Let's Have a Little Disrespect for the Office of President!

A colleague writes, speaking of John Hodgman's gentle roast of Barack Obama at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner:

"Maybe it's just me -- but this is the President of the United States. I think he deserves a lot more respect than this comedian was giving him -- and certainly the office does."

Image via Wikipedia

I disagree. The roast wasn't actually at all disrespectful, but that's not the point, my humorless friend above notwithstanding.

IMHO, the President of the United States gets far too much respect, for a democracy with no royalty and no classes. George Washington would be embarrassed.

It is the very instinct to treat our leaders as if they were royalty -- to think that because the "office" of POTUS is so (excessively) powerful in domestic and international affairs--that somehow the holder of that office personally deserves to be treated with -- not just respect, but deference -- exactly this misguided instinct that risks turning a nice, grounded guy like Barack Obama into another George Bush II.

This country really needs a guy to walk beside the President and mutters in his ear while others sing hosannas, "Remember, Caesar, thou art human!"

The President should be addressed as Mr Obama in regular speech among his colleagues, not as Mr President; so likewise Senators, who get swelled heads from being called Mr or Madam Senator. G. Washington hated being addressed as Mr President, but settled on it rather than having to hear "Your Excellency." His distaste for titles -- and for the instinct to genuflect before power -- was well founded; too bad it has long been lost.

When a comedian can't make a disrespectful joke about those in power, power has gone too far.

[By the way, John Hodgman's Roast is hilarious, gently humorous, and reveals Hodgman, the "I am a PC" actor in the TV commercial, as a real wit. Worth viewing. Hodgson is a humor writer with a great bio on Wikipedia.]

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• John Hodgman Roasts President Barack Obama at the 2009 Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner (laughingsquid.com)

Obama's pick of Biden as VP... Tough tradeoffs for Obama!

On this stuff--the controversy over whether Barack Obama should have picked an old politico like Joe Biden as his VP partner--I am lucky I can watch from the
sidelines since I vote Libertarian, which saves me a lot of grief,
especially of the "least bad choice" variety (or as one wit put it, "the
evil of two lessers").

But from the sidelines, Obama had a balancing act here: Another Change
person like himself would be young and not fully tainted and thus
vulnerable to McCain attacks on lack fo experience that have proven (to
my actual surprise) effective recently. Biden takes that club away from
McCain. McCain can call Obama a hypocrite for choosing an old warhorse
(like McCain) but the foreign-affairs club and the inexperience club are
both out of reach now.

Since Biden is practically McCain's twin on everythign that McCain has
been pushing, he does a good job of neutralizing McCain's most powerful
messages. Biden's wild-card big mouth will be a ticking bomb for months,
but on the other hand his wit and tendency to say naughty things might
give him something of a 'by' among voters who hate politicians and
politics. It will annoy those who wanted a clean break from politics as
usual (boy, will it!) but the Obama supporters can always argue that
Biden is a savvy political-campaign chess move that puts the "old-boy
network" guy in the secondary, VP position, whereas on the Republican
side the Old Boy guy is the top dog. If you want any hope of change,
there is only one choice.

Other than becoming discouraged and staying home, of course. Which is
always the ongoing danger when your campaign relies heavily on arousing
the youth vote or the disaffected vote--they become discouraged easily
and give up. Obama's gift of oratory will have to do a lot of heavy
lifting for the next couple of months....

Hillary's Handlers Make a Good Case for Her Continued Fight--Believe It Or Not!

I heard one of Hillary's spin docs on a political show yesterday explaining why Hillary thinks she should keep running and deserves to have the superdelegates throw the nomination to her despite Obama's growing strength.

At first it was just ridiculous listening to him talking about changing the rules on Michigan (yes?) and Florida, and even talking about Puerto Rico's vote (they can't vote for president but can vote for the nominees, oddly enough). And he repeatedly ducked explaining Hillary's racist-sounding "candidate of the working white man" quote that is the current controversy. But as he talked, he started sounding entirely reasonable after all:

• The total popular vote so far is 16.5 million for Hillary and 16.7 million for Obama. In an election he would win; but this is a nomination, not an election, and in some sense this is not far from a tie.

