SOCIAL SECURITY REACTION

Here is an article about the guy who came up with the idea adopted by the President that would index Social Security benefits to prices rather than wages. He is a Democrat from Boston who supported John Kerry in 2004. The article contains some more details about the proposal and how it came to be known by White House officials.

Meanwhile, over at the New York Times, John Tierney has hit the nail on the head when it comes to the politics of the President's proposal.

Democrats have good reason to be aghast at President Bush's new proposal for Social Security. Someone has finally called their bluff.

They tried yesterday to portray him as just another cruel, rich Republican for suggesting any cuts in future benefits, but that's not what the prime-time audience saw on Thursday night. By proposing to shore up the system while protecting low-income workers, Mr. Bush raised a supremely awkward question for Democrats: which party really cares about the poor?

Read the whole thing.

NEWS AND VIEWS

The President proposes a means-test for Social Security benefits. That was the big news out of his news conference yesterday, and I think it is significant. Why make this announcement? The President knows that his original proposal, which emphasized private accounts while admitting that alone would not solve the problem, was floundering with the people and Congress alike. He needed to jump-start the debate. He can now claim he has gone a long way towards a total solution and demand the opposition respond. They won't, of course, in any substantive way. The Democrats have decided to take the position that there is no problem with Social Security that can't be fixed with some minor tweaking. It is a terribly irresponsible position to take, but one that will probably be quite effective electorally.

There is a new study that is being touted as the "smoking gun" on human-caused global warming. I'm still skeptical, but even if the emission of greenhouse gases by our growing global economy is causing global warming, even this study admits that we can't stop the process at this point even if we could stop the emissions cold. At some point we are going to have to realize that we cannot stop this process, as no nation on Earth will shut it's economy down, or even slow it down, which is the only way to make a substantial impact on these emissions. We should begin the process of creating strategies to deal with the warming that will likely happen over the rest of this century.

Gerard Baker decries the seemingly unstoppable process of state growth in the UK, with less than a week before the election in that country. It appear Great Britain is headed inexorably again toward the welfare-state that characterizes it's European neighbors, all of which are headed into a demographic crisis that makes our problems look like a walk in the park.

MY LIST FOR TONIGHT

Here are some of the things on my list of possible topics for tonight's show on WBZ-Boston from Midnight to 5 AM:

Is it appropriate to put up a statue to "Bewitched" star Elizabeth Montgomery in Salem, Massachusetts, home to the infamous witch trials of the late 17th century?

Should bars be allowed to stay open until 4 AM in Boston?

The President will hold a news conference tonight. I'm sure I'll discuss what he says to the Press and the Nation.

The House GOP backs down and opens the way for an ethics investigation of Majority Leader Tom Delay.

Also possibilities are the issues of activist judges, Medicaid cuts, the resurgence of Chinese nationalism, and the troubles going on in Canada

Although I won't be discussing it, I recommend you check out this column by David Brooks in the New York Times.

SHOW TOPICS FOR TONIGHT

Here are some of the things I am considering for tonight on WBZ-Boston between Midnight and 5 AM:

The Massachusetts legislature has a decision to make. Take more in taxes from the people of the Commonwealth, or give some back. It's all a result of a recent decision by the SJC. The Boston Globe has the story.

Cal Thomas says for the GOP it is a time for choosing when it comes to ending judicial nominee filibusters.

Should President Bush keep John Bolton as his nominee for Ambassador to the UN? Here is an argument for keeping him.

Did Saddam Hussein send his WMD to Syria? This article concludes that it is still a possibility.

Glenn Reynolds castigates the New York Times over at Instapundit.

Real Clear Politics has a round-up of news on the UK election. Will Tony Blair be punished for supporting the Iraq War?

I will also take a look at the President's proposal to build oil refineries on old US military bases, as well as a push for more nuclear power. Social Security reform will probably also be on the plate, as it was last night.

POSSIBLE SHOW TOPICS

Here is what I am looking at for possible topics tonight on WBZ-AM in Boston from Midnight to 5 AM. I may talk about one or more of these issues, or none (if something else comes up).

The Massachusetts legislature is poised to enact a law allowing the cloning of embryos for stem cell research, despite a promised veto by Governor Mitt Romney.

Is a national ID card in our future?

Are we failing to adequately train sailors and airmen for combat roles on the ground in Iraq?

One opinion poll has Americans opposed to prohibiting filibusters against judicial nominees.

Should you have the right to defend yourself, including the use of deadly force, even if you have the option of escaping your attacker? A new Florida law changes the legal presumption to allow you to use such force even if you can run away.

