Aftermath: Progressives Spin and Talk Reconciliation After Health Care Summit Tool Shed Whipping
President Obama and congressional Democrats were so thoroughly pwned at Thursday’s health-care summit that even some of the more reliable Obama apologists have given the victory to congressional Republicans:
CNN’s DAVID GERGEN: “The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
So thorough seems the consensus that the summit has almost become a test of true left-wing sycophancy. Joe Klein, for example, called Obama–who insulted Senator McCain, called the legislation in question a “prop”, interrupted Republicans quite frequently, and in general came off as petulant, frustrated, and impatient–“unflappable”:
Reading between the lines, you can conclude that the Republicans had nothing very interesting, or clever, to say (and were never able to get the President’s goat). And that the President was his usual, unflappable, well-informed self. You can also conclude that not much progress was made at the summit, as Karen reports here–but that’s a huge surprise, right?
Actually, anyone watching two minutes of the summit knows the president’s goat was “got” from the moment Lamar Alexander opened his mouth.
Meanwhile, most sentient beings took from the summit two essential truths: 1) There is no problem Democrats think more money and more government won’t solve, and 2) Republicans think that the point of government is to empower individuals. Thus it comes as no surprise that the same public that overwhelming rejects ObamaCare also sees government as a threat to individual liberty:
Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government’s become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree
So what is the Democrats’ answer to their own manifest failure to mount a persuasive argument for their bloated and oppressive health-care reform? Well, it’s a two part argument. Part One: We won! Part Two: Therefore, we must cram a crap sandwich down the American people’s throats. There is something to perhaps be said for fighting in favor of legislation that carries some sort of great moral imperative, but progressives suck at making that argument, too. Having failed to convince the American public that health care is a “right” merely by virtue of our unprecedented wealth, they now resort to telling sob stories (henceforth to be referred to as “anecdotitis“) that make America sound like an apocalyptic hell-hole where people die en-masse in the gutters for lack of health care access. Even then, their efforts are febrile and ultimately fruitless. Are we supposed to ruin 1/6th of the world’s largest economic because some poor woman has to wear the wrong dentures?
Far from being able to paint Republicans as obstructionist toads unquestionably following the marching orders of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al., Democrats came off as rude, mean-spirited, unbending partisans hell bent on throwing a temper-tantrum if they didn’t get their way. Republicans, on the other hand, sounded well-informed, crisp, intelligent, and–despite the bluster of idiot progressives like Alan Grayson–genuinely concerned about the state of the health care industry in America. President Obama’s sonorous tones and mellifluous orations never materialized, making it impossible for objective observers to overlook the relative dearth of reasoned argumentation on the left side of the aisle.
Democrats now indicate that reconciliation may be the way to go, despite their clear warnings during the reign of the terrrrrrible King ChimpyMcBushitler that the republic would be destroyed if the “nuclear” option were used. In that case, reconciliation was used because Democrats don’t think judges have a right to sit on the bench unless they swear a blood oath to uphold Roe v. Wade–not to cram through legislation that seeks to remake 1/6 of the American economy. See the difference? If one wanted an actual, functioning definition of “obstructionists”, they needn’t look any further than the Democrats’ behavior during the judicial confirmation process for Robert Bork, Clarence Thomas, Miguel Estrada, and practically every other strict-constructionist nominee appointed by a Republican president.
I say: obstruct away! All progressives care about is ensuring the president gets to put a stat in the “Win” column. Besides–the American public, not Republicans, are the ones who most want to obstruct this disaster.
Health Care Summit: Republicans to Battle Notable Slayer of Strawmen
Representative John Boehner has now completely given away the game. The upcoming health care summit with President Obama is going to be pure Kabuki theatre, a “political passion play”.
According to a House GOP leadership aide familiar with the top-ranking Republican’s remarks at the weekly closed-door conference meeting, Boehner appealed to skeptical Republican lawmakers, saying, “We shouldn’t let the White House have a six-hour taxpayer-funded infomercial on ObamaCare. We need to show up. We need to crash the party.”
