Ranking the Presidents

C-SPAN has just published the 2017 results of their Presidential Historians Survey.

As any good data geek would do, I threw all the data into Excel to see what I could discover. You can download my work here.

I’ve always been interested in these types of studies because, on the one hand they advertise themselves as being totally objective, it’s really hard to squeeze the subjectivity out of them.

After all, any historian — no matter what he claims — brings to the table a certain amount of historical bias. Today’s political climate tends to make that bias even more obvious.

For example, Glen Beck — admittedly nobody’s example of political objectivity — ranks Woodrow Wilson as the most evil man in all of American history. But the survey ranks Wilson a respectable 13th out of 45.

And James Polk — not on the general public’s list of great American Presidents — ranks number 16 — proof that the C-SPAN academic advisors sure know their pre-Civil War history.

To produce the rankings, C-SPAN asked a team from academia to rank all presidents using ten “qualities of presidential leadership”:

• Public Persuasion
• Crisis Leadership
• Economic Management
• Moral Authority
• International Relations
• Administrative Skills
• Relations with Congress
• Vision/Setting An Agenda
• Pursued Equal Justice for All
• Performance Within the Context of His Times

It’s probably a good idea that such a panel is used and that they don’t ask me or Glen Beck to serve on that panel.

All those categories gave me plenty of data to load into Excel. Let’s see what I discovered.

I thought it would be interesting to measure the presidents on a combination of rank and “consistency”. I measured consistency based on the rank of the standard deviation of the rank in for that president in all the categories.

A consistent president is one who ranks the same in all categories. A president may be consistently good, consistently bad, or consistently mediocre. Is there anything to learn from this?

Here is a scatter plot of the results:


To validate the data, let’s look at a couple of corners. Yep, not only does Abraham Lincoln rank as the number one president, he ranks as the most consistent president. That places him in the lower left corner. A good president all around.

In the other corner are both Lincoln’s predecessor and his successor. Wow. We always knew that James Buchannan did more to cause the Civil War than any other individual. And we know that Andrew Johnson did more to screw up Reconstruction than just about anybody else. Bad presidents all around. Thanks for the legacy, guys.

Here’s another way of looking at things:


This graph color codes the presidents by their rank in each of the ten categories. Since they are ordered by the final score, any place you see “islands” of a different color, that’s an anomaly that’s worthy of discussion.

For example, Lyndon Johnson was a pretty decent president. He ranks at the top for “Relations with Congress” (he had to fight his own Democratic Party to get the Voting Rights Act of 1965 passed; a greater percentage of Republicans voted for the bill than did Democrats). But he rightfully ranks near the bottom for international relations for getting us deeper in the Vietnam war.

Bill Clinton ranks a decent number 15 overall, but comes in near the bottom in for “Moral Authority” because of his fondness for oral activities.

It’s a little harder for me to explain the person that I believe to be the nicest, worst president of them all: Jimmy Carter. A dreadful president who ruined both the American economy and our relations with Iran, I don’t know how he ranked as high as number 26. On the other hand, he’s a decent man in a strong, loving marriage, a Baptist deacon and Sunday School teacher, and a Habitat for Humanity volunteer into his 90s; doesn’t he deserve to be ranked higher than number 14 in “Moral Authority”?

And how did Barack Obama perform in his debut appearance? He came in at number 12, between Woodrow Wilson and James Monroe. That’s probably fair.

He ranked near the bottom in “Relations with Congress”. The only way he got ObamaCare passed was with back-door deals and a “gotta-pass-the-bill-before-you-read-it” mentality, even though his party controlled both houses of Congress at the time.

He also scored pretty low on “International Relations” by touring the world while apologizing for America’s past policies, weakened our position with Russia, and managed to worsen our relationship on both sides of the Middle East — quite an accomplishment!

He scored the highest in the category “Pursued Equal Justice for All”. That sounds about right for somebody who thinks “it’s good for everybody” to “spread the wealth around”.

We’ll have to wait a few years to see what historians think of our Mogul-in-Chief. My guess is his drain-the-swamp and build-the-wall dreams will score high in the “Vision/Setting an Agenda” category.

Fortunately for Mr. Trump, there is no category for “Relationship with the Press”.

The Transition of Power

Kings die. That’s just what they do.

Some die slow, peaceful, gradual deaths, eventually succumbing in their old age to their Creator.

Others die grand and glorious deaths in battle; sometimes as martyrs, sometimes as disgraced and defeated failures.

And others die suddenly and unexpectedly in the prime of their life, cut down by an assassin’s bullet or sword.

