Category: Politics

John Kerry explained the advantage he and Edwards have over the incumbent to an admiring crowd today:

…we’ve got better hair.

I’m glad he cleared that up, because when Kerry said Edwards didn’t have enough experience to be president — just a few weeks ago — I thought he meant it. But as we can now see, it was just Kerry being Kerry.

Does a freshman senator with no prior experience have what it takes to step into the Oval Office and run the Free World in the event that the president takes sick, gets shot, or has a better offer from a richer country?

In general, I think the answer is probably no, and largely because of the nature of legislative experience. We typically choose governors to serve as chief executive, because their experience is so much more relevant than that of legislators, especially back-bench legislators from the minority party whose chief role is toeing the party line and doing what their committee chairs tell them to do.

The joke about Edwards is that Kerry wanted someone with more experience, but Dan Quayle turned him down.

Peaceniks held a demonstration in San Diego to protest the handover of sovereignty in Iraq, only to be outnumbered by counter-protestors. Go read Citizen Smash, the instigator. This is great.

John Kerry’s selection of trial lawyer John Edwards as running mate strikes me as a desperate move that violates the first rule of veep-selection: don’t choose a veep who’s more charismatic than the candidate. Kerry being what he is, it was probably necessary to violate this rule in order to have a breathing veep, so never mind.

The selection of Edwards appeals to moderates, but it alienates two important interest groups: business leaders, who don’t want a trial lawyer in the White House and are willing to mobilize against the Kerry/Edwards ticket; and disaffected youth, the Deaniacs, who want someone more in line with their values, such as they are.

I’ve always admired Edwards’ hair, and I have to admit that he brings youth and vitality to an otherwise lackluster ticket. But voters may not be looking for anything more than a good nap this year, so it’s not clear that Edwards brings value to the ticket.

UPDATE: Here’s a typical reaction from a Deaniac (see more here):

I’m sick about it. Once again the Kerry campaign is made to order for the ill informed, for pomp and no circumstance, for the pundits and not the people, for the camera and not my kids. Edwards, smerdards, yes to Iraq, yes to Patriot Act. No to experience, no to any real heart, as far as I can see. Today is another very sad for me. Not this time, but soon I know I will be forced to leave the Democrats altogether. I’m sick about this choice.

Sounds like trouble in River City.

Boregonian columnist David Reihnhard wrote a nice summary of the shifting goalposts technique used by opponents of the The great liberation of Iraq:

In the beginning, President Bush said he would go to war if Saddam Hussein did not comply with U.N. resolutions, and they said the president needed authority from Congress in order to take military action against Saddam.

And when President Bush went to Congress and Congress overwhelmingly passed the Iraq War resolution, they said President Bush needed to go to the United Nations and seek the United Nations’ agreement.

And when the United Nations passed a one-last-chance resolution threatening “serious consequences” if Iraq failed to cooperate fully with U.N. weapons inspectors, they said that when we said the United Nations must agree we didn’t just mean all the resolutions the United Nations passed or even the latest one, we meant troops and money and moral support.

And when other U.N. members joined President Bush’s “coalition of the willing” and provided troops and money and moral support, they said the troops and money and moral support that they meant were troops and money and moral support from . . . France.

And the war came.

Reminders like this – and the one by Michael Ignatieff – are essential as we enter an election season in which the left will try to pummel President Bush by rewriting history.

California’s Second Appellate District has ruled that the State can no longer reap financial gain from the child support orders that stem from faulty paternity judgments, reversing a long-standing practice imposed by radical feminist legislator Sheila Kuehl. The case is L. A. County v. Navarro, dealing with a man who didn’t respond to a court order sent through the mail in the required six months.

The court cited a law that I helped pass in 2000:

It is this state?s policy that when a mistake occurs in a child support action, the County must correct it, not exploit it. When the Legislature enacted the Child Support Enforcement Fairness Act of 2000, it declared ?The efficient and fair enforcement of child support orders is essential to ensuring compliance with those orders and respect for the administration of justice. . . .

Thousands of individuals each year are mistakenly identified as being liable for child support actions. As a result of that action, the ability to earn a living is severely impaired, assets are seized, and family relationships are often destroyed. It is the moral, legal, and ethical obligation of all enforcement agencies to take prompt action to recognize those cases where a person is mistakenly identified as a support obligor in order to minimize the harm and correct any injustice to that person.? (Stats. 1999, ch. 653 (A.B. 380), italics added.)

The County, a political embodiment of its citizens and inhabitants, must always act in the public interest and for the general good. It should not enforce child support judgments it knows to be unfounded. And in particular, it should not ask the courts to assist it in doing so. Despite the Legislature?s clear directive that child support agencies not pursue mistaken child support actions, the County persists in asking that we do so. We will not sully our hands by participating in an unjust, and factually unfounded, result. We say no to the County, and we reverse.

The court stated that a strict adherence to child support and paternity law required them to enforce the unfounded order, but found a more important authority in AB 380.

I can’t tell you how happy this makes me, that a law that I helped to pass has actually helped someone, and stands to help many more – a lot.

But as nice as this is, we can be sure that the radical feminists who wrote the child support laws will shortly be trying to reverse this decision – probably before the legislative year is out in early September.

Reagan’s famous question in his campaign against Carter in 1980 was “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” It resonated with the voters in its time and place because of the conditions that defined that time and place.

This year’s election question, I submit, is “Are you better off than you were on Sept. 11, 2001?” My answer to that is a resounding “Yes!”.