Cerberus seems desperate to get rid of Chrysler.  It’s talking to everyone willing to listen to take it off its hands.  Hyundai looks like a potential “strategic partner”. 

So, vote no on the bailout.  It won’t mean the end of the world for the car companies.  They will merge or be bought up by foreign companies like Hyundai.  Don’t buy into the Armageddon hype.

And I can’t help but think that even with Corker’s amendments this is a bad idea.  Will the terms be so onerous that the companies won’t be able to comply.  They will then come back in 3 months, to a more pliant Congress, saying that they couldn’t meet the terms, and Congress will say “that’s okay, we’ll take care of those pesky health care costs for you by nationalizing health care…”

Right now Ensign is speaking.  He says “go Chapter 11″.  Bankruptcy judge then wouldn’t be influenced by the political process as it would be by the quasi-bankruptcy that would happen with this bailout loan dealie.  “Why does Congress think it can succeed where so many businesspeople have failed?”  Good question, Ensign.  Vote no on the bailout please.

Democrats also inserted a provision in the bill to bail out some of the nation’s largest transit systems. The bus and rail systems could be on the hook for billions of dollars in payments because exotic deals they entered into with investors — which have since been declared unlawful — have gone sour with the collapse of American International Group Inc. and other financial institutions.

What the heck is this about?  So bailing out the car companies wasn’t enough – now Democrats are going to use this as an excuse to bail out mass transit systems too?  How much is THIS going to cost?  Argh.  The initiative to bail out the car companies has given the Democrats one more opportunity to implement yet another hare-brained scheme.  Oh, and of course there’s an AIG connection.

And then I discovered Rush Limbaugh. Rush uncovered within me the reasons for my objections to statism. He encouraged me to stand firm in my views and don’t just go with the flow of the liberal mainstream. He inspired within me the – dare I say it – hope to believe that the fundamentals of conservatism were not based in bigotry, ignorance and greed, but in dignity and respect for individual liberties, the power of the free market, and the time-honored traditions of the past. Looking back, I am certain that if I had not discovered my “inner conservative,” I would have drifted into a milquetoast moderate, and I’m almost certain that the chemjeff of 1993 would have voted for Obama in 2008. Instead I’m proud to have supported McCain.

The moral of this story is that it took the disaster of the 1992 election to strengthen me as a conservative. Had Clinton not won, I never would have had any reason to hone and refine my conservative views. I now know precisely why I am a conservative: because I deeply respect the dignity of the individual. Nationalizing health care doesn’t respect the individual; it lumps people into a collective, robbing them of their identities and subjugating them to the coercive power of an ever-expanding state. And that is what all liberal big-government schemes do. That is the message I took away from Rush. That is what inspired me about Newt Gingrich’s Revolution of 1994. And that is what continues to inspire me to this day.

So this current election disaster can also serve as an opportunity. It was repeated over and over again on FNC and elsewhere that Obama won despite the fact that we remain a center-right country. Campaign rhetoric aside, Obama didn’t actually promise European-style socialism, and he would have lost if he had. But, like the scorpion in the famous parable, there is a reason why Obama has a D behind his name, and it will not be long before he reveals his true nature. When he does, it will be in ways that will give pause to the center-right citizens of our nation, like myself in 1993. If we truly are still a center-right nation, then there are millions of people out there just waiting to make the type of personal transformation that I made.

So I believe that our mission, as Obama’s agenda unfolds, should be to facilitate these transformations. We need to each be our own Rush Limbaughs and spread the word on personal liberty, free markets, and the values of traditions.

But it’s not just the polls that depress me. There is virtually no historical precedent of a candidate succeeding a 2-term president of the same party. The last time it happened was in 1908, when Taft succeeded Theodore Roosevelt. And it’s safe to say that Roosevelt at the time was a tad more popular than Bush is today.

It’s also about McCain’s campaign. It’s obvious that his personal desire is to run an honorable campaign. But we all want him to take the gloves off and go after Obama, especially on his shady connections with shady characters. I think that he is trying to accommodate our desires on this score, but the impression is that he is trying to have it both ways. You can’t really call Obama “a good man” one day and “a liar” on the next, and expect anyone to take you seriously.

But I gotta tell you, though, I have the sinking feeling that even if McCain were to bring up Ayers’ and Wright’s and Rezko’s names 20 times in the next debate, I don’t think it will sway anyone who wasn’t already committed. Even though it is absolutely true that Obama pals around with a terrorist, I think it’s because people don’t want to believe that a person like Obama, the leading candidate, “clean and articulate”, a guy whom even McCain calls “a good man,” could ever really do that. It would be like hearing a rumor that Superman goes to porn shops. Would you really believe it at first glance? And even if McCain did get down and dirty into the mud, all Obama has to do is throw them all under the bus – as we have all seen he is more than capable of doing so – and then the issue is over. We should have learned this lesson from 2006, but we didn’t. You don’t win elections by merely trying to scare people about how dangerous the other guys are. If that were a successful strategy, then Kerry would have trounced Bush in 2004, because that was the entire basis of Kerry’s campaign.

