I wish I could see what sort of an obit he’d have written about a guy like him. But alas, there was only one. RIP.

You may or may not have heard of the Laffer Curve. It’s a theory that decreasing tax rates may, under some circumstances, increase tax revenue (and vice versa).

Now, you don’t have to accept that the Laffer Curve is true if you don’t want. You don’t have to accept that the earth is round, or that the sun goes around the moon, or that the Washington Redskins are evil, no matter who coaches them. Facts don’t care if you believe them, and you certainly don’t have to believe them.

Still, it’s just willfully ignorant to go around trumpeting that you reject the “Laffer Curve Theory” if you don’t even know what it is. And most of the people I’ve heard take issue with it clearly didn’t know what it actually says. I’m not saying that, “They disagreed with me, so they were wrong.” I’m saying that they were busy disagreeing with some straw man they’d concocted that had hardly any resemblance to the Laffer Curve itself.

So, if you want to know what the Laffer Curve is about, Larry Kudlow pointed to this terrific video a few days ago, from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. It’s only around 7 minutes long, and moves quickly, and is quite clear. Just don’t get distracted by the short appeal for a flat tax toward the end; the Laffer Curve is not connected to any particular means of taxation.

p.s. - I’m not a flat-tax proponent myself, largely for pragmatic reasons, namely, I don’t think it would remain transparently applied, and would quickly turn into a bureaucratically-managed VAT nightmare. But that’s another story.

Jeff Flake has an interesting idea: what if the House actually kept its own rules for earmarks? To help improve the House’s performance in this area, he’s planning to challenge every earmark with no sponsor’s name attached. Says Flake:

“The House passed a lobbying reform bill in May that required that the sponsors of earmarks be identified,” said Flake. “There’s no good reason why that policy hasn’t been implemented.”

No good reason, indeed. Another excellent example of the backbone so sorely lacking on the Leviathin of spending that has nearly consumed the Republican majority.

(H/t to The Club for Growth, which was a major factor in putting Flake in the House to start with.)

Andrew Roth over at the Club for Growth (please consider joining if you haven’t already) is trying to assemble a list of fiscally conservative newspapers in all 50 states. There are a few surprises, and lots of good links.

The Free Market Project’s excellent article The Media’s Top 10 Economic Myths of 2005 is a delicious antidote to those who still think that the MSM is a useful source of anything but amusement. (H/T to the Club for Growth).

Bizzy Blog has a great post about the bizarrely negative polling numbers on the economy. Quoting this column by Brian Wesbury (who is a great writer as well as an extremely perceptive economics guy), he also adds some great source information. Go and read it, then come back; I’ll wait.

Wesbury says:

During a quarter century of analyzing and forecasting the economy, I have never seen anything like this. No matter what happens, no matter what data are released, no matter which way markets move, a pall of pessimism hangs over the economy.

Bizzy, Wesbury, and several others linked in that article all make a similar point - the economy is demonstrably robust, by almost every common measure. And yet the reporting on it is almost uniformly doom-and-gloom amongst the WORMs (Worn-Out Reactionary Media, as Bizzy calls them; I love that!).

One comment is instructive, though:

You seem to miss the obvious reality here.

Instead of blaming the public for being so stupid as to be manipulated by the evil MSM, you should recognize that when people are asked for their opinion of the economy, they answer from their own perspective, according to their own sphere of expertise. The general public are not trained economists, able to plumb reams of economic statistics in order to make meta-level judgments about the state of the economy as a whole. They answer on the basis of their own economic situation, and the situation of their family, friends, and (very) local communities.

That the economy as a whole is healthy, but that over 40% of the people feel that THEY are in a recessionary situation, should illuminate the problem that republican economic policy tends to bring about. The persistent lack of effective trickle-down from policies that explicitly favor those at the top.

Buzz! Nice ideological backflip, but no dice. TBlumer ably rebuts it:

There’s a vast difference between how people see their own situations and that of the economy. Part of it may be anecdotal (knowing neighbors, friends, or relatives who are struggling), but I doubt that it’s much of a factor, because if it was, it would rub off into worrying about their own situation a lot more.

