THE POLITICS OF THE TEA PARTY

Below, Newt Gingrich argues that California voters' firm rejection of tax increases in Tuesday's referendum is a sign that the "tea party" movement will have a big electoral impact. He also makes some good points about the governments of many big states like New York and California being in the pocket of the state employees' labor unions, giving them a vested interest in looting their own citizens.

Unfortunately, Gingrich has a record as something of an intellectual dilettante who likes to dabble in "big ideas" without ever holding to a clear and consistent agenda. If there is one thing the "tea party" movement needs, it is leaders who can take its angry populism and give it greater intellectual substance, leaders who work to define and clarify crucial ideas about the proper role of government. But I find that too much of this piece is just Gingrich echoing the angry populists without providing much substance of his own. He seems like someone jumping on a bandwagon and seeking to ride it, rather than a leader who is helping to get the bandwagon moving and aim it in the right direction.

"A Rising Anti-Government Tide," Newt Gingrich, Washington Post, May 22

Americans should look carefully at the anti-politician, anti-government mood exhibited in California this week. Just as Proposition 13 and the anti-tax movement of 1978 were the forerunners of the Reagan presidential victory, so the results of Tuesday's vote are a harbinger of things to come….

This vote is the second great signal that the American people are getting fed up with corrupt politicians, arrogant bureaucrats, greedy interests and incompetent, destructive government.

The elites ridiculed or ignored the first harbinger of rebellion, the recent tea parties. While it will be harder to ignore this massive anti-tax, anti-spending vote, they will attempt to do just that….

[T]he political machines in California and New York are wrecking the states' economies and driving out successful residents. But the machines don't care because all they want to do is own the wreckage….

Watch Sacramento politicians and interest groups work to overrule the people of California. Watch Albany politicians and interest groups continue to undermine the economy of New York. Watch the arrogance of the elites in Washington as they impose their costs and special deals on the American people.

Then look again at the 62 percent-plus majority in California in favor of smaller government and lower taxes.

In the great tradition of political movements rising against arrogant, corrupt elites, there will soon be a party of people rooting out the party of government. This party may be Republican; it may be Democratic; in some states it may be a third party. The politicians have been warned.

2. Pelosi Tries to Change the Subject

No, Nancy Pelosi will not be ousted from her position as a Speaker of the House, even after she falsely accused the CIA of lying to her about "enhanced interrogations" of terrorists. But she has neutralized herself, particularly on this particular issue. We will no longer hear the Speaker talking about plans to investigate interrogators or pronouncing on what is to be done with captured terrorist leaders.

Instead, this is a topic she is looking to run away from as fast as possible. This is the clearest indication that she has been caught in a blatant, deliberate lie: the fact that she now refuses to talk about it. If the CIA actually had a policy of lying to Congress, don't you think a top congressional leader would be on the warpath about it? Instead, she has literally refused to take any questions from the press on the topic, and her congressional allies have blocked an attempt to investigate her claims. You don't normally see an evasion as open as this one.

Meanwhile, speaking of the left's personnel problems, Vice-President Joe Biden has been caught operating his mouth without proper supervision again. At a Washington event earlier this year, he disclosed the "secure, undisclosed location" where the vice-president is supposed to be holed away when there is a threat of terrorist attack. The disclosure presumably makes the location less secure.

This is just the latest in a long list of disastrous public pronouncements by the man who is now a heart-beat away from the presidency.

"Dems Block Investigation, Speaker Avoids Questions on CIA," Patricia Murphy, Politics Daily, May 22

When asked about the CIA matter, Pelosi said, "I have made the statement I am going to make on this. I don't have anything more to say about it and I stand by my comment. What we are doing is staying on our course and not be distracted from it in this distractive (sic) mode. We're going forward in a bi-partisan way for jobs, health care, energy for our country. And on the subject that you asked, I've made the statement that I'm going to make. I won't have anything more to say about that. I won't have anything more to say about it."

She then suggested to reporters, "Another subject?"

Last night, the House defeated a measure from House Republicans to establish a special committee, complete with subpoena power, "to review and verify the accuracy of the Speaker's aforementioned public statements" about the CIA briefings she attended before and during the Iraq War. A near party-line vote struck down the Republican resolution by a vote of 252 to172.

3. The Bush-Obama Foreign Policy

Charles Krauthammer is one of the Obama administration's most cogent and effective critics. He got Obama's number early on in the primaries, understanding the candidate's whole personality and methodology, and that makes him able to see through Obama's public pronouncements like an X-ray.

Below, he catalogs how President Obama is adopting most of the policies of the Bush administration when it comes to the treatment of captured terrorists. But he identifies the method Obama uses to obscure this fact: "the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy."

But there is one important difference between Obama and Bush. Because he attacks the Bush policies as immoral before he adopts them, he undermines the moral legitimacy of those policies and thus of the United States. Bush was attacked for keeping terrorists at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, but he at least defended it (for a while, anyway) as the right thing to do. Obama is going to keep terrorists at Guantanamo after loudly declaring that this is evil and unprincipled. The effect will be to give credence to the slanders leveled against America in enemy propaganda.

"Obama in Bush Clothing," Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post, May 22

Obama will never admit in word what he's doing in deed. As in his rhetorically brilliant national-security speech yesterday claiming to have undone Bush's moral travesties, the military commissions flip-flop is accompanied by the usual Obama three-step: (a) excoriate the Bush policy, (b) ostentatiously unveil cosmetic changes, (c) adopt the Bush policy….

