For the book I’m currently completing (“THE TEN BIG LIES ABOUT AMERICA”) I’ve been reading through some recent Inaugural Addresses and I came across a truly alarming line from Bill Clinton’s stunningly banal big speech of January 21, 1993.

 

  “We must provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children,” the handsome new president declared.

 

   What in the name of heaven could he possibly have in mind?

  

   In the family model, parents work hard and earn money to support children who, before their teens years at least, don’t earn at all. Did Clinton believe – does his wife now believe – that some American (like parents) should toil away in order to support those who don’t work?

 

   The context encourages that interpretation. In the lines immediately preceding the exhortation to “provide for our nation” in the way “a family provides for its children,” Clinton emphasized sacrifice.

 

  “We must invest more in our own people, in their jobs, in their future,” he declared. “It will not be easy. It will require sacrifice. But it can be done, and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its own sake, but for our own sake.”

 

   Beyond the vapid platitudes, he seems to warn the public to expect big tax increases (whenever Democrats talk about “investing more in our own people” they mean they want to raise taxes).

 

   But then, after that hint, comes the chilling bit about “providing for our nation” and the comparison of its citizens to “children.”

 

   In the Clintonian view of the world, do we live in a society made up of helpless, infantilized kids (or adolescents) who depend on a few grown-ups to generate wealth for the whole “family”? Did President Clinton in 1993 himself represent the ultimate Daddy, with Hillary the mother-of-us-all?

 

   I wish someone would ask Senator Clinton whether she agrees with her husband’s analogy, and believes that we have an obligation “to provide for our nation the way a family provides for its children.”

 

   Does she still see a parental role for our leaders?

 

   It shouldn’t take a village to answer such questions.

 

On the radio show today, a caller challenged me with hypocrisy (hardly the first time) for condemning New York Governor Elliot Spitzer while defending Idaho Senator Larry Craig.

As a matter of fact, I never defended Craig: I called for him to end his political careers and to abandon plans for a re-election campaign. I also suggested it would have been better for the Republican Party, and for the state of Idaho, if he had resigned immediately. Obviously, there’s the two phrases “United States Senator” and “arrested in a men’s room for soliciting sex” don’t fit together comfortably.

Nevertheless, Senator Craig has resisted all pressure with his determination to serve out his term, so now some observers are wondering why Spitzer couldn’t do the same.

A few key differences highlight Spitzer’s far more vulnerable position:

1-     He was exposed as part of a major investigation by federal authorities of a high-profile, criminal prostitution ring. Craig was exposed by a single cop running a little sting operation in the Minneapolis airport.

2-     Other people will clearly go to jail as a result of the “Emperor’s Club” investigation that caught Spitzer. To the best of my knowledge, no one has actually gone to jail (in fact, one suspect was recently acquitted) in the Minneapolis Men’s Room operation.

3-     Craig was caught with barely a year left in a long Senatorial career. Spitzer was caught after just one year of service in his first gubernatorial term. The inclination to let him “just serve out his term and then go away” is obviously much less when a wounded governor was supposed to serve for three more years.

4-     Spitzer’s past prosecution of other prostitution rings, and strong condemnation of such operations, makes his inconsistency even more glaring than Craig’s. The fact that you’re trolling for sex in a men’s room, doesn’t logically require that you support gay marriage; even if Craig had supported same sex marriage, his bathroom bust would have been profoundly embarrassing. But the use of an expensive prostitution service by a veteran prosecutor and smart lawyer (especially is it turns out to have been repeated use) does cast a harsh, unflattering light on his own past enforcement of anti-prostitution laws.

5-     An aging politico (like Larry Craig) who’s caught trying to pick up another guy in a men’s room is disgusting, sure, but also vaguely pathetic. He wasn’t abusing his power in Minneapolis so much as he was abusing himself, violating standards of decency in a public place. A governor who makes a trip to D.C. to testify before Congress and then pays five grand for a gorgeous call girl is, however, very obviously abusing his wealth and power. He’s disgusting, all right, but not pathetic and vulnerable in the same way as poor Larry Craig in his toilet stall. No matter how much you hate his politics or behavior, it’s only natural to feel pity for Craig. Anyone feel pity for Spitzer? (His shell-shocked wife, on the other hand, is an obvious candidate for pity).

