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The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Archive for category National Politics

Election Day Plus 1

Nov 8

Posted by Kevin Murphy in National Politics | No Comments

This was an election where neither party deserved a win (IMHO, at least) but the electorate decided in the aggregate to throw the bums out and give the other bums a chance. The Republicans ran the way they governed — not well. I can’t recall any mention about the economy and how it’s booming. The Democrats weren’t much better, but they were better enough to win back the House and maybe even the Senate. It’s my hope this doesn’t spark a Republican search for purity but learning, as in learning from their mistakes.

I went to bed with Jim Talent winning and Amendment 2 losing, and awoke to find Talent lost and Amendment 2 won. While Amendment 2 won’t actually change anything, Talent’s loss will.

The minimum wage increase passed handily. We can all feel good about ourselves now. Too bad for the people priced out of the job market by this (maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon.) Yeah, I know the supporters got people with big pointy heads to say this wouldn’t affect employment, but can you name any commodity that when you raise the price on it people buy more of it?

What I don’t understand is how slow the election returns came in for Missouri. This year voting was either touch screen or opti-scan, both of which log the votes immediately. We should have results seconds after the polls close. Instead, as I write this, there are 68 precincts still not reporting. Did the horse and buggy breakdown?

I feel virtuous today – I voted against a tax on other people (Amendment 3) and voted for 2 taxes on myself – one for the Parkway school district, and one for the Special school district. I would have voted for the tobacco tax (Amendment 3) if the backers had just been honest. I might not be alone in that (hint, hint).

Poll workers must have gotten a commision on touch screen voters because they were really pushing it hard. Glenn Reynolds would be so proud of me — I voted using the new pen and paper method – the same one I took standardized tests in school with 30 years ago. I did so only because the line was so much shorter for the optiscan than the touch screen.

No word on whether Red Villa voted in this election.

I expect “Mission Accomplished” banners to be hung up in newsrooms across the country. No word if the newsrooms can put 2 and 2 together.

In similar news, Nicaraguans have returned Daniel Ortega to power. The tagline of this blog, The Triumph of Hope Over Experience was certainly in evidence yesterday.

You End Up Getting Your Foot Stuck In Your Mouth

Nov 1

Posted by Kevin Murphy in National Politics | 1 Comment

I’m willing to accept that John Kerry was not trying to criticism American soldiers as stupid but mistakenly called them unmotivated, lazy, and ignorant. So I agree with Ms. Barber that Mr. Kerry is being unfairly attacked on this subject:

“I can’t overstress the importance of a great education. Do you know where you end up if you don’t study, if you aren’t smart, if you’re intellectually lazy? You end up getting us stuck in a war in Iraq.”

That’s a clear reference to Bush, who Kerry implies is dumb. But it came out like this:

“You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

It’s bad enough that he’s being condescending. John Kerry is where he is today not through diligent application in school, but by being willing to do anything to advance himself no matter what.

But far worse is that he’s trying to turn a policy disagreement into a stupid joke. Literally. Great, that’s who I want trying to determine national policy. I guess that means Kerry’s idol, JFK, is a dumb fratboy like Bush because he got stuck in Vietnam – the original “quagmire”.

Not every politician can tell a joke, and it really isn’t a senatorial requirement, but I don’t think that let’s JoKe off the hook. Besides, calling them stupid woudn’t have been near as bad as things he’s actually called them – war criminals.

What are the things Democrats complain about Bush?

That he’s a poor public speaker? Guess what, this latest from Kerry only shows that Kerry’s worse.

That he doesn’t admit mistakes? Has Kerry admitted his mistake and apologized? Ha, he’s gone the blame everybody else route. [And now belatedly apologized.]

That he’s dumb? Hey, Kerry got worse grades in school. And he flubbed an easy joke.

Look, I find that Kerry is everything that the Democrats today complain about Bush (including the liar part) only moreso, yet not only can they stomach Kerry, they made him their Presidential candidate in 2004. The Democrats could have been a contender – they could have put the standard in Joe Lieberman’s capable hands in 2004 but instead that went with a pathetic loser like Kerry and kicked Lieberman out of the party.

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Political Strategist Straw Poll

Oct 27

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Inside Blogging, National Politics | No Comments

I’m holding a referendum on Tom Maguire:

Is Tom Maguire

[ ] Not Smart Enough to be a strategist for the Democrats, or

[ ] Too Smart to be a strategist for the Democrats.

I don’t want to bias the results by proclaiming my opinion, but let me just say that if Tom were to become a strategist for the Democrats the age of signs and wonders would clearly be upon us.

Of course he’s too smart to be a strategist for the Democrats; he’s too smart to be a strategist for the Republicans too. I could become President if Tom became my brain like a certain other, better known team (that actually is a team).

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Romney Sets A Reporter Straight

Oct 26

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Media Criticism, National Politics | No Comments

I want to have Mitt Romney’s baby:

That has to be the best smooth rebuke I’ve seen.

Via Powerline.

