She tweeted, “common sense & decency absent as wacko ‘church’ allowed hate msgs spewed@ soldiers’ funerals but we can’t invoke God’s name in public square.”

Put aside the fact that 8 of the 9 justices, including Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, and Justice Scalia were in the majority.  That is an issue Palin might address at some later point.

More interesting is her reference to the “public square”. What exactly is she talking about?

We can’t invoke God’s name in the public square?

Really?

Don’t we do it all the time?

Didn’t she just do it?

Don’t a plurality, or maybe a majority, of Americans accept some reference to God in our public life?

The fact is, we invoke God’s name and refer to Him constantly in political life.

So what is her beef?

Does she want more references to God in our debates about tax and health policy?

Does she want to reference God in abortion policy debates, even though the pro-life community has tried for decades to demonstrate the truth of their position via human reason alone?

What’s left for her? Is there much more than allowing for prayer in schools and discrimination against homosexuals on religious grounds?

In some ways it is unfair to single out Palin. Mike Huckabee was a regular offender on this front in 2008. But in the end it is worth asking these candidates how their religiously clothed public square would be any different than today’s.

When Fr. Neuhaus coined this phrase thirty years ago he was diagnosing a particular problem in a sophisticated manner. Too often today, politicians like Palin cheaply deploy it to encourage and benefit from a politics of victimhood.

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Two thoughts.

First, the CBS writeup includes a classic Nixonian use of the passive voice. The poll, we are told, comes in spite of the fact that “much focus has been put on the harsh tone of politics in Washington and around the country, particularly after a contentious midterm election.”

Put there by whom?

A liberal press corps eager to lay this crime at the feet of conservative politicians?

A more honest account would have been “in spite of the best efforts of the press, most Americans continue to view this as the act of a sick individual rather than hour four of the Rush Limbaugh Show.”

Which brings me to my second point. Given that there is not one scintilla of evidence tying this crime to conservative politics or rhetoric, what does it say about the 4 in 10 Americans who do blame the political environment?

Could they be, perhaps, so distrustful and hateful of their fellow citizens that they are willing to believe that they are somehow complicit in the attempted assassination of a member of Congress?

So much for liberalism having a lock on civility.

And so much for the reality based community.

Could the President really be that childishly naive?

If not, then why call Lurie and massage his ego on a matter of little consequence for the head of state?

It is worth noting that given his record of political giving it certainly appears that Lurie is a Democrat who was late to the Obama bandwagon.

He gave the Obama Victory Fund $4,600 in October 2008; but long before, he was a Hillary man, giving Friends of Hillary $2,000 in August 2006 and $2,300 to her campaign in September 2007.

And he has a lot to give, as the owner of a billion dollar franchise.

A committed high-profile and rich Democrat in a key swing state, who might need some shoring up given his past support for Hillary.

Sounds like just the person to flatter with an impromptu friendly call from the leader of the free world.

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Is this any more asinine than to suggest, as the Democrats are currently doing, that failure to pass a pork laden omnibus or extend unemployment insurance is somehow anti-Christian?  Of course not.  Both statements are sub-moronic and people should ignore them rather than wet their pants over them.

Yet Senator DeMint does need correcting on one point.  He said that Christmas “is the most sacred holiday for Christians.”  Not quite.

The most sacred holiday for Christians?  That would be Easter, senator.

If it has not started already, look for Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee to label this an act of conservative judicial activism.  This is not fair.

First, given the novel legal issues involved, the grants by Democratic appointed judges of motions to dismiss in other cases are far more indicative of an activist mindset.

And while I am partial to conservative efforts to undo the Affordable Care Act, the claim that this is a victory for liberty seems overwrought.  Insofar as judges are responsive to internal and external institutional pressure, likening this opinion to a rejection of tyranny could fatally undercut support for plaintiffs’ positions among swing judges.

Finally, conservatives should now ask CBO to re-score health care reform. To the extent that the lack of a mandate will increase the cost of coverage in exchanges (due to people waiting to obtain coverage until they are sick) the deficit impact of the reform likely just went up significantly.

And all they had to give up was an extension of unemployment insurance.

