MMM-Bop Redux

Ol' Vic is at it again. In his latest tirade against Barack Obama, Hanson offers further proof that his skills at proving his argument are counterproductive and his copy editor's ability to analyze product is lame. In an article entitled "Obama Promises Change - But What Kind?", Hanson makes himself out to be nothing more than a conservative shill with a failed political platform of "keep the course".

"By this point in the presidential campaign, the public knows that a charismatic Barack Obama wants sweeping "change." While the national media have often fallen hard for the Illinois senator's rhetoric -- MSNBC's Chris Matthews said he felt a "thrill going up my leg" during an Obama speech -- exactly what kind of change can Obama bring if he's elected in November?."

Questions we all are asking, and many are excited about.

"Foreign Policy

Take Obama's foreign-policy pronouncements, which promise a break with the unhappy past. Two doctrines are most prominent. One is to engage our enemies and be nicer to our allies. The other calls for leaving Iraq on a set timetable.

The problem with the first is that key allies like the conservative French, German and Italian governments -- unlike the days of rage in 2003 -- now embrace pretty much the same policies that we do. Britain and the European Union just called for imposing tougher sanctions on Iran, while both France and Britain promise to send more troops to Afghanistan.

In Feb. 2007, Sen. Obama called for American troops out of Iraq by March 2008. But in the last four months since that proposed final departure, violence is way down as the U.S. military and Iraqi army have stabilized much of the country.

The world in January 2009 will not be the same as it was in February 2007. So would a President Obama really engage Iranian President Ahmadinejad just as the Europeans are isolating him, or give up on Iraq when the American military may well gradually draw down in victory, not defeat?"

I'm glad for Hanson that he thinks the U.S. and Europe are pals again. Based on what evidence, however, is Bush is still not liked. Sarkhozy (sp) in France is as popular as Tony Blair was when he left - not. So, according to Hanson, because Bush has made friends with unpopular (and as of now, completely ineffective) leaders, he's on good stead again? Angela Merkel, who entered the German presidency with high hopes for the U.S. has continuedly shown the president the cold shoulder. Gordon Brown of Breat Britain has found his own voice, which he delivered last week, in NOT fully agreeing with Bush on troop movements in Afghanistan. And when Hanson states the European nation's "promise to send more troops", simply sending twelve more unarmed people to the region does nothing. What Hanson and Bush either don't see or publicly acknowledge is the European people's outright hatred for the American president. They see him as a simpleton and a fool and anxiously await the election of someone other than another neoconservative hack. The leaders of those nations understand this and govern accordingly. Imagine if our own president carried out the will of his own people?
What I also love about this paragraph is how Hanson can not discuss Iran without connecting it to Iran. Maybe sitting in the Hoover Institution he and his fellow neocon wonks all along pushed for war in Q to get to R but Iran as a regional threat needs to be dealt with on its own, not simply because it is threatening to make even more of a disaster of Bush's Iraq policy. Or, try this on for size? Maybe, just maybe, in dealing with Iran on its own will be able to diffuse the sectarian and political meddling N has carried out in Q for the last four years. Hanson, if you can't see diplomatic and political relationships outside of a Manachean usandiraq and the restofthem, then you continue to exhibit the failed international viewpoint your leaders have used to destabilize our nation's security and of the Middle East.

"Energy

Gas prices are soaring. Americans are frustrated (and a bit ashamed) that we continue to beg the Saudis to pump another half-million barrels a day on their soil and off their shores to ease global tight supplies, when we could pump much more than that in Alaska, off our coasts and on the continental shelf -- and thus save hundreds of billions of dollars.

Yet Sen. Obama's change probably wouldn't include more drilling; more nuclear power plants; or fuel extraction from tar sands, shale or coal. Instead, his strategy emphasizes more conservation; mass transit; and wind, solar and alternate green energy. All that is certainly wise and could be a winning combination by 2030, but right now it won't fill our tanks."

Where to start? While liberals are attacked for their (possibly) wrong-headed attempts to promote conservation at a time when most people can only think of their pocketbooks, Hanson plows into Obama for only thinking in the longterm. "Right now it won't fill our tanks"; what does he want - cheap gas or a permanent solution to a century-old problem? Plus, all we're hearing from the GOP is "drill drill drill" and for the government to lay off speculators driving up futures markets. Well, drill drill drill only makes people happy - those who work for oil companies. Besides, the motherlode of all untapped reserves, ANWR, will not be able to provide oil from the ground in a minimum of EIGHT years. EIGHT. Obama will have served his two terms before Bush's oil even gets to your gas tank. How's that for short term fix? McCain, ever the maverick, with his own thinking and his own mind goes on to say this. Yet another wily lie pushed by conservatives to make the other side look like it's stonewalling. If Obama's nothing but the same old thing, I'd like to see you and yours, Vic, offer something slightly more original than drill drill drill and then invade invade invade.

"Taxes

Sen. Obama also wishes to raise trillions in new taxes by upping the capital gains margins, restoring inheritance taxes, raising the income rates on the upper brackets and lifting the income caps on Social Security payroll taxes. Such an old-fashioned soak-the-rich plan will please a strapped public tired of overpaid CEOs and Wall Street jet setting.

