Sarah Barracuda Resigns

One of the last things I would have expected when I woke up this morning was an announcement that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was stepping aside by the end of the month.

Of course, my immediate thought was that something terrible had happened an she was leaving office to avoid the political fallout. At least that would have been better than what Mark Sanford is doing! But I absolutely believed that her political career was over, and the once presumed Republican frontrunner for 2012 would fade away into ignominy.

But after watching the video, her crazy decision actually makes a little bit of sense.

In the past year, she has been subjected to 15 ethics complaints, every single one of them dismissed with no finding that she has done anything wrong. But in the process, the state of Alaska has spent millions of dollars investigating the complaints and the Palins have spent $500,000 of their own money in legal fees. And so, in order for Alaska to weather the recession as a state, Palin must step aside and end the madness. If Alaska is better off without her as the governor, you have to really applaud her personal courage to risk her entire political career to benefit her state.

Moreover, I now think not only that she is not ending her political career, but also, if she is going to have any chance at winning the nomination, this is the way she has to do it.

In the short time America has known her, Sarah Palin has been pigeon-holed as an out of touch, inexperienced governor of the second least populous state, with no knowledge of national or international issues.

But now, Palin can spend the next three years touring America and the world, learning about issues, meeting with leaders and making herself more known to the public at large.

She can spend time campaigning in local, statewide, and national elections for good strong conservatives. If she can spend time getting even a handful more conservatives elected to office, she will have done a huge service to this country.

On the other hand, this gives a lot of ammunition to political opponents. "She's a quitter!" they will argue. And they're not wrong. But, she's not walking away in shame, or because she can't handle the pressure. She is walking away to benefit Alaska, her party, and just maybe her country.

The real question will be - how will this move play with the public. It seems that her detractors will hate it, her supporters will understand it and then rest won't know what to think. But three years is a long time and people have short memories. Hell, Hillary Clinton promised during her Senate re-election campaign that she would not run for President. A year later, she announced her candidacy. And people forgave her.

I think people will forgive Palin too - especially if she is able to shape the public image of this move. The mainstream media will attempt to slant it in the worst way possible, and they could very well win that fight. But again, they may just be preaching to the choir - a lot of people will never like Palin, no matter what she does. If this move enables Sarah to pick up support among people undecided about her, it will have been a great move. On the other hand, its hard to imagine what else she could do to expand her base of support. We'll just have to see where all this goes in the next few months/years.

The Prisoner's Dilemma

There is a very famous game theory problem, called the Prisoner's Dilemma, that has specific application to international negotiations. Here are the basics:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (defects from the other) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent (cooperates with the other), the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

Obama's recent foreign policy decisions remind me of the Dilemma. There is one chilling difference though. Obama has chosen to cooperate with the other side (youtube video to Iran, reduced missile defense in Alaska and Europe, pathetic response to North Korea) and has actually made his choice known to the other side before they have to make their own decisions.

The potential benefit is that any country who might want to cooperate can do so without fear of being exploited.

However, does anyone think Iran, North Korea, China or Russia has much interest in acting cooperatively? Of course not. And so the problem is that these countries, and others, know they can exploit Obama's cooperative actions without danger to themselves. In fact, they have no incentive not to exploit Obama. As Charles Krauthammer notes, Obama is attempting to the world lead by example. But is anyone else really going to follow? Maybe Biden meant he was talking about Obama with his "no one's following" bit.

Catholic Support Slipping?

Amy Sullivan of Time Magazine reports that Obama is already losing support from Catholic voters.

I said during the campaign that Catholics were fooling themselves if they believed Obama was the "real" pro-life candidate. And now they are realizing the truth.

It's a bit of buyers' remorse now. The question, of course, is the impact. Will Obama lose a huge voting bloc when it comes time for reelection (assuming the country survives that long)? Or will this all be forgotten by then? My guess is that if he continues along these lines, more Catholics will feel the same way as those at Notre Dame, who protested the President's visit.

New Global Warming Study

Hot Air reports on a new study from NASA that suggests global warming is indeed man-made, though not in the way liberals claim.

Apparently, reduction of aerosol and sulphur emissions starting in the 70's led to a reduction of particulate matter in the atmosphere that actually caused a cooling effect. Reducing emissions led to a reduction in cooling materials and a rise in the temperature, which caused higher-than-usual melting of the arctic shelf.

