Senator Scott Explains Why Some Groups' "Scorecards" for Members of Congress are Stupid

Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who became the first black U.S. Senator from South Carolina last year after Gov. Nikki Haley (R) appointed him to replace Sen. Jim DeMint (R), who resigned to take over the Heritage Foundation, and became the first black U.S. Senator elected from the South since Reconstruction and the first African-American in U.S. history to be elected to both the House and the Senate by winning a special election on Tuesday to fill the remainder of DeMint's term, appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe last week. In response to a question about his "agenda" from fellow guest Joe Klien, Scott said that he was "very interested in creating a foundation of education for . . . kids living in poverty, kids like myself who perhaps live in the wrong ZIP code, going to underperforming schools." Thomas Roberts, one of the more muted left-wing ideologues on the network, took issue with that. He challenged the Senator:

Sir, you said . . . you are concerned about kids that are growing up in the wrong zip code and like yourself that had a tough start on the way out, but if we look at agencies that are following some of your voting records, [then] they have concern, and the NAACP has given you an "F" on their annual scorecard. They also say you voted against the ACA; you voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress; you oppose the Congressional Black Caucus' budget, delayed funding on a settlement between the U.S. and black farmers who say that they were prejudiced against because of their race. So how do you respond to that, if your true concern is about lower income families and kids?

Scott's response is priceless:

Note the apparent (and erroneous) assumption underlying Roberts's question: that these "agencies that are following some of [the Senator's] voting records" also "have concern" about what Senator Scott said he is "concerned about". I am sure that there are groups that track the voting records of members of Congress and are genuinely concerned about children living in poverty who are deprived of the opportunities other children have because of where they're growing up, but the example Roberts cited was the NAACP. As I mentioned in a post over two years ago, the NAACP has become a partisan entity, but a number of voters (including, it would seem, Thomas Roberts) still see it as a trustworthy, independent source of information. If the NAACP is truly concerned about kids that are growing up in the wrong ZIP code and have "a tough start on the way out," as Roberts suggested, then why is the organization officially opposed to school voucher plans and state takeovers of poorly performing school districts, especially in light of its National Education Program's professed objective "to ensure that all students have access to an equal and high-quality public education by eliminating education-related racial and ethnic disparities in our public schools"? Not only does the NAACP adamantly oppose school choice, but it has actively joined legal efforts in Florida and North Carolina challenging the constitutionality of those states' voucher programs.

Notice also the list of votes Roberts ticked off that evidently earned Scott his failing grade on the NAACP's scorecard. What exactly does voting against Obamacare, voting to hold Attorney General Holder in contempt, opposing the Congressional Black Caucus' budget, or delaying funding on a settlement between the U.S. and black farmers have to do with being concerned about kids who are growing up in the wrong ZIP code and going to underperforming schools? Roberts did not say, and I can't fathom a connection. The Senator appropriately brought up something he had voted on that was related to the issue. The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship, he pointed out, "has produced [a] higher percentage of kids going to college:" "91% of the kids graduating from high school versus 56% for those who are simply in everyday schools in D.C." (Scott misspoke; he was referring to the graduation rate among students in the program versus public school students in D.C., not what percentage of high school graduates the program has produced, but his numbers check out. 91% of students who used a voucher to attend private school graduated high school, while the DCPS (District of Columbia Public Schools) graduation rate last year was 56%.) Curiously absent from the votes Roberts listed was the House of Representatives 2011 vote on H.R. 471, the Scholarships for Opportunity and Results Act, which restored the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program and increased the scholarship amounts for the 2011-2012 school year. In addition to voting for the SOAR Act, Scott was a cosponsor of the legislation. Shortly before the vote, the NAACP stated in an "urgent action alert" that they were "vigorously opposed to this legislation . . . due to the fact that the 5 year pilot program in D.C. was, by all accounts, a failure; neither the majority of D.C. residents nor their democratically elected representatives want the program; and due to our underlying opposition to school vouchers."

Without delving into the obvious biases and inaccuracies in the NAACP's stated reasons for opposing the restoration of a program that an independent, federally-mandated evaluation determined was "a success," I can see why Roberts wouldn't call attention to Scott's support for, or the NAACP's opposition to, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. This brief exchange between the two men provides an example of how loosely tethered some of these "scorecards" for elected officials are to the purported missions of the groups doing the scoring.

How You Know They're Not Serious About "Securing the Border"

Have you seen this ad? We're told that S.744 (the "comprehensive immigration reform" bill that passed the Senate last month) contains "the tough border security America needs." Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), one of the "Gang of Eight" Senators who supposedly drafted this legislation,  assures us that the bill “puts in place the toughest enforcement measures in the history of the United States, potentially in the world.” Is that a fair statement?

Last week, I posted a critique of S.744 and detailed some of the problems with the bill's approach to immigration reform. I originally endeavored to go into even greater detail about the language of the legislation, but then I decided that the more tedious analysis belonged in a separate post. So, here, I will analyze with greater specificity where and how the Senate's bill comes up short. First, though, a brief passage on the policy lingo of immigration reform is needed.

The principal responsibility for protecting our country's border security, cybersecurity and economic security lies with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS is also charged with overseeing citizenship and immigration in the United States. The United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) oversees legal immigration to the United States and is the agency that grants immigration and citizenship benefits. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) is "the principal investigative arm of DHS, and its primary mission is to promote homeland security and public safety through the criminal and civil enforcement of federal laws governing border control, customs, trade, and immigration," according to this thing somebody referred me to.
 

When discussing/debating "legalizing" illegal immigrants, it's important to understand that a pathway to legal status is not necessarily a pathway to citizenship. (To some, any legalization is "amnesty", but that's a topic for a separate post.) S.744 speaks of "registered provisional immigrant status," which if granted would then allow an immigrant to stay in the U.S. legally, without receiving all the rights and benefits of a U.S. citizen. In this post, I'll refer to applications for registered provisional immigrant status by the acronym "ARPISs".

It's also important to understand that, as was the case with past efforts toward "comprehensive immigration reform", the end game of S.744 is to legalize immigrants who are currently in the U.S. unlawfully without requiring them to resort to existing legal channels (which, in most cases, would require them to first leave the U.S. and re-enter the country legally). There are some who are categorically opposed to this, but most Americans who have an opinion on this subject are not. Most members of Congress, too, are willing to support legislation that would provide illegal aliens with a path to legal status or even citizenship, but a lot of them want any legislation that provides such a pathway to address the problem of illegal immigration with, inter alia, more border security, enhanced & increased "interior enforcement" and measures that discourage the wrong kind of immigration (to wit, illegal immigration and the immigrants who come here legally with an eye toward living off the government).