It is no surprise that Grover Norquist is smiling and the President is in damage control, attempting to appease a base that is contemplating a primary challenge.

Yet remarkably, after this follow up shellacking, the White House still seems to think that this loss is all just a matter of messaging. If only they had pursued an agenda of full-throated class warfare prior to the elections, they would have won that fight and mitigated their losses.

And now they have doubled down on that theory by having the tax cuts expire at the end of a presidential election year.

Has the President forgotten that on this issue, with his post partisan sheen still well buffed, he was almost brought down by the lowly Joe the Plumber?

And in 2012 that sheen will be long gone. As was on display in his defensive press conference today, the President’s personality continues to grate. After working out a complex negotiation with people once identified as not enemies but friends, he compared those across the table as hostage-takers whose “holy grail” is the extension of tax cuts for the rich.

I think the scientific description for a person who treats his negotiating partners like this is a humorless jerk.

And in the end, that, more so than any particular policy misstep, may be Obama’s undoing.

Following the release of the draft deficit commission report, Conrad boldly stood against those who would prioritize their reelection over the nation’s fiscal stability.  Some people would just have to lose their seats, he said.

So long as he is not one of those people.

No sooner did Conrad announce the need for tough choosing on the budget than he (to borrow from Monty Python) bravely turned his back and fled.  Word got out that the in-cycle Conrad was interested in abdicating authority over the budget from his chairmanship post at the budget committee in favor of the pork bonanza that comes with being the agriculture committee chair.

On the other end of the spectrum is Senator McConnell. His speech announcing his position against earmarks was graceful, forthright and befitting a republican citizenry.  To say that he will represent not only Kentuckians but all Americans by opposing earmarks is an example of effective leadership and populist rhetoric that conservatives should learn from.  There is no shame in admitting you were wrong and that the American people, who you represent, should have the last word.

This is a lesson John McCain could have benefited from during the 2007 immigration debate, and it is an example the president could benefit from today.

Here is hoping the GOP learns another lesson from the earmark ban. Earmarkers assume that the practice helps with their reelection. The evidence for this is anecdotal at best.  The 2012 elections should now provide a helpful case study on the utility of earmarks.

So much for that.  Conservatives’ response to the debt commission draft report is an embarrassment.

Last week, in anticipation of the report, Mark Levin ripped the idea of modifying the home interest mortgage deduction.  Remember when conservatives opposed the idea of ‘spreading the wealth,’ social engineering, and the federal government meddling to promote home ownership?

Well, what exactly does Mr. Levin think the mortgage deduction is?

It is social engineering by the federal government to promote home ownership through an inefficient manipulation of the tax code.  It is extremely regressive, helping those with the largest mortgages, and the opportunity to itemize, the most.  By allowing for the deduction of interest on home equity lines of credit, it literally requires renters, and even lower and middle income home owners, to subsidize the consumer purchases of the wealthy.

Oh, and for good measure, it is brought to you by a special interest that benefits monetarily from the inflated home prices that invariably result from the deduction.

I guess not all ‘spreading of the wealth’ is created equal.

As sorry as Mr. Levin’s ‘argument’ was, I almost fell out of my chair listening to Hannity’s  commentary on the debt commission.

He described the proposal to means-test social security as “unconscionable.”

Really?

What happened to the grown-up recognition that there is no lock-box, that the system is a ponzi scheme, and that there will be nothing there for younger Americans?  If this is in fact a welfare system, one with benefits that can be taken away from you, rather than a true personal retirement system, why not treat it as a welfare program?

To do so is responsible, not unconscionable.

There are sound reasons to treat any recommendations for changes to taxes and benefits with caution.  When I read Ezra Klein last week, I assumed someone at The Heritage Foundation had stolen his laptop.  The man was recommending, modifying the tax treatment of health care, the mortgage-interest deduction, and corporate taxes.  He proposed a consumption tax.  It sounded like he was reading from the talking points of conservative economists.

But then you realize what he left off of his list — the deduction of state and local income taxes — your hackles go up.  After promoting a massive expansion of federal obligations through the stimulus and health care bills, he suddenly favors massive modifications of the tax code that will conveniently finance those obligations and curry favor with the corporate stakeholders who are now ‘shared partners’ in the system.

