James Webb's Class War

In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed piece, Democratic Senator-elect James Webb gives us a look at the Democratic class warfare of the future.

The most important--and unfortunately the least debated--issue in politics today is our society's steady drift toward a class-based system, the likes of which we have not seen since the 19th century.

When did Democrats ever stop worrying about inequality? Please, Mr. Webb.

And what’s all this about a class-based society? The 19th century was characterized by remarkable increase in population and wages among working people. And this unprecendented increase in the prosperity of ordinary people was founded upon the breakthrough achievements of businessmen in railroads, steamships, steel production, and oil extraction.

Those businessmen had names like Rockefeller, son of a snake-oil salesman, Carnegie, son of a hand-loom weaver, Stevenson, engine-man at a coal-mine, Brunel, son of an engineer. Not very elite, I’d say.

So why are you claiming that the 19th century was class-based, Mr. Webb? Did you mean that many of the discoveries and developments were made by men of very humble origin?

James Webb blames the nation’s elite for the inequality, and it is clear he blames the business elite rather than the educational, cultural, or political elite. They just don’t get the point of the deepening divide.

When I raised this issue with corporate leaders during the recent political campaign, I was met repeatedly with denials, and, from some, an overt lack of concern for those who are falling behind. A troubling arrogance is in the air among the nation's most fortunate.

They live in a different world, you see.

Few among them send their children to public schools; fewer still send their loved ones to fight our wars.

To create a better world,

It should be the first order of business for the new Congress to begin addressing these divisions, and to work to bring true fairness back to economic life.

Well, that’s your opinon, senator-elect, and you are entitled to it.

But for my money, I would hesitate to blame the business elite. They’ve reformed and reengineered their businesses again and again. That is why the U.S. economy is the most productive in the world.

But then there’s the Democratic elite: politicians, educators, and cultural content producers. It is their program of the last 100 years to make everything fair that has ruined the working class and made tens of millions dependent on Big Government for their livelihood.

Why do the rich send their kids to private schools? Because the government’s school are no good. And whose fault is that?

Why have the corporate pension plans collapsed? Because business and labor looted the corporations that promised the benefits and government stood by and let them do it.

Why are Americans losing their jobs to illegal immigrants? Because Democratic politicians and activists have prevented the enforcement of the immigration laws, thus making illegal immigration highly profitable.

Over the last century, Democrats have played a fine game, complaining about the results of their own policies and blaming it all on somebody else.

We are not going to let you do it this time, Senator-elect. It is people like you, with your cheap class-warfare rhetoric that are the problem, not the solution.

Baby-Boomers Break the Budget

What will happen as the baby boom generation retires? Will they break the budget and saddle Gen X and Y with enormous taxes and debt?

Or will the taxpayers of the era just say no?

Richard Fairbanks and Paul S. Hewitt rehearse the gloomy predictions.

Say what you will about global warming or Iraq, over the next generation no trend will more directly shape the substance of American politics than the looming self-impoverishment of legions of middle-aged, middle-class voters.

...

As recently as 2004, one-third of Baby Boomers had no financial assets.

The startling thing is that the largest share of the Baby Boomer retirement costs will be in Medicare and Medicaid:

Of projected new spending on the aged, $3 in every $4 will be in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

No doubt it is there that the government will try to economize. Especially if the Democrats succeed in nationalizing health care. No doubt it won’t be much fun being a health care professional.

Of course, what will happen is that the health care professionals will unionize and demand to be well-paid for doing not very much.

Goodness knows what that will do to the federal budget.

And goodness knows what that will do to the well-being of the aged.

The Boxed-in Democrats

When they were in opposition in Congress the Democrats opposed, ferociously. Now they are the majority, committed to increase subsidies for the already subsidized in education and health care, as provided in their New Direction for America.

But will their instinct to increase the welfare state be possible? Michael Barone has his doubts.

In their hearts, most elected Democrats would like to move us some distance closer to a European-style welfare state -- slouching toward Scandinavia, some conservatives might call it.

But they probably won’t be able to do so, at least not very much.

They want to increase the minimum wage, but very few people work at the minimum wage. They could increase the Earned Income Tax Credit, but they have kinda boxed themselves in with a “pay-go” rule that prevents tax cuts unless they are balanced by spending cuts.

Then there’s the Alternative Minimum Tax that is unindexed for inflation and deliciously hurts the rich, but hurts the liberal rich in blue states more than the conservative rich in red states.

Former Clinton aides like Gene Sperling are concerned about the insecurity felt by many workers. Yet the security offered by mid-twentieth century corporations isn’t likely to be on offer. Instead Sperling

is for a "universal 401(k)," which would give all workers tax-sheltered savings accounts, funded by employers and employees.

That sounds rather like President Bush’s reform of Social Security, that “Democrats scorned.”

Republicans may be downhearted at their mid-term losses, but more important than Republican positive self-esteem is national hygiene.

And national hygiene demands that Democrats stop opposing and start proposing. The problem is that first of all they have to break out of the box they have put themselves in.

Are The French Toast Yet?

Is Europe toast, or merely warming up the toaster? Mark Steyn has advanced the theory that the lack of heat between the matrimonial sheets (indeed the lack of any matrimonial sheets) in Europe and the demographic deficit in Eurobabies pretty much defines Europe as over, unless. But it’s a pretty big Unless.

Ralph Peters isn’t buying the Steyn gloom-and-doom. Europe has done a pretty good job in the past of euthanizing problematic populations, he writes.

This is the continent that perfected genocide and ethnic cleansing, the happy-go-lucky slice of humanity that brought us such recent hits as the Holocaust and Srebrenica.

Yes, but what have they done for us lately?

We need to differentiate between the articulate elite, the one that we read and hear because they are the people who write and talk. They are the people who can get up and leave Europe if things get too tough on the Muslim front.

But the ordinary European cannot up and quit. And it is their rage and hate that would fuel any anti-Muslim cleansing. But will they fight?

An early indication should be the French presidential election in 2007. It was six years ago that Jean-Marie Le Pen came an unexpected second in the French presidential election. At that time the reaction of the bien pensant was shock and amazement.

But this time the nationalist banner has been raised by the current interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy. That means that the Muslim problem will actually get a voice from one of the respectable parties.

