Steve Green:  “If there really was a Party Of No, I would so join.”

Indeed.

via Glenn Reynolds

Ed Driscoll, Jonathan Adler and Glenn Reynolds take the New York Times and other mainstream outlets to task for their decision to not republish the stolen emails from climate scientists on the grounds that they were illegally obtained and written with the expectation of being kept private.  After all, these outlets famously publish illegally obtained classified national security information at the drop of a hat.

While that’s a pretty persuasive critique on its face, the comparison is ultimately false.

In the case of the East Anglia listservs, the victims are private individuals.  By contrast, the Pentagon Papers and various intelligence leaks published during the Bush era were owned by the United States Government and arguably kept secret partly to shield elected leaders from political fallout.  Nor were the latter “stolen” in the same sense as the former.  Rather, people authorized to receive the information shared it with reporters who are under no obligation to protect classified secrets.

What would be interesting is to see how the NYT and others handle illegally obtained documents from people with whom they don’t politically agree.  Have they republished similarly stolen emails that were harmful to, say, tobacco companies or investment bankers?

If so, then were have a much better case for hypocrisy.

The loss of a Republican seat in NY-23 under highly unusual circumstances notwithstanding, yesterday was a good day for Republicans. After crushing defeats in successive elections, they won back the Virginia governor’s office in a blowout and knocked off a billionaire incumbent governor in New Jersey despite having their vote split between two candidates.

I would, however, resist the temptation to see these contests as a referendum on Barack Obama’s presidency and the Democratic Party, much less a harbinger for 2010 and beyond.

Glenn Reynolds has an op-e in the NY Post titled “The Obama Magic has Faded.”

All politics is local, they say, and Tuesday’s off-off-year elections certainly had their local angles. Jon Corzine has been a terrible governor even by the undemanding standards of terribly governed New Jersey. Creigh Deeds, though he looked good to Democratic Party recruiters not long ago, turned out to be an undistinguished campaigner, more driven by the concerns of Washington Post editorialists than of Virginia voters. And NY-23 Republican nomineee Dede Scozzafava was a bizarre choice, bizarre enough to inspire a seemingly quixotic third-party run by Doug Hoffman.

But these local angles weren’t enough to keep the Obama administration out of the races. President Obama barnstormed Virginia and New Jersey — and pumped money and Joe Biden into NY-23 in support of Democratic candidate Bill Owens. (One suspects Owens would have preferred more money and less Biden.)

And — until it started looking as if they might lose — the Obama people were suggesting that these races would seal their mandate and encourage congressional wafflers to toe the line on health-care reform. Not so much, as it turns out.

Now, this is right, so far as it goes.  Exit poll analyses by both ABC and CBS show Obama remains personally popular but that people are extremely worried about the economy and the direction of the country.  The reality has set in that Obama’s a politician, not a messiah.  While many retain high hopes, most of the irrational exuberance has faded.  And, clearly, he doesn’t have coattails when he’s not on the ballot.  Then again, neither did Ronald Reagan.   Recall that Republicans lost 27 House seats in 1982.

A stronger case is made by Dan Balz in an “analysis” piece at WaPo titled “Contests serve as warning to Democrats: It’s not 2008 anymore.”

Neither gubernatorial election amounted to a referendum on the president, but the changing shape of the electorates in both states and the shifts among key constituencies revealed cracks in the Obama 2008 coalition and demonstrated that, at this point, Republicans have the more energized constituency heading into next year’s midterm elections.

The most significant change came among independent voters, who solidly backed Democrats in 2006 and 2008 but moved decisively to the Republicans on Tuesday, according to exit polls. In Virginia, independents strongly supported Republican Robert F. McDonnell in his victory over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, while in New Jersey, they supported Republican Chris Christie in his win over Democratic Gov. Jon S. Corzine.

For months, polls have shown that independents were increasingly disaffected with some of Obama’s domestic policies. They have expressed reservations about the president’s health-care efforts and have shown concerns about the growth in government spending and the federal deficit under his leadership.

