Passing Along Some Vital Information on Illegal Immigration

I received this email from Numbers USA over the weekend.

Without explanation, Congress has stripped away $3 billion in desperately needed funds to build the Border Fence that it approved last year and to provide for other border security.

That's right—without telling the public, Congress is pulling the plug on the U.S.-Mexico Border Fence that it voted for with such enthusiasm last year (just before they asked voters to re-elect them).

Help us turn this petition into a national overnight phenomenon. Time is critical—Congress will finalize this funding question before Christmas!

Now, it is important to emphasize again, as Numbers points out, that the fence and its funding was voted on late in the session in 2006. At last check, about eleven miles out of thousands had actually been built.

The fence has become a sort of cause celebe for opponents of tough measures against illegal immigration. Their rallying cry comes in this statement from Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona.

You show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder at the border. That's the way the border works

That sort of statement is what I refer to as a strawman arguement. No one is claiming that the border fence will keep out everyone that tries to come in. It will however keep out a lot of them, and that is the point of anti illegal immigration legislation. Everytime I hear this statement, I always point out that a Mexican migrant is going to look awfully funny walking around the desert with a fifty one foot ladder. There is no one hundred percent full proof way of keeping illegals out. If we put together a human wall, someone might ride in in a tank. That doesn't mean that methods aren't effective even if some smart person has figured out a way to theoretically get around them.

The border fence near San Diego is proof that the fence works.

Before the fence was built, all that separated that stretch of Mexico from California was a single strand of cable that demarcated the international border.

Back then, Border Patrol agent Jim Henry says he was overwhelmed by the stream of immigrants who crossed into the United States illegally just in that sector.

"It was an area that was out of control," Henry says. "There were over 100,000 aliens crossing through this area a year."

Today, Henry is assistant chief of the Border Patrol's San Diego sector. He says apprehensions here are down 95 percent, from 100,000 a year to 5,000 a year, largely because the single strand of cable marking the border was replaced by double -- and in some places, triple -- fencing.

Both houses of Congress voted on and approved this fence and the President signed it. If laws aren't followed through on, then our government is nothing more than a banana republic. This is unacceptable and I hope everyone rises up and demands that Congress follow through on what they started.

More Action From the Legislature Vis a Vis Mortgages

The Legislature just moved to open up FHA loans for many of the borrowers currently facing hardship.

The Senate moved Friday against the worsening mortgage crisis, voting to make it easier for thousands of homeowners with ballooning interest rates to refinance into federally insured loans.

The legislation, approved 93-1, would allow the Federal Housing
Administration to back refinanced loans for borrowers who are delinquent on
payments because their mortgages are resetting to sharply higher rates from low
initial "teaser" levels.

The bill also tries to make FHA loans more attractive than risky subprime loans by accepting lower down payments and expanding the eligibility for counseling for homeowners having difficult with their mortgage payments.

An estimated 2 million to 2.5 million adjustable-rate mortgages are scheduled to reset in the next year, jumping to much steeper rates that could cost borrowers their homes. The wave could crest during the presidential and congressional election campaigns next year, and politicians have been wrestling with what the government's response should be

A colleague of mine pointed out that there are several things that are currently different and still need to be worked out between the Senate and House version.

Downpayment/cash investment: Senate - 1.5% cash investment w/ maximum loan amount of 100% of sales price/value that includes the upfront MIP; House still has a 0% downpayment provision.

· Mortgage limit for “high cost” areas: Senate - $417,000; House – up to $729,000.

· Seller participation in down payment assistance programs:

· Moratorium on implementation of risk-based pricing: Expect a delay of a year before enactment..

· Broker surety bond in lieu of audit: It is in the House bill only. I will be shocked if this makes it in the final bill…Get those audits ready….

Just like every other government action in response to this crisis, this one is flawed and quite possibly counter productive. The main problem lies in the fact that most politicians have no idea how FHA works, and thus they can't possibly know if it will help. FHA has limits on debt to income that are much more stringent than most of the loans the sub prime borrowers are currently in. In other words, most of the borrowers currently struggling in these sub prime loans wouldn't qualify FHA if it is in its current form. If debt to income limits aren't adjusted this move is largely ceremonial.

If, on the other hand, the limits are adjusted so these borrowers would qualify for FHA, then we could be facing the same sort of crisis in FHA within a couple of years. Much of the reason that FHA has been a successful and profitable mortgage is the very limits that it has on debt to income.

Furthermore, the legislators want to increase the loan limits on FHA. What they don't understand is that FHA is a government bureaucracy. When I do an FHA loan, I am not only dealing with the bank but also the bureaucracy of the government. For instance, the FHA bureaucracy assigns a case number to each FHA loan. By increasing the limits, especially if they are increased dramatically to 700k, they will create too much demand for FHA loans for the bureaucracy to handle. FHA loans are already a bureaucratic nightmare for any loan officer to deal with. By expanding them this much, the nightmare will become obscene.

The limits on down payment are also largely ceremonial. Already, FHA only requires a three percent down payment. Dropping that requirement down to 1.5% is negligible.

Thus, the sixty four thousand dollar question is whether or not the debt to income limits will change. If they don't this is a largely ceremonial bureaucratic nightmare. If they do, this will eventually devastate FHA the way that subprime is currently being devastated.

Gotta love our elected politicians.

The Prophetic Words of Dick Morris

I remember right after the November election that Dick Morris pointed out how difficult it was going to be for the Democratic Congress to govern. The problem, as he saw it, was the many competing factions that make up the Democratic party: The Blue Dogs, The Congressional Black Caucus, The Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the group allied with Soros and the Nutroots. While all of these groups fall under the Democratic umbrella, they all have competing and varying agendas. As Morris predicted, the Democrats' problem all along has been getting all of them on the same page. This is the underlying story in their continued fumbling of the Iraq issue. The agenda of the Blue Dogs (called Bush Dogs by the Nutroots) is divergent from that of the Soros wing. Without everyone on the same page, the Democratic majority no longer functions like any sort of a majority.

Some if it has come to a head this week as Democrats are pointing fingers at each other for their lack of any coherent agenda.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing "Stockholm syndrome," showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death.

Reid, in turn, has taken to the Senate floor to criticize what he called the speaker's "iron hand" style of governance.

Democrats in each chamber are now blaming their colleagues in the other for the mess in which they find themselves. The predicament caused the majority party yesterday surrender to President Bush on domestic spending levels, drop a cherished renewable-energy mandate and move toward leaving a raft of high-profile
legislation, from addressing the mortgage crisis to providing middle-class tax relief, undone or incomplete.

The real problem from the beginning is that much of the Democratic victory came in Republican districts and with many of the Democrats in those districts moving to the right of their counter parts. Their leadership, on the other hand, is almost exclusively made up of traditional Northeast or West Coast liberals. From Nancy Pelosi, Charlie Rangel, to Ted Kennedy, those are the leaders of the party. Their liberal traditional agenda is not something that will get the likes of the Blue Dog Democrats re elected.

On Iraq, this problem is most pronounced. There is a group of almost seventy Congressional Democrats that make up the Out of Iraq Caucus. They are almost exclusively Soros types. Therir goal is the immediate withdrawal of troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. This group willing to cut off funds if necessary, and they are so extreme in their views vis a vis Iraq that many times they are unwilling to support bills with a timeline if it isn't quick enough in their estimation.

On the opposite end of the ideological spectrum for the Democrats lie the Blue Dogs. This is a group of forty plus moderates who's position tends to match that of the Republicans. Here is how their position is described.

With Democrats in charge again, the Blue Dogs have played a key role in halting an emerging plan to place strict conditions on war funding. Their revolt helped beat back that proposal, by Pelosi ally John Murtha, D-Pa. Leaders are now considering a watered-down version.

Without unity from all these groups the Democrat's majority becomes a minority.

The Democrats face the same sort of problems on budget and tax issues. Whether it was Charlie Rangel's so called mother of all tax hikes, or any number of budget proposals from David Obey, the leadership has had difficulty getting the Blue Dogs on board with much of their liberal agenda. Where they have been able to get the Blue Dogs on board, they have then faced the threat of a veto from the President.

