Richard Nixon

The heck with Obamacare—there’s an even more unconstitutional law that Congress should repeal, if Republicans recapture the House and Senate in numbers large enough to override a veto.

It’s long past time for the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act, passed by Congress in 1970 and signed into law by President Nixon, to be dispensed with. The Act, which banned tobacco advertising on television and radio in the United States, was a blatant violation of the First Amendment and should never have been enacted. The law represented political correctness even before political correctness had an official name. A conservative Congress should send it to the ashtray of history.

If America can tolerate alcohol and fast food ads on television, why can’t the country tolerate tobacco advertising? If more Americans start smoking because tobacco ads return to the airwaves, where’s the tragedy? Only the gullible will fall for such marketing.

If you have a moment, go to Youtube and take a look at some of the old commercials for Winston, Tareyton, Salem and Kool. Those commercials were innovative, funny, witty, creative gems from the Mad Men era. Why not bring those commercials back? Who would be harmed by such advertising?

What gave the government the right to say tobacco commercials could not be aired? What gave Congress and President Nixon the authority to suppress the liberties of tobacco companies? Why can’t those companies advertise where they see fit?

Repealing the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act is about freedom. I don’t like the tobacco companies, and I’ve never used any of their products; when I was a child, and I saw “Newport—Alive with Pleasure!” ads around my neighborhood, I knew that using too many Newports would leave me dead with pain. However, discomfort with Big Tobacco cannot justify an assault upon corporate rights.

Republicans, you know what to do. The Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act was fundamentally flawed. The GOP must get rid of this profoundly bad law.

Ok, it’s just like we talked about months ago, when rumors of Barack Hussein Obama’s back up plan for Cap and Tax started surfacing. Obama, never one to do anything out in the open when something underhanded will serve, is going to tax the very life out of you and your family. He is going to accomplish, by regulatory fiat, that which he could not accomplish legislatively.

Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo, talks about efforts to block the EPA from imposing climate regulations.

The Environmental Protection Agency is a non-elected unaccountable bureau of radical environmentalists, whose very existence has become a liability for America’s economy and, ultimately, our security. The EPA was started in 1970 by then President Richard M. Nixon, to implement laws and regulations applying to personal or environmental issues at the direction of Congress. Since 1970 the EPA has become a gigantic bureaucratic quagmire, stealthily winding its tentacles throughout the fabric of the nation.

The agency exists to ensure its own survival. It feeds on the vitals of the country, destroying business and job creation through hundreds of thousands of pages of punitive regulations and decrees that affect every single American. These are not the decisions of lawmakers or other elected officials. They are the pronouncements of faceless agency bureaucrats. Where in our Constitution are these 18,000 EPA minions getting their authority? What they intend to do is no less than to implement Cap and Tax through regulation.

The list of Democrat Senators that supported this scheme will be very informative, come November. Just in case you forget, we’ll be around to remind you that every single Senator that supports this can expect to answer to their voters. These days, that could easily translate to being thrown out of office.

It’s time to get out the phones/faxes and emails again. Get a hold of your (or anybody’s) Representative or Senator and tell them exactly what you think about their environmental nazism.

Semper Vigilans, Semper Fidelis

© Skip MacLure 2010

Sometimes, it’s hard to tell what the American right is for. However, it’s always easy to tell what the American right is against. 

One of conservatism’s lingering problems—a problem that forestalls the expansion of the conservative philosophical franchise—is the right’s image as an entity excessively hostile to every social change that has taken place in this country since the 1950s. Too often, it seems to outsiders that the right is forever attempting to move the country back to a time before “activist” Supreme Courts, widespread racial and religious diversity and political outspokenness by younger Americans.

The left has often accused Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan of making appeals to a mythical past, but if you look closely at their speeches, both Nixon and Reagan embraced the past and the future. In their rhetoric, the 37th and 40th Presidents made clear that we should not reject every element of America’s past, but that the days ahead could be even better than the days before. The controversies of Vietnam and Watergate have allowed progressives to overlook the hopefulness of Nixon’s rhetoric in his 1968 and 1972 Presidential campaigns; in both battles, Nixon emphasized that he would both preserve what was great about our history and ensure as many Americans as possible enjoyed the country’s blessings going forward.

While Reagan clearly had a traditionalist take on cultural affairs, he was careful not to come across as a slouching-towards-Gomorrah culture-war curmudgeon; his speeches were profound in their patriotism and overt in their optimism, routinely communicating the point that America was born great and would only become greater over time. Reagan made Americans feel that they should never lose faith in their country, despite the tremendous cultural upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s; in his view, America had certainly changed, but it had never declined.

Now, decline seems to be the central theme of conservative rhetoric. It’s as though too many folks on the right have taken their cues from a figure connected to the Nixon and Reagan administrations: Pat Buchanan.