As the riot of soccer hooligans in Paris after the defeat of Paris Saint-Germain by an Israeli team shows, there are plenty of young French men spoiling for a fight: with Jews, black, Muslims, whoever.

Fortunately the French government is going to “eradicate violence from the stadiums.”

"We do not want racists in stadiums any more, Nazi salutes, monkey noises. Football is not war."

So that’s all right.

The results of the French election should tell us a lot about the future of Europe.

RMC Third World Index

As you travel around the world how do you tell if you are in a Third World country or not?

It’s a ticklish question and a challenging one. But here at the Road to the Middle Class we have devised the RMC Third World Index so you can tell immediately where you are.

It is simple really. As you drive along, check the side of the road. Are there any tracks winding into the fields or the bush, tracks that look like they are used by foot traffic or by bicycles?
If there are, then you are in the Third World, because the tracks mean that the country still has subsistence agriculture where people walk to and from the fields, and may live in a village inaccessible to four-wheeled traffic.

You can see these tracks in China and India. And you can see them in the Kingdom of Cambodia, where Lady Marjorie and I just visited.

But you do not see them in Thailand. There are no traditional agricultural villages left in Thailand; the agriculture is machine-powered. Even in the tribal villages up in the north of Thailand in the national parks the villagers drive to their rice fields on their Honda 100cc motorcycles.

So as you drive by Thai farms on Thailand’s excellent highways, the farms look like they could almost be in the United States. Farm yards are stocked with tractors and with trucks. Just like you’d expect to see in the good old USA.

Clamber over Angkor Wat, While You Still Can

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA —
You haven’t lived until you have seen the gigantic rush hours at Siem Reap, the closest town to the monster palace and temple complex at Angkor Wat.

In 2005 they booked 1.5 million visitors to Angkor Wat, and this year they are predicting 2 million.

In consequence the sleepy village of Siem Reap has got itself an airport with a spanking new international terminal, and a permanent construction zone in which over 80 tourist hotels have been built in the last few years.

When the tourists are heading out of their hotels for the temple complex at 8:30 am, you can visualize the torrent of buses and Toyota mini-vans.

And when the tourists get to the ruins... Prepare to be shocked.

We westerners, trained to worship the environment before we even get out of diapers, expect to be firmly roped off from fragile ruins.

In our US National Parks we are used to the slow and relentless project to confine us to the road, or the trail, or the bus. Because if we stepped off the trail we would irreversibly damage the fragile ecology—of the alpine meadow, or the arid desert, or the cultural heritage of the adobe village—and that would never do.

But not at Angkor Wat. At least not yet.

They do have ropes up to stop you from fingering the amazing 150 foot long bas-relief of the monkey god Hanuman’s battle with the demon king.

But you can clamber over pretty well everything else, at least for now.

You’d better get on an airplane and get out here real soon. Because the euro-snots will pretty soon decide that ordinary people need to be kept off the sacred precincts—where only accredited researchers ought to tread.

Back From The Thai Jungle

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND —
Out on the marches between Thailand and Myanmar the terrain is pretty rough. They call it the “tribal areas.” And a lot of the inhabitants are refugees from Myanmar, as you might expect.

We visited a couple of villages, two of the few true agricultural villages left in Thailand. They are located in a National Park at the end of jeep trails.

But the Thai government does not just leave these villages in splendid isolation. Oh no. It is, you might say, very interested in village life in the tribal areas.

In fact it is interesting to observe how the Thai government extends its power into these tribal areas.

In the first place, the Thai government operates a government school, compulsory for all children, run by a single teacher who lives in the village (and likely ends up marrying a local village girl). In the village we visited there’s a one-room school house and it features a huge display of the King of Thailand and his queen. There’s a display of the Thai alphabet and the English alphabet (English teacher comes once a week on Friday).

Shocking to an American is the straight-on Thai nationalism of the school. Around eight in the morning each day there’s a flag-raising in the school yard, singing of the national anthem, and rudimentary military drill.

Inside the school building there is posted a big ten commandments in which the children are directed to be respectful to their parents and their teacher, to study hard, and to listen in class.

You can see that whatever the parents may want, the Thai government is determined to turn the children in the tribal areas into loyal Thai citizens.

Like everything else about the Thai government, it seems effective and efficient.

At The Royal Flora Expo

CHIANG MAI, THAILAND — The Royal Flora Expo opened here November 1 in Thailand’s second city, up in the north west of the nation near the border with Myanmar.

It’s an exposition of flowers plain and exotic on exhibition grounds perhaps a quarter of a mile on a side, nestled up against the mountains.

Central to the Expo is the Royal Pavilion, featuring the King of Thailand’s “initiatives and activities focusing on the agricultural projects. In addition there’s a Thai Tropical Garden, a Corporate Garden, the Expo Center, and an International Outdoor Garden with exhibits from about 25 nations from Iran to China.

Your correspondent could not stay long at the Royal Flora Expo, due to scheduling constraints but did manage to visit the Orchid Pavilion and the Tea Pavilion.

The Orchid Pavilion featured a dazzling array of orchids ordinary and exotic.

The Tea Pavilion had videos of diverse cultural practices with respect to tea, including the Japanese Tea Ceremony, European ladies enjoying afternoon tea, and Middle Eastern men who apparently enjoy tea in an “atmosphere of conversion,” which seems culturally appropriate. After conversion (or maybe the fractured English meant to say conversation) the visitor gets a chance to enjoy a cup of Oolong.

The Royal Flora Expo is set to run through January 31, 2007. If you are in Thailand and plan to visit Chiang Mai, be sure to block out some time to enjoy this splendid treat.

First Impressions of Thailand

ON THE ROAD IN THAILAND — It’s the roads, stupid. You drive for mile after mile, for hour after hour on first class roads all across southern Thailand. And there are four lane, six lane arterials through most of the towns you drive through.

And another thing. There don’t seem to be any traditional villages. Everyone is living in the towns, or in western-style isolated farm complexes.

It’s a surprise. You know that Thailand has recovered from the Asian Contagion of 1997-98. But the appearance of solid prosperity, the burgeoning businesses, the ubiquitous Toyota HiLux trucks and 4x4s, it means something.

