Hillary On The Defensive

The Wall Street Journal's recent piece on the Democratic Presidential candidates' "debate" on the Drexel University campus in Philadelphia, portrayed Hillary Clinton as beginning to exhibit the behaviors which I personally believe will ultimately deny her the White House.

For example, the Journal piece read, in part,

"Indeed, each of her rivals condemned Mrs. Clinton's vote on the Iran resolution as unnecessary saber rattling. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware voted against the measure; Mr. Obama missed the voted. Several of the Democrats said the nonbinding resolution harked back chillingly to the march to war in Iraq. Mrs. Clinton said she considered the vote -- essentially for economic sanctions against Iran's elite military -- to be a part of diplomacy, not a prelude to battle.

Instead of pushing back, though, Mrs. Clinton turned her criticism on President Bush, condemning his administration on nearly every level as one that needed to be junked. She noted that if she were on board with the Republicans, "I don't think [they] got the message that I'm voting and sounding like them." A few minutes later, she referred to "the Republicans and their constant obsession with me."

Mr. Edwards couldn't let this last bit of rhetoric pass by. "Maybe they want to run against you," he said."

Two things seem apparent to me from this recounting of the Hillary's conduct during the debate.

One is that she is already becoming what I would call "brittle." It's a characteristic I have been expecting to come out sooner or later. Guess it's sooner, after all.

Hillary combines her desire to be and continue to be front-runner, with a sort of presumption that this means she is unassailable. It's almost as if thinking and acting it, will make it so.

The second thing is that she reacts to criticism and challenges from her fellow candidates by attacking our current President, for whom she has obvious hatred.

But she isn't running against him. Initially, she's running against Obama and Edwards. Next, perhaps, she'll run against Giuliani, Romney, McCain, or Thompson.

In this regard, I have to believe George Bush is having a laugh even now. After all, only 16 people have won two terms as President of our Republic. He has no need to prove himself again.

I cannot help but believe Hillary is running against the wrong adversary. In a sense, it's as if she wants to run against a defenseless candidate. And this retiring two-term President is defenseless, in the sense that he secure in his philosophy and accomplishments.

Could Hillary be making a major mistake by doing this? I think so. Even Democratic voters must realize that the next election doesn't feature Bush. And railing against him is not at all the same as advancing a positive vision of the future.

So many of Hillary's positions are taken in opposition to the current administration's actions and doctrines. Will that sell when she has live, active opponents challenging her for the nomination of her own party for President?

Her cavalier attitude regarding the release of documents informing us about her role in her husband's administration was captured by this Journal passage,

"Mrs. Clinton dismissed criticism of a ban, which her husband sought, that would keep the National Archives from releasing Clinton administration papers until 2012. Asked by the moderator if she would lift the ban, she replied, "That's not my decision to make." But Mr. Obama called the Clinton ban "a problem," saying Democrats need to open government after "one of the most secretive administration's in our history," Mr. Bush's."

Both by her dismissal of her opponents in favor of President Bush as her adversary, and her rather haughty, dismissive attitude regarding most criticisms of the few detailed plans she has put forth, Hillary seems to be assiduously cultivating an image of arrogance.

As if she naturally will win the Democratic nomination, and, of course, the Democrats have to win, because Bush is so...well....un-Democratic.

In the past few days, and especially after reading this account of the recent debate, I've come to believe that Hillary has caught that most dangerous of Presidential candidate diseases.

I call it the "I've waited long enough, it's my turn, dammit!" disease, and I wrote about it here, in March of this year.

Bob Dole had the disease. I think John McCain contracted it, as well. Now, it looks like it's infected Hillary.

Is it merely coincidence that all are or were US Senators? I think not.

And for this reason, as well as my belief that an accomplished executive- governor, mayor, CEO, etc.,- will beat a non-VP or incumbent former- or sitting Senator, I don't believe Hillary will win the White House in 2008.