The Democrats have given nothing more than a token effort to any social issue besides federal funding of stem cell research. That's because on social issues the leadership's position is no more tennable.

Their ideas about marriage, abortion, and, to an extent, the death penalty, and
Gun Control are sometimes more compatible with the Republican way of thinking. This viewpoint is supported by the Pew Research Center and their study "Beyond Red Vs. Blue"

The Republicans, on the other hand, have become nearly unanimously united. They have almost entirely coalesced behind the surge strategy and have never wavered in their demand for so called clean spending bills.

On the budget, they haven't been quite as united however the President suddenly realized what a tool the veto is. As such, the Democrats haven't been able to get much of any budgetary agenda through. In the most recent battle over the budget, the Democrats have become so frustrated that they are now resorting to threats.

Instead, Obey said, he would rip up the compromise bill and devise a new one using the strict spending ceiling set by Mr. Bush - but would reach it by whacking GOP priorities and stripping the measure of billions of dollars in pet projects for lawmakers in both parties.

Obey's remarks to The Associated Press came two days after White House budget director Jim Nussle promised Mr. Bush would veto Democrats' omnibus spending bill for exceeding Mr. Bush's budget by $18 billion.

Nussle had accused Democrats of "trying to leverage troop-funding for more pork-barrel spending," but Obey said the opposite is true - that the White House was willing to relent just slightly on domestic spending in order to obtain up to $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While the Democrats threaten, I am reminded of the last time a President took on Congress on the budget.

These showdowns were epitomized by the budget conflict with then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich in 1995. Gingrich refused to pass Clinton's budget proposal, and the latter threatened to shut down the government as Reagan had done in the 1980s. Clinton did not back down, however, and eventually had his budget passed...

I suspect another President will also win this particular budget showdown. All in all, those words uttered by Dick Morris are quite prophetic.

The Peculiar, Enigmatic H.R. 1955

I have only recently been made aware of this bill and for now I will reserve judgement besides the observation that it is peculiar and enigmatic. It is called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 and it is sponsored and promoted almost exclusively by Democrats led by Jane Harmon. Thus, not surprisingly, this has made it the target of conservative pundits.

Thus, Orwell says, we end up with political language that consists "largely of euphemism ... and sheer cloudy vagueness."

That's how we end up with terms like "surge" for escalation, or "enhanced interrogation techniques" for torture.The language of H.R. 1955, The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, which passed the House on Oct. 23 and is now in committee in the Senate, has that Orwellian quality of sheer cloudy vagueness, and as such lends itself to the potential for 1984-ish Thought Police in the form of a committee.

I have personal experience with the dangerous and corrosive effect of vague legislation in my business, mortgages. Thus, my radar is up to the potential dangers pointed out in this column.

It is also being challenged on civil liberties grounds.

Many scholars, historians and civil liberties experts say they fear that the proposed bill will set the stage for future criminal legislation that be used against U.S.-based groups engaged in legal but unpopular political activism, ranging from political Islamists to animal-rights and environmental campaigners to radical right-wing organizations.

"This bill fits the pattern we are seeing coming out of Congress - both Republican and Democratic - of a continued campaign of fear, which gets into heads of Americans that we now need to start criminalizing ideology," said Alejandro Queral, executive director of the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center. H said he is very concerned about the bill's vague definitions of "violent radicalization," "homegrown terrorism," and the terms within the definitions including "extremist belief system," "violence" and "force."

"What is an extremist belief system? Who defines this?" Queral questioned. "Planes flying into the World Trade Center is an extremist belief, but are anti-abortion activists extremists? Are individuals who liberate mink extremists? These are broad definitions that encompass so much, which need to rather be very narrowly tailored. It is criminalizing thought and ideology, rather than criminal activity."

I think the vague definitions that this bill appears to have lends itself to potential abuses of civil liberties. The bill is certainly well intentioned. Home grown terrorists are a big and bigger problem. That said, it doesn't seem to me to be something that can be legislated. This seems to be a priority law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security matter. I don't think you can legislate tougher measures against homegrown terrorists. That happens when departments apply more pressure, more focus, and more resources to the matter.

Finally, from scanning the bill, I have found one other big potential problem. Here is the full text of the bill. Here is the part that concerns me.

The Secretary of Homeland Security shall establish or designate a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism in the United States (hereinafter referred to as `Center') following the merit-review processes and procedures and other limitations that have been previously established for selecting and supporting University Programs Centers of Excellence. The Center shall assist Federal, State, local and tribal homeland security officials through training, education, and research in preventing radicalization and homegrown terrorism in the United States. In carrying out this section, the Secretary may choose to either create a new Center designed exclusively for the purpose stated herein or identify and expand an existing Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence so that a working group is exclusively designated within the existing Center of Excellence to achieve the purpose set forth in subsection...

Invariably, whenever Congress identifies a problem they want to study it. Invariably, this group turns into nothing more than an added layer to the bureaucracy that comes to the federal government for money, my money and every other tax payer's money. I have already pointed out the huge potential problem of the added bureaucracy of the SAVE Act. Yet again, Congress has created a bill that will ultimately add to the size of government.

I am not against studying homegrown terrorists, however there are two things that I see to be problematic here. The first is that it is best studied through field work. In other words, the FBI agents, secret service, and police that are out on the street battling homegrown terrorist are in effect engaged in the study of homegrown terrorists. This isn't the sort of thing that academics studying theory would contribute in any reasonable way. We don't need Congress to act to do this. Hopefully, it is already happening. Second, I don't think my tax dollars should go to such theoretical research. If someone wants to fund a university to study homegrown terrorists, let them but it shouldn't be my money.

Analysis and Reaction to Mitt Romney's Speech

Mitt Romney gave a speech many believed he needed to give discussing his faith. I didn't hear it or see it so I will act merely as a sort of weigh station of news and reaction to it.


Power Line has audio of the speech and a full transcript.

Over the last year, we have embarked on a national debate on how best to preserve American leadership. Today, I wish to address a topic which I believe is fundamental to America's greatness: our religious liberty. I will also offer perspectives on how my own faith would inform my Presidency, if I were elected.

There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation's founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams’ words: 'We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion... Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people.'

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate's religion that are appropriate. I believe there are. And I will answer them today.

The view from the right blogosphere was generally impressed.

He appealed to religious liberty, the liberty that America was founded on. He pointed to what a lack of religious freedom can lead to. And I think he did an excellent job of showing Americans that he is indeed an ally in the fight for the collective faith of all Americans and the religious freedoms we too often take for granted.

The right punditry was more balanced.

There was much in the speech that evangelicals and other religious conservatives will find to their liking. First, there was Romney's treatment of religious liberty. He said it is an inalienable right "with which each is endowed by his Creator." He implied it is, amongst all our liberties, the very first. Romney said he understood the religion clause of the First Amendment as being fundamentally about securing "the free practice of religion" and pointed out that while achieving religious liberty has been a long and arduous process, its benefits--"diversity of cultural expression" and "vibrancy of .  .  . religious dialogue"--are evident and contrast sharply with what you find in Europe, where established churches seem to be "withering away."

Second, Romney took a whack at those (unnamed) who take "the notion of the separation of church and state .  .  . well beyond its original meaning" by seeking "to remove from the public domain any acknow-ledgment of God." It is, he said, "as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America--the religion of secularism. They are wrong." Romney called for public acknowledgments of God--"in ceremony and word." God "should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places." Romney even managed to work in a reference to judges, saying we need jurists who will stick to original meaning and let stand, for example, "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Third, Romney affirmed that religion is a force for the nation's well-being. "No movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people," he said, citing as examples abolition in the 19th century and civil rights in the 20th. He also mentioned "the right to life itself," a movement not yet finished--and clearly of importance to many Republican primary voters.

The rest of the punditry was a lot more mixed. Here is some from E.J. Dionne.

Romney's speech at the George H.W. Bush library in College Station, Tex., was by turns brilliant and frustrating, inspiring yet also transparently political in its effort to find the precise balance that would satisfy Republican primary voters.

