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(04/29/09 2:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“We’re beginning to create a new, clean-energy economy – and the millions of jobs that will flow from it.” That was President Barack Obama speaking in Newton, Iowa, on Earth Day. The speech was meant to shore up support for his energy policies, but the opportunity was mostly wasted. Instead of leveling with Americans about the costs of a cap-and-trade scheme, he tried to package carbon caps as an economic stimulus that could shorten the recession and help small towns, which were already hurting before the crisis. Today is Obama’s 100th day in office. The most disappointing part of his presidency so far has been his tendency to use the slumping economy to exaggerate the benefits of his economic policies while downplaying their costs.This probably isn’t what White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had in mind when he gave the administration a B+, saying “there’s always room for improvement.” Obama might genuinely believe the American economy needs a fundamental new direction to succeed regardless of whether he manages to unclog Wall Street. Two weeks ago Obama gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he lambasted the “bubble and bust economy” that has developed during the past few decades. He explained his economic philosophy with a biblical metaphor referring to the story from the Sermon on the Mount about how houses built on sand are “destroyed,” while those built on rock remain standing. Obama doesn’t just want to save the house. He wants it to be built on rock.But it’s clear Obama has had a harder time dealing with the recession because of his fix-everything approach. By trying to get an early start on health care, immigration and global warming, he has spread out his political capital and made it hard to resist populism.With promises of high spending in the future, his budget proposal has further alienated Republicans from taking any role in his recovery plans. It has even miffed a few Democrats – Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., voted against Obama’s budget proposal. Obama’s strategy won’t actually shore up the economy’s metaphorical foundation either. Major policy initiatives based on false expectations and passed without any bipartisan support will be fragile. In 2007, Newton lost its Maytag Corp. appliances plant. The plant was recently purchased and reopened by Trinity Structural Towers, Inc. to construct windmills. But in a macro sense, capping carbon will redistribute jobs, not create them. Many Indiana residents who feel they are being promised replacements for their closed auto plants will be disappointed. During his campaign, Obama bragged about his frankness but often relied on feel-good rhetoric. By the time he came to Bloomington for the Indiana presidential primary, his campaign was a party. People waited in Assembly Hall volleying around beach balls while listening to rapper will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” and the obligatory John Mellencamp song, only to hear a speech with few policy details.A more serious Obama should have emerged in the White House.
(04/16/09 1:06am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>What happens when the IU College Democrats and IU College Republicans hold a debate on a Thursday night with no election in sight? You don’t get many in attendance searching for a new perspective.The debate last week featured representatives from both groups taking questions from their faculty advisers on topics ranging from fiscal stimulus to stem cell research. Seating in the Indiana Memorial Union State Room East was split down the middle. And it was somewhat disappointing that students filed into seats on the left and right in a predictable fashion. But the debate was interesting. It revealed how supporters on both sides of the isle view the platforms they represent. Five things from the debate stood out. They shed some light on how campus Republicans and Democrats approach our biggest policy debates. 1. Campus Republicans often attacked spending with sensationalism, not economics. Justin Kingsolver, treasurer for the IU College Republicans, tried to illustrate the size of the stimulus, noting that “if we spent a million dollars every month since Jesus Christ was born we would still not have $787 billion,” a rather silly and useless comparison. He also claimed increasing federal debt was “not just irresponsible,” but “immoral.” During a question-and-answer session, IU sophomore Ryan Short said he wished IU Republicans hadn’t brought morals into their argument because it played into stereotypes. I wish they hadn’t brought morals up either.2. No one wanted to own financial industry bailouts. Neville Batiwalla, a policy director with Students for Barack Obama, defended federal loans to GM and Chrysler, referring to the auto industry as a “microcosm of the American economy.” He mentioned TARP funds for institutions like AIG only briefly, reminding the audience it was a Bush administration policy. If the government doesn’t get credit moving again, spending and tax cuts will have a negligible affect on economic recovery. But everyone is afraid of backing a policy that could give more federal money to banks. 3. Republicans preferred a Carbon Tax. Chelsea Kane, former IU College Republican chairwoman and current IDS columnist, noted how easy it could be for businesses to abuse a cap-and-trade system. Politicians often settle on cap-and-trade because it is difficult to sell any policy with the word “tax” in it. It was ironic to watch IU Democrats defend the less effective scheme.4. Democrats were not honest about employer-based health care. Scott Williamson, policy director for IU College Democrats, mentioned the need to avoid destroying “the employer system” and Sen. John McCain’s plan to tax these benefits. What he (and Obama’s campaign ads) didn’t mention was that McCain wanted to replace the tax break only subsidizing employer health coverage with a tax credit for everyone purchasing insurance. Disappointing. 5. Neither side said anything interesting about foreign policy. Republicans made a fuss about closing Guantanamo Bay and exaggerated the shifting priorities in the Pentagon as major cuts. Democrats couldn’t help but remind Republicans how bad the war in Iraq went. But policy differences on Iraq and Afghanistan look increasingly superficial. It’s interesting that both sides still made efforts to disagree.
(04/07/09 11:48pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Indiana’s new superintendent of public instruction, Tony Bennett, probably thought he picked the right crowd when he spoke at an IU College Republicans meeting three weeks ago.As the Republican candidate for his position, many of the conservative activists in attendance probably played a role in his campaign last fall. But there were clearly some skeptics there, too.Bennett stuck to his usual talking points of creating a “statewide culture of academic excellence.” At the meeting he claimed, “If it is not about making the lives of children better, the Indiana Department of Education does not talk about it.”However, while he got predictable applause from lines like “I have no interest in the teachers’ union,” I gathered that some in attendance wish he would have spent less time talking about the need for “passion and leadership” and more about details.One man, identifying himself as a teacher of more than 30 years, spoke of his problems with student attendance with a wariness suggesting he had heard promises of change before.Another older attendee pointed out that if Bennett could offer up more concrete ways to change Indiana education, students would give him all the passion and leadership he needed.Bennett recently revealed that by 2012 he wants Indiana to have a graduation rate of 90 percent, which would be the nation’s highest.The state’s current level is only 74 percent.Bennett pointed out at the College Republicans meeting that, even in this recession, Indiana won’t be cutting its K-12 education budget, unlike most other states. But with inflation, the spending freeze proposed by Gov. Mitch Daniels is a de facto cut. Daniels also wants to put off investments in full-day kindergarten.Financial pressures make real reform even more necessary if Indiana is to meet Bennett’s goals. So far, a bill designed to protect teachers trying to maintain classroom order from frivolous lawsuits has made it through the Indiana Senate. The Indiana State Board of Education adopted deregulatory reforms to remove mostly archaic rules requiring students to spend 250 minutes per week in class to get credit and requiring certain ratios of teachers, administrators and counselors to students.These proposals, along with another to close loopholes in the state’s requirement of 180 school days currently being challenged by the Democrat-controlled Indiana House of Representatives, are good starts.But Bennett needs more ambitious proposals to match his ambitious rhetoric.At the College Republicans meeting, Bennett said “government schools will either get better or get out,” but only after facing some pointed questions. Vouchers for private schools are controversial and House Democrats are trying to cap charter schools.Bennett claims he is fighting this. He needs to fight harder.Indiana’s education chief could also convince skeptics of his planned cultural shift by looking at a report from the National Council on Teacher Quality.The council gave Indiana a “D” when it came to firing ineffective teachers, citing that the state requires only one formal evaluation a year for new teachers and fails to use student assessment data in them.If Indiana can’t afford to pay good teachers what they deserve, Bennett should at least focus on getting rid of the bad ones.