But I hope I’m wrong. I hope McCain can pull it out and save us from a Democrat Congress run amok. I hope McCain will be the one nominating Supreme Court justices. I hope McCain will be the one leading the GWOT. The hope, though, can’t last much longer. There’s 22 days to go.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,435524,00.html

Why borrow from each other when you can borrow from Ben Bernanke instead, with far lower risk, and maybe even a chance that the government will forgive your debt at some point down the road?

Just a thought.

And then the financial panic struck. Everybody’s attention shifted to the economy and the market. Democrats were cast in the role of the responsible saviors of the economy while Republicans were cast in the role of rigid, ideological nihilists. McCain tried to ride to the rescue but it was for naught. And now, not only is Obama doing well in the battleground states, according to Karl Rove’s most recent map, even if Obama lost all of the tossup states, he would still win! It began to appear that maybe the pundits were right – Democrats would run the table.

I started to get more and more depressed. I envisioned my liberal colleagues gloating for 4 years straight. I had nightmares of William Ayers as secretary of Homeland Security, and Al Sharpton in charge of the newly-created Department of Race Relations. Oh and let’s not forget the two new liberal Supreme Court justices that would be installed once Ginsburg and Stevens retire (on or about January 20).

So I decided to consult a therapist. His name is Jack Daniels.

It took several sessions before we finally reached a breakthrough. After about the seventh session, Jack gave me some good advice. He said:

“Son, what the Democrats offer is a seduction. They promise all sorts of goodies. They promise to solve your problems and make someone else pay for it. In essence, Democrats are like Don Juan: they promise four years of no-strings-attached pleasure. Republicans, on the other hand, offer sobriety. They don’t tell you that you can have anything you want. They don’t try to solve everybody’s problems because they know they can’t. Instead they offer a tried-and-true method to solve your own problems: work hard, play by the rules, live below your means, make wise choices, and you will get ahead. Republicans are like Mr. Reliable: he’s not sexy and he doesn’t drive a fast car, but he will be there for you when you need him.

“Sometimes people want to be seduced. This looks like one of those times. But seductions never last. You’ve got to have faith in the people that they will wake up the next morning and realize they want something more than just pleasure. They want someone who will respect them in the morning. Democrats can’t offer that, because all they can offer is just more goodies. And that is when Republicans will win again.”

And that was some good advice.

The only reason George Bush won as narrow a victory as he did in 2000 was because he was a “compassionate conservative”, not that evil Gingrich-type conservative who ruthlessly wanted government to wither on the vine. No, Bush was supposed to be this new kind of conservative, one who didn’t want to slash and burn government, but instead mould government to serve conservative principles. Hence his signature achievemnt, No Child Left Behind, didn’t reduce government at all; it grew government far more than Clinton’s wildest dreams. Medicare Part D was another example: don’t reduce government, instead create a new government program that was supposed to work according to free-market principles in dispensing drugs to Grandma.

And the bailout bill is the final blow. Limited-government conservatism is in a serious coma, and may not survive much longer. Everywhere we look, both from Democrats and Republicans, we see the insatiable desire to grow government. We don’t have a champion anymore who believes that the most helpful government is the one that gets out of people’s ways to let them pursue their own dreams unfettered from bureaucratic red tape and mindless regulation. No, instead, the business that is unregulated is regarded with suspicion and mistrust; it can’t be trusted to do the right thing, only Washington bureaucrats can do that.

But this is reality. It is good that we recognize it now, because when Obama gets elected (which I think is almost a certainty now), we will have to work hard to find our new standard-bearer of limited-government conservatism, someone who can resuscitate it from its coma and reaffirm its principles to a public that now believes government is the path to prosperity.

As McCain might say, I expect “our friends” on the left side of the aisle to vigorously denounce such actions of domestic terrorism.

Now it’s about time for the RNC convention to start. There will be lots and lots of speakers who will devote their time and energy to justifiably bashing Obama’s plans. They will cost too much, they won’t work, they represent big government imposing on everyone, etc. All of that is true. But, ultimately, that only plays into Obama’s hand. It lets Obama define Republicans the way he has defined them all along, i.e., opposed to the hopeful change he will usher in. And if Obama gets elected, that is precisely how he will govern – he is the agent of hope, light, salvation and prosperity (when all he really proposes is more standard DNC fare), and if only the Republican gentiles could see the truth then all would be well with the world!

Let the Senators and Governors stand up there and bash Obama. But you, McCain, can’t and shouldn’t do that. Well, maybe just a little. But that shouldn’t be the theme of your acceptance speech. You have to change the subject. You have to be the maverick you always have been. You have to propose something bold, new, exciting, unexpected, something that is in keeping with the spirit of “change” that this election represents.

And it has to be something tangible. It can’t be something lame like “cut the deficit in half by 10 years” – everybody knows that these sorts of timetables are never followed and by expanding the deadline to 10 years it’s really just a copout. It can’t be something like “reduce the size of government” – to be honest, not many people actually believe Republicans stand for that anymore. It can’t be something like “victory in Iraq” – while of course Iraq should be a key aspect of your speech, WE ALL KNOW you stand for victory so it’s not particularly novel. It has to be something within your grasp – either something you’ll be able to do on your own over the objections of a hostile Congress, or something for which you’ll have the backing of the American people to pressure Congress into adopting, a la Ronald Reagan. And, to be blunt, it can’t be anything involving immigration. You’ve lost pretty much all of your moral authority on this subject.