But they die. And die they must. How else can succession of power proceed? For thousands of years, there was only one way the next prince, political foe, or conquering hero could take charge: the reigning king must get out of the way.

All that changed on March 4, 1797. The people wanted a king. But George (and the Constitution) thought otherwise. Although he was unanimously elected to the office twice, he felt it was important that the office be shared, and that the transition must be smooth, orderly, and lawful.

So the surveyor-turned-farmer-turned-general-turned-president handed the seat of power to his Number Two, John and returned to his farm. In doing so, he set a precedent of peaceful transition that has endured for almost two and a half centuries.

There have been times that bad actors have sought to take advantage of the transition for their own good. In 1861, seven states used the transition period between President Buchannan and President Lincoln to secede and form the Confederate States of America. The American economy nosedived during the transition in 1933 as both departing President Hoover and President-elect Roosevelt sat powerless and watched the banking system implode.

And in 1981, 52 American hostages were forced to sit for hours at the edge of a Tehran airport runway until just after noon Washington time, denying President Jimmy Carter the satisfaction of having them released on his watch.

Although the transition is always lawful, that doesn’t mean it’s without drama. The presidential election of 1800 ended in an electoral tie, which wasn’t resolved until a scant 15 days before the planned inauguration.

And 200 years later, America held its collective breath for 35 days while Florida’s hanging chads determined the election results. It was ultimately settled when the Supreme Court ruled that the margin of 537 votes should give George W. Bush the victory.

In a few days, a lawyer-turned-organizer-turned-senator-turned-president will hand over the keys to the front door of the White House to a magnate-turned-billionaire-turned-politician. And this one should be an interesting one to watch. Eight years ago, Obama promised to “fundamentally transform” America. Apparently, Americans didn’t like the way they were fundamentally transformed. Seeing the possibility of Hillary’s four-more-years of Barack, they chose Donald’s promise to “make America great again".

By design, Trump’s presidency will be the polar opposite of Obama’s. But the transition itself will be a model of democracy. After thousands of years of monarchal transitions, the concept of a democratic transition had its roots in the American Constitution and is now the accepted standard in the civilized world.

The Founding Fathers should be proud.

My thanks to the History Channel’s “Transition of Power” for the inspiration for today’s post.

Doris Has a Point, and Obama doesn't get it

When President Obama gets something right, I’ll be the first to admit it.

The problem is he’s got such a lousy track record for ever getting anything right.

Most politicians have a hard time answering a question directly, especially if the question doesn’t exactly fit in with the talking points that they have chosen to cover at the time.

But Obama set a new standard for exhibiting the symptoms of diarrhea-of-the-mouth with his answer to Doris’ question last week.

You can read the entire exchange here, and you can see the first part of it here.

At a recent event in Charlotte, North Carolina, a lady who identified herself as Doris asked a very simple question: Is it wise to add more taxes with the health care reforms that have recently been passed, since we are over-taxed as it is?

A simple question. It deserved a simple answer. If I had been asked that question, I would have no problem coming up with a concise response: No, it is not, and that is the primary reason I was against health care reform as it was passed by Congress.

The President never sees things as simple as that. Maintaining his campaign mode in spite of his recent victory, he rambled incoherently for 17 minutes and 2500 words.

He talked about cobra. He referred to people with insurance as being “lucky”. He said that lifetime limits are “fine print”. He made a “final point” at the four-minute mark and kept talking for 13 more.

He talked about federal health care systems already being out of control and suggested that they be replaced by — wait for it — another federal health care system.

He talked about the deficit — which Doris never asked about — and then cited programs that will by their very existence, blow the deficit out of the water.

He talked about the “quality” of medical tests and suggested that doctors send emails to each other, even thought the health care bill doesn’t address those issues and Doris never asked about them.

Somebody must have told him that an analogy of fixing the roof on a house resonates well, because he told some sort of awkward story that claimed if I fix the leaky roof in my house, the people who are shivering outside in the cold are somehow going to benefit.

He complained about President Bush’s war in Iraq — supported by virtually every Democrat in Congress. He complained about the Medicare prescription plan — passed by Democrats in Congress. He complained about Medicare Advantage — passed by Democrats in Congress.

He threw one of his biggest supporters — Warren Buffet — under the bus, calling him out by name and bragging that he was going to raise Mr. Buffet’s taxes on dividends and capital gains, not to raise more revenue, but because it was an issue of “fairness”.

Finally, he interrupted himself as he was explaining the Congressional Budget Office’s accounting gymnastics to make sure he was answering the question — which he never did.