(04/01/09 12:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“We cannot live normal lives.”That’s a powerful thing to say. Yet, the proclamation from local peace activist Ed Vasquez to rethink our attitudes as Iraqis live in misery seemed self-righteous given other slogans at last Wednesday’s anti-war protest. Banners read “War is terrorism.” Vasquez, involved with Indiana Students Against War, lambasted into his megaphone that “bombs don’t bring democracy” and referred to the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a “colonial war for oil.”Vasquez’s comment about “normal lives” made it clear that the protestors were not fighting oil companies or the military industrial complex, but rather a public that was never committed to ending the war.I hope they lose that fight.There is no reason to stereotype anti-war activists as America-hating troop-bashers. They don’t deserve to be blasted with profanities, as they were by two men claiming to be Iraq War veterans when they drove past the marching protestors on Kirkwood. But it must be said that last week’s protest, in which students and Bloomington residents marched from the red clock near Ballantine Hall to the Monroe County Courthouse, displayed a willful and timid ignorance. IU student James Cooper engaged the two veterans with tired platitudes about how they are “protecting oil companies.” IU sophomore Dave Hamilton put most of the blame for the war on weapons contractors. While the rally was meant to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the Iraq invasion, Vasquez shouted that Afghanistan “had nothing to do with 9/11.”Vasquez blamed the protest’s lower turnout on the election of President Barack Obama, and one drive-by heckler did yell the “war is already over.” But there is more involved than misconceptions about Obama’s foreign policy. Student activism played a big role in the 2006 midterm elections, when Rep. Baron Hill and other elected Democrats promised change in Iraq. But the success of the surge – with help from favorable circumstances – made it easy to question the benefits of leaving. A debate between Cooper and a passing ROTC student focused on weapons of mass destruction and 9/11. The ROTC student was wrong when he trumped up the terrorism connection as a reason for invading. But again, six years later, the question about whether we should have invaded and whether we should stay are largely separate. I hope that is how more students see Iraq these days. More importantly, I hope they can look at our failures in Afghanistan and see an option besides withdrawal. The Taliban allowed Osama Bin Laden to plan 9/11 out of their county. When I asked Vasquez how he would have responded to the attacks, he said he wanted “a full investigation” and that he wanted to go after the CIA and Americans who dealt with the Taliban’s progenitors first. Some, like Hamilton, acknowledged withdrawal from Afghanistan could be staggered. But I got the impression protestors had boxed themselves into an argument that forced them to care more about leaving than the actual people of Iraq or Afghanistan. If the anti-war movement is not about those people, they should think about going home.
(03/25/09 3:15am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>At the Conservative Political Action Conference, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele charged young conservatives “to go forth as the champions of freedom” and to defend the rights of Americans “to live free and die free without the government taking what they have worked for.” Being a libertarian activist must feel like a thankless job.I remember supporters of Texas Rep. Ron Paul out on street corners, holding cookouts and concerts, long before Republican elites realized they were disconnected from the youth and certainly before anyone thought Indiana would matter in the election.Many of those same supporters were out on Inauguration Day, trying to convince students who might have backed Obama with a “Real Change Requires R3volution” rally.Despite what must have been a disappointing election, turnout for the Young Americans for Liberty at IU (formerly IU Students for Ron Paul, then IU Students for Liberty) meeting I attended was pretty good. Andrew Sharp, the group’s president, seemed optimistic about what he called a “organizational” year.Sharp and two other Young Americans for Liberty, Merry Milton and Sam Spaiser, attended this year’s rally.They said that this year, Ron Paul got a better venue and a pretty good response, except when he drifted into foreign policy. Paul did make it on to the straw poll for potential presidential candidates in 2012. Milton noted that the existing tension between libertarians and other Republican activists was still there, but much more subdued.Spaiser described many of the rally attendees as “born-again fiscal conservatives.”There has definitely been a shift. I remember when conservatives on this campus used to recoil, almost defensively, at the mention of Paul. Now IU College Republicans are planning to take part in a Bloomington tea party protest against the bailouts – something Paul’s supporters opposed all along.There are reasons to be skeptical about how much influence groups like Young Americans for Liberty and the Campaign for Liberty can really have in the GOP, even if they do have a few lessons for Republican strategists.Paul’s supporters showed the power of the Internet in campaigning, but they also showed its limits.The debut issue of Young American Revolution, a Young Americans for Liberty newsletter, depicts Barack Obama and Paul locked in a battle for America’s youth. Sharp claimed only Obama raised more funds than Paul in Monroe County for the Indiana Presidential Primaries. But in that same (admittedly pre-decided) contest, Paul barley captured one tenth of the votes John McCain won. It’s also not clear what kind of candidates the GOP will actually put forward in 2010 and 2012. Americans might hate giving money to AIG and Citigroup, but support for government intervention in the economy is at its highest rate in decades.Some Young Americans for Liberty members seemed suspicious of Todd Young, the Bloomington attorney most likely to be the Republican challenger to Democrat Baron Hill, our current representative, in 2010.But all the members I talked to seemed convinced that if they keep bringing their message to students, many will rethink how they voted. Andrew said he was in talks with Union Board to bring Tom Woods, a libertarian author and activist, to IU.Woods has a lot to say about government culpability in the current economic crisis, though it’s a topic he tends to oversimplify.Still, Woods, however flawed, would certainly give a better talk than John Edwards or Ann Coulter.
