Canadian Cincinnatus

How Stephen Harper can get past the Senate scandal

In politics substance trumps scandal. Leading up to the 1988 federal election, Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives were going down to defeat, thanks to a panoply of petty scandals attributable to Mulroney’s taste for high living. It was going to be a death by a thousand cuts, except that a miracle came along and saved him from himself: the then-Liberal dominated Senate gave Mulroney what turned out to be a gift. They rejected his Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, telling him that the issue was so important that Parliamentary assent was insufficient. Something this momentous needed to be ratified by the electorate. Therefore, Mulroney campaigned on free trade in 1988.

The result: the 1988 Canadian federal election was the most issue-centered election in Canadian history. Mulroney’s PC’s were in favour of free trade with the US; the John Turner Liberals were against. In the ensuing debate, all of Mulroney’s petty infractions were forgotten. Compared to free trade, they were seen to be small-ball crap. Best of all, conservative principled triumphed in the end. Mulroney was re-elected – all thanks to the Liberal Senators who only wanted to throw a spanner in his works!

Stephen Harper has to do the same thing. He needs to fight tooth-and-nail for either the reform or abolition of the Senate. If he succeeds in turning the issue into a debate about fundamental issues of governance, the inflated expense accounts of a handful of Senators will be seen for what it is: penny-ante politics. If Harper makes Senate reform a key issue in the next election, he can triumph in 2015 – just like Mulroney in 1988. 

The best part is that Justin Trudeau is on the wrong side of Senate reform. He’s against it – which makes him implicitly the champion of Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and (let’s not forget) Mac Harb.

At least according to the MSM, Harper is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t

When Stephen Harper was defending Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin, the Parliamentary press gallery held Duffy and Wallin as avatars of everything that is wrong in Ottawa. But now that Harper is taking decisive action against them, these same journalists are calling Harper a bully. In Canada, you are innocent until proven guilty, don’t cha know.

So, MSM, what should our Prime Minister do? I’m quite sure that if Harper took a wait-and-see attitude towards their guilt, you would be bellowing cover-up.

The good news is that Harper appears to be handling things right. He defended his wayward Senators at first, out of loyalty (a necessary virtue in politics), but threw them to the wolves after they demonstrated their inability to get their act together. This how he handled former MP Helena Guergis, who was branded as the worst example of corruption when she was in the Conservative caucus (Michael Ignatieff darkly hinted in Parliament that she might have mafia connections), but was instantly reborn as a persecuted victim of bully-boy Harper the moment he abandoned her. Fortunately, Harper didn’t listen to the chicken littles at the National Post and remained resolute in his course of action.

The whole thing blew over because the Liberal/MSM position was inconsistent about everything in the entire Guergis affair except their opposition to whatever position Stephen Harper took. As long as Harper remains resolute about the action he is taking against Duffy and Wallin, I believe the same dynamic will play out.

About the worst thing Harper could do at this point would be to backpedal on his actions. Nothing is despised more than a weak leader.

David Harsanyi: “In Praise of a Partisan media”

Conservatives often decry the Main Stream Media for their left-wing bias. I have long contended that the problem is not bias, but dishonesy about their bias. Commentator David Harsanyi agrees: 

“As much as it pains me, let me take a few moments to defend MSNBC. Last week’s much-talked about testy exchange between anchor Thomas Roberts and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Priebus has been predictably negative. Media bias is a perpetual grievance of the Right — for obvious reasons. But  maybe the only way to improve on the situation is to champion more openly ideologically driven political journalism? By any measure, it’s a lot less destructive than what we had for decades: a media feigning impartiality.”

I have long contended that ‘America’s anchorman’ Walter Cronkite was a much more malignant influence than Kieth Olberman because Cronkite concealed his extreme left-wing views while Olberman was forthright about what he believed in. How many of you know that Cronkite was a one-world-government enthusiast?

“We all know where MSNBC or FOX News stand. It’s establishment media masquerading as impartial that has the real impact.” 

That’s right. MSNBC is not the problem. It’s the only honest news broker currently on American TV – besides Fox. CNN, with its (barely) concealed leftism is much more insidious. And the slickness of broadcast news is much worse.

