Obama's Lurch To The Right - Will Voters Buy?

Illinois presents Republicans with an opportunity. Can they measure up to the challenge? (See 1 below.)
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Is Michelle Rhee an answer to education's crying needs? Unions and black voters in DC did not think so because she was making progress her way, ie for the children's benefit. (See 2 below.)
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Sarah Palin has been so damaged by her detractors, who fear and cannot relate to her earthiness, that it has had a spill over effect upon the Republican Establishment which, itself, is nothing more than 'Progressive Light.'

Palin is Biden's equal any day. Biden is nothing but a political lap dog who, when given his leash, either has proven wrong in his judgement or goofs in his execution. Biden is a buffoon, yet the media and news folk pet him and ignore his lack of house training because he is theirs. (See 3 below.)
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Kim Strassel writes about Obama's leap to the right.

It might be before Obama's self-transformation is over, Republicans could nominate him as their presidential candidate. If Obama continues to make these right turn lurches progressives will not recognize him but I would not make a heavy bet. Political chameleons have a way of bending with the wind and this guy is not a genuine anything but only a slick intellectual fraud. (See 4 below.)

Noonan writes about Obama's State of The Union Speech as the basis for maintaining his 'change' momentum! (See 4a below.)

Meanwhile, Paul Rubin, a friend of long standing, writes why it is unlikely Obama, even if he shifts to the right, will be able to get various agencies to come along in reducing regulatory drag.

Professional bureaucrats do not have that kind of mind set. They cannot fathom losing control.

Ironically they are so overburdened by red tape rules they actually hurt their own mission because they generally prove to be 'after the fact' regulators who cannot see the forest for the trees.

If you want some good humor click on PJTV.Com and see: "Politizoid: Great Moments In Liberal History

From the light bulb to the automobile, liberals are reinventing everyday products. See how liberals are improving your life in this PolitiZoid short." and "Trifecta: What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and the Founding Fathers?

HBO's Bill Maher uses the term teabagger liberally. He laughs about the U.S. Constitution and thinks that the Founding Fathers were a bunch of elitists. Ott, Whittle and Green analyze Maher's comments, and the Founding Fathers, on this episode of Trifecta."(See 4b below.)
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This is about oil and is very slick! (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)The GOP's Great (Lakes) Opportunity
By Bruce Walker

Democrats run Obama's home state of Illinois. That state's response to the profoundly serious economic problems facing so many states has been a massive increase in taxes. Republicans in neighboring states have an opportunity to showcase at the state level how their party would handle our nation's economic crisis. The landslide last November gave Republicans complete control of five state governments in the Great Lakes Region: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Republicans in those states not only control the governorships and both houses of the state legislatures, but the state legislative majorities are big, and Republicans won many secondary statewide elective offices as well. Now, more than any time in a generation, Republicans can actually implement their agenda, limited only by their political courage.


What should these governors and legislatures do? They should act in concert, not in competition, and create an oasis of business-friendly government in a region which desperately needs a true recovery. One first and vital step, as I have written before, is for all these five states to enact Right to Work laws. The cost of labor drops at once when forced union membership is prohibited. Business also has a great deal more flexibility in employing its workforce without union contracts and labor bureaucrats. When labor is cheap, business is more likely to hire people.


Then these states should consider and, if possible, enact a general reduction across the board for all taxes which affect businesses. The cuts need not be extreme, but these should be for every tax rate. Business should know that for every activity in which costs had been calculated before, that cost will now be less because of lower tax rates. If the five Republican states act in unison, then the regional climate will change. State governments look at laws which end at the borders of the state, but business looks at markets and resources which embrace a particular market area. A tax cut in Michigan, for example, might encourage a business to open in Wisconsin or Ohio.


Another helpful goal would be to review and to repeal all laws which hinder enterprise without sound reason. Then adopt something analogous to a uniform code for businesses. Most businessmen are familiar with the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), which deals with many business situations. It works very well and provides predictable and sensible laws for many commercial transactions. Why not undertake a similar law, but much broader in application, for all of these five states? The UCC is short, simple and sensible. A businessman can keep a copy in his desk, even in his vest. Expanding the scope of clear, concise and fair uniform laws to these five states would not just encourage big corporations to invest in the region, but it would also greatly simplify the management of small businesses. Each of the five states could pass this new code and make it effective the same day. The states could even provide a copy to anyone who wanted to have it.