More Inconvenient Truth About Ethanol

Holman Jenkins' Wednesday Wall Street Journal article about the far left castigating Toyota for its stand on CAFE standards. Standing with other auto manufacturers who rely on large, less fuel-efficient, profitable cars that people actually want, to fund the sale of the "profitless Prius," Toyota is catching flack from the same greenies who buy its hybrid car.

To provide us with a better understanding of the issue, Holman distills it thusly,

"As car companies do, it sold Prius customers a car that met their needs and/or flattered their vanity. For other customers whose hot buttons lie elsewhere, Toyota has the Tundra, its giant, fuel-consuming pickup. Auto companies only achieve efficient scale by appealing to different consumer appetites. The profitless Prius wouldn't exist if not for the non-hybrids that keep Toyota in business. Indeed, Toyota supports the House bill over the Senate bill only because it would let auto makers continue to make big vehicles that happen to be the ones Americans, with their dollars, show they actually want.

But the 32-year-old CAFE rules have become a fetish of environmental groups, a talisman of their clout, a ticket to a seat at a table in Washington. The policy itself has no value: It doesn't reduce oil imports. It doesn't meaningfully curb fossil-fuel use.

In the nature of things, auto buyers amortize their forced investment in fuel economy by driving more miles, burning more gas. The impressive reliability gains of the auto makers over the past 30 years are in part a reflection of this consumer demand for more miles. Ditto the conspicuous increase in vehicle size and comfort, partly a function of the increased time motorists spend in their cars."


To illustrate an as-yet unrealized hypocrisy, Jenkins notes, further down in the piece, this tasty little morsel concerning what converting to ethanol will do for total greenhouse gas emissions,

"A recently passed Senate bill would require motorists to buy 36 billion gallons a year by 2022, up from 7.5 billion gallons under current law.

At least this would benefit the atmosphere, right? Think again. A research team featuring Paul Crutzen, who won a Nobel Prize for his work on ozone depletion, recently showed that the intensive cultivation of biofuels in the U.S. and Europe produces up to 70% more greenhouse effect than the fossil fuels they displace (nitrous oxide, a byproduct of the fertilizers used, has nearly 300 times the heat-trapping properties of carbon dioxide).

Passenger cars can burn fuel consisting of 10% ethanol. If our goal were really to displace conventional gasoline, we'd open our coastal markets to sugar-cane ethanol from Brazil and other Southern Hemisphere countries, produced by less intensive methods that result -- irony alert -- in a genuine reduction in greenhouse emissions.

But Washington blocks imported ethanol with a 54-cents-a-gallon tariff to protect domestic ethanol profits. So let's sum up the ways you're paying to prop up an industry that's bad for energy security and bad for climate worries: higher taxes, higher gas prices and higher food prices. Did we mention the 3% mileage penalty that comes from burning gasoline with a 10% ethanol content, thanks to ethanol's inferior BTU value compared to gasoline?"

I have to admit, I love the naive hypocrisy of the populist environmentalists.

They want less oil usage. They want to buy expensive hybrid technology cars cheaply, even though the cars still don't make economic sense to operate. They want fewer greenhouse emissions while also advocating ethanol.

But, as Crutzen's work demonstrates, there's a contradiction. Moe ethanol means more greenhouse gases to cultivate the biofuels, not to mention soil erosion and forest depletion, as mentioned here. In fact, I've read an article, the exact location of which escapes me just now, that more widespread use of ethanol is likely to lead to the accelerated disappearance of South American rainforests, the better to be replanted with biofuels.

Call me crazy, but isn't it nonsensical to use a lot of a major food source to replace a more efficiently-burning fossil fuel? We can't eat oil.

Between the water-intensive nature of ethanol production, its relative inefficiency for power generation, compared to petroleum-based products, and the devastation of more land to plant corn for ethanol, the green lobby and its citizen-followers are likely to wake up to an environmental mess sooner, rather than later.

Then there's the inflation in food costs that will result from this switch of a major consumable, corn, from foodstuff to auto fuel.