None of these differences and distinctions between two sex scandals suggest that Craig deserves to escape without consequences, or that the Idaho Senator disgraced his office and his party any less than the New York Governor disgraced his office and his party.

But they do help to explain why Craig will manage to complete his term of office while Spitzer almost certainly will not.

 For five hours today, baseball great Roger Clemens testified before Congress on allegations he used steroids to enhance his pitching career. These hearings, broadcast live on most cable networks, forced viewers to choose between believing Clemens, or trusting charges by his former trainer, Brian McNamee. But there’s a bigger question, and that’s why our representatives in Congress should waste their time and our money on this TV extravaganza? If either Clemens or McNamee broke the law and lied under oath, the criminal justice system should prosecute them – a process made  more difficult, not easier, due to the high profile hearings. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform may face daunting responsibilities, but supervising Major League Baseball isn’t one of them. For the sake of bloviating on TV with a famous athlete, Chairman Henry Waxman and colleagues have provided a sickening example of the political process intruding in an area where it doesn’t belong.

But then again, we did get the chance to hear Rep. Elijah Cummings tell Clemens "you're my hero" while Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton assured him "you will certainly get into heaven."

That, by the way, is another issue that even a veteran Congresswoman doesn't get to decide.

   For years we’ve been hearing George W. Bush described as “the worst president in history,” “a failed leader,” and “a disgrace,” but I guess the pundits and pooh-bahs forgot to tell the president. In his final State of the Union Address, Mr. Bush neither looked nor sounded like a beaten man. As always on these occasions he came across as energetic, determined, principled and substantive.

   That’s not to say it was a great speech: in his final chance at this great national ritual, the president may have seemed a bit less ambitious, a bit less historic than on previous occasions. Despite his reputation as a clumsy speaker and inept communicator, he’s actually done a consistently first class job with his SOTU addresses. He speaks in comprehensible yet occasionally soaring terms, with none of the windy laundry lists that characterized Bill Clinton’s approach to these occasions (in his last SOTU, Bubba droned on for an excruciating 89 minutes).

   Liberal commentator Jacob Weisberg wrote today in the New York Times about the AWOL “Compassionate Conservative” featured in all the previous State of the Union Speeches in the Bush presidency: despite re-assuring rhetoric about cooperation and bi-partisanship, the Commander-in-Chief never managed to build the sort of cooperative relationship with Democrats he so conspicuously enjoyed with the Democratic legislature when he served as Governor of Texas. Even before 9/11 transformed him into a war President, even before the decision to strike against Saddam made him look like a “war criminal” to the loony left, Bush had secured the sort of implacable enmity that made bi-partisanship not only unattainable but unthinkable.

   Ironically, Ronald Reagan – with a much stronger and clearer ideological commitment – managed to work with Democrats far more effectively(despite a Republican Senate for six of his eight White House years, Reagan faced a hefty Democratic House majority throughout his presidency).

   I would submit that circumstances, as much as personality or policy, contributed to both Reagan’s success and the frequent failure of Bush at reaching across party lines for support.

   In many ways, Bush never managed to overcome the fiery resentment associated with the allegedly “stolen election” of 2000. For the first time in 112 years (since Benjamin Harrison defeated Grover Cleveland) a candidate lost the popular vote but won the presidency. From the beginning, Democrats (in Congress as well as the country at large) saw Bush as illegitimate, a usurper, an unworthy interloper. They schemed against him fro the beginning: remember the case of “Jumpin’ Jim” Jeffors, and the flip of the Senate to Democratic control? Despite the multiple olive branches Bush tried to wave in his State of the Union some seven years ago, despite the initial collaboration with Teddy Kennedy on No-Child-Left-Behind, the Democrats never accepted the hand extended to them.

