Bob Newhart Turns 80 Today -- To Be Or Not To Be, That Is the Gazorninplat

Bob Newhart, the wickedly funny, innovative, thinking man’s comedian, is 80 years old today. From Chicago, he attended St Ignatius High School, Loyola University of Chicago’s college, and, briefly, Loyola’s law school, Jesuit schools all, which might explain something. After a stint in the Army he worked for a while as an accountant, although, as he says in the introduction to his “Accountant’s Retirement Party” sketch, he “had a strange theory of accountancy…I had always felt that if you got within 2 or 3 bucks of it [laughter]… but this really never caught on [laughter], and as a consequence I held a number of accounting jobs.”

He soon worked out a novel comedy routine where he would act out one end of a supposedly two way phone conversation, playing what amounted to the straight man role to the unseen and unheard party on the phone. This bit propelled him to comedy stardom. He would later achieve even more success on TV, most notably in two long running series playing first a Chicago psychologist and then a rural New England innkeeper, and his occasional movie appearances are highlighted by his small but hysterical role as Major Major in the black comedy Catch-22. And he was one of the most frequent and funniest guests on Johnny Carson’s Tonight show.

But to me his comedy routines are his greatest work. He is brilliant with his dry humor and deadpan, hesitating, and sometimes slightly unsure delivery. He skyrocketed to success in 1960 with the first of his many albums, “The Button Down Mind of Bob Newhart,” which hit number one on the pop chart and received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In his sketches, he would typically set up a premise and lead into the sketch with “I think it would go something like this.”

In “An Infinite Number of Monkeys,” he imagines that although an infinite number of monkeys given enough time would type out “all the Great Books,” someone must check their work to see if they are “turning out good stuff;” in the sketch, after reading through much gibberish, one of the monitors exclaims: "Hey Harry, I think this one has got something – To be or not to be, that is the gazorninplat.”

Or “Introducing Tobacco to Civilization,” in which Walter Raleigh’s sponsor in England has him on the phone and is puzzled by Raleigh’s purchase of a large quantity of leaves now being shipped across the ocean: “Let me get this straight Walt – you bought 80 tons of leaves?.... you do what, you shred it up, roll it up in a piece of paper … and you set fire to it!”

My favorite is “Abe Lincoln vs Madison Avenue,” in which Newhart imagines what a modern public relations man would have done for a somewhat dim and slightly befuddled Abe Lincoln just before the Gettysburg address:

Abe, what’s the problem?.. you’re thinking of shaving it off? .. Abe, don’t you see, it's part of the image, with the shawl, the stovepipe hat, and the string tie .. you don’t have the shawl .. Abe, where’s the shawl? … you left it in Washington! … Well what are you wearing?... a sort of cardigan?! … Abe, don’t you see it doesn’t fit with the string tie and the beard? … Abe, you haven’t changed the speech have you? … Abe, what are you changing the speech for? … You what, you typed it?! .. Abe, how many times have we told you – on the backs of envelopes… I understand it’s harder to read that way but this way it looks like you wrote it on the train coming down there… Abe, could you do this, could you memorize it and then put it on the backs of envelopes -- we’re getting a lot of play in the press on that … how are the envelopes holding out? … You could stand another box… Anything else? … No, no, no, no, you were a rail splitter, then an attorney … well it doesn’t make sense that way… Abe, don’t you see, you wouldn’t give up your law practice to become a rail splitter….

Accounting’s loss is everyone’s gain.

(The above three sketches and many more are available on iTunes)
R. Balsamo

Obama’s Speech to Schoolchildren Paves the Way

September 11, 2010 (American News Service) --

President Obama is following up on his successful series of speeches to schoolchildren, begun a year ago this month -- events that have resulted in an outpouring of support for cap and trade, card check, sanctions against Israel, and government-run health care, particularly among the 7 year old demographic. Today at a press conference he stated that he is acceding to popular demand by North American Continent children in supporting a drive for residents of all ages to make a pledge of support and allegiance to him personally, a movement started in 2009 by Hollywood celebrities (link). President Obama denied, however, that he was encouraging a cult of personality, saying that “it is above my pay grade to discourage people from pledging allegiance to me personally if that is what people want to do.” He did acknowledge that His government-funded Office of the President web site has a module that invites Americans to submit the names, addresses, and photographs of those who refuse to take the personal pledge of allegiance to “Our Leader Obama,” but He stated that this was simply so that His team can contact objectors personally to dispel the many “myths” being spread by nay-sayers. President Obama, who smiled broadly when one reporter addressed Him as “Dear Leader,” suggested that this whole matter was being blown out of proportion and distorted by His political opponents “who oppose fairness and equality for all and who are tools of insurance company special interests.” The press conference ended on a high note as eager, crisply attired, and well-organized members of the Obama Youth Service Brigade (link) firmly escorted reporters to a reception hall filled with uplifting Obama banners, stirring music, and organic refreshments.

JMG

Edward Kennedy and the Descent to Modern Liberalism

The death of liberal “icon” Edward Kennedy keeps the mind occupied pondering how modern liberalism came to be and how its adherents rationalize it all, given that it is the opposite of everything classic liberalism holds dear and the opposite of the enduring and liberating values that sustain this country. How and why have huge swaths of Americans left behind traditional values of personal liberty, personal responsibility, and self-reliance and the enabling framework of limited, divided government, rule of law, and equality of opportunity and of treatment, all to embrace various principles whose organizing theme is the need for government control over all significant aspects of life to enforce “fairness” and “equality”?