The CIA has concluded there are no WMD in Iraq, and there isn't enough evidence to show it was moved to Syria to make that conclusion. Should someone be held accountable?

Is John Bolton being Borked?

Has sex in the popular media gotten so pervasive that it is no longer possible to shield our children?

I can be found tonight at 1030 on the AM dial from Midnight to 5 AM. WBZ can be heard in 38 states and several provinces in Canada.

WBZ THIS WEEK

I will be on WBZ-Boston this week filling in for Steve Leveille, who will be filling in for Paul Sullivan. I will be on Wednesday (4/27), Thursday (4/28) and Friday (4/29) from Midnight to 5 AM. WBZ can be found at 1030 on the AM dial. The call-in line is 617-254-1030. I will post possible topics before I go in each night, with links to available on-line articles.

THE VALUES GAP

If you read Paul Krugman at the New York Times, and agree with him, you are probably still wondering why an unpopular President, and an out-of-touch party can maintain power with a string of electoral victories. With the economy still not generating a lot of income growth for the middle and lower classes, why don't the Democrats start winning elections?

The answer, I believe, is the values gap. Here is another survey that proves the point. Middle-class Americans, married, with children, holding down a couple of jobs, paying their taxes, sending their kids to public schools, are not voting in sufficient numbers to get a Democrat elected President, or allow the Democrats to take back the Congress. This is because so many of those people are turned off by the "anything goes" popular culture that many of the Democrat Party elite seem to accept, or even embrace. Combined with the growing religiosity of that sector of the population and you get a formula for continued Republican success, even with a soft economy.

WBZ TONIGHT

I will be filling in for Steve Leveille on WBZ-Boston tonight from Midnight to 5 AM. WBZ can be found at 1030 on the AM dial. Possible topics include the reaction to the election of another "conservative" Pope, the so-called "nuclear option" in the U.S. Senate regarding judicial nominees, and whether Congress should finally pull the plug on AMTRAK. Plus, whatever else I can think of between now and Midnight.

DEFENDER OF THE FAITH

The College of Cardinals in Rome has elected a new Pope. The criticisms are already coming in from the MSM about the "too conservative" nature of Pope Benedict XVI, the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger of Germany. In fact, this excerpt from the Reuters article is typical...

Billed as the front-runner going into the conclave, Ratzinger, 78, was widely seen as a standard-bearer who would fall short of the required two-thirds majority and have to cede to a more conciliatory compromise figure.

But he sounded very much the candidate before the conclave on Monday, defending orthodox Catholicism and warning the other 114 cardinal electors against following godless modern trends.

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as definitive and has as its highest value one's own ego and one's own desires," he declared at a pre-conclave Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

Papal experts expressed surprise at his election given the opposition that seemed to have formed before the conclave. "Somewhere a mending of fences must have been happened in the conclave," said Father Gerald Fogarty, history professor at the University of Virginia in the United States. "They probably think of this as a transitional papacy."

Imagine, a religious leader who believes that the doctrine of his church is ACTUALLY TRUE, and that other beliefs are ACTUALLY FALSE. Can the political and media elites of the West stand it? I guess they'll have to.

RELIGION AND EUROPE

I love this piece by Brian M. Carney in today's Wall Street Journal. It exactly reflects my previous posts on this issue.

Practicing Christianity in Europe today enjoys a status not dissimilar to smoking marijuana or engaging in unorthodox sexual activities--few people mind if you do so in private, but you are expected not to talk about it or ask others whether they do it too. Christianity is considered retrograde and atavistic in a "progressive" society devoted to the good life--long holidays, short work hours and generous government benefits.

Carney describes the thesis of a book by George Weigel called "The Cube and the Cathedral"...

The cathedral in his title is Notre Dame, now overshadowed in cultural importance by the Arc de la Defense, the ultramodernist "cube" that dominates an office complex outside Paris. "European man has convinced himself that in order to be modern and free, he must be radically secular," Mr. Weigel writes. "That conviction and its public consequences are at the root of Europe's contemporary crisis of civilizational morale."

Carney and, it seems, Weigel, share a vision of Europe in the future that I have posted about myself.

Mr. Weigel is on firmer ground when he analyzes Europe's present condition, with its low birth rates, heavy debts, Muslim immigration worries and tendency to carp from the sidelines when the fate of nations is at stake. In what is certainly the most attention-grabbing passage in an engagingly written book, Mr. Weigel sketches the worst-case scenario--the "bitter end"--for a Europe that is religiously bereft, demographically moribund and morally without a compass: "The muezzin summons the faithful to prayer from the central loggia of St. Peter's in Rome, while Notre-Dame has been transformed into Hagia Sophia on the Seine--a great Christian church become an Islamic museum."

