Orwell: "Comes Invariably From People Who Are Not Fighting"

"All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting." -- George Orwell

Herman Goering: "It works the same way in any country"

We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary
to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy.

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

First Death Panels, Now This

I found this on World News Daily, but the link is not working, so I posted it here so people can see the *real* plan.

Obama health care bill to offer curbside recycling

In a closed-door town hall restricted to liberal Democratic partisan groups in San Francisco, Obama unveiled a proposal to further reduce the impact of catastrophic illness on American families.

"Studies show that Americans spend upwards of $10,000 for an average funeral. Costs are even higher if the family selects a non-cardboard casket option. This burden is simply unbearable for anyone but the wealthiest among us. Working families simply cannot afford the funerary burden brought about by the death panels, even if they save money in the long run by retiring their elderly early. We have to bring some of the death panel cost savings forward."

"With our plan, family members will be able put their dear departed in specially marked containers on the curbside for next-morning pickup, " adding, "After the grieving process is complete, of course."

The estimated 10,000+ audience at the San Francisco Convention Center seemed to be generally pleased. San Francisco after all has had an aggressive recycling program for several years, as California has imposed a requirement on municipalities to recycle at least 50% of their area's waste.

"These Death Panels are going to save us a lot of money, but in the short term, we'll have a lot of bodies stacking up
without an economical way to handle the load. This plan turns a problem into a solution by taking something seen only as a burden and turning it into rich, loamy compost." "Besides", he continued, "filling valuable land with dead people rather than empty commercial buildings hampers our ability to make optimal use of scarce real estate."
"Sometimes, complex problems really do have simple solutions!", he beamed.

San Francisco mayor Gary Newsom was generally supportive. "This will only help us meet the state's requirement for recycling of more than 50% of our current waste stream. Keeping departed family members out of landfills will be a big help in us continuing to meet that goal."

Secretary of Health Kathleen Sibelius is scheduled to deliver a presentation on the details of the proposal,
including pilot locations, proper labeling of remains for pickup and scheduled pickup days.

She is also expected to cover the delivery of memorials. Early information packets released to the media by Sibelius's office included photographs of the memorials. Our sources tell us that the memorials will be made partially of recycled aluminum as worldwide copper prices are forecast to remain prohibitive for the next several quarters.

Image of funerary urn prototype released today by Sibelius's' office

Insiders admit that prototypes of the memorials are suffering from early production problems due to the recycled content, but they see no reason that all the problems couldn't be ironed out by the time the program is finally rolled out.

"We're working closely with our Chinese manufacturers", said one source who wished to remain anonymous.

The Centainty of One's Convictions

... is often inversely proportional to one's understanding of the problem.

How We Got Here: Management Nation

We have become a nation of managers.

Perhaps it was the national fascination with "Being one's own boss". Whatever the reason that the nation accepted it, the truth remains that we have internalized the ideas being peddled by "The Rich", that is:

- American's don't want to work
- America doesn't have the talented X to do the job
- Unemployed Americans simply need to "retrain" themselves in the Next New (as of yet unspecified) Thing.

What has really happened is that the country's collective conscience has declared anything relating to labor as "icky" and to be dispensed with in the cheapest, most expeditious manner possible.

Follow for a moment the distribution of compensation today. It falls along a very bright line: people who "manage" things get compensated well (even in failure: see Wall St.), people who *do* things get paid relatively pitifully. Think plumber, teacher, fire fighter, engineer, laborer.

Any "doer" job that could be outsourced was. "It's cheaper in China" was the mantra. Any "doer" job that wasn't outsourced was replaced by flooding the labor market through immigration. Everyone was fine with immigrants (both legal and not) cutting grass and washing cars. When America ran out of "talented X", immigrants were called in to replace engineers, IT, customer service, you name it. Even doctors and nurses are feeling downward income pressure coupled with increasing education costs. (So far only lawyers have so far evaded this downward income pressure.) It is the commoditization of labor.

But there is a a downside. There simply aren't 300 million projects in America that need managing. Everyone that "saved money" watching Wal-Mart export their job slowly but surely watched Wal-Mart become their only shopping option as income, savings and yes, eventually the "Home ATM" dwindled.

