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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; B.J. Bethel</title>
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		<title>Running Strong</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/running-strong/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=running-strong</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/running-strong/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:16:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=69914</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Florida’s primary results reveal the Tea Party’s strengths, and the Left’s weaknesses. ]]></description>
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<p>If Democrats and their allies were waiting for the Tea Party phenomenon to peter out on the big occasion, they will have to wait longer. This week’s primary election returns suggest that hostility to the Democrats’ government-expanding agenda remains palpable, and that the Tea Party and its favored candidates are running strong.</p>
<p>Florida may be the best showcase for the movement’s momentum. The Sunshine State is a must-win for both parties and indications are that conservatives have the edge heading into November. Their fortunes hinge on Tea Party favorite and Republican upstart Cuban-American Marco Rubio, who overcame what was once dismissed as a quixotic campaign to capture the Republican nomination.</p>
<p>Rubio, who briefly served as Chairman of the Florida House of Representatives, became the front-runner when he ousted Governor Charlie Crist from the primary and the party some months back. Young and charismatic, Rubio is running on a platform to impose fiscal sanity on Washington’s wanton and spendthrift ways, a message with obvious appeal in a time of soaring spending and surging national deficits. Not only are there Hispanic Republicans, <em>pace </em>Harry Reid, but one of them stands on the verge of a major victory this fall.</p>
<p>A Rubio loss would have the same disheartening effect to the Tea Party, but there are several factors to suggest that won’t be the case. Although Crist led the race during the early summer, polls show that Rubio has edged out to as high as an eight-point lead ahead of Crist. Rubio also has the tide of populism on his side, while Crist is running as an incumbent in an anti-incumbent year. That voters are unhappy with the current rate of spending is also a negative for Crist, who as governor supported and even heaped accolades on President Obama’s lavish stimulus spending.</p>
<p>Rubio may also benefit from a surprise result on the Democratic side. In the Democratic primary, Florida Rep. Kendrick Meek overcame the deep pockets and television onslaught of billionaire real estate developer Jeff Greene. Meek’s win could be seen as a boon for Rubio, as Democrats and independents split over supporting Crist and Meek.</p>
<p>The Tea Party further flexed its muscle in another Florida race. In a bitterly contested battle, Attorney General Bill McCollum lost the Republican gubernatorial primary to Tea Party candidate Rick Scott, a billionaire health-care entrepreneur. (The tenor of the campaign was so rancorous that it’s doubtful McCollum will even endorse his former opponent.)</p>
<p>Scott’s nomination for governor has been called a blow to Republicans, with Democrats deriding him as a “corrupt health-care CEO” and sarcastically thanking the Tea Party for backing such a vulnerable candidate. But braggadocio notwithstanding, Democrats should be worried by Scott’s win. Given their shady and corrupt handling of health care, not to mention the billions in premium costs they have dumped on average insurance holders under ObamaCare, Scott’s background in the private-sector may well be viewed by Florida voters as a breath of fresh air.</p>
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		<title>Bursting Obama&#8217;s Housing Bubble</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/bursting-obamas-housing-bubble/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bursting-obamas-housing-bubble</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/bursting-obamas-housing-bubble/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:12:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=69582</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Another utopian program fails.]]></description>
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<p>The collapse of the Obama administration’s mortgage relief program comes at a time when establishment Democrats are refusing to acknowledge the failure of government to spur economic growth. What&#8217;s worse, the administration’s Keynesian acolytes are beginning to call for more new spending, even in light of the program&#8217;s collapse.</p>
<p>The mortgage program was initiated in February 2009, less than a month after Obama took office. It offered $75 billion to homeowners who saw their home values fall far short of the money they owed to banks for loans. Another $200 billion was guaranteed to corrupt government entities such as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, which fostered much of the housing and bank crises in the purported interest of social justice. These government institutions offered loans for little to no down payment with promises of continuing and unending equity. When the housing bubble burst, so did this promise to homeowners; they were forced into foreclosure or into the arms of a government bailout.</p>
<p>But for many, a bailout hasn’t come. It was reported this week that nearly half of those who were part of the mortgage program have been forced to drop out due to an inability to provide proper documentation, including proof of employment. Such documentation is lacking because many homeowners, thanks to 10-percent national unemployment, have no jobs. The program has continued to complicate a housing mess that has roots as far back as the Carter and Clinton administrations.</p>