One of the ways Canada is superior to the US is that our news media never developed the tradition of ‘objective journalism’ that took hold south of the border. For instance, Toronto has four newspapers: the Sun (populist conservative), the National Post (high-brow conservative, at least under Conrad Black – it has been backsliding in recent years), the Star (lowbrow left) and the Globe and Mail (establishment liberal). When I was growing up there were two main TV networks: the CBC (government funded and very left-wing), and CTV (privately owned by the partisan conservative and Trudeau-hater John Bassett). With Bassett’s death CTV has also backslid, but we now have Sun News, which makes Fox look tame.

I believe (correct me if I’m wrong) but the US used to have a vigorous partisan news media as well, but in the 20’s and 30’s overt partisanship was submerged to increase sales with a less offensive product. This outward objectivity was subverted by the left in the 60’s so that by the 80’s, it was little more than a veneer for the left-wing views of the sixties generation that had begun dominating the news rooms. If this synopsis is correct, the rise of the alternate media (both on the left and right) can be viewed as a return to America’s journalistic roots.

But say, isn’t objectivity better than bias?

It would be – if it were possible for people reporting on current affairs to not hold opinions of their own. Personally, if such reporting were even possible, I don’t think it would be worth reading. And having a bias - that you are concealing - is the polar opposite of honesty.

No, honest journalism does not mean faux objectivity. It does mean treating facts honestly, separating reporting and opinion journalism (as much as possible), giving the other guy the opportunity to rebut your views and being honest with your readers about where you are coming from. So how can that be achieved?

“Having a point of view doesn’t preclude a political journalist from being honest or curious or a critical thinker …, but journalists believe, or act as if they believe, that their work is immune from ideology. With few noteworthy exceptions, of course, that’s impossible. And that’s fine. The key to making it work isn’t impartiality; it’s diversity.” 

Harsanyi is absolutely right. A diverse media, propagating diverse points of views keeps everybody in check. It isn’t the editor or publisher with the same point-of-view who does this best, it is the Other Guy who will take you to task – publically – who keeps everybody on the straight and narrow.

Jeb Bush to Ted Cruz: "Have A Little Bit Of Self-Restraint"

Earth to Jeb Bush:

In view of the current fiscal situation, it’s the US Federal Government that needs to show self-restraint. (Of course, it should have been showing self-restraint way back when your brother was running it.)

John McCain on the government shutdown: “All of those involved in it went on a fool’s errand.”

As relayed by Bridget Johnson of PJ Media: 

‘Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that he takes umbrage at Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) assertion that Republicans could have banded together and successfully defunded Obamacare in the government shutdown but instead were responsible for losing the fight.

“But it was a fool’s errand to start with. It was never going to succeed. And the damage, this was not an academic exercise. The damage done to the people of this country...”

“All of those involved in it went on a fool’s errand. That’s just the fact. The other irony is that, in the polling data, national polling, Republicans are at an all-time historic low in approval or historic high in disapproval by the American people.”’

All of which could be said about John McCain’s disastrous presidential campaign.

CUNY sociologist: “Bring Back the Lash”

Peter Moskos, as sociologist at the City University of New York argues, “why flogging is more humane than prison”:

“I write in defense of flogging, something most people consider too radical for debate and even unworthy of intellectual discussion. But please, don’t turn the page, upset I dared to broach the subject.

My defense of flogging—whipping, caning, lashing, call it what you will—is meant to be provocative, but only because something extreme is needed to shatter the status quo. There are 2.3 million Americans in our prisons and jails. That is too many. I want to reduce cruelty, and corporal punishment, once common in America and still practiced in places like Singapore, may be the answer. 

So first let me begin with a simple question: Given the choice between five years in prison and ten brutal lashes, which would you choose?

Yes, flogging is a severe and even brutal form of punishment. Under the lash, skin is literally ripped from the body. But prison means losing a part of your life and everything you care for. Compared to this, flogging is just a few very painful strokes on the behind. And it’s over in a few minutes. 

If you had the choice, if you were given the option of staying out of jail, wouldn’t you choose to be flogged and released?”

I’d chose flogging over prison rape any day. 

“In truth, there is very little correlation between incarceration and the crime rate. From 1970 to 1991 crime rose while we locked up a million more people.”

This part I disagree with. The crime wave unleashed by misbegotten sixties reforms necessitated a massive law-and-order crackdown, one result of which was a huge increase in the prison population. It is much easier to maintain order than re-establish it, and because of the long prison sentences that needed to he handed out, the size of the prison population lagged behind the crime rate decrease. A gangbanger who was handed a 25-year sentence in 1990, at the height of the crack wars, is still in jail today. His present status as a convict has nothing to do with today’s placid crime rates.