And another thing. In India and China there is a class of transportation below what we see in the United States. Leaving aside the occasional ox-cart, which you don’t see in southern Thailand, there is also no sign of the motorcycle-based tricycle cargo vehicle. It’s pickup trucks everywhere, parked in front of businesses big and small. Maybe the truck is a old Nissan. But just as likely it is a shiny new Toyots HiLux 3.0D, with fancy roofrack and roo bars (OK so they don’t have kangaroos in Thailand, but you get what I mean.)

Here is something else. Outside your average southern Thailand city is a row of plant nurseries, looking just like what you would see in the United States.

Here is my take. You are getting pretty close to the top of the league when your city is supporting a bunch of businesses in the nursery lark.

By the way, anybody around here recently walked along the Bridge over the River Kwai (pronounced Kwer) whistling “Colonel Bogey?”

I thought not.

Milton Friedman Dead at 94

Back in the 1960s and 1970s there were three high-profile economists in the United States: John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Samuelson, and Milton Friedman. For many years Samuelson and Friedman alternated writing a column at the back of Newsweek. Yes, those were the days when Time and Newsweek had pretensions of offering serious intellectual opinion.

Each of the three economists occupied an important niche. Galbraith offered liberals comforting liberal “conventional wisdom” while couched as though it was a courageous explosion of conventional ideas. Samuelson offered a compromise, writing a standard textbook which took a middle road between classical economics and lefty elitism. But Friedman was the real thing. As Holcomb B. Noble writes in the New York Times:

Milton Friedman [was] the grandmaster of free-market economic theory in the postwar era and a prime force in the movement of nations toward less government and greater reliance on individual responsibility[.]

...
“Among economic scholars, Milton Friedman had no peer,” Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said yesterday. “The direct and indirect influences of his thinking on contemporary monetary economics would be difficult to overstate.”

Actually, Milton Friedman held a conventional view of monetary policy, the quantity theory of money. In the left-liberal era influenced by Keynes, this was perhaps a necessary return to basics. Keynesians were altogether too eager to manipulate monetary policy for political ends. Since Milton Friedman, scholars have tried to develop a more nuanced quantity theory, one that recognizes the confidence that people place in money as well as understand the fundamental importance of the quantity of money in circulation.

But it was Friedman’s example and inspiration as a fearless champion of freedom that made him the outstanding political intellectual of his generation. This is the opposite of Alan Greenspan’s view:

“From a longer-term point of view, it’s his academic achievements which will have lasting import. But I would not dismiss the profound impact he has already had on the American public’s view.”

On the contrary, it will be as a public intellectual and a controversialists that Friedman will be remembered.

And the proof of that is the central mission of the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation, founded in 1996 to promote school choice. After a century and a half of government monopoly education there is probably no more important work of public persuason than to move the United States and the world away from the disaster of public education.

It is the final measure of Milton Friedman, American hero, that he devoted the last years of his life to this noble cause.

Language Does Matter

Language, we are taught, is an innate human ability. We have, according to Noam Chomsky, an internal syntax that enables us to acquire language. Therefore, says MIT psychologist Steven Pinker, we should regard all language as equally valid. In other words the vernacular lanugage of the streets is just as human as the language of the academy.

In the current City Journal psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple begs to differ. No doubt there is an inherent ability for language, but just like any other innate human ability, the language ability depends on the way in which it is drawn out and developed.

Dalrymple spent many years working at an inner-city hospital and prison in England. In his experience, the lack of communications ability in the underclass people that he encountered was palpable.

I was struck not by the verbal felicity and invention of my patients and those around them but by their inability to express themselves with anything like facility: and this after 11 years of compulsory education, or (more accurately) attendance at school.

These people just could not articulate abstract thoughts, or even feelings beyond the most basic and crude.

And the reason is not too difficult to find. Underclass people are born to people that lack language skills, and so spend their childhood in an inarticulate environment. Then they go to failed schools where they fail to improve their language skills.

This, Dalrymple points out, adds up to a staqgering disability. Even at the basic level, where underclass people need to communicate with middle-class welfare-state bureaucrats in social services and criminal justice, their lack of language skills means that the bureaucrats do not find out, or do not bother to find out, what their needs are.

Beyond that, of course, they are cut off from the entire world of employment and culture where abstract reasoning and articulate speech is essential to a competently lived life.

And Dalrymple knows whereof he speaks. His father obtained a decent education and was an articulate man. But his uncle, due to lack of funds, did not get an education. This brilliant man was condemned to live his life unable to get the thought in his mind out into the world.

My uncle... remained trapped in the language of the slums. He was a highly intelligent man and what is more a very good one... But he was deeply inarticulate. His thoughts were too complex for the words and the syntax available to him. All through my childhood and beyond, I saw him struggle, like a man wrestling with an invisible boa constrictor, to express his far from foolish thoughts&mdashthoughts of a complexity that my father expressed effortlessly.

It’s cheap for the liberal multicultis to peddle their relativistic notions. They may not value the importance of proficiency in speech and written expression. But their whole livelihood is built upon this proficiency.

And, it might be added, their dominance of the public square depends, to a significant extent, upon keeping a significant minority of the population inarticulate and dependent.

Speech and language may indeed be innate human abilities. But like any innate ability, it is merely latent until you develop it and train it. Ask Tiger Woods.

Tsunami Lays Down 600 Ft High Deposit

Here’s another reason to stop worrying about global warming, courtesy of The New York Times.

It seems that in Madagascar there are these 600 foot high “chevrons,” according to Sandra Blakeslee. What is a chevron? It’s a “wedge-shaped sediment deposit.” You can see them in the gutter after a heavy rain. But 600 feet high? Well you take a look at this photo from Google Earth. (It’s the arrowhead object going from top left to bottom right in the picture. Yes, with Google Earth you can convert the overhead satellite photo into an oblique perspective view. Amazing! The picture in the Times ain’t got nuttin’ on this.)

The theory being advanced by research scientist Dallas Abbott is that the chevron in the picture was deposited by a giant tsunami from an asteroid impact in the Indian Ocean south-east of Madagascar. She and others in “Holocene Impact Working Group” think that the impact occurred at the Burckle Crater, out in the Indian Ocean “900 miles southeast from the Madagascar chevrons.” In the picture above, that would be over the horizon. The idea is that the tsunami occurred about 4,500 years ago.

Of course, it’s all speculation right now, but scientists are grappling with the possibility that catastrophic impacts from extraterrestrial objects are a lot more frequent than we have liked to think.

