Recently in Politics Category

During the third hour of the Rush Limbaugh Show today, a journalism student at the University of Oklahoma called in to tell Rush about the textbook for the History of Journalism course he's taking this semester. The student said that an entire chapter of the book was devoted to the proposition that Rush Limbaugh is a racist, sexist liar, and that the next session of the course this coming Tuesday would be on that section of the book. In the previous session, the professor asked if any of the students were "dittoheads" -- only the caller and one other student, in a class of 150, raised their hands. The professor promised to give both sides equal time. Rush said he would be calling the student on Wednesday to get a report on Tuesday's class discussion.

The student didn't name the book or the professor, so I've done some digging. There is a course called JMC 4803 History of Journalism. Here's the catalog blurb:

Prerequisite: junior standing and 12 hours of Journalism credit hours. European background and development of the colonial press. Emergence of the partisan and penny newspapers. Evolution of personal and independent journalism. Major trends in printed and other communication media in the twentieth century. (F, Sp)

This semester (according to the Spring 2008 schedule) the course is being taught by Assistant Prof. Keith Greenwood. (UPDATE: Jason, the student who called Rush Limbaugh, e-mailed to inform me that the course is being taught by Ramòn Chàvez this semester.) According to the OU Bookstore website, the text for next semester is Mightier than the Sword by Rodger Streitmatter.

Sure enough, Chapter 14 is titled "Rush Limbaugh: Leading the Republican Revolution." Page 230 features the de rigeur misdefinition of the terms "dittos" and "dittoheads":

A taste of Limbaugh's remarkable appeal came a few weeks later when a Pennsylvania caller registered her complete agreement with every word Limbaugh had ever uttered when she said simply: "Ditto." The term instantly became enshrined in the gospel of St. Rush, as disciples eagerly labeled themselves "dittoheads" and greeted him with exuberant "megadittos."

As longtime listeners will surely know, the caller actually said "dittos to what that guy just said," referring to a previous caller who had gone on and on about how wonderful it was to hear Rush's point of view on the radio and how he hoped he'd never go away. The "dittos" caller was moving on to the point of her call and was using "dittos" to express her appreciation of Rush without getting bogged down. "Dittos" has never meant an affirmation of "every word Limbaugh had ever uttered." In Rush's own words:

RUSH: All right. Here's the explanation. Back when this show started August 1st, 1988, it took the nation by storm because there was nothing like it in the national media. The national media was all liberal. Here was this conservative program that reflected the views of millions of people. As people would call in, the first couple minutes of their call, literally, they'd spend thanking me and talking about how great it was to have something like this on the radio, finally, it was so great, and I of course loved hearing it. After awhile, after about six months, it finally just grew old. It was delaying getting to the discussion of the issues. A woman called from I think it was like New Hampshire, and after just one of those calls, said, "Ditto to what they guy just said." So ditto means, "I love the program. Don't ever go away." It doesn't mean, "I agree with you." It doesn't mean, "You're always right." It means, "I love the program." Mega dittos means, "I really love -- I, mean I adore -- this program. It's the only program!" That's what mega dittos means.

I couldn't read the whole thing on Google Books, but I read enough to see the standard leftist explanation that Rush's success was built on lies and deception. I'll be very interested to tune in Wednesday to hear the student's report on Tuesday's class.

LA Weekly reports on a new constituency opposing the Los Angeles Police Department's sanctuary city policy. Special Order 40, a policy forbidding police from running immigration status checks when someone is arrested, served as a model for similar policies in many other cities. It was already under legal attack as a violation of a 1996 California law banning sanctuary city policies.

Woo-whee, the testimony was riveting this morning before the Los Angeles City Council when a group of black residents pleaded with the 15 elected council members to rescind Special Order 40, the longtime local rule protecting illegal immigrants from arrest by the LAPD.

The black residents are seeking a decision by the council to enact the so-called Jamiel's Law, named after Jamiel Shaw, a promising and law-abiding 17-year-old high school student allegedly shot by an illegal immigrant, 18th Street Gang member Pedro Espinoza. The noxious Espinoza, who has a massively long rap sheet, was arrested by cops in Culver City, and then released by Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jailers, shortly before he allegedly murdered Jamiel.

Jamiel's family members cried openly in the ornate Council Chambers, asking the council to allow cops to check on the illegal status of people like Espinoza so they can be deported rather than released.

Mayoral candidate Walter Moore, proponent of Jamiel's Law has on his website Special Order 40, the proposed Jamiel's Law, and more about Jamiel Shaw's life.

And in 2005, Heather McDonald of the Manhattan Institute testified before a congressional subcommittee on the importance of running immigration checks whenever the opportunity arises in order to curb gang activity:

Immigration enforcement against criminals should also not wait upon a major federal-local gang initiative. The majority of opportunities to get criminals off the streets come from enforcing misdemeanors and quality of life offenses. While the police are waiting to make a major federal case against an illegal criminal, they are far more likely to have picked him up for a "petty" theft or an open-container offense. Officers should be empowered at every arrest or lawful stop to check someone's immigration status. If a suspect is committing an immigration offense, the officer should be empowered to arrest him immediately for that offense.

(Via Mickey Kaus.)

Conservative blogger and lawyer historian Clayton Cramer is running for the Idaho State Senate, challenging a moderate-to-liberal Republican incumbent, whom Cramer believes is out of step with his district:

...[T]he incumbent received a C rating from NRA at the last election, and introduced a bill to add "sexual orientation and gender identity" to the state's employment discrimination law. The biggest town in my district is an Air Force base; the second biggest town has a mandatory gun ownership law.

Cramer is a bearded blogger and has been told that he has to shave it off. While Idahoans may have beards, they don't vote for candidates who do. I've been told that in Oklahoma a beard will cost a candidate 4% of the vote. (A mustache by itself is worse -- 6%.) A fellow Idahoan has determined that bearded men are underrepresented in the legislature:

So, of a total of 80 male legislators, only five have beards, equaling 6.25% of the Male Legislators. I'd say that greater that a good 10-12% of men around these parts have beards.... So, I think we can say that the beard is a detriment.

I think Cramer should leave the beard on. Of course, I ran twice for office with a hairy face and lost both times, so take that advice for what it's worth.

Cramer points out that Bill Sali got himself elected to Congress from Idaho with a beard (actually a Van Dyck, by the looks of it).

Of course, there's a rather famous Idaho politician whose long career was helped considerably by a beard of a different sort....

UPDATE: Mr. Cramer writes to say, "I am a historian. Calling me a lawyer--doesn't that qualify as defamation of character?" Happily, since he's not a lawyer, he can't sue me easily! (I fixed it anyway.)

A blast of fresh Arctic air: Alaska's Republican Lt. Gov. Sean Parnell has filed to challenge ethically-challenged Republican Congressman Don Young, and he has the backing of Republican Gov. Sarah Palin:

"The days of unquestioning loyalty are gone," Parnell said a few hours later after filing candidacy paperwork. "It's time for principled leadership."

