Bunyan replies to Peale

Editor: Answering Dose 1 below, Crater signed this one John Bunyan, identifying with the author of "Pilgrim's Progress." Dave Crater writes:

Interesting you should take Dr. Peale as your namesake - there is the "power of positive thinking" irony in your note of course, but more substantively there is the hollowing out of Christian faith in the 20th century in which Dr. Peale was at the center.

It is that hollowing out which has been bearing bitter fruits like our current ones for about a century now - where faith in God becomes merely "positive thinking," belief in free markets and property rights becomes merely welfare state "capitalism;" where a government that tries to play God then plays the savior from the economic disasters it causes; where economic and financial understanding becomes merely "monetarism" or "Keynesianism" or, as Larry Kudlow wrote this morning, "we need government to act in order to fix the free market"; where genuine compassion and private generosity become merely taxation and wealth redistribution; where personal responsibility and moral hazard get pushed off to a later date when we've solved the latest crisis caused by the dearth of those very values; when political statesmanship becomes merely Barney Frank; and where republicanism and Republicanism become merely John McCain.

We'll never get the politics right until we get right who God is - hint: He's not in Washington - but from a political standpoint, "neoconservatism," a modern incarnation of the classical principles of conservative thought, has been more observed by the Bush administration in passing and in the breach than in the observance. It is the answer, not the problem.

Responses to your notes:

1. Agreed. The race is over.

2. Ditto. Perhaps now we can stop the empty cheerleading among the GOP political classes? McCain is pathetic - there is no other word for it.

3. GWB as right as ever on Iraq and history will remember him so. GWB as wrong as Hoover on financial crisis, what causes it, what fixes it, and what economic leadership is, and history will remember his $700 billion bailout as simply another weak capitulation to 20th-century statism.

4. GWB indeed a shell - the kind of shell that has taken a steady beating for doing what is right (Iraq), then instead of permanently choosing the right side of the street and building on this foreign policy conservatism a coherent and courageous set of socially and economically conservative initiatives, a la Reagan building himself and the nation a genuine legacy in exchange for the unavoidable public relations beating in the media, he routinely sells out to welfare state expansion and economic statism, trying like McCain to drive in the middle of the street and getting himself hit by traffic going in both directions. He, the nation, and the GOP have suffered inordinately as a result.

5. Agreed, though few will understand where they actually went wrong. See aforementioned dearth of economic understanding rooted in dearth of spiritual understanding.

6. Those who maintain traditional Christian faith sleep peacefully amidst the confusion, for the Almighty is still in His temple. Psalm 2 comes to mind: "Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing?"

7. We should align with traditional (i.e., true) faith and classical (i.e., true) political conservatism. That means no more John McCains, Bob Doles, or Gerald Fords - how much mediocrity do we have to endure before we recognize what it looks like?

8. "A bit more deflation"? Deflation ended 5 years ago. Commodities are at twice their historic levels - we are well into a period of inflation.

Early Debate Returns: Bad for McCain

I watched the debate tonight with growing frustration at John McCain's failure to attack Obama squarely on his confiscatory economic policies. I've finally come to the conclusion that John McCain is unable (or unwilling) to promote the kind of conservative economic message that I think much of this country is wanting to hear.  Instead, he's splitting hairs with Barack Obama on the economy -- and losing in the process. I'm always interested in the views of Steven Hayes at the Weekly Standard -- he's a smart, reasonable writer who I read frequently.  His review of the debate is that Obama won. Here's part of what he had to say:

"John McCain had a very strong debate tonight. It’s too bad for him that it came on a night when Barack Obama was nearly flawless.

The debate began with questions on the economy and for thirty minutes Obama answered those questions with the kind of substance that I suspect anxious voters wanted to hear and with exactly the right tone – empathic, aggravated and determined. Most important, he spoke to voters in their own language. In his first answer, in response to a question about things the government can do to help average Americans through these tough economic times, Obama spoke of a $400,000 junket that AIG executives took after the government bailed them out. “Treasury should get that money back,” he said, “and those executives should be fired.” Sure, a little demagoguery. But it’s exactly the kind of story – in a debate that included back-and-forth accusations and lots of statistics – that voters will remember and talk about tomorrow with their neighbors.

McCain took that first question and he turned immediately to energy. “Americans are angry, they’re upset and they’re a little fearful. And it’s our job to fix the problem. Now, I have a plan to fix this problem and it’s got to do with energy independence.  It didn’t work. Two months ago, when gas prices were nearing $5 and the cost of oil dominated the headlines, the McCain campaign deftly used anxieties about energy as a proxy for anxieties about the economy. So when McCain proposed to lift the ban on offshore drilling, voters responded positively and the polling reflected their enthusiasm."