The regulation of business, also, could be dramatically curtailed. All licenses, permits, and the like should be reviewed to see if they are truly needed or if they are instead things created to help a special business interest. Rules and regulations on business should be reviewed the same way. Economic freedom should be the explicit and desired objective and only what is indispensable to the public's safety or health should be retained. Environmental regulations should be cut back to the minimum necessary to comply with federal laws and regulations.


In the five Republican states from Wisconsin to Pennsylvania, the active promotion of business enterprise through uniformly lower taxes, uniform and rational legal structures, deregulation of everything that can be ended, and a huge "free labor" market would not just promote prosperity in a single state, but the combination of these five states acting in concert would produce synergism. The pressure for neighboring states like Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, and Iowa to follow suit would be irresistible. The comparison of economic growth under Republicans and economic collapse under Democrats would be a salient fact going into 2012. The model for creating prosperity, which has never been a true mystery, would be illustrated perfectly.


Would it really work? Mitch Daniels in Indiana, using only his medium sized state as a magnet, has produced more sound government and lower unemployment. Multiply Indiana into a nearly contiguous region seven times as large, and the chance of a real wave of growth, in those areas with profoundly pro-business Republicans, could be a tsunami. Republicans pining about their chances against Obama in 2012 are thinking about jousts by the Potomac. Demonstrated policy victory can come much sooner in state governments, and if these are next to Obama's Illinois, so much the better. If done right, that contrast will be the issue in 2012 -- and it is an issue in which Republicans win.


Bruce Walker is the author of a new book: Poor Lenin's Almanac: Perverse Leftists Proverbs for Modern Life
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2)Is Michelle Rhee Good for Students?
By M. Catharine Evans and Ann Kane

Recently appearing with Bill Gates on the Oprah show, Michelle Rhee, former DC Public Schools Chancellor, has been traveling the PR circuit to promote her new program StudentsFirst.org. She has waged war against status quo public education and teachers' unions, and declares public education in this country has been "a bureaucracy about adults. We absolutely must look at education through a new prism. We must put students first."

Her words sound good, but after looking into her three year teaching stint as a Teach for America recruit at Harlem Park Elementary in Baltimore, her claim that "students performing far below grade level quickly achieve at the highest levels -- if they're exposed to a quality programs," left us wondering how well she did there. One chronicler of Rhee's term as a "miracle worker" in Baltimore wrote this:


"Rhee's résumé asserts that the students made a dramatic gain: ‘Over a two-year period, moved students scoring on average at the 13th percentile on national standardized tests to 90 percent of students scoring at the 90th percentile or higher.'"


But after investigating her assertion, he concluded this: "There is no real evidence -- none at all -- that Rhee's miracle ever occurred."


Harlem Park closed shortly after Rhee left to attend Harvard's Kennedy School, and the Baltimore school apparently left no records for anyone to be able to verify Rhee's inflated claims.


After Harvard, Rhee continued to work in education by founding her own non-profit called the New Teachers Project. In 2007, she was asked by Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty to take over the DC school system. After three tumultuous years in DC, Rhee had single-handedly closed 43 schools, and fired 266 teachers and 43 principals (including one who presided over her own daughter's elementary school).


On the heels of Fenty's 2010 election defeat, which many in Washington believe was due to Rhee's authoritarian "my way or the highway" style, Rhee delivered a message to her adversaries after the premiere of the well-hyped education reform documentary Waiting for Superman:


The biggest tragedy that could come from [the] election results is if the lesson that people take from this is that we should pull back...We cannot retreat now. If anything, what the reform community needs to take out of yesterday's election is: Now is the time to lean forward, be more aggressive, and be more adamant about what we're doing.


By her own admission Rhee will not limit her new "aggressive" mission to any one school district. Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, an outspoken foe of teacher tenure, wooed her for his superintendent to no avail. She currently is working with Florida Governor Scott's transition team to transform that system in alignment with StudentsFirst.


