Ahead of the Republican National Committee's winter meeting in Washington on Jan. 28, members from Colorado are beginning to stake out positions. 

State Chairman Dick Wadhams and National Committeewoman Lily Nunez were among the first cosponsors of a sharply worded draft resolution condemning any further federal bailouts of "industries, individuals, or governments," which the full RNC will vote upon when it meets.  Text, list of signers, and background are here.

National Committeeman Mark Hillman has endorsed Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio Secretary of State, for election as RNC Chairman at the upcoming meeting.  Hillman's letter is on Blackwell's website.  I have no vote, but my support for Blackwell is outlined here.  

Hillman told me he's favorable to the anti-bailout resolution, originated by RNC Vice Chairman James Bopp of Indiana, but hasn't gotten around to signing on as a cosponsor.  Wadhams says he's announce soon which of the six contenders for chairman will get his vote.  I'm awaiting a call back from Nunez on her preference in the race.

As billionaire Republican Michael Bloomberg dispatches his aides to presumptuously berate Democratic Gov. David Paterson for daring to consider appointing anyone other than Caroline Kennedy to the New York Senate seat, a new poll shows New Yorkers are incredibly uncomfortable with the idea:

44% of the state’s voters now say they have a lesser opinion of Kennedy than they did before she started vying for the position. 33% say it’s made no difference, and 23% report now having a more favorable opinion of her. A plurality of Democrats, Republicans, and independents all say that her efforts have caused them to view her less favorably.

When it comes to whether they would prefer to see Kennedy or Andrew Cuomo appointed, 58% now prefer Cuomo to 27% for Kennedy. Cuomo is favored by 65% of Republicans, 59% of independents, and 54% of Democrats.

I know what you're thinking - Cuomo is a version of political aristocracy, right? Well, sure - but the point here is not that aristocracy is automatically horrible - it's not, and I never said it was. There are terrific leaders with ties to political aristocracy, from Ted Kennedy to Ned Lamont. The point here is that political aristocracy* ALONE should not be the sole or even most important determining factor in American politics - and most especially in appointments.

Kennedy has never run for office and hasn't strongly delineated her positions on most issues. The most we really know about her is that she campaigned for Barack Obama and is the daughter of John F. Kennedy. By contrast, you can say what you will about Cuomo, but the guy has run in statewide elections, and won one, meaning he has clearly elucidated many public positions on key issues, and has had experience representing constituents.

Of course, IMHO, aristocracy shouldn't be the sole or even most important determining factor in elections either, but as evidenced by the electoral success of do-nothings like Evan Bayh, clearly it is. But at least in that case, the citizenry makes the choice. That's democracy, baby - you live by it and you die by it.

That's different than an appointment - which is, by definition, undemocratic. I would argue that in appointments, governors should actually prioritize putting people in office who have very deep experience representing as many of the people they will be representing in the new office as possible. Why? Because in a democracy, it seems appropriate to try to limit autocracy (ie. representation without election) as much as possible - even in an undemocratic process like an appointment, where one person gets to select the representative of millions of people. In that case, the way to mitigate the inherently undemocratic nature of the situation is for a governor to at least try to put someone in office who constituents have a prior representational relationship with. After all, the U.S. Senate may be the House of Lords, but officially, senators are still supposed to be representatives, no?

This is why I - and many other Coloradoans - are so incensed about Gov. Bill Ritter's selection of Michael Bennet to replace Ken Salazar (and most of the criticism deserves to be directed not at Bennet, but at Ritter for making the inexplicable selection). Bennet has barely lived in state for a decade**, hasn't ever run for or won elected office, and has no record - or even public positions - on most key issues before the U.S. Senate. Indeed, at the press conference announcing his appointment, Bennet smugly shrugged off questions about where he stands on the issues - as if that's less important than the fact that he's already launched a 2010 election campaign website. Evidently, getting elected to a seat he was given by virtue of his connections to the Beltway Establishment and Colorado corporate community is more important than telling us how he will cast his Senate votes in our name.

If even one of these factors weren't undeniably true, there might be some shred of meritocratic legitimacy to the Bennet appointment, even in the face of other far more qualified candidates. But there isn't - and the problem with that is obvious. To be "represented" in the Senate by someone like this - regardless of how he ends up voting as a Senator (and I sure hope he casts progressive votes) - isn't to really be "represented" at all, because Coloradoans have not only had no say in that representation, we have no idea what we are really being represented BY.