When he spoke of the dangers of subjecting candidates to doctrinal investigations, Romney had perfect pitch. His opponents -- particularly Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister who is reaping a great harvest of evangelical Christian support in Iowa -- should join him in warning against religious bigotry.

"There are some who would have a presidential candidate describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines," Romney said. "To do so would enable the very religious test the Founders prohibited in the Constitution. No candidate should become the spokesman for his faith. For if he becomes president, he will need the prayers of the people of all faiths."

There was also his poetic assertion that "we do not insist on a single strain of religion -- rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith."

But in light of all this, it was a neck-snapping moment when Romney declared: "What do I believe about Jesus Christ? I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind."

With those words, Romney legitimized the most fundamental test being imposed on him in some evangelical Christian quarters. He was telling them he deserved an "A" on the religious exam they cared about most. He has every right to declare his faith in Jesus, but didn't his profession, in this context, undercut his central and proper contention that a candidate should not be asked to "describe and explain his church's distinctive doctrines"?

Here is one from the Salt Lake Tribune...

The Creator] should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places.

Clearly a nod to religious conservatives who are pushing for religious expression in the public sphere.

So many of the [European] cathedrals now stand as the postcard backdrop to societies just too busy or too 'enlightened' to venture inside and kneel in prayer.

This speaks to the fears of the religious right that if they don't protect and promote religion now, America will go the way of secular Europe.


Infinitely worse is the other extreme, the creed of conversion by conquest: violent Jihad, murder as martyrdom. . . . killing Christians, Jews, and Muslims with equal indifference. These radical Islamists do their preaching not by reason or example, but in the coercion of minds and the shedding of blood.


This is pure religious right rhetoric, but it is also offensive to Muslims to use "Islamists" as a term of fear and horror.


We do not insist on a single strain of religion - rather, we welcome our nation's symphony of faith.

The "symphony of faith" may be Romney's best metaphor, but critics are already using it against him, pointing out that humanists, agnostics and atheists seem to be excluded from playing.

Finally, just for fun here is the view from the Kos.

He didn't say the word "Mormon" once, I don't think. [UPDATE II: Final word count score -- Mormon: 1; Muslim/Islam/jihad: 5] So to the extent that you bought the hype and tuned in because you had genuine questions about the LDS church, you came away empty-handed. And possibly with the nagging feeling that Romney's hiding something after all.

What the speech did succeed in showing is that the Romney operation is the nearest successor (to date) to the Bush operation in its willingness to play the press corps for suckers. Promise a "major address" on some pressing issue, play the expectations game according to the Conventional Wisdom -- that is, raising the stakes by having surrogates use back channels to inflate expectations about the importance of the substance to be addressed -- and then turn it all on its head by delivering nothing of what was promised, and daring the press corps to write their stories with their pants down, having played into the game of promising something big.

The other master stroke here was the choice of venue: the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. That puts the Romney name next to the Bush name in the papers -- a grab at the mantle, if people will just look past the "H" -- and it allows Romney to deliver what was essentially Republican religionist pablum (I believe in God, He should be on our money, plus we need "our kind" of judges) from behind a podium bearing the presidential seal. A media consultant's dream come true, and what should be a fat bonus for the advance team (but they never get the money).

The World After the NIE Report

If anyone wants to know what a brave new world the internet and 24 cable news has created they only need to look at the dynamics created by the release of the National Intelligence Estimate in regards to Iran's nuclear program. Six or eight years ago I would venture to guess that many in government wouldn't know anything about any NIE report. Now, the NIE is subject to water cooler discussion and is being used as spin material by politicians as far away as Iran.



The problem with this brave new world is that most of the people in it know just enough to be dangerous. First, as Fred Thomspon rightly points out, we should have a healthy skepticism toward this report.

The accuracy of the latest NIE on Iran should be received with a good deal of skepticism. Our intelligence community has often underestimated the intentions of adversaries, including Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea. And are all of the CIA detractors now going to take intelligence pronouncements at face value? It's awfully convenient for a lot of people: the administration gets to say its policies worked; the Democrats get to claim we should have eased up on Iran a long time ago: and Russia and China can claim sanctions on Iran are not necessary

Second, if the report is right, then the reaction is almost entirely spin and in no way relates to reality. There is a great deal of irony that most of the same people that are using this report to attack Bush for some sort of perceived misleading statements also attacked Bush for lying about Iraq. The final NIE report on Iraq painted a scary picture in which the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein was seeking a plethora of WMD programs. Even though that particular report concurred with the picture the President gave, that didn't stop his opponents from claiming that he lied about Iraq's WMD's. Now, most of the exact same people that ignored a previous NIE report to claim he lied are using another NIE report to claim he is now lying. They simply can't have it both ways. Either the NIE is the gospel or it isn't.



Finally, if this report is accurate, then it in fact validates Bush's entire foreign policy strategy. The NIE report says that Iran halted their nuclear program in 2003. Unless you are a believer in strange coincidences that means Iran stopped their program because they noticed their neighbor to the West was getting bombarded because of his own WMD program. In other words, the invasion of Iraq did in fact put tyrants and despots on notice and it changed their behavior. Remember, Lybia also gave up its WMD program in the immediate aftermath of the invasion.

Here is another view...

What did that pressure consist of? In the fall of 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency had not yet referred the civil Iranian nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. That happened in 2006, and the Security Council finally agreed on (weak) sanctions later that year. In the fall of 2003, the European Union had barely swung into action with its negotiations--which have gone nowhere in four years. The quasi-urgency displayed by both the IAEA and the EU in late 2003 was a result of fear that unless they got engaged, the United States might act unilaterally and militarily. Why such fear?

Much as the U.S. intelligence community, the IAEA, and the EU might prefer to forget it, we did overthrow Saddam Hussein in April 2003. As Rosett puts it, that "was the year in which Saddam Hussein became Exhibit A of the post-Sept.-11 era for what could happen to terror-linked tyrants who ignored America's demands that they abjure weapons of mass murder."

Did anyone notice? Muammar Qaddafi did. Libya, in late 2003, gave up its nuclear weapons program (which was, incidentally, more advanced than the IAEA believed) and invited U.S. experts in to dismantle it.

Perhaps Iran's mullahs also noticed. Perhaps they noticed, too, a large U.S.-led military force just across their border.

Why then are some using this as bludgeon against Bush? Here is how Joe Biden put it...

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden (Del.) Tuesday asserted that President Bush is not leveling with the country when he says that he did not know in mid-October that U.S. intelligence services believed at that time that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

“Are you telling me a president who is briefed every single morning, who is fixated
on Iran, is not told back in August that the tentative conclusion of 16 intelligence agencies in the United States government said they had abandoned their effort for a nuclear weapon in ’03?” Biden said in a conference call with reporters.

So, when accusing the sitting President of lying about matters of national security, Biden uses nothing but supposition. Of course, he isn't alone. Most of the entire MSM has claimed this.
Criticism was coming from nearly every single quarter.

The new National Intelligence Estimate — which says Iran had a nuclear weapons development program, but halted it in 2003 — made President Bush's week play out like a sad country song. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was smiling and called the report a victory. Rush Limbaugh blasted the report as a product of administration sabotage. And Democrats were accusing the president of being a flip-flopper.

The NIE drew fire from nearly all sides, including anti-war Democrats in Congress, foreign leaders the administration needs to hold the line against Iran, and conservatives usually supportive of the administration.

The root issue for many critics comes down to credibility: Credibility of the estimate, credibility of the intelligence community that developed it and the credibility of the administration for whom those agencies work. Bridging that credibility gap might prove difficult for an administration heading into its final months.

The most absurd criticism came from those that claimed this would slow down "Bush's rush to war". First, the only rush that Bush had to go to war with Iran was in the minds of the people that claimed he had it. For the last six years the only thing Bush has done is go back to the UN for an endless stream of useless sanctions. If anything Bush hasn't been tough enough, not too tough. Second, to claim that this proves that Iran isn't the threat that Bush claims is to ignore all reality. First here is how some of those think.