“But who hasn’t, at some point, committed a crime? Perhaps you’ve taken illegal drugs. Maybe you once got into a fight with a friend, stranger, or lover that came to blows. Or you drove back from a bar drunk. Or you clicked on an online picture of somebody who turned out to be a bit young. Perhaps you accepted a “gift” from a family member and told the IRS it was a loan.”

This is true. There is nobody more for law and order than me, but we have way too many laws on the books. The gun laws and the drug laws are just the most obvious legal excesses. 

“I am not proposing to completely end confinement or shut down every prison. Some inmates are, of course, too violent and hazardous to simply flog and release. Pedophiles, terrorists, serial rapists, and murderers, for example, need to remain behind bars—but they are relatively few in number. They are being kept in prison not only to punish them, but also because we don’t want them to hurt us. We’re afraid of them. But for the millions of other prisoners—particularly those caught up in the war on drugs (which I for one would end tomorrow if I could)—the lash is better than a prison cell. Why not at least offer the choice?”

If somebody is caught in a bar fight, wouldn’t it be better to give him the lash and be done with the matter, that to commit him to jail for a few months and give him a criminal record that will haunt him for years?

“That prisons have failed in such a spectacular manner should matter more than it does. But it should come as no surprise, since prisons were designed not to punish, but to “cure.” Just as hospitals were for the physically sick, penitentiaries were created—mostly by Quakers in the late eighteenth century—to heal the criminally ill. A stated goal of the early prison advocates was nothing less than the complete elimination of punishment. The penitentiary would be a kinder and gentler sentence, one geared to personal salvation, less crime, and a better life for all. Like so many utopian fairy tales, the movement to cure criminals failed. Early prison reforms may have had the best of intentions, but today we should know better.”

A forgotten fact that penitentiaries were first devised by bleeding heart liberals. But if I were a betting man, and I had to choose between those who think they can change human nature and the crooked timbers of human nature, I would side with the latter every time. 

“As ugly as it may seem, corporal punishment would be an effective and comparatively humane way to bring our prison population back in line with world standards.”

“Make no mistake: this is punishment, and punishment must by definition hurt.”

“The lash, which metes out punishment without falsely promising betterment, is an unequivocal expression of society’s condemnation.”

“Bringing back the lash is one way to destroy it—if not completely, then at least for the millions of Americans for whom the punishment of prison is far, far worse than the crime they have committed. Yes, flogging may seem brutal and retrograde, but only because we are in mass denial about the greater brutality of our supposedly civilized and progressive prisons.”

There is a lot to be said about clarity of purpose.

How to fight the government funding of the arts, and how not to

A very perceptive article on the issue of government support of art, in the new website, The Federalist:

'In 1989 Jesse Helms, the contentious and controversial conservative senator from North Carolina, launched an attack on the National Endowment for the Arts for its support of shows that included work which he deemed offensive. Ten years later as Mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani engaged in a similar attack, threatening to cut off the city’s support of the Brooklyn Museum because of its show “Sensation” which featured Chris Offili’s painting “The Holy Virgin Mary”, a depiction of the Blessed Mother emblazoned with elephant dung.

These two controversies have come to frame the perception of conservative opposition to public funding for the arts. It is viewed as a battle between liberals who value free speech and broad access to the arts and conservatives who want to censor art and cut funding to those institutions that bring art to the people. It is a battle that conservatives have been soundly losing. It is the wrong battle.'

I made the same point when I described how social conservatives are being outfought in the same-sex marriage debate: he who frames the debate wins the debate. In the current frame, conservatives come off as provincial, unimaginative prudes (and possibly closet homosexuals). Yech! Who wants to be associated with those creeps? I’d rather hang with the cool, creative free-spirits.

So how did it happen? How did we end up boxing ourselves into such an untenable position? The answer is simple. With regard to the arts, we are entirely reactive. We know instinctively that something is seriously amiss in the arts, but instead of figuring out what it is, and going after that, we lash out at the most egregious examples of artistic atrocities, without ever doing our intellectual homework ahead of time, to prepare us for the dialectical battle to come. As a result, when the left counterattacks, we are flummoxed.

Much better:

'The better argument against the current model of federal arts spending is much more simple, and much closer to the heart of the conservative movement. What conservatives should be saying is that the NEA and the tax exempt status of many arts organizations are hurting the very art forms they purport to support. They are in fact making American art less relevant to American’s lives.'