The forces of money and power in New York are trying to replicate what their counterparts engineered here in Colorado. And I'm guessing that what this new poll really shows is that New Yorkers have caught onto the shenanigans and are disgusted. That's not a surprise. New Yorkers - like most Americans - probably don't like the idea of someone getting to represent them who has never represented anyone, and who would get the office almost solely on her last name. We may be a culture organized around celebrity, and at times that cultural organization seems intent on creating a quasi-royalty out of our congressional representatives, but perhaps there are limits to that kind of thing. Even as we celebritize the presidency and politicians, perhaps there are still certain lines that the mass public doesn't want crossed - the line separating hype-created quasi-royalty from actual, real hereditary royalty.

* Previously defined loosely as insider connections, ties to money/privilege, power derived from genetic lineage, etc

**By the way, I've only lived in state for about 2 years...but before you say its hypocrisy to question Bennet's tenure living here, remember: I'm not running for, or asking to be appointed to, the U.S. Senate to represent this state.

As Israeli tanks roll into Gaza, I wanted to call attention to some thoughtful writing on the situation by my brother, author Haim Watzman, and journalist Gershom Gorenberg over at SouthJerusalem.com.

Earlier this week, Haim translated an op-ed by David Grossman for the New York Times calling for a 48-hour ceasefire. Earlier he had written his own analysis, cautioning that Israelis should be wary of promises that this military intervention would end attacks by Hamas.

In the early days of the operation, Gorenberg wrote his own warning:

Israelis don't see the effects of the siege in Gaza, or the way it was maintained during the six-month "calm." Israeli journalists have a far easier time covering Mumbai than covering Gaza. What Israelis saw during the "calm" were Palestinian violations. Israel claimed that Hamas wasn't keeping the agreement. That was true. It was also true that the Israeli government continued hoping, against all evidence, that the siege would provoke popular uprising against Hamas rule. Hamas regarded the calm as a failure in relieving siege conditions.

When the six months ended, Hamas decided that those Israelis would only understand force. To a man with a hammer, as the saying goes, everything looks like a nail - especially to an angry man. With a little careful thinking, anyone on the Hamas side could have figured out that no Israeli politician wanted to agree to reduce the siege in response to rocket fire. That would be giving in.

So brinkmanship led to both sides rushing over the brink into the abyss. Olmert, Livni, Barak and the collected generals apparently think that Hamas will agree to reduce violence as a result of the onslaught. A ten-second exercise in trying to imagine how Hamas leaders - or Gaza residents - see the situation leads to the opposite conclusion.

It is possible that the new offensive will shatter the Hamas government. In that case we'll have a collapsed state in Gaza, where there is absolutely no one interested in stopping rocket fire. Will Israel occupy the Strip again then? Does our triumvurate think that NATO will want the job? Outside of showing that we have a bigger hammer, what will the operation accomplish?

As I said earlier, it's pretty clear that Michael Bennet was appointed to the U.S. Senate solely because of his aristocratic credentials - ie. connections to money and Establishment power and Beltway insiders. It had almost nothing to do with his relevant experience, because if that was the basis for an appointment, every other major candidate had more of that. And, as the Denver Post notes, it had absolutely, positively nothing to do with his public positions on issues:

But while everyone from business leaders to political heavyweights to education reformers agree that Bennet is almost always the smartest guy in the room, his positions on nearly every key issue facing the country are completely unknown.

"Soon," Bennet said both during and after the official announcement.

Foreshadowing the hard-fought senate race expected in 2010, state GOP chair Dick Wadhams seized on Bennet's silence.

"His continued refusal today to state his positions on issues suggests someone who isn't clear where he stands," Wadhams said. And then he demanded to know Bennet's stance on an upcoming measure in the Senate that would eliminate the secret ballot in union votes.

One of two disconcerting realities is at work here: 1) Bennet's positions are known by the Establishment forces that got him the Senate job, and those positions aren't threatening to that Establishment (read: they are corporate conservative) or 2) Bennet himself doesn't yet have positions on the major issues.