Read the whole thing.

BEWARE THE DRAGON

It seems there is a new story every week that bolsters my view about Chinese expansionism. Historically, when a nation is preparing for aggressive war, it takes certain steps to prepare itself for action. China has made military, economic, and legal steps to prepare for the conquest of Taiwan. Today, there is news of a new arrangement with a regional power, India. There are also more demonstrations designed, I think, to intimidate another regional power, Japan.

The evidence is mounting. An aggressive military build-up (see the recent Pentagon report which made headlines over the weekend), a new law that requires re-unification with Taiwan even through violent means, the diplomatic securing of flanks (India), all adds up to one thing...the PRC will, at some point in the not-too-distant future, invade Taiwan. I think the only thing the butchers of Beijing are waiting for is word from their military leaders that the assets are in place to get the job done. Then all that will be necessary is the diplomatic pretext, which can be nearly anything, contrived or not.

When will this happen? It could be tomorrow, or ten years from now. But my guess is that it will happen within the next five years (and that is, admittedly, just a wild guess).

What will the U.S. government do? At the moment, with almost our entire Army committed to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, whatever is done militarily will be a U.S. Navy and Air Force show (even if the Army was more available, the conflict would still, in the early stages, belong to the sailors and airmen). Hanging over the decision-maker (the President) will be the specter of nuclear confrontation. Will he (or she) be willing to risk a nuclear exchange to save Taiwan? If the PRC pledges no first-use of nuclear weapons at the commencement of hostilities with Taiwan, will the President still be willing to risk our carriers and planes (and the men and women who crew them) for Taiwan?

I can't see George W. Bush backing down from that fight. But what of a future President? (By the way, you can forget about the U.N., since the PRC has veto power in the Security Council).

We continue to live in interesting times.

THE POPE, RELIGION, AND THE WEST

I've been waiting for someone to say it, and now John Derbyshire has done it.

Vigorous, handsome, plain-spoken, clear in his convictions, and obviously afraid of nothing terrestrial at all, John Paul II shone like a lighthouse through the fog of fear, doubt, and defeatism that had shrouded the West and its values through the 1970s.

It is therefore sad to reflect that the quarter century of his papacy was a terrible disaster for the Roman Catholic Church. Regular attendance at Mass* all over the traditionally Catholic world dropped like a stone all through John Paul II’s papacy. Everywhere in the great Catholic bastions of southern Europe — Austria, Italy, Spain, Portugal — the story is the same. In France, “eldest daughter of the Church,” the only argument is whether regular Mass attendance today is just above, or just below, ten percent. In Ireland — Ireland! — the numbers declined steadily from the 90 percent of 1973 to 60 percent in 1996, since when they have fallen off a cliff, to 48 percent in 2001 and heading south. A hundred years ago the U.S. Church imported priests from Ireland; now Ireland imports them from Nigeria.

Why is this happening?

...the real culprit is the irresistible appeal of secular hedonism to healthy, busy, well-educated populations. We live, as never before in human history, in a garden of delights, with something new to distract and delight us every day. None of that is enough to turn the heads of those who are truly, constitutionally devout; but not many human beings are, nor ever have been, that committed to their faith. And so the flock wanders away to the rides, the prize booths, and the freak shows.

Is he right? There is still the interesting phenomenon of Evangelical Protestantism here in the United States, which seems to be growing, even among healthy, well-educated and prosperous people. Fundamentalist Islam seems also to be making gains among well-educated folks in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Yet, he has a point. Roman Catholicism is dying in Europe (Protestant denominations are doing no better). But that may be explained by the fact that Europe as we have known it is dying. All the old pillars of that continent are falling. It's peoples are increasingly cutting themselves loose from their sense of identity through religion and nationality (always the strongest forces on that continent), and, as a consequence, beginning a dramatic demographic fadeaway. The day may come, in a hundred years or so, when Europe's churches and cathedrals, if they exist at all, exist only as museums. The throngs of the faithful will march towards the mosques and minarets, heeding the call to prayer echoing off the walls of London, Paris, Berlin and Rome.

WHAT WAS BERGER UP TO?

Since former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to stealing and destroying classified documents from the National Archives, I've wondered as to his motivation. Dick Morris has an explanation.

The documents were an "after-action review" by Richard Clarke, then the National Security Council's terrorism expert, discussing and analyzing our efforts to stop attacks during the Millennium celebrations. They were so secret, the Washington Times reports, that anyone seeking to remove the documents would have had to do so in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. And, it seems, they were so critical of the former administration that Berger felt he needed to steal them. But why did Berger steal them?