<p>This news should alarm the administration and encourage it to take an immediate pro-growth stance toward the economy, but most indications are that it won’t. Some Democrat politicians are calling to make the Bush tax cuts permanent or to institute other pro-growth solutions, such as temporarily suspending payroll taxes. However, this sensible approach runs contrary to the background of administrations officials, who are short on real-world private sector experience, and long on the teachings of economists like Paul Krugman.</p>
<p>To understand the economic priorities of the administration is to understand Krugman. The mortgage program is rife with the tendencies of his type of economics. The <em>New York Times</em> columnist and Nobel prize-winning economist has led the call for more spending, and even a second stimulus, claiming the first one wasn’t effective enough &#8212; despite the failure of the initial program. He’s attacked more libertarian suggestions, such as Rep. Paul Ryan’s economic roadmap, with farcical claims of budgetary malfeasance and improper scoring.</p>
<p>Ryan has refuted all of these claims, but this surely won’t curtail Krugman’s weekly screeds in the <em>New York Times</em>, which are often low on facts and ideas, and replete with <em>ad hominem</em>. His approach to economics and opinion writing is best illustrated in his book “Conscience of a Liberal.”</p>
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		<title>Democrat Disconnect</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/democrat-disconnect/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=democrat-disconnect</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/democrat-disconnect/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 20 Aug 2010 04:29:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=69462</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The majority party's losing agenda. ]]></description>
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<p>With midterm elections approaching and polls showing Republicans set to make gains in both the House and Senate, Democrats are moving to counter conservative momentum. These strategies may remind voters why the party is in such trouble in the first place.</p>
<p>While George W. Bush left office nearly two years ago, don&#8217;t expect Democrats to let the former president become a distant memory anytime soon. Bush is set to be a primary focus of struggling Democrats, who saw gains in the last two elections, but are now struggling in polls.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the White House desperately searches for new villains by adding John Boehner to a list that includes Joe Garton and Mitch McConnell as obstructionist Republicans. Garton made headlines when he said BP was owed an apology from the government in the early days of the disaster. Months later, the White House continues to use his name to <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41180.html">conjure up bad feelings for the minority party</a>.</p>
<p>While tarnishing the names of political foes, Democrats have also decided to harness the power of a deep and thoughtful countermovement propaganda campaign. The Agenda Project, a progressive organization, has announced the “F*** Tea Project,” an organization whose purpose is “to dismiss the Tea Party and promote the progressive cause.”</p>
<p>The group symbolizes the disconnect between elitist Washington liberals and the growing populist and libertarian backlash to all things incumbent. The group’s name alone symbolizes the arrogance Democrats have shown toward their own constituents, and just how badly out of touch Beltway liberals are. This isn’t a grassroots group, or a collection of 14-year-olds with bad language. This is a serious political group whose founder, Erica Payne, is a former National Democratic Committee official who helped found Democracy Alliance. The group was responsible for at least $100 million in fundraising for Democratic causes.</p>
<p>Between the profanity and negative campaigning, conspicuous by its absence in these election strategies is the Democratic legislative record. After two years, the party should be able to tout cap-and-trade, Wall Street regulations, health care reform, the auto bailouts, and the stimulus as grand accomplishments. But it can’t. Because most of these policies are deeply unpopular.</p>
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		<title>The Ethics Election</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/the-ethics-election/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-ethics-election</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/the-ethics-election/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:19:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=67623</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The midterms spell trouble for the corruption-plagued Democratic Congress.]]></description>
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<p>Four years ago, Democrats swept to Congressional majorities on an anti-corruption platform and a ringing promise to “drain the swamp” of Washington politics. But as the midterm elections near, the promise looks increasingly hollow. Prominent cases of corruption in Democratic ranks reveal a party mired in the very ethical morass it once promised mop up.</p>
<p>The most notorious example of Democratic corruption – and the most worrying for party heads and spin-meisters as the campaign season starts – is of course Rep. Charlie Rangel. The embattled Harlem congressman spent last Thursday negotiating 13 charges levied against him by a House ethics committee. Rangel doggedly maintains his innocence, but the dossier on his misdeeds is long and growing. Among other charges, Rangel is accused of not reporting $600,000; accepting two separate corporate-sponsored trips to the Caribbean; using congressional stationary to solicit funds for his namesake Charles Rangel  Center at the City College of New York. There are also charges that he abused rent control laws in his hometown of New York.</p>