   With Reagan, by contrast, no one questioned his mandate: he had defeated Carter in a sweeping landslide. Moreover, within four months of his inauguration a would-=be assassin wounded him in the chest, and the entire nation rallied to the gallant, stricken president. While the first months of Bush’s term (before the terrorist attacks of September 11) featured surly Democrats who felt they’d been cheated, not defeated, the first months of Reagan’s term showed Democrats joining Republicans in wishing and praying for a wounded president’s speedy recovery.

   Noting these circumstances isn’t meant to deny the failings and stumbles by Bush and his aides that contributed to polarization in Washington, not is it intended to suggest that John Hinckley had more to do with the triumphs of Reagan’s first year in office than Reagan himself.

   It is, however, always appropriate to remind ourselves that in politics and all other aspects of our lives, context counts.

   Tonight, the members of both houses of Congress, and of both parties, seemed to greet the president with undeniable warmth, even an edge of nostalgia over the realization that the Texan won’t be back for another such occasion.

    Could even hardened Democrats feel some inner yearning for the cooperation and joint efforts they’ve spurned for many years? Probably not, because the hyper-partisanship has brought them House and Senate victories for the first time in twelve years.

    Nevertheless, you could discern the atmosphere of a high school graduation in the House chamber tonight: where the knowledge that you’ll never return to precisely these classmates, never again share either with them either  camaraderie or competition, makes even the class bullies you always loathed look suddenly like bosom pals you’ll deeply miss.

 

The so-called “DREAM Act” deserves determined opposition not because it’s confused about the nature of immigration but because it’s confused about the true nature of college.

The bill would confer legal status on hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who were brought to this country as children, demonstrated “good moral character” during their upbringing, and now committed themselves to “giving something back” by serving their new country. The bill specifies either service in the military, or completion of at least two years of college as the kind of national service it would require. It’s absurd on the face of it, however, to classify university or community college education as a form of national service. College is a privilege, not a right or a sacrificial obligation. Every student in every institution of higher learning is subsidized by someone, usually some level of government, or alumni and corporate donations; tuition alone never covers the full cost of education. In other words, when you go to college the society is helping you, and you’re not necessarily helping the society. It’s absurd, insulting even, to equate going to classes at a university with genuine national service like devoting years to the military.

If thoughtful Republicans managed to strip away the college provisions of the DREAM Act—its name is actually an acronym for “Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors”—they might create a clean “Dream” that deserves passage. If illegal immigrants whose parents brought them here as children actually do serve the U.S. by wearing the uniform of the armed forces, and earn honorable discharges, then it makes sense that at the end of that process they should get legal status that allows them to begin the five year path to citizenship. I supported prior efforts at immigration reform because they combined rewards with meaningful penalties for those who were determined to earn legal status – and those penalties included thousands of dollars (as much as $6,500 per person) of fines, plus demonstrating knowledge of English, before you could even start the long path to citizenship. The Dream Act in its current form contains no penalties: attending college is not a penalty, nor even a contribution to society at large, but rather a contribution to your own advancement that society makes possible through its generosity. In other words, the DREAMers in Congress want to provide rewards with no penalties and no payback from the young immigrant himself. If the House and Senate fail to change the bill, it’s time to wake-up from the “Dream” and face reality: it’s a bad idea to give illegals something significant – like legal status – without requiring meaningful and costly compensation – like military service – in return.

Why do some political scandals grab national headlines but others make only local news? A recent trial highlighting the appalling corruption of Detroit’s mayor certainly deserves more media attention: a jury awarded $6.5 million of city funds to two cops who guarded Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick before making charges about his drunken orgies in the Mayor’s mansion, cover-up of drunk driving, and diversion of public money to frolics with his mistress and mollify his wife. Mayor Kilpatrick charged the jury with racism, but both of the officers he fired for reporting on his misdeeds were black and one of them, was a deputy police chief. If the Mayor had been a white Republican, the judgment against him – with jurors flatly calling him a liar – would have rocked the nation, but our media culture chooses to ignore this lurid and appalling case that happens to center on a youthful, African-American Democrat – best known up till now for his two diamond earrings.

