I Agree With President Obama

Time for a positive post.

Here's the link: http://www-cgi.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/22/obama.60.minutes/index.html

Here's the quote, on our President, President Obama:

The president also stressed that his administration won't endorse a House bill that would levy a 90 percent tax on bonuses paid out by companies that receive bailout money.

"As a general proposition, you don't want to be passing laws that are just targeting a handful of individuals," Obama said. "You want to pass laws that have some broad applicability ... you certainly don't want to use the tax code to punish people."

I think he's right. I think he's taking a good stand, and it's the stand i think he should be taking. I'm still not sure what AIG did that was wrong - the contracts were written that way, the government bailout plan said they could do it, and so they did it. It was all there. Sure, i think when you fail at your job maybe you shouldn't get a bonus, but it was perfectly legal and it was all spelled out up front. I can't believe the House and the Senate had nothing better to do last week than talk about $165 million.

At the risk of going negative, I just can't figure out what Senator Chris Dodd thought that legislation that allowed bonuses that had been written into contract prior to giving out bailout money to still be awarded, meant. Clearly he didn't understand that it meant that bonuses that had been written into the contract prior to giving out bailout money would still be awarded. And, magically, Geithner's crew now feels that there isn't a legal liability.

Welcome

Hello!

This is my place for saying things I think. There are lots of things that are important to me, but for the present there are three particular categories that occupy a large portion of my time: science, religion, and politics (probably in that order). I'm currently a dissertator in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I'm also a believing member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (members of this church are commonly referred to as "Mormons" - a fine designation in my mind). And, amidst of sea of liberal leftism I'm about as conservative as you get, although I qualify that to say that I believe that being tolerant (a principle not espoused by many who are too far to the right or left) is almost always more important than being right.

That said, I was recently looking for a theme or idea to tie these thoughts together. I recalled a forum I attended while an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University where Professor of Biology Michael F. Whiting (on the faculty of BYU) gave the following:

Darwin was born 12 February 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. This was the same day that Abraham Lincoln was born, and only 3 years after the birth of Joseph Smith. These three men – Smith, Lincoln, and Darwin – were all contemporaries who profoundly changed mankind’s view of religion, politics, and science. Darwin was in fact influenced by many of the same religious and social pressures that Joseph Smith was, and some of the same social forces, which molded Joseph Smith and the early church were also operating on Darwin. It is it is interesting that these men were contemporaries during a time when the Lord saw fit to rain down knowledge upon the earth (Brigham Young University Forum, May 24, 2005 - see speeches.byu.edu for an mp3, though a transcript is not available).

I like this idea. Admittedly, aside from the fact that these three men are mentioned in the same paragraph, I'll probably never refer to this idea again. But it is true the principles discovered, articulated, and/or embodied by these three men have had large impacts on the three fields in which I spend much of my time. So, while I may add additional categories - I also spend quite a bit of time playing the drums and may post some music online, for example, and I'm also a pretty serious NCAA Division I hockey fan - these are three important things to me, and I'll take advantage of this medium to publish my thoughts on each. Thus begins the documentation of my growth as I mature in an understanding and application of the principles of empirical inquiry, faithful worship of God, and patriotism.

The Pinocchio Administration

http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/03/04/gainor_obama_media/

Not sure what to say. I think the whole article is worth a read, and this begins to get at what I think about Obama - I think he knew how to get the crowds to elect him, but I think he has very little interest in doing anything but what he wants. Maybe that's okay, but I think some of those things are not what he told the people.

Anybody remember some whiners about Bush pushing a war through congress before people knew what was going on? Sound like an approach used to push a stimulus package through congress (which was 787 billion in one year vs 685 billion over five/six for the war, by the way).

I'm a Romney Man

Here's a recent interview former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney gave. I have no idea what other people think of these responses, but they are to me everything I want from a politician: logically sound, intelligent, RESPONSES TO THE QUESTION. Sorry for the caps. I think I'm still a little bitter from watching those Presidential Debates that went essentially like this:

Moderator: Senator McCain, there has been a recent influx of children eating legos in the home. What is your response to this?

Senator McCain: Well [Moderator], I have a long record of reaching across the aisle to deal with important issues like this. Not that one. [repeat ad nosium to fill the remaining 112 seconds]

Moderator: Senator Obama: response?

Senator Obama:  Thank you [Moderator]. I think that what you're talking about is a serious issue for our working families, especially those with children, and that we need a change from the way that Senator McCain, who is in cahoots with an irresponsible administration, who I don't want to point fingers at or blame, has proposed. But he will continue those terrible policies that have caused our nation to fail. And unless we solve the crisis of health care for our working families ... [98 more seconds of this stuff, "working families" repeated every 8-10 seconds] 

I don't know. Maybe Romney's responses seem like the same thing to people who don't like him, but I appreciate that he succinctly responds to the question at hand, and does so with an understanding of the knowledge. My impression - again, perhaps faulty - is that he actually thinks this stuff on his own, rather than being handed it by a team of think tankers. Nothing wrong with that, but I think that Lincoln himself was a thinking man of genius, and if he's my model, I've got to play back to that.