The former chancellor has been able to attract both Republicans and Democrats; in true progressive fashion she cross-breeds two different animals, the private and public sector, using the terminology of each.


In an interview with Charlie Rose in 2008, a year after Rhee assumed her DC chancellorship, she stated that test scores were the "most consistent" determinants of how well a child is performing and should be give the "greatest weight."


Parroting the conservative critics of a school system dumbed-down by a warm and fuzzy approach, Rhee told Rose that she would de-emphasize the "softer things" and "hold everyone accountable for the results."


Rhee's goals sound similar to No Child Left Behind. "Under No Child Left Behind, all students are supposed to have a highly qualified teacher. School districts are supposed to let parents know which teachers are not highly qualified in holding schools accountable for test scores."


Rhee's student-centered education challenges the general wisdom that experience, maturity and professional credentials should be held as sacrosanct, especially in such a diverse country as the United States. As Rhee has stated, "education is the great equalizer" enabling even the most poverty-stricken to realize the American dream. She reasons when such disparity exists as it does in DC between those who live in Anacostia and those who live in Georgetown, real and radical reform must take place.


Understanding Rhee's education agenda requires understanding her own background in education, especially her sole teaching experience, as part of Teach for America.


Michelle Rhee, The Eli Broad Foundation, and Teach for America


Wendy Kopp, a Princeton graduate, started Teach for America in 1989 with the venture philanthropist Eli Broad, whom Andy Stern former head of SEIU, called one of his favorite billionaires.


Kopp's Teach for America, under the auspices of AmeriCorps, recruits top students from top of the line colleges. Any graduate can apply, but out of tens of thousands of applications each year only 14% are accepted. The "change agents" must be spirited, reform-minded and willing to teach at least two years in a disadvantaged school district.


Rhee's affiliation with Kopp and TFA led to her meeting her current husband, Sacramento mayor, Kevin Johnson, who is credited with starting his own charter school Sacramento High. Johnson, accused of misusing AmeriCorps funds, has friends in high places like Michelle Obama who was a founding director of Chicago Public Allies, "an AmeriCorps national service program that provided training to young adults pursuing careers in the public sector."


Most TFA participants are not in it for the long haul; 80% go on to work in other fields. The uncertified inductees are put through a kind of "teacher boot camp" for five weeks before they enter the classroom. One former TFA teacher described the training:


But the training program skimped on actual teaching and classroom-management techniques, instead overwhelming us with sensitivity training. My group spent hours on an activity where everyone stood in a line and then took steps forward or backward based on whether we were the oppressor or the oppressed in the categories of race, income, and religion. The program had a college bull session, rather than professional, atmosphere. And it had a college-style party line: I heard of two or three trainees being threatened with expulsion for expressing in their discussion groups politically incorrect views about inner-city poverty-for example, that families and culture, not economics, may be the root cause of the achievement gap.


In a 2009 Aspen Institute video Broad interviewed Michelle Rhee. She likened herself to a CEO stating that no one in DC was allowed to say no to her except the mayor. Since Fenty removed the formidable school board, Rhee was free to act. Another Broad recruit was not so lucky. Seattle Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson in July 2010 was ousted with a vote of no confidence by the Seattle Public School Board. A couple of the board's objections were as follows:


...whereas the Superintendent allowed Seattle Public Schools to give out the names of parents and teachers to a public relations firm for a politically-motivated survey carried out by a commercial enterprise


...whereas the Superintendent's poor judgment resulted in the need to open five schools just six months after closing five schools/programs, which mismanagement will cost the District an estimated $48M rather than saving $3M in closures.


Broad outlined his interest in K-12 education with reporter Willow Bay of HuffPo in 2007 profiling Mayor Fenty and an "Asian American woman of great talent" [Rhee] as the "change agents" that his foundation has been "working with since the beginning." Broad, as a businessman and former accountant looks at education through the lens of a business plan.


And we look at metrics, what are we trying to achieve, how do we measure student achievement....change agents, superintendents that wanted to really change status quo, that were rather progressive. And somehow they ended up getting fired by a traditional school board.