SO the vast majority of the explanation for the difference between how they feel about their own situation and prospects and how they see things for the economy as a whole is that they’re hearing a constant drumbeat of pessimism about the economy from the WORMs,

In his September 19, 2005 “Digital Rules” column, Forbes editor Rich Karlgard notes an ABC News/Washington Post poll from July which claimed that 59% of Americans were not happy with the economy, but also that 59% liked their own financial condition. He says these conflicting sentiments make no sense.

Well, they do make sense when you realize that the liberal press relentlessly hammers home a message of economic doom and gloom. What’s more, they relentlessly say that everyone around you, all your neighbors, are unhappy and losing their jobs. But individuals look at their own financial condition and realize that everything’s great for them, and then assume that theirs must be a special case and that everyone around them is hurting or otherwise the news wouldn’t be so bad. It makes people think that all their neighbors are broke or losing their jobs, so that makes them unhappy with the economy as a whole.

Of course, the news is trumped up or carefully spun to make it almost unrecognizable. It’s done that way in order to try and harm a president that the press unanimously loathes. But when it’s almost uniformly reported as fact that the economy’s bad and people are having a hard time, lots of people tend to believe it, in spite of the evidence to the contrary in their personal situations.

It’s kind of like if everyone on the block has a great marriage, but they’ve heard that everyone else is getting a divorce, so they don’t say much (don’t want to make the neighbors feel bad over their failed marriages) and they fret publicly about the state of matrimony.

Karlgaard notes in his December 12th, 2005 column:

Sorry, grinches, but the U.S. economy looks like Santa’s sled is being powered by GE/Rolls-Royce jet engines. The third quarter clocked a 3.8% GDP growth rate. The third quarter! Recall: This was the quarter of Katrina, Rita and $70-a-barrel oil. The buckle-your-belt, we’re-going-down quarter. But we didn’t go down. We went up. So did the stock market–up 5% since President Bush raised Ben Bernanke to Alan Greenspan’s throne at the Fed.

TBlumer concludes:

And I finally understand (a bit) why some allegedly conservative politicians in Washington who should know better are considering a tax increase (known in some circles as “repealing the Bush tax cuts”). Please, ladies and gentlemen - ignore the polls, vote the reality.

If you haven’t read Bill Whittle’s Tribes, you’re just wasting the life you could be living after being enlightened. It’s typical of the sort of article I would write if I was (1) smarter, (2) better, and (3) a much better writer (sort of like the Sistine Chapel is the sort of ceiling I would paint if I were a better painter).

Here’s to sheepdogs! Grrr…

I’ve mostly kept my thoughts on Cindy Sheehan to myself. That’s not out of respect for her, because I have no respect for her. She is not a hero because of the unfortunate death of her son; her son is a hero. And I think we can tell pretty clearly, by their absence from the obscene loony-left circus, which part of the family had the biggest influence on him. Cindy, with her constant self-pity and attention-seeking, her loathing for America (and her frankly bizarre fixation on the President), is just odious.

Still, as a proxy for the off-the-reservation nuttiness that passes for consensus among the moonbats these days, it’s useful to examine the talking points she trots out from time to time. I found Saturday’s dispatch on Kos illuminating.

I shall try to refrain from pointing out the grammatical errors, and will skip over the myriad logical howlers, and focus on a couple of salient points that nicely reflect the (eternal, unchanging) narcissistic double-standard on the Left.

Now, lest anyone has forgotten, let me remind you that, according to Maureen Dowd, “The moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.” But as Chrenkoff ably demonstrates, “apparently only if they also become mouthpieces for the angry left.”

But let’s see what Mother Sheehan, whose moral authority is “absolute”, has to say about such “absolute moral authority”:

I have been silent on the Gold Star Moms who still support this man and his war by saying that they deserve the right to their opinions because they are in as much pain as I am. I would challenge them, though, at this point to start thinking for themselves. … How can these moms who still support George Bush and his insane war in Iraq want more innocent blood shed just because their sons or daughters have been killed? I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how any mother could want another mother to feel the pain we feel. I am starting to lose a little compassion for them. I know they have been as brainwashed as the rest of America, but they know the pain and heartache and they should not wish it on another. However, I still feel their pain so acutely and pray for these “continue the murder and mayhem” moms to see the light.