Tuesday’s elections provided the first tangible evidence that Republicans can win their support with the right kind of candidates and the right messages. That is an ominous development for Democrats if it continues unabated into next year. But Republicans could squander that opportunity if they demand candidates who are too conservative to appeal to the middle.

This is exactly right.  Independents, by their very nature, are fickle.  When thing are going well, they’ll stick with the party in power and when they’re not, they’ll vote for change.

So, if unemployment is still high and we’re still mired in a mess in Afghanistan a year from now, the Republicans will have an opening to make major gains in the House and Senate.  But they’ll need candidates who won’t alienate independents.

I followed the Virginia race with some interest given that I live in the Commonwealth.  It wasn’t a race about Obama or national issues at all.  Deeds was the surprise winner of the Democratic primary, with the well-financed and well-known Terry McAuliffe and Brian Moran killing each other off and leaving Deeds standing.   He was a moderate Democrat with appeal to rural Virginians who had narrowly lost to McConnell four years earlier when the latter got 323 more votes for attorney general.  But when the Washington Post went on attack against McDonnell for an old master’s thesis and some rather unprogressive statements about women and homosexuals, Deeds decided to run a nasty campaign hammering at those points.  It backfired, as McConnell turned the other cheek and came across as a decent, reasonable man.  (As an aside, I should note that Republicans easily won the lieutenant governor and attorney general races in landslides, too. )

In New Jersey, Corzine is personally unpopular and his state is in bad shape.  I posited on last night’s OTB Radio that it was all downhill after the motorcade incident, which was the first time I realized what a jackass Corzine was, but I don’t follow Garden State politics closely enough to know for sure.   At any rate, Chris Christie was perceived as a reasonable alternative even in a Democrat-leaning state.  Corzine’s genius advisers decided their best course was to double down on the jerk factor, campaigning on the theme that Christie was too fat to be governor.  Oddly, it didn’t do the trick.

Regardless, these races demonstrate that Republicans can win — even with all the damage to the brand suffered in recent years — given both an opening and a solid candidate.

Eugene Volokh brings to our attention, rather belatedly, the case of Joly v. Pelletier, in which Rene Joly brought a suit some ten years ago alleging that Pelletier and others had conspired to suppress evidence that he was a Martian.  The judge dismissed the case on two grounds:

1. Neither pleading discloses a cause of action. While conspiracy to do harm to someone is the basis of many actions in this Court there is a fundamental flaw in the position of Mr. Joly. Rule 1.03 defines plaintiff as “a person who commences an action”. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines person as “an individual human being”. Section 29 of the Interpretation Act provides that a person includes a corporation. It follows that if the plaintiff is not a person in that he is neither a human being nor a corporation, he cannot be a plaintiff as contemplated by the Rules of Civil Procedure. The entire basis of Mr. Joly’s actions is that he is a martian, not a human being. There is certainly no suggestion that he is a corporation. I conclude therefore, that Mr. Joly, on his pleading as drafted, has no status before the Court.

2…. I am satisfied that the claims are frivolous and vexatious and constitute an abuse of the process of this Court…. [W]ith all respect to Mr. Joly and his perception of reality, these actions are patently ridiculous and should not be allowed to continue as they utilize scarce public resources not to mention the time and money of the numerous defendants who have been forced to defend these actions.

Volokh finds Reason 1 more blogworthy.   Glenn Reynolds and I concur.

A self-professed gun nut named Caleb:

Saturday leaving my office, I was the subject of an attempted mugging by a member of the Indianapolis Choir Boy School of Good Men Who are Only Down on Their Luck.  As I was leaving my office, said altar boy came around the corner of my building to the left into the side parking lot, and as I turned to face him noticed the knife in his right hand.  The Chaplain’s Assistant demanded that we engage in an abbreviated barter process, wherein I would provide my wallet and car keys in exchange for not getting shanktified, which to him probably seemed like a reasonable exchange.