Republicans must exercise extraordinary caution. The last time they met face-to-face with Obama in front of the cameras, the leftist commentariat practically wet themselves congratulating the president for having the intestinal fortitude and rhetorical prowess to set up and knock down strawman after strawman, make outrageous claims about the current state of the economy and the effects of stimulus, and make the quite laughable claim that economics all seem to agree with him, but none can be found to support the Republican side of the argument. It was quite a sight! The president spoke in hushed tones of Republicans trying to paint ObamaCare as some sort of “Bolshevik plot”. It would be outrageous–if any Republican in the room had ever made such a dastardly assertion. Nor can such verbage (or anything similar) be attributed to the boogeymen of the right, such as Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, or Levin.
The president took great pains to set himself up as an infinitely agreeable pragmatist caught in the crosshairs of a virulently partisan opposition, hell-bent on undermining his every policy initiative for the sake of political points. Quoth the president: “And the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs — why would I resist that? I wouldn’t. I mean, that’s my point, is that — I am not an ideologue. I’m not. It doesn’t make sense if somebody could tell me, “You could do this cheaper and get increased results,” that I wouldn’t say, “Great.””
Yet and still, the president has yet to utter the word, “great”. Hmmmm.
This came fast on the heels of an oddball declaration that the president might have supported a Republican plan over porkulus that would have carried less than half the price tag while creating more than twice the jobs, but for the appalling lack of a “credible” economist that would support Republican’s assertions.
Either the president is dishonest, or his staff is wholly unaware of the existence of Google. The president could have visited Heritage, or Cato, or the East Appalapacoochie Community College’s School of Economics and found economists willing to support the time-tested theory that massive government spending doesn’t do much of anything to pull an economy out of recession.
Time and again during the Q&A with President Obama, Republicans offered up well-worded, thought-provoking queries on everything from tax cuts, to health-care reform, to cap and trade, only to be given the most vague and ephemeral answers. Time and again, a talented rhetorician reduces the opposition’s arguments to a profoundly ridiculous caricature of themselves. It’s almost as if the president is worried that if the public heard a real response to real questions, they might figure out that a rank amateur occupies the most powerful office in the world.
Credit Boehner for knowing that the summit is pure theatre. It would be nice if Republicans could get away with the same sort of rhetorical slight-of-hand the president employed last time–“You know Mr. President, you act like our opposition to ObamaCare and massive deficit spending is some sort of plot to overthrow the government and institute free market anarchy in its place”–but they’re Republicans, so they’d never manage to get away with such a thing.
What Republicans need to do, however, is argue principle effectively. While Mr. Obama’s efforts in the arenas of energy, health care, and job creation legislation aren’t a “wild-eyed plot” to insert the government into the most mundane aspects of our lives, it doesn’t matter. Plot or no, under the banner of health care reform, cap-and-trade, and increased federal government involvement in public education, government will grow increasingly burdensome and oppressive. Paraphrasing Tocqueville, government will grow oppressive without torturing men. I have said before time and again that there isn’t any minutiae in a citizen’s life that can not theoretically be touched by the foregoing legislative efforts. There are market based solutions to real problems–and there are actually plenty of economists willing to state so, on the record! Imagine that!
Video: George Will Gives Best Speech at CPAC.
AllahPundit over at Hot Air put it pretty succinctly: George Will undoubtedly gave the best speech at CPAC this year. There are three clips clocking in at about 10 minutes each which can be viewed here, but I think the last clip, where Will quotes Tocqueville at length on the topic of soft despotism, is the best:
Will is an incredible writer. I’ve known for quite a while that he is lucid, coherent, consistent, and passionate in his writing. I’ve seen numerous appearances of his on Fox News, but I was unaware he was such a gifted orator. His presentation is captivating, his comedic timing is golden, and he comes off as extraordinarily calm and charismatic.
The overarching theme of Will’s speech is, of course, the growing Democratic agenda of increased government dependency. The Tocqueville quotes are a perfect fit in this context. Listen at around the 2:30 mark as Will goes into the persistent government intrusion even into the most minute details of our lives. Enjoy.
U.N. Climate Chief: I Hope Climate Change Skeptics Die
I’m paraphrasing, of course. What U.N. climate chief Rajendra Pachauri actually said is this:
Climate change skeptics “are people who deny the link between smoking and cancer; they are people who say that asbestos is as good as talcum powder,” he said.
“I hope that they apply it (asbestos) to their faces every day.”
No one seriously doubts the link between asbestos exposure and cancer because there is ample scientific evidence establishing that link. I might add that the level of scientific rigor that went into establishing that link was free from the annoying distractions that hiding data, persecuting opposition, and manipulating raw data tend to cause. How the asbestos/cancer linkage and global warming are analogous is beyond any rational person’s capacity for comprehension.