It is puzzling that there are those who feel that the answer to bias in years past is more bias in years to come, with just the beneficiaries and disadvantaged flip flopped. It is puzzling that for some the answer to poverty of culture and of skills is perpetual dependency on handouts from an impersonal government rather than the building a culture of personal responsibility, self-reliance, and achievement. Why for some is government, ever larger, more powerful, and more pervasive, always the first and last solution to all problems, real or imagined?

And why do so many of the privileged rich, be they trust-funders like Edward Kennedy or celebrities from the movies, embrace this totalitarian vision for government, when in their personal lives are one of license and liberties? David Pryce-Jones has perceptive thoughts (link) on this phenomenon at National Review online:

Senator Edward Kennedy was, and will remain, an outstanding example of a champagne socialist…. those who vote on the Left but dine on the Right. Such people are exploiting their privileged position in society to curry favor with those less privileged, and so find the way to continue being privileged while also being applauded for it. Clever, or what?.... In simple fact, [Edward Kennedy] owed everything in his career, especially his position in the Senate, to the fact that he had been born who he was, too well-connected and too rich ever to have to work his passage on his own. If this isn't privilege, what is?... As for morals, Chappaquiddick is only one incident among others when his behaviour proves him to have been a man of bad character. Normally speaking, ordinary people would never tolerate someone like him as their elected representative. To present himself as a tribune of the people was the only possible protective covering available to him. That he was successful in this respect, and comes to be buried in Arlington with the president speaking at the graveside, is really the only arresting feature of his career. He has enjoyed the sort of lifelong allowance that once would have been made for a corrupt eighteenth-century English duke. It is hard to believe that he was ever sincere in the populist causes he took up, declaiming about righting wrongs only to go home and commit plenty more wrongs of his own without having to account for them. That's champagne socialism for you, and it seems a taste everybody and anybody can get drunk on.

And for their techniques in pursuit of their aim of big-government enforcement of “fairness” and “equality” and “social justice”, Carol Iannone put it this way this past January at National Review Online, writing about modern liberalism through the prism of the notorious and quite nefarious frame-up of three innocent Duke college students on a falsified rape story by an ideologically corrupt liberal legal establishment (most notably by prosecutor Nifong, a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, and the enabling judges) aided and abetted by a radicalized leftist university faculty and administration and a corrupt national media:

[I]t is important to note the distance that PC-liberalism has traveled from the older type of liberalism. In the older type, proper procedure, rule of law, innocent until proven guilty, etc., were highly respected principles, and informed many works of literature and popular culture, such as To Kill a Mockingbird and Twelve Angry Men. But PC liberalism is like Leninism—morality is what serves the revolution, so to speak.

And how will these new leftists, the opinion leader vanguard of modern liberals, snooker the rest of us to let them take over our lives? Through health care and environmentalism. Writes Mark Steyn (link):

Beginning with FDR, wily statists justified the massive expansion of federal power under ever more elastic definitions of the commerce clause. For Obama-era control freaks, the environment and health care are the commerce clause supersized. They establish the pretext for the regulation of everything: If the government is obligated to cure you of illness, it has an interest in preventing you from getting ill in the first place — by regulating what you eat, how you live, the choices you make from the moment you get up in the morning. Likewise, if everything you do impacts “the environment,” then the environment is an all-purpose umbrella for regulating everything you do. It’s the most convenient and romantic justification for what the title of Paul Rahe’s new book rightly identifies as “soft despotism.”

Andrew Klavan’s recent distillation of it all (link) once again comes to mind: “Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.” And all for our own good, imagine that.

John M Greco

On the Passing of Edward Kennedy -- A Dissenting View

I dissent from the adulation being heaped upon Edward “Ted” Kennedy, the late senator from Massachusetts, by the liberal media.

The United States has thrived on a commitment to the values of individual liberty, personal responsibility, and self-reliance. Edward Kennedy, in his public and private lives, worked to undermine them. He took a different view. He was the quintessential American liberal of the modern era, espousing a philosophy born of post-war pacifism and 1960’s dreamy childish utopianism, for whom government-enforced and monitored “fairness” and “equality” are foremost objectives. Kennedy was a prominent leader of a political movement that promotes the growth and expansion of a central government for controlling ever-more aspects of our lives under the direction of ruling liberal elites, all ostensibly for our own good. The modern liberal moral conceit blinds them to the ultimate destructive consequence of their philosophy, as Andrew Klavan recently summarized (link) so well in the WSJ: “Free people can treat each other justly, but they can't make life fair. To get rid of the unfairness among individuals, you have to exercise power over them. The more fairness you want, the more power you need. Thus, all dreams of fairness become dreams of tyranny in the end.”

In pursuit of his vision for America Kennedy could be vicious and deceitful, perhaps most notably in his treatment of Supreme Court nominees from Republican presidents. Scott Johnson at Powerline blog reminds us (link) that Kennedy said from the floor of the Senate that “Robert Bork's America is a land in which … blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters….” – just a snippet of what Johnson calls a “willfully false and remarkably coarse attack on Bork” (and that’s putting it politely). Karl Rove reminds us in a TV interview that Kennedy called now Justice Alito a “bigot” during his confirmation process. Smearing as racists those you oppose is not the action of a fair and decent man, but is a part of an ends-justify-the-means approach of dubious morality. His last political act was a shameless and unprincipled effort to convince fellow Massachusetts Democrats to have one rule for Republicans but a better one for Democrats on filling open Senate seats, which I just wrote about here.