This is what I was afraid of: McCain being unable to clearly articulate why Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress is a danger to our economy. The reflexive return of McCain and Palin to the energy issue is a comfort zone and understandable -- but not good enough in this economy. McCain seems unable to explain to the American people that Obama's tax policies and his liberal record will be a poison pill to an economy that needs liquidity. It needs low taxes to fuel growth -- something that simply isn't possible with Obama's tax-and-spend plan.

Even worse, McCain's populist instincts are taking him down the wrong path. Rather than returning to a free-market solution to what should be a free market problem, his instinct is to increase regulation and government control -- exactly what Obama and the Democrats want to do. He again misses a chance at differentiation. Here's Hayes again:

"But while energy issues remain important and cannot be separated from the broader economic picture, the convulsions in world markets over the past two weeks and the need for a $700 billion federal bailout have rendered worries about gas prices and energy independence to second-tier status. It’s not that these issues don’t matter, it’s just that they matter less now than they did over the summer. He later broadened his answer to include spending, tax cuts and his jaw-dropping plan to have the federal government buy up “the bad home loan mortgages in America” to “let people make those payments and stay in their homes.” So bigger government is bad, quasi-governmental entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “ignited” the current economic crisis, too much government spending is leaving us broke and we want the U.S. Treasury to renegotiate individual home mortgages? Seriously? No thanks."

No thanks is right. The correct and powerful answer here is to reignite the economy through lower taxes to stimulate jobs and growth so people can pay their mortgages -- NOT to have the government take over that role. This mess in the housing market is partly an issue of personal behavior -- not simply predatory lending. I, for one, am not interested in my tax dollars going to bail out people who made bad decisions. I think many Americans would agree with that. Unfortunately, McCain's instincts don't lead him down that path. He's still in the "Wall Street greed" mode.

I hate to throw in the towel here, but...it is now clear that the issues that many conservatives have with McCain are legitimate and real. That despite his great personal story, his maverick personality often betrays a message that would greatly appeal to a great swath of America. He's actually give people less of a choice by co-opting the position of Obama on so many issues.

My guess is that the polls are not going to be good for McCain after this performance tonight. In a debate where he really needed to help himself, I'm afraid he's come up short.

We'll see.

The Howard Beal election

It's hard to turn on the TV these days. The news and images from Washington are like a train wreck. The height of hypocrisy: the crooks who made this mess posturing for a bailout on the backs of the taxpayer... looking stern and serious while they sit in gilded offices paid for by the investment banks and mortgage firms -- those that provided them with cheap loans to their poor constituents, while profiting handsomely from complex, opaque financial instruments that no one understands. While Washington slept the market ran wild, fueled by impossibly cheap money and overabundant credit. The Wall Street Journal ran a picture of J.P. Morgan the other day. He looks like a banker: stern, serious, practical. I wonder if he'd have given people $400,000 stated income loans; not a piece of paper to prove their earning or their ability to pay it back. That's what we did in the hyper-fueled lending world of Freddie and Fannie. You need to buy a house. Can't afford it? No problem, we'll cover you. Can you imagine J.P. Morgan doing anything so stupid?

And now comes the final indignity: the "bail out". The House yesterday decided not to pass a $700 billion bailout bill. They did so to prove that we are still a free market. They did so to save their reelection chances. They did so to protest the Bush Administration and their total mishandling of this crisis from start to finish. Whatever the reason: it failed. And rightly so.Does anyone really think that the Bush, Paulson or Bernanke have any idea what is really going on here? Fortune Magazine reported last week that the $700 billion number that Paulson chose has no analysis behind it:

"It's not based on any particular data point," a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. "We just wanted to choose a really large number."

Wow. How comforting is that? We know that markets operate on psychology, and that the large number is designed to provide confidence in the market that the government has a big enough solution to take care of the problem. I understand that.

But I also understand something that George W. Bush and his team have never understood: this is also a political issue during a presidential election. The Bush Administration remains totally tone deaf to the concerns of the American people. While the $700 billion number may calm financial markets, it has shocked, dismayed and infuriated the American taxpayer.

Hello? Is anyone out there? Does George Bush really want Barack Obama to become president? It sure looks that way.

In fact, Bush's handling of this issue looks a lot like the war in Iraq before General Petraeus went to Baghdad. It looks incompetent, poorly planned and poorly executed. It looks just like the mess that Gens. Casey and Abizaid got us into, with American soldiers dying daily amid violence and chaos on the television. Total mis-management. The American people lost confidence in Donald Rumsfeld in 2004. And what did the President do? He held his course, kept Rummy on and took a beating in the 2006 midterm elections. Bush was shocked to take such a shellacking. He didn't understand the level of discontent among the voters then -- and he doesn't understand it now. Americans in vast numbers are angry at Washington. Mad as hell, as Howard Beale famously yelled out the window in the movie Network. And they aren't going to take it anymore.