Gov. Sarah Palin escorted Parnell into the Division of Elections office and immediately endorsed him over Young, who has held the office for 35 years. She gave no thought to the protocol of an endorsement months before the August primary, she said.

"When something's right, it's right," she said. "There's no time like the present to state your case and speak candidly about what you believe in. And I believe in his candidacy."

(Via McGehee.)

MORE: Last October, NR's David Freddoso called on the National Republican Congressional Committee (headed by Oklahoma's Tom Cole) to be ruthless in casting off the bad apples in the Republican orchard:

Republicans need an ethical Housecleaning if they are ever to return to the majority again. This will require strong leadership and creativity. The real question is just how ruthless the reputedly non-confrontational Boehner can be when his legacy is on the line. Boehner will show his mettle by how he deals with two members currently under serious ethical clouds: Reps. Don Young (R., Alaska) and John Doolittle (R., Calif.).

Freddoso goes on to point out that failure to dump these ethical liabilities not only costs credibility, it costs the party cold cash. $9 million was spent in the 2006 cycle to try to save the sorry hides of Don Sherwood (Pa., "tried to choke his mistress"), Bob Ney (Ohio, now in Federal prison), Charles Taylor (N.C.), Curt Weldon (Pa., "federal raids just before the 2006 election"), and Mark Foley (Fla., creepy IM chats with a male page). That's 11 percent of the committee's independent expenditures wasted on lost causes.

We so often think of conservatism and liberalism in terms of a collection of disconnected policies, or we mistake the two competing ideologies for the two political parties that are respectively identified with them, that we forget the heart of the matter. What truly distinguishes conservatism from liberalism is the way each understands human nature. An ideology will succeed -- produce liberty and peace and prosperity -- to the degree that it correctly understands and accounts for human nature.

Like ideology, drama will succeed to the degree that it correctly understands and accounts for human nature. The better a playwright is at observing the way people respond to challenges and frustrations, the abler he is at drawing the audience into his play.

So there's this playwright, David Mamet. His job is to be an observer of the human condition. The more accurate an observer he is, the more his plays strike a chord with his audience. What he learned as an observer of humanity is that conservatism's core assumptions about human nature are right, and liberalism's assumptions are all wrong. In an essay in the Village Voice (of all places), Mamet goes back to first principles and works outward from those to come to some very conservative conclusions.

Here is an excerpt (slightly expurgated), but you really must read the whole thing:

And, I wondered, how could I have spent decades thinking that I thought everything was always wrong at the same time that I thought I thought that people were basically good at heart? Which was it? I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama.

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless, people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances--that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired--in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches. So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant. For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bulls**t and go straight to firearms....

Whatever you think about his broader point, you must admit the man understands zoning.

Robert N. Going says it's time to get back to our roots:

Let's grow up, Conservatives! The reason the Republican Party is slipping away from us is that they and we have drifted from our roots. With the passing of the Founding Father, William F. Buckley, Jr., now would be a good time to review where we have been and where we should go.

As a starting point, he gives us the Sharon Statement, adopted in 1960 as the founding document of Young Americans for Freedom. It outlines in 12 short paragraphs a creed that upholds the indivisibility of economic and political liberty, the limited purposes and competencies of government, the Constitutional division of powers, the market economy and its essential role in freedom and prosperity, the importance of national sovereignty to liberty, and the necessity of opposing and defeating threats to liberty in the world.

If you were to compose a similar summary of conservatism today, what else would it include? The Sharon Statement was written before the judicial activism of the Warren Court and its successors, before LBJ's massive Great Society expansion of government, before Roe v. Wade. A similar statement written just 15 years later likely would have addressed those matters explicitly, although the principles are already present in the statement.

In more recent years, we've seen the rise of the wheeler dealers, a more Republican-friendly kind of government expansion which uses earmarks and special tax treatment and eminent domain to pick winners and losers in the free market. Given that the Republican Party is the major party most closely aligned with conservatism, conservatives need to denounce this kind of misuse of government power as clearly as possible.

Going says he intends these next few months to look back and look forward. The reflections of someone who was involved in the movement from its earliest years will be worth reading.

Words elude me at a time like this. They never eluded him.

During the Carter years, in my high school's library, I first encountered National Review, the magazine he founded. His influence shaped both my political philosophy and my idea of how politics ought to be discussed and debated. His "Notes & Asides" -- brief responses to letters from readers -- was a favorite feature.

He rescued conservatism -- resistance both to secularism and collectivism -- from a narrow political ghetto. Before Goldwater, before Reagan, there's was Bill Buckley, freshly-minted Yale graduate, declaring his intention to "stand[] athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it."

Among the many tributes to him that have been posted today, the most frequent theme is not his erudition or his devotion to the conservative cause, but his kindness and his graciousness, as remembered by those who worked with him and those who encountered him as readers and admirers.

Robert N. Going:

I finally met Bill when he gave a series of four lectures at Russell Sage College around 1973 and he graciously hung around to engage anyone who cared to chat. And I like to chat.

We kept up a correspondence for a while, nothing earth shaking or worth reprinting, but the fact that he would bother to even answer every letter from every young hero-worshipper I found pretty amazing. He even invited me to lunch, but our schedules never meshed.

Two years ago, early the next morning after his big 80th birthday bash, he emailed me to thank me for what I had written about him on this blog, at a time when I'm sure he had about ten thousand thank you notes to write to people far more important than this lone blogger. It's hard not to like a guy like that.

Rod Dreher:

The thing that occurs to me at the moment is how civil he was. I've mentioned before in this space what a great example he was in that regard. On the occasions I had dinner with National Review editors at the Buckleys' townhouse in Manhattan, there would always be an Ur-liberal present. Once it was Ira Glasser, the former ACLU head, and the next time it was Mark Green, the NYC politician. It was fascinating to watch Bill -- and he insisted that he be called Bill, signaling to me to knock off the Mr. Buckley stuff -- interrogate these opponents with intellectual seriousness, but also with unfailing respect and courtesy. He didn't care for their political opinions, but he liked them as people, even as friends. He was the kind of man who, though absolutely clear in his dismissal of liberal ideas, would not stoop to trashing someone's character for the sake of political gain.

John J. Miller:

He's probably the most gracious man I've known. He is of course a legend on the Right, and legends can be intimidating. The first time we met, my agenda was simply to avoid saying anything dumb in his presence. Yet he instantly sought to put me at ease. He asked what I was writing about and seemed genuinely curious to know. He listened to me, rather than the other way around. To my surprise, I was comfortable around him--because he had a special ability for making folks like me feel that way.

Joe Sobran:

I once spent a long evening with one of Bill's old friends from Yale, whose name I won't mention. He told me movingly how Bill stayed with him to comfort him when his little girl died of brain cancer. If Bill was your friend, he'd share your suffering when others just couldn't bear to. What a great heart -- eager to spread joy, and ready to share grief!

Dean Abbott remembers meeting him at a book signing:

I was proud to introduce my new bride to him. That introduction brought out the real Buckley, I think. When he learned we hadn't been married long, he asked my wife about setting up house.