Furthermore – and here’s the really important part – it can’t be something that will be easily upstaged by Obama later on, so whatever it is, it has to be something that will force Obama to choose between his hope-and-change rhetoric and his toe-the-party-line reality.

So, here are a few of my suggestions.

1. Nationwide school vouchers. Everywhere school vouchers have been tried they’ve been a success – either with the vouchers themselves or by forcing sclerotic public school administrations into innovating, by doing things like create charter schools or magnet schools. You can go one step further and propose that all that NCLB money will go to individual families to choose among public schools in their area, instead of sending it to the schools themselves. The Democrats are absolutely beholden to teachers’ unions and they will demand that Obama oppose this vigorously and ruthlessly defend the status quo. Public education is absolutely one area in which change is called for and by proposing something revolutionary in this field you will force Obama to choose between actual change or just lip-service change.

2. Wage subsidies. Replace the minimum wage and the entire welfare state apparatus with a system of wage subsidies designed to reward hard work. It might work something like this: Firms that hire low-wage or entry-level workers would receive a subsidy, making up the difference between the wage that the firm pays and some fixed amount, say $8/hr. That’s it. No more paying people to watch Oprah. No more paying people depending on how many kids they have. No more gross distortions of the labor market by forcing firms to be the handmaidens of government welfare policy in the form of a minimum wage. This idea is already out there and it’s already being implemented in places like Colorado (swing state, anyone?). Yes there is more than a tinge of socialism in this proposal. But it is new and bold in the sense of replacing the entire welfare state apparatus with one system that is purposefully designed to reward work. And this is also one area in which Republicans still have some credibility, seen as architects of the previous welfare reform effort in the 90′s. The left is beholden to the minimum wage because it, along with Social Security, represent the two “great triumphs” of their New Deal legacy – asking them to part with it strikes at the core of their very identity. The left WILL NOT countenance any change in this area of the status quo and Obama, the hope-and-changer, will have to decide if he will just attack McCain on a proposal like this (thereby exposing his hollowness) or flip-flop and attempt to accommodate it (thereby pissing off his base).

Those are two of my ideas. What are yours?

1. A lot of people on the political left – not all, but many – had a large political motivation to play up the torture angle as much as they could in order to win votes. This is because “torture” is a term that carries with it a great deal of emotional baggage. It really is no different than when some (not all) pro-lifers call Democrats “baby killers” – they do it really only to stir up emotion and not to contribute anything worthwhile.

2. There is a huge grey area when it comes to torture. Not every act can be classified in black-or-white. For instance, I’m sure we can all agree that things like boiling oil and peeling off people’s skin constitutes torture. But what about sleep deprivation? If you call that torture, then would you say our current medical school system, which demands that residents stay on the job for 30 hours at a time, is a form of torture? This would be absurd. If we can all agree on the claims of torture that clearly belong on the “black” side, then in a time of war when lives are at stake, I for one am willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the military commanders to remain squarely in the “grey” zone and trust that military rules will effectively forbid going to the dark side. But that leads to point number 3…

3. War changes everything, and not just for the combatants involved. It changes everything for the civilians back home as well, even those like us who aren’t directly in harm’s way (at this moment). I would argue that when there is a justified war, it is the duty of the patriot to, at the very minimum, advocate for victory for his/her country. This means advocating things that a moral person normally wouldn’t advocate for in peacetime. For instance, the patriot would naturally advocate for killing, or at least incapacitating, the “bad guys” on the enemy side. But in peacetime, a moral person wouldn’t advocate killing those who hadn’t harmed them first directly. So serving as a patriot in a justified war necessarily changes an acceptance of those things that the patriot would normally find morally acceptable. In short, the standards for moral conduct for everyone are different in wartime than in peacetime. But that only really applies if you think the war is justified in the first place. What if you don’t? Then there’s no change in thinking and the same old standards apply. Which really is just a fancy way of saying that all the griping from the left about torture is just another way of them demonstrating that they don’t believe the war is justified in the first place. That is fine, but they also fail to recognize that justified war does have a moral price to pay. They fail to grasp this point entirely and instead stand on absurd absolutist statements about “torture is always wrong”. Of course it isn’t, just like killing isn’t always wrong. But in peacetime, torture would always be wrong.

So, tell me what you think. Am I justifying torture or offering a nuanced view of a complex situation?

A Wall Street Journal report that Sen. Chuck Hagel will accompany Sen. Barack Obama on a trip to Iraq and Afghanistan kicked up a frenzy Friday on credible political blogs.

The Journal reported online that two sources confirmed the Nebraska Republican will travel with the Democratic presidential nominee to the war zones.

Picking Hagel would give The Messiah of HopeChangeHope the facade of the bipartisanship that he has been claiming to advocate all along. Of course Hagel stopped being a true Republican many years ago but that is besides the point.