Obama is no JFK

It is a testament to how shallow our politics have become that an op-ed by Caroline Kennedy appears in the New York Times comparing Barack Obama to her father, John Kennedy. "A President Like My Father" cites Obama's ability to bring hope to the American people and inspire them to get involved in our collective future. Of Obama, she writes "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans". It may be understandable that Caroline Kennedy sees her father as an inspiring, towering figure in American history -- a man of great ideals who could move the nation. She was a young girl not quite six years old when her father was struck down by an assassin's bullet -- and her understanding of her father's life and legacy is unavoidably tied to the memories of "Camelot" as told to her through the eyes of ordinary Americans who were forever changed by his death. John Kennedy is now inexorably intertwined with his image as a new generation of leader, young, articulate, fresh -- with a classy wife in Jackie and two young children in the White House. It was then, and remains now, a tremendously attractive image.

On this cursory level, perhaps, you can make a comparison of Kennedy and Obama as young, urbane, well-educated and handsome leaders. They both exude a sense of hope and promise for a new generation of leadership to take over the entrenched interests in Washington. And both use soaring rhetoric that can be truly inspiring. That was evident again last night in Obama's victory speech in South Carolina. Like Kennedy, he can certainly turn a phrase.

But that's as far as the comparison goes. On substance, Kennedy and Obama are worlds apart. Kennedy was a liberal of the old school -- a realist who understood that certain threats to America needed to be met with blunt force, and who believed that the use of American power for good in the world was at its core a noble, generous act. It was Kennedy who said this in his first inaugural address:

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

Such a sweeping affirmation of the importance of America's role in securing liberty was at the core of Kennedy's foreign policy. This was borne out, overtly and covertly, in a series of military moves during his presidency: in the Bay of Pigs designed to secure Castro's overthrow, the Berlin Airlift that brought needed food and medicine after the Soviet blockade of the city, the blockade of Soviet ships in the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the gradual but inexorable escalation of our military commitment to South Vietnam. In each of these cases, the goal was to maintain US security and to establish democracy in the place of a socialist brand of totalianarism, even at the cost of American lives. Kennedy was an interventionist; by today's liberal standards, he'd be a conservative hawk -- just to the left of Dick Cheney.

Obama, on the other hand, embodies none of Kennedy's commitment to liberty. He's hung much of his campaign on his opposition to the Iraq War -- a war that liberated 25 million Iraqis from tyranny and that is attempting to establish a democracy in the heart of the Middle East. While Obama is on the record as saying that he doesn't "oppose all wars" and has called for an increase of US troops in Afghanistan, he views the current struggle against terrorism as a series of skirmishes in the shadows, rather than a war against a world-wide movement of Islamic extremism. He seeks to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately, even though we now have a real chance at showing Al Qaeda that Iraq can be a success despite its best efforts at destroying it. He is on record as wanting to negotiate directly with Iran and Syria to help bring "stability to Iraq", though the evidence is clear that both Syria and Iran are responsible for the killing of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians with impunity. In sum, Obama is typical of the Left who see negotiation as a panacea, and who believe the fight against terrorism is really a law enforcement issue -- a sporadic crime wave rather than a strategic struggle for the future.

Caroline Kennedy is at least half right -- Obama is a liberal in the mold of a Kennedy -- except that it is Teddy, not Jack. He's missing JFK's conviction that our current fight against Islamic radicalism is akin to the struggle against communism that Kennedy waged during the Cold War -- and which would require a similar, methodical, steadfast commitment to "bear any burden" in ensuring the triumph of democracy and freedom.

At first glance he may look the part. But, if you dig beyond the shallow similarities, Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy.

It killed them to stand

Washington emergency rooms were swarmed last night with Democratic congressmen and senators experiencing acute joint pain from unwillingly giving repeated standing ovations during President Bush's State of the Union address. With a national television audience looking on, majority Democrats were forced to their feet again and again to avoid looking stupid when Bush spoke of winning in Afghanistan, persisting in Iraq, having Al Qaida on the run, facing down Iran, and bringing home 20,000 troops.

Cardiac specialists from Rose Hospital told Politics West that Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, and members of their caucuses were fortunate that partisanship and ideology prevented them from standing or applauding at number of other points in Bush's speech, however.

The stress of having to acknowledge his superior logic on such issues as making the tax cuts permanent, expanding consumer choice in health care, pursuing stem cell research without destroying embryos, and authorizing surveillance of terrorists could have felled many Democrats with heart failure, the specialists said.