(03/04/09 2:19am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In 1993 Rush Limbaugh made a bet. He was invited to speak at that year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the first after Bill Clinton’s election, but he had to pass. In his place, he sent a reporter who asked attendees if they would wager a million dollars against Clinton’s economic plan. Just-retired Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney wanted a piece of it. Newt Gingrich, who was then the House Republican Minority Leader, thought Rush would win the bet.How were the 1990s for you? The Conservative Political Action Conference is a yearly gathering of conservative activists, commentators and elected officials. Predictably, such a partisan gathering is on the fringe of American politics. However, the conference draws an audience before which nearly every Republican presidential candidate will have to make their case. This year Limbaugh not only showed up, he gave the keynote address. Looking back on the Clinton years, it is easy to oversimplify the relationship between presidents and the economy. Clinton presided over eight years of economic growth, but a lot of that growth can be attributed to other factors, such as the dot-com boom. Many of Clinton’s economic policies, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and welfare reform, were arguably conservative.Yet Clinton did end up raising taxes, even while his willingness to move to the center demonstrated that the Democratic Party isn’t dominated by big government fanatics. Clinton was pushing more liberal policies early in his first term, but it was a failure of conservative imagination to think Republicans were fighting the heavily interventionist Democrats of the 1960s and ’70s.At the beginning of this year’s conference, attendees filled out ballots with their preference for the 2012 race. A lot of the names should be familiar to anyone who followed the 2008 Republican presidential primary. I was amused to see Ron Paul’s name on the list. Of all the volunteers I saw on campus, his certainly had the most character. New faces on the list include moderates like Florida Gov. Charlie Christ and Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty (but alas, no Mitch Daniels).On the flipside were potential candidates like Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor who talked of rejecting stimulus funds.Now former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich also got buzz, though I imagine he has as much chance of winning the Republican nomination as Paul.Even with some potential candidates in attendance, it was Limbaugh’s speech that most attendees were really excited about. It was difficult to wade through. He went 55 minutes over his 30-minute time slot, and much of the speech was about himself. Other than that, it was mostly a series of conservative platitudes interwoven with jokes about the fondness Democrats supposedly have for Joseph Stalin. His talk of liberal big government had about as much substance as it did in 1993. Does conservative talk radio really deserve the criticism (or attention) it gets? Ideas, after all, do have to be marketed. But merely rehashing conservative ideology doesn’t make someone the next Ronald Reagan. Limbaugh feels he is back in the ’90s, ready to lead another “Republican Revolution.” Yet the man gets far too much credit for Republican gains in 1994, and 2010 doesn’t look like it will be so bad for Democrats.Rush isn’t really leading the Republican Party. His presence merely signifies that for now, they have no leadership.
(02/25/09 4:42am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Activists stood side by side with “Obama” painted across their chests. An older man proclaimed that when it came to Barack Obama’s campaign, “this is different.” Pictures of campaigners standing next to visiting politicians were intercut with Joe Biden talking about how “this may be the last chance to reclaim the America we love.”There was even an awkward picture of John Edwards.It was the day after Obama had signed the stimulus bill, and I was eager to see what would be said about it at the IU College Democrats call-out meeting.Instead, students who turned out spent most of their time watching a montage video from the election campaign and discussing where they could volunteer.The main issues brought up at the meeting were campus sustainability and establishing early voting statewide. With the University facing a tight budget, I wouldn’t expect much in the first area, though the recent hiring of the first IU director of sustainability offers hope.The second issue was more interesting. The prevailing mood was that increased voter turnout would be good news for Democrats. The campaign video even featured a map of how the 2008 Electoral College would have looked if only 18- to 29-year-olds could vote. John McCain squeaked by with 57 electoral votes from states like Alaska, Idaho and Oklahoma.There are plenty of reasons for Democrats to be cautious. Nearly 66 percent of the youth vote went to Obama in 2008, but Al Gore and George Bush split it almost evenly in 2000. IU College Democrats President Shawn Walter claimed that his group had helped register more than 10,700 students to vote, but incumbent Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels trailed his Democratic challenger Jill Long Thompson by less than 2,000 votes in Monroe County.The Republican Party is disconnected from most voters right now. That can change.The meeting suggested that Democrats will continue to emphasize grassroots activism. It isn’t hard to admire that activism when I hear talk of volunteering at Hoosier Hills food bank or when IU Students for Barack Obama, spent time writing letters to soldiers in Afghanistan. Yet that same activism has little to say about tensions within the Democratic Party itself.Given divisions between traditional pro-union protectionists and more neo-liberal free traders its no surprise Democrats produced a stimulus that was riddled with contradictions. In 2012 Obama will be running on his record. If Democrats don’t ask themselves hard questions that record might acquire its fair share of blemishes.As Gov. Daniels clashes with Democrats in the Indiana House of Representatives, those same questions will have to be asked more locally. It was no coincidence that Obama traveled to Elkhart, Ind., to stump for the stimulus. He took Indiana by a little more than 25,000 votes.Gallup.com found a preference for Democrats in Indiana by nine points, perhaps rebuking the idea that Indiana is a solidly conservative state temporarily shaken up by an economic recession.But if I were an IU Democrat, I would be getting ready for some tough fights.
(02/18/09 3:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Barack Obama’s decision to sign the stimulus bill yesterday in Denver probably irked a lot of Republicans. But the GOP should be more worried about the polls. Gallup.com found that 67 percent of voters favored Obama’s handling of the stimulus while 58 percent opposed the Republican handling. Other polls showed public support for the stimulus had edged up to 59 percent and that the crucial bloc of independent voters was still convinced government spending stimulates the economy more than tax cuts. Republicans seem to have lost their first major battle as an opposition party.What happened? Conservatives seemed convinced they had learned from the past and were going to move forward by returning to their core principles.Indiana congressman Mike Pence, the third-most powerful Republican in the House, attacked the stimulus as “chock full of a liberal ... wish list of dusty old spending priorities” while focusing on projects such as a fish passage barrier that were hardly representative of the entire bill. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican Whip chiefly responsible for uniting Republicans against the stimulus, claimed to be studying the career of House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The bill cleared the senate with the help of three moderate Republicans while Sen. John McCain was referring to the stimulus as “generational theft.” The GOP alternative stimulus plan, composed mostly of tax cuts, would have still cost the government about $478 billion, and there is plenty of evidence that government expenditure can stimulate the economy more. Republicans exaggerated the degree to which the stimulus bill was a cover for liberal interest groups. The bill was not, as Sean Hannity called it, “the European socialist act of 2009.”In what ways did Republicans think they were appealing to voters panicked over the fate of the economy? Liberals are probably gloating. But they shouldn’t be.FiveThirtyEight.com, a Web site specializing in electoral projections, figures the five most competitive Senate seats in 2010 will be seats currently held by Republicans. Yet it predicts that the sixth-most competitive seat will be Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s. Gallup found that Congress’s approval rating increased, but only from 19 to 31 percent. .Only 48 percent of Americans approved of how Democrats in Congress handled the stimulus. It was these House and Senate Democrats over which Obama should have exercised more control. Beyond the “Buy American” controversy, congressional Democrats also attached a puzzling provision that prevents financial institutions using government bailout funds from hiring skilled immigrants. An even broader restriction on executive pay that Obama wanted out of the bill was snuck in at the last second by Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd.The lesson now for Republicans isn’t that they should have capitulated to a stimulus with plenty of flaws. The 30 Republican Senators (plus Independent Joe Lieberman) who tried to completely remove “Buy American” from the bill should feel their efforts were worthwhile, even if they ultimately came to nothing. Only 31 percent of Americans approved of how Republicans in Congress handled the stimulus. That is probably because by relying on talking heads like Hannity and Rush Limbaugh – and playing off the silly fear that Democrats are closeted Marxists – 31 percent of Americans are about all Republicans have been talking to.