The most obvious reason would be to stop the 9/11 commission from including embarrassing revelations in its report.

Yes, the documents Berger purloined were not the only copies, but it's not clear that Berger knew that. Or there may have been handwritten notes in the margins of the copies Berger destroyed — written by the president, Berger or others.

Makes sense to me.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Democracy is messy. Negotiating a compromise takes more time than announcing a diktat. These are lessons slowly being learned in Iraq. With the selection of a new Speaker for their Parliament, the squabbling leaders of that nascent democracy have taken a first step that will certainly lead to the other positions being filled and a government being formed.

Will the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon really happen? If so, can the people of that civil war-torn nation find a way to peacefully resolve their differences? Would any of this be happening without the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003? Only the last question can be answered definitively.

The border vigilantes seem to be on their best behavior, so far. If this continues, will their critics stop calling them vigilantes? Don't count on it.

Political junkies are still poring over the results of the 2004 election. This piece concludes that the prospects for the GOP look even better than most people think.

NEWS AND VIEWS

A turning point? This report could be very significant in the on-going battle for Iraq.

Influential Sunni Muslim clerics who once condemned Iraqi security force members as traitors made a surprise turnaround yesterday and encouraged citizens to join the nascent police and army. If heeded, the announcement could strengthen the image of the officers and soldiers trying to take over the fight against the Sunni-led insurgency.

Still, it wasn't a full-fledged endorsement. The edict, endorsed by a group of 64 Sunni clerics and scholars, instructed enlistees to refrain from helping foreign troops against their own countrymen.

Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samarrai, a cleric in the Association of Muslim Scholars, read the edict during a sermon at a major Sunni mosque in Baghdad. He said it was necessary for Sunnis to join the security forces to prevent Iraqi police and army from falling into ''the hands of those who have caused chaos, destruction, and violated the sanctities."

It seemed to be a recognition by the Sunni minority, which dominated under former dictator Saddam Hussein, that Iraq's interim government is slowly retaking control of the nation and paving the way for a US withdrawal.

It appears as if the Sunni minority is finally beginning to realize that the insurgency will not frighten the U.S. into withdrawing prematurely and, without such a withdrawal, they do not have the capability to re-form an authoritarian, Sunni-dominated government. It's beginning to look like victory, after all.

Former Clinton Administration National Security Advisor Sandy Berger pleads guilty to taking and destroying documents from the National Archives. No reason was given why he did it (it isn't necessary as part of this particular plea). Let the speculation begin.

Oil prices continue to rise. If you read this Washington Times article, you will see that experts disagree about what it portends for the future. My own view is that we are in for a number of years of high oil prices as demand continues to rise. However, the high prices themselves will have an impact. Presumably, demand here in the U.S. will be impacted as consumers look for more fuel-efficient automobiles. Will any slowdown in demand here be enough to offset the increase in demand in places like China? Probably not. But the fact that these things cannot be easily predicted, plus the possibility that new reserves could be found, or known reserves more easily exploited due to advancing technology, make for the widely divergent predictions from the experts.

Two issues in the news today presage, I think, potentially explosive political debates in the 2006 and 2008 election cycles. A new poll shows an increasing number of Americans oppose gay marriage. Meanwhile, a group of volunteers are massing along a stretch of the U.S.-Mexican border to express their opposition to the influx of illegals from Mexico. Both these issues are absolutely excruciating for our political elites of both parties. Elite opinion in this country is heavily in favor of allowing gays to be married and allowing foreigners to come into this country in large numbers. Yet, popular opinion is mainly opposes to both (more so on the immigration issue than gay marriage, but solid majorities are opposed in both instances). Will there be a candidate for President who will exploit one or both of these issues? Will he (or she) have the gravitas and pedigree to avoid being labeled as a 'fringe candidate' by the MSM? If someone does come forward who fits that description, watch out. The heartland is seething (especially Red State America and, on immigration at least, significant pockets of Blue State America) on these issues.

COVERING THE POPE

I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the continuing coverage of the Pope's final illness. I spent much of the time on CNN, but switched from time-to-time to Fox News and MSNBC. The big story to come out of yesterday's coverage is about the gaff that happened when an Italian news agency erroneously reported the Pope's death.

While Fox obviously blew it, to their credit CNN immediately qualified the report that they had not independently confirmed it. I am normally a supporter of Fox News. But this incident is just the kind of sloppy journalism that gets them into trouble and provides ammunition for their critics. They are not the only ones to make this kind of mistake. I remember ABC famously reporting Reagan's death erroneously after he was shot in 1981.

The moral of the story? Yes, it is important to get it first. But, more importantly, GET IT RIGHT.