Hope (Tom Rants)
The campaign is over and while there will be much to debate and disagree with in terms of policy, in January the new President should have our support. Rather than hissing and booing like ill-mannered reprobates at the mention of the name of the next leader of the free world, we should join Senator McCain in «offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.
From King to Obama, by way of Chicago (John Kass, Chicago Tribune)
Despite all the rage, do not be a sore loser (John Kass, Chicago Tribune) Or a sore winner. Perhaps well-adjusted grownups (update: which obviously excludes some!), winners and losers, could put away their petty, stored-up resentments and take a look forward after an historic election? I think both Ronald Reagan and Joel O$teen would approve. Getting older can sometimes mean getting wiser and acting with more grace. Sometimes.
Obama's post-racial promise (Shelby Steele, LA Times)
The peculiar genius of his campaign (Brothers Judd)
New general, same way (Brothers Judd)
The Big 3 GOP (Lone Star Times)
The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace (Jeffrey Scott Shapiro, WSJ) To some extent, yes. But a President who governs as a divider and is inarticulate ("I am the decider," "... this sucker could go down") should not expect Americans always to rally round him, no matter what (and I say this as someone who supported/supports many of W's policies). That sort of style DEMANDS articulate advocacy at the least, and you could never accuse the Bush Administration of that.

Posted by Kevin Whited on 06 November 2008, 08:07 AM | Comments (0)
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Linkpost: 10/30/08

The true meaning of "historic vote" (Daniel Henninger, WSJ)
Why Democrats Will Target the Investor Class in 2009 (James Pethokoukis, US News)
Would Obama, Dems Kill 401(k) Plans? (James Pethokoukis, US News)
The Stimulus Plan We Need Now (Martin Feldstein, WaPo) Feldstein was a wealth-creation policymaker in the Reagan Administration. The likely winner of this election ain't pursuing wealth creation.
Democrats Vie to Shape an Obama Legislative Agenda (Jonathan Weisman, WSJ)
House Democrats Contemplate Abolishing 401(k) Tax Breaks (Workforce.com)
Obama's economic mythology (Steve Chapman, RCP)
Obama's New Deal no better than old one (Michael Barone, RCP)
The financial crisis and the CRA (Howard Husock, City Journal)
The Audacity of Humility (Katherine Ernst, City Journal)
Is Obama secretly sensible? Don't bet on it (Tony Blankley, RCP)
The Age of Obama (Holman Jenkins, WSJ)
Monitor shifts from print to Web-based strategy (David Cook, CSM)
After 14 years, the Democrats owe Molloch a lot of sacrifices (Brothers Judd)
The next contract (Brothers Judd)
Right back to the winning template (Brothers Judd)
Inherit the windbags (Brothers Judd)
BrothersJudd Blog: My homeys
Pre-election confessions of a political hack, Part III (Lone Star Times)
The city that isn't coming back (Amy Wilson, Lexington Herald-Leader) Will Galveston ever be the same? Will anyone notice?

Posted by Kevin Whited on 30 October 2008, 09:52 PM | Comments (0)
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Linkpost: 10/29/08

Your brain's secret ballot (Sam Wang & Joshua Gold, NY Times)
The Behavioral Revolution (David Brooks, NY Times)
Interview with Robert Kagan (Spiegel)
New York Needs Innovation (Edward L. Glaeser, City Journal)
Will Obama gut defense? (Bret Stephens, WSJ) Isn't it wild that we're this close to an election, and our intrepid media have given us fewer answers to this question than to the important questions of the cost of Sarah Palin's VP wardrobe and the fact that Joe is the plumber's MIDDLE name?
Palin shows how to transcend the Culture Wars (William McGurn, WSJ)
John McCain: The Agony of a Gadfly (Rich Lowry, NRO) Up until the financial meltdown, the old guy had run a pretty decent campaign in a brutal year for the GOP, including his veep pick (which is probably about the only thing propping up the ticket given what has transpired since).
The Good Bad News (George Will, Newsweek)
Investors flee from "change" Obama hypes (Jack Kemp & Peter Ferrara, IBD)
Taking stock of the parties (Richard Rahn, Wash Times)
You read it here first, housing's ok, double standards (Tom Rants)
The strike that shattered US-Syria ties (Sami Moubayed, Asia Times) Some ties should be shattered.

