Christina’s Common Sense

For all his years in politics, John McCain seems not to understand that his business is the game of rewarding your friends and punishing your enemies. In fact, he frequently gets it backwards.

Today, McCain has issued a decree to pull an anti-Obama ad in North Carolina featuring Rev. Wright. McCain claimed it to be dishonorable and says he wants to run an honorable campaign. Apparently, that means not calling out the fact that your opponent has listened—or not listened, depending on who you believe—to his preacher calling for God to damn America.

An “honorable campaign” does not mean letting your opponent walk all over you. That is not honor, it’s suicide. Having served a couple of decades in the Navy, McCain should know a thing or two about honor. There is nothing dishonorable about calling out your opponent’s mistakes. That is politics. If McCain can’t deal with that, he should go find another job.

Linda Daves, chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, has said that she will run the ad anyway because it’s her job to point out the weaknesses of the Democrat party. When Norah O’Donnell accused her of playing the race card, Daves replied that it has nothing to do with race and that as chair of the North Carolina Republican Party, it’s her duty to do what’s best for the party.

John McCain should drop to his knees and thank God that his opponents are so maladroit. Otherwise, strategies like this would ensure his defeat in November.

Whenever I read a conservative book, I like to put on my liberal hat (yes, I do have one) and see how well the author can convince me. So the question for Steven F Hayward in The Real Jimmy Carter was: could he convince me, a diehard hemophiliac liberal Jimmy Carter lover that the object of my admiration is detrimental to my country?

The answer, sadly, was not really. While Hayward’s book is easy to read, not terribly long, and a well-done work, he offers little of which my liberal hat wouldn’t already be aware. I already knew that Carter wasn’t a great president, but that he tried really hard (and as a liberal, that’s what matters to me). The fact that Carter’s good friends with Yasser Arafat is perfectly fine in my book. When Hayward criticizes Carter’s criticizing the Bush administration, I see that as Carter just doing his job. Hayward said almost nothing to dissuade me from my adoration of St. Jimmy.

However, when I took off my liberal hat and put on my conservative one, Hayward did a great job. Despite his inability to persuade my inner liberal, he really does marshal good evidence and arguments in his defense (and that shouldn’t count against him; what do such things matter to a liberal?). He cites unflattering characterizations of Carter by his White House and campaign staffers, plus contemporary news accounts of Carter’s meddling with current affairs, both of which are excellent insights into Carter. These debunk the perception of Carter as a righteous saint and show him instead to be a self-righteous loser.

So on the conservative end of things, Hayward hits a home run. On the liberal end, he walks to first. Still, The Real Jimmy Carter isn’t a bad read, if you’re already convinced that Carter was an awful president and are just looking for some affirmation. Or if your history prof happens to assign it.

Well.

I didn’t have a high opinion of Time Magazine before. Now it’s so low it would need to go up to reach zero.

In an upcoming issue, Time has ditched the red border in favor of a green one. The reason, of course, is to make green “the new red, white & blue.”

That’s dumb, but really nothing new from the eco-freaks. But what has me en fuego is the picture on the cover, which depicts the famous Iwo Jima flagraising photo with a pine tree in place of the flag. According to the magazine’s editor, “There needs to be a real effort along the lines of World War II to combat climate change.”

Yes. Your monitor is working.

I’m not hopping mad about this just because Iwo Jima happens to be my favorite WWII battle (but I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t a factor). I’m not even hopping mad because the idea that global warming is a crisis on par with Pearl Harbor is ludicrous (even though it is). I’m hopping mad because this picture puts environmentalists In the same category as the Marines who fought on Iwo. They’re not, and only a fool would think they are. Time has some nerve belittling the sacrifice that allows them to make such wrongheaded statements. I hope they hear from some Marines about it. But somehow, I don’t think I have to worry.

Sometimes I think I ought to become a reporter so I can go to the Press Correspondents’ Dinner. It might be worth it to witness speeches like this.

Dick Cheney, making fun of the press and himself:

Mitt Romney, on why he dropped out:

Or maybe I should get myself into a position where I could give one of the speeches.

I blogged the other day about how government-run healthcare is an unmitigated disaster for Europe and Canada, and it will be for us too. However, that’s not to say our current system isn’t also a disaster—it is. Would we have a call for socialized medicine—excuse me, universal healthcare—if our current system was doing everything right?

When you ask “What’s the problem with American healthcare?” The response will doubtless be, “Not enough people are insured.” According to the 2005 US Census, about 15% of the American public does not have health insurance. That means about 85 %—8-9 out of 10 people—do have health insurance. And really, that’s a good percentage. To listen to the Democrats this year, you’d think 85% of the American public wasn’t covered.

Now let me ask; does insurance really make your life easier? But of course it does! It pays for everything from chemotherapy to a tonsillectomy to an MRI to a routine physical. For $5, you can go see the doctor. Isn’t that a good deal?

Well, not really, according to Jonathan Kellerman at the Wall Street Journal. If you believe Kellerman, American healthcare will benefit if we have fewer people insured. Health insurance, responding to our demand that it cover everything, has done so. But at what cost? The cost of rising co-pays for patients and impossible paperwork for doctors. And contrary to popular belief, health insurance makes doctor visits more expensive. They can’t cover every runny nose for free, so they gaffe you for more than you’ll ever use. We don’t need more insurance—we need less. Less insurance will, by Kellerman’s analysis, drive down the cost of healthcare and make it more available. And isn’t that what we all want?

What do you think of the Vietnam War?