I guess the latter would be better than the former in that it would hold out the possibility that Bennet will end up being a solid Democratic vote on issues like health care, ending the war, and the Employee Free Choice Act. But the fact that Colorado now has a senator whose never held elected office and therefore has no voting record*; has lived most of his life in D.C. and not in state; has served as a key adviser to a right-wing billionaire; and hasn't stated any public positions on key issues before the Senate highlights just how odd - and troubling - Ritter's appointment is.

*Note: I think having served in elected office - or at least having run for such office - should be a key qualification for a Senate appointment not as much for political/reelection reasons, but because in having served/run for office, a candidate has built up something of a public record on many issues (whether that public record is actual votes or public statements) and therefore the citizens being represented by said candidate at least have some idea of where that appointee actually stands.

Though I'm not home in Denver right now, I'm guessing there are many who are fairly to quite mystified by Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter's (D) selection of Michael Bennet for U.S. Senate. It makes no political or policy sense whatsoever. Indeed, the only thing that rationally explains this individual appointment (as well as the New York appointment and many of Obama's economic/national security cabinet appointments) is the fact that we are living in a Golden Age of American Political Aristocracy.

In terms of politics (ie. ability to get reelected in 2010, ability to lift the statewide ticket in 2010, etc.), Bennet makes no sense for reasons that are undeniable: He's A) never run for any office in his life B) never run for - or even held by appointment - a statewide office in Colorado and C) lived in the state of Colorado for barely a decade.

Had any one of these factors not been true - had he, say, lived in Colorado for barely a decade but held office, or say, lived in Colorado all his life building up strong connections in the community - there might be some shred of an argument that he is a good political choice in comparison to other candidates like Ed Perlmutter, Andrew Romanoff, Joan Fitz-Gerald, Diana DeGette or John Hickenlooper. But they are all true. I mean, Bennet is even from Denver - so you can't even make the argument that he's some sort of smart geographic choice designed to appeal to the rest of the state, again - especially when compared to the other Denver-ites (Romanoff, DeGette, Hickenlooper, etc.) who could have been named.

Policy-wise, Bennet has some education experience as head of Denver Public Schools, but his record there is, ahem, mixed, and more importantly, it is incredibly thin when put up against people like Romanoff (the Speaker of the House), Perlmutter (a congressman and former Senate president) and even Hickenlooper (Denver's mayor). Additionally, the policy area he does have significant experience with - education - is a relativcely minor issue at the federal level (for instance, federal funding comprises only about 9 percent of public education - despite the fanfare about No Child Left Behind, states and localities still make the big decisions on public education). It's not that education at the federal level is totally unimportant, it's just comparatively minor. In terms of the really huge issues the Senate will deal with - Iraq, health care, trade, economic stimulus, labor law reform - Bennet is a complete and total blank slate. We know almost nothing about him.

So as I said to start, the only thing that rationally explains his appointment is the emboldened power of political aristocracy (and, by extension, money) that is sweeping the country. By aristocracy, I mean all of the factors of aristocracy implied in its dictionary definition's focus on priviledge. That means not just familial lineage - but also money, inside connections and academic/economic advantage.

Bennet, as MSNBC reports, comes from political and academic aristocracy:

Bennet was born in New Delhi, India in 1964. The circumstance of the exotic locale was that his father, Douglas Bennet, was serving as an aide to Chester Bowles, then the U.S. ambassador to India and previously foreign policy aide to President Kennedy.

Bennet grew up in Washington, DC and attended the exclusive all-boys St. Alban’s school. He went on to graduate from Wesleyan University, and in between undergraduate school and law school he served as a body man to Ohio governor Dick Celeste. After graduating from Yale Law in 1993, he served in the Clinton administration as counsel to Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, a position that included writing speeches for Attorney General Janet Reno. (emphasis added)

Like a seasoned operative in this Golden Age of Aristocracy, Bennet promptly parlayed all of that into a big-money job for right-wing billionaire Philip Anschutz:

He worked for six years prior to his tenure at the City of Denver as Managing Director for the Anschutz Investment Company in Denver, where he had direct responsibility for the investment of over $500 million. He led the reorganizations of four distressed companies including Forcenergy (which later merged with Denver-based Forest Oil), Regal Cinemas, United Artists and Edwards Theaters, which together required the restructuring of over $3 billion in debt. Bennet also managed, on behalf of Anschutz, the consolidation of the three theater chains into Regal Entertainment Group, the largest motion picture exhibitor in the world.