The city of Seattle has committed the staggering sum of $6.6 million for three high tech public toilets for the homeless. The pricy privies, with purportedly advanced but frequently malfunctioning self-cleaning features, have already become a magnet for prostitutes and drug dealers according to a report to the city council, while attracting at least as much filth as traditional porta-potties—that would have cost the city less than one-twentieth as much to lease and maintain. Meanwhile, the Seattle Times describes city parks where human waste appears nightly on benches, just yards from the gleaming techie toilets installed with so much fanfare. The city council defends the inane program as a noble attempt to “do something” for the homeless—illustrating the folly of good intentions. In truth, any effort – public or private—that makes it easier for transients to continue sleeping on the streets, only harms these unfortunates – as well as deeply damaging the downtown neighborhoods they invade and occupy. True compassion for the homeless begins with an absolute refusal to allow them to continue living on sidewalks, in alleys, underpasses, parks or empty lots, and certainly must avoid any move at all to facilitate or prolong such urban camping.

The city of San Francisco has brought together an urgent new task force to devise strategies for combating the problem of “black flight” – the falling number of city residents who identify as African American. Many major cities-- including Houston, Seattle, Los Angeles, and even Washington,.DC—have seen dramatic reductions in the percentage of black residents. While urban leaders told a hand-wringing reporter from USA Today that this “crisis” demands action, there ought to be wide spread celebration of the new mobility among people of color. The national black population continues to grow, but more and more African Americans choose to move out of the inner city and into the suburbs. This is actually an indication of economic progress, and a sign that housing discrimination no longer locks black people into over-crowded urban neighborhoods. In the name of diversity, bureaucrats in San Francisco and elsewhere want to keep citizens trapped in cities they prefer to leave, thereby demonstrating the ultimate plantation mentality.

With the announcement of the Gonzales resignation, we should no doubt prepare for several days of heavy-breathing analysis about the deeper impact on the mood in Washington, on policy, on the Presidential campaign, on the War on Terror, on the Bush legacy, and so forth. My reaction to all these deep thoughts and heavy-duty historic analyses: fuhgettaboutit! The drive to push out Gonzales didn’t matter, and his ultimate resignation doesn’t matter.

Most Americans never cared about the “US Attorney Firings Scandal.” Yawn city! Bush-haters of course saw it as the ultimate evidence of the would-be-dictator’s partisan heavy-handedness, but the third of us who support the administration saw DC business as usual and the other third of disinterested Americans saw no significance or horror or flashy embarrassments. The scandal never amounted to anything before this week, and it won’t amount to anything now.

Nor will the departure of one of the President’s most loyal associates matter very much in terms of governance or policy. The AG is the most over-rated job in government, bar none. Sure, it’s a prestigious title – but looking back on all the Attorneys General in recent history, can you name one major accomplishment by any of them? Robert Kennedy comes to mind, but only because he got considerable publicity as the President’s kid brother. Can anyone even remember the Clinton AG’s?

As Attorney General, the next Bush appointment (no, I don’t expect a Democrat or a liberal) will face a huge, intractable, absurdly expensive bureaucracy that’s often hostile to the top guy (as was the case with Alberto).

The only way that an AG could make a real difference is calling for reducing the size of the Justice Department bureaucracy--- getting rid of thousands of unnecessary employees who busy themselves trying to enforce unnecessary, intrusive laws. The Civil Rights division, for instance, is an arrogant, bureaucratic, self-righteous nightmare.

We’re a lawyer-ridden society. We all suffer from two many lawsuits, too many lawyers, too many laws. A great place to start the simplification and liberation process – the only place to start any real reform agenda – is with the Justice Department itself.

If you think the nation would miss, say, 5,000 employees (at a taxpayer cost of, say, $500,000) at the Department of Justice, I’d love to see how.

As a matter of fact, maybe Bush should consider making the point of the bloated, useless, intrusive nature of the Department of Justice by leaving the post of Attorney General unfilled – and then seeing whether America somehow suffers.

