Things That Don't Scare Me

Pace Rachel Maddow, I don't find the prospect of Barrack Obama giving us a third Clinton term to be particularly alarming.

The Latest Weird Turn

This election has provoked all sorts of unusual behavior, and some of the oddest has come from newspaper editorial boards. After the Chicago Tribune endorsed a Democrat for the first time in its 160 year history, I thought we'd seen it reach its height.

I certainly didn't count on this bit of blatantly pro-Democratic propaganda from The Wall Street Journal. The piece opens conventionally enough, explaining how a major Democratic victory is the likely result of the upcoming election:

If the U.S. really is entering a period of unchecked left-wing ascendancy, Americans at least ought to understand what they will be getting, especially with the media cheering it all on.

At this point, however, the unnamed authors of the piece take it in an unexpected direction, and begin cheering on the Democratic supermajority in ways that would make their allegedly more liberal counterparts working for The New York Times blush. Indeed, I suspect that The Nation would be too embarrassed to publish something this starry-eyed.

Among the exuberantly optimistic predictions, there are the following:

• "Medicare for all. When HillaryCare cratered in 1994, the Democrats concluded they had overreached, so they carved up the old agenda into smaller incremental steps, such as Schip for children. A strongly Democratic Congress is now likely to lay the final flagstones on the path to government-run health insurance from cradle to grave.[...]But as U.S. health-care spending flowed into the default government options, taxes would have to rise or services would be rationed, or both. Single payer is the inevitable next step, as Mr. Obama has already said is his ultimate ideal."


• "Union supremacy. One program certain to be given right of way is "card check." Unions have been in decline for decades, now claiming only 7.4% of the private-sector work force, so Big Labor wants to trash the secret-ballot elections that have been in place since the 1930s.[...]This would be the biggest pro-union shift in the balance of labor-management power since the Wagner Act of 1935."


• "The green revolution. A tax-and-regulation scheme in the name of climate change is a top left-wing priority. Cap and trade would hand Congress trillions of dollars in new spending from the auction of carbon credits, which it would use to pick winners and losers in the energy business and across the economy."


• "Free speech and voting rights. A liberal supermajority would move quickly to impose procedural advantages that could cement Democratic rule for years to come. One early effort would be national, election-day voter registration.[...]Felons may also get the right to vote nationwide, while the Fairness Doctrine is likely to be reimposed either by Congress or the Obama FCC.
"

Now, the authors of this piece do try to make some concessions to balance, suggesting that the Democrats might impose poorly thought-out regulations or pander too heavily to special interests, but even there it's pretty obvious that their heart isn't in it. Surely, despite the tone of the language they use, the suggestion that the Democratic Party might "water down" the No Child Left Behind act isn't going to frighten anyone, and they almost immediately segue into a suggestion that the Democrats would resurrect Clinton Administration's highly successful policy using the civilian justice system to punish terrorists.

Cf. the Obama talking points posted on the RNC's website. Now, in this case they were doubtless trying to highlight how unlikely it is that Obama will be able to push through such an ambitious agenda and chide him for promising too much, but they neglect to actually mention this anywhere on the page. Inattentive readers might miss this subtext and conclude that the GOP has taken the unprecedented step of promoting the Democratic candidate for President out of an understandable dissatisfaction with its own candidate and platform.

Dirty Pool

The liberal media has proven, time and again, that it is dedicated to destroying Sarah Palin. However, it has now sunk to a new low by recording statements she made in public:

"So we do cross border, like from Afghanistan to Pakistan you think?," Rovito asked.

"If that's what we have to do stop the terrorists from coming any further in, absolutely, we should," Palin responded, before moving on to greet other voters.

How fortunate we are that John McCain is willing to defend his running mate and point out the perfidy of the press:

Sen. John McCain retracted Sarah Palin's stance on Pakistan Sunday morning, after the Alaska governor appeared to back Sen. Barack Obama's support for unilateral strikes inside Pakistan against terrorists

"She would not…she understands and has stated repeatedly that we're not going to do anything except in America's national security interest," McCain told ABC's George Stephanopoulos of Palin. "In all due respect, people going around and… sticking a microphone while conversations are being held, and then all of a sudden that's—that's a person's position… This is a free country, but I don't think most Americans think that that's a definitve policy statement made by Governor Palin."