I politely demurred by hurling a cup of hot Starbucks at him while fishing my Beretta Jetfire out of the stupid pocket holster it was riding in.  After taking a face full of Columbia’s most popular legal export and confronted with a counter offer of bullets to his previous barter exchange concept, the young gentlemen decided that discretion was the better part of valor and made all due haste in a westerly direction.  For my part, I locked myself in my office, called 911 and waited for the cops to arrive to take my report.

Via Glenn Reynolds, who marvels, “Coffee — is there anything it can’t do?”

Of course, to paraphrase the old saying, you’ll get more with hot coffee and a gun than with hot coffee alone.

A rather bizarre case in Illinois — even by the standards of that state.

For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director says, and an Illinois governor once cited those wrongful convictions as he announced he was commuting the sentences of everyone on death row.

But as the Medill Innocence Project is raising concerns about another case, that of a man convicted in a murder 31 years ago, a hearing has been scheduled next month in Cook County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves. The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the methods of the students this time. The university is fighting the subpoenas.

Lawyers in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office say that in their quest for justice in the old case, they need every pertinent piece of information about the students’ three-year investigation into Anthony McKinney, who was convicted of fatally shooting a security guard in 1978. Mr. McKinney’s conviction is being reviewed by a judge. Among the issues the prosecutors need to understand better, a spokeswoman said, is whether students believed they would receive better grades if witnesses they interviewed provided evidence to exonerate Mr. McKinney.

[...]

A spokeswoman for Anita Alvarez, the Cook County state’s attorney, who was elected last fall, said the prosecutors were simply trying to get to the bottom of the McKinney case. “At the end of the day, all we’re seeking is the same thing these students are: justice and truth,” said Sally Daly, the spokeswoman. She said the prosecutors wished to see all statements the students received from witnesses, whether they supported or contradicted the notion of Mr. McKinney’s innocence. “We’re not trying to delve into areas of privacy or grades,” Ms. Daly said. “Our position is that they’ve engaged in an investigative process, and without any hostility, we’re seeking to get all of the information they’ve developed, just as detectives and investigators turn over.”

Well, no. Without probable cause to believe criminal action on part of the students, the state has no right to any of this material.  And why would it matter if the students thought they would get better grades for getting provocative statements?  Surely, people aren’t going to confess to crimes or commit otherwise commit perjury in order to help out some rich college students they don’t know.

On this matter, there seems to be wide consensus.

American University conlaw prof Darren Lenard Hutchinson:

The subpoena raises several red flags. First, the information the prosecutors seek is completely unrelated to the question of McKinney’s guilt or innocence. Second, student grades are normally protected from disclosure by federal law. Third, the program is operated by the school of journalism and likely qualifies for protection by state journalism shield laws and the First Amendment. Fourth, the professor’s course materials are possibly protected from disclosure by the concept of academic freedom — which the Supreme Court has construed as a value secured by the First Amendment.

[...]

Daly also likens the subpoena to the routine disclosure of information by “detectives.” Police detectives, however, work for the government and assist the prosecution. They are colleagues. Although private detectives do not work for the government, they have an unambiguous financial stake in the outcome of their investigation. The students, by contrast, are private citizens and journalists. The Medill project exists to monitor and improve the criminal justice system — not to service the prosecutor’s office or inmates.

[...]

Illinois prosecutors are blatantly using the strong arm of the state to harass Medill journalism students. The prosecutors’ behavior evinces a deep contempt for the law, which makes the students’ efforts to uncover wrongful convictions even more compelling.

Emptywheel’s bmaz:

The Cook County prosecutors cite no evidence to support a credible belief there is anything nefarious behind the student journalists’ work. The students work, conclusions and supporting materials are all part of their project report. The prosecutors already have access to all of said pertinent material, as well they should. But what they now want are “grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students”. Here is the actual subpoena. This is information that has nothing whatsoever to do with the students work on the project. “Fishing expedition” would be far too kind of a term.

The only visible purpose of the play by the prosecutors here is intimidation and instillation of a deep chill in the work of the Medill Innocence Project.