Edward Kennedy lived his life as a sometimes wild pampered rich boy on his father’s money. Everything he got he was given. His father got him into Harvard but he was expelled for cheating. His father gave him his Senate seat before he was even old enough to sit in it, and thus it had to be held for a while by a family retainer. But most telling of all, this is the man who left a woman to suffer a horrible death trapped in the submerged car he had just driven off a Chappaquiddick Island bridge while driving drunk, as he swam away and slithered off not to call for help that may well have saved her but rather to sober up and gather the Kennedy family lawyers and media retainers to concoct a cover story that the liberal press willingly endorsed as co-conspirator.

I do not say that he was a bad man in every aspect of his life. But his politics were wrong for an America of free, self-reliant, and self-directed citizens, and his personal behavior and political style showed remarkable failings.

John M Greco

Democrat Kennedy Proposes New Approach to Government – One Rule for Republicans and a Better One for Democrats

It’s hard to be surprised by any story of rank liberal hypocrisy, for they come at us these days like mosquitoes on a muggy summer night, but I admit this one took me aback for a moment. Dying of cancer, Democrat Senator Edward (“Ted”) Kennedy chooses to exit the political stage the same way he has occupied it – as an immoral shameless opportunist.

Kennedy was the driving force (link) of the movement in Massachusetts that changed the rules in midstream to deprive Republican then-Governor Mitt Romney of the ability to appoint a replacement to fill out the remainder of Sen. John Kerry’s term should Kerry have been elected president in 2004. Prior to that change, a vacant senate seat was to be filled by governor’s appointment, but Kennedy convinced fellow Democrats in Massachusetts government to change the rule so that vacancies would be filled by special election. Now because he is sick and realizes that his own Senate seat may become vacant before the next regular election, and since the Massachusetts governor is now a Democrat rather than a Republican, Kennedy wants to completely reverse course and change the law back to having the governor appoint a replacement (link). While the Democrats are at it, to save time and money why not just pass a law that allows Democrat governors to fill by appointment but requires a special election if the governor is a Republican? And as a typical example of liberal media bias, this deceitful Chicago Tribune article (link) never mentions at all the fact that the Massachusetts law is what it is today because Democrats made it that way to prevent a Republican governor from making a replacement appointment.

Lots of pejorative adjectives occur to me I would waste half a day typing out. This is the Kennedy who left a woman to suffer a horrible, slow death in the car he drove off a Chappaquiddick Island bridge while driving drunk as he swam away and slithered off to sober up and gather the Kennedy family lawyers and media retainers to concoct a cover story that the liberal press willingly endorsed as co-conspirator.

This man has lived his life as a pampered, unprincipled trust-funder in the lifelong pursuit of raw power in the name of the “people,” basking in the adulation of a proletariat he has long been luring down the road to a socialism we have seen before – for most of us, the heavy hand of pervasive government control “for our own good,” but for the elites like him running the government, special privileges and dachas in the countryside.

John M Greco

Two Reporters Injured Trying To Kiss President Obama’s Behind

Seen on the wire:

August 17, 2009 (United Press Affiliates)

(Washington D.C) -- A spokesperson for the Obama Administration is downplaying the significance of an incident at the White House yesterday which resulted in injuries to two reporters, calling it “an unfortunate misunderstanding.” The reporters sustained serious injuries as they and others suddenly rushed to kiss President Obama’s “behind” after mistakenly thinking he was speaking to them when he loudly exclaimed “Well you can just kiss my ass.” The reporters did not realize he was speaking into a cell phone via a small ear-piece microphone which was hidden from their view and they thought he was addressing them.

In the melee, New York Times reporter Susan Jones tripped on the leg of NBC reporter Sam Emery and sustained a compound fracture of her left femur, with a piece of bone protruding through her skin. Upon coming to after a five-hour surgery, she downplayed the seriousness of her injury saying “These things happen, and it’s no big deal. It was just a misunderstanding on the part of us reporters, and this does not reflect at all on President Obama. I’m just so thankful that he was completely uninjured and can continue his historic and consequential presidency.” Mr Emery, who has been on the White House beat only six months since graduating from journalism school, suffered multiple ligament tears in his right knee when he hit the ground but shrugged it off saying “At my age these injuries were bound to happen sooner or later, and I’m just so happy that President Obama is fine and continues to bring all residents of North America and the world together through his visionary leadership.” NBC's veteran broadcaster Brian Williams, who has said that more should follow his example of bowing before President Obama and keeping a respectful distance, nevertheless stated "With all the excitement in appearing before President Obama, it's easy to see how things like this happen."

Newsweek Magazine’s editor Evan Thomas, who has characterized President Obama as a “sort of God” and who has decided to feature President Obama permanently on the magazine's cover, expressed relief that both the President and the Newsweek reporter at the scene were not hurt and voiced pride that his reporter was the only one to actually reach President Obama to plant a kiss on his behind before the misunderstanding was recognized. He said the incident illustrates the “dedication, passion, and journalistic professionalism” his staff bring to reporting the news.


John M Greco

Obama Divides Opposition To Conquer Drug Makers Who Seek To Appease

Obama has divided what should be the united opposition to his underhanded and deceptive scheme to put in place the foundation for nationalized health care. The free-enterprise-based pharmaceutical industry (PhRMA) foolishly thinks it has cut a deal with Obama on his health care reform plans (link), apparently thinking that this supposed deal is less bad than what would happen to them if they opposed Obama. Aside from the fact that Congress actually writes the laws, as least as of this moment six months into the Age of Obama, and prominent Congressional Dems have made it clear there are no deals that will bind them, and aside from the fact that whatever isn’t in a bill this year can be easily added to a new one next year once the ultraliberal Dems vanquish the opposition to nationalized health care, what in the world makes anyone, including the pharmaceutical industry, think they can trust Obama on anything, in light of everything they now know of him and have now seen of him?