This isn’t the first or only instance of fascistic zealousness on the part of global warming cult devotees. David Roberts of Grist once infamously called for Nuremberg-style climate trials for AGW skeptics:
When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.
AGW believers might be taken a little more seriously if they weren’t prone to wishing death upon the opposition and drawing absurdly hyperbolic analogies between their raison d’etre and the Holocaust.
“No, We Can’t” actually sounds like a good slogan for the current administration, which may be admitting defeat in the battle for “health-care reform”.
“I think it’s very important for us to have a methodical, open process over the next several weeks, and then let’s go ahead and make a decision,” Obama said at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser.
“And it may be that … if Congress decides we’re not going to do it, even after all the facts are laid out, all the options are clear, then the American people can make a judgment as to whether this Congress has done the right thing for them or not,” the president said. “And that’s how democracy works. There will be elections coming up, and they’ll be able to make a determination and register their concerns.”
President Obama has been sending conflicting signals on his intentions for health-care reform, to say the least. On the one hand, he seems to be conceding defeat in front of the DNC; on the other hand, he makes statements like this of the “damn the torpedos, full speed ahead” variety:
If our response ends up being, you know, because we don’t want to — we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.
Moderate Democrats have been pleading with increasing fervency for the president to take a more centrist approach to some of his signature policy initiatives in the face of mounting evidence that public opposition to his policies is hardening. Politico reports that they public may be having serious problems with Rahm Emanuel’s “Big Bang” theory of liberal governance:
Moderate Democrats, coping with the electoral fallout of President Barack Obama’s grand and ground-down legislative ambitions, have a message for their leaders: Stop supersizing us.
If the first year of Obama’s term was dominated by the so-called Big Bang push for enormous, politically risky initiatives — the stimulus, cap and trade and health care — Year Two is fast shaping up to be year of small ball, retrenchment and backlash.
“I’ve always maintained that I thought that they were doing too much, too fast,” said Rep. Mike McMahon (D-N.Y.), an endangered freshman who represents a Staten Island district long occupied by Republicans.
“Without question, the biggest complaint I’m hearing from constituents is that there were too many things being tackled all at once, and they didn’t have time to understand and digest all of them,” he added.
Of course, present complaints of over-reaching on the part of moderate Democrats portend few consequences for the president, who doesn’t have to answer to the electorate for nearly three more years. The price of unpopular policies will be paid for by centrist Democrats and, increasingly, even the more liberal members of the party come November.
Liberals Ecstatic Over Potential Repeal of DADT; Every One Else, Including Military–Not So Much
Today’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” has brought the usual loony left-wingers out of the woodwork to provide the customary liberal cheerleading.
Leading the charge is, of course, one of the Four Donkeys of the Apocalypse over on the NYT‘s op-ed page: Maureen Dowd. The fiery-haired cousin of the Crypt Keeper shows her flare for drama by likening Admiral Mullen to some manner of Hollywood star for daring to join Hollywood, the MSM, and liberal “elites” in calling for an end to a perfectly sane policy:
On Tuesday, the craggy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff showed that a lifetime in the military has not knocked all the showbiz pizazz out of him.
“I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on dropping the archaic “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. “For me personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”
I respectfully beg to differ. It’s not about “integrity” or homosexuals being forced to hide “who they are”; it’s about values, religious freedom, and homosexuals being asked–remember, service is not compulsory–not to make certain statements, engage in certain acts, or attempt to marry someone of the same sex. That’s quite a bit different.
Again demonstrating her breathtaking ignorance, Dowd posits that Clinton was somehow cowed into not exercising his “authority as Commander-in-Chief and order an end” to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”. Dowd’s a halfwit; DADT is a law, not an Executive Order or a Department of Defense regulation. Congress must repeal it. But I digress.
To say that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would have a deleterious effect on morale and unit cohesion, while true, isn’t sufficient to win this fight in and of itself, as John Guardiano of The American Spectator states:
The reality is that in a rights-based political culture, where one group of people is aggressively asserting its alleged “rights,” you are politically defenseless and vulnerable unless you can posit an equally strong and countervailing set of rights.