Considering his lack of legislative record, lack of experience in any elected or statewide office, and considerable ties to the biggest of big money, it's logical to be concerned about how a Senator Bennet will vote on issues. Off the top of my head, I'm wondering, for instance, whether someone with this kind of resume is going to be in favor of tougher financial industry regulations?*

But I think there should be an even deeper concern about what Bennet's appointment says about the political age we're living in.

Colorado has no dearth of very, very qualified people to be U.S. Senator (especially considering that being a U.S. Senator is one of the easiest jobs in the United States - your major responsibility is to vote yes or no and then be told how awesome you are by the 50 taxpayer-funded sycophants who comprise your personal staff - a lot easier than the average factory job). More specifically, we have a lot of people who have worked very hard passing good public policy and building the grassroots of the Democratic Party for years here (many who are named on the list of aforementioned potential candidates). Looking at this bench, and then selecting a person with almost none of those qualities confirms that what gets rewarded in politics today is not legislative accomplishments nor even political ones - what counts is money, inside connections, Ivy League pedigree and a Beltway-padded resume.

Clearly, the same (if not more) can be said of the imminent nomination of Caroline Kennedy to the U.S. Senate in New York - a state which, by virtue of its sheer size, has even more super-qualified candidates, and yet a state which will likely see its senate seat given away to the daughter of a famous politician (by no less than the heir to a local political dynasty!) based almost solely on her last name. And here's the real kicker - whether in Colorado or New York - the subversion of meritocracy and manufacturing of aristocracy counts more today than it has at any time in contemporary history.

Yes, politics is always a battle between meritocratic idealism (ie. good ideas, grassroots work, etc.) and aristocracy (ie. money, insiderism, aristocracy, privilege, etc.). Yes political aristocracy has always existed, even in meritocratic eras. And yes, there are desirable merits to various facets of aristocracy (for example, we should want well-educated people in government). But there have only been a few infamous historical moments where aristocracy has totally, completely and publicly supplanted the desirable non-aristocratic factors of meritocracy to the point where no one's even trying to hide it anymore. One of those infamous moments was the Gilded Age, when billionaires publicly tried to buy U.S. Senate seats. Sadly, the other infamous moment is right now.

What's confusing, of course, is that we just experienced a presidential election that saw the first African American elected to the White House - an election that seemed to reaffirm the meritocratic myth that "anyone can be president" as long as they are qualified. Somehow, we are being simultaneously taught that lesson while also being taught the opposite about U.S. Senate seats.

But, then, Barack Obama's White House appointments over the last few weeks underscore that - his individual election aside - this remains the Golden Age of American Political Aristocracy. In appointing primarily center-right Washington insiders, he makes the Bennet and Kennedy appointments seem mundane - even predictable. When even the first African American president in American history says insider connections, Establishment seals of approval and proximity to money/power - ie. the credentials of Political Aristocracy - should dictate upward mobility, then run-of-the-mill governors from Colorado to New York are probably going to signal the very same thing.

The problem, of course, is the psychological effect on the rest of the country. All of these moves say to America that there is a real bipartisan Ruling Class in this country, and that that Ruling Class is more adept than ever in tightening its grip over the rest of the nation. That's nothing new - most Americans have long known the political system is rigged. But what is new is that the Ruling Class's re-confirmation of its power and control is happening so brazenly and so soon after an election that thematically promised something different.

In the short term, that may only depress the activist class that had momentarily reengaged in politics based on its (all together now!) hope in those promises of change. Prioritizing aristocracy over meritocracy says to everyone from state legislators to campaign volunteers that the way to get ahead in politics is not to spend lots of time, for instance, building your local party or building a grassroots organization, but instead to simply be lucky enough to have been pulled out of the most privileged crotch as a newborn.

But there could also be a long-term effect - especially if the dominance of aristocracy in our government is expressed by either legislative inaction, or legislation designed to protect the aristocracy (the latter which would be unsurprising from aristocratic policymakers). The depressing reality of politics typically perpetuates the constant low-grade disillusionment we've all gotten used to. But when overt in-your-face reminders of that depressing reality (like the Obama Cabinet picks or the Bennet and Kennedy appointments) are dropped into the mass public's frothing stew of economic angst and ginned up "hope," once-surmountable disillusionment can metastasize into demoralization and then into backlash - and specifically, the government-is-evil kind that Ronald Reagan once rode to victory soon after a Democratic landslide.