Here was a man who had shaped American culture, guided the modern conservative movement from its nascence, and conversed with presidents. Instead of talking about his accomplishments, he spent those few minutes asking my wife how she was decorating our home, what kind of pictures she liked to have on the walls, whether she preferred window blinds and drapes. We had come to meet him, to hear from him; and when we did, he only wanted to talk about us.

Myron Magnet sums him up:

In illness, he became, if possible, even more gallant. At a party he gave a while ago to celebrate the publication of his brother Jim's memoirs, he spoke with his usual wit, warmth, and eloquence--but seated on the stairs. He apologized for his ridiculous position, as he called it, explaining that he didn't feel well enough to stand and would now go back to bed. Not so long afterward, he replied to the condolence note I had sent when his vivid and unforgettable wife Pat died. Its whole point was to make me feel good, an act of gracious generosity that, under the circumstances, took my breath away....

Many will write, in due course, about Bill's towering importance in our nation's political and intellectual life. But beyond that, his whole being provided an answer to that ultimate question, How then should we live? From first hearing him speak at my high school when he was a young man, through watching him in sparkling, imperious, and rather intimidating action as his guest on Firing Line, I saw his character become ever more clearly the unmistakable, irreplaceable Buckley: witty, cultivated, playful, urbane, gracious, brave, zestful, life-affirming, tireless, and gallant--the incarnation of grace. He taught many not only how to think but also how to be.

The New York Times reports today on a trend: Federal courts are upholding locally-enacted immigration enforcement measures, such as Oklahoma's HB 1804, which went into effect on November 1, 2007, and a similar Arizona law that went into effect on January 1, 2008. Last year, several similar measures were struck down by the Federal courts.

After groups challenging state and local laws cracking down on illegal immigration won a series of high-profile legal victories last year, the tide has shifted as federal judges recently handed down several equally significant decisions upholding those laws.

On Thursday, a federal judge in Arizona ruled against a lawsuit by construction contractors and immigrant organizations who sought to halt a state law that went into effect on Jan. 1 imposing severe penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. The judge, Neil V. Wake of Federal District Court, methodically rejected all of the contractors' arguments that the Arizona law invaded legal territory belonging exclusively to the federal government.

On Jan. 31, a federal judge in Missouri, E. Richard Webber, issued a similarly broad and even more forcefully worded decision in favor of an ordinance aimed at employers of illegal immigrants adopted by Valley Park, Mo., a city on the outskirts of St. Louis.

And, in an even more sweeping ruling in December, a judge in Oklahoma, James H. Payne, threw out a lawsuit against a state statute enacted last year requiring state contractors to verify new employees' immigration status. Judge Payne said the immigrants should not be able to bring their claims to court because they were living in the country in violation of the law....

Judge Payne of Oklahoma, ruling Dec. 12 on state laws that took effect in November, went furthest in questioning the rights of illegal immigrants.

"These illegal alien plaintiffs seek nothing more than to use this court as a vehicle for their continued unlawful presence in this country," he wrote. "To allow these plaintiffs to do so would make this court an 'abettor of iniquity,' and this court finds that simply unpalatable."

The Times story mentions ordinances in Hazelton, Pa., and Escondido, Ca., which were overturned in Federal court. Surprisingly, the Times notes the change in the trend from overruling to upholding without identifying the cause: Authors of the later legislation, like Oklahoma State Rep. Randy Terrill, studied the earlier court decisions and ensured that the new laws would avoid the same legal pitfalls.

(Via Michelle Malkin.)

Of all the lovely presents I received this Christmas, one of my favorites is a gift from my in-laws: The book My Grandfather's Son, the memoirs of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas is one of my favorite Supreme Court justices, not only because of his respect for the Constitution and his incisive legal mind, but for the character he displayed under assault during his confirmation and in the years since.

So far, I've read through his childhood in Pinpoint and Savannah, Georgia, his years in seminary, and his decision to enroll in Holy Cross College, in Worcester, Mass.

During my tenure at FlightSafety, I took several business trips to Savannah and spent every free hour exploring the city, particularly the historic district. I drove through Pinpoint, a little fishing village along an estuary south of town, near the Bethesda orphanage. Thomas grew up in a part of the city I've never seen; as he put it, "Savannah was hell."

Tonight I started reading the book to my two older children, ages 11 and 7. While I won't take them through the whole book -- at their ages they don't need to know about all the ugliness of his confirmation hearings -- I think they'll benefit from hearing his vivid descriptions of the poverty in which he spent his early years, the hard work and discipline of his years living with his grandparents, and the impact of racism on his life. I read part of the first chapter to them tonight and both of them were disappointed when it was time to close the book and go to bed.

Many political memoirs -- including some written by conservatives -- aren't worth the paper they're printed on. My Grandfather's Son looks to be not only an insight into one of America's most influential men, but a book full of valuable life lessons.

The U. S. Senate voted 79-14 this morning to override President Bush's veto of the Water Resources Development Act of 2007 (HR 1495). The bill becomes law; the House voted Tuesday to override, 361-54.

The fourteen brave souls who voted against the override comprise 12 Republicans and 2 Democrats, including our own Tom Coburn: Allard (R-CO), Brownback (R-KS), Burr (R-NC), Coburn (R-OK), DeMint (R-SC), Ensign (R-NV), Enzi (R-WY), Feingold (D-WI), Gregg (R-NH), Kyl (R-AZ), McCaskill (D-MO), McConnell (R-KY), Sessions (R-AL), Sununu (R-NH).

Of the seven Senators not voting, five are presidential candidates: Democrats Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, and Joe Biden, and Republican John McCain. (Republicans John Cornyn of Texas and Jim Bunning of Kentucky were the other two.)

The bill includes a $50 million authorization for Arkansas River corridor projects related to the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan:

SEC. 3132. ARKANSAS RIVER CORRIDOR, OKLAHOMA.

(a) In General- The Secretary is authorized to participate in the ecosystem restoration, recreation, and flood damage reduction components of the Arkansas River Corridor Master Plan dated October 2005. The Secretary shall coordinate with appropriate representatives in the vicinity of Tulsa, Oklahoma, including representatives of Tulsa County and surrounding communities and the Indian Nations Council of Governments.

(b) Authorization of Appropriations- There is authorized to be appropriated $50,000,000 to carry out this section.

Club for Growth wanted to see the veto sustained and will make this vote part of its congressional scorecard. The bill came out of conference committee 60% bigger than either of the original House or Senate versions, and the Heritage Foundation called the bill "a prime example of legislation run amok."

RELATED: Andrew Roth of the Club for Growth, writing at National Review Online, debunks the top lame congressional excuses for pork barrel spending:

• "I know my district better than some unelected bureaucrat!"
• "Earmarks don't increase spending."
• "It's for the children!"
• "I'm fighting to get our fair share!"