Indeed, it appears that what we are being asked to accept isn’t the idea that homosexuals serve honorably, which I’m certain they do. Again, Americans are being sold a bill of goods under liberals’ usual vague and ephemeral notion of “tolerance”, when what they are really seeking is legitimation and celebration. It isn’t enough that we tolerate abortion; the furor over the Tebow ad shows that we must celebrate abortion by sublimating the urge to celebrate life to the insane and laughable concern that a mere thirty second story of life and faith might demean women and be viewed as divisive. Likewise, it isn’t enough that we tolerate homosexual conduct within society; we must celebrate it by holding it up as every bit the equal of heterosexuality in every way and in every situation.
MSM outlets like the Washington Post demonstrate their bias by declaring, in loud and celebratory headlines, that the “Pentagon Supports Ending ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Law for Gays in Military”. Just so we’re all on the same page: No, the Pentagon doesn’t. Admiral Mullen supports it, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is preparing for it, but “the Pentagon” is composed of many officers and civilians of varying ranks and pay grades, and I’m quite certain a goodly portion of them don’t support it, even if they do believe its overturn is inevitable and preparations must take place to make accommodations.
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is effective policy that works. Homosexuals are free to serve without somehow compromising who they are the same way that heterosexual men and women don’t sacrifice who they are when they obey General Order One in theatre by not engaging in heterosexual sex. DADT is policy that ought to be left alone.
Video: Roger Ailes Bests Walters, Krugman, and Huffington
ARIANNA HUFFINGTON: Well, Roger, it’s not a question of picking a fight. And aren’t you concerned about the language that Glenn Beck is using, which is, after all, inciting the American people? There is a lot of suffering out there, as you know, and when he talks about people being slaughtered, about who is going to be the next in the killing spree…
(CROSSTALK)
AILES: Well, he was talking about Hitler and Stalin slaughtering people. So I think he was probably accurate. Also, I’m a little….
HUFFINGTON: No, no, he was talking about this administration.
AILES: I don’t — I think he speaks English. I don’t know, but I mean, I don’t misinterpret any of his words. He did say one unfortunate thing, which he apologized for, but that happens in live television. So I don’t think it’s — I think if we start going around as the word police in this business, it will be…
HUFFINGTON: It’s not about the word police. It’s about something deeper. It’s about the fact that there is a tradition as the historian Richard Hofstetter said, in American politics, of the paranoid style. And the paranoid style is dangerous when there is real pain out there. I mean, with…
AILES: I agree with you. I read something on your blog that said I looked like J. Edgar Hoover, I had a face like a fist, and I was essentially a malignant tumor…
Ailes is armed to the teeth with excellent ripostes to Huffington’s boilerplate anti-Beck tripe, and somehow fairs even better against Krugman on the topic of “disinformation” in the health care debacle:
People did not know what was in the plan, and some of that was just poor reporting, some of it was deliberate misinformation. I have here in front of me when President Obama said, you know, why — he said rhetorically, why aren’t we going to do a health care plan like the Europeans have, with a government-run program, and then proceeds to explain why he’s different. On Fox News, what appeared was a clipped quote, “why don’t we have a European-style health care plan?” Right, deliberate misinformation.
All of that has contributed to a situation where the public…
AILES: Wait a minute, wait a minute…
KRUGMAN: I can show you the clip, and you can…
(CROSSTALK)
AILES: The American people are not stupid…
KRUGMAN: No, they’re not stupid. They are uninformed.
AILES: If you say — if (inaudible) words are in the Constitution, if the founding fathers managed — they didn’t need 2,000 pages of lawyers to hide things, then tell, then tell…
KRUGMAN: Oh, come on. Legislation always is long.
AILES: … then tell people it’s an emergency that we get it, but it won’t go into effect for three years. So you don’t have time to read it, you…
Even Walters herself wasn’t able to make much of a dent in Ailes as she tries to use the hiring of Sarah Palin to make some point or another about “qualifications” and, I assume, fairness.
Trust me, this is must-see tv.
Just when you thought that “there are those who” was long dead and “experts” across the “political spectrum” had faded into irrelevance–if they even existed at all–old boogeymen, some long forgotten and some regular Emmanuel Goldstein-like caricatures have returned to do battle with The One.
The rhetorical bag of tricks is, it appears, only so deep–even for one as talented and bright as the president.