Retired federal judge H. Lee Sarokin:

I am always offended and annoyed with the labeling of some recent conduct or person with Nazism or Hitler or drawing analogies with the Holocaust and thereby belittling those horrific events in our history with some current less appalling and even minor occurrences. But I truly believe that the attempt of prosecutors to subpoena “the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of their journalism students themselves” at Northwestern University warrants and deserves the Gestapo label.

It is a flagrant attempt to intimidate the Medill Innocence Project and other similar projects which have been so successful in overturning wrongful convictions. The alleged justification is that the prosecutors want to determine “whether students believed that they would receive better grades if witnesses they interviewed provided evidence to exonerate Mr. McKinney.” So I take it that would mean that every time a detective obtained incriminating evidence, his entire background could be examined in order to determine his motives when interviewing a witness; whether he had received or expected a raise or a promotion; and if so whether he needed money; how much his debt was; what he was paying for rent and alimony, etc. In other words, the scope of the investigation would be extended to the motives of the investigator rather than the witness being investigated and interrogated.

Wisconsin lawprof Ann Althouse asks “what information about students and classes should it be able to look at?”  She does not attempt to answer the question.  Her commentators give it a shot.

Tennessee lawprof Glenn Reynolds, aka InstaPundit, snarks, “Hey, it’s the Chicago Way. But the parallel is pretty striking — if you don’t like what they’re reporting, why, then, they’re not really journalists!“

Joseph Ashby argues that something fishy is being ignored in the matter of Rush Limbaugh’s failed bid to buy the Rams.

NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith served as counsel to Attorney General Eric Holder and was a member of Barack Obama’s transition team.

[...]

Despite the fact that Smith’s opposition was based on Limbaugh’s political commentary, the report failed to mention that Smith’s political connections (including those to whom he donated thousands of dollars) have a vested interest in Limbaugh’s discrediting.

[...]

Smith’s gross conflict of interest and apparent political targeting of Obama’s top foe is a huge story. Unfortunately the media appears too blinded by their prejudice of Limbaugh to report on it.

To summarize, we know that a former Obama official and political ally–who was chosen by the NFLPA specifically for his political clout and connections to the highest rungs of power in government–directly attacked Limbaugh for the radio-talker’s political commentary.

Historically politicians have been prone to vindictive and petty behavior, but never in American history has someone had so much power to pummel his political opponents as President Obama. With control over banks, insurance companies, car companies, media (sports media included) and unions (like the NFL players union), Obama tentacles seem to penetrate into nearly every corner of the nation.

Glenn Reynolds, from whom I got the link, doesn’t directly comment but does pass on this from a reader email: “BTW this is a big, big deal, and something Nixon ( or maybe Gene Talmadge or George Wallace in his heyday.) would have done. The difference is the press wouldn’t have played along then. Not because it was wrong. The press could care less about that ( Go look up Walter Duranty), but because Nixon wasn’t a Democrat. It’s all about power with the press…their power. You get in between them and it, heaven help you.”

Now, unlike Glenn, I am not a lawyer (or, as they say on the Internets, “IANAL”).  But I fail to see a problem here.

For the sake of argument, let’s concoct an outlandish conspiracy totally unsupported by facts:

Attorney General Holder personally called Smith and says:  “Hey, Rush Limbaugh has placed a bid to become a minority owner of the Rams.  He’s been a real thorn in our sides.  Do whatever you can to screw him over and paint him as a racist.  I’ll send over some fake quotes that I saw on Wikipedia which will help!’

Smith:  “Yes, sir, boss!   I’ll also call up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.  They’ll help for free, since Limbaugh makes fun of them all the time.”

At this point, the story unfolds as we’ve seen it.

(Again, this is a completely made-up scenario.  It strikes me as far more plausible that Smith and Holder — both African American liberal Democrats — came to dislike Limbaugh independently and needed no coordination whatsoever. Ockham’s Razor and all that.)