If the President had been philosophically honest, he could have given Doris a very succinct answer: “Frankly, Doris, I don’t believe you are taxed enough already”. It could have been that simple.

If he had answered the question honestly, he would have to reveal the fundamental difference that he has with the Tea Party movement, which received its name by blending the name of the famous 1773 Boston tax revolution with the acronym “Taxed Enough Already”.

Unwittingly, perhaps, Doris expressed her sympathy with the primary purpose of the revolutionary movement.

I’m not sure what a “fair” amount would be for a federal government to involuntarily extract from its citizens to promote the common welfare. Five percent? Ten percent? Ninty percent (as suggested by some members in Congress)?

I just know that we passed that threshold a long time ago. Enough is enough.

America’s Best Poet

We get a new President only every four years or so. Even when the President isn’t the Messiah Obama, a presidential inauguration is the closest thing we have in America to a royal coronation.

Usually at such a solemn event, it is incumbent upon us to enlist the very best. Of course, we would have the best military band to provide the pomp. And the best soldiers to provide the best honor guard.

We would also have the very best Queen of Soul to sing “My Country ’Tis of Thee”. The best evangelical preacher to give the invocation. The best classical musicians to perform a specially-commission piece, written by the best classical composer of our day.

And, in this case, the best ... poet. Perhaps she can call upon the poetry gods ... to inspire her to give a recitation ... of the best ... poetry ... that this great nation ... has to offer.

In case you missed it, Dr. Elizabeth Alexander was the best, uh, poet, that Barack Obama could find.

In deference to copyright laws, I won’t publish her work here. You can read it here.

I think I can call upon the “fair use” clause to give you this sample, the first few lines of “Praise Song for the Day”:

Each day we go about our business,
walking past each other, catching each other’s
eyes or not, about to speak or speaking.

It goes downhill rapidly from there.

I don’t doubt Dr. Alexander’s credentials. After all, she has three college degrees (just like me). A work of hers was a finalist for the 2005 Pulitzer Prize (okay, she has one up on me in that category).

She is a former journalist for the Washington Post and currently is a professor of English literature, African-American literature, and gender studies at Yale University. Impressive credentials.

Her brother, Mark, was an adviser to the Obama presidential campaign and a member of his transition team.

Well, that explains a lot.

In an interview with the New York Times, she downplayed the role that her inner-circle connections with the Obamanistas played in her selection for this honor. “[E]very choice he’s made is ... based on what he perceives as excellence,” she says.

Here’s another example of what Dr. Alexander believes that Obama “perceives as excellence” as she tries to paint a verbal picture of a slice of life in America:

Someone is stitching up a hem, darning
a hole in a uniform, patching a tire,
repairing the things in need of repair.

Uh-huh.

Writing the things that need to be written. Saying the things that need to be said. Driving to the places that need to be driven to. Doing the things that need to be done.

Not a plethora of substance here.

In 1961, John Kennedy called upon Robert Frost to speak at his inauguration. Frost responded by writing “Dedication”. But in the glare of the white snow on a sunny day, the 86-year-old poet could not read his own commissioned work. Instead, he recited “The Gift Outright” from memory.

Frost later presented his handwritten version of “Dedication” to the President, who had it framed and hung on the Oval Office wall. That copy is now in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum in Boston.

The poem Frost wrote for the occasion was a stirring tribute to the history of a great nation, including the following verse:

Now came on a new order of the ages
That in the Latin of our founding sages
(Is it not written on the dollar bill
We carry in our purse and pocket still?)
God nodded his approval of as good.
So much those heroes knew and understood.

Frost’s go-to poem when he couldn’t read his manuscript was no less majestic, a reminder of our colonial roots and our Manifest Destiny:

The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, Still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.

Forty-eight years later, Barack Obama asked a friend of his to write her best poetry as a gift to the nation. Dr. Alexander came up with this:

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see what’s on the other side.

The President has four years to search for our country’s second best poet. Let’s hope he doesn’t get a chance to reveal his choice to the nation.

The Inauguration: So Much Material

The Inauguration of Barack Obama yesterday as our 44th President provided so much material for comment. Where to begin?

Today, let’s stick to the speech itself. Here are some key phrases from the rambling speech that caught my attention, along with my coherent commentary:

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.

Actually, since Grover Cleveland had non-consecutive terms, he was both the 22nd and the 24th presidents. So there have only been 43 men who have taken the oath. And you barely stumbled through yours. Yeah, I know, on further review, the replay shows the fault for the flub goes to the Republican, Chief Justice John Roberts. I'll cut you both some slack, but it’s a shaky start.