Now the world wonders how America is going to pick itself up and once again become the world's favorite consumer. What America has yet to realize is that in order to consume (nay, to eat) one has to have an income.

The Rich has long contended that The Rich are responsible for the jobs in this country. They repeatedly demand that laws not impinge The Rich's ability to "create jobs". Curiously, The Rich are nowhere to be seen as we wait for a knight in shining armor to save us.

What *is* happening is the states and the country as a whole is looking at extreme tax income shortfalls as the bulk of the country go unemployed. When the bulk of the country's tax base loses jobs, the onus of tax payment has to go somewhere. People without a roof over their head are hard to coerce into tax payments. This leaves The Rich facing the outstretched hand of Uncle Sam without anyone else to shift that burden to.

How We Got Here: Lying Central Bank Head

How We Got Where We Are

"Should we fault Chairman Bernanke for 'Green shoots'? Isn't it appropriate for a central bank to provide a rhetorial confidence? Aren't central bankers supposed to say things like 'green shoots'?"

Have we sunk so low that this is considered a valid question? Roughly re-worded, this question is, "Shouldn't the central banker cheerlead the economy and try to convince people that it is better than it is [in the hopes that this will make the economy better]?"

I can almost stomach this concept when applied to CEOs. Ok, so part of their job is as Marketeer in Chief. But our government officials? Our head of the Central Bank?

What happens when the cheerleading is revealed to be false? Where is his integrity and authority then?

Now we know.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/07/shiller-roubini-discuss-anemic-economic-recovery/

What Journalism Has Become

Why Journalism is Dying, Part 2x10^74

Irish student hoaxes world's media with florid but phony quote from dead French composer


DUBLIN (AP) -- When Dublin university student Shane Fitzgerald posted a poetic but phony quote on Wikipedia, he was testing how our globalized, increasingly Internet-dependent media was upholding accuracy and accountability in an age of instant news.

His report card: Wikipedia passed. Journalism flunked.

The sociology major's obituary-friendly quote -- which he added to the Wikipedia page of Maurice Jarre hours after the French composer's death March 28 -- flew straight on to dozens of U.S. blogs and newspaper Web sites in Britain, Australia and India. They used the fabricated material, Fitzgerald said, even though administrators at the free online encyclopedia twice caught the quote's lack of attribution and removed it.

A full month went by and nobody noticed the editorial fraud. So Fitzgerald told several media outlets they'd swallowed his baloney whole.

"I was really shocked at the results from the experiment," Fitzgerald, 22, said Monday in an interview a week after one newspaper at fault, The Guardian of Britain, became the first to admit its obituarist lifted material straight from Wikipedia.

"I am 100 percent convinced that if I hadn't come forward, that quote would have gone down in history as something Maurice Jarre said, instead of something I made up," he said. "It would have become another example where, once anything is printed enough times in the media without challenge, it becomes fact."

So far, The Guardian is the only publication to make a public mea culpa, while others have eliminated or amended their online obituaries without any reference to the original version -- or in a few cases, still are citing Fitzgerald's florid prose weeks after he pointed out its true origin.

"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack," Fitzgerald's fake Jarre quote read. "Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear."

Fitzgerald said one of his University College Dublin classes was exploring how quickly information was transmitted around the globe. His private concern was that, under pressure to produce news instantly, media outlets were increasingly relying on Internet sources -- none more ubiquitous than the publicly edited Wikipedia.

When he saw British 24-hour news channels reporting the death of the triple Oscar-winning composer, Fitzgerald sensed what he called "a golden opportunity" for an experiment on media use of Wikipedia.

He said it took him less than 15 minutes to fabricate and place a quote calculated to appeal to obituary writers without distorting Jarre's actual life experiences. He noted that the Wikipedia listing on Jarre did not have any other strong quotes.

If anything, Fitzgerald said, he expected newspapers to avoid his quote because it had no link to a source -- and even might trigger alarms as "too good to be true." But many blogs and several newspapers used the quotes at the start or finish of their obituaries.

