Catching up on political issues and current events. Please send your comments to rjcmp1@yahoo.com

Sunday, November 23, 2003

The Incredible Shrinking Party

In a week when President Bush delivered perhaps the most important international address in a generation, when Congress debated sweeping legislation on Medicare and energy policy, the Democratic response on Saturday was devoted to … Yucca Mountain.

Moving forward on Yucca Mountain as the nation’s repository for nuclear waste is a decision that was made months ago. It is hardly a pressing issue today, anywhere but Nevada. But Nevada has 5 electoral votes and it went narrowly for Bush in 2000. So no issue is too small for the Democrats to take a cheap shot at the President.

So the Democrats claim that Bush “broke his promise” on Yucca Mountain. His promise was to base his decision on “sound science” – which he did. Moreover, the legislation that Bush signed was supported by 103 Democrats in the House and 15 in the Senate. But that doesn’t stop the Democratic Party from demagoging the issue. After all, Democratic candidates for President can vote for military action in Iraq, then criticize Bush for taking that action.

The Democratic response raised doubts about how the waste would be shipped to Nevada. What’s their solution? The only alternative is to shipping nuclear waste is to leave it where it is now, at nuclear plants across the country. Is that what they propose? No, they don’t propose anything but more study.

So once again, we have a President who’s serious about leadership, a President who recognizes that nuclear waste disposal is critical to both energy and anti-terror policy, and who risks the votes of a crucial state to make a long-overdue decision on thie issue. And we have an opposition party that proposes no alternatives, takes no responsibility for its own positions, and fires any cheap shot it can.
Perspective on Death

Every death to an American soldier or Iraqi citizen - not to mention soldiers, contractors, and aid workers from countries around the world - is a terrible loss. Death is a fact of life for all of us, and we struggle for perspective on the loss of life in the continuing conflict in Iraq. There are thousands of deaths every day from disease, accidents, violence, and old age, and only a few are going to get notice from anyone but a small circle of relatives and friends. So we struggle for a reasonable perspective on thhe loss of life in the continuing conflict in Iraq. Here are a couple of thoughts:

Recent reports carried coalition estimates of 300,000 bodies in mass graves from the Saddam Hussein regime. If that figure is correct, the mass graves represent 12,500 deaths during each of the 24 years that Saddam was in power - or an average of 240 a week. This would suggest that, even with the toll that car bombings have taken among the Iraqi population, it's safer to live in Iraq today that it has been for the past 24 years.

On Nov. 22, the Cincinnati Enquirer provided some perspective on military deaths:

"Dr. Jay Johannigman's three months as a military doctor in Iraq confirmed what he already knew - war zones are dangerous places for young Americans.

"But not much more so than the streets of Cincinnati.

" 'On any weekend in our emergency room, I can lose three, four, five young men to gunshot wounds, to car wrecks, to any of the dangers out there,' said Johannigman, head of trauma care at University Hospital."


Also on Nov. 22, CBS News reported that 17 U.S. service personnel have committed suicide in Iraq. While that sounds like a lot, the report said (and it's certainly a terrible thing to contemplate), it's in line with statistics for the general population.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Down Syndrome and Abortion

Blogging is even lighter than usual here at EPF as work piles up (Bush recovery in action). But here’s a great article by Dave Shiflett on NRO. Don’t let the funny (but true, very true) first paragraph fool you. This is a serious discussion of recent news features touting advances in prenatal testing that make it easier to identify and abort Down Syndrome children.

The article highlights CNN, but I recall a similarly upbeat and morally vacuous discussion the WSJ’s Personal Journal. This supplement, which is a self-parody of how-to-live-your-life-perfectly advice, also ran a column not too long ago with the following helpful recommendation: When a loved one dies, have an autopsy performed to make sure death wasn’t caused by some genetic problem that could get you, too. While this does not carry the same moral implications of aborting an imperfect child, it comes from the came cold, hard approach to life.