(02/11/09 3:49am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Michael Steele has long been in the business of telling black voters that Democrats took their votes for granted.Now this long-time champion of bringing blacks into the Republican Party is the first black Republican National Committee Chairman. He can add that to his long list of firsts which already included being the first black person to serve in a state-wide office in Maryland and the first black person elected chairman of any state Republican Party. Media coverage of this event has been somewhat under whelming. Perhaps after the election of Barack Obama journalists have run out of synonyms for “historic.”Yet if the media is desperate enough for Republican leaders with a reportable national voice that they will cover a non-controversy between Obama and Rush Limbaugh, they ought to have devoted a little more attention to the man who is now the actual head of the GOP. Steele feels Republicans have written off a lot of voters, and his supporters hope his charisma will help the GOP make inroads with some of them. It is worth noting Steele’s roots in a deep blue state. The GOP insiders who elected him might indeed be wary of being branded a regional party. If Republicans wanted to pick a black chairmen from a valuable state, they could have chosen the more doctrinaire Ken Blackwell, former Ohio secretary of state. With moderate stances on affirmative action and gun control Steele is more than a hodgepodge of Republican position papers. He is also personally opposed to the death penalty. Even excluding 2008, blacks voters have swung for Democratic presidential candidates by nearly 90 percent. This is astounding. There are plenty of socially conservative black people, and inner-city minorities have been some of the biggest fighters for school vouchers. Policy differences don’t explain the cold shoulder black voters show the GOP. Many Republicans seem to show little sensitivity to black people simply because they feel they are unattainable. The man who came in second place behind Steele was a South Carolina party leader who oversaw the election of the first black member of the Republican National Committee from the south. That same party leader didn’t even notice his country club was whites-only.That can’t happen anymore. Steele may have a hard time with black voters during Obama’s presidency, but how can he do with independents? So far congressional Republicans seem to be taking a lot of their cues from conservative agitators like Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin. More credible critics of the stimulus, such as former Chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers Greg Mankiw, are having conspicuously little influence on Republican strategy. Steele didn’t show himself to be a master of policy when he ran for one of Maryland’s Senate seats, but he will certainly have to deal with the fallout over the Republican stimulus strategy. The latest Gallup poll revealed 67 percent of Americans approve of how Obama handled the stimulus. 58 percent disapprove of how Republicans did. When Steele became Chairman of the Republican National Committee, he proclaimed: “It’s time for something completely different.” We will see what he meant soon enough.
(02/04/09 4:24am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>I am not someone who usually attends College Republicans meetings.I was lured to last week’s call-out by the chance to see Todd Young, a Bloomington attorney planning to seek the Republican nomination for Indiana’s 9th Congressional District. I was also curious to see the response of young conservatives to a tough electoral defeat.Todd Young wants to try his luck at unseating Democratic Rep. Baron Hill in 2010. He was critical of the (currently flawed) stimulus bill. At one point he channeled Thomas Jefferson, referring to passing on debt from the stimulus to the next generation as “an egregious moral act.”Young’s focus on the budget deficit is not surprising – he founded a political organization called NOPIGS to point out perceived government pork. However, speaking briefly, he had few interesting things to say about the stimulus or the recession. Like many in his party, he challenged his listeners to rediscover core Republican values. Turnout was impressive, even accounting for the guest speakers and free food. The audience of eager conservatives watching the meeting’s presentation on the “Seven Principles of the American Republic” seemed roughly twice as large as the group that assembled for last semester’s call-out.If I was impressed with the motivation of campus conservatives, I was a little skeptical about the emphasis on revisiting founding principles. Calls to return to Republican roots sometimes seem like calls to do nothing. It’s not that a history lesson doesn’t hold some merit. One of the principles discussed was a “free market economy.” Yet a closer look at the past would show that Republicans, far from being free-market martyrs, have usually resorted to populist calls for tax cuts at the expense of tougher sells like free trade.Two of the other principles mentioned were “ordered liberty” and “limited government.” The “ordered” must be emphasized. When in power, conservatives have consistently engaged in their own kinds of social engineering on issues from sex to science.Republicans were beaten back last November due to anxiety over the economic downturn and, to a much lesser extent, frustrations with Iraq. In other words, they failed to deal with new problems.Republicans choose to frame the war on terror like a new Cold War, mostly to reap political benefit. Conservatives have generally been right about school vouchers when it comes to education, as well as removing the preferential treatment of employer-provided insurance in favor of tax rebates to individuals when it comes to health care. Unfortunately, they have shown little commitment to either issue.Republicans need to show a little moral humility. They also need to realize they aren’t fighting the bloated government bureaucracies, suffocating regulation and failed price controls of the 1960s and ’70s anymore. Until then, the GOP will mostly be useful only as a check on Democratic overreach. At the meeting, plans were made to discuss the seven mentioned principles in greater detail throughout the semester. I hope IU’s Republicans are a little more reflective than their older counterparts.It would be a shame if the next generation of conservatives came to the conclusion that Republicans only lost in November because President George W. Bush expanded prescription drug benefits.