To be sure, the first reaction to the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran is simple relief — the Bush administration is less likely to launch a unilateral, pre-emptive military strike against a nuclear program that doesn’t exist.

But then there are the second and third reactions, which are nearly as important in providing context. Matt Yglesias, for example, reminds us that in 2003, Iran reached out to the U.S. in order to strike a sweeping peace deal, which would have led the country to give up on a nuclear program that they then-realized would be too hard to develop. Bush wasn’t interested.

For anyone to treat Iran as anything short of a sociopathic regime that needs to be isolated and confronted until they understand that confrontation will only lead to their destruction is to ignore reality. Let's review some of the things Iran has done in the last couple years.

One of their proxies started a war in Lebanon with Israel. Another proxy started a war in Palestine with Israel. It is Iran that is responsible for the much of the alphabet soup of explosive devices currently killing our soldiers in Iraq . Let's not forget that the Iranians crossed into international waters, took fifteen British sailors hostage, and then paraded them on television for propaganda purposes. To claim that Iran is not a menace because some government report claims they halted their nuclear program (though interestingly not their uranium enrichment) is to ignore Iran's actions over the last few years. Iran is a menace. If this report is accurate then it proves that the only way to deal with them is with a hammer.

What is frustrating to folks like me is how the White House is again bungling the media handling of this report. Even though they have the bully pulpit of the Presidency you aren't hearing much response to much of this absurd criticism.

There you have the brave new world of the MSM and the NIE report. It is complicated by nature as the NIE report is really not meant for layman. That said, most people are asking all the wrong questions and coming to all the wrong conclusions. It is nothing short of absurd to have the same Joe Biden accusing Bush of misleading on Iraq, all the while ignoring the NIE report, and misleading on Iran, all the while treating this NIE report as the gospel. It is shameful that the MSM has focused solely on perceived misleading statements without even a thought that this report actually confirms Bush's policies.

Finally, and to me most importantly, it is no less shameful that the Bush admin allows all of this to happen even though they have the bully pulpit of the Presidency.

My Hubris Moment Vis a Vis Susan Estrich

I know that I am threatening to step over the lines of political analytical hubris as I disect this piece by Susan Estrich, however I will explain later what gives ME the right to challenge such an accomplished political operative. Before that, here is some disclosure. I am NOT a Huckabee supporter, and he wouldn't even be in my top three choices for the Republican nod. (I am a Rudy supporter)

Huckabee is now a bona fide contender because the knives are out all over the place for him. For instance, Rick Moran wrote this scathing analysis.

But Mike Huckabee is not a conservative – at least not any kind of conservative that I would recognize as such. His tenure as Arkansas governor was marked by a corn pone populism – part Huey Long and part Jimmy Carter along with a massive increase in the tax burden on the individual taxpayer in his state as well as a sharp rise in spending. Huckabee channeled the ghost of Huey Long in his funding of state road improvements – largely through a hefty gas tax increase and a controversial bond issue. He also put a $5.25 premium on nursing home patients and raised the sales tax in the state. The Club for Growth detailed his “conservative” tax policy and ideas:

...

The Club for Growth isn’t the only fiscally conservative group that has looked in askance at Huckabee’s record. The Cato Institute was also unimpressed by Huckabee’s tenure as governor. They gave him an “F” in fiscal policy for 2006. Hucksterites will point to his $80 million tax cut package he pushed through the legislature that eliminated capital gains taxes on home sales and indexed taxes to the inflation rate. But that’s just a drop in the bucket. While Huckabee claims to have cut taxes 90 times totaling $378 million, the state’s Department of Finance and Administration says he also raised taxes 21 times that brought in a whopping $883 million. Under his “conservative” governance, the “average Arkansan’s tax burden” went “from $1,969 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1997, to $2,902 in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2005, including local taxes.”

Red State is having a virtual orgy of scathing analyses of Mike Huckabee. Michelle Malkin has weighed in negatively on her forte, illegal immigration. It is obvious that the right is now picking apart every nook and cranny of his record. I have never been one to look this deeply at anyone's record. I know that in reading some of the most extreme analyses of Rudy's record that a lot can be twisted. I HAVE FOUND that detractors and supporters alike have totally misanalyed the phenomenon that is now the candidacy that is Mike Huckabee.

It really comes down to two words: charm and charisma. Those are universally appealing qualities and Huckabee has them in spades. He far exceeds those qualities compared to any of his Republican opponents, and matches even Barack Obama in those two qualities. He has a solid resume to boot which is something Obama doesn't have. Charm and charisma is the simple and succinct explanation for his tremendous appearances in every debate, and he exhibits those two qualities in every interview and appearance.

This brings me back to Susan Estrich. Now, the reason that I have decided to put Estrich in my cross hairs and not everyone of my colleagues is that she doesn't simply misanalyze Huckabee but the entire state of our party. Second, she is a Democrat and with all due respect to her, she knows less than me, a Republican, about the dynamics of our party. Now, here is a sampling of her analysis.

Huckabee is an interesting guy. He is a straight shooter, a former Baptist minister, a born-- not born-again--conservative.

But as a Democrat, am I worried about Hillary or Barack taking on this former Arkansas governor?

Not a little. Certainly not a lot.

Not only is he out of step with the rest of America, as opposed to the right tail of the right tail of the Republican party, which is to say the religious conservatives who dominate the caucus and primary process, on social issues, but his proposals in such areas as federal taxation and especially Social Security are enough to make any Democrat’s mouth water.Not that anyone loves taxes, but eliminating the IRS and progressive tax system and replacing it with one that puts a flat tax on all consumption, which is the most regressive way to pay our bills, doesn’t have political winner written all over it. It’s one of those ideas that people with no chance of winning run and lose on. Think Steve Forbes. It’s not one you want to defend in the World Series.

But that’s nothing compared to his proposal to get rid of the payroll tax for Social Security, and his support for private retirement accounts. Did anyone say Florida?

There is plenty to blast here. First, the minute you don't take someone seriously as an opponent is the moment your opponent defeats you, just ask USC about their loss to Stanford, the Soviets about their loss to the U.S. in 1980, Georgetown about their loss to Villanova, and the St. Louis Rams about their loss to the Patriots in 1999.

Second, while she claims that most of his proposals aren't mainstream, she backs none of it up with data. She claims ridiculously that the flat tax is a loser by attaching it to Forbes. The Flat Tax is not necessarily a loser, Steve Forbes is. The flat tax is new and revolutionary and most people don't know it or understand it. What such a proposal needs is a great ambassador to sell it. What a great salesperson needs is: charm and charisma. See where I am going here. Huckabee has all the attributes that Forbes was missing to be able to sell a revolutionary idea to the public like the flat tax. Besides what exactly will the Democrats counter with, tax increases?

She claims that while no one likes the IRS or taxes the flat tax is regressive. It is but it also gets rid of income taxes entirely. It bulks up sales taxes which are entirely voluntary (in other words you choose to buy stuff). In any case, I don't want to debate the fair tax here. What I do know is that the fair tax can be framed just fine if it has the right person framing it. Clearly, she dislikes the Fair Tax and dismisses it out of hand without much analysis. I believe that by doing so Estrich...well let me let Vizzini of The Princess Bride explain...

fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this:

...believing that something you don't like will also be disliked by the public at large.

She, not surprisingly, condescends to his faith and spirituality as if he is out of the mainstream. Eighty percent of this country is Christian. They may not be a Baptist Minister like Huckabee, however, again, when he speaks about his faith people WILL be impressed because: Charm and Charisma.

She claims that she wouldn't be worried about a race between Huckabee and Hillary. I would. Huckabee is charming, charismatic and likeable and Hillary is not. He compares just as favorably against Obama, given that he is experienced and Obama is not. Everyone compares favorably to Edwards so that is beneath me.

The worst part of the analysis is the claim that Huckabee's rise is indication that our party is in trouble. Nothing could be further from the truth. His rise shows that our party is strong and vibrant. It shows that we have a plethora of good, qualified candidates that can at anytime capture anyone's attention. The Democrats have a scandal ridden, cold unlikeable, candidate who's only accomplishment is being married to a popular President competing against a lightweight with less than four years of national experience. In third position is a total fraud who claims to be for the little guy while living in a home that measures five digits in square footage. None of the other candidates are worth even one look.