I’ve never understood Buchanan’s appeal: from the time I first started paying serious attention to politics, he always struck me as someone who wanted to be an Al Sharpton figure for working-class whites, as opposed to someone who wanted to be a champion of conservative philosophy. The adulation Buchanan used to receive from some segments of the right always seemed strange; in my view, he was too obnoxious to warrant anything other than fringe support.

The left has long claimed that Buchanan’s infamous “culture war” speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention doomed President George H. W. Bush’s chances for re-election. I profoundly disagree—because the speech was simply too boring to have any real effect on anybody. It was a compendium of gripes: all Buchanan did in the speech was whine and moan about liberal judges, feminists, gay activists, environmentalists and every other putative predator of conservative principles. There was virtually nothing in the speech about what President Bush would do to turn around the economy or, God forbid, actually limit the size, scope and power of the federal government. It was nothing more than the lamentation of a loser in the culture war. (The speech also featured this explicit lie: “George Bush is a defender of right-to-life, and lifelong champion of the Judeo-Christian values and beliefs upon which this nation was built.” Evidently, the Bush that was a pro-choice, rhetorically secular Rockefeller Republican never existed.)

The spirit of Buchanan-style grievance-based conservatism—the spirit of negativity, of pessimism, of resentment towards anything that can be construed as being borne of the “elites”—seems to have possessed a fair number of bodies on the right these days. Can you recall the last time a prominent figure on right-leaning radio or television expressed the view that America will remain great despite the current activities of President Obama and the Democratic Party? Can you recall the last time a Republican House or Senate member communicated the same optimism about this country’s future that Reagan and Nixon used to express? Do you remember the last time anyone affiliated with the right declared that America’s best days are yet to come?

There is a cult of grievance on the American right today. Members of this cult have a raging anger against legal, journalistic, academic and entertainment-based progressivism, coupled with a strong sense of pessimism that anything can be done about the left’s political and cultural gains. Somebody had better leave this cult and find some optimism somewhere—preferably, in ideas and proposals that represent a positive, conservative alternative to the Obama vision.  Those who don’t leave this cult of grievance will inevitably find themselves in a political Jonestown—right before the Flavor-Aid is passed around.

www.blogtalkradio.com/drtucker

I've posted before on the surreal Chris Dodd "now you see 'em;  now you don;t" "disclosure" of his Counrtywide mortgage documents.

The day after, the Wall Street Journal agreed with yours truly that this was a gambit of Nixonian deception. calling it a "modified, limited mortgage hangout"

Well, rather than make this an hourly ticker of reaction to this bizarre event, I've allowed a few days to let the dust settle, and I must say I'm feeling a lot more aligned with conventional wisdom on this than one I am accustomed to feeling; Take this morning's Hartford Courant  editorial

  Sen. Dodd Disappoints

Countrywide Fiasco • Releases documents, but fails to admit his error in judgment

Seven months after a magazine article disclosed that Sen. Christopher Dodd was among several high-profile federal officials who got loans on favorable terms from now-failed mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp., he has sought to set the record straight. It was a disappointing performance.On Monday, Connecticut's senior senator and his wife, Jackie Clegg Dodd, held a press conference at which they released documents related to the refinancing of the couple's Washington and East Haddam homes. They also made a detailed defense against claims they got special treatment.The couple announced that they're going to refinance both homes, this time through a third party, "to try and insulate ourselves against an accusation that we're trying to get some special deal." Mr. Dodd also apologized to the people of Connecticut for not releasing the documents sooner.Yet he doesn't admit that accepting the loans was an error in judgment. Instead, he seems to be apologizing for political miscalculations. 

The Courant points out the documents Dodd refuses to share with the CT public "were scrawled with the letters "FOA," a reference to Friends of Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide's chief executive at the time"

Senator Dodd admits he knew he was receiving "enhanced customer service" from Countrywide, yet seems painfully obtuse to the glaring problem that it's rather clear the only reason such "enhanced customer service" was offered to him was by virtue of his senior position on the Senate Banking Committee. 

If the idea was an hour of invitation only viewing by the press was going to result in Senator Dodd recovering his public standing in CT; well, it failed.  See also this  , this and this

Perhaps Dodd ought to have looked at a similar effort to address a crisis a politician faced concering his personal finances. In 1952, a young U.S. Senator faced charges he had personally profited from holding public office. And Richard Nixon didn't explain himself before some hastily assembled closed star chamber of the local California media. He put the "Checkers speech" on national television.      

He followed with a complete financial history of his personal assets, finances, and debts, including his mortgages, life insurance, and loans, all of which had the effect of painting him as living a rather austere lifestyle. He denied that his wife Pat had a mink coat; instead, she wore a "respectable Republican cloth coat."