Rhee intends to apply the Broad model on a national level with her new organization by challenging the old guard of union backed, tenured, certified professionals by promoting young graduates trained in the TFA method.


Rhee's Methods


Rhee regularly uses anecdotes to relate to ordinary people. At a first year teachers' conference last year in DC, she recounted a classroom experience during her term at Harlem Park. Unable to tame 35 rowdy second graders she gave them each a piece of masking tape. "We're going to do something special today," she told them. Rhee asked them to put the masking tape over their mouths before they marched off to the cafeteria. The audience laughed, even when Rhee admitted that she hadn't told them "to lick their lips" before placing the tape over their mouths. She joked that she had "35 crying, bleeding children."


As CEO of the DC public schools, Rhee ousted those officials not toeing the company line and replaced them with like-minded recruits. One such hand-picked principal, Dwan Jordan of Sousa Middle school, was praised with a July, 2010 front page Washington Post profile, and credited with raising math and reading scores at the school. In a teacher's rebuttal to the one-sided Washington Post story, he stated that Jordan "was very gifted at analyzing data and implementing longer school days" -- two requirements of Rhee's business model. However, the anonymous teacher related that by 2009, Sousa lost 50 teachers and staff members out of 230; 10 were terminated, 40 quit.


Eli Broad, Bill Gates and other billionaires backing Rhee are promoting a narrative that traditional educational paradigms have failed our kids, so it's time to get rid of them. By drawing attention away from other crucial cultural factors affecting a student's achievement, this new breed of reformers hope to solve a complex problem using a top-down management model sans unions.


Regardless of the complexity in tackling the education problems in this country, Rhee and her StudentsFirst organization -- using language like "children can't wait" coupled with savvy grassroots style websites and funding by billionaires with vested interests--will continue a blitz across America to fundamentally transform our schools. Such a complicated undertaking requires a serious examination of Michelle Rhee's true motivations and associations.
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3)Sarah Palin, Combat Veteran
By Stella Paul
Apparently, America's next big scheduled argument is whether women soldiers should be allowed in combat. Mark your calendars now to begin screaming your preferred talking points, yea or nay. Politics Daily:


A study commission chartered by Congress is poised to send up to Capitol Hill a recommendation that the last remaining barriers to women - those that formally exclude them from infantry, armor and special forces -- be removed.


As far as I'm concerned, we already have our first female combat soldier, a breathtakingly brave warrior who suffers the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune for the sake of our freedom, every day.


Sarah Palin stands alone in America and the world. Name one other public figure anywhere on the globe today who symbolizes the uncompromising fight for liberty....Waiting...Waiting...


As for her Republican rivals, blogger Kevin DuJan of Hillbuzz has sure got their number: they're not activist members of a political party; they're lazy guests at a Cocktail Party.


While Sarah is putting her life at risk -- staffers say that since the Tucson blood libel, she's getting death threats at an "unprecedented rate" -- Mitt Romney can't even bother to lead from the rear. He's hanging around the country club, eating soggy cucumber-and-mayonnaise sandwiches, and waiting for Sarah to win the war. Then he'll gallop on to the battlefield, hair stylist in tow, and flash his Dudley Do Right grin. Naturally, conservative pundits will traipse along and dutifully applaud his "gravitas" and outstanding presidential "qualifications." So much worthier than Sarah, don't you know!


As for Newt Gingrich, he took time off from his busy schedule of cuddling up to Nancy Pelosi on global warming, to sneak onto the battlefield and lob grenades -- at Sarah. Hey, right back at ya, pal. Then there's Mike Huckabee, who, when last heard from, was off somewhere exchanging diet tips with violent cons whose life sentences he had blithely commuted.


Tim Pawlenty, a ghostly presence at best, briefly materialized to murmur vague accusations against Sarah, and then faded into the woodwork once again. Wow! Leadership in action! All hail the mighty Tim!


You want leadership; you want steel spine; you want results? Helllooooo...What happened in Congress Wednesday? The House voted to repeal ObamaCare, 245 - 189, with the Republicans voting unanimously for repeal.