Yet forcing the affluent to pay even more won't necessarily reduce annual deficits of the last eight years or pay down the huge national debt -- not when Obama promises more vast entitlements in health care, education and housing and current aggregate federal revenues were increased by past tax cuts that spurred economic growth."

At least Hanson didn't say that the middle class would pay out of the nose. Because that's what's happening now. A $1200 rebate check isn't going to make up for decades of the tax burden the super-rich refuse to contribute. Hanson here is also being disingenuous when saying those in the "upper brackets" will see their taxes raised. Obama has proposed tax hikes on the top half of the highest one percent of income earners in this country. Make a couple of million dollars a year? Right; you have nothing to worry about, either. Plus, "soak the rich"? Give me a frigging break. Obama ain't FDR, though Hanson's doing his best to come off as another Caughlin, though instead of being anti-semitic, he's anti-populist and elitist. The issue isn't dollar-per-dollar equity payments, it's about tax equity. I've ranted enough in previous blogs about how the super wealthy have been able to avoid equitibly contributing for as long as we've known. Besides, tax increases will be seen by roughly two groups of income earners: CEOs and the Hollywood type. CEOs have been gaming the system for at least a decade and a half, with profits 400% than their average employers. The majority of Hollywood, stereotypically, is liberal. Many give to causes and push an activist government that spends tax increases on pet projects; they don't seem to complain, do they?

"Yet forcing the affluent to pay even more won't necessarily reduce annual deficits of the last eight years or pay down the huge national debt"
This I gotta spend more time on. How can Hanson as a conservative, give his own boys for the last three out of four adminstrations (the last TWENTY out of 28 years and NOT the one administration that actually created budget surplusses)?????? Hanson can't have it both ways: you can't tax and spend but then again who really cares about reckless tax-cut and spending? No matter what, conservatives like Hanson have tilted the board to keep Democrats from being able to simply have a fair shake at playing the game. If and when Obama raises taxes, we all know the right wing will be screaming bloody murder that the government's coming to take our women next and yet never once raise the issue of accountability when in positions of power. Where have the Grovers and Jarvises been these last eight years? By the way, can someone tell Hanson that the only economic growth spurred by the tax cuts was for those that received them.


"Sen. Obama promises a new style of politics that is issue-based, rather than attack-dog. But so far, he has campaigned in conventional fashion: He's tough on his opponents and as prone to overstatements and mischaracterizations as any other candidate.

The take-no-prisoners Moveon.org, which gave us the "General Betray Us" ads, is now an ally running third-party hit pieces on John McCain. Such outside help is customary in an election but seems inconsistent with Obama's disavowals of the hardball politics of the past.

Sen. Obama has promised a new dialogue on race and tolerance. His own impressive personal journey may make that possible. But his 20-year intimate relationship with the racist Rev. Jeremiah Wright suggests that for years he was heavily invested in the rather tired and predictable identity politics of grievance rather than a vocal advocate of novel racial transcendence.

Overall, Obama's announced policies are sounding pretty much the same old, same old once promised by candidates like George McGovern, Mike Dukakis, Walter Mondale, Al Gore and John Kerry. Of course, a return to the standard big-government nostrums of the past may well be what the angry voters want after 20 years of the Bushes and Clintons. But it is not a novel agenda, much less championed by a post-racial, post-political emissary.

So what are the Democrats thinking? That a mesmerizing, path-breaking African-American candidate -- coupled with Bush exhaustion -- will overcome past public skepticism of Northern presidential Democratic candidates, traditional liberal agendas and Obama's own relative lack of experience.

In other words, we should count on hope rather than change."

When worse comes to worse, continue with logical fallacies and straw men arguments. Let's attack MoveOn because there's nothing yet to hit Obama with. Firstly, why isn't Obama allowed to hammer the hell out of the other side? Look at the swaths of destruction created by the Right; why not continually remind Americans of the last eight years of failure in order to get them to awaken from their lethargy? Secondly, MoveOn can do whatever it darn well wants. It's a political interest group, NOT a 527, which means it will independently act and not pull maneuvers seen by the GOP in '04. McCain won't need to be swiftboated; people will vote against him for his positions and politics already offered. Why hasn't Hanson focused on the issues that Obama HAS presented that do forge a new path for the nation? Health care? Foreign policy alterations are practically revolutionary compared to current policies. Bipartisanship has been equated to the word Munich since '94 and the rise of the conservative punditocracy. Besides, what happens to be wrong with the promotion of an inexperienced politician that is well-educated and charismatic, one whose spouse offers fresh and independent-minded contributions to political issues, who can encourage and inspire the multitudes with a vision of the future instead of a retread of failure? It happened to work on a historic level in 1932, didn't seem too bad in '36, nor '40 and even '44. It worked in 1960. To even give credit to the analogy, it even worked in 1980. And yet, here's Victor Davis Hanson wishing to see nothing but the status quo simply because any sort of change is change in the wrong direction. I continue to hope and pray that he educates his students and writes his books better than he pushes policy.