I suspect Senator Dodd couldn;t do this, since even in an affluent state like CT very few of his constituents own three homes, including a vacation retreat in Ireland.     Remarkable how someone who has never worked in the private sector can accumulate vast wealth, isn't it. 

Still,had Dodd held a timely, public open exposition of his personal finances, however, funky the specifics might be; he'd have at least earned some points for being willing to man up and take his lumps. But the game of charades he's playing makes him look like yet another dissembling politician trying to scam the voters.

Chris Dodd really ought to look at the career of Richard Nixon. The Checkers Speech was a runaway success.    The "modified limited hangout" was an unmitigated political disaster. But this is the path Senator Dodd has taken. Which is deeply ironic for a politician first elected as a "Watergate baby" in 1974;  the circle has made a full cycle; has it not?

About the time Chris Dodd was starting his career in Washington this guy was finishing his up in Southeast Asia. Yep, the cycle may have come full circle.

The Dark Arts of Politics has an undeserved bad rap.  To begin, let's quote the classic master:

My view is that it is desireable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than loved.

Next, let's quote the modern master: 

People react to fear, not love --they don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.  

While it doesn't hurt to give voters a positive reason to vote for you (and it frequently helps) the most important thing to do in any election is the make the voters hate the other guy more.  The Dark Arts are an absolutely essential component of any successful politcal campaign/movement. A brief history of successful recent Republican Presidential campaigns shows this to be so.

In 1968, the Presidential election occured against the failure of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.  Johnson's welfare policies, aided and abetted by local politicians like New York's John Lindsay, gutted economic activity in America's cities.  Various Supreme Court Decisions, also abetted by local politicians like Lindsay, gutted the ability of local police forces to fight crime.  Taxes, Crime, and Welfare were all up; the result was urban riots across America.  When citizens objected to this state of affairs, politicans like Lindsay called them racist.  In addition, the cultural excesses of the hippie generation horrified many more traditional Americans.  People legitmately resented what was happening around them.

Against this background, Richard Nixon realized that most Americans were ordinary people trying to raise their family and live a good life.  Americans deserved respect and would vote for a politician who gave it to them; that was the origin of Nixon's 'Silent Majority.'  Nixon was able to channel the frustrations listed above to form a new political coalition as blue collar Democrats abandonded their ancestral party in droves.

The contrast between the respective parties' conventions that year is telling.  In a (reasonably) orderly manner, Republicans nominated Nixon and adopted a party platform promising 'law and order' and 'peace with honor [in Vietnam].'  Democrats, by contrast, were barely able to nominate a candidate and had a riot outside their convention.  When one party has an orderly convention and the other has a riot, why shouldn't the non-riot party campaign on law and order?

In 1972, Democrats handed Nixon a gift by nominating the candidate of Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion on a platform of "Come Home America."  Republicans countered by pointing out that the Democrat Party "has been seized by a radical clique which scorns our nation's past and would blight her future."  Nixon won a 49 state landslide.  Need I say more?!?

Reagan's use of the Dark Arts are particularly fascinating.  In the context of the Machiavelli quote listed above, Reagan was one of the few leaders who genuinely made himself BOTH Loved AND Feared.  Reagan's sunny optimism and the fact that he was ultimately a successful President cause us to forget that he was also willing to play political hardball when he had to.

In 1980, shortly after the Republican Convention, Reagan appeared in Philadelphia Mississippi and gave a speech that has been taken out of context by liberals ever since.  In this speech, Reagan made the pedestrian statement that:

I believe in states’ rights. I believe in people doing as much as they can for themselves at the community level and at the private level. And I believe that we’ve distorted the balance of our government today by giving powers that were never intended in the Constitution to that federal establishment.

Taken in context, it's obvious this was a simple statement about the role of the Federal govt. in economic policy.  While the content of Reagan's statement shows no racial meaning, he had to know it would antagonize the left.  This statement led liberals to characterize Reagan supporters (and working class soft Carter supporters) as racist.  This, in turn, fed on the same resentments Nixon did in a much more subtle way.  On top of that, Reagan did it with a smile on his face.  Simply brilliant!

Reagan's re-election campaign actually used the dark arts far more liberally than his first race.  At the convention, in Dallas, Reagan's U.N. Ambassador assailed the moral equvalence of San Francisco Democrats: 

They said that saving Grenada from terror and totalitarianism was the wrong thing to do - they didn't blame Cuba or the communists for threatening American students and murdering Grenadians - they blamed the United States instead.But then, somehow, they always blame America first.When our Marines, sent to Lebanon on a multinational peacekeeping mission with the consent of the United States Congress, were murdered in their sleep, the "blame America first crowd" didn't blame the terrorists who murdered the Marines, they blamed the United States.But then, they always blame America first.When the Soviet Union walked out of arms control negotiations, and refused even to discuss the issues, the San Francisco Democrats didn't blame Soviet intransigence. They blamed the United States.But then, they always blame America first.When Marxist dictators shoot their way to power in Central America, the San Francisco Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States policies of 100 years ago.But then, they always blame America first.

