Talking Politics
May 12th, 2006E.J. Dionne today brings attention to a new line of reversal Federalist thinking that I have been a proponent of consistently on this blog, and that’s support for state’s rights — for the right ideas. In his article, he discusses the nature of health care issues and Massachusetts’ handling of the issue in recent weeks. Indeed, this is my mantra, to a point: I’m a believer that the federal government should create basic standards and then let each state choose whether or not to exceed them, with the point being that the basic standard will be an acceptable, respectable measure and anything above it is gravy.
I’m also a supporter of Richard Nixon’s revenue sharing as a way to provide the funding for health care projects in the states and education. Set aside a significant portion of each budget for the states to request grants from for major health care projects, and then begin to take down Medicare and Medicaid as federal programs. State’s rights are worthy of pursuit because there’s no reason for the federal government to do things that it doesn’t have to do. If the states can maintain their schools, let them — if the states have health care programs, better them than the feds. State’s rights taken to the extreme are no fun — read: Civil Rights — but otherwise they are a boon to the public.
My dear friends, today I announce: Al Gore is a serious candidate for the Presidency. In recent weeks, articles on him have been all over the place, and that means that people inside the beltway have been talked to about Gore and are talking about him. There are articles praising him for his “new” character, and now, to cement him as a serious candidate, an effort is being made to tear him down. Sadly for his opponents, their criticisms are flawed. They begin by saying he’s gone crazy with his Global Warming quest, and then they continue from there.
To be sure, he has wandered from his “the sky is falling” litany to denounce the Bush administration for its questionable pursuit of nation-building in the Middle East. But other than to drop real world matters to thwart the evil forces of future global warming, he said little about how he would stymie the here-and-now forces of global terrorism. We also know only what we can assume on how he would address such pressing domestic issues as Social Security, immigration, tax reform and health care. Still, whatever his current disclaimers, it seems certain he currently is in training for a run at the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 - if only to derail the megastar senator from New York, the more moderate, brighter and harder-working Hillary Clinton.
Gore, whose Tennessee roots were re-cultivated and arguably refined at his boyhood home on the top floor of Washington’s luxurious Fairfax Hotel, has resented the Clintons ever since Bill relegated him to second-fiddle status in the 1992 campaign. The resentment turned into smoldering outrage in 1997, when Gore jumped a last-minute flight to Japan to sign the United States on to the Kyoto global warming treaty only to have President Clinton refuse to send it the Senate for ratification.
Before I dissect this further, Slate discusses Hillary Clinton with its piece, Republicans For Hillary. Whenever you hear someone talk about how good a candidate Hillary is, their motives aren’t pure, and you can tell that they’re lying out of both sides of their mouths when they say things like this: “We also know only what we can assume on how he would address such pressing domestic issues as Social Security, immigration, tax reform and health care.” What the hell does that mean and, hey, where exactly did Hillary outline a ten point plan?
Al Gore’s stances on Social Security are noted in the public record: Gore ran for President saying that he’d like to take the surplus and save Social Security with it. It’s not a secret that Al Gore wants to provide solvency for the program, much like it’s no secret that he’s a supporter of Middle Class Tax Cuts and Energy Tax Cuts. What a bogus claim for the author to make in an attempt to paint Al Gore as some kind of Communist, and it is joined by the claim that Gore resented Clinton since 1992 as being “bogus”. Al Gore was a good friend of Clinton’s and they worked very well together on the Campaign Trail.
Even his argument that Al Gore is cultivating the “base” and shows no capacity for “compromise” and that would be an error for the party is wrong. Have the Bush campaigns and the Bush Presidency taught the author nothing? Allow me to be presumptious for a moment and answer for him: “no, it hasn’t.”
Still in regard to the Democrats seeking the Presidency in 2008, there’s a piece in the Nation about “The New John Kerry.” I’m not sure how many people take Kerry seriously anymore. The reason he was chosen last time by the voters was that people considered his war record a bit of protection from “weakness” charges. Nobody loved John Kerry as a candidate, although most of us respected his life story. Now that he’s a proven loser who won’t answer the charges against him even the demonstrably false charges by the Swift Boat Veterans, since he ended the campaign with a ton of money in the bank that he didn’t spend on defeating Bush, he isn’t going to be given the ball again and he’s deluded to think otherwise.
But politics make a fool of men more often than not.