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Who will pay the ultimate price for this debacle? John McCain. He's been swallowed whole by this mess and his campaign will never recover. Yes, he miscalculated -- the whole "suspending his campaign" gambit backfired. Frankly, his instincts on the bailout were wrong; his behavior showed him as a legislator. A compromiser. Not as an executive who had to make a tough call in a crisis. He temporized and vacillated.

In fact, McCain missed a golden opportunity: He could have taken the momentum and initiative away from Obama and come out forcefully against the bailout from the beginning. He could have stood up in the debate and said:

I'm against this because I don't believe in taxpayers footing the bill for what is essentially a $700 billion entitlement program. Yes, I know the situation is serious and that we need to provide relief to the credit markets. But there is a better, less-intrusive way to do this: change the "market-based" accounting rules so that firms can revalue their portfolios to something that reflects their true intrinsic value. Provide loans and guarantees that the firms will pay interest on, etc. etc. etc.

But McCain didn't do that. He didn't see the opportunity for bold action and decisive decision-making. He could have put Obama in a corner. And with public opinion running 2:1 against the bailout, the polls would have been on his side.

In the end, this is the kind of crisis that either makes or breaks a candidate. The odds were against McCain from the beginning, but his handling of this issue has fallen short. He was dealt a bad hand by Bush and his bumbling lieutenants; in this case, running against Bush would have been smart for McCain. But it was the kind of "game changing" opportunity that comes about only once in a campaign. If you seize it, you win. If you don't, you lose.

So far, McCain hasn't seized it, and unless Palin pulls out a miracle against Biden and McCain can rally in the last two debates, the Republicans will lose on November 4.

At least they really debated

When or if the McCain-Obama debate takes place on Sept. 26, and ditto for the Palin-Biden faceoff on Oct. 2, little of the fulsome rhetoric will resemble the statesmanlike duels classically understood as debating. What we call "debates" today are nothing but joint press conferences, with journalists asking the questions and virtually no direct cross-examination or swordplay between the candidates themselves. Lincoln and Douglas would laugh these guys to Springfield and back.

Kudos, therefore, to a radio listeners' club called the Colorado Prager Fans, aided by DU Prof. Corey Ciocchetti as moderator, for staging a real debate Monday night at South High in Denver between talk show host Dennis Prager of Los Angeles and local lefty writer David Sirota, Philly boy turned Coloradan by way of Montana.

"What's Better for America: Liberal or Conservative Ideas?" was the topic, and the protagonists with Cocchetti's help kept it lively, meaty, and mostly civil for two hours before a packed hall of over 1200. While the central issue wasn't in keeping with strict debate procedure, which poses a proposition to be affirmed by one side and negated by the other, what I liked was the relentless slugging match between Sirota on the left and Prager on the right, with plenty of thrust and parry, jabs and counterpunches. It was utterly unlike the stiff and sterile yawners we'll get this fall from the Presidential Debate Commission.

The organizers were also imaginative, and the two principals admirably resourceful, in reducing their vast topic to six big areas with an eight-point buffet under each of them, from which each debater could graze at will during his 2x4 minutes of remarks. Do the math and you'll see that meant the audience -- a thousand-plus conservatives versus Ken Gordon, Wade Buchanan, and a few dozen other liberals, to judge from applause -- heard 16 glorious minutes of intense crossfire under each of the main areas.

Those were, if you're wondering... racial issues and policies... the economy... freedom of speech... culture issues... foreign policy and defense... and America's reputation in the world.

Who won? That probably depended on who you asked. In the post just below this, Ken Davenport writes up the affair as if Prager had mopped the floor with Sirota, but I didn't see it that way. Though David was bobbing and weaving and using the ropes much of the time like an overmatched boxer, he fought gamely, showed remarkable spirit and stage presence, seemed unfazed by the lopsided crowd reaction, and landed his share of punches. When I saw Gordon next day and asked how he though his guy had done, the Senate leader and seasoned courtroom attorney didn't say "Ouch" as one might do after a wipeout. He said good show, and I agree.

Substantively, of course, I agree with most of Ken Davenport's observations about the superiority of Prager's arguments at the debate, and about the formulaic hollowness we perceived in many of Sirota's lines -- but I allow that some of this may be perception alone on our part as conservatives. Talk to someone from the other side and you might get the opposite verdict.

"Where are all the conservatives, anyway?" asked David Sirota at one point -- in relation to spending, or the bailout, or civil liberties, or intervention abroad, I forget which -- and it was a telling shot. Prager actually got his bell rung at that moment, though the big guy (big physically and with outsize self-confidence to match) didn't realize it at all. He just went happily along, as befits radio's leading happiness maven.