At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

That’s a direct contradiction of your speech a couple of weeks ago where you proclaimed that our problems are so big that “only government” could fix them. Which is it, Mr. President? Are we successful because of “We the People”? Or are we successful because the government is always here to bail us out? I would like to believe the former. I think — regardless of what you say in your inaugural address — that you believe the latter.

Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.

What hard choices have we failed to make? How have we failed to prepare the nation for a new age? It seems that’s a direct attack on the former president sitting just a few feet behind you. But I believe that the economy has been weakened mostly by the intervention of government in the free market, not by its failure to intervene.

Homes have been lost.

No, sir. Homes have not “been lost”. Some people who could not afford to buy a home — but who had been told by the government that they could buy a home anyway — now realize that the government has failed them and has duped them. President Obama believes that people who can afford homes are supposed to buy homes for those who cannot afford them, because the government has already lied to them and told them that they could afford them.

Jobs [have been] shed. Businesses [have been] shuttered.

Employees are assets. Employers are not charities. When the cost of an asset exceeds its value, it must be shed. Interference by Big Government and Big Labor has resulted in the cost of an employee to be two or three times his salary. If the government were suddenly miraculously found to be irrelevant, most of those people would be back at work.

Our health care is too costly.

Our health care is costly, but saying it’s “too” costly is a value judgment that you are not qualified to make. If it’s the best health care in the world — which it is — then it’s not “too” costly. If you think health care is expensive now, just wait to see how much it will cost when it’s “free”.

Our schools fail too many.

The success of our school is a local concern, not a federal one. The failure of our schools is a federal concern, not a local one.

Each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

The solution is to invest in nuclear energy (a proven technology with virtually no environmental impact) and clean coal energy (we have more coal reserves than the Arabs have in oil reserves). We have already built all the hydroelectric dams that are economically feasible. Good luck if you think you can power your Presidential Limousine with solar cells and a windmill.

We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.

My safety comes first. Your “ideals” — which will only bankrupt me — are of no concern of mine.

Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine...

Not to take anything away from the perils that the Continental Army encountered, the worse peril they faced was a bullet between their eyes. King George’s army was not capable of flying a plane into the tallest building in Philadelphia.

... drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man...

They drafted a charter to limit size and scope of the federal government. The rule of law and the rights of man are directly correlated to the behavior of the population and the extent to which the government stays away from governing that behavior.

...a charter expanded by the blood of generations.

It wasn’t “expanded” by the blood of generations. It was “defended” by them. Was this a Freudian slip, caused by his belief that it needs even more “expanding”?

Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.

According to the ideals of President Obama, extracting information from captured terrorists is currently being done because it’s “expedient”, not because it’s actually saving lives.

Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

Begin again? Remaking America? I don’t think we ever stopped making America great in the first place. What happened? Did we “forget” how to make America and now we need you to remind us how to do it? America was made great because the government allowed its citizens to be great, not because the Commander-in-Chief told us that we’re supposed to.

America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity and ... we are ready to lead once more.

Actually, we never stopped leading. The failure of other countries to follow is not a result of our failure to lead. If we hadn’t led in the war against terror, who would have? The French? The Spaniards?

There you have it. A blow-by-blow, paragraph-by-paragraph rebuttal of virtually every salient point of the President’s inaugural address. I’m tired. It’s going to be a long four years. But I’m up to the task.

Don’t Get Comfortable, President Obama

This is the day that I knew would eventually come. Barack Obama is inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States. By winning 53% of the popular vote, it can hardly be said that he had an unconditional mandate of the electorate. Nevertheless, today’s festivities are more of a coronation than an inauguration. One thing can be said of his supporters: they turn out and they make themselves heard. What they lack in numbers, they make up for in spirit, and they are to be commended for that.

He wasn’t my candidate, but now he’s my president. I wish him well, but I don’t wish him success. If success were to be measured by the revitalization of our nation’s economy, that would be a good thing. But if success means the successful implementation of his Pollyannic socialistic ideals, that would be disastrous for our country.

Even before taking office, he has shown a dangerous tendency to deliver the best news to a crowd of people at the best of times, while directly contradicting himself by his very actions. And his followers are blissfully unaware of his true intentions as the rapturously absorb his platitudes.

While campaigning for the office, a common theme was “Change doesn’t come from Washington, change comes to Washington.” Shades of Ronald Reagan! The Great Communicator won the hearts of the nation when he proclaimed that “Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” and “We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around.”

The difference is that Reagan meant it and governed by that principle. For Obama, it was a handy sound byte, designed to win adoration and votes. It got him both, and he immediately abandoned it.