Rubio and other Republican proponents of the bill have insisted that it contains multiple security "triggers" that must be met before any immigrant currently in this country illegally can be legalized. Skeptics have contended that these "triggers" are weak, meaningless and/or can be easily manipulated/circumvented to fast-track the legalization process. Many Senators offered amendments to S.744 (discussed herein) that would strengthen the triggers or add additional preconditions to legalization.

You've probably heard of the "border surge" provisions in S.744. In the bill, what some are calling "the Border Surge" is part of the Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy. I'll just call it the Border Surge. There's also the "Southern Border Fencing Strategy," which is exactly what it sounds like. (S.744 requires the `Southern Border Fencing Strategy' to identify "where fencing (including double-layer fencing), infrastructure, and technology, including at ports of entry, should be deployed along the Southern border.") "E-verify" refers to a mandatory employment verification system required by current law  that the federal government never got around to implementing (at least not as originally conceived). There is currently a federal employment verification program in place, but it is not very potent or effective.

Now to the "triggers." I haven't read and analyzed the entire bill yet, so I can't tell you exactly what's in it. However, I can say what's not in it, and that's critical. By looking at what the proponents of this legislation voted against, you can see that they're not at all serious about border security.
 

Six weeks ago, the Senate agreed to table (kill) an amendment by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that would have allowed DHS to begin processing ARPISs only after the Secretary of Homeland Security has certified to Congress that "the Secretary has maintained effective control of the Southern border for a period of not less 6 months." Such a nebulous standard could hardly be regarded as a serious precondition, so it should come as no surprise that Handsome John Thune's amendment, which contained more specific prerequisites, was also defeated by a vote of 39 to 54. Thune's amendment would have required 350 miles of Southern border fencing to be completed before the Secretary could commence processing ARPISs and conditioned any adjustment in the status of aliens who have been granted registered provisional status on the Secretary's written certification that:

• the Comprehensive Southern Border Security Strategy “has been substantially deployed and is substantially operational;” 

• the Southern Border Fencing Strategy has been submitted to Congress, implemented, and is "substantially completed;"
• 700 miles of Southern border fencing “that is double-layered and constructed in a way to effectively restrain pedestrian traffic” has been completed;

•  the Secretary has implemented E-verify; and
 
• the Secretary is using an electronic exit system at air and sea ports of entry that operates by collecting machine-readable visa or passport information from air and vessel carriers.

Note that both Grassley's and Thune's amendments suffer from the same flaw: The predicate for legalizing illegals is not actually securing the borders but rather the Secretary of Homeland Security's certification that the southern border is secured. (Grassley's amendment also contained a special carve-out for aliens granted blue card status, which is a special legal status for agricultural workers; Grassley’s home state of Iowa is about 95% farmland.) We already know that members of Obama's cabinet have no compunction about lying to Congress, so what good is the DHS Secretary's word on anything?

Later that same day,  Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., offered a good fix: require Congress to vote annually for five years on whether the border is secure. "If Congress believes that the border is not secure," the Senator explained in a speech on the Senate floor, "then the processing of undocumented immigrants stops until it is secure." As David Nakamura of the Washington Post reported it:

Paul’s amendment would require the Department of Homeland Security to implement specific border security measures, including hundreds of miles of additional fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, and provide a report to Congress each year on its progress.

Then Congress would vote annually as to whether the agency had met its goals. Each year, another group of illegal immigrants would earn legal work visas if the metrics are met, Paul said.

This short summation--while accurate and concise--does not do Paul's amendment (styled the "Trust But Verify Act of 2013") justice. Indeed, those who crafted this particular legislation appear to have thought of everything. The bill specified what the Secretary must conduct an annual comprehensive review of and provided specific border security metrics, the progress toward which must be reported on. It stated what the joint resolution affirming that the border is secure must say and prevents the resolution from being amended. It even contained a provision limiting debate on the joint resolution "and on all debatable motions and appeals in connection with such resolution" and curtailing the ability of would-be obstructionists to use parliamentary shenanigans to delay a vote on the resolution or dispose of it without a vote. 

Paul's amendment also addressed the problem of DHS officials using their administrative authority to not enforce the law (as discussed in my earlier post) by prohibiting the Secretary from making "any alteration to the Border Patrol sectors in operation or the boundaries of such sectors" without first notifying both the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees of the proposed change "not later than 120 days before any such change would take effect," by which time Congress could act to thwart any undesired changes. It also required the Secretary to establish a Student Visa National Security Registration System and submit an annual report to Congress that describes the effectiveness with which DHS is screening student visa applicants through the System and "indicates whether the System has been implemented in a manner that is overbroad or results in the deportation of individuals with no reasonable link to a national security threat or perceived threat." And, the amendment capped the number of  applicants who may be granted registered provisional immigrant status under the law in any calendar year at 2,000,000 (a ridiculously high limit, but apparently too low for some people). 61 Senators voted to table Paul's "Trust But Verify" amendment.

Maybe Senator Paul was just asking for too much. (I don't think so, but reasonable minds can differ.)  Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) had a simpler request: Hey, remember that integrated entry & exit data system (a system to track the border comings and goings of foreigners) that was supposed to be developed and implemented under a 1996 law? You know, the one we're still waiting on? Well, forget all the stuff that Paul wanted. Let's just condition the temporary grant of legal status to, or adjustment to citizenship status of, any individual who is unlawfully present in the United States on the Secretary's written certification that that biometric border check-in/check-out system (officially the US-VISIT System) has been fully implemented at every land, sea and airport of entry. Oh, and Congress has to pass a joint resolution stating that this integrated entry and exit data system has been sufficiently implemented, because, you know, we don't trust this administration's word. Senator Vitter proposed an amendment to that effect over a month ago. It even included "fast track" procedures for getting the requisite joint resolution through Congress without unnecessary delay.

Now, it seems that a piece of legislation that basically just says, "Hey, let's incentivize the executive branch to do what they're already required to do by conditioning something that they want but that nobody really needs on them doing that thing they're supposed to do." shouldn't be something that a lot of Senators would find a reason to vote against, but if you view their votes on Senator Vitter's amendment, which was rejected by a vote of 36 to 58, in the context of most of them not giving a damn about securing our borders, then it makes sense. Another amendment, proposed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), that would have required “fast-track congressional approval” of what the Gang of 8 legislation merely requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to certify was also voted down, 39 to 59.