“I have been silent” on the Gold Star moms who “still support this man”, she says. But now (by contrast), she says they need to “start thinking for themselves,” “I am starting to lose a little compassion for them,” “they have been as brainwashed as the rest of America,” and “they should not wish it on another” makes it pretty clear that Sheehan has declared it time to stop ‘giving a pass’ to these annoying moms who just don’t get it.

I am Cindy! My moral authority is absolute, d’ya hear? Absolute! Hear me roar! Wake up and be as smart as me!

Ah, well; self-examination and objective standards have never been the strong suit of the “Speaking Platitudes to Power” crowd.

The Kos link was via Goldstein, who, as usual, sums it up perfectly:

Sheehan said to her supporters today (I’m paraphrasing), “when the history books talk about the Camp Casey movement, you’ll be able to say you met Casey’s Mom�—proof positive that Cindy Sheehan believes her own press clippings and truly does see herself as a modern day Gandhi or King, Jr.
…
The f***ing hubris of this woman. Astounding!

Dr. Rusty’s Pet Jawa notes that the Italian Red Cross has decided to get into the business of hostage negotiation as well as aiding and abetting terrorist insurgents in Iraq. As he observes, “after you treat the wounded terrorist you’re supposed to turn them in”.

Indeed you are, unless, for instance, you don’t think they’re terrorists at all. Maurizio Scelli, the outgoing Italian Red Cross chief, explained that, after brilliantly negotiating with the kidnappers of aid workers Simona Pari and Simona Torretta:

“The mediators asked us to save the lives of four alleged terrorists wanted by the Americans who were wounded in combat,” Scelli was quoted as saying. “We hid them and brought them to Red Cross doctors, who operated on them.”

So how are they “alleged” terrorists? If they were wounded in combat, who were they fighting against? The U.S. military, which is allied with Iraqi security forces. Were the wounds “alleged”? Perhaps the Red Cross doctors performed “alleged” operations on the “alleged” wounds received while in “alleged” combat against “alleged” U.S. forces and/or Iraqi security forces? I think the term for the evidence that these slime were hostiles here is prima facie.

But perhaps they’re “freedom fighters”? Someone explain to me, then, what exactly we need the Italian Red Cross in the country for, if they’re going to pull stunt like this? Put them on the first flight home (or better yet, let them walk through “freedom fighter” territory).

Update: As usual, Cox and Forkum are brilliant on this.

I’m thinking about changing the name of this blog to “What he/she said” and just making it consist entirely of quotes. But then, perhaps that wouldn’t be much different than what I do now. It’s just that sometimes someone says it so well that it leaves little room for further comment from the likes of me. So, fresh from the RoveHive this morning, my bit of royal jelly tells me that you should read this delightful screed from Lileks.

Please get this straight: there are no marching orders. There is no RoveHive to which everyone buzzes in the morning for a scrap of Royal Jelly we carry off to our blogs. If there sometimes appears to be a unaniminity of subject matter, that’s because certain ideas appear, flower, bloom, take root, and spread. Like kudzu. But kudzu is not taking orders from some dark shrouded mastermind made entirely of cellulose and chlorophyll. If you honestly think that everyone to the right of Noam Chomsky is part of some dark soulless cabal dedicated to extirpating all photons and replacing them with negative matter that strips the flesh from the bones of the poor, I envy you; the world must make perfect sense.

And that’s not even the best part (just the most quotable, short of the copying the entire thing).