Hitting voters hard in their wallets is never a good way to secure their long term support for a still-unproven 'crisis,' i.e., scientifically proven, human-caused global warming.

Observations On Hillary's Lead Among Democratic Presidential Candidates

A seasoned newsman and political reporter, now writing for other purposes, was discussing the two party's Presidential contenders with me at a dinner party last Saturday night.


We agreed that Obama Bim Baden is too green and immature to win his party's nomination. Then, again, we also agreed that Hillary is too brittle.

As I mused about how much money she has raised, my colleague noted what happened in the 2004 Democratic Presidential race.

Not being a registered Dem, I don't recall the details. He asked me to remember Howard Dean's lead in Iowa, followed by, I believe, his victory in New Hampshire? He was the guy to beat.

Then he did that roar thing on camera. And his campaign began to unravel, losing momentum. To be candid, I had quite forgotten this.

My colleague's point was, despite Dean's money and momentum, he managed to critically, mortally wound himself while in the lead, and lost the nomination to Kerry.

That's probably why, when asked about running a near-perfect campaign to date, Hillary found some wood nearby to knock on, smiling that silly, forced grin of hers.

There's still a lot of time and uncontrollable events to unfold before the last primary vote is counted.

Wouldn't it be wild if someone like Edwards or, even less likely, Richardson, actually makes a fight of the Democratic nomination?

Most Presidential races feature a few surprises, and I have this feeling that, with everyone already expecting Hillary in the Oval Office come 2009, that's just what won't occur.

Some Global Warming Observations

Last Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal printed an editorial entitled "Global Warming Delusions," by Daniel Botkin, a scientist with 40 years of experience working in environmental sciences, and currently president of the Center for the Study of the Environment.

In this piece, Mr. Botkin describes the delusional fixation some of his brethren have developed for causing near-hysterical concern about global warming. He writes, in part,

"And contrary to the latest news, the evidence that global warming will have serious effects on life is thin. Most evidence suggests the contrary.

Case in point: This year's United Nations report on climate change and other documents say that 20%-30% of plant and animal species will be threatened with extinction in this century due to global warming -- a truly terrifying thought. Yet, during the past 2.5 million years, a period that scientists now know experienced climatic changes as rapid and as warm as modern climatological models suggest will happen to us, almost none of the millions of species on Earth went extinct. The exceptions were about 20 species of large mammals (the famous megafauna of the last ice age -- saber-tooth tigers, hairy mammoths and the like), which went extinct about 10,000 to 5,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, and many dominant trees and shrubs of northwestern Europe. But elsewhere, including North America, few plant species went extinct, and few mammals.

Instead, like fashions that took hold in the past and are eloquently analyzed in the classic 19th century book "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds," the popular imagination today appears to have been captured by beliefs that have little scientific basis.

Some colleagues who share some of my doubts argue that the only way to get our society to change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe, and that therefore it is all right and even necessary for scientists to exaggerate. They tell me that my belief in open and honest assessment is naïve. "Wolves deceive their prey, don't they?" one said to me recently. Therefore, biologically, he said, we are justified in exaggerating to get society to change."

Mr. Botkin describes an article in which the author explains the melting of the snows on Mount Kilimanjaro as due to radiant heat, not air temperature. Because his conclusions did not fit the global warming views of many other scientists, Botkin writes that the scientist's paper "is scorned by the true believers in global warming."

Botkin goes on to provide examples of significant environmental changes that are not due to the earth's air temperature. He bemoans his colleagues obsession with raising consciousness on the subject at any cost,

"My concern is that we may be moving away from an irrational lack of concern about climate change to an equally irrational panic about it.
Many of my colleagues ask, "What's the problem? Hasn't it been a good thing to raise public concern?" The problem is that in this panic we are going to spend our money unwisely, we will take actions that are counterproductive, and we will fail to do many of those things that will benefit the environment and ourselves."

When someone who is both a scientist and an environmentalist holds these views, you know the global warming craze has gone too far.