I’ve personally never cared for his speaking style. I find the president’s speaking to be jarring; he trips over applause lines and rushes through others; he whistles his ‘S’s, and his hand gestures are often annoying to me. But I would be a fool, blinded by ideology if I weren’t able to recognize that the man has the power to inspire people through his speaking. That’s why it’s such a shame that he squanders his intellect and oratorical prowess on resurrecting the same boogey men and shadow-boxing the same imagined villains.
Rather than possibly admit that leftist’s devotion to Keyne’s outmoded and demonstrably flawed economic theories might have inspired the decision to pass Porkulus, we continue to get fed this “experts across the political spectrum” nonsense. He made a decision as a leader, and that decision was wrong; his insistence on using his ideological opposites to provide cover for his decision is unbecoming a leader.
His continued reliance on straw men is disconcerting. Where are these people who want to put America’s future on hold? Where are these people who say that recovery can’t occur? No one of any consequence has these opinions. There are those of us who think that the private sector ought to be responsible for America’s future and her recovery, but that’s not the same as what the president implies.
His stubborn refusal to accept responsibility for the deficit he helped run up as a senator is nothing short of infuriating. Of course, having accrued far more “not voting” tallies than actual yes or no votes might have him a little confused, but here’s the truth: he voted for TARP and was a reliable vote on bills that contained net tax increases. Why persist in acting as though he stumbled into office and deficits Elmer Fudd-like? Oh, those wasscawy Wepubwicans! I’ve stumbled into a wecession!
The president, even during the SOTU address, will lull even us hard-core conservatives into open-mindedness and regale us with his oratorical skills, as he did when he insisted that he would not settle for an America that took second place in the world–and then proceeded to attribute the success of China’s economy to the glory of their government. China is a growing powerhouse precisely because of their reluctant yet increasing embrace of markets, not because of the wisdom and foresight of their tyrannical government.
Overall, it was a speech full of incongruities. The president claims to feel our pain, but not enough to lay off of wildly unpopular legislation like his health care “reform” bill. He acts like he practically had to be dragged into bailing out banks, but sees no other possibility but to force the not-so-subtle hand of government into the energy sector. He wants a post-partisan era of cooperation, but issues a wildly inappropriate denunciation of the Supreme Court in the middle of his speech and then allows shmuch Democrats like Schumer to stand up right next to the justices and applaud like drunken frat boys cheering a wet t-shirt contest at his comment. Do leftists now begin to see the substantive points of disagreement we have with the president?
His speech exhorted Republicans to work more on providing solutions, but he failed to reasonably acknowledge the multitude of amendments and bills that Republicans have proposed during this session. He gives tacit approval to the “party of no” imprecation while asking us to be more cooperative. Do leftists begin to see that this isn’t about being the party of no? I mean, it isn’t as though we railed against a sweeping expansion of government power that is wholly amenable to our ideology simply for political gain, as Democrats did with Medicare Part D. Normally, Democrats jump at the chance to add layers of bureaucracy to the government works; all of the sudden, and every day since, Dems act as though their conservative sensitivities have been offended by Medicare Part D. One imagines antebellum mansions and Democrats as fainting Scarlet O’Hare types: Oh, I do declare!
And finally there is, again, the utter classlessness of attacking a man who has been completely powerless for over a year now. But if you listened to the SOTU, you’d think Bush was back in Crawford ruthlessly twirling a Thadeus mustache and silently beating down the lumpenproles with his polo mallet. Bush is the most powerful former president in history, apparently. Soon we will be regaled with ribald tales of how the defiler Bush caused the downfall of Sodom and Gomorrah.
This speech, I’m certain, will have the dual virtue of not doing much to rally his disheartened base and also not courting anyone on the other side of the aisle. One thing is for certain: Republicans need to capitalize on the good fortune they’ve been handed. If they waste this opportunity to begin elucidating conservative ideas and principles–McDonnell did a great job of that tonight–then they will have given away a huge advantage.
Jake Tapper reports that President Obama may be set to propose a freeze non-defense discretionary spending. So what does that mean, and just how much are we talking about?:
In his budget for Fiscal Year 2011, to be presented on Monday, February 1, President Obama will propose a three-year hard freeze on non-security discretionary spending, to last from 2011 through 2013.