“We’re not talking about any tsunami you’re ever seen,” Dr. Bryant [of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia] said. “Aceh was a dimple. No tsunami in the modern world could have made these features. End-of-the-world movies do not capture the size of these waves.

Yeah. Makes you think, doesn’t it.

A Cure for Health Woes

OK, so we know that we can fix the education system with a dose of private enterprise. But what about health care? Surely, with the spiraling costs of health care, there is no substitute for a large government presence?

Not according to Canadian psychiatrist David Gratzer. In The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care, he proposes that the current government-dominated system be replaced with a new system free of spiraling costs and bureaucracy.

In an interview with Jamie Glasov he explains his approach.

American health care is so expensive because it’s so cheap. That is, with Americans paying just 14 cents out of pocket for every health dollar, there has been little incentive for people to economize their health expenses.

So what is to be done?

Make health insurance more like other types of insurance; Foster competition; Reform Medicaid, using welfare reform as the template; Revisit Medicare; Address prescription drug prices by pruning the size and scope of the FDA.

You can order the book from Amazon, of course, or you can go to Dr. Gratzer’s op-eds.

Here’s “For Health Care Woes, a Capitalism Perspective” in the Washington Post.

The problem is, of course, that we Americans expect to have other people pay for their health care. And they have organized their lives on that basis. To change that system will create discomfort for millions.

Rudy's Leadership and Newt's Ideas

The grave of Republican hopes in 2006 is scarcely filled in, but the hopefuls are lining up for 2008. According to David Saltonstall and Helen Kennedy Rudy Giuliani’s lieutenants have filed the papers for an exploratory presidential committee.

On Sunday in Pennsylvania, Giuliani said he was giving a run for the presidency "a lot of thought" and would make a decision "sometime next year."

But that was on Sunday.

Three of Giuliani's most trusted lieutenants filed papers with the state on Friday forming the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee, allowing him to raise money to "test the waters" without officially declaring himself a candidate.

Meanwhile Newt Gingrich is generating a fountain of ideas, including books, five point strategies, and a ten point 21st Century Contract with America. His five point strategy looks like this.

1. Defeating Our Enemies
   
2. Defending God in the Public Square
   
3. Protecting America's Unique Civilization
   
4. Competing in the Global Economy
   
5. Promoting Active, Healthy Aging
   

Remember the cartoon back in the 1990s. It showed a rank of filing cabinets, each drawer labeled “Newt’s Ideas.” Over on the right was a drawer labeled “Newt’s Good Ideas.”

Very droll, of course, but don’t forget what the salesman said: Every No is a step closer to Yes.

With Rudy’s charisma and leadership abilities and Newt’s idea factory, Republicans should have a lock on the 2008 election. Right?

Pelosi's New Direction for America

If you want to know what life will be like under a Democratic Congress, here is an article by House Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi that lays out her agenda for the 110th Congress.

She writes that the American people voted for a change, for “greater integrity” and “greater civility” in Washington D.C. On Iraq, she writes,

The strategy of "stay the course" is not working, has not made our country safer, has not honored our commitment to our troops and has not brought stability to the region.

And she promises to enact the New Direction For America.

We will make America safer by implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission; make our economy fairer by raising the minimum wage and ending taxpayer subsidies for sending jobs overseas; make college more affordable by cutting the interest rates on student loans; improve healthcare by allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices and promoting stem cell research; achieve energy independence within 10 years by investing America's energy dollars in the Midwest instead of the Middle East; and guarantee a dignified retirement by improving Medicare, protecting Social Security and making it easier to save for retirement.

All these policies, she writes, are supported by large majorities of Americans.

They are, in fact, minor crowd-pleasing course corrections to the direction of the vast welfare state. But what do the American people really want from their government? That is always the question.

It is, however, a meaningless question. You might as well say: What do the customers really want from their neighborhood restaurant? What they want is a good meal and a feeling, after they have left, that they would like to come back.

When you have been eating at the same restaurant for years and years, you get an impulse to try something else.

The question is: Will you stay with the new restaurant, or return to the old one?

Clinton's Analysis of the Thumpin'

Here is how Jeff Jacoby tells it—out of the mouth of Clinton.

"The reason we are at this moment," former president Bill Clinton told a group of Democratic donors on Nov. 1, "is that they do not represent faithfully the Republicans and the more conservative independents in the country. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here tonight. This is a sweeping, deep, big thing." According to the nation's most popular Democrat, in other words, Republicans were about to be punished for having abandoned their Republican principles.

In other words, Republicans hadn’t been conservative enough.

OK, so congressional Republicans were corrupt and venal, and they concentrated on redistricting the Tom DeLay way instead of good conservative policies. Yes but how?

First of all, let’s get off Tom DeLay’s back. His job has always been to work on the nuts and bolts of fundraising and political mechanics. His famous redistricting of righted a monstrous wrong created by long time Democratic gerrymanders. A majority of votes in Texas was Republican but a majority of the representatives in the House were Democrats.

No, I think the big problem for Republicans was that they were frightened. They were frightened by the ferocious attacks and obstruction of the Democrats. They figured they couldn’t get anything done, so they didn’t try.

After all, Denny Hastert was made speaker after the debacle of 1998 when the Republican effort to remove President Clinton from office foundered in the Senate and resulted in Democratic gains in the mid-term elections. That was when the Republicans decided that discretion was the greater part of valor.

Well, now Republicans are in the minority, so now they have to play catch up. Now they have to take some risks if they want to get back into the majority.

Meanwhile, it seems that some people already have John McCain nominated for the Republican presidential nomination and Hillary Clinton elected to the presidency.

Nothing personal, you understand, but they obviously didn’t ask me before they decided the presidential election of 2008.

Is Islam Strong or Just Brittle?

Some people think that Islam is taking over the world. In America Alone, Mark Steyn claims that it is taking over Europe.

But other people, such as the cryptic Spengler that Islam is facing a terminal encounter with modernity.

British physician and critic of the welfare state (Life at the Bottom) Theodore Dalrymple inclines towards the latter perspective. In a review of Robert Spencer’s The Truth about Muhammed he writes:

Personally, I believe that all forms of Islam are very vulnerable in the modern world to rational criticism, which is why the Islamists are so ferocious in trying to suppress such criticism. They have instinctively understood that Islam itself, while strong, is exceedingly brittle, as communism once was. They understand that, at the present time in human history, it is all or nothing. They are thus more clear-sighted than moderate Moslems.

