The Michigan Democratic Primary

Look, I understand the reasons why the political parties adhere to the ridiculous custom of letting Iowa and New Hampshire "go first" (even in violation of party rules). But if you want to disenfranchise me, make the defender of your decision somebody less self-interested, myopic, and obtuse than Carrie Giddins. Okay? Be honest about what you are doing.

What Does "Inferior" Mean?

John Derbyshire reacts to Obama's speech:

"Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students."

What on earth does this mean? It's true that there is widespread school segregation today. In my state, 60 percent of black students attend schools that are at least 90-percent black. From what I can see, the main reason for this is the great reluctance of nonblack parents to send their kids to schools with too many black students, which they assume are beset by all the problems associated with poorly run public schools. Do you think that they — actually we, as my wife and I share this reluctance — are wrong to think like this? How will you persuade us to think otherwise? Or will you depend on judicially-imposed forced integration of the schools?

Okay... So where Derbyshire comes from, parents assume that majority-black schools are not suitable for their children because "they assume [the schools] are beset by all the problems associated with poorly run public schools", yet he feigns confusion over Obama's use of the word "inferior"?

What does Derbyshire see as the difference between "poorly run public schools" and the public schools to which he would happily send his kids? If he measures school quality by racial composition, the only benchmark for distinction he cites, how is he not reinforcing Obama's point?

McCain In Iraq

In the interest of security, as with other U.S. politicians, when John McCain goes to Iraq his visits are not pre-announced, he flies into secret locations, and is provided with extensive security and air cover. He is concerned about Iran's rising influence, and its training of al-Qaeda insurgents.

In recent days, McCain has repeatedly said his intimate knowledge of foreign policy make him the best equipped to answer a phone ringing in the White House late at night.

Compare and contrast: When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits Iraq, he announces his visit weeks in advance. More specifically,

He announced the dates of his visit in advance, landed at Baghdad International Airport in daylight and drove through the capital, albeit in a heavily guarded convoy, on a relatively quiet day. Iraqi forces provided security.

That business about Iran's rising influence? It's not so much "in the future".

Market Forces At Work

The Subprime Primer. (Via C&F.)

McCain's Religious Ties? Oh... "That's Different"

Tapped takes a brief look at the religious extremists currently enjoying the warm embrace of John McCain, and the historic lack of calls for candidates to distance themselves from the controversial statements of the religious leaders who support them.

And It's All Up To The Media Now....

With the mainstream media (encouraged by the Obama campaign) having set the bar, Barack Obama has given his "make or break" speech distancing himself from Rev. Wright. Does it matter what he said? Only to a degree. What really matters now is whether or not the mainstream media deems him to have passed the test.

If he is deemed to have "passed", as it seems unlikely that Pastor Wright has said anything more inflammatory than what has already been dredged out of his decades of sermons, the presentation of more quotes becomes "more of the same" - an attempt to reopen a closed issue.

If he is deemed not to have "passed", this will continue to hound him as a candidate. It will be used to taint him as "the other", somebody "not like us" who "can't be trusted" with the presidency. (Some tar will stick - some will now think of him as "the other" no matter what else happens in this campaign.)

But doesn't it seem a bit odd that the determination of whether this will remain news, or whether it will be treated as a dead issue, falls upon whatever consensus is quickly formed by the mainstream media?

Cafeteria Conservatives

David Brooks writes,

So I guess we’re all bailout artists now?

We do seem to have reached some Bernanke-era consensus. In normal times, the free market works well. But in a crisis like this one, few are willing to sit back and let the market find its own equilibrium.

This is consistent with many, probably most, modern "conservatives" - free markets are great when an individual is having a house foreclosed, is drowning in credit card debt, or is bankrupted by medical costs. They're horrible when a large business may fail, and the government had best be fast with a handout.

It's pretty standard for the "there are two types of people" crowd - they latch on to an ideology that purportedly makes them superior to those they oppose ("Conservatives favor free markets; liberals favor handouts"), but make little to no effort to consistently apply those principles. When multi-billion dollar subsidies are handed out to energy companies, even as those companies enjoy record profits, well, that can be ignored. When the markets catch up with a poorly managed company, the market principles that they supposedly embrace can suddenly be ignored because "this is different".

You know what? It goes both ways. I call myself "cheap", my wife says I'm "frugal". But I'm fiscally conservative, in a small "c" sense. I don't like to hand out my money to anyone. I am much more willing to offer people help when they are in a fix that is not of their own making. So I'm much more sympathetic to the financial plight of somebody who is drowning in medical debt than somebody who is drowning in credit card debt arising from self-indulgent spending. I'm not at all sympathetic to the idea that people who are at the top of the economic pyramid need government handouts. Yet that's the Republican approach to energy companies, and corporate welfare in general.

I see the current crisis among financial institutions as analogous to that self-indulgent credit card debt - and view it as unfortunate that the incompetence and corruption involved is on such a large scale that we can't just "let the market take its course." But I see few signs that the Republican Party or the supposedly pro-market leaders of those institutions share my sentiments - at least when their millions are on the line. Citi Group was no doubt lobbying hard for the Bankruptcy Reform Act, to keep people from discharging credit card debt - but it would no doubt leap at its first opportunity to have the government subsidize its debts and nationalize its losses. What would a self-professed "free-market conservative" call such a bailout? Probably something like "bipartisan stimulation".