Rich Lowry writes in the above-linked post at National Review Online that “[e]ven if the deal holds, PhRMA will be at the mercy of a government system that will tend to squeeze out even those private players who have obligingly assisted in creating the predicate for their own destruction.”

Winston Churchill insightfully described an appeaser as “one who feeds the crocodile hoping it will eat him last.” Indeed.

John M Greco

Post Office Eliminates Mail Delivery To Balance Budget and Save Jobs

July 25, 2009: The Washington Post reported (link) that “the Postal Service, which is projecting a $6 billion shortfall by the end of September despite a recent postage rate increase, will go to Congress this month to seek emergency relief, looking to cut home mail delivery from six days a week to five. Already, the Postal Service has cut hours at hundreds of post offices across the country …. It has consolidated routes …. Still, said Postmaster General John E. Potter, the service is in "acute financial crisis."

July 26, 2011 -- The Obama administration’s head of the Postal Service announced today the elimination of delivery service.

The Postmaster General stated that she regretted having to take this drastic action, but said that the Postal Service had no other alternative in light of continued decline in mail volume and escalating budget deficits. This fiscal year, the Post Office is slated to lose upwards of $20 billion, despite reducing mail delivery to once a week 7 months ago and a budget infusion of $15 billion from President Obama’s discretionary TARP Fund.

In a press conference yesterday, the Postmaster General said “I hope that once mail delivery is eliminated entirely that the Postal Service will be able to balance its budget within 3 years, given the 25% budget increase Democrats passed this year for the Department.” She went on to say “I am proud of the efforts of the Obama Administration and the Democrat Congress to preserve the thousands of Post Office jobs, since the loss of even some of them would hurt the economy, and although I regret having to permanently discontinue mail delivery service, the Post Office is working hard to identify additional efficiencies to finally balance our budget.”

President Obama issued a statement today, saying “I do not stand with those who would do nothing to finally stop the Post Office budget deficits and those who are indifferent to saving the thousands of jobs there. As I have said before, I am committed to balancing budgets and saving jobs. As for the loss of delivery service, this is a time for shared sacrifice and we must all do our part in these difficult times.”


John M Greco

The American Medical Association Endorses the Ultra-Liberal House Democratic Health Care Reform Proposal – Is This a Surprise?

The American Medical Association has just endorsed (link) the House Democrats’ health care reform proposal, unveiled last week, and regarded by everyone I have read as the most ultra-liberal of all proposals announced thus far. So ultra-liberal, in fact, that no one I have heard or read gives it much chance of becoming law, let alone even passing the Democrat-controlled House.

Tevi Troy writes (link) at The Corner blog at National Review Online that this proposal “raises taxes, imposes both individual and employer mandates, and creates a government-run health-care plan. This is not surprising, as the House [Democrats’] Leadership’s strategy appears to be to pass a bill that is as far to the left as possible in order to have maximum leverage when negotiating with whatever compromise comes out of the Senate.”

It is hard to believe that a majority of the AMA membership would support this House Democrat proposal, once given a chance to read it. So it is somewhat surprising to have the AMA leadership release this quick endorsement, supporting a plan hatched by the radically-liberal Pelosi and containing the Trojan Horse government run “public option” plan that will surely and shortly eradicate private insurers, leaving all healthcare in the hands of liberal federal government bureaucrats and all doctors as de facto federal employees. And what sentient doctor thinks there's a snowball's chance in hell that Democrats would move one inch toward much-needed reform of malpractice liability law, a very high priority for most doctors?

One factor that must be huge here – the tendency of all large, ostensibly non-political organizations, from philanthropic foundations to professional societies like the American Bar Association, to become progressively more liberal over time, as liberals, executing one of the key directives from their playbook, slowly take over internal staff bureaucracies and elected leadership positions, and then isolate and suppress less-organized and less politically-astute internal opponents.

John M Greco

More Obama “Stimulus” Spending?! Because the First $789 Billion Didn’t Work

Last Friday, July 9, in a discussion on the Obama Administration's just-floated idea to use TARP money for Small Business Administration loans, Larry Kudlow said on his CNBC show: “This [TARP money] is one of the greatest slush fund operations of all time. This TARP money was never intended for this purpose.” Kudlow then stated he believed such a move was another indication that Obama and his people are “panicking” over the continuing economic struggles and the rising unemployment rate, which the Obama team said would never get anywhere near as high as it now is if their massive “stimulus” spending plan was enacted. Well, their plan was enacted, and now things are much worse. And now some Obama people are talking about a second “stimulus” spending plan, because the first didn’t work.

Guest Joe Lavorgna, chief US economist for Deutsche Bank, had the guts to admit he was wrong in succumbing to the big-government-spending-is-the-solution fallacy and hysteria, saying: “The stimulus package, which I initially was all for, has not played out the way I thought. I think a second stimulus package would be really terrible... The first one wasn’t very effective – it’s vulgar Keynesianism as you [Larry] said before.” Even now, though, he says “not very effective.” How about “not effective at all”? From common sense and the opinions of realists, the economy in general and the banking system in particular have stabilized because of the massive Milton Friedman monetary stimulus and the long-called-for significant softening of the “mark-to-market” accounting rule that was destroying banks’ technical solvency.

The hubris and vanity of the liberal elites leads to their fatal attraction to command and control. They believe they know better than the masses who didn’t attend their Ivy League schools. For them, the ‘stimulus” was never about the economy, it was about ever-bigger government pursuing the liberal agenda. But for the saps who were snookered into believing massive government spending and further government control would help the economy, it was a triumph of hope over common sense, of quasi-religious faith in central planning over all human experience, of Obamamania over rational thought.