<p>Rangel’s travails have party leaders in a panic. Three of his fellow Democratic congressmen have called on Rangel to resign. President Obama has also weighed in, calling the allegations “very troubling.” In an ominous statement, Obama also said he hoped Rangel could “end his career with dignity.”</p>
<p>Rangel is hardly the only Democrat with ethics issues. Fellow Rep. Maxine Waters has come under fire for allegations that she used her position to help arrange for federal bailout funds for a bank with ties to her husband. Like Rangel, Waters decided last week to face trial rather than accept the ethics charges against her. At the very least, that ensures that the party’s ethical woes will remain headline fodder for some time to come.</p>
<p>The Rangel and Waters cases are particularly problematic because they reinforce a reputation for corruption that has embroiled high-profile Democrats across the country. New York governor Eliot Spitzer was brought down in a prostitution scandal. His replacement, David Patterson, has had ethics problems since taking office. Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was caught attempting to sell president Obama’s former senate seat. The late John Murtha <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/02/11/do-democrats-have-a-corruption-problem/">was the target of federal investigators</a> in connection with a lobbying scandal. Accusations also dogged his Virginia Rep. Jim Moran and Indiana Rep. Peter Visclosky.</p>
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		<title>The JournoList Saga Continues</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/the-journolist-saga-continues/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-journolist-saga-continues</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:05:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=66816</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The left-wing media listserv may be shutdown, but it's conspiring contributors are still up to no good.]]></description>
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<p>News of the existence of &#8220;JournoList,&#8221; a 400-member listserv e-mail chain of liberal Washington D.C. journalists, began to emerge last year.  It hit a peak several weeks ago when Dave Weigel, who was covering conservative politics for the <em>Washington Post</em>, was fired. Weigel’s expletive-laced frothings, aimed at some of his sources and subjects, were released to Tucker Carlson’s political website, the Daily Caller.</p>
<p>The list had always been highly discussed in conservative circles, but its founder, Ezra Klein, did his best to dismiss speculation that it was anything but innocuous. Weigel’s e-mails revealed otherwise. Andrew Breitbart later offered $100,000 for a member to come forward with the entire JournoList archive.</p>
<p>Through a source, Carlson came through with the archive last week. Weigel and his list-mates concluded that their now-revealed rants should be held private, even if shared with the inboxes of 400 other people.</p>
<p>Imagine, in one instance, if a state official were disclosing stories about state and security secrets at a party of 400 people. Most of those details would be online before said state official was home for the evening. But using Klein&#8217;s logic, and that of his like-minded cadre, all such matters should be off the record due to privacy. That’s an important fact to keep in mind, because most Washington D.C. journalists, at least of the so-called mainstream, liberal, and objective varieties, had little qualms with the <em>New York Times</em> when it made decision after decision to reveal state secrets involving American intelligence, or when phone calls between John Boehner and Newt Gingrich were surreptitiously recorded and transcribed by a media outlet. Washington journalists would have you believe their own rants to an audience of several hundred are of more importance than national security matters or personal phone calls.</p>
<p>That’s a small kernel of the hypocrisy revealed by Carlson and the Daily Caller. For years, conservative complaints of teamwork among supposedly objective journalists and liberal politicos was said to be muckraking; that these journalists weren’t, in fact, treating politics as a team sport, but were operating objectively. The list’s existence in itself shows that isn’t the case. Several mainstream outlets are well represented among the list members, such as <em>TIME</em> magazine, Politico, the <em>Baltimore Su</em><em>n,</em> and the <em>Washington Post</em>, as well as those from opinion outlets such as The New Republic, Salon, and The Nation. Conspicuous by absence are members of conservative outlets.</p>
<p>Inclusion of conservative members would have been detrimental to the list’s purpose. Members of JournoList corroborated in shaping the narrative on political stories in a manner benefiting the progressive movement. This ranged from outrage over the questioning of Barack Obama by ABC News during a presidential debate, to a discussion on how to handle Sarah Palin’s nomination.</p>
<p>The outrage over the ABC News debate prompted a letter to the network, signed by 45 members of the list, who were upset over the questioning of then-candidate Obama about his connection and relationship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who had repeatedly made racial and other incendiary remarks from the pulpit.</p>
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		<title>Immigration Injustice</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/immigration-injustice/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=immigration-injustice</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Jul 2010 04:47:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The sleazy politics behind Obama's lawsuit against Arizona's new immigration law. ]]></description>
