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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (23525)	10/20/2007 5:50:12 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 71588

The liberal compassion mirage By David Limbaugh jewishworldreview.com \| Two recent news items remind us of the disconnect between the Democrats' claimed monopoly on compassion and the effects of their policies. First, consider the emotionally charged public debate over President Bush's veto of a proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Programs. Standing by congressional Democrats in their push to override the veto, singer Paul Simon said with earnest indignation, "The president's veto of the reauthorization of SCHIP appears to be a heartless act. I'm here today to ask those of you who supported the veto to reexamine your conscience, to find compassion in your heart for our most vulnerable and sweetest citizens, our children." Giving him the benefit of the doubt, the compassionate Simon is obviously unaware that the matter is not as simple as merely throwing money at the problem. To quote House Minority Leader John Boehner, "There are 500,000 kids in America who are eligible for this program who have not been signed up, yet there are some 700,000 adults who are already on the program." Simon, unlike the Democrats pulling his puppet strings, must not realize that President Bush supports a $5 billion expansion, not reduction, of the program, or that the Democrats' plan goes far beyond providing a safety net to the needy. It would allow states to make coverage available to families with incomes greater than $60,000 a year, which would entice people who can well afford private health insurance to opt for state coverage. Is it good for the children for Democrats to exploit them as props in their quest to force socialized medicine on this nation, one incremental step at a time? Will the inevitably long waiting lines and substantially reduced quality of care be good for the children? Why can't congressional Democrats just admit they have a soft spot for socialism: that they believe capitalism results in too much economic disparity and that government -- the Constitution be damned—should redistribute wealth to suit their ideas of fairness? Never mind that a command-control economy results in a smaller economic pie. What matters is they care, and by gosh, they're willing to forcibly transfer other people's money to prove it. As another example, consider the Democrats' obstruction of President Bush's efforts to reform Social Security. Who can forget the Democrats' (Bill Clinton's, Al Gore's) insistence that the future solvency of this entitlement was in such jeopardy that it must be placed off limits in a lock box? Yet when President Bush attempted to reform this "third rail of politics," Democrats didn't just oppose the eminently sensible "partial privatization" aspect of his plan. They went further, completely reversing themselves and denying the system was in trouble at all. Our old friend Sen. Harry Reid said, "Social Security is not in crisis. It's a crisis the president's created, period. … The president has never seen a crisis he hasn't created. … [Bush is] exaggerating the solvency." This time they went to the other end of the chronological spectrum and used seniors as props. Here again, they pretended to be intervening for the very group of people their demagogic opposition was sure to harm: future Social Security recipients. Demonstrating once more their contempt for the private sector and free markets, they tried to scare seniors into believing President Bush was imperiling Social Security with his very modest proposal to allow participants to invest a small portion of their own funds. Bush's valiant effort was dead on arrival, and we kicked the ball down the road. This week, we were reminded of the consequences of this reckless procrastination when the first baby boomer of a projected 80 million, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, applied for her benefits. Despite the Democrats' denials in the name of protecting seniors—most of whom are not yet seniors—Social Security outlays are projected to exceed its receipts by 2041. In the meantime, Democrat presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton, in the spirit of compassion, is advancing new plans every other week to dole out yet more government money to various groups of voters, er, beneficiaries. These newly promised funds obviously will not be available to pay off maturing Social Security IOUs. But without the slightest self-consciousness, Hillary rails against President Bush for irresponsibly increasing the deficit — though the deficit is, in fact, decreasing. But don't you ever forget how much she cares about the children whose financial future she's mortgaging. Just believe her and her colleagues that it is evil Republicans who are bankrupting our children with tax cuts that have grown the economy and shrunk the deficit. Conservatives must be prepared in this campaign season to return to their own free-market principles and expose the liberals' compassion for the ruse it is. jewishworldreview.com

To: calgal who wrote (23525)	10/20/2007 5:50:24 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 71588

Why not reward excellence? By Linda Chavez jewishworldreview.com \| An employee who works harder than his colleagues, produces more and generally excels at his job should be paid more than one who is mediocre, or worse, a downright failure, right? Most employers reward good workers with promotions, bonuses and higher pay in order to keep them. But in the one profession you'd think that excellence should be rewarded — namely, teaching — it's often difficult to do so. Teachers unions have been the main obstacle to paying teachers based on their performance, but change may be on the horizon. It's been a long time coming. This week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg reached an agreement with Randi Weingarten, president of the nation's largest local teachers union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), which will allow the city to recognize that some teachers are worth more than others — well, sort of. The plan, which took months of negotiations to finalize, will provide bonuses for good performance as measured by improvement in students' test scores at the city's poorest schools. The hitch is, the money won't go directly to teachers whose students improved dramatically but to schools to be divvied up by compensation committees, which could choose to give it only to the best teachers or divide it evenly among the staff. The idea for merit pay for teachers is an old one. President Ronald Reagan actually campaigned on the issue in his 1984 re-election bid, following the release of a dramatic report on the decline in educational performance in the U.S., "A Nation at Risk." Al Shanker, who was also the longtime president of the UFT and the American Federation of Teachers, was the first national union leader to signal a willingness to consider the idea. In his excellent new biography — "Tough Liberal: Albert Shanker and the Battles Over Schools, Unions, Race, and Democracy" — Richard Kahlenberg notes that Shanker took the first steps toward union acceptance of merit pay more than two decades ago. At a union conference in 1985, Shanker told members, "Most people in this country believe hard work and better work ought to be rewarded, and opposing this makes us look like we are not interested in quality. So we ought to think about ways of handling [merit pay] while avoiding the pitfalls." Shanker's approach was to endorse the concept of creating a new class of teachers, so-called master teachers who would receive certification from an independent board that would apply rigorous standards. As Kahlenberg points out, Shanker knew that such an idea would be resisted by his rivals at the National Education Association, so he enlisted the help of the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, which created a task force on teaching and ultimately released an influential report recommending the creation of a private board to certify excellent teachers who would qualify for higher pay. The resulting National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has certified 55,000 of the nation's 2.5 million teachers, and about one-fourth of school districts offer financial incentives to those teachers who achieve certification. And of course President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" legislation requires states to ensure that all teachers meet minimum qualification standards. However, not one state has reached the administration's goal of having 100 percent of teachers in core academic subjects meet its "highly qualified" standard, and the administration has had to back off penalizing them, opting instead to give credit toward progress in meeting the standard. New York's plan is a first step toward rewarding excellence on a large scale. But UFT President Randi Weingarten's silly disavowal at the press conference, announcing the agreement "shuts the door on the individual merit pay plans that I abhor," suggests she's no Al Shanker. Merit pay makes sense, most of all to the really good teachers who should be rewarded for their excellence. If top-performing schools should receive rewards, why not go the next step and reward specific individuals who show they can make a difference even if their colleagues lag behind? jewishworldreview.com