• The job of the superdelegates isn't just to echo the popular vote. If it were, there'd be no point in having superdelegates (except as flattery, which it also is). The superdels, like all delegates if the convention were for example to be unable to come to a decision in the first vote, have as their first obligation to decide who the best candidate is for the Democratic Party--'best' in this case meaning only, and entirely, "the one most likely to get elected." In this near-tie vote situation leading up to the convention, there is nothing wrong with or even strange in suggesting they vote for Hillary if they decided she would be more likely to win the election. It wouldn't be a betrayal of party principle, or the voters; it would be what it is: Politics.

• And, finally, another commentator said Hillary is Hanging On mostly because, though she seems like a long shot now in mid-May 2008, "anything can happen," including a major screwup by Obama, a remark or act or bit of past history of Barack's that can be *twisted* into seeming like a major screwup, some world event that changes perceptions of the candidates (e.g. her stupid and scary Bomb Iran remark last month would make her sound Presidential if, say, Iran threw a nuclear missile at Isreal before the convention), or, also God forbid, some fatal or crippling accident to one of the candidates. All these are unlikely, but the one certainty about electoral politics is that nothing is certain. And, in light of the above, what happens doesn't even have to actually cripple Barack in the election--it just has to convince a few superdelegates that Obama has been seriously compromised, and -- Bam! -- the nomination goes to Clinton.

Personally, I am not thrilled at the idea of having Hillary as president; her lack of respect for liberty and the citizenry, and her arrogance in the use of power, are things to dread. Of course, Obama is no libertarian; he's as much a leftist Democrat as she is, he just doesn't have much baggage yet. And McCain, of course, has zero interest in the liberties of the people -- or in the Constitution, as he has proven repeatedly.

It will be a weird few months. I have to say, it is at times like this that I am glad I am a libertarian, and all this hubbub in both mainstream parties is just so much political eye candy for me - it's like watching a football game in which I have no team playing.

I just thank goodness there *is* a Libertarian Party on which I can waste my vote. It beats having to choose between (to exaggerate enormously) Stalin and Mao....

Bob Barr Gets Radio Airtime for LP Nomination! Weird!

Weird scenes inside the gold mine!

Former Republican Bob Barr announced today (May 12, 2008) that he will seek the nomination of the Libertarian Party at its upcoming convention - which is only interesting in that it made the KCBS news at least three times today.

Apparently the McCain people fret that Barr is well enough known that he could grab 3 or 5 percent (vs the Libs usual 1/2 percent) and in a close race throw the whole thing to Obama! (Also interestingly, they specify Obama, not Hillary...heh heh.)

This has to be the first time the LP has been mentioned in this way on a main news show ever. Strange political times we are in.

mac

Does Hillary Clinton Hate Our Freedoms?

In the Cato-@-Liberty blog post "Hillary Hates Freedom," David Boaz, Cato executive vice president and author of The Politics of Freedom, writes: "Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton operates with reckless disregard for individual freedom and the limited government that protects and sustains it. ... At her core, Hillary Clinton rejects the fundamental values of liberalism, values like individual autonomy, individual rights, pluralism, choice, and yes, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She seems to see no area of life that should be free from the heavy hand of government. And to her the world of free people seems a vast nothingness. ... The really scary prospect of another Clinton presidency is not what she would do to our medical care but what she would do to the 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' that is the foundation of our free society."

[Mac's comment: Unfortunately, Barack Obama isn't much better; nor is McCain on the Republican side...]

"But what will a Kerry victory buy you?..."

[This was first published in 2004, but it applies generally to politics at all times, so I am republishing here in this blog. This despite the fact that Bush has turned out to be one of our worst presidents on many levels.]

My liberal cousin from Back East responded: "And I am reading this email from La La Land who elected the Terminator for Governor?? Your points are all well taken, I just cannot stand another 4 years of Bush.. the puppet to Doctor Evil (VP)."
---
Da Terminator actually vetoed a bunch of bills -- as he said he would -- to the astonishment of the political and chattering classes up and down the Left Coast. I figure, if politicians can't do any good (and wouldn't know how if they fell over it), at least they can veto things and provide entertainment value while we watch the pols have fits about how civilization is coming to an end. Vastly amusing.