He said the Guardian was the only publication to respond to him in detail and with remorse at its own editorial failing. Others, he said, treated him as a vandal who was solely to blame for their cut-and-paste content.

"The moral of this story is not that journalists should avoid Wikipedia, but that they shouldn't use information they find there if it can't be traced back to a reliable primary source," said the readers' editor at the Guardian, Siobhain Butterworth, in the May 4 column that revealed Fitzgerald as the quote author.

"It's worrying that the misinformation only came to light because the perpetrator of the deception emailed publishers to let them know what he'd done, and it's regrettable that he took nearly a month to do so," she wrote.

Fitzgerald said he had waited in part to test whether news organizations or the public would smoke out the quote's lack of provenance. He said he was troubled that none did.

And he warned that a truly malicious hoaxer could have evaded Wikipedia's own informal policing by getting a newspaper to pick up a false piece of information -- as happened when his quote made its first of three appearances -- and then use those newspaper reports as a credible footnote for the bogus quote.

"I didn't want to be devious," he said. "I just wanted to show how the 24-hour, minute-by-minute media were now taking material straight from Wikipedia because of the deadline pressure they're under."

Best AIG Bonus Analogy Yet

"Tipping your rapist."

I can't take credit for this one, I'm just repeating it.

English Empire: Result of Bad Food?

Paul writes:

There are advantages to not having a food culture. I have always claimed that the reason England conquered half of the world is that Englishmen were seeking a decent meal. The English sailor would sit down to a meal of overcooked and greasy meat and vegetables and think, I need to go conquer a country that knows how to prepare a decent meal.

The Italians, on the other hand, dined very handsomely and stayed at home.

Iron Chef, Family Edition

We've all seen that cheesy Japanese TV show (and it's equally cheesy American spinoff) where top chefs compete to whip up amazing dishes in an hour.

That's all fine and good, but as a practical matter, Iron Chef is as valuable to a parent as trying to learn tire rotation tips by watching NASCAR pitstops.

So I propose a new spinoff: Iron Chef Family.

Same basic format, with the array of Iron Chefs and a weekly guest challenger, but from there the rules would be a bit different.

Instead of the mystery ingredient being rare Peruvian sea cucumber, eye of newt or whatnot, ICF would have everyday items like 'hamburger meat', 'broccoli' or 'whatever's on sale that day at Safeway'.

Then would come the *real* challenge: preparing in an hour a meal using everyday ingredients that one could serve to a typical family. No soux chefs, blast chillers, 5 megawatt electric skillets or 'mixologists'. Just a stove, knives, a sink, maybe on special occasions (if they've been good) a blender and a microwave. Oh, and did I mention that the chef has to also get the dishes washed and put away within the hour?

Then would come the judging. Two families of four. Mom, dad and the 2.2 kids would judge the meals. Scoring would be on taste, nutrition, balance (did the chef put out an entree, a starch AND a vegtable?) and most importantly: did the kids eat it?

Iron Chef is great for the fancy restaurant crowd with their huge fully-staffed kitchens. But you want to impress me? Make a great meal that everyone will eat in an hour. Hell, if it tastes good enough, I'll throw in an extra 30 minutes to let him square away the leftovers.

Heck, just watching the Chairman scream "Hamburger Helper!" while revealing the secret ingredient might make the entire show worthwhile.

The Fall of Empire

Talk about reporting your own death:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/12/business/20090312-papers-graphic.html


I find this another interesting example of the *huge* social changes that the internet has brought. Digital cameras have devastated (for now, at least) professional photography, all the way from High Fashion and Advertising to the mall photo booth. Job outsourcing has within a few years devastated domestic employment as any "information job" can be run from "anywhere". Finance and Wall St. have exploded with the ability to suck money from anyone with cash and an internet connection. Online sales have put major pressures on "Brick and Mortar" retailers. Medical, political, the list goes on and on.

We all remember the power of William Randolf Hearst. Strange how the seemingly unrelated invention of "The Internet" has brought these huge and powerful institutions to their knees. They can't even sell the newspapers now... the entire business or even the paper its printed on. Remarkable.