One more Romney thought (the last of the post, but certainly not the last): the man can speak to an audience. We've heard a lot of praise for Obama, and to be honest, I don't find his speaking presence as commanding or his words as compelling. Regardless of whether you appreciate Romney or not, if you want to hear a powerful speech, go find his CPAC speech or his "Faith in America" speech. Brilliant works. The kind of things i wish we were getting from all politicians. 

Faith in America: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2007/12/06/braw-datab-mitt-romneys-faith-america-speech/
CPAC: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1794442/posts

Talking Ourselves Into a Depression

There are a couple of forum posts at Fox (I know that already makes it unpopular with anyone who disagrees about this) that articulate my thoughts about the state of the economy and how we got here. I've included the links to the full article, but it's pretty much standard fare.

First: http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/03/16/sheppard_depression/

Since Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy on Sept. 15, the Obama-obsessed media, realizing a financial crisis would help the Democrat presidential candidate defeat John McCain, have been continually depicting economic conditions as being the worst since the Great Depression.

I think anyone worth their political salt saw the opportunity when, for whatever reason, people believed in Obama more than McCain about the economy. I have very little idea on what grounds that happened, but from a political strategist's standpoint it doesn't really matter and I can appreciate the need to capitalize on the opportunity. Case in point, instead of reassuring us as he ought to be doing, he continued to capitalize on that worry to get funding for pet projects through the House and the Senate - which he could have done anyway given the democratic majorities - but the political genius was that he did it while the American people were convinced that the majority of Americans wanted the second stimulus - and maybe more stimulus after that, too. 

Continued from the same post above:

So has candidate, president-elect, and President Obama — that is until a few days ago, when he mysteriously declared things are “not as bad as we think.”

It is unclear which “we” the President was referring to, as for approaching six months he has told Americans that the world is close to coming to an end.

Now, half of them believe it. Talk about your inconvenient self-fulfilling prophecies.

On Wall Street, all you have to do to keep money in is keep confidence up. Overinflated gas prices this past summer were an excellent example of that. Everyone believed they'd make money if they put money into it, so they put money into it. But when the President starts telling you things are bad, you stop putting money in, and everybody who has money in loses it. It's a simplistic way to view it, but not too far from reality. 

I think the following forum articulates this idea of a capitalizing on an opportunity best. I'll include a few paragraphs, though i recommend the whole thing: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/16/obama-team-adopts-mccains-optimism-economy/

"Stubborn."  "Out of touch." "Incapable of understanding" the economic crisis. That's how Barack Obama and his presidential campaign team described John McCain last year when the Republican candidate famously said "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."

But now President Obama and his advisers are adopting similar rhetoric as they try to build public confidence in an economic turnaround. 

"Of course the fundamentals are sound," Obama economic adviser Christina Romer said Sunday. The administration is now keeping the focus on "all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy," Obama said Friday.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday that there's a "definitional difference between sound and strong," and that the president is still trying to "strengthen" the sound aspects of the economy.

The rhetorical shift is just the latest in which Obama has shown strains of the views and policies of the man he defeated in November, even though in some cases he once criticized those views.

In the case of the economy, analysts note that Obama is trying hard to tamp down the gloom-and-doom rhetoric he used in the weeks following Inauguration Day.

Support the President - But Not the Drones

So, I read this, and thought I'd comment. Maybe i should include the CNN link, too, as  evidence that I read more than just FOX. 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/03/17/bush-obama-deserves-silence-wont-criticize-new-administration/

A couple of paragraphs:

Bush declined to critique the Obama administration in his first speech since leaving office in January. Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said that Obama's decisions threatened America's safety.

"I'm not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in the arena," Bush said. "He deserves my silence."

Bush said he wants Obama to succeed and said it's important that he has that support. Talk-show host Rush Limbaugh has said he hoped Obama would fail.

"I love my country a lot more than I love politics," Bush said. "I think it is essential that he be helped in office."

I didn't ponder on this for a long time, but I had the sense that a few different interpretations of his response could be made:

1) "Isn't he a noble man, refusing to lower himself to the essentially meaningless criticism that he was subjected to?" (I'm referring to the meaningless, not useful, criticism he came under, which is what this would be against President Obama.

2) "What an idiot! He has a chance to catch his political enemy and gives it up hoping that if he gives President Obama a pass, we'll give him a pass. Yeah right!" (I imagine people of this mentality are likely to take umbrage with quoted paragraph 4 above)

3) This is what President's do, so it's not really a surprise that this is his reaction. What's the big deal?

I tend towards the last of these, but it was a good reminder to me of something I said a lot while President Bush was in office, and that governed my thinking in the first weeks after President Obama's inauguration. We need unity in the important things. We need people to stop being personal and to support the important things that they can give on, while making criticisms against the important things that they can't give on, as well. 

That said, while I fully intend to do all I can to support Obama as our President, I feel no obligation to be supportive of the manipulated drones who voted him into office. I think he duped them and while I want to support him in fixing our economy and solving some wartime issues, I think there are already lots of evidences that he is not who he has said that he is, and that that will become more apparent as time progresses.

I'll point out at the same time that I can hardly fault someone for not voting for McCain, either. I'm a Romney man, and I'll probably have some things to say about him in the future, too.

where will this post go?

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Breaking the Cycle
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