The Democrats are arrogant and cocky because they think that Iraq has dragged the Reps down to where they can't recover. I think that will all change soon enough, and their cockiness is quite obvious in Estrich's piece. There is a reason why superbia, or pride and arrogance, is one of the seven deadly sins, and the Democrats should heed the warning not to revel in it.

Finally, I am still a bit of an internet dunce. Thus, I can't seem to figure out how to put the video into this post. Thus, for an example of Huckabee's charm and charisma check out the video in the post directly above this...

The SAVE Act and My Favorite Yogi Berra Quote

Yogi Berra once said this...

in theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

I get that feeling when breaking down the SAVE Act. There are frankly very few laws that sound bad in theory. That unfortunately is not true in the debate over illegal immigration. Most of the proposed laws to deal with illegal immigration weren't just bad in practice but in theory. Whether it is driver's licenses for illegals, the mass amnesty of last summer's comprehensive bill, or the mass amnesty of the DREAM Act, most of the bills that deal with illegal immigration are bad even in theory. Not so with the SAVE Act, this bill sounds absolutely wonderful in theory. Here are the particulars as enumerated by one of my readers.

8000 more Border Patrol agentsMore Judges, courts, and detention centers.Border fencing and vehicle barriers (where needed), and all-weather surveillance roads in conjunction with high tech surveillance equipment including satellite surveillance, infra red, and seismic detection. It requires construction along the border to take into account environmental and private land use needs.Requires development of a national strategy to secure the borders and all ports of entry to the United States by December 31, 2010.

This Bill even has accountable and transparent financing of the effort built into it giving power of oversight to the Comptroller and Inspector Generals to keep Congress appraised.This bill is going to receive some stiff opposition from organizations like LULAC and LaRaza, and incumbent Democrats beholding to the illegal immigrant population communities, and incumbent Republicans beholding to employers pressing for cheap illegal labor. They will try to fight this Bill. This SAVE Act offers the Independent voters in America the first real opportunity to flex their newfound muscle by supporting this Bill and pressing their representatives to vote for this legislation.

Here is how Numbers USA analyzed the most important part of the bill, the verification system of employees by employers.

provides employers with an inexpensive, quick, and accurate way to verify employee eligibility. E-Verify has already achieved tremendous success, but is currently voluntary and offers little incentive for employers to participate. This puts users at an economic disadvantage when it is only being used by a fraction of U.S. employers and competitors continue to hire illegal aliens.

All of this sounds great "in theory" however...

in theory there is no difference between theory and practice but in practice there is

Sure, it all sounds great that we will finally have a system where employers can verify the legal status of all of their employees. In practice that system will be done by a new government bureaucracy. In practice, most government bureaucracies fail in their mission and become counter productive. In theory, the DMV sounded like a great idea. In theory, Medicare was a great idea. In theory, social security was a good... all right that would be taking things too far. Still, the difference between whether or not most bills become good bills isn't theory but practice.

Yet, no one is asking the sort of critical questions necessary to figure out how to resolve all the potential nightmares that this bureaucracy may bring. Here is what Numbers USA says.

The SAVE Act will broaden and enhance border security and interior enforcement. With a number of border security Democrats and Republicans already agreeing to co-sponsor, this bipartisan effort may be Congress’s best chance to achieve substantial immigration reform this Congress.

Here is how Michelle Malkin sees the bill.

There are, believe it or not, a few Democrats who have their heads screwed on straight when it comes to immigration enforcement. Several were elected last fall; the open-borders lobby has conveniently ignored them.

Referring of course to Congressman Heath Shuler who is the main sponsor of the bill.

Here is the word from Tom Tancredo's PAC.

Well, now there is a bipartisan immigration bill that actually reforms our immigration system rather than just opening our borders and granting amnesty. We need to put the pressure on members of both parties to support this bill!

Even John Murtha showers this bill with nothing but fawning accolades.

This bipartisan bill will help our law enforcement agencies provide tighter border security and give our employers the resources they need to verify documented and undocumented workers,” noted Murtha.

No one is talking about exactly how this bill will be carried out. What will the new bureaucracy look like? How will it carry out its mission? How will this bureaucracy be any different than Social Security which was supposed to do the exact same thing? Everyone is just impressed how in vague theory it will secure our borders and help verify employees legal status. Just because it will do this in theory doesn't mean it will do it in practice.


No one is talking about any of these vital issues because we finally have a piece of legislation vis a vis illegal immigration that actually sounds good in concept. Most people take its goals at face without ever asking how the bill will be carried out to accomplish them. Just because a bill has good intentions, and this one clearly does, doesn't mean that the bill will accomplish those goals.

Everyone is fawning over this bill like it is the prom queen and no one is asking any critical questions. If we don't ask any critical questions then we will fawn over yet another counter productive bureaucracy.

Dems and Iraq: Rock Meet Hard Place

Here is the latest "good" news out of Iraq as reported by the New York Times yesterday.

As Iraqi refugees begin to stream back to Baghdad, American military officials say the Iraqi government has yet to develop a plan to absorb the influx and prevent it from setting off a new round of sectarian violence.

The Iraqi government lacks a mechanism to settle property disputes if former residents return to Baghdad only to find their homes occupied, the officials said. Nor has the Iraqi government come forward with a detailed plan to provide aid, shelter and other essential services to the thousands of Iraqis who might return. American commanders caution that if the return is not carefully managed, there is a risk of undermining the recent security gains.

“All these guys coming back are probably going to find somebody else living in their house,” said Col. William Rapp, a senior aide to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, speaking at a two-day military briefing on measuring military trends for a small group of American reporters in Baghdad...

But Mike, that isn't good news... Sure it is. This is, after all, the New York Times. If all they can find in the way of bad news is the government's troubles in dealing with refugees. Well, that frankly is good news. Our goals in Iraq were to remove Saddam, install a representative government, and turn Iraq from an enemy into an ally in the GWOT. None of that has anything to do with their refugee situation. That is, with all due respect, entirely the internal problem of the Iraqi government. If the government fails in such tasks as dealing with refugees, well then, the Iraqis will quickly grow as cynical toward their elected officials as we do here. So what. That has nothing to do with any of our goals in the country. The good news is that the New York Times can't actually find any real bad news.

On the same day, we also had vocal war opponent Jack Murtha say this.

Murtha said he saw signs of progress and continuing chaos during his one day in Iraq. A hospital he visited had been hit by a mortar attack the day before, but more parts of the country are peaceful than before, and Iraqi troops in the Al Anbar province are rooting out the remnants of al-Qaida in their area, he said…

Murtha said that “surge” of troops is working, but it only underscores how poor planning from the Bush administration has hamstrung the war effort. Other examples include the slow response to protecting troops from roadside bombs and a shortage...

Despite the expected caveats, Murtha couldn't deny reality. The surge is working. Violence is down. Iraqis: Sunni, Shia, Kurd, and all others are turning against the insurgency and are working with our side. Even the Daily Kos is starting to admit reality.

As U.S. casualties have continued to drop, many people on the anti-Bush side of the aisle have begun to quietly panic in recent days over this question: "Could George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan have possibly been right about the surge?"

Simply put, the answer is no. The surge is not working and George W. Bush and Frederick Kagan were not right. Despite what right-wing blogs are saying, and despite what conservative observers are noting, the plunge in violence is actually the result of an Iraqi political decision made by and implemented by Iraqis—and the drop has little to do with the "surge"—an infusion of 30,000 troops (which wouldn’t fill a Major League stadium) into Baghdad, a city of six million people...

It may in fact be desperately important for the Kossacks to prove to the world that the improved situation has nothing to do with the surge, however in reality, the arguement is silly, because it is not relevant. First, Bush's legacy will be set by history. Second, in the next election Bush won't be on the ticket.