Would any laws have been broken?  Would Smith or Holder be in violation of any professional codes?  Would Smith be in any violation of his fidiciary duties as NFLPA head? None that I can see.  Limbaugh’s a controversial figure believed by a not inconsiderable number of people to be racist.   It’s quite likely, then, that some number of NFLPA members were antsy about Limbaugh as an owner.

Further, Smith is an attorney.  Like many in his profession, he’s had numerous clients.  Does having had a client in the past that might have some tangential interest in a matter being worked on for a current client usually require some sort of formal disclosure?   I’m unaware of such a requirement but, again, IANAL.

Glenn Reynolds links some poor sap who is angry at the NFL because Rush Limbaugh has been dumped from the group bidding for the Rams and is going to start a one-man boycott under the banner “Punt the NFL.”

I have cancelled my DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package (including the Supercast). I will not watch ONE MINUTE of NFL games or coverage this season—including the Super Bowl.

I guess I’m going to have to go for it on 4th down.  (Or is “Teflon” punting on 2nd down, given that we’re only 5 games into the season?)

In addition to not being overly outraged at Limbaugh’s fate (see the above link),

• I think boycotts are stupid.

• I’ve been watching football for more than three decades now, predating my ever having heard of Rush Limbaugh.

• Limbaugh didn’t own an NFL franchise when I signed up for Sunday Ticket again this year, so why should I be upset with the status quo ante?

• Sunday Ticket is non-refundable.  The NFL doesn’t care a lick whether you actually watch the games.  This is precisely as effective as burning a Dixie Chicks CD you bought last year.

• While the owners were unlikely to approve the bid with Limbaugh in the ownership group, the NFL technically didn’t ban Rush — the senior members of his bidding coalition did.

• See bullet one.

Glenn Reynolds‘ post noting “The Wizard of Oz turns 70 years old” was the latest of what is becoming for me an all-too-frequent occurrence: reading a completely different context and being momentarily confused.   My immediate reaction was “There’s no way in hell Ozzie Smith is 70.”   (He turns 55 the day after Christmas, making him older than I’d have guessed.)

Of course, it’s the movie “The Wizard of Oz” that dates to 1939.

A well-done Star Trek – Monty Python mashup:

via Glenn Reynolds

WaPo fashion critic Robin Givhan has irked some conservative bloggers by going after the town hall protesters for being a mite casual in their choice of couture.

By and large, the shouters are dressed in a way that underscores their Average Guy — or Gal — bona fides. They are wearing T-shirts, baseball caps, promotional polo shirts and sundresses with bra straps sliding down their arm. They wear fuchsia bandannas and American-flag hankies wrapped around their skulls like sweatbands. A lot of them look as though they could be attending a sporting event and, as it turns out, the congressman is the opposing player they have decided to heckle. If not for the prohibition on signs and banners inside these meetings, one could well expect to see some of these volatile worker bees wearing face paint and foam fingers, albeit the highlighted digit would be one expressing foul displeasure rather than competitive rank or skill level.

[...]

The common man, in his T-shirt and jeans, is shouting passionately at “the suit.” In the videos from these meetings, audio is unnecessary. It’s clear who’s in charge and who is shouting into the wind.

What would happen if all those unhappy townspeople showed up for these meetings in suit jackets, like high school debaters prepared to take on their opponents with facts and nimble intellect rather than histrionics? Would they garner more respect? Would they compel more lawmakers to rethink their positions rather than merely repeat, again and again — in a voice that has the tone of an impatient kindergarten teacher — the same core points?

[...]

Washington’s power brokers have suited up to underscore their authority and the seriousness of the subject matter. And bully for them. But their attire also says: I am the boss of you. All those howling citizens — in their T-shirts and ball caps and baggy shorts — are saying: No, you’re not.

Glenn Reynolds thinks Givhan is “underscoring the press’s identification with the rulers rather than with the ruled” and observes, “There was a time when journalists were badly-dressed working stiffs, rather than upper-middle-class strivers putting on airs.”

