June 2005

Hacks Attack Obama

ArchPundit June 30, 2005 3 Comments

The eternally breathless and utterly silly Peggy Noonan attacks Obama’s column on Lincoln

What’s wrong with them? That’s what I’m thinking more and more as I watch the news from Washington.

A few weeks ago it was the senators who announced the judicial compromise. There is nothing wrong with compromise and nothing wrong with announcements, but the senators who spoke referred to themselves with such flights of vanity and conceit–we’re so brave, so farsighted, so high-minded–that it was embarrassing. They patted themselves on the back so hard they looked like a bevy of big breasted pigeons in a mass wing-flap. Little grey feathers and bits of corn came through my TV screen, and I had to sweep up when they were done.

This week comes the previously careful Sen. Barack Obama, flapping his wings in Time magazine and explaining that he’s a lot like Abraham Lincoln, only sort of better. “In Lincoln’s rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat–in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles.”

Oh. So that’s what Lincoln’s for. Actually Lincoln’s life is a lot like Mr. Obama’s. Lincoln came from a lean-to in the backwoods. His mother died when he was 9. The Lincolns had no money, no standing. Lincoln educated himself, reading law on his own, working as a field hand, a store clerk and a raft hand on the Mississippi. He also split some rails. He entered politics, knew more defeat than victory, and went on to lead the nation through its greatest trauma, the Civil War, and past its greatest sin, slavery.

Barack Obama, the son of two University of Hawaii students, went to Columbia and Harvard Law after attending a private academy that taught the children of the Hawaiian royal family. He made his name in politics as an aggressive Chicago vote hustler in Bill Clinton’s first campaign for the presidency.

You see the similarities.

While Obama didn’t grow up in desperate poverty, he certainly didn’t grow up wealthy and priviliged as Noonan is trying to say in the above, he was able to attend Columbia and Harvard because he was an excellent students. His grandparents, who raised him after his early childhood were employed as a furniture salesman and in a bank and lived in a small apartment.

But more to the point is the whole context:

In Lincoln’s rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat–in all this, he reminded me not just of my own struggles. He also reminded me of a larger, fundamental element of American life–the enduring belief that we can constantly remake ourselves to fit our larger dreams.

Obama’s struggles include losing a father he never really knew, but also came from modest means and struggled as a person with a very uncommon background with no one to really relate and in fact, he says Lincoln’s background is even more improbable. It isn’t written as an exact comparison and only and idiot would take it that way. All of which explains her drivel.

Unlike most of the people who populate the US Senate, the House and the Presidency, Obama is an outlier, he didn’t come from a powerful family with a political background, or incredible wealth, and he didn’t get in to college on a legacy admission–he got in on merit. And for those of us who grew up spoonfed on Lincoln in Central Illinois, it is that characteristic one learns to respect the most. Lincoln was that guy who wasn’t supposed to succeed and yet he did. Barack Obama wasn’t supposed to achieve what he has, but he has. Trying to belittle him as just another Senator from a family of privilege and power or comparing his accomplishments to the President who depended on legacy admissions and connections simply shows how completely out of touch with reality Peggy Noonan is.

It’s a Cross Clarification

ArchPundit June 30, 2005 No Comments

He was handicapping the race for the GOP Gubernatorial, not endorsing Topinka.

The Original Dean’s Dozen

ArchPundit June 29, 2005 2 Comments

Cegelis was down by $5,000 for her goal of $50,000 by tomorrow’s end of quarter deadline. It appears this post on Daily Kos has shot past that number. In total, Act Blue contributions have accounted for $30,000 to her campaign already. According to this post, she blew past the $5,000 today and it keeps going. You can donate through ACT Blue down below to Christine (or her opponent in the primary, Peter O’Malley). While I’m not taking a position for now, that’s some impressive work by the Cegelis campaign.

I can’t wait for this round of reports. It should be very interesting in several races.

Of course, I’m not done, another original member of Dean’s Dozen is running again–this time for State Senate in Missouri–Jeff Smith is running for an Missouri Senate seat that will be open in 2006. Jeff considered running in the primary for the 3rd Congressional District, but primarying a Democrat in these times seemed counterproductive and the political situation in Missouri has become far worse with the Boy Blunder Matt Blunt knocking 100,000 people off of Medicaid–100,000 people who are almost all employed, children or the disabled. Boy Blunder also attempted to terminate the First Steps program that assists families with developmentally delayed children. Leadership to fight this outright attack on the most vulnerable in our society is critical. And for that reason I ask you to go to Jeff Smith’s web site and make a donation before Thursday night at midnight

http://jeffsmith2006.com

Jeff’s a personal friend of mine and this time we’re gonna win.

Stay Awake Now, We’re Going to Talk about Pensions

ArchPundit June 28, 2005 5 Comments

Is only the beginning of the problem for Republicans attacking the pension offset that underpins the budget. Aaron Chambers explores it in a bit more detail:

At the end of May, as the legislative session ended, the Republicans complained the pension maneuver would cost the public upward of $30 billion, perhaps even more, through 2045. But on Wednesday, the Rockford Register Star put the projected tab at less than $7 billion, a far less dramatic sum.

The doomsday figures touted by the Republicans failed to account for savings associated with cuts in retirement benefits for future state employees, university employees and public school employees — restrictions that were built into the pension measure.

The doomsday figures also assumed the state would skip 100 percent of its obligation to the retirement systems for one or two years. As it happened, the state deferred only about half its obligation over two years.

Chambers is referring to this article from last Wednesday that estimates the cost of the pension holiday to be $7 Billion.

The bait and switch is that Democrats are arguing this puts the system on better footing because of reforms, but what would have put the system on better footing is the reforms combined with meeting the funding requirements. Instead of having to pay later, if the state had met its current obligations, it would have improved the long range fiscal situation. Instead, the state will now have to catch up for lost dollars.

While the impact isn’t nearly as dramatic as Syverson and other Republicans are claiming, they are essentially right that this is putting off reckoning for a future day–exactly what is going on in DC these days.

Cross Endorses Topinka

ArchPundit June 28, 2005 6 Comments

LaHood as backup

AURORA ? House Minority Leader Tom Cross thinks Judy Baar Topinka is the Republican Party’s best bet to beat incumbent Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2006.

In a meeting Monday with The Beacon News editorial board, the Oswego Republican said that when compared to the field of announced GOP candidates and those considering a run, Topinka stands out.

However, that informal vote of confidence appeared conditional ? especially if former Gov. Jim Edgar makes the unlikely decision to take another run at the governor’s mansion.

“I think she (Topinka) is the best candidate against Rod, right now,” Cross said.

Topinka could draw support from women voters and is a proven candidate, Cross said, having been elected state treasurer three times.

But Cross also called U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood of Peoria a “solid guy,” and said he would make a formidable candidate if he can find a way to raise significant campaign contributions.

Strangely, the crew only mentions that Cross isn’t interested in being Guv right now. Talk about burying the lede–your boss makes the Hotline with comments and you guys don’t even mention it.

I Thought to be DLC Head

ArchPundit June 28, 2005 No Comments

You had to write a really inflammatory op-ed in the Washington Times—c’mon Tom–the New Democratic Network is where it’s at for centrists in the party now.