To whom do we owe this victory, more than anyone else, clearly and unequivocally? Sarah Palin. She showed us courage in real time, leading in every possible way: philosophically, strategically, tactically, and financially. Next to combat-hardened Sarah, every single Republican man is a trembling dwarf.


In case they haven't noticed (they haven't), we're living through the most dangerously divided time in American history since the Civil War. As Abraham Lincoln once said,


"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."


So it is in our time. Either we will quickly re-establish a government that fears the people, or the people will fear the government - permanently. Freedom is lethally hard to obtain, and frighteningly easy to lose. Right now, freedom is dying.


When America first met Sarah Palin, she praised her running mate, John McCain, with these words: "There's only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you." Well, there's a new election starting now, and there's not a single man in it who has ever bestirred himself to really fight for you.


There's only a woman. The Republican establishment loathes Sarah Palin; the conservative commentariat needs smelling salts at the very mention of her name; and the ruling class took a blood oath to destroy not just her, but her family, too.


But none of that matters, because a ragtag army of freedom-loving Americans knows who's got the guts of a real Commander-in-Chief. President Palin, we'll see you on January 20, 2013.


Stella Paul is writing The Infidel's Dictionary.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4)Obama's Great Leap Rightward
The White House co-opts GOP talking points—will House Republicans take advantage of their newly won recourse?
By KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL

Come one, come all, to witness President Barack Obama's Great Leap Rightward. Come, as well, to witness the GOP response.
Mr. Obama has a new mission this year—to make the country believe in political reincarnations. The man who presided over one of the most liberal, most expensive, most government-centric agendas in modern history? It would appear he was kidnapped over Christmas break and replaced by one who is fiscally responsible, a cheerleader for capitalism, and a skeptic of government. It can happen, you know.

As shape-shifting masters like Bill Clinton or Tony Blair might attest, the goal of any move to the center is always two-fold. The first is to lull the public into forgetting past transgressions, and to present them instead with a politician in tune with the pulse of the nation. The second goal—just as important—is to co-opt the other side's message.

After its midterm victory, the new House leadership crafted a playbook that Majority Leader Eric Cantor unveiled in a briefing in the first days of January. Week one the Republicans would devote to repealing ObamaCare. Week two would focus on the party's plans to roll back discretionary spending to 2008 levels. Week three would laser in on the president's job-killing regulatory blowout.

The White House was listening and has been hustling to get ahead of the GOP message machine. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the president's Tuesday op-ed on this editorial page announcing an executive order to restore "balance" to federal regulation and root out rules that hurt economic growth. It was a largely symbolic move, designed to counteract the public perception that Mr. Obama is antibusiness, and to bolster corporate America's support.



That, and to beat the GOP to it. When Mr. Cantor or Speaker John Boehner (who are behind a week in their schedule because of the Tucson shootings) finally do focus on regulatory excess, Mr. Obama will respond: "I agree regulations can hurt the economy. So much so that I just signed an executive order . . ."

The exact strategy will be on display in the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday. Next week is GOP Cut-Spending Week, though the Tucson delay means it will now be the president who commands the network cameras. And Mr. Obama will smartly use the hour to highlight his own supposed commitment to fiscal responsibility, to muddy the waters, and to again suggest that any differences between his team and Republicans are minor policy disputes, not a philosophical divide.

Count on Mr. Obama also to use his speech to address his health law. This is tougher for the White House. Republicans have a clear repeal message. The White House approach so far is to argue both sides should work together to find ways to "improve" the law, that repeal is a waste of time, and that the only thing standing in the way of finding common ground will be opportunistic GOP politicking.

Republicans figured that all this might be coming, and the serious ones are, if anything, hopeful about it. Far better, they note, to have a president who may be open to helping the economy than one who isn't. The great unknown is whether Mr. Obama means any of this, or if it is entirely rhetorical. President Clinton's own movement, after all, was only successful because he was serious enough about it to craft bipartisan victories like welfare reform.

The Republican opportunity now shifts to finding out. In two years in office, Mr. Obama has proven adept at saying one thing while doing another. The difference now is that control of the House allows the GOP to point out the distinctions. A broad complaint—say, that Mr. Obama is "pro-regulation"—may not work. But the GOP does have the ability to send, week after week, clear pieces of legislation to the Senate that will challenge Mr. Obama to back up his rhetoric with action.