Ann Althouse thinks Givhan is obsessed with men’s suits and wonders why she didn’t write a column about the Beer Summit, where men sat awkwardly in suits drinking beer in the sweltering sun.

Pundette says “Givhan reveals so much contempt for the poorly dressed masses that one wonders whether her chief motive in writing this is to run them down.”  P.J. Gladnick chimes in with “dripping with disdain.” And Fausta Wertz thinks Givhan’s missing the real story behind the protests.

Steve Gilbert points out, “The angry mob just can’t win. One day they are mocked for dressing like Brooks Brothers. And the next we have this.”

And Don Surber notes that Democrats wear t-shirts, too!

Now, I’m far from Robin Givhan’s biggest fan.  She first came to my attention in January 2005 for her post on Dick Cheney’s Auschwitz outfit.  She followed up with commentaries on Condi Rice’s commanding clothes, John Bolton’s hair,  John Roberts’s 1950s family, and Hillary Clinton’s cleavage.  Let’s just say the New Yorker hasn’t come clamoring for her services.  (Although, in fairness, she won a Pulitzer for this stuff!)

But doesn’t she have something of a point here?

Sure, our elected representatives work for us. Accordingly, they wear suits when meeting with us as a sign of respect for their bosses and to demonstrate that they’re serious people worthy of our continued trust.

But we each represent ourselves. How we dress sends signals about sort of people we are.

And this isn’t about social class.  Attorneys and executives are going to dress differently on the job than truck drivers and farmers. Most likely, they’re going to own nicer, more expensive clothes, too.  But just as attorneys shouldn’t wear $1500 suits to a picnic, truck drivers shouldn’t wear sweaty overalls when they’re dining out with their families.

People going to a town hall meeting with their Congressman should dress in a way that shows respect for the occasion, their fellow citizens, and themselves. T-shirts and flip flops are great for sitting around watching TV or grilling burgers in the backyard.  But I change into better attire than that for a trip to the supermarket.

It’s true that reporters were, once upon a time, on the same financial and educational level as cops and teachers and firefighters.   Most likely, their clothes were shabbier in those days.  But I bet they all showed up in suits when they went to City Hall.

Tim Lambert linked some prewar Iraq War casualty predictions collected by John Hawkins in early 2003:

If we go into Iraq, how many casualties do you expect to see (on the side of the US and our allies)

John Hawkins: “Probably 300 or less”
Charles Johnson:“Very few”
Henry Hanks: “Less than 200″
Laurence Simon: “A Few hundred”
Rachael Lucas: “Less than three thousand”
Scott Ott: “Dozens”
Glenn Reynolds: “Fewer than 100″
Tim Blair: “Below 50″
Ken Layne: “a few hundred”
Steven Den Beste: “50-150″

Fester and Hilzoy have passed these on as well.  Good fun is had by all.

Having begun blogging only at the end of January 2003, I wasn’t surveyed.  I did, however, predict on February 24 that “victory in Iraq will be swift and relatively bloodless.”  I don’t recall whether I actually blogged my casualty predictions but my internal working estimate was the same as Hawkins’ – 300 or fewer American troops killed.  I figured, basically, that it would be “Desert Storm times two.”

We’re now at something like 4326 American troops dead.

Then again, I wasn’t counting on a multi-year occupation during which we fought against multiple insurgent groups while trying to democratize Iraq.  I presumed, as did Don Rumsfeld and others, that we would topple Saddam Hussein’s government, install an interim government, and elect a permanent government within some short period.

That’s the war I supported and still wish that’s what we’d done.

________________________________________

Digressions:

1. The more interesting finding in Hawkins’ poll is this:

Will a human baby be cloned in 2003?

Yes: John Hawkins, Charles Johnson, Henry Hanks, Laurence Simon, Rachael Lucas, Scott Ott
No: Glenn Reynolds, Tim Blair, Ken Layne
N/A: Steven Den Beste

So far as I’m aware, none was cloned in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, or the first half of 2009.  It’s remarkable how excited people were at this prospect.