Enter Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), tall, learned and circumspect, a conservative Republican from a state with a large population of illegal immigrants. As the Senate Minority Whip, it's his job to make sure GOP Senators vote the party line on critical pieces of legislation. Cornyn, who was Texas Attorney General before being elected to the U.S. Senate, had criticized the "border-security triggers" in S.744 as "talking points disguised as policy." Could he offer a serious bill for predicating any legalization of illegal immigrants on actual, verified border security measures? Well, a little over a month ago, after the amendments proposed by Senators Grassley, Thune, Paul, Vitter and Lee had all been voted down, Senator Cornyn offered an amendment to the immigration bill that would have kept newly legalized immigrants from becoming permanent residents or pursuing citizenship until certain border goals were met. Those goals were:

• to achieve and maintain operational control of the Southern border;
• to achieve and maintain full situational awareness of the Southern border;
• to fully implement a biometric entry and exit system at all land, air and sea ports of entry; and
• to implement E-verify.

All these goals would have to be met "within 5 years of the date of the enactment of this Act," i.e., the comprehensive immigration reform bill. As used in Cornyn's amendment, the term "operational control" meant that, "within each and every sector of the Southern border, a condition exists in which there is an effectiveness rate, informed by situational awareness, of not lower than 90 percent." The term "situational awareness" was defined as "knowledge and an understanding of current illicit cross-border activity, including cross-border threats and trends concerning illicit trafficking and unlawful crossings along the international borders of the United States and in the maritime environment, and the ability to predict future shifts in such threats and trends." The Secretary and the U.S. Customs & Border Protection Commissioner would have to "jointly submit" to the President and Congress a written certification, under penalty of perjury, that the Secretary had met these goals.  This submission could not be made sooner than 9½ years after the comprehensive immigration reform bill becomes law and must include "a comprehensive report detailing the data, methodologies, and reasoning" justifying the certification. And, the Comptroller General of the United States would be required to "review such certification and provide Congress with a written report reviewing the reliability of such certification" and expressing the Comptroller General's own conclusion as to whether or not the specified border goals have been achieved.

The Secretary would still be required to submit a strategy "for achieving and maintaining operational control and full situational awareness of the Southern border" to the Comptroller General, and within 60 days of the submission of such strategy, the Secretary would also have to submit "an implementation plan for each of the border security components of the Department to carry out the Strategy." This plan must include, at a minimum:

• a comprehensive border security technology plan for continuous and systematic surveillance of the Southern border, including a documented justification and rationale for the technologies selected, deployment locations, fixed versus mobile assets, and a timetable for procurement and deployment;
• the resources, including personnel, infrastructure and technologies that must be developed, procured and successfully deployed, to achieve and maintain operational control and full situational awareness of the Southern border; and
• a set of interim goals and supporting milestones necessary for the Department to achieve and maintain operational control and full situational awareness of the Southern border.

It seemed doomed to fail, but Cornyn's amendment had something the others didn't: an appropriate acronym. The Senator dubbed his amendment, "Requiring Enforcement, Security and safety while Upgrading Lawful Trade and travel Simultaneously (RESULTS)," and it fared better with his colleagues than the other amendments I've described here did. Only 54 Senators voted to kill it. Two Democrats, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, voted against the Motion to Table, as did Senator Rubio, who had opposed the aforementioned amendments offered by  Senators Grassley, Thune, Paul, Vitter and Lee. (Curiously, Rand Paul voted with the anti-enforcement coalition, but that may have been because of the amendment's hefty cost.) Heritage Action ("The Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm") urged Senators to vote “NO” on Cornyn's RESULTS amendment "because it fails to solve the enforcement problems in the underlying bill" and would "serve as political cover for [multiple Senators] to justify their support for the Gang of Eight’s amnesty."

So, on June 27th, S.744 passed the Senate, free of any amendments that would require DHS to actually secure the borders before illegal aliens could be legalized. It did include language from a border security and enforcement amendment proposed by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and modified by the much-touted Corker-Hoeven Amendment, which inludes a lot of stuff that should turn off congressmen and women  on both sides of the aisle. (Leahy, who "begrudgingly" supported the changes to his amendment offered by Senators Corker and Hoeven, complained that their legislation “reads like a Christmas wish list for Halliburton.”) While Corker-Hoeven does delay the legalization of illegals (No Registered Provisional Immigrants can receive Green Cards until at least ten years after the bill becomes law) and strengthens the border-security "triggers" to legalization, it fails to cure many of the bill's other deficiencies and focuses on border security but not interior enforcement. Then there's the price tag; the CBO reported it would add $38 billion to the cost of the act. At the very least, the amendment added language to S.744 aimed at preventing the abuse of federal benefits by illegals who would be legalized under the legislation, including:

·         preventing immigrants who used a fraudulent or false Social Security number while they were unlawfully present in the U.S. from getting Social Security credits for that period;

·         restricting certain non-immigrant visa holders, such as tourists and foreign students, from accessing Medicaid, SCHIP and Obamacare benefits; and

·         providing that the Department of Health & Human Services may not grant waivers to states to allow them to use Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) dollars to give cash assistance benefits to registered provisional immigrants.

That ad I mentioned at the beginning of this post calls the Border Surge "the toughest border security plan ever passed by Congress." That it may be, but again, border security is only part of what we need. S.744 falls short of ensuring the aggressive interior enforcement that is desperately needed and eliminating the government-created magnets for illegal immigrants. Also, it fails to predicate legalization on a congressional affirmation of border security or other objectively verifiable metrics. If any of that bothers you, then please contact your Representative and admonish him or her not to vote for any bill that contains the same flaws as the Senate bill. But first, follow us on Twitter.

Farewell, Iron Lady





The cortege passes along Fleet Street towards St. Paul's Cathedral for the funeral of former
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (inset). (Composite Photo)

Earlier today, thousands of Margaret Thatcher's relatives, friends and countrymen(and women) gathered at St. Paul's Cathedral in London for the former prime minister's funeral. While much of the media coverage and commentary has focused on ancillary matters--yes, her nineteen-year-old granddaughter was beautiful and eloquent, and yes, President Obama did not attend, nor did he send Vice-President Biden (thank God) or another cabinet-level member of his administration--I thought it would be appropriate to pay tribute to the woman herself. As much has been said about the Iron Lady, one can't overdo honoring the life and legacy of a figure as great as the Rt Hon. Baroness Thatcher.