To: calgal who wrote (23525)	10/20/2007 5:50:39 PM
From: calgal	Respond to of 71588

Pelosi's Armenian gambit By Charles Krauthammer jewishworldreview.com \| There are three relevant questions concerning the Armenian genocide. (a) Did it happen? (b) Should the U.S. House of Representatives be expressing itself on this now? (c) Was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's determination to bring this to a vote, knowing that it risked provoking Turkey into withdrawing crucial assistance to American soldiers in Iraq, a conscious (columnist Thomas Sowell) or unconscious (blogger Mickey Kaus) attempt to sabotage the U.S. war effort? The answers are: (a) Yes, unequivocally. (b) No, unequivocally. (c) Heaven only knows. That between 1 million and 1.5 million Armenians were brutally and systematically massacred starting in 1915 in a deliberate genocidal campaign is a matter of simple historical record. If you really want to deepen and broaden awareness of that historical record, you should support the establishment of the Armenian Genocide Museum and Memorial in Washington. But to pass a declarative resolution in the House of Representatives in the middle of a war in which we are inordinately dependent on Turkey would be the height of irresponsibility. The atrocities happened 90 years ago. Not a single living Turk under the age of 102 is in any way culpable. Even Mesrob Mutafyan, patriarch of the Armenian community in Turkey, has stated that his community is opposed to the resolution, correctly calling it the result of domestic American politics. Turkey is already massing troops near its border with Iraq, threatening a campaign against Kurdish rebels that could destabilize the one stable front in Iraq. The same House of Representatives that has been complaining loudly about the lack of armored vehicles for our troops is blithely jeopardizing relations with the country through which 95 percent of the new heavily armored vehicles are now transiting on the way to saving American lives in Iraq. And for what? To feel morally clean? How does this work? Pelosi says: "Genocide still exists, and we saw it in Rwanda; we see it now in Darfur." Precisely. And what exactly is she doing about Darfur? Nothing. Pronouncing yourself on a genocide committed 90 years ago by an empire that no longer exists is Pelosi's demonstration of seriousness about existing, ongoing genocide? Indeed, the Democratic Party she's leading in the House has been trying for months to force a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq that could very well lead to genocidal civil war. This prospect has apparently not deterred her in the least. "Friends don't let friends commit crimes against humanity," explained Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which approved the Armenian genocide resolution. This must rank among the most stupid statements ever uttered by a member of Congress, admittedly a very high bar. Does Smith know anything about the history of the Armenian genocide? Of the role played by Henry Morgenthau? As U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Morgenthau tried desperately to intervene on behalf of the Armenians. It was his consular officials deep within Turkey who (together with missionaries) brought out news of the genocide. And it was Morgenthau who helped tell the world about it in his writings. Near East Relief, the U.S. charity strongly backed by President Woodrow Wilson and the Congress, raised and distributed an astonishing $117 million in food, clothing and other vital assistance that, wrote historian Howard Sachar, "quite literally kept an entire nation alive." So much for the United States letting friends commit crimes against humanity. And at the time, the Ottomans were not friends. They were an enemy power in World War I, allied with Germany. Now the Turks are indeed friends, giving us indispensable logistical help in our war against today's premier perpetrators of crimes against humanity — al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. Friends don't gratuitously antagonize friends who are helping to fight the world's foremost war criminals. So why has Pelosi been so committed to bringing this resolution to the floor? (At least until a revolt within her party and the prospect of defeat caused her to waver.) Because she is deeply unserious about foreign policy. This little stunt gets added to the ledger: first, her visit to Syria, which did nothing but give legitimacy to Bashar al-Assad, who continues to engage in the systematic murder of pro-Western Lebanese members of parliament; then, her letter to Costa Rica's ambassador, just nine days before a national referendum, aiding and abetting opponents of a very important free-trade agreement with the United States. Is the Armenian resolution her way of unconsciously sabotaging the U.S. war effort, after she had failed to stop it by more direct means? I leave that question to psychiatry. Instead, I fall back on Krauthammer's razor (with apologies to Occam): In explaining any puzzling Washington phenomenon, always choose stupidity over conspiracy, incompetence over cunning. Anything else gives them too much credit. jewishworldreview.com