Over at the American Spectator blog, there has been quite a bit of talk about the price the GOP and the Bush presidency has paid for Gersonism (AKA Heroic or Big Government Conservatism).  The discussion has been pretty critical of the Gerson philosophy.  I chimed in with the following and would love the see the reactions around here:

I’m not here to defend Gersonism, but I think it is fair to say Gersonism is not responsible for the terrible brand value of George W. Bush.  Gersonism is probably very popular with the American people and would have served as a decent platform for a mix of school choice, welfare reform, pro-marriage policies, etc.  All the momentum that was building nicely on those fronts has regrettably dissipated in two terms dedicated largely to foreign policy.

The problem with the Bush administration in the eyes of public has been and remains Iraq.  It isn’t discussed frequently enough, but I really believe the American people were not prepared for the type of war this has been.  They thought it would be quickly prosecuted and that the reconstruction effort would be largely funded out of Iraqi oil revenues.

Instead, it has been long, expensive, and if it was a case of blood for oil, certainly doesn’t seemed to have helped us on the price of the commodity!

From an AP story about Sen. Obama’s visit to Mount Rushmore:

Obama said it was his first visit to the landmark.

He did express curiosity about the filming of a chase scene in “North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint that included a death-defying scramble over Rushmore’s presidential faces.

“How did they get up there in the first place?” he asked ranger Wesley Jensen.

“They didn’t. It was a movie set,” Jensen told him.

You can watch a good bit of the relevant sequence here.

Hat tip to K-Lo at The Corner.

More: Looking for the video link, I ran across a blog about the movie that Hitchcock fans will enjoy. It includes a storyboard with still photos from the Mount Rushmore scene on pages 9 and 10.

Arthur C. Brooks’s latest book gets a thumbs-up from the NRO reviewer.  If the review piques your interest, you can watch or listen to a 2 1/2 hour AEI program on the book by clicking here.

Dig this.  (Hat tip to K-Lo.)

“What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable. Having said that, we do not know at the moment what happened or why,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a news conference, adding that it appears the builders followed regulations.

Ahhhh, the mating call of the horned-billed regulator.

The ultimate “second banana” was 81.

“That’s Hedley!”

For an example of Tim Conway breaking up Korman on The Carol Burnett Show, click here.

The Cardinal Newman Society asked me for my reaction to Pope Benedict’s remarks on Catholic higher education.

You can read it at the Catholic Higher Ed site here. (more…)

Since this is not just a blog but a blawg, this might be of interest. It’s about a new paper presented at AEI that shows that the Milberg Weiss tort fraud does seem to hurt the clients themselves.

If your answer to either or both of these questions is “Yes,” then I invite you to learn more about “American Law and Liberty: Structure and History,” a one-day course designed primarily for students entering law school this fall and other “pre-law” students, by clicking here.  It will be taught — by yours truly — on Friday, June 27, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., at the offices of the Alabama Policy Institute, 400 Office Park Circle, Birmingham, Alabama.  There’s a $25 registration fee — but that covers lunch and a couple of very useful books, in addition to a fine short course.  If you have any questions at all about the program, call me at (205) 726-2434 or email me (just click on the email link, above).

Thanks for your attention.  This concludes my shameless self-promotion post of the day.

AFP reports that an Ugandan UNAMID soldier was found shot to death yesterday:
(more…)

Shows McCain winning 270-268.  Not much room for error there.  Read the whole thing for a state-by-state rundown.

Save Darfur has managed to get John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama to issue a joint statement pledging to take action on Darfur when one of them wins the White House later this year:
(more…)

The prolific pop composer was 88. And, yes, you have heard him perform at least one of his compositions.

More: Much more about Hagen’s career is available on this fan site.

*  Walker Percy fans will enjoy this annotation of Love in the Ruins by Baylor’s Ralph Wood.

*  Forbes’s new interactive electoral college map includes info on the results of the 2004 race.

*  Right now on Intrade, for $3.76 you can buy a futures contract that will pay $10.00 if McCain wins in November.  Any takers?  For more on such “prediction markets,” read Gordon Crovitz’s interesting essay in the WSJ from last month.

*  High on my summer reading list is James Piereson’s Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism.  Interviews of Piereson can be viewed at Uncommon Knowledge (on NRO, the week of May 19) and Book TV.  What looks to be a precis of the book can be found in this 2006 article from Commentary.

*  Justice Scalia and historian Gordon Wood appeared recently on the C-Span interview program, Q and A.  You can see them (May 4 and April 13, respectively) via the show’s archive, here. 

*  Check out these amazing photos from Mars.

*  This season’s unusual commencement speakers include Nancy Grace (Mercer) and Chuck Norris (Liberty). 