Observers of all political stripes are stunned by how much of the Bush national security agenda is being adopted by this new Democratic government. Victor Davis Hanson (National Review) offers a partial list: "The Patriot Act, wiretaps, e-mail intercepts, military tribunals, Predator drone attacks, Iraq (i.e., slowing the withdrawal), Afghanistan (i.e., the surge)—and now Guantanamo."

Jack Goldsmith (The New Republic) adds: rendition—turning over terrorists seized abroad to foreign countries; state secrets—claiming them in court to quash legal proceedings on rendition and other erstwhile barbarisms; and the denial of habeas corpus—to detainees in Afghanistan's Bagram prison, indistinguishable logically and morally from Guantanamo….

There is something much larger at play—an undeniable, irresistible national interest that, in the end, beyond the cheap politics, asserts itself. The urgencies and necessities of the actual post-9/11 world, as opposed to the fanciful world of the opposition politician, present a rather narrow range of acceptable alternatives….

The Bush policies in the war on terror won't have to await vindication by historians. Obama is doing it day by day.

4. "The First Modern Soft Totalitarian State"

I have written about the ominous implications of the fact that Geert Wilders was banned from entering Britain because he criticizes Islam. Now it has happened again: without actually attempting to enter the country, American radio talk show host Michael Savage has just been pre-emptively banned from entering Britain.

My guess is that part of the reason Savage was put on the list was to provide a false "balance." Britain wanted to ban preachers who incite Muslims to violence—but they were terrified of being accused of "singling out" Muslims. So they added a critic of Islam to the list, to show that they are "impartial."

But note what this does. By arbitrarily banning a talk-show host for speaking his mind, and lumping him in with advocates of violence and totalitarianism (as well as a few others who are guilty of lesser crimes like harassment), Britain has thrown out any objective protection for free speech and effectively caved in to Muslim demands for censorship.

Thus, as the LA Times explains (see the link above), Savage was banned because he "engaged in 'unacceptable behavior' that could 'lead to inter-community violence.'" Why? Savage "has attacked the Koran as a 'book of hate.'" So why would this lead to "inter-community violence"? Obviously, because the Muslims might riot against Savage. So Britain is banning the victims of violent intolerance, not the instigators of it.

All of this is a good opportunity to bring your attention to an article published last month that I haven't had a chance to link to yet. It describes the overall pattern of Britain's slide into "soft totalitarianism" under the combined influence of secular leftist multiculturalism and Muslim religious fanaticism.

"The Thought Police Muscle Up in Britain," Hal G. P. Colebatch, The Australian via RealClearWorld, April 21

Britain appears to be evolving into the first modern soft totalitarian state….

There are no concentration camps or gulags but there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent….

The Government is pushing ahead with legislation that will criminalize politically incorrect jokes, with a maximum punishment of up to seven years' prison. The House of Lords tried to insert a free-speech amendment, but Justice Secretary Jack Straw knocked it out….

In the past 10 years I have collected reports of many instances of draconian punishments, including the arrest and criminal prosecution of children, for thought-crimes and offences against political correctness….

In September 2006, a 14-year-old schoolgirl, Codie Stott, asked a teacher if she could sit with another group to do a science project as all the girls with her spoke only Urdu. The teacher's first response, according to Stott, was to scream at her: "It's racist, you're going to get done by the police!"… The teacher called the police and a few days later, presumably after officialdom had thought the matter over, she was arrested and taken to a police station…. She was questioned on suspicion of committing a racial public order offence and then released without charge. The school was said to be investigating what further action to take, not against the teacher, but against Stott….

Muslim parents who objected to young children being given books advocating same-sex marriage and adoption at one school last year had their wishes respected and the offending material withdrawn. This year, Muslim and Christian parents at another school objecting to the same material have not only had their objections ignored but have been threatened with prosecution if they withdraw their children….

This campaign seems to come from unelected or quasi-governmental bodies controlling various institutions, which are more or less unanswerable to electors, more than it does directly from the Government, although the Government helps drive it and condones it in a fudged and deniable manner.

Any one of these incidents might be dismissed as an aberration, but taken together—and I have only mentioned a tiny sample; more are reported almost every day—they add up to a pretty clear picture.

5. Signs of Hope

As much as I am dissatisfied with the Bush administration's failure to deal with some of the most important threats to America (particularly Iran), I have to acknowledge that we did do helped secure America's safety from large-scale terrorist attacks for almost eight years and counting. Below is a description of one of the rewards: the crown of the Statue of Liberty is re-opening.

But hurry to take advantage of this opportunity, because the crown will be closing again temporarily in two years. It was never built to allow the general public up into the crown; the stairway was built as an access for workmen. So it will be renovated to provide larger and safer stairways that will allow even more visitors to see Lady Liberty's view.

"Liberty's Crown, Closed Since 9/11, to Open July 4," Verena Dobnik, AP via Yahoo!, May 8

The Statue of Liberty's crown, with its exhilarating view of New York's skyscrapers, bridges and seaport, is reopening on Independence Day for the first time since terrorists leveled the World Trade Center just across the harbor.

Safety and security issues have been addressed and 50,000 people, 10 at a time, will get to visit the 265-foot-high crown in the next two years before it is closed again for renovation, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Friday….

Interior Department officials said they had not yet determined how to choose who climbs to the top. Spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said a lottery is one possibility. Salazar "wants the tickets to be distributed not based on your connections but in a fair and equitable way," she said.

The statue was closed to the public because of security concerns after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The base, pedestal and outdoor observation deck were reopened in 2004 but the crown remained off-limits….

The Park Service had said in the past that the narrow, double-helix spiral staircases could not be safely evacuated in an emergency and didn't comply with fire and building codes…. A National Park Service spokesman said last year that the statue's designer, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, never intended for visitors to ascend to the crown.