The thing is, of course, that the West cannot just stand there. It has to do something. In the 40 year Cold War against Soviet communism there were those who wanted to fight, and those who wanted to sit.

And after the Bush years, it looks like the first florish of action in the War on Terror is going to be followed by a period of retreat.

It’s easy to take a materialist view of history and justify doing nothing by awarding the victory to the side with the most productive forces, i.e. Us.

But there is always the lesson of China. China was the most productive society in the world for going on 2,000 years. But it was successfully invaded from the Asian steppe not once, but several times. Of course, you may argue, the barbarians became “sinicized” by the superior Chinese culture. But not before a ton of people got swept away in massive cycles of violence.

It’s comfortable to look at history from an armchair. But when you are considering your own time you are talking about your own life, and the lives of your loved ones.

When there are barbarians at the gate it means that your life in is the balance.

The only way to tell if Islam is really strong enough to take over the world or merely brittle is to take action and try to break it.

Let's Get Serious, Say Spy, Blair, and Noonan

Now that the Democrats are back it’s Happy Days Are Here Again, right?

But yesterday Prime Minister Tony Blair has trundled out the head of MI5, the British spy agency, for a little straight talk. Said Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller at a speech on November 9:

What I can say is that today, my officers and the police are working to contend with some 200 groupings or networks, totalling over 1600 identified individuals (and there will be many we don't know) who are actively engaged in plotting, or facilitating, terrorist acts here and overseas. The extremists are motivated by a sense of grievance and injustice driven by their interpretation of the history between the West and the Muslim world.

...

I do not speak in this way to alarm (nor as the cynics might claim to enhance the reputation of my organisation) but to give the most frank account I can of the Al-Qaida threat to the UK. That threat is serious, is growing and will, I believe, be with us for a generation.

Some were upset by the “alarming tone” of her speech, according to Philip Johnston. So Tony Blair came out to back her up.

The Prime Minister today came to the defence of Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, who has been criticised by some for the alarming tone of her assessment.


Mr Blair said that Dame Eliza's speech echoed "what I have been saying for several years."


"It's a very long and deep struggle but we have to stand up and be counted for what we believe in and take the fight to those people who want to entice young people into something wicked and violent but utterly futile," he said.

That is why Peggy Noonan is right when she says today about the new Congress:

We are in a 30-year war. It is no good for it to be led by, identified with, one party. It is no good for half the nation to feel estranged from its government's decisions. It's no good for us to be broken up more than a nation normally would be.

...

Go, Democrats, be great and serious. Go, minority Republicans, refind yourselves. Go, conservatives.

Because we have got to treat each other like adults and gird ourselves for the great clash of civilizations ahead.

Looking Forward

It’s too late now, but suppose that Congressional Republicans had followed President Bush’s lead and reformed Social Security? Maybe they would still have been stiffed by the voters, but they would have left behind a landmark piece of legislation to prove that they were there.

Well, that’s all history now. And The Wall Street Journal in today’s editorial looks towards the future. But first the bad news:

Here's one telling exit poll result: In battleground districts, only one in five voters said Republicans would do a better job to "keep government spending under control"; almost twice as many voters said Democrats would do a better job.

It defies belief that anyone could think that, but Republicans had better pay attention and turn that around right away.

Republicans also need to rediscover an agenda for reforming government programs that don't work or threaten to bankrupt future generations. The Gingrich Republicans did that with welfare reform in the 1990s, and they tried with Medicaid. Then President Bush gave Republicans a once-in-a-generation chance to reform Social Security and health care along free market lines, but GOP House leaders fought him behind the scenes. For this alone, they should be returned to the backbenches.

Actually I think we are all being a little unfair on the Congressional Republicans. It is hard to image reforming Social Security while the Democrats are still dead set against it.

As Camille Paglia says, reform is achieved by a small band of dedicated revolutionaries. The average person just wants to be left alone. So the opportunity for reform does not come in normal times but when people are frightened and willing to be led.

The next time that Republicans come to power we should be ready for the next items on the agenda: reform education, reform Social Security, and reform health care. And it can’t hurt to have a new generation of leaders in Congress:

The good news is that a younger generation does seem to be stepping forward. Mike Pence, of Indiana, has already declared for minority leader, and John Shadegg of Arizona is seeking the number two job as whip. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Jeb Hensarling of Texas and Jeff Flake of Arizona... are among the other Members who have tried to put ideas above mere incumbency.

The true lesson to learn of political life is to accept its cyclical nature, to understand that there are years of advance and also years of retreat. Mistakes are made and, if you are a Republican, you must pay for them.

The only unforgivable mistake is not to be ready when opportunity knocks.

Young People Support Civil Rights in Michigan

Listen to the people, they say. As they reelected Democrat Governor Granholm and Senator Stabenow Michiganders also passed Proposition 2, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, by an overwhelming margin of 58% to 42%.

That’s remarkable when you realize that MCRI supporters were outspent 4 to 1 in the campaign and that all the great and the good had lined up against it.

It is another victory in the lonely campaign of Ward Connerly to return the nation to the civil rights principles that it committed to in the 1960s.

It has to have been the brightest moment in the election.

Writes Henry Payne of the victory party on Tuesday night:

At Prop 2’s victory party Tuesday night, Connerly, 67, marveled at the crowd of young people cheering the initiative’s victory. They represent a new generation that has felt the sting of discrimination at the hand of universities like Michigan.

Yes. Young people. Civil Rights. What a concept. Young people today have every right to resent the cruel discrimination wielded by their elders in the name of “diversity.” Here’s University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman:

I will not stand by while the very heart and soul of this great university is threatened.

To which we humbly reply: “It’s the law, Madam President.” It’s the law and your job as top bureaucrat in the University of Michigan is to obey the law and to be seen to obey the law.

About Those Tough-guy Freshman Democrats

What happens when all those freshman Democrats get to Washington. You know, the ones like Brad Ellsworth, whose campaign commercials talked about stuff like this, according to Terence P. Jeffrey:

A lifetime of Hoosier values, a southwest Indiana native, Brad Ellsworth knows faith and family comes first.

...

