are for.

If mayhem and death are what these people want lets show em that we understand their language. Screw it! lets just challenge Chavez to a showdown at high noon. Id bet money that Hugo would pipe down real fast if he thought the American president was going to show up drinkin shots of whiskey and weilding a pair of six shooters.

Poutin could use some of the cowboy treatment to. Invite him to a poker game, sit him with his back to the door, deal him aces and eights and see if he figures it out before the bullets start flying! simple right? The cowboy may not operate like a former KGB agent but thats why he is effective no one expects him.

I think what foreign leaders forget is that real cowboys have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to bull s#*t and they dont really care who disagrees with them. Politicians have to at least pretend to give a crap and take other peoples "feelings" into account. Indeed cowboys should be seen as our last line of defense when suits and fancy words dont cut it