First, a brief primer: Margaret Thatcher was born Margaret Hilda Roberts on 13 October 1925 in Lincolnshire. She was elected to Parliament in 1959 and became leader of the Conservative Party in 1975 and Prime Minister in 1979. Now for the interesting stuff. 

 

Thatcher's route to Parliament was not only unusual but extraordinary. She earned a degree in chemistry from Oxford and worked as a research scientist--you may have heard about her role in the creation of soft-serve ice cream--before marrying, studying law and eventually becoming a barrister. She made three unsuccessful runs for Parliament before being elected from Finchley (a now-abolished constituency in what was then the County of Middlesex), which she represented until her retirement in 1992.

 

Years ago I was pleased to make the acquaintance of Jill Knight, Baroness of Collingtree, who served with Thatcher in the House of Commons for 30 years. She recalled how, during the '70s, there was a great schism between Mrs. Thatcher and Ted Heath, whom she succeeded as leader of the Conservative Party. While Heath was Prime Minister, from 1970 to '74, Thatcher served as Secretary of State for Education & Science. The two did not see eye-to-eye on many issues, and a rift soon developed between them (not unlike the erstwhile division across the pond between the Goldwater conservatives and Rockefeller Republicans in the GOP). After being swept out of power in the 1974 elections, the Conservatives replaced Heath with the younger, more libertarian-minded Thatcher.

 

To understand the significance of Thatcher becoming leader of the Conservative Party, you need to be familiar with British postwar political history. (No, don't stop reading!) While World War II invigorated a depressed American economy and arguably left the United States as the world's lone superpower, it devastated Great Britain.  This loss of capital was compounded by a sharp decline in the birth rate caused by the deaths of many British men during World War I. Out of this emerged a "collectivist consensus" that transcended political parties: a generous, broad-based welfare state was needed to alleviate the widespread hardship caused by the War and support those who (suuposedly) had no other means of support. Often referred to as "Butskellism" (after Lord Butler, a Conservative who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1951 to 1955, and MP Hugh Gaitskell, Leader of the Labour Party from 1955 to 1963), this consensus gave rise to policies that effectively transformed the U.K. into a social democracy and that were perpetuated by seven prime ministers, including Heath, until by the late 1970s the stagnant British economy was plagued by excessive taxation, routine strikes, high inflation, mounting deficits and a government that seemed both hyperactive and incompetent.

 

So when the Conservatives replaced Sir Edward with a true conservative who appropriately denounced many of these policies as socialism akin to the policies imposed on many eastern European peoples. After regaining power in 1979, the Conservatives, led by Thatcher, set about scaling back the welfare state, reducing taxes, deregulating key industries, privatizing government entities and limiting the power of trade unions. Though much of the rabble who had become accustomed to suckling at the government teat pitched many a fit, a majority of the electorate supported Thatcher's agenda and kept her in power for nearly twelve consecutive years, the longest uninterrupted prime ministry since the Earl of Liverpool.

 

All good things must come to an end, though, and in 1990, facing a growing rebellion from within her own party, the Iron Lady resigned. Of all the explanations floated for her sudden decline in popularity and eventual downfall, one particular policy deserves special attention. Thatcher had long advocated replacing the rates system (under which local government services were funded by ad valorem taxes) with a poll tax. In 1987, she got her wish, and the rates were replaced with the Community Charge, which assessed a single flat-rate per-capita tax on every adult. The policy was very unpopular, particularly with large families, and Thatcher's successor, John Major, made good on his promise to abolish it shortly after taking office as prime minister.

 

Thankfully for the U.K., much of her legacy was more durable, and the country has remained an economic power on the world stage to this day. Not all Britons are grateful for the many ways in which she saved them from another devastating (and likely irreversible) collapse. For all the talk about the stereotypical "ugly American", our brothers and sisters in Mother England have shown over the past week that Respect for the recently departed is not a custom they wish to observe. Labour MP John Healey, the Henry Waxman of South Yorkshire, actually called Thatcher's legacy "too bitter to warrant this claim to national mourning."

 

"Churchill . . . unified the country, while Margaret Thatcher divided it," he told the Guardian.

 

One of Healey's colleagues, Respect MP George Galloway, similarly praised one of the country's most revered leaders while maligning Thatcher.

 

"We'd be conducting this conversation in German if it was not for Mr. Churchill," he spewed on BBC2's Daily Politics. "He saved the very existence of this country, while Mrs. Thatcher did her best to destroy what was good about this country and did destroy more than a third of our manufacturing capacity, reducing us to the state we're in now." 

Of course, the Baroness Thatcher was one of those leaders so confident in her principles that she was never phased or deterred by the petulant (and, in Mr. Galloway's case, historically inaccurate) jeers of her detractors. In fact, she relished confronting them; just watch some old clips of her taking questions (a term that apparently has quite a broad definition when it comes to the British Parliamentary tradition of the Prime Minister's "Question Time") from the opposition during her tenure as Prime Minister.

 

She confronted challenges, both at home and from abroad, with a courage and boldness unlike any British PM since Churchill. To be sure, Tony Blair displayed a confidence in his own policy agenda and was steadfast in his support for the War on Terror, including Operation Iraqi Freedom, amid vocal opposition from the British people, but his affable demeanor and disarming mien didn't convey quite the same resolve (or instill fear in his enemies) like the Iron Lady's steely disposition and forthright rhetoric. ("You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning.") While a lot of us had high hopes for David Cameron, he has yet to emulate the qualities that made Margaret Thatcher such an effective and successful leader.

Not all hope is lost, though, and as the United Kingdom--and the party of Disraeli and Churchill--bids farewell to another of its finest leaders, let us not just remember her many achievements but also take note of her philosophy and contemplate how it might be applied to solve our present-day problems.

Richard Nixon at 100

(AP Photo)

 

My apologies to our readers for not posting anything in a while. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been spending between 90 and 95% of my waking hours either studying for the bar exam or searching for a full-time job in the Obama economy. sportsfan is recovering from watching his beloved Fighting Irish get their asses handed to them in the BCS Championship, and the rest of our contributors have various excuses (some very compelling) for not wasting their time on blogging.

 

Still, I couldn't let such a significant occasion pass without acknowledging the man who would have been 100 years old today.