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<p>It’s routine to be disappointed with the leadership in Washington, but the Obama administration’s lawsuit challenging the state of Arizona’s new immigration law sets a new standard for wrongheaded government policy.</p>
<p>The Justice Department made the decision Tuesday to file the suit based on several dubious factors. The administration <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100706/pl_afp/usimmigrationpoliticsarizona_20100706202001">claims</a> the law hampers the ability of the federal government and federal immigration authorities to perform their duties – a claim that puts into perspective the audacity and twisted vision that now prevail within the administration.</p>
<p>The timing of the suit comes on the heels of Sunday’s Mexican elections, which were marred by violence throughout the country. While drug lords gunned down one candidate for governor in an assassination, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703881504575345823253856784.html?mod=WSJ_article_MoreIn">another was photographed with a drug kingpin</a> in a bit of P.R. usually reserved for the most anarchic of third-world states. Another was arrested for using his influence to protect two drug cartels.</p>
<p>Since the election of Mexican president Felipe Calderon in 2006, over 20,000 deaths have been attributed to the drug war. According to war reporter Michael Yon, this is more than in Thailand, a country in a state of civil war. The Mexican drug war has been bleeding over to the U.S. for years, with an 80-mile stretch of parkland along the border deemed no man’s land.</p>
<p>With such pressing issues to the south, one would think Washington would be in a mode to deal with the problem. Instead, the administration is suing the state of Arizona for enforcing federal laws – laws that the federal government has decided not to enforce on its own accord. This decision has led to a political and social crisis among the border states. Under such circumstances, the government would ordinarily feel compelled to act. That is, if there weren’t electoral needs and identity politics to consider.</p>
<p>By attacking the new immigration law, the administration is flying in the face of a 70-percent approval for the measure, according to most recent polling. The suit comes a week after Labor Secretary Hilda Solis made a taped statement promising fair wages to illegals. This at a time when Americans are struggling through record unemployment and are facing greater tax burdens heading into the next year.</p>
<p>This new suit coincides with the administration&#8217;s talk of immigration reform – reform that doesn’t seal the border, or deal with the influx of unskilled migrants overloading civil services, or the deplorable criminal element that is passing in, but of blanket amnesty and no enforcement. Without proper security measures, such reform would usher in a new wave of illegal immigration into the Southwest. Democrats hope this results in a wave of Hispanic voters at the polls.</p>
<p>The situation in Mexico, as well as the immigration issue, are examples of the new and unenviable position in which the American electorate finds itself. The average private citizen is no longer a constituent, but treated as an adversary by some legislators. The immigration battle is an example of how the designs of the progressive president and his party are directly opposite to the wishes of the average American voter.</p>
<p>The immigration debate is also an argument about political relevance. Until Scott Brown’s staggering senatorial upset in liberal Massachusetts, conventional wisdom held that he Republican Party had essentially pigeonholed itself geographically. No longer a factor on the coasts, or the Northeast, the Republican Party consisted of middle and rural America in “flyover country,” as the media forewarned. Limiting oneself to such a base was akin to political suicide.</p>
<p>But demographic polarity goes both ways. Sick of high taxes, demonized in the media, film and television, and angry over broken promises with Medicare and Social Security, the middle class of the Midwest and South has left the Democratic party in droves. To survive its political death in “flyover country,” Democrats are poised to allow amnesty for millions of illegals to insure the party’s sustainability.</p>
<p>The people most affected by this and stand the most to lose are blue-collar workers, those in construction and in service areas, who routinely have their wages undercut by businesses hiring illegals. These workers were the former base of the Democratic Party. The Democratic strategy is doubly nefarious given that illegals, who can not yet vote, are promised wages and benefits that can not be delivered &#8212; not by state governments on the verge of bankruptcy in the west, or by a free market that can’t support such a glut of unskilled labor at a livable wage. To decry these types of politics is to be called a racist, whether referring to the immigration debate, or any of the innumerable issues in Washington DC.</p>
<p>This brand of terse discourse isn’t limited to politicians in the U.S. Mexico has threatened to sue Arizona as well, and drew its own racial implications. While the U.S. has provided an influx of jobs and trade to Mexico through NAFTA, as well as money provided by illegals who send cash back to relatives, Mexican politicians continue to lecture Americans about their own border and immigration policies, despite Mexico’s southern border being nearly militarized. What’s worse, politicians in both parties have acquiesced to this madness through the years. George W. Bush supported amnesty, then attempted through the court to have 50 illegals removed from death row in Texas at the request of former Mexican president Vicente Fox.</p>