An idea advanced by Tulsa City Councilor John Eagleton that the Tulsa Whirled editorial board found silly beyond their intellectual capacity to explain is already in use in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The following text appears in Chapter 2, Section 5A of the Minneapolis City Charter (emphasis added):

Section 5A. Conduct of Elections. Notwithstanding the provisions of Minnesota Statutes, Section 205.17, subdivision 2, or any other provision of law and except as otherwise provided in this section, the City General Election for Mayor and City Council shall be conducted in the manner provided by law for elections for nonpartisan offices. All such candidates shall, however, state the name of their political party or political principle, stated in three words or less, on their affidavits of candidacy and affidavits of candidacy for Mayor and City Council shall otherwise conform with all requirements of the Minnesota general election laws pertaining to affidavits of candidacy for partisan offices. The political party or political principle shall be placed on the General Election ballot with the names of the candidates for such offices. (As amended 6-13-55; 3-29-68; 81-Or-145, § 1, 6-12-81; 11-8-83; Charter Amend. No. 161, § 1, ref. of 11-7-06)

While this chapter was amended last November, by a referendum replacing a non-partisan primary and runoff with Instant Runoff Voting, the requirement to "state the name of their political party or political principle" was not part of the amendment, so it dates back at least to 1983.

This candidate list from the 2001 election gives you an idea of what candidates submitted for "political party or political principle." As you'd expect in Minneapolis, many candidates are DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor), but you'll also see Green, Republican, Independent, Conservative Democrat, Independent Fiscal Conservative, Empowering Your Community, Social Justice, Affordable Housing Preservation, Old Skool, No Snow Emergencies, Better Democracy/Capitalism, Service, Accountability, Change, Preserving Individual Rights, Sense with Dollars, and New Voices Party, among others.

So what you have now is Minneapolis is what I've endorsed for Tulsa -- multi-partisan elections with Instant Runoff Voting.

In 1980, Congressman Tom Steed was interviewed at Rose State College and had something very sensible to say about the way decreasing voter participation empowers pressure groups. (Found on the Democrats of Oklahoma Community Forum.)

Well, you really struck a nerve with me there because my pet-peeve is the fact that people won't vote. And I have studied it. I've talked to a lot of authorities and there's a lot of people concerned about it all over the nation. And so I've actually come to the conclusion that there's no more insidious enemy my country has than a person who will not vote.

Now, as the vote went down and down over these years, the pressure groups in Washington went up and up and up. Where there used to be a page of them in the telephone book in Washington, now there's many pages. Everybody has a pressure group.

Well, finally the Congressman who votes for what's right and antagonizes one or more of these pressure groups comes home and finds that most of the people that he represents and that he did that for won't even bother to vote. He has no protection. And off goes his head. Well Joe Doaks sees Bill Spivey get it in the neck, so the next time, he gets cautious. And it's a growing sickness.

I don't know how to make people vote. Now in the bicentennial year, we got together, we raised money, we put on a special drive. We had the help of all the media and everybody else. No one was against it. We finally got 55 percent of the eligible voters in Oklahoma to register and we got 94 percent of the 55 percent to vote. And we led the nation - in our bicentennial year. Number one in the nation - in citizenship! Did you hear anything about it? Any hats go up in the air? Have you seen any chamber of commerce slogans or anything? If we were number one in football, maybe we'd a heard a lot, but not on citizenship.

Now after that, I said, well, I don't know, I give up. If that won't set the state on fire, I don't know what you could do. But it's a sad thing and I never pass up an opportunity to scold people because they won't go vote.

When ordinary people don't pay attention and don't support officials who put their interests first, voters are swayed by the ads purchased by various pressure groups. Elected officials learn to fear the pressure groups rather than their own voters.

I think that goes a long way toward explaining how the current ill-conceived river tax increase found its way to the ballot.

Policy analysts have come out swinging on the topics of the Fair Tax (national sales tax) and public-private toll roads. The language goes beyond dry analysis. Here's Bruce Bartlett in the Wall Street Journal on the Fair Tax:

For those who never heard about it, the FairTax is a national retail sales tax that would replace the entire current federal tax system. It was originally devised by the Church of Scientology in the early 1990s as a way to get rid of the Internal Revenue Service, with which the church was then at war (at the time the IRS refused to recognize it as a legitimate religion). The Scientologists' idea was that since almost all states have sales taxes, replacing federal taxes with the same sort of tax would allow them to collect the federal government's revenue and thereby get rid of their hated enemy, the IRS.

Holy Guilt by Association, Batman! The rest of the piece raises some reasonable questions about the numbers that Fair Tax advocates have been using and the problem with taxing some sales that aren't currently taxed (e.g., new home sales) and collecting sales taxes where there currently isn't a state sales tax (e.g. Delaware). I think, though, that he's off-base regarding the sales tax rebate included in the plan. Bartlett writes:

Since sales taxes are regressive--taking more in percentage terms from the incomes of the poor and middle class than the rich--some provision is needed to prevent a vast increase in taxation on the nonwealthy. The FairTax does this by sending monthly checks to every household based on income.

Aside from the incredible complexity and intrusiveness of tracking every American's monthly income--and creating a de facto national welfare program--the FairTax does not include the cost of this rebate in the tax rate. As noted earlier, the FairTax is designed only to match current revenues and does not cover any increased spending that it may require. Since the rebate will cost at least $600 billion the first year, either federal discretionary spending would have to be cut by 60% or the rate would have to be five percentage points higher than advertised.

It's my understanding that the rebate would be uniform and universal, effectively exempting the first X dollars of spending from this national sales tax. It still would require a federal taxing authority to determine who is entitled to the rebate, and I suppose it would vary by number of people in a household.

This seems a bit of a juvenile rhetorical overreach, too:

Perhaps the biggest deception in the FairTax, however, is its promise to relieve individuals from having to file income tax returns, keep extensive financial records and potentially suffer audits. Judging by the emphasis FairTax supporters place on the idea of making April 15 just another day, this seems to be a major selling point for their proposal.

Yet all but six states now have state income taxes. So unless one lives in one of those states, this promise is an empty one indeed. In short, the FairTax is too good to be true, and voters should not take seriously any candidate who supports it.

If the Fair Tax takes hold at the federal level, presumably voters will want to encourage it at the state level too.

I have my own doubts about the advantages of the Fair Tax -- there will still be wrangling about what is and isn't a taxable sale, what constitutes a valid business expense, and the distinction between wholesale and retail -- but I don't think Mr. Bartlett is being entirely fair.

The other rhetorical smackdown comes from Stephen Malanga in City Journal against opponents of public-private partnerships for the construction of roads and other infrastructure:

If the deals can overcome resistance from anti-privatization groups and from politicians who benefit from keeping a stranglehold on government assets, they could help make up for decades of underinvestment in infrastructure—and thereby renew America’s landscape....

The extraordinary breadth and scope of these deals places America on the verge of a financing revolution—that is, if it isn’t snuffed out by powerful politicians and anti-privatization advocates, who’re trying to turn a practical solution for governors and mayors into a partisan issue. There’s no reason that Democrats shouldn’t get behind privatization, as they did recently in big projects in Chicago and Virginia. Nevertheless, Democratic congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon, head of the powerful House Subcommittee on Highways, Transit, and Pipelines, accused the Republican Daniels of selling the Indiana Toll Road to make “an ideological point” about downsizing government....