The United States Supreme Court just released its opinion in the Riley v. Kennedy case which involved the federal courts ordering the State of Alabama to follow a state law which violated the state constitution (and was thus void ab initio) because the law had been precleared by the Department of Justice after the DOJ refused to preclear the Alabama Supreme Court decisions declaring the statute unconstitutional.  I am still working my way through the opinion and will update this entry.  But it is a big win for the state, federalism and the Alabama Attorney General who  refused to quit the fight despite repeated calls that he do so. 

Update: First, I neglected to mention that Kevin Newsom, Matt Lembke and company did an outstanding job with the State’s brief and oral argument before the Court.  The 7-2 opinion was authored by Justice Ginsburg which meant that it was decided on a very narrow basis and was not a much broader opinion addressing the scope of Section 5 that many had thought might come down.  Indeed, the Court went to great lengths to point out that the unique facts of this case compelled the result (translation – don’t read too much into this result). 

(more…)

(HT: PowerLine)

From Obama’s Memorial Day speech:

On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes — and I see many of them in the audience here today — our sense of patriotism is particularly strong.

I know we all make mistakes. But this is inexcusable.

(from the Jackson (MS) Clarion-Ledger)

Do read George Will’s Memorial Day column.

Over at the Corner, they are having a discussion regarding Jonah Goldberg’s recent column which suggested that Senator McCain select a Democrat to be his VP.  What I find disappointing in all of the talk about potential running mates is the absence of any discussion of Governor Haley Barbour.  He is a solid conservative with a record of successfully governing.  He is well respected and well loved by the Party faithful (he spoke at an Alabama Republican Party event a couple of years ago and the place went crazy when he was introduced) and could raise a substantial amount of money (yes – I know he was a lobbyist but no one is perfect (not that there is anything wrong with lobbyists, mind you – it’s a perception problem).

A warm thank you to Feddie for inviting me to back to the second coming of Southern Appeal.

Now that I’m Catholic, I can bring such abominations to your attention.  You can read it about here.

For what it’s worth.

(Cross posting at ConfirmThem AND The American Spectator blog) K-Lo at NRO noted this first, but this confirms what I have insisted again and again, and what all of you good readers of this site have also insisted and known in your very marrows: Our voters care, deeply, about judges. Summary: Rasmussen reports that far more GOP voters care about judges than about even the war in Iraq. Indeed, judges is the second most important issue, behind only the economy. WHY don’t our senators seem to understand this?!?!?!?!?

Sudan expert Alex de Waal has an op-ed in BBC News refuting the idea that invading Sudan would somehow alleviate the crisis in Darfur:
(more…)

Deroy Murdock explains:

May 19 is Friedman Day, when the Massachusetts-based American Institute for Economic Research calculates that citizens finally will have toiled long enough to fund local, state, and federal spending.

Freidman Day is not to be confused with the Tax Foundation’s Tax Freedom Day, when Americans’ aggregate annual income collectively finances each year’s municipal, state, and national taxes. This year’s Tax Freedom Day fell on April 23, three days earlier than in 2007.

Read the whole thing:  it’s chock full of interesting and quite depressing numbers and factoids.

On a related note:  Earlier this month the University of Chicago announced plans for a new Milton Friedman Institute; the whole project carries a $200 million price tag.  I suppose there’s something ironic about that, but I’m not inclined to explore that angle any further.  Any comments? 

Many years ago, I sat in on a random subcommittee hearing in the US House. I remember the hearing concerned Department of Labor oversight and was as exciting as, well, a congressional subcommittee hearing. About halfway through the torture, resident Socialist wacko Bernie Sanders, who the clearly confused people of Vermont have since promoted to the Senate, began bloviating on the general goodliness of unions and the evilocity of states that have passed Right to Work laws. In retort, a random GOP panel member from RTW Kansas thanked Mr. Sanders and the people of Vermont for sucking up to the Union Bosses because Kansas appreciated the business. (more…)

Apparently Sen. Obama believes that the amount we eat, the cars we drive, and the temperatures of our homes require international consensus.

At a rally in Roseburg, Oregon Sen. Obama said the following:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.”

So, the amount I eat, the temperature of my house, and the car I drive requires approval from other countries?

This guy is really starting to creep me out. (Hat tip to Yuval Levin at The Corner)

Human Rights Watch issued a press release on continuing abductions by the LRA as well as a new report on continuing attacks in Darfur.
(more…)

You read stories about people being brutally assaulted in Zimbabwe and think “that is horrible,” but it is not until you see the pictures that you understand the true horror:
(more…)

Jackie and Dunlap discuss Clinton’s WVA win.

Following the weekend attack on Khartoum, the Sudanese government is calling JEM leader Khalil Ibrahim an agent of Israel and demanding that JEM leaders living abroad be labeled terrorists and handed over:
(more…)