Another Industry Slated for Government Take Over

Washington Examiner: Democrats set to tackle health care overhaul - Don't you mean "health care destruction," much like what has happened to the auto industry?

Take Heed Republican Wimps!

Kimberley Strassel: The Sotomayor Rules

President Barack Obama has laid down his ground rules for the debate over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. The big question now is whether Republicans agree to play by rules that neither Mr. Obama nor his party have themselves followed.

Ground Rule No. 1, as decreed by the president, is that this is to be a discussion primarily about Judge Sotomayor's biography, not her qualifications. The media gurus complied, with inspiring stories of how she was born to Puerto Rican immigrants, how she was raised by a single mom in a Bronx housing project, how she went on to Princeton and then Yale. In the years that followed she presumably issued a judicial opinion here or there, but whatever.

Which brings us to Ground Rule No. 2, which is that Republicans are not allowed to criticize Judge Sotomayor, for the reason that she is the first Hispanic nominee to the High Court. The Beltway media also dutifully latched on to this White House talking point, reporting threats from leading Democrats, including New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who intoned that Republicans "oppose her at their peril."

Republicans will be tempted by this history to go ugly. They might instead lay down their own rules, the first being that they will not partake in the tactics of personal destruction that were waged by the left on nominees such as Mr. Thomas or Mr. Alito or Mr. Estrada. But the party could also make a rule to not be scared away from using Judge Sotomayor's nomination, or future Obama picks, as platforms for big, civil, thorough debates about the role of the courts and the risk of activist judges to American freedoms and beliefs.

IN DEED!

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus: Sotomayor's Deliberate Choice of Words

"Nice try, Mr. President, but I'm not buying the poor-choice-of-words defense for Sonia Sotomayor [in her statement] 'I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life' . . . You spin the speech that's dealt you. But it seems clear to me that Sotomayor, to quote that great jurist Dr. Seuss, meant what she said and said what she meant. This was no throwaway line or off-the-cuff linguistic stumble along the lines of the judge's other controversial comment about appeals courts making policy. Rather, Sotomayor was deliberately and directly disputing remarks by then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that a wise old woman and a wise old man would eventually reach the same conclusion in a case. . . . Moreover, if Sotomayor regretted that YouTube moment, she had the chance to revise and extend: Her remarks were reprinted in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal. Knowing the multi-layered editing process of law journals, I'd be shocked if Sotomayor did not at least have the chance to review the transcript of her speech and make any tweaks"

AMEN!

Mr. Buckley

Brookhiser: Bill Buckley and the Future of Conservatism

In times of perplexity evangelical Christians ask themselves, "What would Jesus do?" Conservatives trying to regroup in the age of Obama might ask themselves, "What would William F. Buckley Jr. do?"

The most important lesson of his career is that there are limits to accommodation. Buckley came to fame in the early 1950s after two decades of liberal Democratic dominance, the Fair Deal of Harry Truman having followed the New Deal of FDR. When Republicans finally recaptured Congress and the White House in 1952, it was a case of new men and old measures. The new president, Dwight Eisenhower, despite his conservative instincts, was unwilling to pick ideological fights. On the sidelines of politics, the poet Peter Viereck called for a New Conservatism dedicated to managing change gracefully and recognizing liberal Democrats like Adlai Stevenson as its natural leaders. Germany, Japan and (it seemed) the Depression had been beaten by great collective efforts. The world had moved into a new era, and conservatives should recognize the fact.

Buckley would have none of it. He wanted a conservatism that stood for capitalism and freedom. The Cold War required another great mobilization, which Buckley supported wholeheartedly, but he would not lose sight of his individualistic goals. In 1955, when he founded National Review as the journal of opinion for his kind of conservatism, he declared its purpose to be "to stand athwart history, yelling 'Stop!'" He yelled because he hoped to be heard. Liberalism had been ascendant for years, but that didn't mean it always would be.