In his Linconesque train ride from Philadelphia to Washington, he proclaimed that we need “a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives — from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry — an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.” What he has forgotten in that his very election proves that we have already declared ourselves independent of prejudice and bigotry. But if he would celebrate the civil rights victory for what it is, he wouldn’t be able to operate in perpetual campaign-mode. A common flaw with liberals is that they believe that declaring victory over a cause would put them out of business — and that’s a situation they can’t afford to be in.

In his pre-presidential speech outlining our nation’s economic woes, he felt a need to remind us of our misery, and to remind us of our impending dependency on Big Government. He claimed that our problems are so big that “only Washington” can fix them. So much for bringing change to Washington! Washington has always believed it was the only solution to our problems — that’s what has created so many of our problems. It’s just that politicians are usually smart enough not to tip their own hand. Apparently, Obama has believed that the “dumbing of America” has worked to the extent that he doesn’t need to sidestep the issue any more.

Will the change that he promised be realized on his first day in office? Nope. Obama’s inauguration will cost four times as much as the next most expensive inauguration. Hardly representative of an austere government in difficult economic times. And will it be for the common people? Nope. It has primarily been financed by the same corporate giants and liberal millionaires that got him elected in the first place.

But that didn’t stop him from literally raffling off a ticket to the event on his web site. Yep. Thousands of people donated money to his cause, hoping to be the lucky one to win a coveted seat at the proceedings. He graciously accepted the working people’s money, even though it was a pittance compared to the corporate sponsorship and had virtually no effect or influence on the outcome. But it made people believe they were contributing something useful and it gave them “hope” for “change”. That’s about the only hope they’re going to get.

Obama’s claim that there is only one President didn’t keep him from demanding hundreds of billions of dollars in stimulus relief from Congress — fully expecting the bill to be on his desk awaiting his signature Wednesday morning.

He doesn’t realize that the only stimulus package we really need has already arrived... it was the housing bubble and the collapse of the stock market and some of our leading financial organizations. That wasn’t a symptom of the problem, that was an indication that the free market was correcting itself. I can’t help it if you don’t like the medicine. It’s the best thing that could have happened.

Instead, he wants to repeat the same mistakes of FDR, actions which lengthened the depression by ten years.

So, enjoy your parties your parades and your balls today, President Obama. Settle into the White House tonight. Enjoy your first day in the Oval Office tomorrow morning. But don’t get comfortable. The honeymoon is already over. The loyal opposition is already in place. And we’re ready for you.

Who to Blame

Yesterday, we elected our first African American to the Presidency of the United States.

Although he wasn’t my choice, I wish Barack Obama the best for the next four years. I’m not going to whine; we survived four years of Carter and eight years of Clinton. Let’s see what can be learned as we suffer through four years of Obama.

I had to wonder how we got into this mess. There is certainly plenty of blame to go around — on both sides of the aisle. John McCain obviously ran the most inept national campaign since Mike Dukakis rode around in that tank with that goofy helmet.

McCain certainly wasn’t my first choice. (Mike Huckabee dropped out several months ago; Fred Thompson never registered a blip on any charts.) Barack wasn’t my choice, either. A year ago, I lined up all the potential candidates on both sides in order of my preference. McCain was dead last on the Republican side and Obama was dead last on the Democratic side. Sometimes, you just can’t buy a break.

Back to how we got here...

It can all be traced back to the confirmation of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court in 1991. Bear with me; this is the only place you’ll see this analysis. I’m going to share with you how an ill-qualified, unknown product of the Chicago Political Machine became the President of the United States.

The confirmation of Clarence Thomas was arguable one of the most contentious displays of dirty politics ever held in the United States Senate. George H. W. Bush was pressured on all sides to replace Thurgood Marshall with another African American. But the Democrats couldn’t bear the fact that a Republican would have the gall to nominate a conservative black guy to replace a liberal black guy. Of all the nerve!

So the televised mud-slinging started. Charges of pubic hairs on Coca-Cola cans and mentions of “Long Dong Silver” filled the air waves.

Since the Democrats had a 57-43 majority in the Senate, Bush needed to convert every Democratic senator he could to his side — while at the same time preserving his Republican base.

Bush and Thomas won with a vote to spare: 52 to 48. They did it by garnering the votes of eleven Democrats.

One of those votes cost a senator his job, and set into motion Obama’s trip to the White house.