This will save $250 billion over the next decade, senior administration officials told reporters. By 2015, non-security discretionary spending will be at its lowest level as a component of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product in 50 years…
The administration is defining security-related discretionary spending – which will not be impacted by this freeze – as spending related to the Pentagon, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security, and spending related to international affairs…
This category – roughly one-seventh of the overall budget, or about 1/3rd of total discretionary spending — is generally what people think about when they say they want Washington, DC, to rein in spending, a senior administration official said. They don’t mean Medicare, Social Security, or defense spending, the official said.
Not talking about Social Security and Medicare? Until we do talk about trying to reign in those programs in some form–either by cutting entitlements or finding innovative ways to increase revenues and reduce fraud, waste, and abuse–the problem of deficits and runaway spending will continue in perpetuity.
The bulk of the budget comes from automatic payments. For those of you unfamiliar with that term, those are legally required budget outlays that must be funded yearly in accordance with a seemingly endless array of federal laws. Cheif amongst these? Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, which together account for nearly 45% of the federal budget. These programs, at some point, must be addressed by the federal government in order to ensure the government is able to meet its obligations in the not-too-distant future.
Hey, If Corporations Shouldn’t Give Money to Campaigns, Should the NYT Give Out Endorsements?
The MSM are hyperventilating over the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down large portions of McCain-Fiengold. Rarely are people so genuinely unaware of the ideas of hypocrisy and slippery slope.
Forgetting for a second that the New York Times is owned by the–wait for it–New York Times Company, a corporation, let’s just focus for a moment on the idiotic assertion that a Supreme Court ruling on a law that didn’t even exist until 2002 somehow imperils democracy and threatens a return to the robber baron era:
With a single, disastrous 5-to-4 ruling, the Supreme Court has thrust politics back to the robber-baron era of the 19th century. Disingenuously waving the flag of the First Amendment, the court’s conservative majority has paved the way for corporations to use their vast treasuries to overwhelm elections and intimidate elected officials into doing their bidding.
The Times would go much further toward persuading its more skeptical readers if they could explain how our great republic ever withstood the insidious influence of labor unions who, much the same as corporations, pool money and power in order to influence elections.
The Times hysterical missive could better be served if they were able to clearly elucidate how, if corporate spending on elections has such a damning and corrupting influence, the republic has withstood the Times–which again, is corporately owned–not endorsing a Republican presidential candidate in its pages since Ike. More than half a century has passed since the Times gave its nod to a Republican candidate for president. Yet and still, America survives! Perhaps a better question for the Times’ astute readership is, how has democracy withstood the Times?
But the NYT is not alone. Similar to the NYT’s hysterical requiem for representative democracy is the Washington Post‘s absurd and poorly argued op-ed, which asserts that since corporations aren’t explicitly mentioned in the first amendment, they aren’t worthy of protection:
This result was unnecessary because the court’s conservative majority — including supposed exemplars of judicial modesty — lunged to make a broad constitutional ruling when narrower grounds were available. It was wrong because nothing in the First Amendment dictates that corporations must be treated identically to people. And it was dangerous because corporate money, never lacking in the American political process, may now overwhelm both the contributions of individuals and the faith they may harbor in their democracy.
I suppose the reason I find this passage so amusing is that it comes from the liberal WaPo. This is a publication that has run innumerable columns in its op-ed pages expressing support for something that the Constitution not only doesn’t explicitly recognize as protected, but doesn’t even support in theory–no matter how tangential you imagine that reasoning to be: abortion. Liberals will fight to the death under the banner of “penumbras” and “emanations” for a practice that the founders would have found not just ghastly, but anathema to the civil society, but they can’t seem to imagine that the Constitution’s guarantees of speech and assembly, applied mutually, offer protection for corporations–which are nothing more than collections of people assembled for a common purpose or purposes.
Put simply, the underlying principle of free speech for commercial corporations protects not just the Wal-Marts and Exxon Mobiles of the world, but the NYT and the WaPo:
The first problem is that, like the “real people” argument, it applies to media corporations as well. On this view, the government would be free to censor the New York Times, Fox News, the Nation, National Review, and so on. Nearly every newspaper and political journal in the country is a corporation. If the Supreme Court accepted this view, it would have to overturn decisions like New York Times v. Sullivan and the Pentagon Papers case.
Perhaps the MSM will remember this the next time they rail indiscriminately against the influence of corporations on political campaigns.
Hat tips: Volokh Conspiracy, Hot Air.
Iles of Right 