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I Have A Dream

Oct 24

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Fun, National Politics | No Comments

Here’s a Democratic platform I can get behind. Too bad it’s only satire, although I don’t doubt that Scott Ott also wishes it wasn’t. Could a Democrat today say with a straight face:

“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.”Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty.”

Other than Joe Lieberman, that is?

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Lost In Translation

Oct 20

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Economics, National Politics | No Comments

Here’s my problem, when I hear the phrase “common good” I think “tragedy of the commons”.

Perhaps my problem is that I’ve found I like economics outside the academic setting, where I found it boring and repulsive.

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Faster Feiler Meets Confirming Best

Oct 18

Posted by Kevin Murphy in National Politics | 1 Comment

A couple of years ago my Adult Bible Fellowship teacher (Ken Best) mentioned that people are wired such that the feedback they get from life tends to reinforce (or confirm) their prior opinions, and that’s because how we process information depends on what we think it will tell us. I have to say I agree with this observation. Generally, it takes something big (e.g. 9/11) to cause such a disconnect that we actually reexamine our prior opinion, but normally we see what we expect to see and disregard the rest.

Mickey Kaus has championed the Faster Feiler Thesis, which essentially is that we have speeded up both the information flow and its processing for people. And I have to say I also agree with this.

Put the two together, and what do you get – increased polarization. Our opinion is converted from jello to cement in ever faster times. And if there are two sides to every argument, then we have two sides set like epoxy around every policy, every politician, around pretty much everything (those Taste Great/Less Filling ads aren’t so funny now). Not only do we process the increased information flow faster, the increased flow drives us to become set in our positions ever faster.

Sound like real life? Perhaps how Bush Derangement Syndrome can become both widespread and hard to cure so quickly? Perhaps why so many people seem to be so completely convinced that they are not just right, but so right that any disagreement can only spring from impure motives — or you’re not just wrong, you’re evil.

One On One With Kim Jong-Il

Oct 11

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events, International Politics, National Politics | No Comments

Yes, this is going around so you can find it all over, and yes, it really is unfair to Madeleine Albright, but after She Who Must Be Obeyed opened her mouth, I couldn’t resist.

A less funny, more traditional rebuttal was provided by Sen. John McCain. McQ delivers a fisking. Personally, I can’t fault either administration too much because North Korea under Kim Jong-Il was simply going to try and develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them no matter what anyone said. It was worth giving talk a chance, but once it becomes clear that’s a waste of time, why continue? Now we need to talk to the North Korea’s neighbors about what we are going to do, not talk to Kim.

And another thing, why is it the same people who criticize President Bush for acting unilaterally, or for the US acting like a bully, demand that the talks with North Korea only be with the United States? It’s just more dead horse beating.

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Representatives Foley, Hastert, and Shimkus

Oct 3

Posted by Kevin Murphy in National Politics | No Comments

I’m just glad that Mark Foley wasn’t a Boy Scout Leader. Everything else about the sordid situation is just bad. And I have to agree with Dick Durban, someone I disagree with on about everything else, and that is:

Durbin also said the House Page Board should be abolished. Durbin said there are no senators involved in overseeing the Senate page program, and instead it is run by nonpartisan staff.”The Page Board in the House should go,” Durbin said. “It is clearly too political.”

I don’t want my representatives running the page program – it detracts from their time they should be spending legislating, they aren’t going to be as good at as professionals, and even if it isn’t political in itself, clearly it can become so at a time like this.

Hastert and Shimkus can stay, but the page board has to go.

Full Disclosure: My nephew was an intern with Rep. Shimkus several years ago — and yes, his respect for Shimkus does color my thinking on this one.

Republicans and Me

Sep 18

Posted by Kevin Murphy in National Politics | 4 Comments

I admit I was wrong. I thought that the theory that American system would create two parties that would be forced to the center in order to remain competative. This hasn’t happened lately, as the two parties seem to be engaged not in a race to the center but to the poles, or in the case of the Republicans, never never land. I understand that the Democrats have moved to the left to satisfy the vocal minority out there, but I’m not entirely sure where the Republicans are going.

I don’t consider myself a Republican for the reason I plump for principle over party. So while the Republican party has been the vehicle for conservatism, my loyalty is to conservatism, not Republicans. I’m both a social conservative and a fiscal conservative, so I’m prime Republican material.

My problem with the party these days is pretty much on the fiscal side, and I want to make something clear to Republican politicians – since you have (far) more control over the government than the culture, I judge you by the government under your control, and specifically for Congress the budgets under your control and the laws you pass.

For example, I’m against abortion for any reason besides saving the life of the mother, but I understand that (1) the laws on abortion has been taken over by the courts since 1973, (2) the attitudes toward abortion are not controlled by politicians. So guess what, as long as you do a good job on judges, you’re off the hook. I realize how little you can accomplish, so I can’t hold you accountable.

One last thing. While much is made about a revolt or dissidents in the party over interrogation techniques, I have to say finally. This is what the branches of government should be doing, and I have to wonder, where are the Democrats? At last we have a real discussion over issues, and the Democrats are nowhere to be found. So why vote Democratic if all they can do is partisan sniping?

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