Kirkpatrick's truthful declaration was not the only instance of the Dark Arts in Dallas that year.  At a prayer breakfast on the morning of his acceptance speech, Reagan told 17,000 Texans about the absurdity of how, thanks to liberal judges

we passed a special law in the Congress just a few weeks ago to allow student prayer groups the same access to schoolrooms after classes that a young Marxist society, for example, would already enjoy with no opposition.

Finally, in an election that also saw the greatest postive ad of all time, Reagan's Bear in the Woods ad was one of the greatest examples of electoral fearmongering I've ever seen.

Moving along to 1988, it's worth noting that most of the hits on Dukakis were self inflicted.  No one told Dukakis to call himself a card carrying member of the ACLU, not care about his wife getting raped and killed, or ride around looking like a doofus in that tank.  That said, it's time to discuss Willie Horton.

One of the great myths of modern politics is that the Willie Horton ad was somehow racist.  It wasn't racist, it was about crime and Dukakis' record on that topic.  It's true that Horton was a convicted murderer.  It's true that Dukakis furloughed him 10 times.  It's true that Horton assaulted two innocent people.  It's also true that that ad would have been just as effective had Willie Horton looked like this guy.  How was this not fair game?

In 2000, John McCain already had a long running fued with the Religious Right over Campaign Finance Reform.  McCain was the one who threatened to shut them down if they got in his way.  They had every right to hit back.

George W. Bush successful re-election campaign was notable to students of the Dark Arts for two reasons.  First, the swift boat veterans played an essential role in getting out the truth about John Kerry.  While some of the claims of what happened in Vietnam were disputed (and never setteled), no one can deny John Kerry's activities when he returned from Vietnam.  Given that the man lied about what American troops did in Vietnam to the U.S. Congress, isn't this something the American people have a right to know?

Finally, 2004 is notable because, more than any time since 1864, Americans had a genuine reason to feel afraid.  While Democrats like to whine about this fact, the simple fact is that who will keep you safe was a legitimate topic for a devestating ad.

So what does this all mean?

1) Opportunities for the Dark Arts arise from genuine problems.  That's why we shouldn't feel bad about using them.  To use some examples from the past 40 years:

- Why shouldn't people be afraid of rising crime?

- Why shouldn't people resent welfare recipents living off their taxes while they struggle to get by?

- If some liberal judge wants to make them get their kids up an hour early so they can get bused to some far off school, why should they accept it?

- If a sitting Governor gives some convicted felon a weekend furlough, why shouldn't said Governor be held accountable?  Why is that racist?

- If a sitting senator votes against a critical homeland security measure, shouldn't he get called on it?

2) The left is the aggressor in the culture wars.  They're the ones who want to take God out of the public square.  They're the ones who want six year olds to attend gay weddings.  They're the ones proposing taxpayer subsidized abortion.  Why should we feel bad about fighting back?  The tactics the left hates so much basically involves us calling them out on who they really are and telling the public what they really want to do.  What's wrong with that?

3) George W. Bush's Anti-Terrorist policies have worked.  In the next year, Obama will face politically difficult decisions regarding Patriot Act renewal, Guantanamo Bay, and surging in Afghanistan.  If Obama continues Bush's policies, we should quietly work with him to give him the votes he needs in Congress while letting him take the heat from his base.  On the other hand, if he chooses to discontinue any of these vital policies, we should come at him with everything we've got.  If this happens, there should be no hesitation to point out that "Barack Obama does not care about Americans' safety.  It's too soon to tell how this will play out, but we should be prepared for either possibility.

4) We really do love America more than they do.  I know it's not politically correct to say, but after 9/11 conservatives did this while liberals did this.  A couple weeks ago Joel Stein (of all people) penned this amazingly perceptive and surprisingly honest column.  Stein admits:

Conservatives feel personally blessed to have been born in the only country worth living in. I, on the other hand, just feel lucky to have grown up in a wealthy democracy. If it had been Australia, Britain, Ireland, Canada, Italy, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Japan, Israel or one of those Scandinavian countries with more relaxed attitudes toward sex, that would have been fine with me too.

While his statement about sex was particularly pompus and obnoxious, this entire paragraph (and column) is revealing.  Liberals don't wear articles of clothing with American Flags; Conservatives do.

On a similar note, I would never have had my kids baptized by this guy.  I would never work with this guy on education.  That's why Michelle Bachman is my hero.

Ok, I've said a mouthful.  Comments on this one should be interesting.

Thoughts/Suggestions???