Illinois Senator Alan Dixon was one of those turncoat Democratic senators who voted to confirm Judge Thomas. That single act so enraged Carol Moseley Braun — a former state legislator and the Cook County Recorder of Deeds — that she decided Dixon would have to pay. She decided to run against him in the Democratic senate primary in 1992

It was a bitterly-fought election. Moseley Braun had several things in her favor. She was black — always a plus when you’re a Democrat. She was a woman — how convenient. She was liberal — the trifecta of the left.

And she had the backing of the Chicago Political Machine. Icing on the cake.

Al Hofeld, a millionaire attorney, ran as a third candidate in the Democratic primary. He didn’t see Moseley Braun as a legitimate threat; he was only out to defeat Dixon. So he ran a series of vicious anti-Dixon ads to bring down the incumbent. The result was that he just split the vote. Moseley Braun barely won the three-way race and became the Democratic candidate.

She had no problem defeating a total unknown Republican, Richard Williamson, in the general election. Thus, she became the first African-American woman to win a seat in the Senate.

Once in Washington, Moseley Braun showed her true colors. Everywhere she went, she tried to out-liberal the liberal establishment. Her term was full of charges of corruption and was total embarrassment to the Democratic Party (and to politicians in general).

Not even the Illinois Democrats could salvage her miserable display. She narrowly lost her reelection in 1998 to Republican millionaire banker Peter Fitzgerald.

As much as Moseley Braun tried to out-liberal the liberals, Fitzgerald tried to out-maverick the mavericks. He was always at odds with the Republican establishment in Illinois. The home boys probably didn’t think he had much of a chance to defeat Moseley Braun in the first place and were frankly surprised by his victory. They did everything they could to make sure he stayed at odds with the party. And he obliged.

In 2001, his was the only dissent in the 99-1 vote to aid the airline industry after the September 11 attacks.

Seeing the writing on the wall, lacking support of his local party, and not needing the job, Fitzgerald decided not to seek reelection in 2004.

Moseley Braun, by this time, had enjoyed a nice stint as the us Ambassador to New Zealand. She was spending her Senate pension, running a private law firm in Chicago while working on a run for President. She said she wasn’t interested in being a Senator again. (Later, she wisely withdrew from her presidential bid and threw her support to Howard Dean. Maybe that’s why he screamed in the Iowa caucus.)

That left a huge vacuum for the position of junior senator from Illinois. Barack Obama was biding his time in the Illinois State Senate, having been groomed by the Chicago Political Machine. He was now ready to strike.

The primary race involved 15 different candidates. Obama hired political strategist David Axelrod, who launched an advertising campaign featuring former Chicago mayor Harold Washington and the daughter of the late Illinois Senator Paul Simon. The voters rewarded the campaign with 52% of the primary vote. The only thing that stood between Obama and the us Senate was the Illinois Republican Party. They proved to be as effective as a wet paper napkin.

In a crowded Republican field, one man was left standing after the torturous primary. Millionaire Jack Ryan barely garnered more votes than Jim Oberweis (36% to 23%) for the privilege of challenging Obama. Other than being rich and beautiful, Ryan’s primary claim to fame was being the ex-husband of former Miss Illinois and Star Trek:Voyager actress, Jeri (“Seven of Nine”) Ryan.

Jack and Jeri had split up several years prior. In order to protect their son, they both agreed to have their divorce records sealed. The judge obliged and nobody cared. At least, nobody cared until Jack became the only roadblock between the aforementioned Obama and the Chicago Political Machine’s quest to fill the us Senate vacancy.

The Chicago Political Machine contacted the Los Angeles Political Machine and finally found a judge that would over-rule the wishes of the parents and the best interest of the child and open the court records. Allegations of public sex tumbled forth, the Illinois Republican leadership withdrew their support, and Jack Ryan, seeing the damage done, withdrew from the race in June, 2004.

Meanwhile, what was Obama doing? He was busy writing a speech that would change the history of America. It’s very rare that a sitting state legislator would give a keynote address at a major political convention. But never underestimate the power of the Chicago Political Machine.

The Democratic Party was set to nominate John Kerry in Boston. The Chicago Machinery — aligned with the Kennedy machinery — was eager to humiliate their arch-rivals, the Clintons, while on Kennedy’s home court.

Obama — admittedly a great orator — spoke of change to the convention. Bush was bad, socialism is good, widows and orphans are starving, the Iraq war was a mistake, the Democrats have a better plan. He conveniently belied his own liberal agenda as he proclaimed, “There is not a liberal America and a conservative America; there's the United States of America.”

The audience went wild. The news pundits drooled and crowned him the successor to Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson.