If you’re like most Americans, you don’t think highly of it. And why should you? For over a decade our country was embroiled in a war that was a resounding defeat. Not only that, but the American military flagrantly disregarded international law, engaged in indiscriminate killing of civilians, and committed genocide against the North Vietnamese. Right?

If that’s what you think, you need to read America in Vietnam.

I will not kid you. This book is drier than the Sahara in July. But it is an excellent look into how Vietnam’s legacy does not match up with its reality. It’s really very impressive work, especially considering that Guenter Lewy is a political scientist (at The Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy, no less) and not a historian. Also, unlike most people who dare take America’s side in the Vietnam conflict, Lewy is no apologist for the war. It’s very hard to tell from the book which side he is on, as he spends the first half of the book raking Gen. Westmoreland over the coals and spends the second half pointing out what fools the historians and academics have made of themselves in post-Vietnam years (which, at the time the book was written, was only about 5).

If you want to know the side of Vietnam your overgrown hippie history professor doesn’t want you to see, you should read America in Vietnam. In fact, even if you are the overgrown hippie history professor, you should read America in Vietnam. It will provide a different perspective that has been largely buried for over 30 years.

The government has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence to run anything. From car registration to education to its own (all too numerous) agencies, the government has done nothing but make life more complicated, more expensive, and lower in quality. Yet for some reason there seems to be this idea that when it comes to extending health coverage to every living human being in the country, government will miraculously be cured of its inherent flaws.

This notion, of course, has been proven wrong many times by our neighbors across the pond, who now have such a healthcare crisis that they are implementing steps to return to a more free market healthcare system.

The problems with British healthcare include do-it-yourself tooth extractions, critically ill patients being left in ambulance holding patterns while they wait for a doctor to become available, and mandating that patients discuss only one illness per visit. As if that weren’t enough proof, Canadians (who also have universal healthcare) are coming to the US to get the medicine they need—and some of them are suing their government to pick up the tab.

American healthcare is a mess. I won’t deny that. But we must not confuse the need to fix it with the idea that it is the government’s job to do so. How much would you trust a friend who kept letting you down? Better yet, how long would he be your friend? Not long, I’ll bet. So why do we trust the government when it keeps letting us down and its programs are shown not to work? I can’t see why. Our healthcare system needs help, but government action is demonstrably not the answer.

The Boston Red Sox had their home opener last Tuesday, and I just had to be in Michigan. However, since they were playing the Tigers the game was carried out here, and I got to see the last part after spending 2 ½ hours in Constitutional Law Hell. Unfortunately I missed the beginning and therefore the flyover. It would seem that I missed a very eventful flyover.

It’s been said, “There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.” Into which category does this poor chap fall? You be the judge.

My friends in the service have a saying: Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. If you can’t figure out what it means, Google it. It’s about the best thing I can think of to describe the latest shenanigans of the environmental movement.

There has perennially been a call to outlaw/ban incandescent light bulbs because of their supposed drain on the environment. Unfortunately for the likes of GreenPeace and Earth First!, too many people are sensitive to fluorescent light, the only viable alternative at this point, to make a ban on incandescent viable. Now we’ve got compact fluorescent bulbs, which are like a fluorescent bulb except smaller, hence the name. These bulbs burn 70% less energy and last much longer than incandescents. But they have one catch: they contain mercury.

Mercury, of course, is toxic. This isn’t really a big deal since there’s only a small amount of it sealed up in the light bulb anyway, right? That’s true—provided the light bulb doesn’t break. If it does, the room will resemble a CSI episode. According to health professinals (didn’t we used to call them doctors?) you should ventilate the room for 15 minutes, get everyone out of there, and clean it up with duct tape while wearing gloves. Then you should seal the offending toxic metals, along with your gloves and the tape, in a glass jar.

And of course, since mercury is toxic it is therefore HazMat, so you can’t just toss a compact fluorescent bulb should it burn out. You’ve either got to recycle it or wait for HazMat pickup days. And as that old and useless air conditioner still on my bedroom floor will attest, HazMat pickup days are few and far between.

Now, I like energy efficiency. I like being a good steward of my money and the environment. But I don’t think it’s right to put our families at risk in order to do so. Pregnant women and small children are warned to stay away from salmon because of possible mercury contamination. Doctors can’t even use mercury thermometers anymore. And we want to put light bulbs with this stuff in our houses and around our kids?

If this were anything but a light bulb, there would be a huge outcry over the dangers of mercury should the light break. But America’s become so sold out to the eco-freaks that we think it’s OK to put harmful materials in our homes if it might help the planet. The environmental movement is no longer pro-earth, it’s anti-human. The idea that we must sacrifice ourselves so the planet can live is a sad testament to just how far the loony environmentalists have led us, and how blindly we have followed them.

If you saw this picture on a billboard what would you think? You’d probably think Absolut Vodka was saying that a perfect world would be one in which a good chunk of America belonged to Mexico (and unofficially, they’ve got their wish). If you thought that, your humble blogger would agree with you. And although Absolut hasn’t stated that officially, it’s kind of hard to see what else they’re trying to say.

The ad, which ran in Mexico, has now been pulled because some Americans became indignant over the insinuation that their country would be better off run by a land whose main export is criminaliens to the United States. Some immigration hawks have started a movement to boycott Absolut products.

If you’re hopping aboard this bandwagon (and if I were a Vodka fan, I’d be right with you), don’t kid yourself—a boycott of Absolut won’t ruin the company. However, it could make them sweat. And it should. That ad encourages and endorses illegal activity against a country that probably represents a good deal of Absolut’s customer base. It also shows Absolut’s advertising department to be ignorant about their job. It’s a bad idea to insult your customers. Maybe next time they feel like turning their advertisements into a political statement, they’ll remember that.