<p>The Obama administration’s hand in border security has been unserious at best. The President has pledged just over a 1,000 National Guard troops for border security, without any enforcement powers. It is short of the 6,000 delivered by Bush, a number that dwarfed the actual need. Securing the border should be first priority, followed by streamlining legal immigration measures and cleaning up the war-like conditions on the border.</p>
<p>If politicians on either side want to get serious about the Mexican diaspora, they should begin taking the host country to task. Mexico is one of the richest oil countries, yet the government takes over 70-percent of the industry’s profits. Corruption in government exists on all levels. The United States can offer help, but it should demand that Mexico clean up its mess, and do something to support and employ the lower classes it wishes to push off onto its northern neighbor. In the meantime, the Obama administration’s decision to pick a fight with the one state serious about solving its illegal immigration problem is a step in precisely the wrong direction.</p>
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		<title>Getting America Off the Trough</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/getting-america-off-the-tough/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=getting-america-off-the-tough</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jun 2010 04:00:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Will conservatives have the fortitude to reinstitute fiscal sanity?]]></description>
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<p>News that Congress has failed to draw a budget for the 2011 fiscal year is both unnerving to those hoping for some fiscal sanity out of Washington, as well as indicative of the type of political heat the Democrats are under. The heat shouldn’t matter – leaders are elected to lead in tough times, but the party of the left continues to count on back-dealing and payoff politics to keep itself alive in face of a 2010 midterm juggernaut – all to the detriment of fiscal health.</p>
<p>By refusing to make a budget, the Democrats are pledging that under no circumstances will they cut spending. This is distressing in the face of monstrous deficits and rising debt, as well as a growing natural disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and two continuous overseas wars. This doesn’t take into account the billions needed for whatever emergencies lie in the future.</p>
<p>It also means no end in sight to the irresponsible increases in spending by Washington that has been the hallmark throughout the financial crisis. President Obama has already chided European leaders for instigating austerity measures in the face of growing debt in favor of more stimulus. The signs are clear &#8212; the moderate to center-right majority that makes up the American electorate must come to terms with an administration that has now moved to us closer to the socialists in profligate Europe. It must also come terms with the possibility that they will, under no circumstances, get any relief from a voracious and ever-growing government.</p>
<p>Understanding why Democrats won’t cut spending is to understand what it is to be a Democrat. To cut spending is to cut off their electoral livelihood. Their base is a mantra of political identity and union groups eyeing a place at the trough. Keeping these groups loyal means keeping them on the dole, and doing so means spending tax dollars.</p>
<p>This can include pandering of all stripes and across all levels of government, including Hilda Solis’ recent promise to illegal aliens to get them fair wages, to the pension situation in Illinois, where public employees pay around 10-percent on pensions worth over $1 million. These promises are reprehensible for a variety of reasons &#8211; the outright fiscal irresponsibility, the failure to serve the average taxpayer, and the audacity to make promises that will be near impossible to fulfill in the long term, with no concern of how to do so.</p>
<p>This type of mismanagement should turn off even the most ardent and entrenched public employee, but it doesn’t.</p>
<p>An example of what these consequences can lead to can be seen in Ohio, where officials can’t hide behind the monetary printing press or non-existent budgets. Last year Gov. Ted Strickland of Ohio began cutting to meet the budget, and found himself the target of one of his most supportive groups – librarians.</p>
<p>The battle fit into the simple-minded press narrative that comes into play when spending cuts are made, complete with the requisite newspaper centerpieces showing sad and barren libraries, or the words of little tykes in blockquotes wondering why their libraries are being taken away.</p>
<p>It made for great play across the front pages across the state, and as a result, Strickland took a PR bruise from a group he could count on for support under most circumstances. Strickland, who despite a bad state economy had decent support due to a favorable base, began to lose that base and his approval plummeted at the time. This is the game of payola politics and once you quit paying, you begin to pay yourself.</p>
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		<title>Leaderless</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/leaderless/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=leaderless</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/leaderless/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Jun 2010 04:00:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=63413</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A party needs more than talking points and a legislative check list.]]></description>