Malanga seems oblivious to the concerns about public-private partnerships coming from conservative Republicans over foreign control of public assets, public entities "leasing" their power of eminent domain to private companies, the lack of competitive bidding when selecting a private partner, and the bizarre non-compete clauses insisted upon by the private "partners."

These two articles seem to be more about marginalizing a threatening alternative perspective than engaging in dialogue with otherwise like-minded people who disagree on these issues.

MORE: In the comments, Tyson Wynn notes that Fair Tax advocate Neal Boortz rebutted Bartlett's column on his radio show earlier this week. You can read what he had to say in Boortz's "Nealz Nuze" archives for August 26 and August 27.

Ron Coleman writes of Bill Clinton's latest whopper:

I use Bill Clinton in my work all the time. My work as a lawyer is in the field of litigation, and I frequently have to help witnesses prepare for their depositions. As part of that preparation, I always tell them this, more or less verbatim:

Don't even try lying. Who was the best liar in our lifetimes -- the world champ? Right, Bill Clinton. He was the greatest. And what happened to him? He got caught, hung up. Almost no one is a good enough liar to keep it going, so if your conscience doesn't prevent you from lying under oath, at least learn the lesson of Bill Clinton. Just tell the truth.

As the saying goes: "It may be that your sole purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others."

In the U. S. House, fifty amendments have been offered to strip earmarks from appropriations bills. Club for Growth used votes on those amendments to compile a "RePORK Card" for House members.

None of Oklahoma's delegation was 100%, but District 1 Rep. John Sullivan came closest with 94%. Mary Fallin scored a 26%. The rest of the delegation was in single digits: Cole (8%), Lucas (6%), Boren (2%). The median score for all congressmen: 2%. Only 43 members scored 90% or better.

Presidential candidate Ron Paul, His Libertarian Majesty? Only 29%.

Only one pork-butchering amendment passed:

House Vote 593 - Bars funding of $129,000 for the Mitchell County Development Foundation for the home of the "perfect Christmas tree" project. Amendment passed, 249-174.

Some that sailed through:

• $1 million to the Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, requested by Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). No congressional member could confirm the existence of the alleged Center. Amendment failed, 98-326.
• $2 million to establish the "Rangel Center for Public Service" at City College of New York, requested by none other then Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY). Amendment failed, 108-316.
• $34 million for the Alaska Native Education Equity program, requested by Rep. Don Young (R-AK). When Scott Garrett challenged Young's earmark, Rep. Young declared, "You want my money, my money!" Amendment failed, 74-352.

Nice: "My money! My money!" I guess being the target of a Federal corruption investigation has a way of setting your nerves on edge.

Republican Party officials at the national and state level ought to be praising the fact that 119 of the top 120 were GOP members -- Cooper (D-Tenn.) scored a 98% -- but condemning the fact that so many Republicans have been captured by the appropriations culture. The NRCC ought to be ought recruiting replacements for every one of the 24 Republicans who couldn't bear to vote against a single piece of pork.

In watching for Cal Thomas's column remembering Jerry Falwell, his erstwhile boss at the Moral Majority, I read through several of his recent columns and was reminded that I need to read him more often. Here's a sampling of a few recent columns.

On Tuesday, Thomas looked at Rudy Giuliani's problem with Republican voters on abortion and suggested one way forward for the former mayor:

If Giuliani really hates abortion, he will propose steps to reduce their number. If he wants to split the difference on this most contentious social issue — maintaining choice while reducing the number of abortions — he could favor "truth in labeling" legislation similar to a federal law that requires information on bottles, packages and cans. Sophisticated ultrasound machines have been shown to contribute to a sharp reduction in abortions for abortion-minded women. Such a proposal would allow him a rarity in politics: to have it both ways.

(He'd even have a model to follow: Oklahoma's informed consent legislation.)

Thomas is a frequent visitor to Northern Ireland, a connection he made through Ulster native Ed Dobson, Thomas's colleague at Moral Majority and his coauthor on Blinded by Might. In April, following the Northern Ireland Assembly elections, Thomas spoke to the Rev. Ian Paisley, the new First Minister of Northern Ireland, about the unprecedented power-sharing agreement between Paisley's hardline Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, the political wing of the terrorist Irish Republican Army:

Thomas: You mentioned bitterness. For the last 30 years there has been a lot of that. More than 3,500 people have been killed. How long do you think it will take to heal the wounds? Can it occur quickly, or will it take many years?

Paisley:Oh, I think it will take many years because of the brave ones amongst us, and the shame of how the British government treated us by not dealing with terrorism the way they should have. There is a lot of bitterness. But what progress could we make by just sitting on the devastation and this sea of tears and just moaning and bemoaning our position? I think if we can get the people to move toward faith that will enable them to overcome (bitterness). It could be shorter, or it could be longer, depending on how things work out at the end of the day.

Thomas on Fred Thompson:

I have no idea whether Fred Thompson, former senator from Tennessee, will run for the Republican nomination for president, but he should....

Thompson conveys Middle American, common sense values. When he is asked a question, he doesn't sound as if he's giving a poll-tested pabulum answer. Agree or not, his statements spring from conviction.

Thomas goes on to quote approvingly from Thompson's interview with Chris Wallace of Fox News.

Thomas remembers Kitty Carlisle Hart:

We met by accident at a newspaper editor's convention in St. Paul, Minn., in 1989. She was to be one side in a debate over federal funding for the arts. She was for it. Her opponent was against it. Except, her debating partner's plane was delayed, and so the host editor called me....

I was somewhere else in town and had to come back to the convention site. By the time I arrived, she had begun her presentation. It was worse than I had anticipated - not her presentation, but the obstacles I faced. There she was with her half granny glasses and a little lamp on the podium, reading her notes. I was supposed to attack this grandmother twice my age? I should rather commit suicide!

An inspiration came to me. When it was my turn to respond, I began by saying how much I admired her husband, the late Broadway director Moss Hart, and how when I read his autobiography "Act One" in the early '60s, it had deepened my appreciation for the theater. I had her eating out of my hand!

I also found this, in Jewish World Review's eight-year archive of Thomas's columns, an April 2000 column about Falwell's re-entry into the political sphere:

At a time when the Christian world is focusing on the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and the meaning of those events, Rev. Jerry Falwell is again focusing on politics.

A decade ago, after disbanding the Moral Majority (for which I toiled for five years), Falwell announced he was going back to preaching. People who heard him said his preaching became more powerful when he returned to his first love. But he has again succumbed to the temptation of politics and its illusion of power. At a news conference last week in Washington and on his "People of Faith 2000'' Web page, Falwell announced a drive to register 10 million new voters in order to impose a moral code through government which most citizens, comfortable in their materialism, are not willing to impose on themselves.