But he leaves alone the incredibly expensive deduction of state and local taxes that happen to prop up the massive public programs, and the public employee unions that staff them, in Blue States.

Still, Ezra is right.  All of those things on his list, and then some, should be on the table.

As this debate goes forward, conservatives need to make smart arguments against otherwise sound modifications to taxes and benefits that will only subsidize unreformed federal programs that remain on the same unsustainable trajectory.

Sadly, the conservative talkers are not making them.

But shortly after Obama’s inauguration, I heard a conversation that lifted my spirits.  A 22-year old Washington hand informed me that Republicans were at their lowest point since after Watergate and would take years to recover.  At that point, when it became clear that Carvillean conventional wisdom about the end-days for the GOP had trickled down to the staff assistant level, I was reminded of what I should have never forgotten.

The beginning of wisdom is the recognition of what you don’t know, and the professional prognosticator rarely bears the humility that is required for effective analysis.

In that spirit, a few thoughts on the election.

Cornyn for President

At the end of the 2006 and 2008 cycles, folks talked as though Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer had cracked the code.  They hadn’t.  Is Robert Menendez any less of a DSCC chairman than his predecessor?  Is John Cornyn any more effective than John Ensign was at the NRSC?  Marginally.  At best.  The fact is, the campaign chairmen are at the mercy of the cycle.  In close races, the genius of the chairmen and their staff might carry the day.  Then again, you could lose Montana by 3,600 votes and Virginia by 9,000 out of 2.3 million cast.

Pataki for President

I shouldn’t single out John Cornyn for a hard time.  One could foresee him making it through the Republican primary and becoming president.  Can the same be said for George Pataki and Haley Barbour, both of whom are mulling bids, Barbour principally on the ground that he was so successful at the Republican Governor’s Association (see “Cornyn for President” and “Nick Ayers for RNC Chair”), and George Pataki because…?  Never overestimate the capacity of a paid professional to convince his client that his is just the leadership America is clamoring for.

Just Wait Until 2012 (Senate Edition)

The same folks who told us in January 2009 that this cycle would follow the pattern of ruin set in 2006 and 2008 — the same folks who told us the GOP had to defend seats in hostile territory like Ohio, Missouri, and New Hampshire — are now reminding us that the Democratic wave class of 2006 will be extremely vulnerable in 2012.  Perhaps.  Two years is a long time.

Just Wait Until 2012 (Presidential Edition)

Who knows what will happen in 2012.  There are some numbers worth considering, however, that might dampen Democrats’ enthusiasm for an Obama comeback.  According to an estimate by Election Data Services, the following states will gain House seats and electoral votes:   Texas (4), Florida (2), Arizona (1), Georgia (1), Nevada (1), South Carolina (1), Utah (1), and Washington.  The states that would lose seats include New York (2), Illinois (1), Iowa (1), Louisiana (1), Massachusetts (1), Michigan (1), Missouri (1), and Pennsylvania (1).  By my count, that is a swing of about 15 electoral votes toward the GOP.

To put that in perspective, it is the equivalent of giving New Jersey, or a combination of Colorado and Oregon to the Republicans in the 2008 presidential election.  To put that into further perspective, John McCain won 173 electoral votes.  I do know that Obama is not likely to win any states in 2012 that McCain won in 2008.  And I do know that he will have a hard time holding Nevada (5 EV), Indiana (11 EV), Virginia (13 EV), and North Carolina (15 EV), all of which are traditionally Republican states.  Give the Republican candidate Florida (27) and Ohio (20) where the GOP is poised to demolish Democrats tonight, the one-off Obama wins, and the votes courtesy of reapportionment and the GOP is sitting pretty with a win of 279 electoral votes.  The Republican path to victory won’t have to go through Democratic friendly states like New Mexico and Iowa, as Bush’s reelect did, to make Obama a one-termer.