David also scored, I thought, with his comment that liberal-conservative does not always align these days with Democrat-Republican, but here too Prager declined to engage. Each man mentioned the neo-conservatives once or twice, and it would have been illuminating -- if no great crowd-pleaser -- to hear them thoughtfully discuss that over-demonized but under-analyzed aspect of today's ideological landscape. David hewed closely all evening to his self-description as a progressive, not a liberal, but the onrushing format distracted him from explaining what the difference is, as he promised to do at the outset. I'd really like to know.

Bottom line, it was an edifying as well as entertaining occasion no matter which side you were pulling for, and I again congratulate the sponsors as well as the protagonists. At least they really debated.

When Prager & Sirota faced off

Monday at South High in Denver, a big crowd came out to see the noted conservative writer and radio host Dennis Prager debate Denver-based "progressive" writer David Sirota. The debate centered on a fundamental question that should be of interest to everyone in this election season: Whether liberal or conservatives ideas and ideals are better for our country. It covered a host of issues, including foreign policy, race, media, economics, and domestic social policy. I went into the evening knowing pretty much what Dennis would say, because I am a fan and avid listener of his show. But I was curious as to what the liberal Sirota would say -- how strong his arguments would be about what the left believes about America and how if views the major issues that face us. It was hardly a fair fight. Sirota seems like a bright fellow, but he's 33 years old and typical of the "children's wing" of the Democrat Party -- the one which can follow a script, but has little practical life experience. After listening to the talking points he gave last night I have one overriding question: Does David Sirota actually know any conservatives? From his answers last night I find it hard to believe that he does.

Against Prager he was clearly overmatched. For a well-known progressive writer and "thinker", Sirota sure didn't offer much insight that you can't find at the HuffingtonPost or at MoveOn.org. Sirota trotted out all the well-worn canards about Republicans in painting a very simplistic view of what conservatives think. He accused conservatives of not recognizing race in this country, of not wanting to help the poor and the needy, and of living in a "fantasy" world that ignores the cold hard realities of life in America.

In making his arguments, Sirota cherry-picked points of data from various polls and studies which he claimed made his views "irrefutable fact" -- but that were clearly taken either out of context or were spun in such a way as to be maximally damaging to conservative positions. It came off transparent and was in no way convincing. He repeated the claims of the Bush tax cuts being "for the rich", that America under a Republican administration has been "stomping around the world" with "hubris", that we were lied into a war in Iraq (that he claims was really about oil), and that we would do well to care about the fact that the rest of the world dislikes us. "It's a national security issue" that we aren't popular -- as if it were any less dangerous when Bill Clinton was traveling around the world feeling everyone's pain.

For Prager it was a little like shooting fish in a barrel. In his typically clear style, he offered a powerful counter punch to Sirota's liberal doom-and-gloom. He unapologetically told the audience -- a largely pro-Prager crowd -- that America is the greatest force for good in the world. He said that the problem for blacks in America is largely one of their own making, and that he doesn't care whether the rest of the world loves us, only that they respect us. He painted a picture of an opposite world view from that of Sirota: where America is a principled force for good in the world. It was standing ovation material.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the evening was being able to see into the narrative that the "progressive" movement is pushing about America. It represents a window into the socialist-driven policies that Barack Obama will pursue as president -- and it isn't pretty. Sirota painted a picture of what he calls "corporate socialism" -- which he argues already exists in this country. It comes in the form of the $700 billion bailout for the "fat cats on Wall Street". Or the $120/barrel price of oil that represents a windfall profit to "big oil". Or the tax breaks for corporations that then "ship jobs overseas". In Sirota's mind, America is run by a cabal of corporate chieftans who pull the levers for government -- all at the expense of the "little guy".

Prager last night called this for what it is -- the kind of Marxian materialism that underscores how the left looks at the world. I couldn't agree more. I studied Marx under some very accomplished socialists at the London School of Economics and I can tell you that socialists live in a secular world that views things purely in terms of material gains and losses. In this paradigm, the only motivation for anything is the material world -- whether it be land, money or oil. It is impossible that the United States would enter Iraq to make the world more secure and free the Iraqi people from tyranny. It just has to be about Halliburton and oil.

This, then, is the world view that the progressives hold. And it explains some of the more outlandish claims against corporate America, which must be structured to exploit the world in an evil search of more material gains. That's why Sirota and progressives like him believe that collectivist solutions are the answer; only government can ensure that society's goods are distributed fairly. It starts out by raising taxes and then leads to the redistribution of wealth -- all on a model that will engineer society down to the lowest common denominator.

If Sirota represents what America will be like with an Obama presidency, we should all be afraid. Be very afraid.