And two presidential hopefuls in the audience — Hillary Clinton and John Edwards — put on their poker faces and gamely smiled. Behind those smiles, their jaws were on the floor as they could only mutter to themselves, “Oh ... my ... gawd!”

Meanwhile, back in Illinois, the Republican Machinery — who by now couldn’t get a dogcatcher elected in Peoria — were desperately trying to fill the gap left by Ryan’s fall from grace. Remarkably, not one Republican in the entire state was deemed worthy. Not one candidate — not even Republican primary runner-up Jim Oberweis — was either willing or able to be a worthy opponent to the newly-anointed Kennedy-esque black messiah.

When their last chance of a Great White Hope — Da Bears’ Coach Mike Ditka — declined to run, the Republicans sunk to a new low in stupidity.

In one of the most amazing examples of futile desperation in modern political history, the Illinois Republicans reached all the way to the state of Maryland to persuade Reagan-sidekick-turned-talk-show-host Alan Keyes to carpet-bag his way to the ticket. Keyes, already coming off several failed attempts to be a Maryland senator, obliged. He rented an apartment and a post office box in Chicago and said “Where do I sign up?”

He didn’t need to sign up. Three months later, the Illinois voters saw through the transparent sham and sent Obama to Washington with 70% of the vote — a mandate by any standard.

Keyes went back to Maryland to prepare for his 2008 presidential run. Obama went to neighboring Washington dc to prepare for his 2008 presidential run.

His run for the presidency culminated last night.

It’s been said that we walk through life backwards — only glimpsing at the present, ignorant of the future, while staring at the past.

In this case, we stare at the bold nomination of a Supreme Court justice, the fateful vote of a senator from Illinois, and the rage that ensued — and we now realize that it set into motion the election of a President, and the future of our nation.

Health Care is not a Right

The presidential candidates were tossed a simple and fair question in their second debate by moderator Tom Brokaw.

Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?

John McCain answered that it is a responsibility, and then went on to trash Obama’s health care plan

Barack Obama said that it should be a right, and justified his answer by noting how wealthy we are as a country.

McCain was close with his answer. Obama was dead wrong. Here’s why:

A “right” is bestowed from a higher authority. It cannot be revoked, it cannot be transferred. The Declaration of Independence refers to “inalienable rights” — those which cannot be taken away. Wikipedia defines them as that “which are not contingent upon the laws, customs, or beliefs or a particular society”.

If health care is a right, then why not define other necessities of life as a “right”? How about food? I could go a week without health care, but going a week without food could be fatal. Should I have a “right” to have my food given to me by my federal government?

How about “transportation”? I need a ride to get to work. Perhaps door-to-door public transportation should be a right that is given to me by my government.

Or my job itself. Many countries guarantee employment. Shouldn’t mine? Should my employer be forced to keep me hired in all circumstances because I have a right to have a job? And if I cannot find one, should my government grant me a job as a right?

If health care is defined as a right, a slippery slope of new “rights” is sure to follow. There will be no stopping people who demand more and more rights bestowed upon them by government.

As the states of Massachusetts and Hawaii have already proven, government cannot afford to grant that right to its citizens without going bankrupt.

Don’t be fooled by Obama’s claim that his health care plan merely supplements whatever existing insurance the population already has. As soon as federal health care is made available, large numbers of people will drop their personal insurance (or their employers will do it on their behalf). The government will have to pick up the tab for just about everybody anyway.

And that’s just fine with the Obama/Hillary socialists, because universal single-payer health care is exactly what they had in mind for everybody in the first place. The plan in Obama’s presidential campaign is merely a placation for the control-minded HillaryCare advocates that have been around since FDR.

My health care is my responsibility. Your health care is your responsibility. The health care (as well as the well-being) of innocent children and those who cannot fend for themselves is society’s responsibility, which may or may not involve the federal government.

But the federal government is the last person I want in charge of my health care. You will never believe how expensive health care can be until it’s free.

Health Care as a Comodity

Atroubling trend in presidential debates that I have noticed is the tendency not to answer the question that was asked.

Candidates seem to have a template of talking points to cover and they just drop those points whenever they some key word in the question that matches the template.

Since the candidates won’t answer the questions, I’ll answer them here — the way they should have answered them in the first place.

I’ll start with the definition of health care, as asked last week in the “town hall” debate in Nashville between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Question: Do you believe health care should be treated as a commodity?

Senator Obama ignored the question, whined about how health care costs are “breaking family budgets,” and how McCain was going to tax health care benefits.

Senator McCain talked about his health care plan — which includes government giving everybody $5,000 to buy insurance — and how Obama is going to fine small businesses that don’t insure their employees.