Opposes abortion, and supports traditional marriage... a hunter who supports the Second Amendment, who will fight to protect our kids from violence and filth on TV and the Internet -- because, for a local sheriff like Brad, it's always about listening and putting families like yours first.

It’s an interesting question isn’t it. Are these tough guy Democrats going to vote against amnesty for illegal immigrants? Are they going to vote for a federal marriage amendment?

Or are they going to disappear into the woodwork as the liberal barons return to power and attempt to pick up where they left off twelve years ago?

And what about those tough-guy Democratic Senators, men like Tester and Webb? Are they going to vote against liberal filibusters of conservative Supreme Court nominees?

Seriously though, does the conservative cast of the freshman class of Democrats mean that the leaders of the Democratic Party believe in a right turn, back towards the center and the beliefs of heartland America?

The straight answer is that we don’t know. And frankly, I’d guess, neither do they.

Build An Agenda of Hope

Some Republicans are out blaming President Bush, Congressional Republicans, immigration policies, an unpopular war, and big government conservatism as they look at defeat on the morning after.

But others are saying: Look, we gave the election our best shot and the American people told us to get lost. So let us accept their decision and move on.

Unlike Democrats over the past years, Republicans should be philosophical about defeat. The American people decided what they wanted, and that’s the way it’s supposed to be. If we can’t persuade the American people in a fair elecion then we have a problem. So let us begin right now building a new Agenda of Hope.

1. The Democrats have not been doing any thinking in their years in the wilderness. It is still 1933 and time for New Deal policies like raising the minimum wage. This is a huge advantage for Republicans.
   
2. The welfare state isn’t going anywhere except downhill, with its overpaid functionaries doing less and less to deliver social services.
   
3. Resurgent Islam isn’t going anywhere. Democrats are going to have to decide just what it is that they think the War on Terror is all about. Maybe some time about 2011 we can get to a national consensus on the war.
   
4. The Democrats cold-cocked us on education reform in 2001 and Social Security reform in 2005. The time to start thinking the deep thoughts on how to do these reforms is now, while Republicans and conservatives are in the political wilderness. These problems will continue to fester because Democrats aren’t interested in a solution. They like the support of monopoly-wage teachers and dependent Social Security recipients. Why would they change?
   
5. Democrats are going to spend money on global warming with a vast menu of mega-projects and subsidies for their pet schemes, and it is going to hurt the economy.
   

So let us be in good heart and start to build again. There will come a time when the American people will turn to us again, and we should prepare ourselves to deserve that honor.

The Day After

With at least a gain of 30 seats in the House of Representatives and a gain of 4 to 6 seats in the United States Senate the Democrats have earned a famous victory. It seems to be about average for a second-term off-year election.

I have felt for some time that it was time to Democrats to be back in power. They need to be in power to connect with reality in the post 9/11 world, and the American people need to see them at it. So it is probably best if the Democrats win the presidency in 2008.

Right now the Democrats say that it is all Bush’s fault. They experience the War on Terror as a continuation of a cycle of violence, not a clash of civilizations. Very well. Let us put the question to the proof.

That was, after all, the question in the mid to late 1970s. Was the Cold War a fight against a cruel and brutal Soviet Union, or was it an “inordinate fear of Communism,” as President Carter put it. The question was put to the American people, they elected Ronald Reagan as president, and the rest is history.

The great issues of the next decade will be the conflict with Islam, the failure of the welfare state, the refinement of the global economy, and the question of life. Notice how the two political parties in the United States line up.

For the Democrats the War on Terror is a Republican trick, the welfare state is a source of jobs and power, the global economy is something to hide from, and life is a choice.

For the Republicans the War on Terror is a clash of civilizations, the welfare state is a tragic mistake that has cratered the poor and the dependent, the global economy is a challenge to be embraced, and life is a sacred gift.

And that completely avoids the question of global warming.

Which side would you rather be on?

Disaffected Reagan Democrats Call The Tune

Remember the old Clinton campaign song? “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow.”

Actually, it should have been: Don’t Stop Thinking About the Reagan Democrats. It was forgetting about them that was the undoing of the New Deal coalition. And it is forgetting about them that is returning the Democrats to power today, according to James Pinkerton.

Reagan Democrats are the key swing voting bloc... Democrats by ancestry, but have voted Republican more recently.

That’s because they are social conservatives and economic liberals, meaning that they don’t like abortion and gay marriage and they do like Social Security and Medicare.

The Reagan Democrats are looking for a party that takes seriously their concerns about immigration, homeland security, multiculturalism, immorality and de-industrialization, combined with a prudently hawkish foreign policy. Whichever party gets there first in addressing those problems, and then stays there to solve them - that party will be in the majority for a long time.

Wait a minute! What’s the problem? If you look at most of the issues above, you can say that the parties are twisting themselves into pretzels trying to water down the agenda of their base in order to make it acceptable to the Reagan Democrats. At the very least they are kicking up dust to try and seem closer to the Reagan Democrat position than they really are.

So why would the Reagan Democrats need a party to belong to?

Oh sure, they don’t get everything they want, but they get a lot. In fact, maybe the worst thing that could happen to them is to become the base of one of the parties, for then both parties could ignore them.

The Reagan Democrats are doing just fine right where they are.

On Election Day

It’s Election Day and pundit John Podhoretz admits that “nobody knows anything.”

All the polling and prognosticating ends up being what it says it is, polling and prognosticaing.

What really matters is what the polls find so hard to measure: intensity and commitment.

Meanwhile, Iowa Electronic Markets is pretty clear about the outcome. Today’s prices show about a 70% chance that the Republicans keep the Senate and 80% chance that the Democrats take the House.

You can see the graph of historical prices for the House here. It shows about a 50-50 split until early October when a clear trend for a Democratic win started emerging. The market has stabilized at 80% chance of Democratic takeover for about a week.

The graph of historical prices for the Senate is here. It shows about a 75% chance of Republicans holding the upper house, tightening to about 70% in the last month.

So now all we need to do is go out and vote. And wait for the results.

Until Conservatives Can Influence Upper-Middle Class Opinion...

During the Vietnam War, relates James Q. Wilson, the sea-change in public opinion from support for the war in 1964 to opposition in 1968 occurred mainly among upper-middle class readers of news and opinion.