(01/28/09 4:27am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“I-69 resistance meetings are back!” So claims the Web site of a Bloomington group, “Stop I-69,” which protests against the highway’s extension.There is a post in this Web site implying responsibility for vandalism against Chase Bank last year. Chase supposedly did business with an asphalt company involved with the construction of Interstate 69. To the Web site’s moderator, this made the asphalt company responsible for, among other things, the “murder of wild animals” and the “furtherance of globalization.” The furtherance of globalization? I just might need to start attending those resistance meetings.For those of you not yet swept up in the hysterics, what the protestors are actually protesting is an extension of the existing Interstate 69 – which currently runs from the Canadian border to Indianapolis – through Bloomington and Martinsville, Ind., to Evansville, Ind. Extensions in other states would eventually take Interstate 69 all the way down through Texas to the Mexican border, thus completing a dreaded “NAFTA superhighway.”To be sure, I have heard some good arguments against the extension of Interstate 69 through our town. Indiana could save considerable money by simply upgrading existing roads between Indianapolis, Terre Haute and Evansville, though I think the current route has economic merit.Other arguments have been less sound. Indiana Democrats in particular have long argued for alternative investments in existing infrastructure.Democrats in control of the Indiana House of Representatives introduced House Bill 1656 attempting to clarify which branch of government gets to play the larger role in allocating a likely federal stimulus package. Democrats in Indianapolis want to make sure these funds go to local infrastructure plans instead of bigger projects, like Interstate 69. These larger projects have the support of Gov. Mitch Daniels. Democrats are also wary of Daniels because he has refused to dip into a budget surplus for a local surplus that Democratic House Speaker Pat Bauer claims could create jobs. Thus the need Indiana Democrats feel to make sure they get to decide where any federal funds go.Yet, if maintaining local roads can provide jobs in this downturn, surely constructing an entire new highway might provide a few paychecks. I certainly imagine Interstate 69 will have more long-term merit than most plans that get stimulus funding.Unfortunately, given the way debate over the road has been misframed, Hoosiers still remain skeptical.Interstate 69 has nothing to do with global warming – an argument that always confuses me. It will cut through and destroy large amounts of farmland in southern Indiana. I have no desire to brush aside those who depend on such land. I do want to acknowledge that many more people will benefit from the road’s completion and that infrastructure projects always face difficult trade-offs.The anti-globalization argument against the road makes the least sense. Free trade is not the cause of some atrocious conditions found in the Third World. Right now the Interstate 69 resistance seems fairly immature.On the “Stop I-69” Web site mentioned earlier, there was also a video depicting the road as some sort of will of the establishment. The video displayed plenty of anti-69 graffiti by protestors – if only to show us how rebellious they were.
(12/03/08 4:18am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In many ways Richard F. Syron pursued the dream career of plenty of economics majors.He served as deputy assistant secretary of the United States Treasury and assistant to then-Chairman of the Federal Reserve Paul Volcker in the early 1980s.Syron eventually scored a senior post at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and it was there that his career path first became intertwined with the fate of most Americans.In 1991 banks were required to expand the information they already provided the government to allow comparison of mortgage rejection rates by race. The data was not collected in a particularly useful way. So in 1992 the Boston Federal Reserve attempted to explain the high denial rates for minorities. They came to a conclusion that shocked the nation into action.They found that even after controlling for credit worthiness, minorities were denied mortgage rates at a much higher rate than whites.As a result the Boston Fed released guidelines about lending to those who may have previously been denied due to questionable credit, and the government pressured banks to make those risky loans by threatening to hold them liable via the Community Reinvestment Act.Home ownership went up, and banks that practiced flexible lending standards received “Corporation of the Year” awards. When it came to doubts about the Fed study Syron, as president of the Boston Fed, proclaimed “I don’t think you need a lot more studies like this.”Anyone reading this who is about to enter the job market or who happens to own stock knows that this story has an unhappy ending. It turns out the Boston Fed study was riddled with errors, and critics claimed it showed no evidence of racist lending practices.But the critics were ignored.Any doubt about the value of loose lending was discouraged as Congress legislated the two government-sponsored mortgage companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to buy stinky mortgages. Eventually investment banks like Bear Stearns (R.I.P.) joined in on these subprime mortgages, citing government studies as proof of their value.Ratings agencies, in one of the most regulated sectors of our economy, accepted the Boston Fed guidelines hyping up the value of those mortgages and issued AAA ratings like it was nobody’s business. By the time S&P, one of three corporations allowed to issue such ratings by the Securities and Exchange Commission, suggested that flexible mortgage standards were producing risky mortgages, it was 2006. The housing bubble was already at a crescendo, and those flexible standards had already been applied to credit-worthy people to give them ridiculously generous – and dangerous – mortgage terms. Where was our old friend Richard Syron during all this? Well, in 2003 he became the chief executive officer of Freddie Mac. He did little to minimize the corporation’s risk and was terminated just a few months ago when Freddie Mac had to be essentially nationalized by the federal government.As politicians galvanize the public with calls to punish those responsible for the crisis, keep in the mind that the government didn’t do much better with accountability than the private sector.Even after his termination, Syron might still collect up to $14.1 million in severance and other payments.
(11/19/08 8:53pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When "JFK" was first released it was a disappointing waste of talent. Today it feels much the same.The film follows New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, played by Kevin Costner, who becomes increasingly convinced that there was a conspiracy behind the Kennedy Assassination. Morrison tracks down witnesses who supposedly link Oswald to people who are linked to the CIA and meets a mysterious “X” character at the Washington Mall who hints that Kennedy was killed in order to keep U.S. forces in Vietnam. The Ultimate Collector’s Edition offers the two-disc director’s cut with 17 minutes of additional footage. Bonus features, including plenty of deleted and extended scenes, and the documentaries “Beyond JFK: The Question of Conspiracy” and “The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings” are also present. A hardcover booklet profiling cast members and some material on the actual John F. Kennedy, including several of his letters, round out the features.Some of the extras, like Kennedy’s letters and the Emerald Kings documentary, provide useful background. Unfortunately, “Beyond JFK” is about as critical of conspiracy theories as the actual film. Director Oliver Stone goes beyond encouraging speculation or producing admitted fiction. He attempts to convince his audience that his interpretation of events is somehow representative of the truth. Given that events such as the conversation with “X” never took place, that is a problem. A major witness for the case, David Ferrie, played by Joe Pesci, supposedly kills himself, yet Stone shows footage of him being murdered as though it were fact. "JFK" has wonderful production values. However, the problem with conspiracy documentaries (take, say, “Loose Change,”) isn’t poor cinematography. This is a film that uses a powerful score and clever editing to prevent you from asking why you should believe the Dallas Police Department, the FBI, military contractors, the CIA and Lyndon B. Johnson are involved in this conspiracy, when the D.A. of New Orleans, where Lee Harvey Oswald spent so much of his time, somehow isn’t.Oliver Stone didn't make a movie so much as he has made propaganda for a specific political agenda, and a poorly conceived one at that. It should be thoroughly rejected.