Diana West wrote a thoughtful op-ed piece on Friday, “Bush basics” (h/t Ed Driscoll). She says, in part:

It’s time to get back to basics. And by basics, I mean getting back to First Term W., back to when the president’s strategy to defend and protect the United States was to take military action against terrorists and the nations that sponsor them. By unfortunate contrast, the security strategy of Second Term W. is best described as bringing universal suffrage to these same terrorists and the nations that sponsor them. Getting back to Bush basics requires a re-reckoning of what and why we fight — and, just as important, for what and why we don’t fight.

Do we fight to spread democracy? Or do we fight to stop jihad? Far better to fight to stop jihad. Second Term W. believes democratic principles will neutralize jihad — a.k.a. “extremism” in the strangled parlance of political correctness. It may not be polite to notice, but the nasty reality is that jihad is neutralizing democratic principles. The fact the administration must reckon with is that the concept of human rights — the ideals of liberty and justice for all — isn’t a natural by-product of majority rule.

It’s fairly unsettling to think that, after all the blood spilled, money spent, and political shriekage we’ve suffered through, U.S. negotiators might be giving in to militant Islamists by enshrining sharia law in the new Iraqi constitution. It’s especially sad that it’s 99.9% due to domestic political pressure to get the constitution “done” by a deadline that they’re feeling any pressure at all.

Perhaps it’s not quite as simple as throwing women’s rights down the toilet. This Telegraph piece points out:

Though still not going as far as fundamentalist Islamic groups had demanded - they wanted Islam to be the “sole” source for legislation - the wording marks a fundamental concession by the US as it ends the possibility of a separation of religion and state. It paves the way for far more conservative social legislation, for example diminishing the divorce rights of women, as it could allow Islamic clerics to serve on the high court, which will be responsible for interpreting the constitution.

Still, were I an Iraqi minority of ANY kind - especially a woman - I’d be considering whether it was time to leave while the leaving as at least theoretically possible (never mind ‘good’).

I’m still on the bus, but I have moved a couple of rows closer to the front. There’s much more on this here, here, here, and at The Corner.

Back to Diana West, who asks:

Can Iraq ever be stabilized without defanging Iran? Shouldn’t there be, for starters, a big bull’s-eye on these Iranian training camps?

That would be “no”, and “yes”, respectively. To those who prattle on about “endless targets”, keep this in mind: Two down: Afghanistan (Taliban), Iraq (Saddam’s massive cash-and-training network); two to go: Iran (money, ideology, facilities, safety, training) and Syria (ibid). The third, Saudi Arabia, I suspect would wisen up by the time Iran and Syria were brought back into civilization (kicking and screaming if they choose), and stop exporting Wahhabism, but if they didn’t, then fine, 3 to go.

The number of active, influential, capable states exporting terrorism through and from the Middle East is not endless; it’s not even that long. And without a global power (China, Russia) to sponsor and protect their activities, what do we lack?

Perhaps we lack the will; perhaps we lack the belief in the goal, or that it’s achievable in the first place. It’s certainly within our grasp militarily to defeat and replace governments which appear hell-bent on undermining and destroying western democracy (ours included). But if we can’t even keep fundamentalism Islam out of the Iraqi constitution, then it raises the question, doesn’t it, of whether we can do the rest of what’s needed to clear out the cesspool?

Andrew McCarthy’s terrific new article, “Unreasonable Searches” (National Review, Aug. 29, 2005, available online for NROnline subscribers) makes a great case for applying some common sense to security measures which purport to catch terrorists before they terrorize. It’s sad that the points must be made at all, but he does a great job making them.

There is a pattern here - but the U.S. government seems to be incapable of detecting it. We have met the enemy, and it is militant Islam. Yet we refuse to acknowledge that fact, pretending that the enemy is “terror? — a method of attack — rather than the terrorists who employ that method.

[...]