 

Perhaps no U.S. president has had a more mixed record than Richard Milhous Nixon. His achievements included re-opening relations with China, France and Egypt, ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam (and the draft), and lowering the federal voting age to 18. But then there were the scandals. Oh, the scandals.

 

Nixon fit the classic definition of a Greek tragic hero: a great man with a tragic character flaw that brought about his downfall. In his case, it was paranoia. That paranoia drove him to plant listening devices around the White House during his presidency and five members of his re-election campaign to break into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on an apparently ham-handed investigatory mission. What the White House originally dismissed as a "third-rate burglary" ultimately led to an unprecedented (and, to date, unrepeated) event: our president's term cut short, not by death, but by his own resignation.

The Watergate scandal alone would have been enough to indelibly tarnish Nixon's legacy, but his administration also suffered the taint of corruption from the activities of his vice president, Spiro Agnew, who turned out to have been on the take since his days as Baltimore County Executive. in October of 1973, less than a year prior to Nixon's departure, Agnew pled nolo contendere (no contest) to a charge of federal income tax evasion and resigned his office.

Even as scandal brought down his second-in-command and other scandals threatened to prematurely end his presidency, Nixon never let up in his efforts to further American interests abroad. After making good on his promise to withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam, he met repeatedly with then-Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev, their last meeting taking place while former White House counsel and unabashed weasel John Dean was spinning tales as fast as he could to the Watergate Committee in a desperate attempt to save his own skin. Negotiations between the two leaders (known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT) led to the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972.

Per Nixon's directive, the U.S. provided vital support to Israel during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. He visited Cairo in June of 1974 and agreed to provide Egypt with nuclear technology. Not long after that, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment related to the Watergate cover-up. Before the House of Representatives could vote to impeach him, Nixon released transcripts of tape recordings that implicated him in the cover-up and announced his resignation.

Even after leaving office, he remained an authoritative voice on international affairs. President Clinton even reportedly sought his advice, and the New York Times (which seemed to never have a kind word for Nixon when he was alive) acknowledged, "The former President was always strongest writing about foreign policy." He continued to visit foreign countries and meet with world leaders, and he wrote prolifically. (His memoir RN was okay, but if you really want to get a handle on the man's world view and/or mental processes, then Six Crises and The Real War are both worth a read, and I've read good things about Beyond Peace.)

I can remember learning of his death in 1994. I was in first grade; as I left school, I stood under the flagpole gazing at Old Glory. It's my earliest memory of seeing a flag flown at half-mast.

One day not long after that, while rooting through my parents’ closet looking for a box of monies (you know, like every kid does at one point or another), I found a shoebox full of political memorabilia. My father and grandmother had collected it over the years. There were buttons from every presidential campaign from 1900 to 1972, many of them bearing Nixon’s name. It turns out the '68 campaign was the first one my father had been involved in. He told me how he and his best friend David would stand out in front of my grandmother’s house, near the road, with a big NIXON sign, and passing motorists would honk or smile or shout at them (Every once in a while, someone would stick his head out the window and shout, “Vote for George!”—i.e., George Wallace, the Alabama governor and defender of segregation who ran for president in '68 on a states’ rights platform.) Nixon, of course, won the 1968 election but narrowly lost Texas. We still have the issue of the Star-Telegram from the morning after Election Day with the headline “NIXON IS ELECTED PRESIDENT.”

Dad wasn't the only active Nixon supporter in my lineage. Years before my folks ever met, my other grandmother served as precinct chair for Nixon's re-election campaign in 1972. Like many Nixon supporters, she was bemused by the scandals that unfolded so soon after an incredible victory she and thousands of others had worked fervently to ensure.

"All I got out of it was a red face and a letter from John Wayne," she later told me. (The Duke had supported Nixon in all three of his presidential bids and apparently sent letters to those who worked on the campaign, thanking them for their work.)

As a child, I idolized Nixon. Not because of my family, but because of what I learned about the man through my own research. Certainly, Nixon did a lot of things to warrant admiration, even by those who never knew him personally. His ascendancy to the vice-presidency was one of the fastest in U.S. history; after returning home from World War II, during which he had served in the Navy, Nixon was elected to Congress in 1946. While his role in the Alger Hiss investigation arguably stood out as the most salient highlight of his time in the House of Representatives, he also helped write the Taft-Hartley Act (a.k.a. The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947), which passed over President Truman's veto. During his second term in the House, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. His support for civil rights and opposition to price controls, illegal immigration and public power, along with his erudite speeches warning of the threat of "global Communism" endeared him to many conservatives, and in 1952, the Republican National Convention nominated the 39-year-old freshman senator to run for vice president on the ticket with Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower and Nixon won in a landslide--twice--even carrying several states in the "solid South" (including Texas, Tennessee, Florida and Virginia). 

 

As vice president, Nixon honed his already keen foreign policy credentials, touring dozens of countries and chairing National Security Council meetings in the president's absence. On a trip to Moscow in 1959, he challenged Khrushchev during their infamous "kitchen debate," bluntly telling the Communist leader, "You don't know everything." 

 

Nixon held the distinction of losing the closest presidential election in U.S. history and winning a presidential election by the biggest landslide in U.S. history. His successful 1968 campaign, waged eight years after a devastatingly close loss to JFK and six years after losing his bid for governor of California, remains one of the great political comebacks of all time. He's the only person to be twice elected vice president and twice elected president of the United States.

My appreciation of his work wasn't ideological, either. Domestically, Nixon could not be called a conservative, not in any sense of the word. He expanded the size of the federal government, signing into law legislation that created, inter alia, the EPA, EEOC, OSHA, CBO and FHLMC (better known as "Freddie Mac"). As part of his "New Federalism" agenda, he proposed a new welfare program that would have guaranteed a minimum payment to all needy American households, regardless of work ethic. He also put in place wage and price controls and took the U.S. off the gold standard. He cut some taxes but raised others, including the capital-gains rate. His administration commenced affirmative action, though arguably at a time when institutional racism was far more widespread in the U.S. than it is today. The federal revenue-sharing program, under which the federal government shares its tax revnues with local governments, also began under Nixon, so every time you see/hear some worthless politician wailing about how spending cuts will mean fewer teachers/police officers/firemen, they're probably lying, but their mendacity is facilitated by one of President Nixon's policies.