(11/12/08 3:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lyndon B. Johnson, despite his major civil rights legislation and his war on poverty, is not as well-known in American politics as he probably should be.Yet lately his name has been tossed around a lot.That’s mostly because of Johnson’s victory in the 1964 presidential election. Until last Tuesday, 1964 was the last time a Democrat had won several conventionally Republican states including Virginia and Indiana. With Johnson’s devastating 486 electoral vote victory over Barry Goldwater – one of the early proponents of modern conservatism – and the election of John F. Kennedy, a man who has probably sold the message of his party better than any man since, the early ’60s were good to the Democratic Party. The four decades since have not been nearly as good.Many pundits – citing charisma and eloquence – were quick to compare Barack Obama to JFK. With the election showcasing his ability to sway an electorate, such a comparison might be justified. However, the real significance of the Kennedy comparison has been that Democrats have to reach so far back into their cannon to find someone they can rally behind. The ’60s ended poorly for Democrats. Anti-war protestors clashed with police at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Nixon triumphed as the youth movement the Democratic Party tried to co-opt ended up tearing the party apart. Eventually, Ronald Reagan, wielding a conservatism that rebelled against the “great society” statism Democrats had become increasingly intertwined with, dominated the scene.Democrats eventually got tired of losing elections and wisely moderated their positions. On foreign policy the party moved toward pragmatism, rejecting much of the radicalism of the current anti-war movement.On social issues Democrats might have moved too much to the center on issues concerning the death penalty and gay rights, but being able to compromise with anti-abortion members in their own party suggests a welcome break from the culture wars.It is with economic issues that Democrats have made the most progress, yet seem most at risk. Bill Clinton adopted many conservative policies, including welfare reform, free trade and fiscal discipline as his own. Obama seems to be cut out of a similar centrist mold, but has harsh things to say about Wall Street and free trade. Congressional Democrats in particular seem ready to engage in all kinds of wasteful investment under the guise of fighting global warming and are poised to offer up massive bailout to American auto manufacturers. This recession could test the Democrats’ centrist course to the breaking point.That, of course, would be a shame. After a long time in the wilderness, Democrats have emerged with a governing philosophy that can succeed in the 21st century. If Obama continues his message of activism and inclusion while holding the line against regressive policies, he could lead a Democratic party to plenty of victories. Perhaps then, for the first time in almost half a century, he could indeed provide Democrats with a figure they see as worthy as Kennedy.
(10/29/08 2:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>John McCain proposed a $52 billion plan that included new tax cuts on capital gains, tax breaks for seniors and write-offs for stock losses.Barack Obama proposed $60 billion in tax cuts for middle-income and lower-income Americans, more tax breaks to create jobs and new spending for public works projects to create jobs.These were two plans the candidates proposed to deal with the current financial crisis. However, they sound more like the candidates’ old talking points, and these proposals don’t address the root cause of this crisis. Both candidates have moved toward regulation. McCain did so after a little maneuvering. Obama jumped to regulation immediately, talking about the need for 21st-century regulation but saying little about what the 21st-century regulation would look like. Understanding the specifics of what happened, instead of using the financial crisis to force through a wish list of economics proposals, is important. The line between the state and private sectors could be moving. If we are going to redraw it we need to understand that some things went wrong, but a lot of things didn’t.An international summit on the financial crisis will take place on Nov. 15 in Washington. President Bush said that any solution coming out of the summit will involve “a commitment to free markets, free enterprise and free trade,” though French President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the original voices favoring the summit, said “laissez-faire is finished.” Keep in mind – he’s a member of France’s dominant conservative party. When it comes to free-market capitalism, people are clearly out for blood. Capitalism tends to create abundant amounts of opportunity and wealth, but in the modern world it has also created a great deal of anxiety and tension. Going into this election it is important to be wary of economic populism, of which both candidates have offered plenty. McCain offered up a gas tax holiday when gas prices were the major crisis, and for the financial crisis he has offered up a poorly thought-out plan to buy up bad mortgages.Left-leaning commentators use the crisis to argue that many free-market policies must be reversed. Yet, if Obama makes good on his claims to renegotiate NAFTA, redraw the tax code against business done abroad and step up regulations on oil companies and speculators, it’s unlikely anyone will be made much better off. The financial crisis involves a truly bipartisan failure of leadership. Changes in mortgage underwriting standards took place under the Clinton administration via the Community Reinvestment Act without diligent investigation into their consequences. Expansion of those loose standards to prime mortgages took place under the Bush administration. Both parties had plenty of chances to set things right.The financial crisis should inspire people to demand accountability. It’s frustrating to see politicians use this crisis to further their own agendas and inspire distrust of markets in general. Demanding that politicians explain exactly what went wrong is a sure way to make sure we leave what went right alone.
(10/22/08 9:30pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s pretty easy to be skeptical about “W.” Oliver Stone has directed some good films over the years, but thinking back to “Nixon” and “JFK,” it’s obvious he has directed some very bad ones about United States presidents. And sadly, “W.” is not much different. “W.” is most compelling when it focuses on the formative moments for George W. Bush the person and less so when it tries to explain George W. Bush the president.It always feels weird seeing portrayals of historical figures that we actually have video footage of, but lead actor Josh Brolin does a solid, if cliched version of Dubya. However, some of Bush’s advisors, including a Dick Cheney played by Richard Dreyfuss and Condoleezza Rice played by Thandie Newton, are done exceptionally well.The movie hammers you with its central thesis: Bush was mostly motivated by his strained relationship with his father. Bush Sr., played by James Cromwell, makes it clear that he expects his other son Jeb to be the successful one. The first half the film is dominated by lectures from the elder Bush to his drunken, lazy and occasionally womanizing son George W.Beyond the psychoanalysis of our 43rd president, the film has little depth as a serious political critique. Most of the scenes of Bush as the leader of the free world involve conversations we have probably already imagined. The film makes no effort to examine the motivations of Bush’s advisors, even though they seem to be calling the shots.The film also makes the mistake of omitting Bush’s 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns (the movie appears to end before the 2004 election).Examining these campaigns could have been fascinating and might have explained to audiences how a man as stupid and ineffectual as the one portrayed in this movie managed to reach our nation’s highest office, twice. As offbeat as the film is, “W.” is still enjoyable and rarely boring. Stone keeps the film going as he cuts from Yale frat boys mixing screwdrivers to Bush asking Cheney to remember who the president is. The whole thing is tied together with some great scenes, involving Bush getting lost in his own sprawling Texas ranch while discussing plans to invade Iraq and another in which Colin Powell asks, with plenty of disdain, why Karl Rove is in a meeting about the war.Sadly, the film has more style than substance. Bush ends up seeming oversimplified, and given the amount of ripe material that could have been pulled from W’s second term, the film feels incomplete and disappointing. But probably not as disappointing as his presidency.