Early in his career he justified obstacles to black suffrage in the South -- "the white community," he wrote in 1959, "is entitled . . . to prevail politically because, for the time being anyway, the leaders of American civilization are white." He ended his career in despair over the Iraq War, concluding as early as 2005 that we should bug out -- "our part of the job is done as well as it can be done, given limitations on our will and our strength."

He changed his mind on both issues, embracing the civil-rights historiography of the political scientist Harry V. Jaffa and supporting the surge in Iraq when it began in 2007. Being wrong is the risk you run by thinking and acting. The only people who are never wrong are hermits -- unless withdrawing from the arena is itself wrong. For Buckley quietism was never an option. (Emphasis mine.)

There aren't many thinkers in the Republican party these days (there are certainly a lot of stinkers). Most are trying to fit in and be popular with their electorate - and that seems to be more important than sticking to ones principles and if wrong on something admitting being wrong and moving on. Sadly, there is hardly a difference between what today is called a "Republican" and an "Obamocrat." I think that today Mr. Buckley would hardly recognize those in Congress that pass themselves off as Republicans. So we can beat up on Limbaugh for being true to the conservative principles or we can be just another arm of the socialists - as republicans it is our choice - I choose the former.

Advice from a once not so great Socialist

McGovern: My Advice for Obama: We could defend ourselves with a military budget half the current size.

Most Americans probably agree that we have elected a highly articulate, talented president in Barack Obama. He has also given us a potentially great Secretary of State in Hillary Clinton. (Well, let me tell you Mr. McGovern, some Americans do not believe this at all and as things stand now, we will never know if Clinton is a good or a bad Secretary of State - The Obama controls every minute detail of his staff of yes-people that she has not a thought of her own. Many Americans are not easily swayed by large quantities of human green house gas emissions in the form of empty vapid speeches by a former Community Organizer.)

Nonetheless, our military budget is higher than ever -- $515 billion annually, not including the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan. (Well, it is the one thing that the Constitution actually mandates. We could easily save $2.5T by eliminating most of the social programs of the budget and just concentrate on protecting ourselves and paying down the huge deficit. If the Obama and congress (and by congress I mean not just the socialists but also the republicans - woops, I am almost being redundant) would focus on what the Constitution mandates as being their jobs then things would actually improve.)

Much of the arms spending is for things that are capital-intensive but low on job creation. The reverse is true for public investment in such things as upgrading our decaying infrastructure, protecting the environment, providing quality teachers and schools, and improved health care. (Unfortunately, Mr. McGovern, it is not the place of government to grow government. By spending trillions on social programs the government is doing no more than creating Trillions in debt. Little or nothing has come of the Obama's first package of economic squandering - people are still out of work and the debt grows. His budget will amount to the same thing but by a factor of 4.)

It's Going to be a Long Summer!

From the "Department of Gee, I Didn't See That Coming, Well Duh": Reports: N. Korea Prepares Long-Range Missile

"If North Korea turns its back on dialogue and peace and dares to carry out military threats and provocations, the Republic of Korea will never tolerate that," Lee said in his regular radio address. "I want to make clear that there won't be any compromise on things that threaten our nation's security."

Now let's contrast that with what the Obama will probably say:

"Uh, how come this damn Teleprompter aint' working - Uh, well, Uh, as I have said before, Uh, we are going to ask, uh, damn Teleprompter is making me look bad, Uh - who gave it the week off anyway? Uh, as I have said before, I have furrowed my brows more deeply than before, Uh, someone call Hillary, this is her mess, I have an ACORN board meeting at 1 o'clock, Uh to discuss giving them more taxpayer money - crap, did I say that out loud? Uhhhh, well heck, the press will overlook it, anyway as I have said we will beg the UN to act really, really tough. Someone send Kim Jong Il some chocolate and tell him to Uhhhh, chill out. Dammit, where's Hillary when you need someone to do something, Uh"

Missing?

Not a good way to start a new month: Air France Jet Carrying 228 Missing Over Atlantic.