2.  OTB was a decidedly different blog in the early days.  Few of my posts in February 2003, my first real month of blogging, were as long as the Digressions section of this post.

Following a link from Glenn Reynolds to a Salon piece by Frances Kissling on whether “Regina Benjamin is too fat to be surgeon general,” I was instead struck by a closing that took a wild tangent:

Watching the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, I’ve found myself thinking about our president’s nominees and how many of them share elements of his background: People who have had hard lives, difficult childhoods and who have achieved amazing things. Some are middle-class like him, but many are working-poor. The idea of bringing into public life those whose experience enhances empathy rather than disdain for ordinary people is a refreshing change.

Now, it’s not entirely clear to me that Obama had a particularly difficult childhood but he did achieve amazing things.  Sotomayor certainly had a difficult childhood and likewise has had tremendous accomplishments.  Both are fine examples of what David Brooks describes as “the story of people in a meritocracy that gets more purified and competitive by the year, with the time demands growing more and more insistent.”

Whether Obama’s team is more filled than others in recent years with those who climbed to the top without a head start, I couldn’t say.  Certainly, there are examples of these types in every administration.

But Kissling’s sense of economic class is wildly distorted.

If Barack Obama was “middle class” at the time he was elected president, it’s only because we define that term so broadly.  He reported $4.2 million in household income for 2007, up from a mere $1 million in 2006.  Suffice it to say, the Obamas pay more in taxes than even most upper middle class people gross.

And, who, exactly has Obama appointed to any significant cabinet office who qualifies as “working poor”?  I don’t know what Dr. Benjamin earned last year but presume it was modest by medical doctor standards given the benevolent nature of her practice.  But, surely, she’s not impoverished.   Indeed, she recently won a $500,000 “Genius Award” from the MacArthur Foundation.

Did any members of Obama’s cabinet or subcabinet or other high-level appointees earn under $20,000 last year?  Under $50,000?  Under $100,000?  I’d be quite surprised.

(As to the opening question re: Benjamin’s weight, my initial reaction upon seeing her was that nominating an obviously obese woman as the country’s chief medical officer was a bad idea, given that obesity is perhaps the leading preventable cause of illness in this country.  Upon learning more about her, though, I believe her life story and professional achievements are extraordinary enough to compensate.)

Glenn Reynolds points to a story by Doug Winship about Washington State’s liquor stores running out of, um, liquor just in time for the July 4th weekend during which all good Americans celebrate their country’s independence by getting hammered. Naturally, all liquor stores in Washington State are run by the government of the state of Washington who 1) screwed up royally and 2) don’t really care because, after all, they don’t have a lot of competition.

While I’ve seldom had difficulty getting the beverages needed to restock our bar at Virginia’s ABC stores, having a state-run monopoly does have its quirks.  For example, I went in the other day to procure some Angostura bitters.  You know the brand that’s synonymous with bitters and that’s a key ingredient in many classic cocktails.  It seems that, for reasons unknown to the manager of my local ABC store, the Commonwealth has decided not to stock Angostura bitters but rather Peychaud’s.  Both are esteemed brands that have been around nearly two hundred years but Peychaud’s is much less, er, bitter than Angostura.  True connoisseurs of such things, of which I am decidedly not one, tend to keep a supply of both on hand as the properties of each go better with different cocktails.

Certainly, if this were the worst thing the Commonwealth’s government were doing, I’d be quite pleased.  But there’s no obvious reason why private individuals shouldn’t be able to open liquor stores and supply a wider variety of products.

Dr. Helen Smith (aka Mrs. Glenn Reynolds and The InstaWife) asks, in re Bernie Madoff’s 150 year sentence, “Why is it that someone who set up a Ponzi scheme gets more jail time than the majority of murderers?”

Glenn Reynolds, Esq. (aka, the InstaPundit) answers, “I think it’s because he made powerful people look stupid.”

There’s something to that.  But “the majority of murderers” kill only one person.  Madoff bilked thousands of people out of billions of dollars.  At some point, volume makes up for severity.