Ethanol's Water Problems

Last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal's main editorial was entitled "Ethanol's Water Shortage." That title says it all.

It turns out that a Cornell ecology professor has determined that each gallon of ethanol requires 1,700 gallons of water.

As a result, Kansas and Nebraska are near a lawsuit over water rights. A North Dakota ethanol plant application was withdrawn when, according to the Journal,

"it became clear that the plant's million-gallon-a-day appetite would drain too much from a local aquifer."

Another method of measuring various energy sources, power density, finds oil to be more efficient than, say, solar, because it merely requires a hole in the ground, rather than acres of panels.

Solar power, which is 1,000 less dense than oil, is still 10x denser than ethanol. Peter Huber, of the Manhattan Institute,

"predicts a world-wide leveling of forestland as farmers turn vegetation into fuel,"

according to the Journal article. Even worse, the article cite two scientists, Renton Righelato and Dominick Spracklen, who wrote in Science magazine,

"in order to replace just 10% of gasoline and diesel consumption, the US would need to convert a full 43% of its cropland to ethanol production. The alternative approach- clearing wilderness- would mean more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than simply sticking with gasoline, because the CO2-munching trees cut down to make way for King Ethanol absorb more emissions than ethanol saves."

But, wait! Wasn't greenhouse gases and carbon footprints why we are going from oil to ethanol in the first place?

Let's hope, as the Journal editorial notes, that Congress figures this out before the last, big ethanol legislation pushes through. It's just too awful to contemplate- water shortages, more CO2, runoff, water pollution, higher food prices, etc. All in the name of replacing a very efficient fuel source- oil.

An Inconvenient Truth: Federal Deficit Shrinks Significantly Under Bush

Has anyone noticed that, despite the rhetoric from members of both political parties, the Federal deficit is shrinking?

For instance, in last week's Republican Presidential 'debate,' Congressman Ron Paul incorrectly stated that the deficit was increasing to horrific levels. Typical hand-wringing stuff.

In reality, though, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that for fiscal 2007, the Federal deficit had declined to $162.8B, from $248B in 2006. This was a 34% reduction in the annual deficit.

Ever the party of economic lies, North Dakota Democratic Senator Kent Conrad said,

"As we approach the end of President Bush's term in office, he is desperately trying to remake his image as a fiscal conservative. But it's too little, too late. He will go down in history as the most fiscally irresponsible president ever."

Wow. That's big. But, wait. Wasn't that special 'most fiscally irresponsible' title reserved for the Gipper two decades ago? Didn't Tip O'Neill used to bellyache about Reagan borrowing 'a trillion dollars and throwing a party?'

If that's all he, and our current President, had done, how did our economy continue to grow with such low inflation?

The truth, inconvenient as it may be, is that, despite fighting a war, President Bush has managed to bring down the deficit in three straight years.

Yes, there's that Nobel-class phrase- an inconvenient truth.

Personally, I think it's more a President vs. Congress thing, rather than just a party difference now. The recent Republican-dominated Congresses demonstrated their weakness for spending every buck the Federal government could tax into its coffers.

I honestly think it's a few, rare Presidents that can manage to keep their perspective, spending where necessary, without succumbing to every big-ticket liberal program that crosses their desk.

Even if President Bush should have vetoed more extravagant spending earlier in his administration, that does not alter the fact that he still has presided over three years of achievements- declining annual deficits- that Congress refuses to acknowledge.

Economic Visions: Conservatives vs. Liberals

You can write a lot about the differences on economic topics between American political conservatives and liberals.

However, in my opinion, there is one truly fundamental difference. I described it last week in this post on my companion business blog. In part, I wrote,

"I think this, frankly, is the central economic issue of the day.Government does not plan the economy. We don't, by and large, run a socialist or fascist economic system in America.

Instead, the idea is that government sets certain conditions of law, safety, taxation, etc., then lets individuals, either solely or collectively, decide how to operate within those parameters to pursue their dreams and achieve economic prosperity."

