The Barefoot Mailmen

Fed up with blog.com’s bugginess, we’re now blogging over at www.barefootmailmen.blogspot.com.  We hope you’ll join us at our new home.  

An inspired suggestion for Justice Souter’s replacement on the Supreme Court:   Mr. T.

Mr. T does not put up with jibba-jabba, which I think is important for a justice. He is very tough, but he is also compassionate (he often pities fools). Now, I don’t know Mr. T’s political stances, but one can only assume he’s not a liberal because he’s definitely not a sissy.

The unseriousness of our political leaders is simply breathtaking.  This morning a House subcommittee held hearings on the system by which college football decides its national championship, the Bowl Championship Series.   An excerpt from the AP report:

WASHINGTON (AP)—The coordinator of the Bowl Championship Series told Congress Friday that a switch to a playoff would threaten the existence of celebrated bowl games, but skeptical lawmakers called college football’s system of choosing its top team unfair. . . .

Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, who has introduced legislation that would prevent the NCAA from labeling a game a national championship unless it’s the outcome of a playoff system, said that efforts to tinker with the BCS were bound to fail.

“It’s like communism,” he said at the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s commerce, trade and consumer protection subcommittee hearing. “You can’t fix it.”

I’ve heard it said that we get the leaders we deserve, and normally there is a lot of truth to that.  But with two wars on, a serious recession, record breaking deficit spending, Iran and North Korea building nukes, Islamic terrorists plotting away, and so much else, there is no way we deserve leaders who think this is a good use of their time.  

You can contact Rep. Barton via his website.

“I don’t want to run the auto companies.” –President Obama, April 29, 2009

“For too long, Chrysler moved too slowly to adapt to the future, designing and building cars that were less popular, less reliable and less fuel efficient than foreign competitors…. I’ve decided to give Chrysler and Fiat 30 days to reach an agreement. The standard I set was high: I challenged them to design a plan that would protect American jobs, American taxpayers, and the future of a great American car company.” –President Obama, April 30, 2009

[via TMS, from a remote location]

President Obama has promised to cut $100 million from the budget.  This guy is not terribly impressed.

Hey, it’s a start.

(via The Corner).

After the selection of President Obama as commencement speaker drew criticism due to his NARAL-esque voting record on abortion, Notre Dame attempted to balance things out a bit by giving an award to Mary Ann Glendon.  Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican, is Catholic and pro-life.   My understanding is that she was to give a few remarks from the platform at the graduation ceremony.   Anyway Prof. Glendon has turned down the award.   In a letter to ND’s president, she explains why: 

A commencement … is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision—in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops—to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony

When I first heard about this, I thought, “good for her.”  But upon reflection, I think I agree with NR’s Michael Potemra that this is a missed opportunity:  Over at The Corner, he writes:

If anyone could have made the pro-life case on a podium that would be — on that day, at least — the World’s Greatest Platform, it would have been Mary Ann Glendon. It would have been a tough task — to express a serious disagreement with the most famous man in the world, in his presence, while at the same time not coming across as bullying, confrontational, or point-scoring — but I think she could have done it better than just about anyone else I could imagine. . . .

I doubt too many pro-lifers have the President’s ear these days.  It would have been nice if someone as accomplished and principled as Professor Glendon—a professor at the president’s own law school — were one of them. 

For a taste of Prof. Glendon’s writing and thinking on abortion, check out her 2003 essay from First Things, “The Women of Roe v. Wade.”

Juan Williams, a reporter for NPR, commentator for Fox News, and the author of a well regarded history of the Civil Rights movement as well as a biography of Thurgood Marshall, has written a stinging column criticizing the Obama administration’s decision to shutter the D.C. school voucher program.

According to a recent Department of Education study of the program, students who had participated in the program for three years showed an improvement in reading equivalent to 3.7 extra months of schooling compared to those not in the program.  A relatively modest gain, but given the importance of reading to the whole educational enterprise (discussed previously on this blog), nothing to sneeze at.  Students who have participated in the program since it began in 2004 showed more dramatic gains in reading, equivalent to 2 extra years of schooling.  And the vouchers cost the District significantly less than what it spends per child in the public schools.

Yet, the Administration is shutting down the program.  Williams concludes:

This reckless dismantling of the D.C. voucher program does not bode well for arguments to come about standards in the effort to reauthorize No Child Left Behind. It does not speak well of the promise of President Obama to be the “Education President,’ who once seemed primed to stand up for all children who want to learn and especially minority children.

School choice is just one tool in the struggle to improve urban education, but it is an important one, not least because it gives parents the chance to make real decisions about their children’s schooling.  It is a shame that it is a tool that so many, including our president and his secretary of education, categorically reject.

[[A post-script.  It should be noted that Williams is no knee-jerk Obama-hater.  He was, like so many, quite moved when Obama was elected. His on-air commentary when Obama's victory was announced-- in which he reflected on the historic nature of America's electing its first African-American president, was quite beautiful. You can watch and listen to it here. ]]

The inimitable James Lileks responds to a George Will column in which he decried the habit of today’s adults to wear blue jeans just like the teenagers do, a development which Will describes in terms one might use to discuss the Fall of Rome.   Lileks’s reaction is typically funny and astute.   His opening lines:

 

Making the rounds today was this piece by George F. Will, a smart fellow whose work I have read and enjoyed for decades. It pains me to write this, because it reminds me of the times we woke Grandpa because he fell asleep smoking, and his column of Winston ash was in danger of toppling into his lap

Read the whole thing.

One of the best things that the President said in his economic speech the other day was the following: “We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand.  We must build our house upon a rock.  We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity – a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.”

He also points out that “When this recession began, many families sat around their kitchen table and tried to figure out where they could cut back.  So do many businesses.  That is a completely responsible and understandable reaction.”  So far, so good. 

However, the President seems to think that the additional savings is somehow a bad thing for the economy. He argues that “if every family in America cuts back, then no one is spending any money, which means there are more layoffs, and the economy gets even worse.  That’s why the government has to step in and temporarily boost spending in order to stimulate demand.” 

First, as discussed on these pages before, the government is incapable of stimulating the economy. It can only shift resources around. 

But more importantly, the fact that families are saving, despite the incredibly (and artificially) low interest rates, is not a bad thing for the economy.  On the contrary, it is perhaps the most important ingredient for economic recovery.  Using the Presidents words, savings are the “foundation from which to rebuild the economy”.

But instead of allowing this to happen, the government, which has no resources of its own, is going into debt on behalf of all of those families who are now trying to save more and pay down credit card bills. As a result, all of the good things that result from families saving more are now being undone by the fact that the government is going into even deeper debt in their name.

“(The media) continues to think that the tax day tea parties are all about Barack Obama or they are all for the GOP. It’s not because they don’t try to understand, I don’t think they are capable of understanding. But since the media are watching, I am going to speak very, very slowly. As I understand it, at least the way I see it here, these have nothing to do with the Democratic party, other than the Democrats suck (roar from crowd). However, no more than the Republicans suck (even louder roar from crowd). This has nothing to do with how much Barack Obama is spending, it’s about how Barack Obama AND George W Bush AND both Congresses have been spending for years.”

- Glenn Beck at the Alamo Tea Party