Terrorists — particularly those who are likely to attack — have a profile. They are Muslim males, overwhelmingly young adults of Middle Eastern and North African descent. That doesn’t mean everyone who falls into that profile is a terrorist. Nor does it mean that every terrorist will fit the profile. … But so what? A profile is not a judgment of guilt. It is not even an accusation of guilt. It is an investigative tool. It enables law enforcement to organize suspicions and husband resources rationally, in a manner related to a known threat.(emphasis mine - rew)

There’s nothing hard to understand here. It’s so obvious that one has to be wilfully blind not to immediately grasp and use the technique. And yet, we’re almost daily told that we should be wilfully blind, that we mustn’t “succumb to stereotypes” and so on. But that’s ridiculous on its face; by going out of our way to avoid targeting young adult Muslim males of Middle Eastern or North African descent, we are doing precisely that: recognizing the stereotype, the pattern, the obvious profile, and then wilfully avoiding doing anything about it. Thus, we have all the “guilt” of “profiling” (which, in my view, is none, but for some people is apparently debilitating), and none of the benefits (more security, less dead people, much lower cost of providing that security, etc.).

[The point of profiling] is not to cast aspersions to but improve the odds of thwarting an attack the fallout of which could be catastrophic.

Criminal conspiracies, like much concerted activity (including much that is socially beneficial), tend to be ethnic and cultural.

Nothing new or surprising here. McCarthy points out the inestimable value of profiling of this sort in attacks on the mob(s), drug cartels, Nigerian scammers (one of my favorites), etc. This is even more true in societies or environments where tribal and family links are stronger than nationalist, linguistic, or philosophical ones. People who share a philosophy don’t necessarily look alike; but people who share parents, uncles, and cousins almost always do.

He notes that when Homeland security chief Michael Chertoff defended the feds’ focus on aviation,

His comments drew sharp criticism, mainly from Senate Democrats representing metropolitan areas with mass-transit systems.

That is, the hit dog hollered loudest. No surprise there. But when you “follow the money” (which, sadly, we are forced to do here without the inestimable services of Michael Moore), you can tell pretty quickly how much of that criticism reduces to “dollars for my voters” and how much reduces to “real concern for the safety and survivability of the USA and her way of life” (the answers, btw are “most” and “not a whole lot”, respectively).

Of course, this problem - the rational allocation of resources to actually address the addressable parts of a large and amorphous problem - is always met by the same criticism. Any redistributionist system, no matter its intent or benefit, will have to operate over the friction caused by those who seek to redirect the maximum redistribution their way. And, by definition, the people most intent on it are the people who are the least hampered by larger practical, legal, or ethical concerns for anyone else. Keep that in mind when hearing Chuck Schumer huffing and spitting and caterwauling about this or that “outrageous” idea.

Our homeland-security strategy [...] should assign the responsibility for addressing a particular threat to the entity most able to reduce it, and most likely to benefit from its reduction.

Right. It’s stupid for the rest of the country to spend disproportionately large sums of money on addressing a threat which is by its very nature, permanently limited and localized (you can’t hijack a New York subway car, fly it over and into the Sears tower in Chicago; nor can you fly an L train from Chi-town into the Pentagon). You can’t smuggle nukes into the country via the Atlanta Marta. You can smuggle them across the largely un-monitored borders we share with Mexico and Canada, and you can fly an airliner into a large and thickly-populated building.

That’s not to say that we don’t care whether there’s a mass-transit bombing. We do care; every death, any death, is appalling. But those on the left believe that “care” must and can only equal “federal tax dollars in my pocket”, whereas some of us believe that no single concern lives or has demands apart from the million other ones competing for the same scarce time, attention, and money available.

But the poor, poor states? Whence the money? Oh, the horror. Agonize, agonize…

It’s noteworthy that state and local authorities dedicate little of the billions of dollars in federal grants they receive to mass-transit security. If they really think protecting mass transit should be a higher priority, they can begin by allocating more funding to that goal.

Exactly. It’s too bad that we’ve become so inured to begging and whining that no one apparently thinks to stop and be embarrassed to be asking for more FedBux without stopping and spending any of the unimaginably large sums they’re already getting from Uncle Sam on the problem. I’m reminded, not for the first time, of the celebrity wife suing the celebrity husband, insisting that lil’ celebrity Junior cannot possibly be cared for on a mere $40,000/mo.

McCarthy goes on to point out that making effective mass-transit bomb-proof is probably infeasible anyway (it has to do with the “mass-” part of “mass-transit”).