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<p>President Obama’s speech on the oil spill has ruffled those on both sides of the political aisle. Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann, both progressive and both hosts on the cable network MSNBC, chided the speech, and were among many to do so on both the Left and Right.</p>
<p>Obama’s election was based on the promise of a new mature and pragmatic leadership. But leadership has been the element missing from Obama’s administration for a year and a half. It’s been missing from the Democratic party for at least a decade.</p>
<p>An example of this can be traced to the early days of the war on terror. One of the many politically related laments of 9/11 for Democrats was the timing. Nine months after Bush took office, the United States was hit with the greatest terrorist attack in its history. But amid the wreckage and the bodies was opportunity, at least to some political experts.</p>
<p>The lament from those now jobless politicos on the left was a “chance for greatness,” something Bill Clinton was denied simply by the timing of the 19 terrorists who bordered airliners that September day, and not, say, a few months sooner. When the comment was uttered, it was believed our engagement in Afghanistan at the time would be an event of a scarcely more than a couple months and a few cruise missiles.</p>
<p>It wasn’t hard to believe officials in the Clinton administration felt this way. Clinton had spent the last four years in office looking for ways to cement his legacy, as if greatness was something that could be achieved on some sort of polling or political grade card.</p>
<p>But to these people, greatness, at least how it existed in the minds of the politically expedient in 2001 and 2002, was simply a matter of political calculation, policy and timing. It had nothing to do with inherent ability, a life of experience, or those certain qualities that exist in the right people.</p>
<p>Maybe this was the moment it became apparent that the Democratic party lost all sense of reality, but it’s evident from that point on the party lost any ability to be a viable political leader in this country. To understanding this, is to understand many of the problems currently in Washington.</p>
<p>Watching the president’s Oval Office address, it was hard not to be struck by this realization. A few words of empathy for victims, workers and the environment were paved over by what was essentially a cold-hearted policy speech draped in the drama of a national emergency. Instead of encouragement, it was the usual stern moral superiority and lecturing of those unfortunate enough to catch Obama on television. Obama had a chance for a fresh start on a disaster that has plagued his presidency &#8212; instead, he spent the better part of his airtime dragging from the dead legislation that has been buried in the Senate for the better part of a year and has nothing to do with the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.</p>
<p>Obama’s election represented an inspiring moment for many Americans, especially those who lived through the civil rights battles of the 50s and 60s; days when blacks and whites couldn’t even use the same bathroom. But as far as rising to the expectations of someone in that position, Obama continuously relies on the contrived and what has been a heartless, teleprompter presidency since the inaugural.</p>
<p>The question becomes: why didn’t we know this sooner? To understand that, one has to understand the media and the circumstances surrounding Obama’s election.</p>
<p>Obama was the historical candidate. He also agreed politically with 90-percent of employed Washington journalists, something that would appear to give any candidate an advantage in the mainstream press. Given public sentiment toward the Iraq War, and the rather odd campaign of John McCain, Obama should have walked away with the election. But polling showed he wasn’t firmly in the lead until after the banking crash in September 2008.</p>
<p>McCain had his own major faults as a candidate, but it would have been interesting to see how Obama would have fared against the Arizona senator had the economic crisis not occurred. But as circumstances provided, as well as a friendly media narrative and a historic amount of campaign cash, we never found out, and a candidate who was generally unscathed except for a few minor instances involving his church, took office.</p>
<p>It’s important to remember what began Obama’s rise in the Democratic party. Not performance, or noted legislation, but a speech he gave at the 2004 national convention. He had no executive experience, had never run a business or even worked as manager in a private enterprise.</p>
<p>In this sense, Obama is the perfect candidate for a party that abandoned any sense of responsibility to lead once polling turned downward in the Iraq War. The opposition party in 2003 won Congress in 2006 and the presidency in 2008. Things should have changed, and the Democrats should have assumed responsibility for the direction of the country.</p>
<p>Instead of taking ownership, the first instinct of the Obama presidency wasn’t to take a tough stance with America’s enemies abroad, but to combat Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Words like “war on terror” or “terrorist” were too tough to use on enemy combatants, but those in charge freely throw around racist to describe their own sign-carrying constituents.</p>
<p>The old adage is “the personal as political.” As noxious as the term is, it could be said of Democrats that there is no longer any personal, only the political. This is a political movement bereft of everything but talking points and a legislative checklist. It’s also a political class on the verge of nihilism.</p>