The President and Vice President, meanwhile, were given Botox shots by White House doctors to relieve extreme facial fatigue -- after struggling for most of the hour to suppress broad grins at the Dems' persistent discomfort, whether sitting or standing.

Baiting Romanoff & Booting Temple

State Rep. Douglas Bruce jerking around Speaker Andrew Romanoff before joining the House was one thing: a calculated bid for attention, rude but arguably shrewd. His putting the boot, literally, to a Rocky Mountain News photographer is something else again, however: plug-stupid with no conceivable justification. Someone needs to tell him the ink-by-the-barrel rule of political life and public relations. Bruce's foolhardy footwork, bringing down the wrath of Rocky publisher John Temple along with a near-unanimous rebuke from his own Republican caucus, is an utter loser for the man's legislative aspirations and, worse, for the GOP conservative cause he claims to support.

Deliver us, please, from such friends. My endorsement of Bruce's candidacy for this House seat, and my congratulations to him upon winning in it, are on extreme probation and rapidly approaching termination.

After being wrong fourfold about the New Hampshire primary last week, I now have the embarrassment of being -- it seems -- wrong again about what constructive benefit might come from having the self-proclaimed "terrorist" of taxpayer protection join the Colorado House of Representatives.

Mea culpa. One humbling experience after another; how much character-building can I stand? "When I make a mistake," as Fiorello La Guardia famously said, "it's a beaut."

Supply-side Rudy, fumbling Fred

(Lyon, France, Jan.14) However off-target many polls might be, as the New Hampshire primary demonstrated, Rudy Giuliani’s freefall in the latest surveys is being established as a fact. This might be well due to his strategic plans to focus exclusively on Florida and the February 5 states, and thus deliberately leave the early January limelight and momentum to the other contenders in the Republican field. More likely, his glissade may be the result of some conservative voters’ initial, albeit reluctant, support for his tough stance on terrorism finally draining away from him as supposedly more conservative candidates wisecrack voters into paying attention or work harder to get some traction.

Whatever the case might be, Rudy Giuliani is in trouble. He should not be. Asked a similar question about what to do to ward off a looming recession, Rudy Giuliani, the allegedly least conservative candidate in the Republican race because of his views on social issues, and Fred Thompson, proudly endorsed by Human Events on January 11 as a “solid conservative”, gave such very different answers as to turn the conservative world upside down.

Here is what Fred Thompson said on “Late Edition” on January 13: “(…) Increase the child credit, that would get money into the hands of lower income folks (…) At some level, I think a stimulus package and tax rebates would be beneficial.”

Stimulus packages delivered by government, including putting more money into people’s pockets for them to spend, has a name. It is called Keynesianism. It is what liberals do.

Now compare Thompson’s reply with what a dubious conservative like Giuliani had to say on Fox News Sunday the same day:

“ The kind of short-term stimulus you need is to present a realistic picture of an economy that’s going to grow and then the private sector and the investment sector, the multiples of money that that would involve, dwarfs anything you’re talking about [Hillary Clinton’s stimulus package]. (…) If the government in Washington presents the picture of immediately moving toward pro-growth policies, you have growth right away. A lot of the movement of money, not just in markets, but in general, is a prediction of not just where the economy is today, but where it is going to be next year, the year after, and the year after that.”

Stimulating the economy through private sector investment has a name too. It is called supply-side. It is what genuine conservatives do.

Now comprehensive conservatism should be about free-market economics, traditional values, and strong national defense. Rudy Giuliani might reasonably give pause to some social conservatives because of his views on abortion and gay rights -- but even social conservatives have to work and support their families and Giuliani’s supply-side answer would tangibly help them. Might his prescription also lift the remaining scales off their eyes and show them who the real conservative is when it comes to the crunch?

Note: “Paoli” is the pen name, er, nom de plume, of our French correspondent. Monsieur is a close student of European and US politics, a onetime exchange student in Colorado and a well-wisher to us Americans. He informs us the original Pasquale Paoli, 1725-1807, was the George Washington of Corsica.

Centennial's dubious home-rule effort

(Updated, Jan. 18) "We cannot hope for voter approval of a charter that strips the citizens of their rights. Trying to establish a city government that demeans and disenfranchises them will evoke public outcry, and it should." [Editor's note by John Andrews: That was the closing argument by Peg Brady of Centennial, one of 21 elected members on the commission to draft a home-rule charter for that city, in a memo presented to her colleagues at their Jan. 12 meeting. Full text of the memo, entitled "To Have This Charter Approved," was as follows.]