Several anti war Democrats will be though. An entire Congress that tried to stop the surge before it got started will be. Let's take them one at a time...

Hillary Clinton

I think that the reports that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief...“In any of the metrics that have been referenced in your many hours of testimony, any fair reading of the advantages and disadvantages accruing post-surge, in my view end up on the downside.’’

Barack Obama

I will not support funding for a failed policy. It is long past time for the Republicans to stop filibustering a responsible removal of our troops from Iraq, and for the President to stop threatening to veto anything that is not a blank check for his failed strategy.

"Our troops must not bear the burden for the failure of Iraq's leaders to reconcile, nor should they be kept in Iraq to counter Iran.

Harry Reid

I believe ... that this war is lost, and this surge is not accomplishing anything, as is shown by the extreme violence in Iraq this week...

Nancy Pelosi

No statistic can capture the pain and loss endured by the families of the fallen in Iraq, particularly the children of parents who will not be returning home. Those who have lost loved ones, and those still serving in Iraq and around the world, are in our thoughts and prayers every day as we work to bring an end to the President’s disastrous war.

"While nothing compares to the loss of life in Iraq, the financial costs of the President’s policy are enormous and growing, with $10 billion being spent each and every month of the war. The total cost for the Bush Administration’s Iraq war could rise as high as $2 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office

"With every passing day, the President’s Iraq policy leaves the United States more isolated at a time when we must reclaim our moral leadership and rally the world to fight against terrorism. The choice is between a Democratic plan for responsible redeployment of our troops and the President’s plan to spend another trillion dollars for a 10-year war in Iraq."

So, every Democratic leader is now on record as believing that what is happening would NOT happen. They called a policy failed before they even had time to assess it. They are now stuck between the perverbial rock and perverbial hard place. They must now convince the country that what is real isn't actually real.

That's why they are all fixated on the benchmarks which haven't been met. The Dems are reaching for anything out of Iraq that looks like bad news. It is a very difficult arguement to make though. It is hard to convince the public the surge isn't working because the central government hasn't reached agreement on some pre determined goals. Second, this is becoming more and more General Petreaus' war. Thus, in order to prove failure when there is success, they will ultimately have to show the country more credibility on this matter than General Petreaus (who they incidentally voted unanimously to install less than a year ago).

I pointed out that the Republicans are not in a great position either because they are handcuffed to a war that will likely never be popular, however their perverbial "pickle" is much easier to navigate. Here is how they are currently navigating it.

The 2008 Republican presidential candidates have a simple position on the war in Iraq: They want victory, and they want to talk about something else.

With the notable exception of Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), they echo President Bush, and say the United States must remain in Iraq for an unspecified period until the country is stable, and that leaving before then would be a victory for al-Qaeda.

But they usually only say that when asked. The two leading candidates in Iowa, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Massachusetts governor MittRomney, occasionally give entire speeches without even using the word "Iraq."

Unlike the Democratic candidates, who have competed over who can offer the most precise plan for withdrawing troops as president, the GOP candidates have offered limited visions about how they see Iraq's future, choosing instead to focus on howthey would enlarge the U.S. military to fight the broader war on terrorism.

The Reps want to minimize Iraq as an issue as much as possible. That maybe the appropriate strategy now, however as the war continues to get better, and especially after Petreaus' next report in March, this issue may even turn into a benefit for the Reps. All those quotes will be damning if our casualties fall into the teens or even single digits by the next election after all. For the Reps, the trick is easy. Divorce yourself from the failed strategy that Bush employed (relatively easy since it was Bush's strategy after all, and Bush isn't the first President to start with a failed war strategy, see Lincoln, FDR, Wilson, Washington, etc.) Continue to back the current strategy and contrast that with the defeatist strategy that the Democrats are now married to.

The Changing Dynamics of the War in Iraq and Its Political Ramifications

Rick Moran wrote an amazing piece yesterday that really breaks down the situation currently going on in Iraq. If you have a chance, please read it. If you don't, here is a summary. There is no doubt that there has been some success since the institution of the surge. That said, Iraq remains an unbelievably complex place with all sorts of moving parts with varying agendas, and it is impossible to predict if our current success will transfer into ultimate success with all of these parts.

This is all no doubt true however I would also add that I believe that our forces have accomplished the most difficult part of the task so far, and that they have my full confidence in accomplishing the rest. It was fascinating and peculiar that former General Rick Sanchez gave the Democratic response to Bush's weekly radio address this past weekend. After all, the Democrats railed on Rumsfeld's failed Iraq plan and Sanchez was instrumental in its implementation. In 1864, former failed Union General George McClellan ran for the Democratic ticket. While I have no doubt there are eyes rolling, there are some peculiar similarities.

There are now two concurrent and divergent realities going on vis a vis Iraq. The first is that things are improving and the second is that this is a war that the public will NEVER like. This makes Iraq a paradigm politically for both parties. The Republicans are hand cuffed to a perpetually unpopular war and the Democrats are hand cuffed to defeat in an improving situation. It appears neither side wins in this case.

There is also great irony in the political framing that each party is taking vis a vis Iraq. For instance, Carl Levin represented the Democrats in the Iraq War debate on FNS. Here is some of what he said.

Well, it shows an improvement on the military side, but the president's policy very specifically had as its purpose — the surge's purpose was to give the Iraqi political leaders the breathing space to work out a political settlement, and that purpose has not been achieved.

They're just as far apart as ever. And I think there's a growing frustration with the Maliki government, even among our own military leaders, for the Maliki government's failure to make political improvements. That growing frustration is reflected in a State Department bulletin that just came out which said that the greatest threat which now exists in Iraq is no longer Al Qaeda, it is not the insurgency of the Sunni insurgency, it is not the militias.

The greatest threat to any success in Iraq is the failure of the Iraqi politicians to work out their political differences.

Senator Lindsey Graham represented the Republicans and here is some of what he said.

It's working amazingly well, beyond my expectations. I think history will judge the surge as probably the most successful counterinsurgency military operation in history.

Violence is down. Economic activity is up. It's not just about more troops. It's how the troops are used. So hats off to General Petraeus and all under his command. You're making military history and a phenomenal success. I was amazed, really.

Here is the irony. Both parties have maintained their overall assessments for much of the war. The Republicans are optimistic and the Democrats are pessimistic. That is true, however they have swapped their measures. Remember for years, despite all the violence Bush continued to point to political benchmarks: elections, the constitution, the formation of the government, etc. as signs that we were still succeeding, and the Democrats just pointed to the next car bomb. Now, since there are no car bombs, the Republicans are pointing to that, and the Democrats are pointing to the lack of political progress.

Now, if electoral history is any judge, the Republicans now hold the edge. The Democrats must convince the folks that we are losing when we are winning, while the Republicans must divorce themselves from Bush. More and more, the Iraq War is becoming the war of General David Petraeus. He will soon become the face of it almost entirely and the Democrats will likely counter with Generals that weren't in the theater or were there during years of failure.

The Republicans have no easy task either. Tying yourself to a neverending and deeply unpopular war is no easy task. Of course, Nixon proved that this position can still be better than calling defeat. The person in best position to use Iraq is John McCain. He called failure when there was failure and success as soon as that happened as well. Furthermore, no one has more credibility on military issues among politicians.

Hillary Clinton appears to be the weakest on Iraq political, at least to me (and my opinion is certainly slanted). She has had moving positions and at this point continues to not only defend her initial vote but also propose a vague withdrawal plan that has no definite end. That frankly ultimately pleases no one. Barack Obama is a bit stronger since he merely defends a withdrawal plan that is more forceful however ultimately pretty vague as well. He is, in my opinion, a totaly foreign policy light weight and I just can't see the voting public being impressed with foreign policy experience amounting to a few years spent overseas as a youth.

The next major event that will affect the politics of Iraq, in my opinion, comes in March. That is when General David Petraeus presents his next progress report. The last one was overshadowed by the Betray Us ad. It's other main highlight was Hillary Clinton claiming that believing there was progress required a "willing suspension of disbelief". If progress was difficult to see then, it will be darn near impossible to ignore then, again in my opinion only. The last three months we have seen a reduction in coalition casualties, Iraqi military casualties, and Iraqi civilian casualties. I believe that November will be month number four and if the trajectory holds it will be seven months of decreasing violence by the time he speaks to Congress.