His policy mistakes aside, Nixon was a brilliant and hardworking man who made some bad choices. Nothing he is known to have done, however, is/was bad enough to justify ignoring all of his good deeds in damnatio memoriae. Count me as a fan who believes his accomplishments were far greater than his transgressions.

To some, Nixon will always be a villain, but he was certainly a hell of a lot better president than the one we have now.

101 Reasons to Elect Mitt Romney (or, to replace President Obama with a President Romney)

Recently, National Review published a list of 689 reasons to defeat Barack Obama. It was very good, but I wanted to give voters who were still on the fence as many good reasons as I could to not just vote against President Obama in 2012 but to vote for Mitt Romney, so I set about making a list. Admittedly some of the reasons on the NR's list are also reasons to vote for Romney, but I decided not to reuse any of those reasons. So, here now is my list of reasons to elect Mitt Romney president of the United States:

1. He’s actually balanced a budget.

2. He signed a balanced budget into law every year as governor.

3. His signature health-care reform law is popular.

4. His signature health-care reform law didn’t include over 20 different tax increases.

5. His signature health-care reform law didn’t include a single tax increase.

6. He read his signature health-care reform law.

7. He never disavowed his popular health-care reform law that didn’t raise taxes, despite numerous entreaties from the Right to do so.

8. Because he doesn’t kowtow to the Right.

9. Because the people who claim he kowtows to the Right need to be smacked upside the head with reality.

10. Because his health-care reform law was a constitutional exercise of the state government’s power to regulate commerce within the state, so he didn’t have to lie and tell people it wasn’t a tax, then send his solicitor general before the Supreme Court to argue that the individual mandate is constitutional because it is a tax.

11. “Corporations are people.”

12. The Left’s reaction to “Corporations are people.”

13. Because corporations are founded by, run by, owned by and employ people.

14. We’ve never had a bad president from Massachusetts.

15. Nobody else in this race is serious about balancing our budget. (No, Gary Johnson doesn’t count.)

16. Massachusetts’s credit rating was upgraded under his tutelage.

17. During his term as governor, household income in Massachusetts increased.

18. During his term as governor, Massachusetts’s unemployment rate dropped from 5.6% to 4.7%.

19. He cared enough about the family dog to bring him on vacation instead of dumping him in a kennel somewhere (or eating him. Let’s not forget Obama ate dog.)

20. Paul Ryan

21. Vice President Paul Ryan

22. President Paul Ryan

23. Because the next Supreme Court appointment should be made by a president who actually respects the Constitution.

24. Because he never said he likes firing people.

25. Because we like being able to fire our bank, our insurance company, our long-distance carrier etc. if we’re not satisfied with the services they’re providing us.

26. Because we ought to fire our president and hire someone who understands what it means to be accountable to people.

27. We need a president who understands the difference between outsourcing and offshoring.

28. He used money people chose to invest with him, knowing the risks they were taking, to help create jobs here in the U.S.

29. Barack Obama used taxpayer money to stimulate companies that expanded their overseas operations. (Union members: that means “companies that ship our jobs overseas.”)

30. He knew that GM and Chrysler would eventually have to go through bankruptcy before they could “come roaring back.”

31. Obama didn’t.

32. Planned Parenthood has spent millions slandering a man who stood by his wife through her battles with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis.

33. That wife donated $500 to Planned Parenthood.

34. Make Planned Parenthood regret their smear campaign even more than Ann Romney regrets that donation. (Ideally, their regret should be magnified by the ratio of their total ad spending this year to Ann Romney’s donation.)

35. Enough “Recovery Summers”; it’s time for a recovery presidency.

36. Forcing Lawrence O’Donnell to cover the defeat of President Obama by Mitt Romney is the second-most fitting just dessert for his vicious attack on Ann Romney. (A kick in the head from Rafalca would be the most fitting, for those of you who were wondering.)

37. Mitt Romney donated a greater share of his income to charity in 2011 than did President Obama.

38. Paul Ryan donated a greater share of his income to charity than Joe Biden, the man who said it’s “patriotic” for people to pay higher taxes.

39. Paul & Janna Ryan actually made less money in 2011 than Joe & Jill Biden but gave more to charity.

40. Because charity comes from the heart, not from the Dept. of Health & Human Services.

41. It’s time for Kathleen Sebelius to get rejected by Brookings and wind up teaching at some third-rate university.

42. Because nearly 47% of wage earners in this country pay no federal income taxes.

43. Because most of the people voting for President Obama really do consider themselves “victims” who are entitled to “free” stuff.

44. He gave an honest answer when asked about security concerns ahead of the London Olympics.

45. When it comes to being a leader, candor is more important than tact.

46. We shouldn’t reward voyeurism.

47. To teach Barack Obama that lying doesn’t pay.

48. To teach the mainstream media that they are not puppetmasters.

49. To teach Priorities USA that we’re not that gullible.

50. He’s the most experienced executive to be nominated for president by a major party since Dwight D. Eisenhower.

51. He was a success as the head of Bain Capital.

52. He was a success at running the Olympics.

53. He was a success as governor of Massachusetts.

54. Obama has been a failure as president.

55. If Obama’s presidency has been a success, then it would mean that he was trying to weaken us as a country, in which case we need a different president.

56. Lech Walesa endorsed him.

57. Hugo Chavez endorsed Obama.

58. Ann Romney won’t chide Olympic gold medalists for eating at McDonald’s.

59. He can tell the good components of Dodd-Frank from the bad parts.

60. He will approve the Keystone Pipeline.

61. He's a self-made (multi)millionaire.

62. The Left hates that fact.

63. Joe Soptic

64. He doesn’t want the United States to be a “major customer” of foreign oil.

65. He has a serious plan to wean us off foreign oil.

66. His plan to wean us off foreign oil doesn’t involve dumping billions of tax dollars into “green energy” scams.

67. Prove to the world that we can be counted on to choose style over substance.

68. Because economic policies based on principles of economic freedom, limited government and “rugged individualism” actually do work.

69. Because he understands that, and Obama apparently doesn’t.

70. For Gibson Guitar.

71. For the 90,000 U.S. troops currently serving in Afghanistan.

72. For the millions of seniors who will lose their Medicare Advantage plans if Obamacare is fully implemented.

73. For every policyholder who has seen his/her insurance premiums increase since Obamacare became law.

74. For every worker who has lost or is going to lose his/her health-care plan because of Obamacare.

75. For the children trapped in failing public schools.

76. He actually has a record of working across party lines to get things done.

77. Because he’s willing to work with a guy who stood on the Senate floor and told untenable lies about his taxes and said he’s “not the face of Mormonism”...