Strikingly, opinion did not shift much among working-class voters, no matter whether they read these press accounts or not. Affluent people who read the press apparently have more changeable opinions than ordinary folks. Public opinion may not have changed much, but elite opinion changed greatly.

This finding came from a study by sociologist James D. Wright. It is important because Wilson did a similar study of opinion during the Iraq War.

Using 2004 poll data, I found a similar effect: Americans who rarely watched television news about the 2004 political campaign were much more supportive of the war in Iraq than were those who watched a great deal of TV news. And the falloff in support was greatest for those with a college education.

Wilson’s findings point up the central political problem for conservatives and Republicans. During the period between election times we do not get enough access to elite minds. That means that at election time we are always playing catch-up with voters who are well-disposed towards us, because we have to use paid media to get our interpretation of events and ideas out to them

An example of this is shown in the internals(pdf) of the current Pew Center poll on the mid-term election. It shows that in the month since early October “whites” have flipped from 44% Republican/leaning Republican and 49% Democrat/leaning Democrat to 48% to 43%. Let’s put that in a table to make it clear.

“White” Voters Rep/lean Rep Dem/lean Dem Early October 2006 44% 49% Early November 2006 48% 43%

Over roughly the same period President Bush’s approval rating among independents has risen from 27% to 35%

It is obvious why this is so. Up until a month ago, all that most Americans heard or read about politics came from the mainstream media. In the last month paid media has flipped the biggest democraphic in the nation.

It is intolerable for conservatives and Republicans to be operating at such a disadvantage. It is just not good enough.

And the big problem is public opinion among upper-middle class Americans, for they are the people whose opinions are easily swayed. Another way of saying this is that they are the Americans who are rated “proficient” in literacy, and able to divine the meaning of an editorial or opinion piece.

Let that be our goal. To reach the minds of the literate, opinion forming upper-middle class, so we don’t have to spend good money playing catch-up at election time.

Saddam Gets The Death Penalty

You can say that Bush’s War is a disaster. You can say that it has roiled the Middle East into a cauldron. OK, things are a mess.

But the image of Saddam Hussein being tried and convicted in an Iraqi court means something.

That’s what political philosopher Michael Novak opines.

In what other Arab or Persian nation of the region would a former leader be so well treated in prison, appear in court looking so dapper, and sit through a fair trial -- a trial no doubt a bit ragged around the edges at times, a trial held under extreme conditions, and requiring immense fortitude on the part of the judiciary, the prosecution, and the lawyers for the defense.
...
The trial of Saddam Hussein deserves to go down in the history of democracy in the Middle East as a milestone event. The achievement of this important and highly symbolic step in establishing the rule of law, for the mightiest as well as the lowest, is the single most crucial step in the building of a democratic way of life.

But now it is up to the Iraqis to find a way to flesh out the institutions of democracy. It is, he reminds us, more than a matter of ballot boxes, but development of the three sectors of democratic capitalism, developed in his book The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism.

It is a way of organizing free and diverse and distinctive associations in all sectors of social life. It is expressed through a new set, and a constantly evolving set, of distinctive democratic institutions, political institutions first of all, but also economic institutions, and cultural/scientific/artistic/religious institutions.

It may all dissolve into chaos, of course. But it is a noble quest for the United States to dedicate itself to helping Iraqis struggle towards some sort of government less tyrannical and cruel than the regime of Saddam Hussein and his sons.

Who Knew Rick Santorum Was a Nice Guy?

Why do I get a feeling of déjà vu about Peggy Noonan’s appreciation of Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), now in a fight for his political life?

Noonan wheels out an unnamed moderate Republican senator to give us a look at his character.

The other day I called a former senator, a crusty old moderate Republican, and asked him if he liked Mr. Santorum. "No," he said, "I love him."

...

The former senator: "The political scientists all say to be honest and stand for principle, that's what people want. And he was exactly that, and he's about to get his head handed to him."

The guy thought for a moment and then said it was sad.

Then Noonan tells a story about the Santorums, Rick and Karen, praying every night for their opponents, the Careys, in the Pennsylvania race for the Senate. They knew how hard the campaign was for them, so they assumed it must be just has hard for their opponents.

It made me think of another man who for his entire political career was defined by his enemies, just as Santorum is hated by liberals of all stripes, as a hard-right ideologue.

Yes, of course. Ronald Reagan.

If you are a liberal comer, like, oh let’s say Barack Obama, you get fawning profiles in the MSM about what a wonderful person you are way back when you are just an asterisk, an inexperienced politician still wet behind the ears.

But if you are a conservative comer you run the gauntlet of liberal rabbit punchers your entire political career.

We only know the real Ronald Reagan, extraordinary man and great president, years after his departure from the arena of high politics as the men and women that worked for him tell their stories.

And so it seems it must be also for Rick Santorum.

Oh, he’s such a great guy, we learn, only after a long decade of liberal langrel.

If you want to know what people are really like, never, never, never listen to a liberal.

I’m sick of it.

Get Real, America

Mad at the Republicans because they haven’t “done enough during their 12 years in control of the House and Senate,” asks Cal Thomas? There’s a simple solution. Elect more conservatives.

OK, so all we conservative Republicans who were so bright eyed and bushy tailed back in 1994 are disappointed. But what do you expect? That liberals would lie down and let us take their privileges and sinecures away from them without a fight?

The whole concept of the welfare state is a contract between liberals and bump-on-a-log America. Liberals get to order everyone around and occupy the high offices of state and education. Democratic voters get to check out of life. They get jobs with tenure, or lifetime pensions, or just measly benefits. The rest of us get to pay for it.

You think that in 50-50 America we can just wave a wand and it will all go away?

If the GOP loses the Senate then

Republicans will be unable to stop a filibuster of a next Supreme Court nominee and countless circuit court picks.

If the GOP loses control of Congress then

Democrats speak only of withdrawing American troops and of how our presence inflames the enemy... [But] This isn't Vietnam. This is a religious-philosophical war for control of the planet.

Thomas spoke to Vice-President Cheney. What do you want, said the VP. First we had a recession. Then

9/11. ... We had Katrina, a war... And so a series of repeated shocks... to the economy and here we are, we've got 4.6 unemployment. We added 6.6 million new jobs in the last three years. Productivity is running at an all-time high.

Yeah. What do you want? Then Thomas gets to his peroration.