So how is this bad?

'I have been a theater actor and producer in New York for over a decade. In that time I have seen many talented kids coming out of school who want to form theater companies. Their first concern is not finding an audience, its finding a grant, or finding wealthy donors.'

Why are they doing this?

'The basic assumption is that theater cannot survive in the marketplace. That without federal, state and city dollars it will cease to exist. The fact that theater is about as old as human civilization and has existed under every governmental system known to man (including many which actively tried to suppress it) doesn’t seem to enter into this analysis. It is simply accepted that government support of the arts creates better, and better attended art.'

Why is this bad?

'In fact, the perverse market incentives enshrined by federal tax expenditures through deductions for arts giving and direct government support have been accompanied by a decrease in attendance and a crisis in theater. There are three compelling reasons why we need to re-examine the role of government in the arts, and specifically in theater. First and most importantly it is failing. Less and less people go to theater even though the federal dollars keep rolling in. Second, these government dollars are not expanding the base of arts attendees, but rather subsidizing the entertainment of wealthy, white people. Thirdly, government dollars are not content neutral, a cultural ground game is being executed by the progressive Non Profit community to ensure that culture remains the sole preserve of leftist ideology.'

Now we are getting somewhere. The author, David Marcus, goes on to describe each problem in greater detail. But read the whole thing so you too can be better prepared for intellectual battle, and more able to reframe the issue to your advantage when an art controversy pops up. 

He concludes:

'Americans have never needed an expert class to guide their taste in art. Mark Twain said, “My books are like water, those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water.” Today in American art we need more water. We need more artists like Twain who focus first and foremost on what people want, not what the experts and their wealthy, well connected patrons think they need. It’s time for a new approach. It’s time for a new argument. It’s time to give art back to the people.'

“Give art back to the people”: an excellent slogan.

Marco Rubio and the wages of indecision

When he came up from nowhere to beat the execrable Charlie Crist and become the junior Senator from Florida, Marco Rubio was the Tea Party darling. Big things were expected of him. But then he turned his back on the Tea Party base to back amnesty for illegal immigrants. His popularity has not recovered:

“In Florida, Public Policy Polling, a left-leaning polling organization, released a poll on Thursday that found only 43% of Floridians approved of Rubio while 53% disapproved. One year ago, 51% of Floridians approved and 33% disapproved of Rubio in the same poll.”

“Rubio's poll numbers started to drop, especially among conservatives and Republicans, as soon as he decided to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform along with senators like John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC).” 

Let Marco Rubio be an object lesson to conservative ‘moderates’, RINO’s and Red Tories that throwing your supporters under the bus is rarely a winning strategy.

“After the comprehensive immigration reform bill passed the Senate in June, Rubio went silent, and the Public Policy Poll showed that Rubio has the support of neither those who support a pathway to citizenship (23% support Rubio on immigration while 41% disapprove) nor those who oppose (19% support Rubio on immigration while 51% disapprove) in his home state. “

So now, thanks to his reactive flip flops, Rubio has achieved the sour spot of being equally hated by the supporters and opponents of an important issue. The gods of politics favour the resolute and punish the opportunistic.

 

And whatever else can be said about him now, Marco Rubio is not presidential timber.

Tim Carney: “Tea Party loosens K Street's stranglehold on the GOP”

Over at the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney has a must-read article on the wholesome influence that the Tea Party has had on US politics:

‘Back in 2006, I asked a couple of conservative Republican congressmen to give blurbs for my book on corporate welfare. “My boss loves the book,” one of their top aides said, “but we’re not going to put his name on it." Why not, I asked. "Who do you think funds his campaigns?" she whispered. "It’s not the Family Research Council.”

In short, the conservative congressman was happy to fight the good fight, but he wasn’t willing to upset Big Business because that’s where the checks came from — and no checks meant no re-election.’

For a long time I did not understand why allegedly small-government conservatives were so reluctant to attack corporate welfare, which seemed like a winning issue that connects libertarianism to populism.

'Back then, to raise money, Republicans had to go to K Street. Call your former chief of staff who was now at a lobbying firm, have him host a fundraiser. Your ex-aide would show up with colleagues carrying $2,500 checks and with corporate clients handing over $5,000 checks from their political action committees.’

If you want to see what this dynamic looks like on the silver screen, go watch House of Cards.