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		<title>The Futility of Big Government</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/the-futility-of-big-government/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-futility-of-big-government</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Jun 2010 04:05:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A myth drowns slowly in the Gulf. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/oilsoakedbird.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-63042" title="South Korea Oil Spill" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/oilsoakedbird-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" /></a></p>
<p>The old adage was always: “A conservative is a liberal who was mugged by reality.” In just a year, President Obama has been mugged not just by reality, but his own belief in the infallibility of big government.</p>
<p>Disappointment from President Obama’s cult-like following is growing, and it’s easy to see why. It was two years ago this month that Obama uttered his infamous statement on the importance of his election in relation to the environment. “The moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal,” was the phrase Obama used to describe his own nomination.</p>
<p>In a bit of irony even the most humorless should appreciate, Obama’s administration is now mired in the muck of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The man who promised to roll back the rising tide is now swallowed up in the suffocating black crude that’s seeping across the Gulf coast. The man who was supposed to change the climate can’t do anything about it.</p>
<p>However, the problem isn’t just the leak, or Obama’s fix-all campaign rhetoric, but the expectations of the populace. The lesson is that government has its limits, even a seemingly all-powerful entity such as the White House. It is a lesson many are unwilling to learn, even as Washington sits by hopelessly as oil continues to spew throughout the Gulf.</p>
<p>Megan McArdle described this bizarre perception of Obama and government best when she pointed out then-candidate Obama’s habit of blaming of Bush for the state of the economy and trouble on the warfront. Sure, presidents have varying degrees of competency, but to presume that all problems are fixable from the bully pulpit is to deny reality.</p>
<p>Volumes could be written about why voters accept this meme — the idea that a magic man can fix disasters, ups and downs in the economy, or the usual travails of life. This nonsense of an omnipotent government hit its stride immediately after 9/11. A refusal to believe that a massive terrorist attack could take place without the government knowing about it resounded in a significant portion of the population. These expectations carried to Hurricane Katrina, where it was construed that the president didn’t “care enough.”</p>
<p>This belief played a central role in Obama’s election. “Yes, we can” isn’t so much a mantra of individualism but of, “Yes, the government can for you.” It has also raised expectations and doomed Obama’s presidency in the short term. His own results can’t match the expectations of his base, an electorate dying for any real economic improvement, and the promises of his own rhetoric.</p>
<p>The reaction to this new reality has been unsurprising, if not predictable. In a bit of cognitive dissonance, Spike Lee (who happens to be a conspiracist in his own right with respect to Hurricane Katrina) implored Obama to get angry, as if a few choice words on a teleprompter could suck millions of gallons of crude back beneath the earth’s crust. This led to Obama dropping a certain three-letter-word on a television interview during one of the more ridiculous presidential moments in recent memory. Most realize political rhetoric and results are two different matters, but to the true believers, and the regular Joes expecting the president to live up to his own promises, it’s important.</p>
<p>Obama’s history-making election may have made for a longer grace period and his soaring oratory and media image may have bought him time, but it has become apparent after a year and a half that Obama is underachieving by his own lofty and impossible standards. There was the unemployment numbers, promised never to cross 8-percent, which now has hovered near 10-percent for the better part of a year. Not to mention the special interest frenzy that preceded the passage of an unpopular health care bill and the supposedly needed stimulus package, which has done nothing but raise our debt.</p>
<p>Cap that with the Gulf spill, and it is no wonder the electorate is growing restless. Restless enough where <a href="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_froma_harrop/blaming_obama_for_not_being_a_god">some are taking</a> the Obama base to task. “Stopping the waves is a job for Neptune, not a president. Obama cannot raise his trident and force the oil back into the hole. There are things he can do, but they&#8217;re a lot less impressive. Granted, Obama&#8217;s early campaign for president cultivated a myth of his godlike powers. And some still seem to buy into the magic narrative,” said Rasmussen Reports&#8217; Froma Harrop. Granted, but it’s important to note Obama’s myth was of his own making. A myth that’s drowning slowly in the Gulf and taking his presidency down with it. Hopefully this is a lesson to future candidates on what they should promise, and a lesson to voters on what they should demand and expect.</p>
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		<title>Defense on a Dime</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/b-j-bethel/defense-on-a-dime/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=defense-on-a-dime</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 09 Jun 2010 04:01:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[B.J. Bethel]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Will Obama's nanny-state agenda force slashes in military spending? ]]></description>