A first example: Republicans are unveiling a bill to prohibit taxpayer-funded abortions. Mr. Obama claims to believe in this; last year he signed an executive order that in theory backs the ban. The GOP legislation would codify the prohibition. Will the president demand the Senate take a vote? The president may be hoping that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will shield him from some of these legislative challenges. But Republicans intend to make Mr. Reid's intransigence a daily issue and in the process put Mr. Obama on the spot.

The White House is making new promises. For its own sake, it had better mean some of them. The president skated through the first part of his term with Washington in awe. Circumstances have changed. The administration may be shrewdly co-opting GOP talking points, but the GOP today has recourse. And it could be that a president who claims to be something he isn't is as much a problem for voters as a president with a misguided agenda.

4a)How to Continue the Obama Upswing One idea he should embrace: a ban on extended ammo clips.
By PEGGY NOONAN

The State of the Union Address is usually among the most important and least memorable of presidential speeches. The speech itself, in an august setting, is an opportunity for a president to break through in a new way. TV and radio carry it live, and it's hard for the average citizen to avoid seeing at least a piece of it. It's a real chance for a White House to tell the American people "This is where we stand, this is why we are here, this is what we believe in."

But most State of the Unions don't measure up. They get beaten down by the staffing process and flattened by the laundry-list aspects: "We'll do this and this and this." There's always too much going on in the speech, and in the end it's usually, in Churchill's phrase, a pudding without a theme.

And they run long. One reason is that you want to make a speech unavoidable. The longer it is, the greater the chance people will see some part of it. Another is that in the 1960s network anchors started noting how many times the president was "interrupted by applause." This made everyone in every White House since want to get their guy more applause than the previous guy. Congressmen pop up and down like manic gophers in an attempt to show support. A president is left standing up there for an hour and 20 minutes with the blood starting to pool in his calves and a look on his face that says, "I really want to look like I'm interested in what I'm saying, but we're 22 minutes in and I'm just thinking about dinner." They eat lightly before the speech. They are hungry after.

This year, members of Congress may sit together, not divided by party. After the trauma of Tucson that would be all to the good, a physical expression of a national longing that will never go away, that we be one country. Watch for the White House to craft semi-ringing and wholly anodyne statements that will allow members of both parties to leap to their feet together, such as "Now and always, America stands for freedom." This will leave people at home thinking "Boy, they like this guy more than I thought."

A prediction: President Obama's speech will be unusually good. Why? Because he's showing signs of understanding that if you say something simply, clearly and sparingly, it can stick. As a rule, when Mr. Obama speaks, he literally says too many words, and they're not especially interesting words. They're dull and bureaucratic or windy and vague, too round and soft to pierce and enter your brain.

The speech takes place at the midpoint of his administration and at the beginning of what may turn out to be a Clintonesque comeback. A Wall Street Journal/NBC poll notes this week that his approval rating is at 53%, up eight points since December. That's quite a jump and can be explained by changes in his recent governing style and decisions: agreeing to the Bush tax cuts, losing a chief of staff who was a tough little gut-crunching pol and gaining one who seems more at home in the world of . . . well, the world. There was the moving speech in Tucson after the shootings, an unembarrassing and possibly helpful summit with President Hu Jintao of China, and an elegant and grown-up state dinner in which everyone seemed to know what they were doing with the exception of Barbra Streisand, who on being asked why she was there said she once worked in a Chinese restaurant. But she added color.

A big thing the president has going for him now, and part of the reason for his improved fortunes, is that he was chastened in 2010. Americans like chastened presidents, especially ones who have acted with extreme ambition and lack of humility. Americans know their presidents have extraordinary power, and so enjoy reminding them who's boss. In the 2010 election they did just that. But after humbling him, they will, in their fairness, give him a second look at some point. Voters also did for the president what he could not do for himself: they surgically removed Nancy Pelosi from his hip by taking away her majority and her speakership. He can now stand alone.