JM Greco

Previous related posts:

The So-Called “Stimulus” Is “About Politics and Power, Not Sound Economics”

Re: The "Stimulus": Economics As the Dismal Science -- Keynesians Say 1+1=3, Milton Friedman & Common Sense Say No Way

"Great Powers" Historian Paul Kennedy Warns Against the Planned Economic “Stimulus” Package That We’ll Need Foreigners To Pay For

Coleman Brought a Squirt Gun to a Knife Fight In the Minnesota Senate Recount Battle

Well, the Minnesota senate race recount is finally over, and what most people, including me, thought would happen happened. Vicious, no-holds-barred ultra-liberal Democrat Franken out-recounted incumbent Republican gentleman-Norm Coleman. It’s hard to understand even now Coleman’s puzzlingly restrained behavior while the Franken Democrats were stealing the election via a selective recount in Democratic strongholds. Coleman may have thought Minnesota Democrats were above bad behavior, but the joke’s on him, and unfortunately also on us.

This Democratic tactic has been tried twice in the recent past in high profile races – in the 2000 Presidential election, of course, and in the 2004 Washington state governor race. Bush fought hard and finally prevailed, but in Washington state the Republican caved. Coleman seems to have taken an above-it-all approach, counting on the courts to invalidate Franken’s shenanigans, even though such an approach in the Washington governor’s race didn’t work and even though a leading Democratic strategist from that contest was called in early as a Franken advisor.

Coleman won the initial count by over 700 votes, and then also won the first recount by over 200. But as in the Washington governor’s race, that did not deter the Democrats. Votes were selectively “found” in majority Democratic precincts. Democrat Franken’s team seemed to have out-hustled, out-maneuvered, and out-smarted Coleman’s. Franken was recently declared the winner by 312 votes.

Among the many disturbing reports, one from the Wall Street Journal (link) particularly astounded me for the brazenness of the state’s Canvassing Board, led by the ultra-liberal Democrat Secretary of State, who was elected with significant help from the ethically bankrupt left-wing ACORN organization. In one heavily Democratic precinct the hand recount showed fewer votes than had been recorded by the machine on election night, so the Board went with the higher election night count, netting Franken 46 votes. But in another heavily Democratic precinct, the opposite occurred, so the partisan Democrat Board went with the recount, there netting Franken 37 votes. As the WSJ noted, Franken “benefited both ways from the board's inconsistency.”

Another aspect was how local precinct officials decided which “votes” were valid under the law. John Hinderaker at Power Line blog (link) notes:

It turns out, not surprisingly, that the counties that are careful about applying election laws are Republican-leading counties, while the lax ones … are heavily Democratic. What this means, in practice, is that thousands of votes are counted in Democratic counties that would not be counted if the same voter lived in a Republican county…. Thus a deep irony arises: if a uniform standard of strict compliance with the absentee ballot statute is applied, Coleman wins. If a looser standard of substantial compliance with the statute is uniformly applied, Coleman also wins. The only way Coleman loses is if a strict standard is applied in Republican counties and a lax standard is applied in Democratic counties. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has happened so far.

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (link) supplies the coda:

Mr. Coleman didn't lose the election. He lost the fight to stop the state canvassing board from changing the vote-counting rules after the fact. This is now the second time [citing the 2004 Washington state governor race] Republicans have been beaten in this kind of legal street fight. If the GOP hopes to avoid repeats, it should learn from Minnesota that modern elections don't end when voters cast their ballots. They only end after the lawyers count them.

John M Greco

Previous posts on this subject:

In Minnesota, If It’s Close, They Will Try to Steal It

Democrats Gaining in Their Attempt To Steal Minnesota Senate Election Via Rigged Recount

Minnesota Canvassing Judge Slams Criticisms of Bias, But Does Not Rebut a Single Allegation of Serious Mischief in the Coleman-Franken Recount

Will Unemployment Rate & Socialized Medicine Stall Obama’s Radical Liberalism? – “It’ll Be Close”

The unemployment rate has soared past what Obama and his new brain trust said it would be without their massive and budget-busting “stimulus” spending, which is essentially pork for ultra-liberal interest groups (like unionized state government workers and Medicaid recipients). Prominent Dem pol Ed Rendell, currently governor of Pennsylvania, says on national TV we need much more stimulus spending, but this time aimed at “shovel-ready infrastructure projects” that will translate into jobs. My God, this was exactly how the first stimulus spending plan was sold to the public, and now Dems are saying that’s not how the money is being spent, that we didn’t do what we said we would do, but if we do it again, we Democrats will get it right the second time around.

On health care reform, the noble struggle continues to convince the large swath of politically inattentive Americans that Obama’s ultimate goal is nationalized government-run health care operated by liberal federal bureaucrats. The Trojan Horse ploy is to introduce a government-run health plan that would “keep private insurers honest,” but would surely and shortly put all private plans out of business. A Wall Street Journal editorial today (link) again hits this theme hard. We surely need responsible health care reforms, but socialized government-run health care isn’t one of them. In Canada or in Britain, if you’re old or really sick, medical care is often if not always low speed, low tech, and low quality, but if you’re among the 80% or so who’re basically pretty healthy and only go in on occasion for minor and preventive care, the system is great because it’s real cheap.

As Mark Steyn said today on the radio, hearing from a remorseful Obama voter, lots of his supporters thought they could "get the cool without the consequence," but now know better. And in response to a report that independent voters are beginning to “edge away” from Obama, Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds today writes: “He ran as a different kind of politician than he’s governing as. He hopes to ram through stuff that will cement his position before the rubes catch on. It’ll be close.”