P.S. I predict TV will be the next media victim. In the next 10-15 years, we'll see broadcast TV and many "cable" TV shows go the way of the payphone. (Cue post on the remarkable social re-working brought about by the mobile phone!)

So... Do We Have Free Healthcare Now or What?

For decades Republicans have warned that free healthcare for all would lead to economic collapse, the onset of high taxes, unemployment, frozen equity markets, just to name a few.


So.... we got all that. Where's my free healthcare? I'm still getting bills.

We're totally in the crapper. Did we lose a war or what?

Oh, right. We did. We lost to ourselves.

Saving the Rich

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 2:00 PM, XX wrote:
There needs to be a examination of the cost of government compared to the output of it's citizens. When Gov't expenses go to high, taxes go up, workers are likely to balk at improving their income.

It will cease to be an issue, because we are approaching 50% of our voters not paying any federal tax. That means they will decide to increase taxes on those who do pay. Notice how "the wealthy" are now paid less and less. Now it's about $250K. In a previous Democratic administration, a Millionaire was someone that earned a million dollars in their life time.

Ah, another Red Herring. "If you raise taxes too high, people will just refuse to work."

This reflects an *aggregious* mis-understanding of the tax code.


Let's say, for example that you make $100. Let's say that the tax rate is 40% up to and including $100, and 50% for $101 and up.

So, when you make $102, what is your tax?

A) $102 * 0.5 = $51
B) ($100 * 0.4) + ( $2 * 0.5 ) = $40 + $1 = $41


We have a *staged* tax system. The answer is 'B'.



I've not heard of a single extremely-rich person (we used to call them "millionaires") that's in it for the money. I doubt there's a single one that says, "You know, I've made enough money, why don't I stop for a while?" or "You know, if I make over X, it'll just send me into the next tax bracket. No thanks."

The only people we hear talking about this is A) Republican talking heads B) People who *want* to be millionaires, but don't even understand the basics of finance enough to become rich, let alone millionaires.

Show me one instance in which Warren Buffet said, "No more money for me! I don't want to be in the next tax bracket."

Rich people will turn all sorts of tricks to avoid paying taxes. They may *defer* income into "down" years or whatnot, but I'd like to see one case of a truly "rich" person refusing the opportunity to make money because it would kick them into the next income tax bracket.

I never cease to get amusement out of middle-class Republicans that will bend over backwards to screw themselves in order to save "the rich" money.


A much better avenue of attack would be chasing down that 50% that doesn't pay taxes.


Lemme propose a test:

Let's say someone approaches you on the street and says, "If you give me a nickel, I'll give you $250k, but you must give 75% of it to a random passer-by."

Do you accept or no?



A final point. I *used* to be in the $250,000 bracket. I'll *gladly* pay whatever tax Obama wants rather than continue to "save tax money" under the W administration. I'm tired of this "American's don't want to work (because taxes are too high)" bullshit.

My thoughts exactly:

The Cunning Realist

That Would Have Worked Out Well

Anyone seen any recent calls for Social Security private accounts?

The stock market crash has shown how catastrophic private accounts would have been, and who would have really benefited from them. Would the government have allowed the Bear Stearns and Lehman outcomes had the Social Security system been chock full of those stocks? Remember, both were former blue chips, the sort of companies that proponents of private accounts insisted any new system would be limited to. The same for Citi, AIG, Fannie Mae, and others. How much pressure would the Fed and Treasury have felt -- and what more would have been done -- to keep those afloat and/or out of penny stock land?

That pressure would have been exerted by millions of unpaid but highly effective lobbyists: people emailing and calling Washington, demanding that their Social Security money -- and so the stocks, the companies, and the executives -- be saved. Corporate bondholders would have loved it, since the Social Security system effectively would have become a massive safety buffer. Would "nationalization" even be considered if it meant destroying part of Social Security?

Private accounts are dead now, so it's a bit of a moot point. But I wonder how many of those who both supported them and genuinely object to the prevailing bailout ethos ever thought this through.

Krugman: Nonrival and Nonexcludable

Krugman at NY Times

What should government do? A Jindal meditation

What is the appropriate role of government?