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<p>Printing money, spending heavily and buying debt may be the prevalent fiscal policy of the current administration (or the past few, to be fair), but it isn’t especially solvent. One need only look at the situation in Greece for evidence. But as American concerns grow over rising debt and deficits, the question becomes: what to tax and what to cut?</p>
<p>For 30 years, the United States has been figuratively drinking Starbucks and Chardonnay on credit. During the Regan years, we spent more than we had and grew the deficit. This made for historic economic growth, as well as victory in the Cold War, but it also spoiled a populace into thinking we could spend as much as we want, have an abundance of social programs on every conceivable level – as well as a first-rate military &#8211; without having to worry about public debt. Those days are over. It’s time to cut back, and judging by the reaction of lawmakers recently, the military is in the sights of more of those in Washington.</p>
<p>According to a recent reports, a group of four lawmakers – Ron Paul (R-Texas), Barney Frank (D-Mass), Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) &#8212; called for deep reductions in defense spending. The call came on the heels of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who two weeks ago called for dramatic cuts in the military budget during a speech at the ever-appropriate Eisenhower Library in Kansas.</p>
<p>Some cuts have already come, the long-awaited F-22 Raptor fighter plane for instance, but more could be on the way. The question then becomes can the U.S. afford two wars, growing domestic obligations and remain a strong deterrent against our enemies?</p>
<p>Reagan’s booming economy drove the Russians to bankruptcy. It wasn’t tanks, but IOUs that the Soviets issued in place of bullets that cleared the way for victory in the Cold War. Twenty years later, the American military is fighting two fronts overseas, maintaining security for a good portion of the globe and doing so with a shrinking manufacturing base and economy to support it. In other words, we’re heading in the same direction that ended in disaster for Russia and the Eastern Bloc 20 years ago.</p>
<p>Security costs a lot, especially when one country is providing so much of it. But Washington is going to measure political costs before security costs. Government employees, bureaucrats, unions – all of whom are in bed with the Democratic Party – have been hostile to the any notion of slowing domestic spending. The slightest mention of the word “cut” sends mobs of angry SEIU protesters to rally at homes and parking garages.</p>
<p>Not that military spending shouldn’t come under scrutiny. Currently, military spending averages about $700 billion a year. To put it another way, it costs the same to protect your rights, life and livelihood as it does to bailout a few banks. But that cost is higher on average then it was during the Gulf War. As in all parts of government, there is never too little fat to trim.</p>
<p>With domestic spending exploding, and every incumbent under increased scrutiny, the politically safe option would be to cut the military, for soldiers don’t generally tear up your front yard, and generals don’t have sit-ins outside your office.</p>
<p>The question then becomes how much do you cut and what do you cut from. There is a troop surge currently underway in Afghanistan. There is a fledgling democracy and a quieting of the insurgency in Iraq. But, even as war Iraq grinds to an end, there is Iran and Pakistan to consider, as well as the deteriorating situation in Yemen. Frank has proposed bringing troops home from overseas bases and he has mentioned Okinawa by name, but is that a reasonable course of action with a hostile (and possibly nuclear-capable) North Korea slamming torpedoes into South Korean ships?</p>
<p>The administration, through Gates, is expected to battle Congress, which will likely fight to keep a new engine program alive for the F-35 fighter, as well as the C-17 cargo plane. This fight will take place in the summer months, between budget hawks and those wanting to keep jobs and programs alive in their districts afloat in the midst of a sagging economy. Whether those programs survive the near-term, the big question remains: how does America fund a world-based military in a rapidly-changing global economic environment?</p>
<p>Maybe it’s time to start sharing the load, but Europe is years away from doing so, even if it was politically willing to. While Greece has gone bankrupt because of early retirements and months of vacations, American’s debt has exploded because of “too-big-to-fail” corporations and financial institutions; guaranteed pensions; out of control entitlement programs and our role as world cop. The democratic socialists in Europe detest our military might, while they simultaneously cling to their compassionate approach to domestic spending. But, it’s far easier to run a nanny-state when the global hegemon is keeping thugs out of your backyard.</p>
<p>Gutting the military now wouldn’t be realistic on several levels, but the day is coming. It’s hard to imagine China continuing to buy our debt if we’re increasingly involved in its sphere, especially with North Korea and other terror-outlets in Southeast Asia. It’s also harder to justify military operations when Medicare is eating away 35-percent of the GDP. Though America is far from being an also-ran on the world scene, there isn’t another post-war economic boom on the horizon, maybe not even a run like the country enjoyed during the 80s and 90s. Harder times will make for harder decisions.</p>
<p>With such days on the horizon, let’s hope our military has the chance to accomplish all it can before the time comes when it will be able to do little more than defend America’s shores.</p>
<p><em>B.J. Bethel is a journalist living in Ohio. He has worked at various daily newspapers as a sports writer, news reporter and editor.</em></p>
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