John M Greco

Eight Republicans Vote For Democrats’ “Insane” Massive Energy Tax Bill; Illinois Republican Mark Kirk Takes Heat

Last Friday, June 26, the US House passed the Democrat Waxman-Markey energy tax bill, often referred to as “cap and trade.” The way Democrats rammed the bill through, with massive changes made at the last minute just as the voting began, is almost as outrageous as the substance of it, although, since no one read the bill before it was passed, no one can be quite sure exactly what’s in it (link, link).

But this is just a bill, not a law, as the Senate has not voted yet, and many commentators think passage of this bill in anything like its House version is unlikely. Nevertheless, the substance of the bill and the way it was passed stinks all the same. Iain Murray wrote (link) at The Corner blog at National Review Online that “this is a gross abuse of the Parliamentary process and represents nothing less than contempt for the people of the United States of America.”

As for the substance, it’s a massive new tax on energy in the middle of a recession. Charles Krauthammer’s take (link):

This bill is so bad it's almost indescribable…. In principle, it's a carbon tax. And to do it — which is probably the largest tax in American history — in the middle of a recession is quite insane.

But secondly, even if you accept that we have to do a carbon tax because there is an emergency in the climate …. [the bill] involves so many concessions to constituencies, to coal companies in states, to all kinds of favorite constituencies, that it's a mess, and it undermines the idea of a cap and trade, a system in which the market will regulate carbon emissions. As a result, in the final analysis, it gives money and carbon credits to utility companies on the condition that [they do] not raise rates on people's electricity. But if that is the case, then it undermines the entire argument in favor of this, which is to induce the reduction in the use of energy. If there are no rises in rates, there's no incentive to reduce emissions, and the whole purpose of the bill is undermined.

The bill passed by a margin of 7 votes, with 44 Democrats voting against it and 8 Republicans voting for it. Congressman Mark Kirk, from Illinois’ liberal North Shore, which extends from Chicago’s northern suburbs to the Wisconsin border, was one of the eight Republicans (link), and, according to one commentator, was the only one of the eight not from either the east or west coast.

Why did Kirk vote for this bill, which, along with every other Congressman, he didn’t even read? Greg Hinz at Crain’s Chicago Business writes (link):

Congressman Mark Kirk is strongly defending his vote …. [He] said he tied his vote to national security, … that raising the price of energy somewhat will reduce American reliance on "Middle Eastern dictatorships." "I would have preferred a bill that focused more on energy independence," the Highland Park Republican said, … [but said that] the version put to a vote by Democratic leaders will force the United States to diversify American energy production.

Well, yes, achieving energy independence is an urgent national matter, but if utility energy prices are prevented from rising and we don’t reverse the Democratic freeze on developing new supplies of oil, gas, and nuclear power and using more coal, won’t we still use about as much foreign oil?

This bill amounts to a massive new tax by Democrats underneath the ruse of environmental protection and energy independence, the additional revenues from which would only help fuel their destructive spending orgy.

There was a rally at Kirk’s office today to protest his vote. Illinois bloggers John Ruberry of Marathon Pundit (link) and Anne Leary of Backyard Conservative (link) were there and cover it at their blogs.

Sensible big-tent Republicans understand that Republican legislators will not always vote in lock-step on every issue, especially if they represent liberal-leaning districts. But sometimes Republicans in such districts feel intimidated, lose nerve, and vote with Democrats rather than educate voters on the merits of their position. But when even 44 Democrats couldn’t vote for this bill, Kirk’s vote is hard to understand, and very disappointing.

John M Greco

Remembering Errol Flynn, at 100

Errol Flynn, one of the great movie stars of all time, was born 100 years ago today. He defined the classic movie action hero -- daring and dashing, a leader of men; honorable and purposeful, but devil-may-care and quick to laugh. His roles may not have been unduly complex, but they were bold and heroic. His pictures were often run and much watched, years ago, before movie heroes changed forever.

His signature “swashbucklers” defined the genre and are, at least to this fan, his greatest roles: Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, and The Sea Hawk. All were directed by Michael Curtiz and featured rousing theme music by Erich Korngold. Flynn’s co-star in the first two, and in six other of his movies, was the great Oliva de Havilland, and character actor pal Alan Hale had roles in 11 of Flynn’s movies by my count. Captain Blood, as good as any he made, was his first lead and his break out film.

Another favorite of mine, and of one of my sons, is the WWII action picture Objective Burma. Same character type – a bold, determined leader with an important mission. He made many other films, of course, including many Westerns, most notably They Died with Their Boots On and Virginia City. He was a great actor, but remarkably, though perhaps not inexplicably for Hollywood given its pseudo-sophistication borne of a collective intellectual inferiority complex and its love of self-absorbed drama, he was never nominated for an Academy Award. Flynn would be much more appreciated today by the Hollywood intelligentsia if he had played notably unheroic self-destructive substance abusers on the screen instead of just becoming one in later life.

Flynn was born of Irish and British descent in Tasmania, of all places, where his father was a professor of biology. Expelled from a number of schools for rowdy behavior and perhaps also for inappropriate romantic adventures, after some failed ventures he eventually turned to acting, where his natural charm, good looks, and athleticism led to quick success. He was quite the womanizer, apparently, whose exploits led to the quip “In Like Flynn.” The fast living and drinking prematurely aged him, and his career slowed down. In his later years he lived in Jamaica, and died at age 50 in Vancouver while traveling on personal business. His autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was published shortly after his death.

The lasting image – Flynn standing on his ship’s gunwale amidst the clamor and confusion of a great sea battle, one hand on the rigging and one brandishing a sword, shouting “Over the side men, follow me.”