One, Two, Many Tea Parties

For all the talk about the non-professionalism of the Tea Party candidates, most of these candidates did not come from an apolitical background.  Sharron Angle was a member of the Nevada assembly.  Rand Paul has certainly benefitted from the contacts and name recognition provided by his career politician father.  Ken Buck was a district attorney and worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office.  Joe Miller was a judge and politically active citizen.  And of course, Christine O’Donnell is no stranger to politics and running for office.

The same cannot be said of Ron Johnson, however.  He truly is the citizen candidate, a businessman who had his Howard Beale moment when Congress passed the healthcare bill.  And he is set to knock off Russ Feingold.  Three months ago nobody had Feingold on their watch list.  The seat was considered lost to Republicans when they failed to attract the ‘top tier candidate’ Tommy Thompson.  Today, Feingold’s candidacy has been written off.

Exit question one:  Would Thompson have won?  I doubt it.

Exit question two:  Will the GOP do any work to see why it is that the big businesswomen in CA lost, while the small businessman in WI won?  What attributes does a person with a small business mentality bring to a race?

What Will They Do When They Get There

In the last few weeks, I have heard a variant of the following several times.  All this populist rhetoric neglects that in some sense we want and need elites.  If I need a dentist, I go to the best dentist.  And if I need a good lawyer, I go to the best lawyer. This is a good lead-up, but interestingly this argument usually tails off before the obvious punch line.

And if I want a person who can pass a bunch of laws, I will pick a person extremely qualified to be a legislator.

The best example of this insight was Patrick Leahy’s recent statement that after 1980, a similar election cycle, “[i]t was a very weird time…A lot of those people had no idea what they were doing.”

But what, pray tell, were they supposed to be doing?  Holding fundraisers?  Arranging cover votes to fool their constituents back home into thinking they are economically conservative (see Kent Conrad and Ben Nelson).

There is a reason that nobody finishes the joke.  Most Americans don’t elect legislators to add to the U.S. Code.  They elect representatives to REPRESENT them.

What’s the Matter with Wisconsin?

In 2006 and 2008 we read story after story about GOP decline in traditional strongholds and the rise of the purple states.  I look forward to the analysis of Wisconsin’s transition from a blue to a magenta state.

What’s the matter with Wisconsin?

They’re probably just racists.

Which Brings Me to My Final Point

The perspective that Democrats have brought to the last few weeks of this campaign does not bode well for Jon Stewart’s pro-reason project.  Unable to tackle the possibility that the electorate just doesn’t like the stimulus bill, Democrats have psychologically latched on, as they always do, to the incurable social and emotional retardation of the electorate as the cause of their demise.

Just wait until 2012.  The big gun was relatively quiet in 2008 due to the public enthusiasm for, and goodwill toward, Obama.  Plus, by this time in the cycle a win was certain.  But is there any doubt that high profile Democrats will transform today’s argument for Republican motivations into a bald assertion of racism in 2012?  It is the predictable last refuge of the liberal Democrat.

And is there any doubt that the impact of this entirely predictable line of attack will be a net negative for the Obama candidacy?

Among the more unusual diversions from his work at the Springfield nuclear plant was Homer’s short lived career getting shot in the stomach by a cannon as the opening act at Homerpalooza.

Prior to his act, two hipsters are talking to each other and one notes that Homer’s act is really cool.  When his friend asks if he is being sarcastic, he responds, “I don’t even know anymore.”

During the Bush administration the hipster left represented by Stewart and Colbert came to think that Americans were being manipulated by politicians who stoked fear of Islamic terrorism for GOP electoral gains.

Today, the same hipster left comes to Washington to mock those same people that Obama believes are fearful, irrational and again in danger of being manipulated, this time by a conservative economic message.

But then, in the midst of this ironic and self-congratulatory protest, comes news of a near miss attempt on the lives of American citizens in their places of worship.

So a question for Stewart and Colbert: Do we have anything to fear?

The folks in Chicago’s Jewish community probably have a pretty clear answer on this.  My hope is that the latest attempt on the lives of Americans, on American soil, leaves the ironic hipsters at this weekend’s rally, and their pied pipers, as confused as the two kids at Homerpalooza.  Maybe Americans are not so crazy and irrational to think that we have things to be fearful of.