(10/15/08 10:19pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Whether it was Norm McDonald reminding audiences how much Bob Dole liked to talk about himself in the third person or Darrell Hammond re-enacting Al Gore’s sighs from his first presidential debate, “Saturday Night Live” has always stood at the intersection of pop culture and politics. Unfortunately, some of the more recent political sketches have fallen flat. Amy Poehler has done a passable Hillary Clinton, but Fred Armisen has put forth a rather disappointing Barack Obama. Darrel Hammond’s John McCain is clearly far from his best.Almost all of the show’s recent relevancy has come from one source: a hockey mom governor from Alaska. Tina Fey has nailed everything about Palin from the folksy Northern accent to her vapid small-town charm. People loved Fey’s sketch alongside Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton and her portrayal of Palin’s recent interview with Katie Couric. Ratings for “SNL” are through the roof for the first time in years.Before heralding in some kind of “Saturday Night Live” renaissance, it is important to consider two things. The first is that, as mentioned, none of the other “SNL” political sketches have been this good, reflecting a general decrease in the quality of the performances and the writing in recent years. Nothing speaks louder to this than the vice-presidential debate sketch. Tina Fey shined at mocking Palin’s incessant repetition of the word “maverick,” but Jason Sudeikis’ Joe Biden didn’t produce half as many laughs. In all fairness, Sarah Palin is the most ridiculous vice presidential candidate since Indiana’s own Dan Quayle. Yet the other reason not to get so excited a new and improved “SNL” is that even in the past its coverage of politics has been pretty shallow. I know “SNL” is satire. I don’t mind a little light-hearted material. Still, I can’t help but be reminded that for a long time most Americans got their political news from “SNL.” Today we see a similar trend with programs like “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” Unfortunately, most political humor, far from making politics more accessible to the general public, tends to focus on the personality quirks of characters rather than the differences between their platforms. This can be funny, but it feeds into the shallow “who would you rather have a beer with” political culture. Now I am not saying your news literacy will skyrocket watching most network or cable news; stick with Jon Stewart before switching to Fox News or MSNBC. Decent news is hard to find. But that doesn’t mean you should settle for “SNL.” Sitting down to watch Tina Fey mock Palin’s denial of global warming should be a guiltless experience so long as, on Election Day, it is not the only thing informing your vote.
(10/15/08 12:41pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Far too many students only think of broken promises, bloated budgets and election controversies when they think of the IU Student Association, if they think of anything at all. Last year remains a low point in IUSA’s history. The administration went over budget and got little done. The year ended in accusations and counter-accusations of election code violations that ultimately resulted in Kirkwood, the ticket that was originally declared the winner, being tossed out by the IU Supreme Court in favor of Big Red.For many students, IUSA is just kind of there, but we should be aware of what the organization does and what it is trying to do. This year it commands a budget of $82,800 – not a small amount by any measure. Even if you believe the $1.20 taken from each student isn’t too much for you, personally, it is hard to deny that the sum of the money could go toward plenty of other uses.So far this year’s administration seems to have a decent chance of staying on budget. Hopefully it won’t have to tolerate meetings in which the Student Body Congress can’t meet quorum. IUSA President Luke Fields and IUSA Vice President Dan Sloat have tried to restore confidence in student government, and so far they haven’t done a bad job.Fields and Sloat have put five issues on the top of their agenda for this year: 100 percent meal point rollover, tax-free textbooks, a fall break, a student section for basketball and weekend health center coverage.Enjoying the fine cuisine of RPS a little longerIt only took the IUSA three weeks to deliver on its promise of 100 percent meal point rollover, or at least, something much closer to it. Sloat had been working with the Residential Programs and Services meal plan committee since the fall of 2006, devising a comprehensive solution to getting more points to rollover and make purchasing plans more affordable.Unfortunately, rollover in this context only means rollover for one semester. In other words, all the meal points you still have left from the spring 2009 semester will be good for the fall 2009 semester, but after that they will start to continuously lose value again.Fields told me he wanted to extend the rollover for a whole year. Getting rollover for the entire duration a student attends IU sounds like the ideal situation.Then there is the new I-BUCK meal point system, one I-BUCK equals $1. But using I-BUCKs gets you a discount on your purchases, depending on how big your plan is. That sounds great, but depending on the plan, one I-BUCK actually costs more than $1. Though, in the long run, you do seem to save money by buying more I-BUCKs. The plan isn’t complicated to confuse you, although it seems to have that effect. Efforts by IUSA to make the system a little more straight-forward would be applauded.Tax-free textbooksBy the end of the week most IUSA executives will be meeting with state Senator Vi Simpson to discuss a proposal to institute a “tax-free weekend” in Indiana.The logic of the proposal: Students often fork more than hundreds of dollars for textbooks each semester when ideally getting the materials you need for class shouldn’t be such a barrier to success. In fact, it is often in the interest of governments to encourage participation in higher education, and the price for this education is usually higher than the social optimal. Making something tax-free is just like subsidizing it, and a subsidy on textbooks would encourage their consumption.The proposal IUSA plans to submit to Simpson this Friday would cover more than just textbooks. It calls for items “sold between 12:01 a.m. on the last Friday of August and 11:59 p.m. the following Sunday and sold between 12:01 am on the first Friday of January and 11:59p.m. the following Sunday” to be “exempt from the sales tax.”The proposal includes computers, clothing and other school supplies within a certain price range, as well as textbooks. The road to achieving such a proposal could be an uphill one, but Fields assured me other IU campuses were workingto make it happen and that the idea has had some success elsewhere in the country. Too bad most students will still be better off fishing for used books on Amazon. A dream deferredTo burrow from the late great Langston Hughes, “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?”When it comes to the dream of an IU student section in Assembly Hall, it is definitely the latter.IU administrators frequently cite the tendency of students to barge disruptively into Assembly Hall late for the game (and often a little intoxicated) as reason why more effort hasn’t been made to secure a student section. IUSA seems willing to hear out this grievance and is trying to find ways to entice IU students to attend more games on time. Fields said IUSA is working with the athletics department to sponsor a Crimson Rewards Program. The program would provide students with points for attendance at most IU sporting events. These points could in turn be used to get better quality seats for future games. It remains to be seen whether any of these schemes will actually get students to the game on time, just as it remains to be seen whether this could provide a transition to a real student section.Nearly every IUSA ticket has put the promise of a student section in its platform. The greatest hope