You can't stand Bush continuing, but what will a Kerry victory buy you? Clinton was going to be the great white hope for the Dems after 8 years of Reagan and the first Bush, and he turned out to raise spending less than Reagan, didn't raise taxes much, didn't fund many new budget-buster entitlement programs -- he was a better Republican than a Republican. Bush comes in all full of small-government values and raises spending faster than any Dem in the past 40 years, adds the biggest new entitlement programs since the first Bush--heck, he's the closest thing to a Democrat you've had in the White House since Jimmy Carter! What are you complaining about?

How does Kerry differ? He won't withdraw from Iraq, he's already said that. He can't possibly increase government spending on non-defense projects faster than Bush already has, so it's a wash there. He can raise taxes and crush the economy even more than Bush and not even bring in more revenues, but where's the fun in that? He'll pontificate as much as Bush, but about different things. That's all.

You are under the illusion that there is a huge difference between these two men: There isn't. Despite propaganda on both sides to the contrary, they are both fairly centrist representatives of their political parties. The world hasn't come to an end under four years with Bush, and won't do so in the next four years, nor will it under Kerry. The rhetoric, the passion, the garment-rending are florid far in excess of the realities of either candidate, or for that matter of their parties. If you really don't like having Bush around some more, you won't get much relief with Kerry--just different stylistic flourishes.

There is no comfort or relief in voting Dem or Repub. They're both just fighting over who gets to wear the jackboots, and who gets to have the boots on his neck--that's all. Each party wants to force America to Do The Right Thing, as they interpret it. Neither can actually accomplish that. And neither will give up the effort. And we all suffer because we've got the whole idea of what the government is supposed to be doing for us -- instead of to us -- completely wrong.

Well, it doesn't matter, the heck with it -- neither is the demon, neither is the christ, so I don't care who gets the most votes, or how those votes are counted. I worry more about the extremist arguments, the intense polarization that used to be the special province of the political junkies, but is not so harmless when the general populace takes up the cry. We don't need at-any-cost extremists in our midst, and that's what it's coming to. We all need to have a drink and cool our jets.

"Parties to a Sense of Entitlement"

A friend sent me an excerpt from a July 2004 column by George Will (see "Parties to a Sense of Entitlement," http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22700-2004Jul28.html :

"The tone-setting activists of both parties exemplify an unpleasant product of modern government: the entitlement mentality. They believe not merely that their party deserves to govern because of the superior wisdom of its policies but that they are entitled to govern because of their moral and intellectual superiority."

My reaction:

Wow. What a surpassingly wise column!

Rush Limbaugh,of all people, on the radio the other day made a tangentially similar point: Bush, he said, has increased federal spending more in his term than Clinton did in two terms. He has rolled back no meaningful part of the federal scope. Why, he wanted to know, are the Democrats so mad at him? He's a better Democrat than the Democrats! Why are Republicans so mad at Clinton? He proved a better Republican than Bush has so far!

As for myself, I've often pointed out that the stated difference between governmental nirvana and the end of the world as we know it hinges each budget year, rhetorically, on the difference between the Democrats' budget proposals, and the Republicans' counterproposals, which historically and traditionally differ by a few percentage points.

The real difference: A Republican candidate *promises* to eliminate the Department of Education, and a Democratic candidate doesn't. A Democratic candiate *pledges* his stout opposition to war in every form; his rival doesn't.

Once in office, they each do much the same as the other--and the Republican doesn't eliminate the department, at most merely trimming its budget--for the first year only--by one or two percent; while the Democrat initiates (or continues) whatever warlike conflicts seem advisable to his pollsters--different wars, differently fought, perhaps, but wars nonetheless. (The two Bushes in Iraq, for example, the two-term Clinton in Yugoslavia and East Africa, for example.Truman and Eisenhower in Korea; Kennedy and Nixon in Vietnam.)

And I again remark on the role of the press: They *love* this kind of overblown rhetoric, and since they *never* follow through (unless a politician remarks on it), there is no sense that you have to deliver on your statements.