Unless we want an extended engagement re-writing this charter, we need to remember that it must be affirmed by Centennial's voters. Inasmuch as barely 50% of the voters approved home rule, there is little chance for voters approving a charter that diminishes their rights.

Centennial's citizens were promised that home rule would afford them a greater opportunity for self-governance. A charter that reduces their ability to participate in their city's government violates that promise and deserves to be rejected. Yet that's just what we're doing.

We've already raised the bar on their rights of recall, initiative and referendum. Illogically, we stated a concern that the city council might try to block citizen action by setting standards higher than the constitutional and statutory minimums, and then we built permanently elevated standards into the charter. [Update: See Note 1 below.]

In our on-going discussions on the offices on city clerk and city treasurer, many of us seem to favor non-elective appointees. But the citizens have repeatedly stipulated that they want to elect oversight officers to ensure that the appointees act in the citizens' best interest, especially in the matter of elections. [Update: See Notes 2 and 3 below.]

We cannot hope for voter approval of a charter that strips the citizens of their rights. Trying to establish a city government that demeans and disenfranchises them will evoke public outcry, and it should.

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NOTE 1: Upon reconsideration at its Jan. 12 meeting, the commission reduced the petition requirements for an initiative and a referendum. As now drafted, citizens have 180 days to acquire signatures on a petition for an initiative, needing 5% of the registered voters if the issue will be voted in a regular election and 15% if a special election. Citizens also will now need signatures from 5% of the registered voters for a referendum, to be collected within 30 days of the final publication of the ordinance. "Emergency" ordinances are not subject to referendum, a potential problem when the city council uses that category merely for expediting a decision.

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NOTE 2: [Peg Brady's memo to colleagues on Jan. 15, in advance of the clerk & treasurer discussion scheduled for Jan. 17] In the original draft charter given us as a starting point, both the city treasurer and city clerk were appointed offices. However, some insisted on elected officers to hold or at least oversee these positions, and thus the section is being rewritten.

As a good first step, the city treasurer's position has been split. Our draft now describes an elected finance oversight officer and an appointed finance operations officer (with whatever titles we settle upon). The elected finance oversight officer ensures that the citizens' interests are respected, while the appointed finance operations officer handles the nitty-gritty financial tasks. Good pattern.

It seems logical to adopt the same paired-officer pattern for the city clerk's position: an elected clerical oversight officer and an appointed clerical operations officer. In parallel with the paired financial officers, the appointed officer would handle all the operational and administrative functions and the elected officer would oversee those operations to ensure the citizens' interests.

What their titles are is unimportant to me. Our current (highly deserving!) deputy city clerk told us that the title "city clerk" has value when interacting with other municipal-ities; in that context, we might title the appointed officer "city clerk" and title the elected officer whatever we choose. Another consideration, though, is that our voters are accustomed to electing the "city clerk" and would need a clear explanation of the change.

Central to the problem with the clerk's office is the matter of elections. Even those of us who prefer an appointed city clerk acknowledge that there should be some oversight of elections. An elected elections commission has been discussed, for instance. Especially if we abolish the elected clerical oversight office, such a commission becomes essential for any hope of the voters approving the proposed charter.

My suggestion, then, is that we apply the same pattern as that for treasurer: an elected clerical oversight officer and an appointed clerical operations officer. In addition, I recommend an elected elections commission. One commissioner would be elected in each district. Together with the elected-at-large clerical oversight officer, they would constitute a 5-member elections commission to supervise elections. For elections, the operational officer would handle the process and the oversight officer or the 5-member commission would ensure voters that good practices are followed. I think that our voters will require this sort of pattern, or they are unlikely to approve the proposed charter.

As to those appointed officers, I envision appointments made by the City Manager with the approval of the city council.

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NOTE 3: [Peg Brady's update after the Jan. 17 meeting] At Thursday's public hearing, seven of ten speakers declared in favor of electing the clerk and treasurer; then the commission debated it without resolution for the remainder of the evening. Unfortunately, those who seek to take away electing the offices remain adamant, even in the face of strong support for election (including Mayor Randy Pye and County Clerk Nancy Doty). Because those of us who favor election are just as adamant, no progress occurs.

Perhaps there can be a resolution that satisfies those who want hired officials (continuity and professionalism) but retains our need for elected officials (accountability and independence). That Nancy Doty achieves this blend with her staff seems a logical model, I think, but it obviously didn't impress the pro-hiring faction last night.