The failure of Falwell's efforts to change culture through government was the subject of the aforementioned Blinded by Might, published in 1999. The book was wrongly reviled by James Dobson and others as a call for Christians to withdraw from political engagement. In fact, it was a call for Christians to be realistic about what could be accomplished in the political sphere, and to remember the distinction between what Augustine called the City of God and the City of Man.

Falwell's lasting legacy, Thomas says, will be Liberty University, principal among his efforts to engage and transform the culture by non-political means.

Thursday was election day across Britain, with voters picking local government councilors and members of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly.

For the first time, Scotland will be choosing local authority councilors using the single transferable vote (STV) method, a form of instant runoff voting that is designed to produce a proportional outcome. Rather than having a single member per council ward, each ward will elect three or four members. Voters will rank the candidates in order of preference. This same system is used for parliamentary elections in the Republican of Ireland and local government and European Parliament elections in Northern Ireland.

The change was authorized by the Local Governance (Scotland) Act 2004. Its passage was a condition set out by the Liberal Democrats for entering into a coalition government with Labour in the Scottish Parliament following the 2003 election.

Under the old system, with four or more parties competing in each ward, it was typical for the winning candidate to receive far less than 50% of the vote. The Vote Scotland website estimates that only 40% of the voters had the satisfaction of seeing their choice elected, but under STV, the number one choice of about 80% of the voters will wind up in office. (An Electoral Reform Society study on the most recent local election in Northern Ireland showed that 75% of first preferences went to candidates that were elected, and another 12% of first preferences were for a party that had at least one member elected from that constituency.)

Instead of doing a hand count, Scotland is using scanning machines which read and perform optical character recognition on hand-marked ballots. A company called DRS is providing the scanning technology, and the Electoral Reform Society, a non-partisan group that encourages adoption of STV, is helping to educate voters about the new system. If the voter's intent is uncertain, the scanner will capture an image of the ballot and transmit it to an election official, who will read and interpret it. In all cases, the paper ballot marked by the voter is preserved and available for hand-counting if necessary. (There ought to be a law against any automated counting or voting system that doesn't preserve a paper record which has been verified by the voter.)

The ERS study in Northern Ireland showed a high degree of voter satisfaction with the voting method and outcome. Spoiled ballot counts were nearly the same as in the last parliamentary election, which used the traditional X next to your candidate's name.

That same study also had some interesting notes on the strategies used by parties to maximize the number of seats they captured in a given constituency, with pictures of signs and handbills used by parties to instruct their voters. In Northern Ireland, each constituency had six seats up for election. The RTE website has detailed counts for each constituency, showing vote transfers as candidates were elected and eliminated. For example, here's the count for the North Antrim constituency, home turf for Democratic Unionist Party leader Ian Paisley. Despite the DUP's dominance, with 49% of first preferences, minority interests still were able to elect a representative. The DUP won three seats; Sinn Fein, the SDLP, and the Ulster Unionist Party won one each.

Things are a bit more complicated for Scottish voters. While the local elections are using STV, Scottish Parliament elections use a form of proportional representation called the additional member system. A voter votes for a specific candidate to represent his constituency, then casts a vote for a party's regional list of candidates. When all the votes are counted, a method is used to "top up" each party's number of seats in the region, so that the overall total is as close as possible to the proportion of votes cast for each party. The extra members for a party for a region are taken in order from a list of names supplied by party leadership, which means that these members aren't being elected by name by the public. You can see an example of both ballots and an attempt at an explanation from one of Scotland's local authorities, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles).

UPDATE 2007/05/04: Things did not go smoothly in Scotland. Three different votes with two different voting methods on two ballots caused some confusion, the scanners jammed on the paper ballots, and the software was having difficulty with "consolidating" the votes. That latter problem is surprising because it doesn't have anything to do with voter confusion or scanning problems. Consolidation is what's done once the ballots have been scanned and interpreted -- the process of counting first preferences and redistributing the surplus votes of elected candidates and the votes of eliminated candidates. That part should have already been perfected.

The good news, for those who believe in a United Kingdom, is that the Scottish Nationalists beat Labour but fell short of a majority of seats, and will have to solicit the support of parties that oppose secession in order to form a government. The other pleasant surprise is that the Conservatives, who have had their difficulties north of the Tweed in recent years, finished third, ahead of the Liberal Democrats.

The Conservatives had a great day south of the Tweed as well, taking about 40% of the vote in local elections and winning 50% of the more than 10,000 council seats up for election. Particular congratulations go to former MP Michael W. Bates, leader of the Tories' efforts to rebuild the party in the North of England. The Conservatives took control of several northern councils including Blackpool (gain from Labour), Chester, East Riding of Yorkshire, and South Ribble. I'll be interested in seeing the vote breakdown by region.

The map of England is increasingly blue, and that's a good thing. (I will never forgive USA Today for assigning red to the Republican Party in their famous county-by-county map of the 2000 presidential election. Red, the color of socialist parties everywhere, properly belongs to the Democrats.)

Here's what Conservative Party chairman Francis Maude had to say about the result:

Now that most of the results are in, it's clear that we've made a massive breakthrough. We now control over 200 councils across England - three times as many councils as Labour and the Lib Dems combined. What's more, we've made a great breakthrough in the North of England with more councils than Labour in the North West and Yorkshire.

We're now the only party that represents the whole of England. This is a great base on which we can build victory at the next election, taking our message of change, hope and optimism to more communities across the country.

Bill Whittle doesn't post often to his blog -- he started long before I did and is only up to entry number 140 -- but when he does he always knocks the ball out of the park. In his latest entry, he delves into the psychology of conspiracy theorists, those who believe we aren't being told the truth about the Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, or 9/11.

Of his encounter years ago with a moon landing conspiracy theorist, he writes:

Now it’s my turn to ask some questions, and here’s where it goes from the ridiculous to the sublime:

I was there at Cape Kennedy for the launch of Apollo 13. Is he saying I am lying about this whole moon mission conspiracy? I and millions of others who stood there and saw those Saturn V’s climb into the sky?

Of course not, says Joe. They actually launched. The astronauts just stayed in earth orbit the whole time.

I see. So we have the technical expertise to build a 40-story rocket that can produce millions of pounds of thrust. We can build capsules and lunar landers that function in zero-G. We have the means and the will to put these massive objects into Earth orbit, keep them up there for two weeks, but the additional 3-4% of the total launch energy needed to send this package to the moon is so obviously beyond our technical skill that the whole thing must be a hoax?

I’m sorry, that’s the thinking of someone who is mentally ill. There is something deeper at work there.

That “something” is different than someone who “believes” in UFO’s or the Loch Ness Monster. Such people may be short on critical reasoning, but the emotional force that drives them is a desire for wonder and the magical. Many have remarked that this is, indeed, almost a religious impulse. I’ve wanted to see a real-live flying saucer my entire life. Likewise, if Nessie really existed, what an incredible sight that would be…to look upon the last surviving dinosaur in the flesh! But a videotape of a standing wave shot from five miles away does not outweigh the whole air-breather / no fish evidence. It does not come close to outweighing it. And so I reluctantly throw Nessie back into the superstition bin from whence she came.