Democrats have tried to blame President Bush for the tragic bridge collapse in Minnesota but there’s a real villain that contributed to the catastrophe: the nation’s irrational obsession with mass transit. As long ago as 1999, engineers found cracks in the bridge that collapsed and indicated their “major concern,” but neither the state nor federal governments addressed the problem. As the Wall Street Journal pointed out, the feds paid $12 million to Minnesota in 2005, but $10 million of it went to a commuter rail line and none to bridge repair. Meanwhile, the state spends $1.6 billion on transportation, but nearly a billion of the total was diverted to light rail that has brought about no notable reduction in traffic congestion. The Minnesota Department of Economic Development reported that 25% of state transportation funding goes to rail and buses, but only 2.8% of commuters get to work that way – in other words, the state disproportionately funds mass transit by a ration of nearly ten to one! This is typical of the liberal infatuation with wildly expensive light rail systems that make no practical sense, and gobble up funding that could otherwise pay for infrastructure maintenance and repairs for our crucial roads and bridges.

Americans appear to be badly confused about the recent progress of the economy. A clear majority – some 60% according to the most recent Gallup Poll – believes “the nation’s economy is worse than five years ago” but barely half as many say their “personal financial situation” is worse. Obviously, people do a better job judging their own status than they do evaluating the of the current state of the nation – and the 67% who reported their situation as “better” or “no change” give a more accurate picture of what's going on. Since this time in 2002 – five years ago—unemployment has gone down sharply – from 5.8% to 4.5% -- while the Dow Jones average soared from below 9,000 to well above 13,000. Amazingly, among American adults who are employed full time, less than 3% fall below the poverty level. In other words, those who get and hold jobs – even menial, entry level jobs – need never be poor. Instead of accepting negative messages from mainstream media obsessed with alarming news, Americans ought to consider their own good fortune and face the future with optimism and gratitude.

  I have a question for those dedicated Democrats who, despite their disagreements with me, nonetheless read this blog or listen to my radio show.

 

  Your party’s leaders in Congress have, at last count, launched some 300 separate investigations against the Bush administration. Is this what you had in mind when you voted to turn the House and the Senate over to the Democrats?

 

  It’s obvious, isn’t it, that this emphasis on partisan “gotcha” politics is one of the reasons that the approval rating for Congress counts as the lowest ever recorded---with even the badly weakened President boasting double the positive numbers of the floundering legislative branch. (30% approval versus 14% approval, according to a typical recent poll).

 

  The Dems now threaten a Constitutional confrontation over some details and testimony regarding the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys who, according to statute, serve “at the pleasure of the President.” Unable to find a legal strong legal basis to allege the commission of any crime, the Democrats now want to criminalize the lack of White House cooperation.

 

  This reflects the ongoing furor over Scooter Libby and the commutation of his sentence. The disclosure of Valerie Plame’s CIA position (by Richard Armitage, not Libby) constituted no crime, and produced no indictments, so Prosecutor Fitzgerald managed to criminalize testimony about activity that wasn’t criminal in the first place.

 

   The indignation over the Libby commutation (he still must pay a $250,000 fine and go through two years probation) and the ongoing focus on the US Attorney firing, come from liberal activists and Washington insiders, not the public at large.

 

   How does the commutation of Libby’s sentence harm the security, prosperity, or well-being of any American citizen? Why should ordinary Americans – worried about Iraq, health care, terrorism, paying the bills, the future of social security, illegal immigration, and so on – feel concerned about the dismissal of a tenth of the current United States attorneys who displeased their superiors I the Justice Department?

 

  Congress displeases the public because its leaders seem obsessed with attacking the President on even the flimsiest basis (as did many Republicans under Clinton) rather than addressing real issues that impact the real lives of middle class Americans.