So the president is in a good position, on the way up after two years on the way down. A great question is: Does he know he's on the way up because his style and decisions have become more centrist? Do the people around him know it? If they know why, they can continue it, and if they don't, they won't.

Here are three things he can do in the speech that would be surprising, shrewd, centrist and good policy. The first may seem small but is not. Normal people are not afraid of a lowering of discourse in political speech. They don't like it, but it's not keeping them up nights. Normal people are afraid of nuts with guns. That keeps them up nights. They know our society has grown more broken, families more sundered, our culture more degraded, and they fear it is producing more lost and disturbed young people. They fear those young people walking into a school or a mall with a semiautomatic pistol with an extended clip.

What civilian needs a pistol with a magazine that loads 33 bullets and allows you to kill that many people without even stopping to reload? No one but people with bad intent. Those clips were banned once; the president should call for reimposing the ban. The Republican Party will not go to the wall to defend extended clips. The problem is the Democratic Party, which overreached after the assassinations of the 1960s, talked about banning all handguns, and suffered a lasting political setback. Now Democrats are so spooked they won't even move forward on small and obvious things like this. The president should seize the moment and come out strong for a ban.

Second, his words on health care should not be defiant, high-handed or intransigent. The House this week voted to repeal ObamaCare. If the bill gets to his desk, he will veto it. But shrewdness here would be in conciliation. He should sincerely—underline sincerely—offer to discuss changing those parts of the law Republicans find most objectionable.

Third, he should argue for extension of the debt limit by offering a grand bargain: In return, he will work hand in hand with Republicans to cut or limit spending that can reasonably and quickly be cut or limited. This too would win support, and respect, from centrists and others.

The great thing for the president is that expectations are low. The political class sees him making a comeback; they're eager to see and laud the speech. But again, no one expects much from a State of the Union, and the president's reputation as a giver of speeches is wildly inflated. What he says is not usually interesting. He is interesting, but what says is usually not. In this he is like Bill Clinton.

He is a president with everything to gain from shrewd decisions, moderate thinking, and respect for the center. He seems to have learned that wanting popularity and public approval is not, actually, below him. In fact, it's part of his job.


4b)Can Deregulation Work?
It was hard under Ronald Reagan. It will be impossible under Barack Obama.
By PAUL H. RUBIN

How successful is the president's recently announced deregulatory initiative likely to be? Based on my experience at two regulatory agencies (the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission) during the Reagan years, I am not optimistic.

President Reagan was serious about deregulation and appointed agency heads—Jim Miller at the FTC, Terry Scanlon at the CPSC—who were also serious. In turn they appointed determined managers like me, and they backed us up.

We did some good, but it was not easy. The permanent staffs of the agencies were always interested in more regulation, either because of self-selection or because promotions and power increase in a larger agency. It also helped that we deregulators (generally economists) were not usually interested in permanent government positions, because reducing the power of the agency is a sure way to make enemies.

Although my mandate was to cut back, I spent more time fighting new proposals than getting rid of old ones. The staffs wanted more, not less. Whenever I met acquaintances from other agencies the invariable comment was "You won't believe what they want to do now." ("They" were the permanent staffs.)

The current regulatory agencies are not going to hire or promote people like me. Without managers with a strong interest in deregulation and with the backing of senior administrators, there will be no serious power to buck the staffs. The current executive order seems to impose cost-benefit analysis, but it has enough loopholes ("equity, human dignity, fairness") so that agencies will be able to do whatever they want.

Deregulation was hard even under Reagan. I am afraid it will be impossible under Mr. Obama.

Mr. Rubin is a professor of economics at Emory University.
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5)ON THE OIL CRISIS

A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage here in our country.
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Well, there's a very simple answer.
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Nobody bothered to check the oil.
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We just didn't know we were getting low.
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The reason for that is purely geographical.
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Our OIL is located in:
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ALASKA
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California
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Coastal Florida
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Coastal Louisiana
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North Dakota
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Wyoming
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Colorado
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Kansas
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Oklahoma
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Pennsylvania and
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Texas
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Our dipsticks are located in DC

Any Questions? NO? Didn't think So!
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