Neither answered the question. So here’s my answer.

For the economically uninformed, a “commodity” is defined as a good or service for which there is a demand and abundant supply and for which that supply is essentially undifferentiated except for the price.

Using that definition, yes, there are many aspects of health care that are commodities. In fact, most trips to doctor’s offices are very routine. A prescription for an antibiotic; a bandage on a wound; relief from the symptoms of the flu or a sore back or a headache.

This is not to diminish the work of the medical profession — it just illustrates that a large portion of their work can easily be undifferentiated in the marketplace.

That type of treatment is rightly a commodity. In fact, health clinics to handle routine health care are already cropping up in pharmacies all across the nation, handled quickly and efficiently by medical paraprofessionals.

Do you know what happens when a product becomes a commodity? The price goes down!

I’ve seen it happen in the telecommunications industry. The telecom companies fought for years to guarantee that long distance and wireless voice communications were not commoditized. As soon as they were, competition and the invisible hand of the economy drove the price down — even while the quality of service went up!

It happened in telecom; it can happen in health care.

Let the marketplace determine the cost and availability of routine health care. I guarantee that if the government would get out of the way, everybody who needs health care would be able to afford it. The companies that provide the service would finally have the incentive to provide a quality service at a price that everybody could afford.

There are already government programs in place to act as a safety net in catastrophic and extreme circumstances — as there should be. But if the socialist policies of Obama and Hillary and the DNC were ever enacted as they would like, every antibiotic, every BandAid, and every tongue depressor would be dispensed by a Washington bureaucrat with the compassion of the DMV and the efficiency of the IRS.

That’s a scenario that should inspire Republicans and cure Democrats.

Yep, except in extreme cases, health care should be a commodity.

Maybe next time I can explain to Senator Obama the difference between a right and a responsibility.

Obama’s Confused Lingual Policy

Barack Obama recently sent the conservative blogosphere into a tizzy by suggesting that our children should learn how to speak Spanish. It was touted as another nail in the coffin of our Anglo/Christian heritage that so many Americans hold dearly.

Actually, I’m going to give him a little bit of a break. I think our children should learn another language. But I sincerely doubt his motivation and certainly his implication.

To be fair, here’s the quote — in proper context — from Obama as he spoke at a recent campaign event in Georgia:

I don’t understand when people are going around worrying about “We need to have English only.” They want to pass a law: “We want English only”. Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But, understand this: Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they'll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about how your child can become bilingual. We should have every child speaking more than one language. You know, it’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is “merci beaucoup”.

At first, Obama appears to chide us into pandering to Hispanic immigrants — telling us we should accommodate their language rather than forcing our own language on them. Then he turns that into a plea for our children to be bilingual. It’s an effective ploy — he is a master of such turn-arounds while stumping on the campaign trail.

But he is missing the point when he compares our language skills to the language skills of Europeans. And I can prove it by asking and answering three simple questions:

Why did I learn Spanish?

To know English better.
I took two years of Spanish while in high school — and a year of French in college. They were some of the most rewarding educational endeavors I have ever done. I learned more about how to conjugate English verbs by conjugating Spanish verbs. I learned more about irregular English words by studying French irregular words. I had a greater understanding, a greater appreciation, and a greater respect for my own language because I learned another language. Sometimes you have to get away from a subject to actually study it.

Why do the Europeans learn English?

Because they have to.
English is the language of law, the language of science, and the language of business. English has become what every French speaker and every Esperantist hoped for their respective languages. It’s the language of the un. It’s the language of the Olympics. It’s the language of nasa. In Europe, every country is the size of one of our Midwestern states. Language barriers abound. Many countries have multiple official languages and dozens of indigenous ones. They need one communicative glue to hold everything together. It may not be the best or most efficient language in the world, but English has become that de facto glue.

Why don’t all Hispanic immigrants learn English?

Because they don’t have to.
I knew we lost the battle the first time I had to press “1” for English at my local atm. I’m reminded of it every time I read the signs in the aisles at Home Depot. (Long ago, I learned that the Spanish word for “exit” is “salida”. How long does it take Hispanics to learn that the English word for “salida” is “exit”?) With bilingual customer service, bilingual menus, and even bilingual ballots, we have accommodated the Spanish-speaking world so much that their incentive to learn English has completely disappeared.

Obama is right, our students should learn a foreign language. They should do it to make themselves better students.

Immigrants to America should also learn a foreign language: English. It’s the glue that holds America together. And it’s the glue that will keep us together unless we choose to dissolve it by accommodating foreigners who refuse to learn it.