Traditionally, the division between conservatives and liberals has been over the role and size of the welfare state: liberals think that the government should play a large role in sanding off the market economy’s rough edges, conservatives believe that time and chance happen to us all, and that’s that.

But both sides, I thought, agreed that the government should provide public goods — goods that are nonrival (they benefit everyone) and nonexcludable (there’s no way to restrict the benefits to people who pay.) The classic examples are things like lighthouses and national defense, but there are many others. For example, knowing when a volcano is likely to erupt can save many lives; but there’s no private incentive to spend money on monitoring, since even people who didn’t contribute to maintaining the monitoring system can still benefit from the warning. So that’s the sort of activity that should be undertaken by government.

So what did Bobby Jindal choose to ridicule in this response to Obama last night? Volcano monitoring, of course.

And leaving aside the chutzpah of casting the failure of his own party’s governance as proof that government can’t work, does he really think that the response to natural disasters like Katrina is best undertaken by uncoordinated private action? Hey, why bother having an army? Let’s just rely on self-defense by armed citizens.

The intellectual incoherence is stunning. Basically, the political philosophy of the GOP right now seems to consist of snickering at stuff that they think sounds funny. The party of ideas has become the party of Beavis and Butthead.

Republicans Keep Forgetting Who Created This Mess

Andrew Sullivan

Which party added over $32 trillion to future unfunded liabilities, turned a surplus into a trillion dollar deficit, and endorsed indefinite nation-building at a simply staggering cost in two of the most intractably divided non-countries in the world? Which party asserted "near-dictatorial" powers for the executive, the priority of the will of the leader over the rule of law, and a mantra, in the words of the most "conservative" vice-president in memory, that "deficits don't matter." Which party described prohibitions against torture "quaint" and presided over the most reckless, and irresponsible period in American finance since the 1920s?

Republicans Keep Forgetting Who Created This Mess

Andrew Sullivan

Which party added over $32 trillion to future unfunded liabilities, turned a surplus into a trillion dollar deficit, and endorsed indefinite nation-building at a simply staggering cost in two of the most intractably divided non-countries in the world? Which party asserted "near-dictatorial" powers for the executive, the priority of the will of the leader over the rule of law, and a mantra, in the words of the most "conservative" vice-president in memory, that "deficits don't matter." Which party described prohibitions against torture "quaint" and presided over the most reckless, and irresponsible period in American finance since the 1920s?

Of Drug Dealers and Liars

Both drug dealers and Liars put themselves in the most peril when they consume their own product.

Economic Depression - Republicans Blame Moon

My racquetball coach (an ex Marine) used to "award" us penalties. When I asked why he was "awarding" me penalties, he replied, "You earned them."


I'm agnostic. I don't think Republicans are any better or worse than the Democrats. They're all politicians. A necessary evil.

BUT

The current batch of Republicans have had almost totally unopposed rule of this land for 6, arguably 8 years.

They fucked it up. Not only that, but they fucked it up *BIG* time.

The current batch of republicans and their sycophants, tin-hats and fan boys need to go sit in the corner and STFU.

They aired their ideas. They had 6 years to implement them. We're reaping what they sowed.

Everybody but the current batch of Republicans, their mouthpieces and their fan-boys know it. For those who don't realize who's responsible for the mess Republicans made, please continue to blame it on the moon or whomever else was there at the time... just do it quietly. Trust me, nobody wants to hear *why* Republicans failed. Nobody cares who they want to blame. Nobody.

We're living the results of the promised Republican economy. Path to hell being paved, whatever.

Republicans like military references. Here's one: it happened on the Republican watch. Man up, stop blaming others for Republican mistakes and please, STFU.

Sit tight, let the next group of idiots try their hands at it. Then you can pick up your cloak of virtue and start swinging the sword of righteousnous at whoever will listen. Until then, grow up, find some humility (you now, the "family values" kind) and sit in the corner quietly.

If there are any more Republican "ideas" , please don't include me on the distribution. I've still suffering the last batch of them.

What Reagan Actually Said About Government

SJ Mercury News

Opinion: Ronald Reagan wouldn't recognize these conservatives

By Mickey Edwards
Posted: 01/27/2009 07:03:38 PM PST

In my mind's eye, I can see President Ronald Reagan perched on a cloud and watching all the goings-on down here in his old earthly home.