Posted by Kevin Whited on 29 October 2008, 09:11 AM | Comments (0)
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Slate's Dwindling Dissidents

Slate released its list of who the editors are voting for, and no big surprise that Obama wins in a landslide. In fact, there's only one McCain supporter in the whole bunch. Obviously, I knew that there weren't many Republicans, but I remembered there being more than one. What happened? Well, one potential explanation is that Obama is just such a spectacular candidate and the Republican party in such disarray that he won over a couple writers. So I looked over the 2000 and 2004 list to see who switched sides. Turns out nobody did. As luck would have it, the Bush supporters all left (except Larimore, the only McCain voter this year). That's not a big surprise since 4 years is a long time for turnover to occur, but I guess Christopher Hitchens absolves them the responsibility of considering that there may be another way of looking at the issues that they discuss.

Lest anyone be thinking "Slate is an opinion site, so who cares if they're biased?"

That's actually what I was thinking until I read a tortured explanation for why the near-unanimous support for Obama was not due to any sort of bias but rather because the magazine is full of young people living on the coast and those people trend towards Obama and how the fact that they hold a near-unanimous position is not necessarily indicative of any sort of bias.

I actually appreciate them being so open about their personal leanings. I just wish that they realized that they were... you know... relevant.

Posted by R. Alex Whitlock on 29 October 2008, 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
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Linkpost: 10/27/08

Posted by Kevin Whited on 27 October 2008, 10:57 PM | Comments (0)
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Linkpost: 10/23/08

Bernanke is fighting the last war (Interview with Anna Schwartz, WSJ) Great stuff from the woman who probably knows more about monetary policy than anyone living.
The Making (and Remaking and Remaking) of the Candidate (Robert Draper, NY Times) My guess was that McCain (known for a reckless streak) overruled more sober advisors and came up with that disastrous "cancel the campaign/return to DC" fiasco. My guess was wrong.
Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights? (Orson Scott Card, Meridian) Many reporters are lazy. Some don't understand complicated topics. Most are pressed for time. The McCain campaign should have been making its case well enough that at least some reporters might pick it up. That doesn't really excuse the poor job, though.
The media vs. Joe the Plumber (Jonah Goldberg, LA Times)
Understanding the GSEs’ Role in the Mixed Economy (Iain Murray, OpenMarket.org)
Derivatives and Mass Financial Destruction (Darrell Duffie, WSJ)
Starting to pay price for our protectionism (IBD) Just wait until the executive and legislative branches are controlled by the anti-trade Democratic Party.
Uncle Sam goes car crazy (Holman Jenkins, WSJ)
Obama and the Tax Tipping Point (Adam Lerrick, WSJ)
Are the Polls Accurate? (Michael Barone, WSJ)
Who are left-wing haters to point fingers at John McCain? (James Kirchick, NY Daily News)
Colin Powell's Conventional Weapon (Rich Lowry, NRO)
Powell catches the Beltway breeze (Bret Stephens, WSJ)
Obama: The Oak Grown from Acorn (Daniel J. Flynn, City Journal)
Ecuador Threatens to Expel Oil Companies (Rigzone) Correa almost sounds like a pol from Atlas Shrugged!
It’s Airline Deregulation Birthday Week: Triangulating Southwest to the Point of Indifference (Swelblog)

Posted by Kevin Whited on 23 October 2008, 09:28 AM | Comments (0)
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It's Getting Harder To Take Slate Seriously...

Extremism at McCain Rallies Comes Naturally (Bill Bishop, The Slate)

Republican rallies this past weekend grew heated. The headlines tell the story: "Anger Is Crowd's Overarching Emotion at McCain Rally"; "Panic Attack: Voters Unload at GOP Rallies"; "McCain: Obama Not an Arab, Crowd Boos"; "Supporters Jeer as McCain Calls Obama 'A Decent Person.' "

What's going on? The talk-show talk has been that John McCain and Sarah Palin incite this kind of behavior. They certainly haven't helped, but blaming the candidates misses what's happening, and why.

Indeed. By reiterating that Obama is not an Arab and by suggesting that he is a decent person, McCain is only adding flames to the fire. That's just what George Wallace did, you know. Speaking in code and all that. Stoking the fires...

Posted by R. Alex Whitlock on 20 October 2008, 11:53 PM | Comments (0)
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