Is there anyone who believes government doesn't have enough of our money? Then vote for Democrats. Is there anyone who thinks withdrawing from Iraq before the country can stand on its own against terrorism means there won't be more terrorism? Then vote for Democrats. Do you prefer liberal judges reading their prejudices into the Constitution and increasingly depriving us of our right to decide our own future? Then vote for Democrats.

Otherwise, get real and vote for Republicans.

Liberals Like Race-based Politics

In the State of Michigan Jennifer Gratz and “wealthy black Republican” Ward Connerly are campaigning to pass the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, Proposition 2 on the ballot. They are just two people. Against them, says Tamar Lewin in The New York Times is the whole elite class of Michigan.

Opposition to the measure is led by One United Michigan, an unusually broad coalition that includes Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, and her Republican challenger, Dick DeVos, as well as unions, churches, businesses and higher education and civil rights groups. It has raised and spent $3.3 million.

What does it mean when the whole governmental and educated elite comes out against color-blindness in government?

There is no doubt that the end of affirmative action means fewer blacks and Hispanics at elite universities.

In California, where a similar proposition passed in 1996, the number of black students at the elite public universities has dropped. This fall, 96 of 4,800 freshmen at the University of California, Los Angeles — 2 percent — are black, a 30-year low.

Well, it would, wouldn’t it. The whole point of affirmative action is to hand out desirable public goods by race. But what The New York Times does not show us is the credit side of the ledger.

But that is OK, because the editors of National Review will tell both sides of the story. Certainly, they write, black and Hispanic enrollment has declined at UCLA and Berkeley.

But instead of denying these students an education they deserve, it has simply reapportioned them throughout the UC’s ten-campus system, which serves more than 200,000 students. UC-Riverside and UC-Santa Cruz, for example, have seen large increases in black enrollment.

...

The graduation rate for black UC students has doubled over the last decade. That’s because when students are matched to universities without reference to their race, they wind up at schools suited to their educational backgrounds and abilities, and are therefore more likely to succeed. In the UC system today, black-graduation rates are approaching those for whites. At the University of Michigan, however, they lag far behind.

The reason that the nation’s liberal elite remains wedded to affirmative action and quotas is because it likes the power. And in the public sector outcomes really don’t matter.

If a whole generation of black students fails at the University of Michigan, who cares? It won’t hurt liberals. They will continue to feel good about themselves and how their commitment to diversity.

"Call For Action" or "Dodgy Numbers" on Climate Change?

Reading the British papers you’d think that it was all over bar shouting. The Stern Review conducted for the British government by Sir Nicholas Stern recommends that the British spend 1 percent of GDP on climate change policies. The cost of inaction, the report advises, could reach as high as 20 percent of global GDP.

Prime Minister Tony Blair hailed the report as a call to action saying the document "demolished the last remaining argument for inaction in the face of climate change."

But Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist, is skeptical. Writing in OpinionJournal.com he accuses Stern of “dodgy numbers.”

The review correctly points out that climate change is a real problem, and that it is caused by human greenhouse-gas emissions. Little else is right, however, and the report seems hastily put-together, with many sloppy errors. As an example, the cost of hurricanes in the U.S. is said to be both 0.13% of U.S. GDP and 10 times that figure.

The report attempts to quantify the social damage cost of carbon dioxide.

The most well-recognized climate economist in the world is probably Yale University's William Nordhaus, whose "approach is perhaps closest in spirit to ours," according to the Stern review. Mr. Nordhaus finds that the social cost of CO2 is $2.50 per ton. Mr. Stern, however, uses a figure of $85 per ton.

But of course, the facts aren’t really all that important. Climate change politics is all about testing to see whether people are willing to countenance an increase in government influence and control. In Britain, it seems that they are, as both major parties compete to see who is the greenest.

There was another report issued recently about climate change. It was Lomborg’s own Copenhagen Consensus 2006.

Last weekend in New York, I asked 24 U.N. ambassadors--from nations including China, India and the U.S.--to prioritize the best solutions for the world's greatest challenges, in a project known as Copenhagen Consensus. They looked at what spending money to combat climate change and other major problems could achieve. They found that the world should prioritize the need for better health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education, long before we turn our attention to the costly mitigation of global warning.

You can get information on Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus here.

SUV Sales Up at Ford

Earlier this year the media reported that sales of the big truck-based SUVs were going into a nose dive. With sky-high gas prices, Americans were finally jumping off their humungous land yachts in fuel-efficient dinghies.

But now Ford Motor Corporation is reporting overall sales increases and sharply higher sales of its mega-SUV Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator (curb weight over 7,000 lbs).

Here are the sobering results.

• Midsize Ford Fusion (up 143 percent), Mercury Milan (up 67 percent), Lincoln MKZ (up 90 percent).
  
• Ford Escape surpasses 1 million sales milestone in October
  
• New Ford Expedition (up 41 percent) and Lincoln Navigator (up 44 percent)
  

The reports of the death of the SUV have been much exaggerated.

Should We Know How Journalists Vote?

Talk show host Hugh Hewitt is making a career of asking MSM journalists the Question. Who did you vote for at the last presidential election?

Their usual response is that their professional ethics prevents them from responding. You see, if we don’t know a journalist’s political opinions it makes it easier for us to accept his/her journalism as objective. (Yes, they really make that argument!)

So yesterday Hugh asked the Question in an interview with Bill O’Reilly. O’Reilly was on to push his new book Culture Warrior.

Like the MSMers, O’Reilly declined the question. He said:

But say I get behind a candidate, or say I voted for something else. I lose, I lose some of my objectivity, because...


HH: No, no you...


BO: Let me explain. If you vote for somebody, and this is — every study in the world shows this, then you’re more likely to give that person the benefit of the doubt. So if you vote for Bush, you’re more likely to say, give him a lot more rope, than you would if you voted for Kerry.

Not very convincing, you’d have to agree. But O’Reilly was willing to discuss his political opinions—on abortion, gay marriage, guns, and school vouchers. So listeners could get a pretty good idea where he was coming from.

But should MSM journalists say who they vote for?

Actually, I don’t think it matters. What matters is what the journalist says in answer to the Question. If he is perfectly frank, then we know we are dealing with someone is perfectly frank. If he bobs and weaves, then we know we are dealing with a person who likes to bob and weave about important issues.

And that is all we need to know.