Thursday, March 28, 2024
Miles from the Mainstream
D. R. ZUKERMAN, proprietor

Presuming President-elect Obama

OCTOBER 15, 2008 --

All right then. Who will Senator Obama appoint to his cabinet and to other high posts in his administration?

By the end of the first week in October the media seemed to have agreed that the race is all over, but for the formality of counting the votes. -- that Senator Obama is the presumptive president-elect. On October 6, it is difficult to challenge that view.

For LPR, Senator Obama will not change Washington – that is to say the leftwing view of Washington as the place where all decisions are made concerning the daily lives of the American people. With a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, LPR expects that the liberal view of democracy – government from above and by insiders - will flourish.

A hint of the liberal mindset was suggested by University of New Hampshire history professor Ellen Fitzpatrick, analyzing, on PBS, the performance of Gov. Palin in her debate with Senator Biden. Prof. Fitzpatrick thought that the governor was “a little bit folksy for my taste”. Professor Fitzpatrick added that Gov.Palin seemed to offer “a kind of populism” that believes “complex problems” can be solved by “common sense.”

LPR is again reminded of the advice stated by Chief Justice Marshall at the conclusion of his opinion in Gibbons v.. Ogden (1824) that when “[p]owerful and ingenious minds” apply clever arguments “to obscure principles which were before thought quite plain,” we should rely on “safe and fundamental principles”.

For LPR, Chief Justice Marshall was advising us to apply common sense to solve problems that clever people, to confuse us, say are “complex”.

LPR heard Senator Biden accuse Republicans of favoring the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. This is not an expression of populism; it is a demagogic assertion.

The causes of the current financial disruption are not clear. (What is clear is that Wall Street is presently in the grip of anxiety.) What seems clear is that a bubble was created, somehow, and that bubble has burst. LPR wonders if we shall hear more of the impact of congressional mortgage mandates on the current situation

There were reports, October 5 that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig suggested to team owners to slow down
Ticket price3 hikes. Perhaps Mr. Selig is concerned that. baseball seats can be obtained mainly by the wealthy, and by politicians and the media. Perhaps, further, the commissioner realizes that a wide chasm has grown, separating major league baseball from the people—a development arguably not in the best interests of baseball.

The drift of major league baseball from the people is, in its way, contrary to the suggestion in Federalist Paper No. 57 that our leaders should hold “communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments” with the people if we are to fend off tyranny.

But if the voters elect candidates who will create “complex” situations that only “elitists” can solve, and encourage dependence on and deference to, government, the voters must bear the responsibility for the consequences – not withstanding the liberal distaste for personal responsibility.

Senator Biden acknowledged, at the end of his debate with Gov.Palin, that he is “much better off than almost all Americans.” Is it, then, more likely or less likely that an Obama-Biden administration will be close to the people, or will govern the people from above, confident that their success makes them smarter than the “common sense” of our people? For such a mindset, I would say just one word, stated by Sen. Biden in his debate with Gov. Palin: “Bosniak.”

LPR, of course, believes that real change in Washington would occur if officials governed according to the counsel set forth in Federalist Paper No. 57. LPR, however, has no confidence that those principles will be applied in an administration that disdains folksiness and common sense. This would suggest that the American people have another four years to wait for an administration committed to “the common good of the society.” -- another four years to wait for the next Ronald Reagan.