78. ...but we’re supposed to believe Obama can’t work with congressional Republicans because their floor leader in the Senate acknowledged that they want Obama to be “a one-term president.”

79. He’s actually saved and created jobs.

80. Because, while government can create jobs, it’s better to let the private sector do that.

81. Jack Black

82. His detractors claim he wants to “cut” education.

83. Even though he cut spending as governor, the Commonwealth’s schools were ranked first in the country.

84. People respect him enough to spend $50,000 to dine with him at a friend’s house; no appearances by George Clooney, Beyoncé or Jay-Z necessary.

85. Let the Obamas spend their next anniversary in the romantic seclusion of private life.

86. He won’t lambast you for going to Las Vegas.

87. So that our nation can begin to heal.

88. Because, while Osama bin Laden is dead, al Qaeda is very much alive.

89. He wants to sign the repeal of Obamacare.

90. He will grant waivers to all 50 states until Obamacare is repealed.

91. He won’t be distracted during important meetings by a recurring nicotine fix.

92. He’s willing to touch the third rail of American politics.

93. He’s offered specific reforms to save our entitlement programs from bankruptcy.

94. He keeps track of the promises he makes.

95. He’s never raised taxes.

96. Because it is possible to balance the budget without raising taxes...

97. ...which he did as governor of Massachusetts.

98. Nancy Pelosi said, "Mitt Romney is not going to be president of the United States. ... I think everybody knows that."

99. Sandra Fluke

100. He did more to create jobs as one man in the private sector than Barack Obama has done with all the power and resources of the presidency.

101. We need a president we can trust.

This list may grow as time passes, but with only a month to go before Election Day and early voting already underway in most states, I decided to go ahead and post what I had. Check back often!

Convention Issues: Democratic Deficiencies and Republicans' Tough Choices

This past week, a POLITICO article by Mike Allen caught my eye. According to Allen, President Obama's advisers “are scripting a Democratic National Convention featuring several Republicans in a prime-time appeal to independents — and planning a blistering portrayal of Mitt Romney as a heartless aristocrat who 'would devastate the American middle class.'”

One wonders how such a divisive attack, with no basis in reality, would "appeal to independents," but that aside, showcasing members of another party who support the president is a familiar, and typically beneficial, tactic. We've become used to seeing a handful of "crossover endorsements"--prominent figures affiliated with one political party who endorse the other party's nominee--in each presidential election, and it's not uncommon for each party to feature at least one such speaker at their national convention. (The most glaring example of the last generation has to be then-Sen. Zell Miller's keynote address at the 2004 Republican National Convention.) Remember Sen. Joe Lieberman's impassioned speech to the Republican National Convention in 2008? The use of this tactic this year, however, presents both parties with different problems.

Republicans' Embarrassment of Riches

Giving a well-known Democrat a a prime-time speaking slot at the Republican National Convention has become a tradition in presidential-election years, but this election cycle presents the RNC with a predicament they've not faced, at least not to this extent, in a long time: With so many rising stars and erudite "young guns" and a limited amount of time in which to showcase them (to a large audience), who gets picked? We can already count on seeing/hearing speeches from Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Rob Portman (Ohio), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), Kelly Ayotte (N.H.) and Rand Paul (R-KY), Govs. Mary Fallin (Okla.), Nikki Haley (SC), John Kasich (Ohio), Susana Martinez (N.M.), Rick Scott (Fla.), Bob McDonnell (VA) and Bobby Jindal (La.), former Gov. Mike Huckabee (AR) and Jeb Bush (Fla.), former Sen. and 2012 presidential contender Rick Santorum, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and U.S. Senate candidates Ted Cruz and Connie Mack, and of course New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will deliver the keynote address, but what of Rep. Allen West (R., Fla.), the GOP congressman and conservative rock star? Anyone who's seen West address a crowd should know he's a dynamic, engaging speaker. Ditto Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), though I suppose her firebrand persona may detract from her effectiveness as a spokeswoman. There's also the question of whether Speaker Boehner will address the convention; surely the highest-ranking Republican in the federal government, a man who's third in line for the presidency under the 25th Amendment, ought to be at least offered a prominent role at the Republican National Convention. For that matter, what about our party elders? Thus far, neither President Bush has been slated to speak, at least not publicly (although I would understand if the elder Bush has tired of the more festive side of politics and would prefer to just enjoy his retirement in peace and quiet), nor has Newt Gingrich, which kind of makes sense, but why would you have Santorum speak and not Newt? (If it's because Santorum is the designated red-meat-thrower to social conservatives in a convention that will be focused on economic issues, then I get it.)

With so many speakers already lined up and (hopefully) more announcements to come, I wondered if the committee would have room--or make room--for a Democrat. My query was answered when I learned that former Rep. Artur Davis (D., Ala.), who co-chaired President Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and ran (unsuccessfully) for governor of Alabama in 2010, would be speaking at the Convention in Tampa. Of course, Davis technically is no longer a Democrat; in May, he officially switched to the Republican Party and endorsed Mitt Romney.

Democrats' Delusions

Despite their high-minded ideas for convention speakers, Democrats may have some trouble finding a prominent Republican (or former Republican) counterweight to Davis; according to Allen, they have designs on a couple former Senators and maybe a man in uniform:

Convention planners are considering featuring a centrist Republican leader on at least two of the three nights. Nightly remotes from swing states may include a CEO or “major Republican.” On Wednesday night, a “notable GOP woman” is among the possible participants. And on the final night, Democrats may include a Republican leader — someone like former Sens. John Warner or Chuck Hagel — or a GOP woman.

“This segment would speak directly to independents, noting we are all ‘Americans first,’ ” the documents say. “Depending on the speaker’s background, the President’s military accomplishments might be highlighted.”

Thursday also may include a former military leader, perhaps paired with a former enlisted man or woman. “Ideally they would have witnessed first-hand the difficult decisions [Obama has] made,” the documents say. “A Republican leader would be ideal.”