Talk about the law of unintended consequences.

Or, were they actually intended? Remember, back in the 70's, liberals were warning us about going into another ice age. Looks like they managed to prevent that from happening (ha ha) and got us warmed up pretty well.

Here's a Great Read

Great Article by Bartle Bull of Prospect Magazine

It's nice to get perspectives from people outside of the country.

The Liberal Thought Process

So, I was reading an article on the Huffington Post by Robert L. Borosage and several things jumped out at me about the way liberals think - especially about the upcoming budget.

"Fully $1.4 trillion of the largest annual "Obama" deficit -- the $1.8 billion the CBO projects for FY 2009 that ends this October -- was bequeathed to him from George Bush"

The idea is that because Obama inherited a deficit from Bush, it is OK to continue on in the deficit spending.
This is problematic for two reasons: The first is easy (and we all learned it as children) - two wrongs don't make a right. Second, Obama has significantly added onto Bush's deficit with his $787 billion "stimulus" bill, his $400 billion spending bill, Geithner's $1 trillion Public-Private Toxic Asset idea, and other spending. He didn't inherit any of that spending from Bush.

"Now as the economy verges on a depression, Republicans are indicting Obama for raising spending and deficits. This is like a gambling addict squandering the family fortune in a Las Vegas blowout and then scolding his wife for borrowing money to keep the kids in college."

Um yeah. Obama was elected to fix the problem, not make it worse. During his campaign, he claimed to have solutions. So, if he does nothing to solve the problem, yeah, he should be held accountable. He claimed that the "buck stops with him" and it rightly should. If he didn't think he could solve the mess, he should have dropped out of the race.

"Had Republican leaders any sense of decency, they would just shut up and let adults address the mess they have left."

I think it says something if you always have to resort to name calling and insults.

"The current US public debt is about 40% of our annual economic production (GDP). It's been far higher -- reaching as much as 109% of GDP coming out of World War II."

He probably doesn't realize that the debt incurred during WWII was in fighting Nazis and the Japanese (not increasing domestic entitlements). Agreed that it is necessary to spend what you have to spend to get out of a crisis and the current financial situation qualifies. But how much of Obama's $9.7 trillion debt burden is related to getting out of the financial crisis? Not most of it.

"Clinton brought it down to 33% and Bush drove it back up to about 40% even though the economy was growing. Under Obama's plans, the national debt will rise as a percentage of the economy to about 65-67%."

This one makes me laugh. He criticizes Bush for increasing the debt 7% even though the economy was growing. But then he gives Obama a pass for increasing it 25%. And guess what buddy - the projections are that the economy will be growing again in 2010. So, if Bush raises it 7% during a time when the economy is growing, it is bad. If Obama raises it 25% while the economy is growing, it is good. Be honest and just say that what Obama is doing is OK because it is spending on things you approve of (entitlements as opposed to national security).

"But what is notable about that increase is that it will leave the US carrying only about the same debt burden that Germany, France and Canada were carrying -before they began adding to it in the current economic downturn. According the analysis of the Central Intelligence Agency in 2008, Germany's public debt was at 65%, France at 66%, and Canada at 64%."

Ah, the good old "If it's good enough for France..." defense. France does a lot of things that I wouldn't want to happen in the USA. But then again, that's pretty much the difference between liberals and conservatives, right?


One more laugher:

"Richard Shelby, top Republican on the banking committee, warns Cassandra-like that Obama's budget will put the country on "the fast road to financial destruction.""

Should someone tell him that Cassandra correctly warned about the destruction of Troy? She was given the gift of prophesy but cursed so that no one would believe her.

Liberal Offensive Against Palin

It sounds like liberals are attempting to ground Sarah Palin's run for President in 2012 before it can even start.

Her opponents in Alaska have subjected her to a deluge of ethics complaints, which have cost her $500,000 in legal fees.

There is no question that liberals are threatened by Palin and everything that she stands for. But I had thought that they would leave her alone once the election was over - at least until she announced another run.

But they are doing two things here: first - exhausting her personal resources to make it harder for her to run for President. Second, making sure to muddy her name as much as possible, so that in 2012, they can claim that she had X number of ethics complaints filed against her as governor.

It's despicable and also a bit frightening. The liberal government has shown what it can do to people it doesn't like (AIG bonus tax, anyone?) and this will probably be a story that is repeated with more frequency for the next four years.