But these denialists – the Moon Hoaxers and the 9/11 “Truthers” – these are a different breed. And they are cut from precisely the same cloth. That is to say, they suffer from the same disease: an unwillingness to face reality and its consequences.

Regarding Rosie O'Donnell and her claim that 9/11 was orchestrated by the Bush administration:

I will make the point yet again because I believe it is the crux of the issue: what kind of moral universe do you have to inhabit to be able to believe that your own people – airline personnel, demolition experts, police and security forces, faked witnesses and all the rest – are capable of such a thing? How much hate for your own society do you have to carry in order to live in such a desolate and ridiculous mental hell? What psychoses must a mind be riddled with in order to negate what was perfectly obvious and instead believe a theory of such monumental fantasy? How much pure constant hatred does that take?

What, in short, is the miserable black hole of self-loathing that drives a person like Rosie O’Donnell and millions like her?

In the course of the essay, he debunks two of the key assertions of 9/11 "truthers" -- that a controlled demolition brought down the World Trade Center, and that there's something fishy about the lack of major aircraft debris. And I learned about a conspiracy theory that was previously unknown to me -- "chemtrails."

The Los Angeles Police Department was one of the first to adopt, in 1979, a "don't ask, don't tell" policy with regard to illegal immigrants. That policy, known as Special Order 40, is being challenged in court as a violation of California state law. A separate lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch is challenging the policy as a violation of Federal law.

Here is a link to the policy, as issued by the LAPD's board of commissioners. The policy forbids arresting anyone under the illegal entry provisions of the U. S. Immigration Code, and it forbids "police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person." It does require reporting to Federal immigration authorities when an undocumented alien is arrested on a felony, a "high grade" misdemeanor, multiple misdemeanors, or a repeat offense. There's nothing in the policy, however, that would allow the police to hold an arrestee on anything more than the non-immigration-related offense.

Federal law passed in 1996 makes LA's policy illegal:

…a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now Immigration and Customs Enforcement) information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.

The LA Times story mentions that many rank and file officers want to see the policy repealed, but they are afraid to speak out. The mayor and police chief both support Special Order 40.

The argument made in support of such a policy -- Tulsa has something very similar in place -- is that police depend on the cooperation of crime victims to do their work of protecting the public. If the police could report immigration status, some crime victims might not come forward for fear of being deported. Michael Williams offers a rebuttal:

[Illegal immigrants are] "living in the shadows" because they chose to break the law and come here illegally. All sorts of criminals "live in the shadows" because of their crimes. Drug dealers and pimps hesitate before calling the cops, too, but should we stop prosecuting them? Criminals shouldn't feel comfortable approaching the police.

When you put yourself beyond the reach of the law, you put yourself beyond the protection of the law.

UPDATE: In the comments, Roy asked for details about Tulsa's policy. MeeCiteeWurkor has a scan of the Tulsa Police Department's "sanctuary city" policy (PDF), which is even more friendly to illegal aliens than LA's Special Order 40. For example, if a citizen reports a likely illegal alien to the Tulsa Police Department, the citizen is simply to be given the number for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services enforcement office in Oklahoma City. Unlike LA's policy, there is no provision for TPD to report repeat or major offenders to the Feds. It appears that the policy was originally approved under Mayor Susan Savage in 1995, then updated in 2003 to reflect the renaming of the INS.

MeeCiteeWurkor has an extensive archive of items on illegal immigration and enforcement (or lack thereof) in Tulsa and Oklahoma.

Today's Vent at Hot Air is about the movie Amazing Grace, the story of William Wilberforce's decades-long efforts to ban the slave trade in the British Empire.

I saw it a couple of weeks ago, and I enthusiastically encourage you to see it. One of the things I love about the movie is that it gets the politics right. Instead of the usual Hollywood treatment that sets up and neatly resolves a conflict with a quick victory for the good guys, you see Wilberforce's years of failed attempts to pass his bill. You see the power of public pressure and the limits of that power. You see the influence of financial interests, both direct and indirect. You see politicians justify a brutal and inhumane policy on the grounds that it's good for business.

The depiction of Pitt the Younger is particularly commendable. He was a friend of Wilberforce and an ally of the cause, but he had to be strategic about how openly he would support the cause, because of his responsibilities as Prime Minister. It's to the credit of the filmmakers that he wasn't depicted as a contemptible sellout.

Politicians who need a shot of political courage should see this film. Christians who feel a pull toward politics but wonder if one can truly serve God in that realm should see this film.

(I was amused by the resemblance between Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Pitt the Younger, and James Daughton, who played smarmy Omega House president Greg Marmalard in Animal House. Anyone else notice that?)

Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn will be on ABC's 20/20 tonight (9 p.m. CDT) to talk about Congress's spending addiction:

But who in Congress really wants to end [wasteful spending]? After all, you can get re-elected by spending other Americans' money on people in your state.

Well, at least one senator wants to cut back on that spending — Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

"The oath that we take has no mention of our state. The oath we take is to do what is in the best interest of the country as a whole," Coburn said....

And what's his response to other members of Congress who say that they're building useful things — necessary infrastructure in their districts?

"If you're building infrastructure and you're stealing it from your grandchildren, how's that moral?" asked Coburn. "The greatest moral issue of our time today isn't the war in Iraq, it isn't abortion, it isn't any of the other issues. It is, is it morally acceptable to steal opportunity and future from the next generation?"

They're stealing your money, he said, to spend it on things like a North Carolina Teapot Museum. Are those teapots crucial to the national interest? The museum is still not built, so the teapots are waiting in a warehouse.

"That's stealing," said Coburn. "It's also unconscionable that we would not be paying attention to that."

Also tonight on 20/20, they'll talk to State Rep. Dan Greenberg about his "Edifice Complex Prevention Act," which would prohibit naming public facilities after living people:

"This is a practice that's got to stop," Greenberg said. "For me, it just comes too close to using taxpayer money to build temples to living people."

"In the old days we had a tradition of waiting to judge a person's whole life before we named a building after them," Greenberg said. "Now we have this modern trend of … naming buildings after politicians while they're in the prime of life. And you know, that creates a problem. If we're gonna use taxpayer money to publicize ourselves, if we're gonna use taxpayer money to build temples to ourselves. … That's very dangerous."...

What made Greenberg say "enough" was when he discovered there was a park named after him and a bunch of other legislators.

"The worst thing was that another county legislator said, 'I appreciate you putting my name on this sign, but you did not put it in my campaign colors,'" Greenberg said. "And that was so distasteful. I just said to myself, 'Enough.'"

Greenberg's had to make some adjustments in his original proposal -- to allow someone who donates a building to a college to get his name on it, for example. But the main point -- keeping pols from honoring themselves antehumously -- is still intact.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree: Dan Greenberg is the son of Paul Greenberg of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, who writes one of the best syndicated columns anywhere -- literate, witty, filled with common sense.