And in case you’ve forgotten what it means to have George W. Bush as President, here’s a blast from the past in Shiflett’s article:

Jocelyn Elders, just prior to being named Bill Clinton's surgeon general, famously proclaimed that abortion "has had an important and positive public-health effect" because it reduced "the number of children afflicted with severe defects." She pointed out that "the number of Down Syndrome infants in Washington state in 1976 was 64 percent lower than it would have been without legal abortion."

To anyone who has known and loved someone who has Down Syndrome, this is pretty chilling. But, of course, fewer and fewer of us have that experience any more.

Thursday, November 06, 2003

Going to Extremes

Doesn’t it strike you as funny that Senate Democrats call President Bush’s judicial nominees “extremists” and “out of the mainstream,” when the very reason they have to filibuster is that a majority of Senators is prepared to vote for them? Likewise, Howard Dean has said that partial-birth abortion is “an issue about extremism.” With over two-thirds of Americans supporting a ban on this horrible procedure, surely Dr. Dean means that only extremists could oppose such a ban. But no, he actually does mean that two-thirds of the American people hold an extreme position. Hmmm.

In this vein, PowerLine has this delightful story:

A group of Democrats led by the reprehensible Julian Bond, head of the NAACP, held a press conference yesterday to denounce Justice Brown as a "far right-wing extremist" who is "outside the mainstream." Which led to the following exchange:

"They were asked how Justice Brown could be described as a right-wing ideologue when 76 percent of California voters cast ballots to return her to the bench in 1998, the highest percentage of any justice in that retention election.

"'It's inexplicable to me,' Mr. Bond said. 'I cannot think of a response. But nonetheless, that election does not invalidate any of the things [we] have said.'"


The good news is, I think the Democrats actually believe their own press releases on this stuff and don't realize how far they've drifted from the real mainstream.

Wednesday, November 05, 2003

Wictory Wednesday

It's now just one year until the 2004 Presidential election. In Mississippi and Kentucky yesterday, Republicans showed that they understand how to get out the vote. When you contribute or volunteer for the campaign of George W. Bush, you can feel that you're making a good investment in an organization that's serious about using its resources wisely to achieve victory. On this Wictory Wednesday, ExPostFacto joins with the blogs listed below to urge you to take action today to help reelect George W. Bush.


Boots and Sabers
Bowling for Howard Dean
BushBlog.us (unofficial blog)
Bush-Cheney 2004 (unofficial blog)
ExPostFacto
The Hedgehog Report
Jeremy Kissel
Left Coast Conservative
Mark Kilmer
Matt Margolis
PoliPundit
A Rice Grad
Ryne McClaren
Southern Conservatives
Stephen Blythe
Viking Pundit
The Wise Man Says

The Battle Begins in Ohio

Yesterday, we saw the leading edge of the conservative movement to retake the Ohio Republican Party. The Cincinnati Enquirer headline got it right (for once): “Taft’s stimulus proposal rejected.” Issue 1 was indeed the baby of Gov. Bob Taft, part of his Third Frontier economic stimulus package, and its rejection was a resounding vote of no confidence.

As the Enquirer explains it, “Issue 1 would have let the state borrow …$500 million and use it as seed money for university research projects and startup businesses that have the potential to create jobs.” Proponents claimed that it would not raise taxes but had to admit that it would require over $50 million in state spending on interest.

Issue 1 lost by a 51-49 percent margin. But it was worse than that – Issue 1 lost in 73 of Ohio’s 88 counties. The final vote was relatively close only because the proposition picked up big margins in a few big urban – and Democratic – counties around Cleveland, Akron, Dayton, and Canton. Remember, this was a “Republican” proposal.

In other words, Taft has no base. Granted, that’s not a problem for him, since he’s term limited – but it’s a big problem for the Republicans who cling to him. The Republican base is saying, we don’t need another government program to pick economic winners – we just need lower taxes and less regulation. And that means we need new leaders – in our own party.

The next step in the battle is Secretary of State Ken Blackwell’s proposition to repeal the recently enacted sales tax increase. Blackwell’s proposition represents the beginning of open warfare against the Republican establishment.

The coming year will see turmoil in the Ohio Republican Party – not the best timing, perhaps, for George W. Bush, but a confrontation that’s long overdue.