Conservatives understand that government sets up conditions for people to pursue their individual economic well-being and amass wealth. How that's done is up to the person, or groups of self-organized persons. Therefore, what government attempts to provide is opportunity, not work or jobs, per se. And certainly not the same job, in the same place, in perpetuity.


American political liberals, including most Democrats, and certainly the more extreme ones on both coasts, seem to play on economic misfortune, assuring the poor that by taxing the rich, the liberals will help the poor with some of that transferred wealth. The implication being,


'You are too poor and inept to help yourself. Just keep voting for us, and the subsidies will continue to flow.....'


When they aren't busy taxing the 'rich' to fund welfare payments to the 'poor,' these Democrats are trying to codify industrial policy, via, for example, legislated universal health care, mandated insurance policy coverages, various tariffs and subsidies. All of which serve to frustrate and distort the market pricing of goods, services, and, often, their inputs.

If these confounding legislative activities ceased, and market prices drove business activity, then people would be more easily able to understand and follow the flow of business activity to where it most profitably will occur.

The specific products produced on US shores may change, but it's always going to be in the interest of savvy entrepreneurs to use educated, productive Americans to provide goods or services at competitive prices, or on competitive service terms. In fact, it's not the dollar volume of American manufacturing production that has decreased over the past decades- it's just the number of jobs.

We've gotten more productive, and that's a good thing. The Democrats would insist that each old, less productive worker be retained and paid as before, no matter that there were more productive alternatives elsewhere.

We cannot manage an economy by attempting to control and price inputs. That simply drives business people away, to more flexible locations.

Instead, government needs to simply set consistent conditions for the conduct of business activity, then let those who risk capital figure out what will make them money.

Jack Welch actually managed to articulate a clear, succinct explanation of this last week in an interview on CNBC. When asked his opinion of Hillary's programs and candidacy, he shot back something like,

'I don't think her programs (to nationalize health care and insurance) will work. When have you ever seen government do something better than the private sector can do it?'

American has historically succeeded economically because of its flexibility and hospitality to new ideas. That's why immigrants come here to make a better life. And most do. Hispanic, Southeast Asian, Korean, Chinese. Before them, Germans, Scots, Irish, Poles, and Italians.


In the long run, I really don't think the liberal economic message, most recently articulated by Hillary, will sell. People like to believe they can escape poverty, provide better opportunities for their children, and earn a share of the American Dream

Candidates like Edwards, Obama and Hillary try to tell Americans that they are failing, hopeless, and bound for poverty. The truth is that our country's political economic fabric has done the opposite- it's provided the opportunity for literally millions of immigrants and citizens to move themselves from poverty to economic self-sufficiency, by participating in the globe's most dynamic, attractive economic zone.

As Roger Ailes noted in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, about which I wrote in this post,

"If you watch some news -- I always say to my people, when I see something particularly horrible about America that I think is a little out of proportion to what is actually going on, I call up the desk and say, "Do you have any pictures of people lined up at the border trying to get out?" They say, "What do you mean?" I say, "I just watched that and hell, we've got to get out of here, America's a terrible place. We need to get out fast. There must be guys stacked up at the airport trying to get out of here." No. It turns out everybody's trying to get in, and nobody's trying to get out. We've got to keep that perspective in mind when you cover the news. It doesn't mean you don't cover the bad news about America. You do. It means you don't get up in the morning hating your country. And so, until somebody shows me lines at the border trying to get out, I think there's some good news."

And that, dear readers, is how you know that Hillary, Obama, Edwards, Pelosi, and Harry Reid have the wrong idea about America, business and economic development. People are not lining up at our borders to leave, because economic conditions are so bad.

Instead, one of the biggest recent Congressional tussles has been how to set an immigration policy to deal with the rush of illegal entrants to our country, all trying to create their own version of the American Dream.

Really, it's a good, "high class" problem to have. So long as we continue to have a government that only sets economic conditions, rather than legislates business operations, this will continue to be true.