Rolling his eyes and whacking his forehead over the absurdities he sees, he's watching his old political party twist itself into complex knots, punctuated by pauses to invoke "the Gipper's" name.

It's been said that God would be amazed by what his followers ascribe to him; believe me, Reagan would be similarly amazed by what fervent admirers cite in their desire to be seen as true-blue Reaganites.

On the premise that simple is best, many Republicans have reduced their operating philosophy to two essentials: First, government is bad (it's "the problem"); second, big government is the worst and small government is better (although because government itself is bad, it might be assumed that small government is only marginally preferable).

Government is "... us

This is all errant nonsense. It is wrong in every conceivable way and violative of the Constitution, American exceptionalism, freedom, conservatism, Reaganism and common sense. In America, government is "... us.

What would Reagan think of this? Wasn't it he who warned that government is the problem?

Well, permit me. I directed the joint House-Senate policy advisory committees for the Reagan presidential campaign. I was part of his congressional steering committee. I sat with him in his hotel
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room in Manchester, N.H., the night he won that state's all-important primary. I knew him before he was governor of California and before I was a member of Congress.

Let me introduce you to Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, who spent 16 years in government, actually said this: "In the present crisis," referring to the high taxes and high levels of federal spending that had marked the Democratic administration of President Jimmy Carter, "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Reagan then went on to say: "Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work."

Government, he said, "must provide opportunity."

He was not rejecting government, he was calling — as President Barack Obama did at his inauguration — for better management of government, for wiser decisions.

This is the difference between ideological advocacy and holding public office: Having accepted partial responsibility for the nation's well-being, one assumes an obligation that goes beyond bumper-sticker slogans. Certitude is the enemy of wisdom and, in office, it is wisdom, not certitude, that is required.

How, for example, should conservatives react to stimulus and bailout proposals in the face of an economic meltdown? The wall between government and the private sector is an essential feature of our democracy. At the same time, if there is a dominant identifier of conservatism — political, social, psychological — it is prudence.

If proposals seem unworkable or unwise — if they do not contain provisions for taxpayers to recoup their investments; if they do not allow for taxpayers, as de-facto shareholders, to insist on sound management practices; if they would allow government officials to make production and pricing decisions — conservatives have a responsibility to resist.

But they also have an obligation to propose alternative solutions. It is government's job — Reagan again — to provide opportunity and foster productivity. With the nation in financial collapse, nothing is more imprudent, and more antithetical to true conservatism, than to do nothing.

The Republican Party that is in such disrepute today is not the party of Reagan. It is the party of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, President George W. Bush and Karl Rove. It is not a conservative party; it is a party built on the blind and narrow pursuit of power.

Not too long ago, conservatives were thought of as the locus of creative thought. Conservative think tanks (full disclosure: I was one of the three founding trustees of the Heritage Foundation) were thought to be cutting-edge, offering conservative solutions to national problems.

Rejection of ideas

By the 2008 elections, the very idea of ideas had been rejected. One who listened to Barry Goldwater's speeches in the mid-1960s, or to Reagan's in the 1980s, might have been struck by their philosophical tone, their proposed (even if hotly contested) reformulation of the proper relationship between state and citizen.

Last year's presidential campaign, on the other hand, saw the emergence of a Republican Party that was anti-intellectual, nativist, populist (in populism's worst sense) and prepared to send Joe the Plumber to Washington to manage the nation's public affairs.

Over the past several years, conservatives have turned themselves inside out: They have come to worship small government and have turned their backs on limited government. They have turned to a politics of exclusion, division and nastiness. Today, they wonder what went wrong, why Americans have turned on them, why they lose, or barely win, even in places such as Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina.

And, watching, I suspect Reagan is smacking himself on the forehead, rolling his eyes and wondering who in the world these clowns are who want so desperately to wrap themselves in his cloak.


Mickey Edwards, a former congressman from Oklahoma, is a lecturer at Princeton University"s Woodrow Wilson School and author of "Reclaiming Conservatism." He wrote this article for the Los Angeles Times.