Here's a video interview with Greenberg after he pulled his bill earlier this year, talking about his colleagues' reaction to the bill. (A fellow Republican told him that he shouldn't be bothered by the naming of buildings because Republicans were winning the building naming war in northwest Arkansas.)

You've got to like a state rep who can quote Cato the Elder or come up with a punny bill title.

A local story indicates the danger of honoring living persons with buildings.

There's a city park on 41st Street west of Red Fork. Originally it was named to honor Finis W. Smith, the State Senator for District 37 from 1965 to 1982. He spent four years as State Senate President Pro Tempore (1969-1973). He quit two years before his term expired, just as a controversy surrounding business he and his wife did with Tulsa County tag agencies began to erupt. Then in August 1984:

Former state Sen. Finis Smith and his wife were indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday on mail fraud and tax evasion charges in connection with business dealings they had with four Tulsa County tag agents.

The 18-count indictment alleges the Smiths maintained several undisclosed foreign bank accounts and failed to report income from their business interests on their federal and state income tax forms.

According to the indictment, the Smiths held five certificate of deposit accounts, one savings account and one money market account in a bank in Tampico, Mexico.

Finis Smith arranged for three family members to be appointed as tag agents, then set up dummy corporations to "perform services" for these tag agencies. The money paid to these companies was diverted into the Smiths' personal bank accounts. Not only were Smith and his wife Doris subjected to Federal prosecution, several school districts sued them, because their actions misdirected funds that were due to the schools.

In November 1985, the two were convicted and sent to Federal prison. A month later, the Tulsa Parks and Recreation Board removed Smith's name from Finis Smith Park, renaming it Red Fork Tract. (In 1986, it was renamed Challenger 7 Park in honor of the crew of the space shuttle that exploded early that year.) His name was also taken off a teaching clinic at the Oklahoma College of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery. To Smith's credit, he took the initiative to have his name removed; news stories indicate that the parks board and the OCOMS board complied regretfully.

(There's a whole 'nother story I could go into about the connection between the Smiths' conviction and the downfall of then-Mayor Terry Young. It's fascinating.)

Oh, and do you remember when Driller Stadium was named Sutton Stadium? And why it didn't stay named that for very long?

UPDATE: Thanks to Rep. Greenberg for stopping by! (See his comment below.) And on NRO, Deroy Murdock has photos of the edifice complex in action at the federal level:

It is tough for politicians to oppose projects named after their colleagues. It’s one thing to block questionable funds for the Johnstown Cambria County Airport. It’s quite another to turn thumb’s down on the John Murtha Airport when big, bad John himself is standing ten-feet away on the House floor, glowering at you.

An update on Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn's efforts in Washington:

On Monday, Bob Novak reported that the Bush Administration is blocking release of the pork-barrel database that has been championed by Coburn:

As part of "Sunshine Week" to promote transparent government, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last Monday was supposed to release a comprehensive database revealing the number and cost of earmarks since 2005. It did not. The word on Capitol Hill was that the OMB was muzzled by the White House for fear of offending powerful congressional appropriators....

But just as the OMB was prepared to put out this information, it sent word to Capitol Hill that -- over its protests -- it was being kept under wraps by the White House to appease the appropriators. With Congress in the midst of the budget process, President Bush's team did not want to stir up the Hill.

All that was released last Monday was a compilation of earmarks in 2005, with few details. [OMB Director Rob] Portman publicly called it "an important first step towards providing greater transparency." In private, however, he said last week: "My hands are tied." Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, the scourge of earmarks, told me: "I think the American people should be very disappointed."

Coburn has also introduced health-care reform legislation aimed at bringing choice and free-market discipline to bear on health costs. Here, from a press release from Coburn's office, are the key features of the proposal:

• Promoting prevention. The legislation will reform our rudderless and wasteful federal prevention programs and demand results and accountability. Five preventable chronic diseases – heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and diabetes – cause two-thirds of American deaths. Seventy five percent of total health expenditures are spent to treat these largely preventable chronic diseases. A sound prevention strategy will save countless lives and billions of dollars.
• MediChoice tax rebates that will shift tax breaks away from businesses to individuals. Giving Americans a rebate check ($2,000 for individuals and $5,000 for families) to buy their own insurance will foster competition, improve quality and drive down prices. This provision will help put individuals back in charge of the health care, and help restore the doctor-patient relationship that has been severed by third-party government and health insurance bureaucrats.
• Creation of a national market for health insurance. The bill would give Americans the right to shop for health insurance anywhere in America. Patients should not be forced to be pay for outrageously expensive health plans in states like New Jersey when they can save thousands by buying plans from companies in other states.
• Creating transparency of health care costs and services. This Act requires hospitals and providers receiving reimbursements from Medicare to disclose their estimated and actual charges for all patients as well as the rates they are reimbursed through Medicare and Medicaid. This provision could allow patients to “Google” their doctor and comparison-shop for health care the way that they do for cars, computers, or other products and services.
• Securing Medicare’s future by increasing choice and encouraging savings. The bill retains existing benefits but encourages true competition among private plans to hold down costs, a model already is working in Medicare’s prescription drug benefit. The plan would give Medicare recipients similar health care options available to Members of Congress and employees of Fortune 500 companies.
• Keeping Medicaid on mission. The bill liberates the poor from substandard government care and offers states the option to provide their Medicaid beneficiaries the kind of health care coverage that wealthier Americans enjoy. The bill creates incentives for states to achieve private universal coverage for their population. The bill offers states the freedom to design the programs that serve their beneficiaries with the best care instead of the current, one-size-fits-all straitjacket.

Minimize red tape, increase consumer choice and transparency -- sounds like a good approach.

You can read more about the rationale for Coburn's medical reform bill here, where you'll find a link to a more detailed discussion of the proposal. An excerpt:

Have you ever wondered why is it that in America, patients can not choose their own doctor? Why, in the land of the free, do government bureaucrats, insurance companies and employers make your health care decisions instead of you? Why do health insurance costs increase faster than your income? Why are prescription drugs prices cheaper in every other country when the medical research is often funded with U.S tax dollars? And why does the U.S. spend over $2 trillion annually on health care, more than any other nation, and 45 million Americans do not have access to health insurance?

The answer is simple. Unlike every other aspect of American life, there is no free market in health care. Well intentioned, but shortsighted laws passed decades ago removed patients from their own health care decisions.

As part of the process of complying with the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (2006) by the required date of January 2008, the anti-pork-barrel-spending bill championed by Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn, the federal Office of Management and Budget has set up a website called federalspending.gov. This site doesn't yet have the promised spending information available, but it does have the implementation timeline, a set of FAQs on the requirements of the law, aimed at both users of the information and the agencies who will have to report the information, and a place to collect comments on how best to make the database useful to the public. There are also links to existing websites with information on Federal spending.

The site makes mention of a pilot program for reporting subgrants and subcontracts. Hopefully, this would include things like recipients of Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds -- a city or county government is the direct recipient of the grant from the Federal Government, but it would be interesting to see whether controversial organizations are receiving CDBG money as subgrants.