Unfortunately for Democrats, John Warner has made clear that he will “continue” the path he charted upon leaving the Senate in 2009 to follow “a traditional Virginia ‘golden silence’ as regards politics at all levels.” Hagel is more of a wild card; despite having a pretty conservative voting record in his twelve years on the Hill, the irascible Nebraskan curiously refused to endorse his colleague and fellow Vietnam veteran John McCain in the 2008 election; he later joined the Obama Administration and endorsed Joe Sestak (D), the very left-wing Democratic congressman, in his (unsuccessful) 2010 U.S. Senate bid. Still, he has yet to make an endorsement in this race, though he has repeatedly praised Obama and made some bizarre comments about the Republican Party.

Allen's Politico piece also underscored how Democrats may be setting themselves up for a disappointment--or even a disaster--in planning this year's convention. According to what Allen calls "convention planning documents," one objective of the convention will be, “Tell the story of the President’s accomplishments — the auto rescue, manufacturing, ending the war, health care, energy — as central to his fight for the middle class and America’s long-term economic strength.”

This shows that the Democrats charged with planning and organizing the convention are either (1) deluded about President Obama's record or (2) planning a convention marked by blatant lies and propaganda. One wonders what "accomplishments" on manufacturing, health care and energy the Dems are planning to tout, but I seized on that "ending the war" line; as I opined back in June, President Obama's credit-grabbing for ending the war in Iraq has crossed the line from shameless to offensive. The evidence is iron-clad that he deserves no credit for "ending the war," and if this were a bigger issue, then I'd expect Republicans to make a bigger deal about it.

Similarly, there's this:

Aiming to connect the cerebral Obama with average Americans — and thus emphasize one of Romney’s most notable weaknesses — the convention will try to portray the president as “driven by the same values we have, because he’s faced the same struggles.”

Yes, I think we can all empathize with the struggles Obama had faced. Remember when you were trying to decide which elective courses to register for during your second year at Harvard Law School? Or that agonizing heartburn you suffered after eating your first dog? Remember when you had to throw your spiritual mentor and longtime friend under the bus once he became a political liability, or how hard you've had to work to distract people from the terrible economy your disastrous policies have created?

Sardonic wit aside, notice how Obama is "cerebral" (Allen's word), whereas "one of Romney’s most notable weaknesses" has to do with connecting with people. (It's not Obama's fault he can't connect with voters! He's just too smart for most of those ignorant hicks!) Allen details other ill-conceived marketing ideas:   

The convention’s broad themes depict Romney as “an exemplar of [the] bust-and-boom economy,” while “Obama led us through the darkest days of the deepest recession in generations. … Now he’s fighting for the next steps, so we do more than recover from a deep recession that was a long time in the making, and reclaim America’s promise on behalf of hard-workers, the strivers, the dreamers, who ask only for a fair shot and a fair shake.”

By Democratic standards, that's pretty clever. When your party's candidate made the bad economy he inherited worse, that needn't be a negative; just emphasize how your guy "led us through the darkest days of the deepest recession in generations" (hoping most people don't know the definition of "generations"). I have to admit, I do like that part about Obama "fighting ... on behalf of hard-workers, the strivers, the dreamers, who ask only for a fair shot and a fair shake."

Yeah, it's about damn time we had someone who will fight for the monied interests and coastal elites! Who will speak for the Solyndras, the union bosses, the radical environmentalists? Who but Obama will keep crony capitalism alive and prevent the spiggot showering GE and other favored enterprises with federal tax dollars from being turned off by those awful, austerity-minded fiscal conservatives? Okay, maybe Elizabeth Warren, but she's not running for president.

How Obama Could Win By Losing

AP Photo, John Shinkle/POLITICO

Soon we will know the Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of Obamacare. The media has been all aflutter for some now and will surely be buzzing like a horde of cicadas once we know the result. Many on the Right and Left are anticipating a decision striking down all or part of the law, and unsurprisingly, many on the Left have been twisting themselves in knots trying to explain how this could actually work to Obama's advantage in this election. The spin goes something like this: It will give the president a rallying cry with which to energize a disenchanted Democratic base and motivate voters who have so far been discouraged from voting to re-elect someone who has thus far disappointed them. 

I have yet to hear anyone articulate, however, the strongest (and, really, only sound) argument for how and why Obama could parlay a loss in court into a victory at the polls. Perhaps the reason is that it would require the president's supporters to admit something that they have been unwilling to acknowledge: Obamacare is a huge drag on the economy. The new regulations are shackles around businesses large and small, and the new taxes are weights attached to those shackles. (If my metaphors sound a little vapid, then it's because I've been using the bulk of my brainpower for Big Trial prep and splitting the remainder between other coursework and trying to find a job, so bear with me.) If all those weights and shackles were suddenly removed, then the U.S. economy would take off like a rocket. Sure, there would still be other concerns--to wit, Dodd-Frank, another monstrosity that, like Obamacare, created a new bureaucratic apparatus to be staffed by unelected bureaucrats with the power to make all kinds of new rules and regulations that have the force and effect of law, and Europe, which has been teetering on the brink of a financial collapse for some time now--but the single biggest albatross around our economy's neck would suddenly be no more.

I could be wrong, of course. Politico's Josh Gerstein actually wrote yesterday that a decison ruling the entire law unconstitutional would be the worst-case scenario for President Barack Obama, explaining thusly:

It would mean he effectively wasted the bulk of his political capital, nearly a year of his presidency and good chunk of the time his party controlled both houses of Congress. Much of the rest of Obama’s agenda — including immigration reform, closing Guantanamo and climate change legislation — was sacrificed for health care reform.

Walking away from those priorities for what turned out — behind door No. 3 — to be nothing, would be portrayed as one of the greatest political miscalculations by a president in modern times.

“That’s not where you want to be. That’s not where you want your president to be,” former Attorney General and White House counsel Alberto Gonzales said Wednesday on CNN. “If I’m in the White House, [then] I want to win this case.”

Jeff Shesol, a former White House speechwriter and author of “Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt v. the Supreme Court,” said Roosevelt gained political leverage against unfavorable rulings by the justices because he had most Americans on his side. That’s not true for Obama. “I don’t think the public’s with him, and I don’t think any amount of effort by him is going to counter that,” Shesol said.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the above analysis; having the centerpiece of his domestic agenda--something he expended what little political capital he had left after a rough, polarizing first year in office on--ruled unconstitutional in its entirety would be a devastating blow to Obama, but once the economic consequences of such a ruling take hold, a lot of those crucial "swing voters" who will decide this election won't care. Republicans should prepare for this unlikely scenario so that, should it come to pass, they will be ready with a clear, comprehensible message and a plan to disseminate it throughout the media so that most voters, at least, will understand what's happening.