In any case, throwing money at transit security is unlikely to help much. The London subway system is considered one of the best-protected in the world, required as it was to endure the threat of bombings by Irish Republican Army terrorists. Yet it was attacked twice in recent weeks, and the second attempt — foiled only by a malfunction of the bombs’ detonators — took place while the subway system was in maximum-alert mode. (emphasis mine)

He concludes:

Until money is allocated on the basis of sound cost-benefit analysis, we will become poorer, but no safer.

And what’s more, the constant demand for “action” will continue to lead lawmakers into eroding more and more of those daaaaangerous civil liberties. And the same people shrieking loudest about any attempt to rationally profile likely attackers are the ones who are also shrieking about the “loss of freedom” and the “fascist Bush administration”.

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement from the Supreme Court, pending the appointment of her replacement.

So it’s time now for the battle to begin in earnest. Many people have been expecting the retirement of Chief Justice Rehnquist; O’Connor was considered more of a longshot. But by retiring before Rehnquist, O’Connor has complicated the replacement battle.

It will be particularly interesting because liberals see O’Connor as a conservative; conservatives often see O’Connor as a moderate liberal. So in “balance of the court” calculations (as though that balance must be maintained or is sacred), liberals count her on the conservative side. So the Republicans have a chance to replace an unreliable voice for Constitutional restraint with a serious jurist in the vein of Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia, all while being able to tweak the liberal opposition that it’s merely swapping one conservative for another, and thus shouldn’t upset the “balance” of the court.

But they won’t; congressional Republicans have demonstrated an appalling lack of spine (or reproductive organs) in confirmation fights already. I have serious doubts about Frist’s ability to keep the troops in line, or even his taste for the fight. And what I fear is that we’ll trade O’Connor’s occasional “conservative” votes for another David Souter: a liberal snake in weasel’s clothing.

A complicating factor is the 2006 election, and the posturing it inevitably engenders. Again, this should work in the favor of the Bush administration, as liberals will be forced to more explicitly defend their religious faith in the abortion-on-any-whim in the judicial confirmation conflict, but have to be more restrained about it in election campaigns. But again, I doubt that the Republican leadership will focus attention on this critical point as it should.

I suspect that we will hear the first call for “reason” and “bi-partisanship” from the Democrats before the day is out. And we will likewise hear the first shrieks of outrage from the other side of the Democrats’ mouths before the weekend is over. Should make for an interesting summer.

For days now, the media has been pretending that SecDef Donald Rumsfeld got ‘hammered’ with ‘tough questions’ in his recent visit with soldiers in Kuwait. Now Chris Dodd, never one to miss a cheap opportunistic moment, is trying to score political points by pretending that Rumsfeld - of all people - was ‘cavalier‘ in his answer. As if, in some bizarro-world universe, a left wing hack like Dodd actually is more concerned about the troops than Rummy. Sorry, Chris, won’t work.

Today in New Delhi, when asked about the exchange, Rumsfeld said “it was good” for soldiers to get to air their grievances. And here’s the deal: because we’re who we are, Spc. Thomas Wilson doesn’t have to worry about his life being in danger from the military brass. We’ll hope (as we do with all our troops over there) that he doesn’t come to harm in the course of military operations. But if he does, he and everyone else there knows that it won’t be because he griped to the SecDef about the lack of armor.

What I’m struck by, once again, is the unique nature of our country, and the military that defends it. I’m trying to think of a parallel in all of history where a dominant world power’s leading military men would be willing to take rather pointed criticism, in public, from a “mere” foot-soldier, and there be no hint of reprisal. Drawing a blank here…yeah, hasn’t happened. There’s the U.S.A., and there’s everyone else, all-time, everywhere. And so I agree with Rummy, yet again: “It’s good.”

UPDATE: As usual, I’m behind the Kerry Spot and InstaPundit on this. Of course, since I pretty much have been AWOL since the election, I’m behind everybody on everything, right?

Stop Specter. My earlier comments on this here.