 

  When Republicans fight against attempts to redefine marriage, one of the most popular lines by Democrats is a question: how would government sanction for the wedding of two gay people damage anyone else’s marriage? Actually, the redefinition of marriage would greatly and obviously impact an institution that touches all of us, and that most Americans hope to pass on to their children as a male-female union related to child-rearing. The alteration of traditional definitions of the core institution of society would re-shape the norms that apply to everyone’s kids and grandkids.

 

  But how would Democrats answer a similar question regarding Scooter Libby’s potential jail time, or their unstoppable indignation about the US attorneys? What possible impact on outside-the-beltway Americans connects with these inside-baseball controversies?

 

  If Democrats honestly evaluate the performance of their Congressional leadership, they ought to recognize that partisan carping over irrelevant non-scandals (do we really need to revisit the composition of Dick Cheney’s energy task force from six years ago?) helps explain their startling lack of accomplishment in their first half-year in the majority.

 

  Republicans of the late ‘90’s made a bad political mistake to push relentlessly toward impeachment rather than accepting a bi-partisan resolution of censure – as suggested by Dianne Feinstein and other Democrats. Now the other party seems oddly determined to replicate the GOP’s fiascoes.

 

  The millions of liberal, moderate and even conservative voters who cast their ballots for Dems in both House and Senate contests 2006 may not be able to define exactly what they intended to vote for—since many of them were voting against Republicans more than anything else.

 

  But regardless of that confusion and uncertainty, it’s safe to say that most Democrats didn’t intend to vote for this: hyper-partisan gridlock regarding legalistic minutia with no real world impact on our present or our future.

 

  Thoughtful liberals ought to feel embarrassed.

 

 

 

It’s easy to make fun of the Live Earth concerts – with all these pampered, puerile performers consuming prodigious amounts of energy in order to pontificate about the desperate need for “little people” to do their bit to conquer Global Warming. The Al Gore inspired inanity that played out in every corner of the globe seemed to concentrate on the message that the billions (literally) who watched these events on the tube couldn’t do anything on their own, but needed to wait for government to change policies in order to make a real difference. In other words, Live Earth managed to re-cycle one thing, at least – the old liberal mistake that says that citizens can’t do anything to help themselves (or their country, or their world) and their only hope involves changing government. In other words, to liberals (like all the well-intentioned bozos who participated in Live Earth) change only matters when it’s government initiated and government mandated. In truth, bottom-up changes in private, individual behavior (which are eminently possible on this issue) brings far greater impact than any top-down bureaucratic demand.

 

Conservatives may provide such obvious responses to the seven-continent-concerts, but in the long run it won’t stop the left from making Global Warming and energy conservation into major political issues in the Presidential Election of 2008. There’s no doubt that “Saving the Planet” will constitute one of the three big imperatives that Democrats will emphasize endlessly between now and Election Day – the others being “Ending the Iraq War” and providing “Health Insurance for All.”

 

Republicans may snicker at the left’s political posturing but this triad gives the Dems a huge advantage in the forth-coming race. They promise – no matter how implausibly – three big changes that will impact the lives of every American.

 

And Republicans are promising….what, exactly?

 

So far, our only response to the Democratic promises on Peace, Health Care and the Environment is that liberal solutions don’t work and tend to make situations worse than before. These arguments need to be made, and the public should be appropriately frightened by the huge increase in the size and cost of government implicit in liberal plans. But these warnings hardly constitute the sort of positive program or soaring vision that can energy a cynical and dispirited electorate.

 

In a sense, the two natural issues for Republicans – fighting terrorism and protecting economic growth – have been taken off the table by the remarkably successful administration of George W. Bush (regardless of his low approval ratings). The President has done such an outstanding job of keeping the nation safe from major attack, and keeping the economy chugging reliably forward, that most Americans take this success for granted. They assume that prosperity and domestic security represent some natural state of affairs, and Republican candidates will score few points by promising to continue these good times.

 

Instead, Republicans must counter the grand schemes of the Democrats with some thrilling visions of our own. The obvious possibilities involve saving Social Security (everyone knows it’s broken), radical tax simplification (Fair Tax, anyone?) or a guarantee of free choice in education for every American. Dramatic legal reform might also generate energy and enthusiasm – with pledges to reduce he crushing cost and profound drag on the economy of nuisance lawsuits.