His daughter Rory Flynn maintains an interesting website dedicated to memories of his career (link).

Richard Balsamo

Chance for Sensible Health Care Reform Improves as Ultra-Liberal Proposals Start to Implode

Americans need health care reform, but what we do not need is a monolithic health care system owned and operated by the federal government and its ant hill of bureaucrats. Our medical advances and treatments lead the world. We need reforms to our current system that preserve the strengths but address problems with medical costs, affordability of insurance, portability of insurance to eliminate “job lock,” and inconsistent quality of care. We need a reform plan that keeps control in the hands of individuals and their doctors, not give it to bureaucrats in the federal government. One such plan is already on the table -- the Patients’ Choice Act (link; link; link; link).

As for the uninsured – take out those that already qualify for federal programs but haven’t signed up, non-citizens, and those who can afford medical insurance but feel healthy so risk going without it, and what’s left is only a fraction of the 46 million count that gets bandied about. I've seen estimates of 10-15 million (here's a well-documented analysis concluding the number is about 11 million). Tweaks to existing federal programs can address those truly in need, who, incidentally, usually can obtain care when they want it at emergency rooms, free clinics, and some doctors’ offices. Not ideal, not optimal, and in need of reform, but medical care is currently available, subsidized by hospitals and doctors from the income they receive from private insurers. No need to rush the overhaul of our entire system to deal with the uninsured problem. Why not take a few months rather than a few weeks?

So why the bum’s rush by Democrats? Why, of course, because the more time people have to examine and think about their proposals the less likely they will be to support them.

The good news – the first wave of cost estimates of some of the Democrat-proposed reform plans have been astronomical, and growing public and stakeholder concern over Obama bailouts, massive spending, unimaginable debt, and political rush jobs has the linchpin of schemes for a nationalized system – the government-run so-called “public plan” option (link)– in serious doubt (link). Even health-care-guy former Senator Tom Daschle, one of many Democrats disgraced recently by admissions of major tax evasion, dropped the public plan from his own health care reform proposal released this past week (link).

There are currently many proposals in various degrees of detail:

• From Senate Democrats on the Finance Committee (Baucus)
• From Senate Democrats on the Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (Kennedy/Dodd)
• From an independent group of Senate and House Republicans (the Patients’ Choice Act)
• From House Democrats, release pending
• From former Democrat Senator Daschle (with Republican props Dole and Baker)

A half-way decent overview of developments with most of these proposals is here from the Associated Press, which, however, true to its ultra-liberal bias, omits to mention at all the most advanced and, to the liberals, threatening Republican reform proposal – the Patients’ Choice Act.

And, as shocking as the Congressional Budget Office’s cost estimates have been, an editorial (link) in today’s Wall Street Journal warns that in the past such cost estimates usually have turned out to have been too low:

Useful to emphasize … is that CBO's number-crunching is almost always off --
predicting too much spending for market-based policies and far too little for
new public programs, especially on health care. The CBO score [read “cost
estimate”] for a new entitlement is only the teaser rate, given that the costs
will inevitably balloon as the years pass and more people mob "free" or
subsidized insurance.

John M Greco

Obama Dissembles On His Plans For Health Care

A friend says to me -- Unlike our current president, for all his shortcomings, former President G.W. Bush at least was not a narcissistic liar. That about sums it up. It is clear to all with open eyes that President Obama is a man of the left, if one pays any attention to his actions and associations, past and present, rather than to his words. But he fools the foolable with his verbal misdirections and falsehoods. He soothingly and earnestly assures us that he is not leading America to the left as he carefully and methodically does just that. For the left, the end has always justified the means.

Obama, strongly pitching his “public option” government-run health plan that he knows is nothing more than a Trojan Horse for nationalized, government-run health care, said this (link) today to a gathering of leaders of the American Medical Association:

"What are not legitimate concerns are those being put forward claiming a public option is somehow a Trojan horse for a single-payer system," he said. "I'll be honest. There are countries where a single-payer system may be working. But I believe — and I've even taken some flak from members of my own party for this belief — that it is important for us to build on our traditions here in the United States. So, when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this — they are not telling the truth."

Small lies might not convince, but the big ones ….


JM Greco

The Key Fight in Health Care Reform Is On a “Public Plan" Option, & Prospects Still Uncertain. Will Republicans Hold?

Some observers, including me, believe that many leading Democrats would ultimately prefer to have a straight up national health insurance plan in the US, akin to that of Britain or even Canada, but realize that political support for such a radical switch is insufficient. So their tactic at the moment is to introduce the seed for national health insurance, thinking that once in place the move to truly national health insurance would be inexorable. The plan is to introduce in health care “reform” what will ultimately become national health insurance through the Trojan Horse of a “public plan” option that the federal government would run in competition with private health care plans.

The theory behind a public plan option is good. As President Obama recently wrote, it could give Americans “a better range of choices, make the health care market more competitive, and keep the insurance companies honest.” But reality is different. The problem is that private insurers, which must navigate through and comply with 50 sets of state insurance regulations and must negotiate reimbursement rates with providers, could never compete with a government run plan that did not have to operate at a profit and that could dictate reimbursement to providers. Democrats would make sure that premiums for a government run plan would be far cheaper than those of private plans, and so private plans would soon be extinct. Private plans are far from perfect, and many reform proposals can improve things, but government run national health insurance, like that of Britain or Canada, would undoubtedly mean rationing of care through government-imposed cost-driven medical protocols, poorer service, and stifling of medical innovation.