for this administration to achieve it could come from IU basketball coach Tom Crean, whom Fields said he hopes to meet with and make his biggest ally on this issue. sh: Taking a little breakWhen I began my freshman year here I assumed that, like just about every other college student in the country, I would be getting Labor Day off. IU has long refused to grant its students that one day off.The fact they we had Labor Day off this year could pave the way for more ambitious schedule changes, but I can’t be the only one skeptical about a fall break.Fields assured me it could happen. So far, IUSA has made student appointments to the calendar committee and is working with IU Provost Karen Hanson to make this happen.It is easy to see the benefit of a fall break. Right now we go nearly 13 weeks from the start of the year until we finally get a break for Thanksgiving. That kind of stress doesn’t exactly translate into excellent academic performance.sh: A better health centerBy far the most ambitious item on IUSA’s agenda is getting IU Health Center coverage on weekends. Fields called this his “biggest issue” and said IUSA holds “all the pieces to make it happen.”The biggest piece will be the ability of the IU student administration to recommend a higher health center student fee. People get sick on weekends as much as any other day of the week. Indeed, given the lifestyle of plenty of college students, we probably get our fair share of ailments then.And even if you do get sick during the weekend, it is sometimes difficult to block off an hour in your day for a visit when the place stops taking walk-ins at 4:30 p.m. For the student who wants to exercise preventative care without skipping a few classes, weekend health center hours would be ideal.Of course the issue involves whether or not we will consider weekend health center service worth the extra cost because that cost could certainly prove high.IUSA must work with Health Center Director Hugh Jessup and, most importantly, students to make this a reality.Students tend to flaunt any increase in their student fee’s, and given the high cost of tuition these days, any increase in the cost must come for a good cause. This is such a cause.sh: Taking Care of Business IUSA will have plenty of other responsibilities this year. Soon it will convene a group of students to set all mandatory student fees and could play a pivotal role in finding a replacement for Dean of Students Dick McKaig, who will be retiring at the end of the year.IUSA’s initiatives could go a long way in helping us forget the days when we didn’t know what the organization was.One-hundred percent meal point rollover is a major accomplishment, and tax-free textbooks are worth pursuing. A basketball student section and fall break are probably long-shots. It is the initiative for weekend health center coverage that seems most significant.Let’s hope this year’s IUSA follows through and at least lays the ground work for making that a reality.
(10/08/08 7:40pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Despite all the hype about whether or not “An American Carol” could succeed as a right-leaning comedy that takes aim at the left, the success of this movie – like any other film – was always grounded in whether or not it could be funny and engaging. Sadly, that is exactly where the movie often fails. “An American Carol” is adapted from Charles Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol.” In this story, Scrooge is replaced by Michael Malone, played by Kevin Farley doing a decent Michael Moore impression. Malone is visited by three spirits taken out of American history, all of whom attempt to teach Michael why America is such a great country.The plot here is a little uneven. There is a narrative by Leslie Nelson that doesn’t add much to the movie. Most of the plot is focused on the spirit of Patton, played by Kelsey Grammer. The other two spirits, George Washington (played by Jon Voight), and the Angel of Death (country singer Trace Adkins), barely get a few minutes of screen time. Combine with this with the fact that most scenes felt peculiarly empty (especially some protest sequences) and the whole movie seems a little slapped together and low-budget. But is the movie funny? Sometimes. Some of my favorite scenes involve a low-budget terrorist training video, a courtroom sequence in which ACLU attorneys are depicted as zombies, and a future sequence in which Hollywood has been taken over by terrorists and re-named “Bin Laden City.” Unfortunately, most of the other jokes fall flat. A lot of the humor is pretty slapstick, which worked in some of director David Zucker’s other films like “Airplane!” but here seems way out of place. It also doesn’t help that the movie gets up on something of a soapbox near the end, getting away from the comedy completely. Although “An American Carol” is below average by comedy standards (or at least below what average comedy standards should be) it is not impossible to recommend. It could become something of a cultural gem; an insight into how some on the right view the left. It’s also probably the best way for the right to deal with Michael Moore.
(10/08/08 4:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The other day I saw an ad from our congressional representative Baron Hill. After showing a frustrated couple dealing with bills, the ad collapsed into a populist dribble attacking speculators and oil companies. I was inspired to look at the ads from our 2006 Congressional election and found some other gems.The worst, hands down, was a Mike Sodrel ad suggesting that Baron Hill was “rated X” because he voted against legislation restricting violent and sexual video games. An older Baron Hill ad got me going, too. It was about “Hoosier values,” which apparently consist of “responsibility,” “faith,” “the sacredness of a union between a man and a women” and “honesty.”Clearly Hill was, and still is, just pandering to his view of southern Indiana voters: socially conservative and economically insecure. But I couldn’t help but wonder what Hill’s stances would be if he spent all his time pandering to me. Maybe he would ...Cut farm subsidies: The real Baron Hill voted for the 2008 Farm Bill, which he no doubt suggested was in the interest of Indiana farmers. The bill cost about $300 billion and promises subsidies to farmers making as much as $1.5 million if married, and up to $750,000 if single. Even for low-income farmers it’s debatable whether they are best served by a government program that pays them to stay with a job that is making little money.Encourage immigration: On his Web site Hill suggests that the problem of illegal immigration has been linked to “economic depression.” He also suggests that providing a path to legalization for those already here – or as he says, “amnesty” – would be misguided. Immigration, legal or otherwise, tends to put downward pressure on some wages, but on the whole it helps economic growth. It would be nice to have a congressman fighting to open up the immigration process to both low-skilled and high-skilled immigrants.Support gay rights: Even though Hill voted against a Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage, his talk about marriage being a sacred union between a man and women makes me cringe.Marriage is an important institution, both socially and economically, but there is no compelling reason for excluding gays from this union. Nor is there a very compelling reason to prevent gay couples from adopting, as Hill did when he voted to ban gay adoptions in D.C.Stop bashing oil companies and speculators: If we should be moving away from oil, that doesn’t mean we should treat oil companies as if they are fundamentally evil.Baron Hill recently supported legislation aimed at curbing “excessive” energy speculation even though most economists agree speculation was part of the normal supply and demand process that moderated a steep rise in prices. I suppose I can give Hill some credit. He is a better friend of free trade than plenty of other Democrats, and he has a reasonable amount of fiscal discipline. Still, on some issues he panders instead of leading.