‘Although K Street was the road to campaign cash, the party leadership was often the path to K Street. This helps explain the power dynamic in the pre-Tea Party GOP.

But the Tea Party smashed K Street's monopoly on Republican fundraising. The Club for Growth was founded in the late 1990s, and early last decade, it began targeting liberal Republicans in primaries. By 2010, the Club had become a giant force, raising money for candidates who met its rigorous ideological tests and pouring millions into independent expenditures against less-favored Republicans and Democrats.’

‘Instead of corporate interests filling Republican coffers, ideological money started coming in, too.'

While GOP leaders backed candidates like Charlie Crist (Fla.) and Trey Grayson (Ky.) in 2010 primaries, the SCF backed Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. K Street and the National Republican Senatorial Committee worked hand-in-hand — but for a change, there was a countervailing force.’

The media likes to present itself as anti-big business and ‘for the little guy’, but, in spite of this professed sentiment, they viscerally hate Republicans not beholden to big business and, periodically, supports those ‘moderate’ Republicans who are so beholden.

‘The Club for Growth was [Rand] Paul's biggest source of funds, giving him $105,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Senate Conservatives Fund kicked in $36,685. These two groups, together with FreedomWorks, also spent big on independent expenditures for Paul.

Ted Cruz also came to Washington by defeating K Street. The Club for Growth spent more than $2.5 million helping Cruz in the Texas GOP primary, while the SCF spent about $800,000. K Street was backing Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst -- he got $500,000 from business PACs (33 times Cruz's take), and GOP lobbyists hosted a fundraiser for him at the Capitol Hill townhouse of Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta.

As Cruz put it, “Everyone who makes their living from continuing the government-spending gravy train is supporting Dewhurst.”’

Sounds like Ted Cruz is Mr. Smith and David Dewhurst is Frank Underwood. No wonder the GOP establishment was so upset about Ted Cruz’s challenge even though there was so little apparent difference between the two in their stated policy platforms.

'If not from lobbyists and big businesses, where are these Tea Party groups getting their money? Mostly from small-business owners and conservative retirees. The Club for Growth has a big chunk of wealthy investors cutting them checks.'

Notice how the media, who love caterwauling about the malignant influence of ‘lobbyists’, really hate the Club of Growth and FreedomWorks? It’s almost as if their jeremiads against corporate lobbying were just a hypocritical smokescreen. 

'It may confuse liberals who think free-market politics is just a corrupt deal to enrich Big Business — or who claim that the Tea Party is a Big Business front — but these are the opposing pulls in the GOP: K Street and the Tea Party.'

This is something the left and the media genuinely don’t get: that a platform of liberty is different from a platform of big business. Of course, it doesn’t help when the self-proclaimed champions of small government are constantly at the lobbyist’s trough.

‘Having two sources of money changes the party dramatically.’

The easier it is for politicians to do the right thing, the better. 

‘“I don't think there's a way for Wall Street to punish the 25 to 50 hardcore House Republicans,” one Wall Street lobbyist told Politico in the first couple days of the shutdown. Referring to an anti-establishment libertarian freshman congressman, the lobbyist said, “I don't think Justin Amash cares if Bank of America gives to him or not.” 

A Republican who doesn’t care about Bank of America checks wasn’t possible before the Tea Party.’

That it is possible is a very good thing - even though it drives the Main Stream Media bonkers. 

What the Miley Cyrus - Sinead O’Connor spat can teach conservatives

The recent spat between Miley Cyrus and Sinead O’Connor is not just a feud between a brainless bimbo and a grizzled, feminist harpy. It has some meaning in the wider sense.

In lecturing the 20-year old Miley Cyrus about flaunting her sexuality for fame, fun and profit, the 46-year old Sinead O’Connor is coming across like a Victorian matron (minus, of course, the successful track record of stable family formation). I believe this points to a wide rift between female generations. The women who came of age before the early 90’s (i.e. those who are in their mid-fourties or greater now), embraced a man-hating feminism that increasingly turned off younger cohorts of women. In college, they see them as strident fanatatics, and not where the fun (and the boys) are. In her own dim-witted way, Miley Cyrus has become the standard-bearer in the struggle by her generation of women against her mother’s generation.

Since both groups (single, young women and aging women’s libbers) are core members of the left-liberal coalition, a conservative… a smart conservative, would try to find a way to exploit and widen this rift for electoral gain.