The public plan option is where the important fight is. Can Republicans hold firm as a group to refuse support for any reform plan that includes it? And if so, will Democrats want to pass on a party line vote, which they could do, a reform plan that would be one of the most sweeping and consequential laws in American history, and be wholly responsible when things go sour with the scheme, as would happen eventually? Or if Republicans hold firm, will Democrats blink and drop the public plan option? We’ll all see.

The latest update I’ve seen is an Associated Press report from two days ago titled “GOP Senators Say Bipartisan Health Deal in Jeopardy -- President Obama's declared support for a public insurance plan, which would compete with private insurers, is opposed by nearly all Republicans” (link):

President Obama's hopes for a bipartisan health deal seemed in jeopardy Thursday [June 4] as GOP senators protested his renewed support for a new public health insurance plan, and a key Democratic chairman declared that such a plan would likely be in the Senate's bill…. A public plan that would compete with private insurers is opposed by nearly all Republicans.
Congress might be able to pass a health overhaul bill with little, if any, GOP support. But Obama and Democrats including Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus have said repeatedly they want to avoid that outcome because such a measure would be less widely supported and less sustainable over time…. There appears to be little room for compromise, with Republicans contending that no matter how a public plan is designed, it would inevitably balloon and crush the private market…. Many Democrats, meanwhile, insist that a final bill must contain a public plan.

John M Greco

The Sad and Tragic End of General Motors

Tomorrow, June 1, it is expected that we will witness the tragic end to a remarkable story – the 100+ year run of iconic General Motors as a private company. The story of storied entrepreneurs William C. Durant, Pierre S. du Pont, Walter P. Chrysler, Louis Chevrolet, among others, and, most notably, Alfred P. Sloan, who, along with legendary engineer Charles F. Kettering, made GM what it once was -- the leading industrial company in the world.

Years of incompetent management and many more years of destructive union hegemony spelled the end. General Motors has long needed a restructuring bankruptcy, but one conducted under the rule of law that would have shrunk, streamlined, and legally rejuvenated the company to allow it to survive and prosper. But we’re not going to get that. A powerful Obama who, using the pretense of a national financial crisis to bend people to his will and disdainful of the legal rights of holders of capital, has something different in store.

Tomorrow General Motors is expected to file for restructuring bankruptcy. In the “pre-packaged” restructuring plan, Democrat Obama is laundering even more taxpayer money to unions, and has extorted from bondholders (e.g., retirees’ pension plans, mutual fund investors) and from emasculated TARP-ensnared creditor banks a much larger piece of what’s left of the company for the automakers’ union than the Democrat union would otherwise get in a bankruptcy proceeding that followed the rule of law and far, far more than it deserves. Democrat union members up, while taxpayers and creditor banks and pension plans down.

Of course, the taxpayer is the biggest loser, other than the rule of law, which seemingly now is of concern only to some behind-the-times Republicans. The federal government (that is to say, Democrat politicians) will own over 70% of the rump GM, and the Democrat union a big chunk of what’s left after that. Larry Kudlow, on his CNBC show Friday May 29, said that the “taxpayers are by far the biggest losers in this deal,” which he said is “an assault on free market capitalism.” Obama has now parlayed the financial crisis and the public panic into taking control over our largest insurer, some of our largest banks, and now our largest automaker, all the while saying, to fool the foolable, that he has no interest in doing any of this.

When I first began working for a big company years ago, I endeavored to read some books about business. I was not interested in books on the latest fads in management theory but rather books that told the stories of successful companies. And one the very first that I read, and the best I ever did read, was “My Years With General Motors” by its legendary long-time head Alfred P. Sloan, a staunch believer in free markets for free men. The dust jacket blurb of my Doubleday paperback edition exclaims “Even today, Bill Gates praises ‘My Years With General Motors’ as the best book to read on business, and Business Week has named it the number one choice for its ‘bookshelf of indispensable reading.' Draft your own blueprint for organizational success by using the tools found in this book. Learn the valuable lessons only Sloan could teach.” Lessons never learned or even appreciated by later management feckless and irresponsible, a union solipsistic and corrosive, and Obama Democrats dissembling and lawless.

JM Greco

"Spirit Of American Youth"

"Spirit Of American Youth"

By Donald De Lue

At the First Infantry Division Museum at Cantigny Park
Wheaton, Illinois, Outside Chicago

Replica of the Original That Stands In the Normandy Beachhead in France,
Honoring Young Americans Who Gave Their Lives For Their Country

Bonnie & Clyde -- Killed 75 Years Ago Today and Reborn as Movie Anti-Heroes

Depression-era bank robbers and killers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were themselves killed 75 years ago today in a controversial police shoot out in rural Louisiana. The couple were romanticized at the time by some in a seemingly ambivalent public, perhaps reflecting widespread anger with the perceived failures of the banking system in particular and the capitalist system in general. This theme was picked up by Arthur Penn when he made the very successful 1967 movie Bonnie and Clyde (link), which made stars of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

Reflecting on all this for a few moments today, to my memory it seems that this movie was one of the first somewhat revisionist American movies to celebrate the homicidal criminal as a somewhat sympathetic figure. To be sure, there were previous films about Depression-era gangsters (Public Enemy; Little Caesar), but none that seem to humanize and soften, in part with comedy, criminals that murdered policemen and civilians. Other such movies followed, most notably the Godfather trilogy.

It seems at least one Hollywood producer thinks the American gangster as romantic anti-hero theme still has legs -- to wit, the soon-to-be-released movie about John Dillinger, who eventually met his own demise, two months after that of Bonnie and Clyde, outside Chicago’s Biograph Theater at the hands of lawmen tipped off by the Lady in Red.

R. Balsamo