 

And what about an across-the-board reduction in federal spending and a shrinking of the size of government? If Republicans make an aggressive pledge to slash the bureaucracy, including written commitments from both the Presidential and Congressional candidates, it will be up to the Democrats to defend absurd programs like the Teapot Museum or the millions for “mood altering lamps” at the Centers for Disease Control. The Republicans could—and should – publicize some new outrageous example of asinine federal spending every one of the hundred days between their convention and the election. Maybe they should begin right now – there are certainly enough wasteful examples to go around.

 

So far, our candidates have done a miserable job of seizing control of the national debate and the campaign’s agenda. If they don’t start talking about major changes that might actually electrify elements of the public then we’ll spend the entire campaign talking about “Health Insurance for All” and “Energy Conservation to Save Drowning Polar Bears” and, of course, “Bringing the Boys Home from Iraq” (which no Democrat and no Republican will actually be able to do… but that’s another story).

 

In other words, if we continue our internal bickering and allow the other side to determine the terms of the debate, Republicans will lose – and we may lose very badly.

 

The talk about imposing a "fairness doctrine" on radio and TV has now migrated from the fringes of the far left to some of the senior Democrats on Capitol Hill -- including Senators Feinstein, Durbin and Kerry. Believe it or not, these legislators appear to be serious about abusing the power of the federal government to control the political programming private companies would be allowed to broadcast, and to prevent the public from choosing stations that sounded “too one-sided” to bureaucrats. This chilling prospect reflects the totalitarian temptation at the heart of today’s so-called progressive agenda. Leftists trust bureaucrats to determine the cars you’re allowed to drive, the guns you’re allowed to own, the terms of employment you’re allowed to negotiate, and the sort of political messages you’re allowed to receive. Conservatives prefer free-market solutions and open competition – in mass media and elsewhere – because we trust the people more than the regulators. 

 

Meanwhile, the prominent Democrats who have begun discussing a return of the “fairness doctrine” to regulate media debate need to answer questions on applying this policy. Since the ostensible purpose of this initiative is to guarantee the airing of all sides of hot issues, how would they treat radio or TV shows like mine that always argue the questions of the day with opposing viewpoints? Would they count the disagreeing callers each hour to make sure we conform to some governmental standard? Meanwhile, a popular late night broadcast focuses on UFO’s and ghosts. Would stations now be required to counter such discussion with skeptical programming debunking paranormal claims? Thirty years ago, liberals justified the fairness doctrine because of the limited number of media outlets: today, with hundreds of cable TV channels, radio stations, satellite radio and the internet, the consumer chooses from more alternatives than ever before – and hardly needs a paternalistic bureaucracy dictating the nature of his choices. 

Occasionally, the formulaic Saturday radio addresses by the President and his designated Democratic “responders,” provide telling glimpses of our current political follies.

 

This past weekend, the Democrats chose Washington State’s junior Senator, the embarrassingly inept Maria Cantwell, to deliver their partisan preachment.

 

In the course of her dreary address about energy policy, she revealed her underlying contempt for her fellow citizens. “America deserves more fuel-efficient cars,” she announced with peerless eloquence, and then added: “But the only way consumers are going to get more out of a tank of gas is if the president and his party help deliver votes in a narrowly divided Congress.”

 

In other words, hard-pressed Americans who note the high price of gas at the pump, can’t do anything for themselves to save money? We can’t purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles until the Republicans vote for new regulations forcing us to do so?

 

And auto designers and engineers and inventors can’t possibly create the “more fuel efficient cars” Senator Cantwell says we deserve, unless bureaucrats give the orders? The prospect of earning billions in profits by building such vehicles won’t be enough without a vote of Congress?

 

Senator Cantwell no doubt speaks for many of her fellow Democrats in her startling suggestion that the American people can’t be trusted—even on an important and very personal decision like buying a car – and instead need to count on politicians to make wise choices for them.