This Harvard News article is interesting (and timely):

A John F. Kennedy School of Government researcher has cast doubt on the widely held belief that terrorism stems from poverty, finding instead that terrorist violence is related to a nation’s level of political freedom.

To those of us committed to the principle of limiting government and expanding freedom, this is not surprising.

Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation’s wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences.
[...]
Instead, Abadie detected a peculiar relationship between the levels of political freedom a nation affords and the severity of terrorism. Though terrorism declined among nations with high levels of political freedom, it was the intermediate nations that seemed most vulnerable.

Like those with much political freedom, nations at the other extreme - with tightly controlled autocratic governments - also experienced low levels of terrorism.

And one quote particularly apropos Iraq:

“When you go from an autocratic regime and make the transition to democracy, you may expect a temporary increase in terrorism,” Abadie said.

Read the whole thing. For some people, it’s just another pile of facts to toss into the “doesn’t matter, don’t wanna hear it, I still feeeeeel that it’s true.” But otherwise, you might find it fascinating.

Uber-RINO Senator Arlen Specter, fresh from winning his 37th term in the Senate, took the opportunity to thank President Bush yesterday for saving his bacon in the Republican primary against Pat Toomey. His thanks took the form of a ‘warning’ to President Bush not to “try to bring none of those fundie God-obsessed wife-beatin’ Klan-member Bible-thumping abortion-hating wymyn-and-minority-oppressin’ HATE-mongerin’ judge nominations into MY Judiciary Committee, or I’ll havta open up a CAN on him” (the quote is from memory; I might not have it precisely worded).

Stephen Moore suggested in February that Specter would be a perfect running mate for Kerry. And campaign-style “Kerry/Specter” signs seen in NE Philly drew the ire of Specter’s Senate opponent Hoeffel. Presumably, the ire was drawn because Hoeffel (and Specter’s campaign) recognized that (1) Kerry and Specter are a matched pair, and (2) the connection was beneficial to Specter (REEEE-noooo, REEEE-noooo, REEEE-noooo).

Specter, now 114, is serving his last Senate term, and apparently intends to make the most of it in the service of his liberal friends. Note to Senate Republicans: It’s his last term; do you know what that means? It means that you don’t have to let him have the Judiciary Committee. Shoot, you don’t have to let him have anything. For once, just for something new to do, stand up him and tell him to shut up.

More on this from Volokh, Old Politico, For the Common Defense, and many others.

UPDATE: Well, apparently the backlash from Arlen’s spouting has been felt rather - warmly - in the Senator’s office. So warmly, in fact, that he felt compelled to release this little bit of spin:

“Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the President about anything and was very respectful of his Constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges.

“As the record shows, I have supported every one of President Bush’s nominees in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue and, as the record shows, I have voted to confirm Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice O’Connor, and Justice Kennedy and led the fight to confirm Justice Thomas.

OK. Right. Check. Disinginuity meter: completely pegged. Pants on fire and all of that. But at least he is having to run away from his own statements, and less than 24 hours later.

Please, I urge you: contact the Republican Senators who will be making committee appointments. Don’t let this man near the levers of power in this upcoming Senate.

George Neumayer has a great article at The American Spectator this morning. An excerpt:

The elite were so out to lunch that it came as great revelation to them last night that many Americans named as their most important issue not Iraq, not the economy, but “moral issues.” This was an election about “God, guns and gays,” to use Howard Dean’s phrase, and Kerry with his newly-bought Red Sox cap batted 0 for 3.

The American people did not want to entrust one nation under God to a Massachusetts liberal who campaigned with Bruce Springsteen and Peter, Paul, and Mary, a Senator who voted with NARAL 100% of the time, and a renegade Catholic who wouldn’t recognize a moral teaching of his own church if it hit him coming around the corner.

Read the whole thing.

I support the Club for Growth, both financially and in principal; you should, too. But, that ferocious recruitment effort over, let me say that I am unaware of any political organization that gets better, more focused results from their efforts than Steve Moore and his gang. A bit of gloating is therefore irresistible.