The genius of Petraeus is that he has developed a plethora of measurements for progress. He develops so much data that accountants would probably get lost in it: deaths, violent events, business openings, recruitments, elections, etc. There is a statistic for just about everything. Given that progress was only beginning to show in September, the numbers will be nothing short of startling in March.

The Democrats will no doubt continue to point to political progress. By political progress, I mean benchmarks. Obviously, there are all sorts of political progress seen in Iraq, however none of them are included in the benchmarks. To me at least, arguing with a General, who has made Iraq his home for the last three years, that political progress can only be defined by static benchmarks set before the start of the operation seems like a political loser. There are all sorts of reconciling between Sunni and Shia sheiks and these partnerships have lead to security agreements. Things that have worked in Sunni areas have been copied with wrinkles in Shia and mixed areas.

Finally, if a lack of political progress by the Central government is any measure success based on pre set benchmarks, they have also just condemned their own Congress. Like I said, the ever changing political dynamic in Iraq is filled with irony.

A Sad Story About a Mortgage Broker

Here is how my August went. I started out with ten loans that I thought I was going to close. Five of them were with one borrower which is one reason why things unraveled the way they did. My borrower has an excellent credit profile. He holds onto nine mortgages, a car loan, a couple student loans, and several credit cards and never in his life has he been late on anything. Now, because he has so much outstanding credit his score is good not great. Also, he is in sales and owns multiple properties so it is virtually impossible to ever show any documentation to verify his income. Still between his strong credit and the fact that he has money in the bank, his loans were always difficult but doable.

Right around my thirty third birthday, his loans started dropping one at a time. The worst thing about it is that they were dropping for newly made up reasons. While he had money in the bank, it wasn't "congruent" to the amount of money I claimed he made. In other words, he didn't have enough money in the bank for the amount of money I claimed he made in income. While this is a reasonable way of judging things, it was NOT any of the bank's guidelines when I submitted the loan.

I kept trying to find new banks for his loan. I found one and the next day they announced they were shutting down operations. I found another and they changed guidelines right after I found them. I finally found one that I thought would work. They fumbled around with it for five days. Then, while I was driving to a wedding in Minnesota, I got the news on Blackberry that they too were denying the loan, and also because his so called liquid assets weren't congruent to his income.

By the end of the month, the ten loans I thought I was going to close wound up being zero and this is a story that most mortgage brokers will tell you about the month of August and even into September. In those two months, banks were looking for reasons to deny loans. It was near impossible to close anything, and thus, it was near impossible to do what I had dedicated the last six years of my life to. The industry was in turmoil and there was confusion and fear everywhere. Almost no one was sure they would even stay in the business and no one knew what would happen next.

I bet I know your reaction. Who cares? You are a scummy mortgage broker and your excess brought this upon yourself. I have no sympathy for you and I hope that your next year is like August. If you think this way, then ask yourself why you sympathize with the people in this article.

This is an article about people about to face foreclosure. There stories are no less heartwrenching, but frankly no more. If you think it is tough facing the reality that you can't afford to pay for your house, try facing the reality that your industry is in such a state of chaos that you can probably no longer afford to be in it. Losing a house is bad, however losing a career is much worse.

Yet, there is NOT one article about any mortgage broker and the difficulties we have faced in these months. That is despite the fact that our stories are no less poignant. That's because unlike homeowners we aren't sympathetic.

Thus, newspapers like Chicago's Daily Herald, and this one from the New York Times, print stories in which borrowers are portrayed as empathetic victims. Their stories are heartwrenching and we are supposed to feel sorry for them. No one feels sorry for the mortgage broker, even though it is no less heart wrenching to watch your career go up in smoke.

That is frankly not the point. I don't much care if anyone has sympathy for me or my industry and I certainly could care less if any newspaper ever wrote a sympathetic piece about us. Unlike the borrowers, most of my industry could care less if the world has any sympathy for us and we don't seek attention at these times. The reason for this piece is that policy is being determined based on the misleading narrative that borrowers are sympathetic and mortgage brokers and banks are bad. Policy can't be determined based on this principle. Yet, newspapers are hammering this theme home.

The politicians are responding. They have responded with H.R. 3915, which attacks predatory lending, and provides even more protection for borrowers in case they go bad on the loan. In other words, based on the narrative that borrowers are good victims and brokers are evil predators, the pols will design a bill that protects the borrower and punishes the broker.

While this may be good politics, especially when it is egged on by the media, it is terrible policy. Borrowers signed paperwork and they agreed to certain conditions. They aren't meeting those conditions, and now the legislature wants to provide extra protection in case they won't meet those conditions. That is called a moral hazard.

It is hard to know exactly how the final version of H.R. 3915 or its equivalents and cousins will look like, however there have already been several scary things being floated. For instance, Senator Dick Durbin wants to allow for bankruptcy courts to be able to renegotiate the terms of mortgages. In other words, if you go into bankruptcy, you will be rewarded with a better mortgage.

The borrower is actually able to sue the securitizer, Wall Street, if their loan goes bad, and the borrower is afforded all sorts of new protections if they go bad on a loan. Here is the language vis a vis securitizers...

Assignee/Securitizer Liability (does not extend to trusts and investors): Subject to exemptions below, for loans that violate the minimum standards (reasonable ability to repay and net tangible benefits), a consumer has an individual cause of action against assignees and securitizers for rescission of the loan and the consumer’s costs for rescission.

Here is the language vis a vis foreclosures...

When the holder of a mortgage loan or anyone acting on behalf of the holder initiates a judicial or non-judicial foreclosure, (1) the consumer who has a rescission right under this bill may assert such right as a defense to foreclosure against the holder to forestall foreclosure, or (2) if the rescission right has expired, the consumer may seek actual damages (plus costs) against the creditor, assignee, or securitizer.

This is a moral hazard and it is dangerous. If you give people an incentive to go bad, that is exactly what they will do. This is happening because newspapers are perpetuating a narrative. It is a narrative that gives politicians a political angle. None of the narrative is rooted in reality mind you. The reality is significantly more complicated. The reality is something that politicians and their partners in the media have no desire of discovering. Instead, they will pass laws that fit the narrative and perpetuate the very problems they claim to be attacking.

Here is the problem. They create vague concepts that fit their narrative. They are concepts like "predatory lending". Here is the problem with that concept.

There is no specific definition about what exactly predatory lending entails, though most observers believe that the description applies when lenders take advantage of borrowers by charging high interest rates and consider only the value of a borrower’s assets, as opposed to what the borrower can afford to pay.

In other words, politicians have created a concept they can't define. It is there solely to make them feel good and also so they can tell the masses they attacked the bad guys. The problem is that in my business there is only one practical effect of vague and undefinable concepts,

YOU HAVEN'T SIGNED ENOUGH PAPERWORK YET

That's right. The practical effect of all of the legislation that is currently on the books is even more paperwork to sign during the process. Anyone who has closed a loan knows how much attention you pay to the paperwork you already sign, and now you will sign even more.

Why does this happen? That's because politicians are responding to political not policy opening, and that opening is created by one sided heart wrenching pieces in which certain groups are painted as victims and others as villains.

Imagine how much different the legislation would be if every newspaper published stories like the one that started this piece. They would of course be no less dangerous, but they would be different.

If Embryonic Stem Cell Research is SO Great...

Why doesn't George Soros use one of his several billions to fund it. This is the question that I asked to a liberal family friend at Thanksgiving dinner. The question came up after they mischaracterized George Bush's position on stem cell research. They claimed that George Bush is against stem cell research.

First, Bush's position, along with his supporters on this issue, must be clarified. Bush isn't against stem cell research and in fact he isn't against any form of stem cell research at all, even the controversial embryonic stem cell research. Bush isn't even against government funding for all embryonic stem cell research. He is for funding on embryonic stem cells that have already been discarded. What he is against is the government funding of embryonic stem cell research in which embryos are created for the sole purpose of being destroyed for research. He doesn't believe that tax payer funds should be used for research in which human life is destroyed.

A new scientific discovery has put the issue of embryonic stem cell research back in the forefront. I want to give a hat tip to my Redstate colleague tomlinsondouthat for finally putting this sophisticated science into layman's terms. Think of the different forms of stem cell research as disks. Adult stem cells are blank disks however they can only be used for one purpose like: DVD's, CD's, games, etc. This is called multipotent. Embryonic stem cells are blank disks that can serve any function. This is called pluripotent. Obviously it goes without saying that there is potential in embryonic stem cell research not held in traditional stem cell research. Now, scientists have discovered a technique in which they can essentially take adult stem cells and remove all of their data and turn them into something close to any embryonic stem cell.

The science is interesting and fascinating but let's face it most of us are too stupid to understand. The morality, on the other hand, is something all of us need to think about. Proponents of federal funding for stem cell research believe that any procedure with potential must be explored because science must be given a chance to flourish fully. While this is true, there must also be some line that we cannot cross even if there is scientific potential. For instance, human cloning has plenty of scientific potential and even this scientific layman wouldn't be surprised if it lead to many discoveries that saved lives. That doesn't mean that we as a society should support its research, and it certainly doesn't mean that the federal government should use tax payer funds to fund it. Heinrich Himmler's experiments also probably had great scientific potential. Of course, no one believes those should be done let alone funded by the federal government.

There will be many proponents of embryonic stem cell research that will say my comparisons are ridiculous and unfair. Are they though? After all, proponents of embryonic stem cell research believe we should create human life for the sole purpose of destroying it. Given that context is it really not a good comparison? What is more obscene than the destruction of human life? THAT IS THE ROOT OF EMBRYONIC STEM CELL RESEARCH.

The proponents of embryonic stem cell research don't consider an embryo a human life because it doesn't perform all the functions of traditional humans. This is of course the most obscene position. They are the ones that favor destroying the life before it lives the way they consider living and then say it isn't really a life. These are the important questions that proponents of embryonic stem cell research refuse to answer or write off.

In fact, it was Bush's insistence on moral and ethical scientific research that fostered the environment for the innovations recently discovered in stem cell research. While his opponents condemned him for standing in the way of scientific breakthroughs, he provided funding to the National Institute of Health so that scientists could develop methods of research on stem cells that didn't face the moral dilemmas of embryonic stem cell research.

It is exactly the sort of society that Hitler favored that says morals and ethics be damned in favor of scientific research. While those, like my family friend, condescend to those like me who have the nerve to ask such ethical questions, I ask my original question? If embryonic stem cell research is so great then why can't scientists get George Soros to provide funding.

I recently read the book, Freedomnomics, and it left me with no doubt. The free market is the ultimate equalizer. If embryonic stem cell research is really that great and all moral questions are trivial then researchers should have no trouble going into the private marketplace for funding. There are more than enough philanthropists looking to park their money in worthy causes. If the proponents of embryonic stem cell research are really right, they don't need the federal government to give them a hand out for funding research. That isn't what they want though. They want us all to ignore the important ethical questions raised by embryonic stem cell research, and still use government, or tax payer funds, to fund it. This despite the fact that many tax payers are against this sort of research.

The proponents of stem cell research on the one hand claim that ALL ethical questions are trivial and then want to force tax payers to fund the research despite their own ethical questions. If all ethical questions are irrelevant, and embryonic stem cell research is all that, then the private marketplace really is the best place for embryonic stem cell research.

The fact that proponents are so forceful in supporting government hand outs tells me that maybe their position really isn't all that.

Why Do So Many Go Hungry?

That is the title of Anna Quindlen's latest column. It is a problem she lays directly at the feet of government and this administration in particular.

Poverty has not been discussed much by the current administration, which was
wild to bring freedom to the Iraqis but not bread to the South Bronx.

In the view of Quindlen, and many like her, poverty is a problem for the government to resolve. Poverty is just one of many problems that folks like Quindlen think is the responsibility of the government. Many times they frame the arguement into one of moral responsibility. Here is a comment from an individual of like mind to Quindlen from another of my diaries.

In the name of Jesus, what is wrong with helping to provide for the common good? Did Jesus say at the sermon on the mount, "Blessed are those financially well off enough to pay for private medical insurance?" Did He say "Blessed are the ones who only serve their self interests?"Since when did health become a privilege? Does the Declaration of Independance say "...the privelage of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...?"

Doesn't the Constitution say "...promote the general Welfare...?"I'm sorry I have to disagree with the naysayers who whine about their tax dollars going to pay for the general welfare of our society and our health. That's not big government that's responsible government. That's not the government intruding into your life. That's the government helping its people. A government is only as effective as the people who run it. And as long as we continue to sit idly by and let it "run itself" it's only gonna get worse. If we take the government back into our own hands as a real American society we can curb the corruption
that has left us with unregulated pharmaceutacle pricing practices, and rediculous malpractice insurance premiums that doc's have to pay and pass the cost onto the patient to stay afloat.

Quindlen, not surprisingly, frames much of the rest of her arguement with allusions to Jesus as well. Jesus, of course, meant personal charity not charity taken forcefully by the government. Neither Quindlen, or this commenter, ever extol the virtues of personal charity. Instead, all those things that Jesus wanted for citizens to do for the less fortunate, those like Quindlen want the government, through our tax dollars, to do for everyone.

It is this sort of moral arguement that brought us such government programs as the ponzi scheme known as social security. It brought us Title IX, the Federal Farm Board, Medicare, the Endangered Species Act and many other well intentioned and ultimately counter productive and bloated government programs. In fact, the Great Society, the mother of all government programs, was supposed to end poverty and hunger forty years ago. Despite its obvious failings, Quindlen believes that it still government's responsibility to feed the homeless, and federal government no less. I had a similar argument with a liberal friend of mine about socialized medicine. In his defense of socialized medicine, he asked why, in America, everyone doesn't have the right to free quality health care. (To which I responded that the only rights we have in America are those enumerated in the Constitution) It is this sort of EMOTIONAL arguement that liberals have been using, effectively many times, to convince the public that it is government's role to solve many of our problems: hunger and health care included.

In my business, mortgages, there are two sorts of people: emotional and logical. The logical borrowers are always easy to deal with. They are convinced by the numbers because numbers are logical. The numbers always tell the story in mortgages. If I have a good deal for someone, the numbers will speak for themselves and logical people will always find the answer in them.

Emotional people, on the other hand, are loose cannons. Anything can set them off and you appeal by pushing their so called button. You sell to them by appealing to their basest emotion, and of course, figuring that out is the trick. They of course can be set off by anything. I once had an emotional borrower flip out because an appraiser still hadn't called an hour after they were supposed to. Given that a reasonable mortgage process can take up to a month (and an unreasonable one even longer) you can see what a tight rope an emotional person can be through such a process.

As far as politics is concerned, Quindlen and her ilk, occupy the emotional end of the spectrum. (I pointed out recently how the NY Times used such an emotional arguement in mortgages) Remember, it was the Democrats who trotted out Graeme Frost (just look at the picture, are you really going to say no to him) during the SCHIP debate. There is of course no rational or logical reason for expansion of government, especially into things not found in the Constitution, so the only arguement left is emotional.

There are two problems with those that use an emotional arguement. The first is that it is usually wrong. The logical arguement is the sensible one, and if someone could make a logical arguement, they would. The second problem is that most people aren't sophisticated enough to realize this. That is why the Dems are winning the SCHIP debate. It is why faulty government programs like social security, Medicare, and the Federal Farm Board become law. While there maybe no logical reason for having them, they can be sold by appealing to emotion. Most of the folks, just aren't frankly smart enough to realize what is going on, and ultimately they get sold a bill of goods.

Finally, if we all truly believe in the philosophy of Jesus, we wouldn't need government programs to solve any of these problems. Thus, here are some ways YOU can help the poor and homeless in my hometown of Chicago. If you don't live in Chicago, then Google your hometown like I did mine.