I'm not, of course, predicting that for 2010 or 2012 - at least not yet. There's the distinct possibility that in spite of the Golden Age of Aristocracy, the government will be forced to take some basic actions to fix major problems afflicting the non-aristocracy. But if you think there's no mass psychological effect of professional politicians - whether Ritter, Paterson, Obama or anyone else - essentially celebrating insiderism, money and aristocracy, there are whole American history books which suggest otherwise.

* I just want to be clear - none of this means that Bennet will end up being a poor political or policy choice. He may end up being a great candidate for reelection and a great senator on policy. My point is simply that knowing what we know right now, on both political and policy grounds, he doesn't even come close to the qualifications of the other potential candidates - that, in short, his appointment is fundamentally about aristocracy.

Satirizing politics isn't easy; your imaginary absurdity keeps getting overtaken by the real thing.  It wasn't that long ago when we taped our twisted fantasy of 2009 for Colorado Public Television, but since then the Senate vacancy farce has exploded, and now there's the Broncos melodrama on top of that.  Embarrassment of riches! 

Must have been too much merriment on 12/31, because I woke up on 1/1 thinking what a masterstroke it would be if Ritter named Mike Shanahan to Salazar's Senate seat.  It could only help the Dem ticket in Colorado next year -- and what a way to take some of the media glare off Ritter's floundering fellow governors, Blago in IL and Patterson in NY, as they grasp for gravitas amid senatorial follies of their own. 

Anyhow, Susan Barnes-Gelt and I did get off a few good gibes in our "Head On" exchange about '09's nutty possibilities, currently airing on Channel 12 in Denver and elsewhere across the state.  Here's the script:  

John:  It’s time again for Susan and John’s fearless New Year's predictions. 2009 is gonna be crazy.  Harry Reid launches a deodorant brand.  Jon Stewart and Joe Biden trade jobs.  Bill Ritter gives up the governor gig and heads back to Africa as a missionary.  Colorado Public Television acquires the Rocky.

Susan:  Republicans drown Grover Norquist in a bathtub.  Sarah Palin replaces Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly on Fox News, as the station struggles for viewers.  Bill Clinton's handicap falls to the single digits as he's banished to the links for the next four years.

John: The Secretary of State’s husband will still have an ethical handicap in triple digits.  So Hillary dumps Bill and marries Henry Kissinger.  The Onion acquires the New York Times.  Mattel acquires GM.  The Mafia acquires Chicago.  The Obamas get a pretty little pitbull and name it Sarah.

Susan:  Hickenlooper goes to Washington to head the Department of Special Events - the perfect job for a guy who is better at putting on a show than governing a city.  With DC becoming the nation's new financial hub, Pennsylvania Avenue changes its name to Wall Street and the bankers morph to street sweepers.

I grew up in a Time magazine household in the 1950s, and my misplaced reverence for Henry Luce's oracle was confirmed in the '60s when our high school current-events teacher used Time as a classroom supplement. 

Who was on their cover, especially as Man (now Person) of the Year used to be a huge deal with me.  But starting when I was a Republican White House staffer in the '70s, I realized how the mag was a reflexive liberal mouthpiece and came to regard it as little more than an adult comic book.  Still do.

And yet, perhaps in the way an old flame stays on your mind even after she's cruelly jilted you, I still have a morbid fascination with Time's POY honors each December.  I know it's not about merit, simply headline impact.  But that value-free criterion offends me to the extent it's true -- and annoys me to the extent it leaves room for the Left's values to be smuggled into the selection anyway.

Hence the amusement I have devised for some of us on the Right these past few days, by way of an open nominate-and-vote process publicized nationally with blast emails and tallied on my website, BackboneAmerica.net.

Who showed the most backbone this past year, I asked conservatives.  Or more simply, after baiting them with Time's choice of Barack Obama as POY, "Who was great in 2008?" 

To vote, click here and use the comment block. 

Anyone can participate; we don't do litmus tests.  Balloting closes 1/4/09.

Tabulations are incomplete at this writing, but thus far, out of a wide-ranging list of nominees from our thousands of friends, Gov. Sarah Palin leads all contenders for Woman of the Year.  President George W. Bush is the other top vote-getter for Man of the Year.

The wide interests and lively imagination of Backbone Americans are evidenced by the ever-growing breadth of our list.  Other nominees receiving multiple votes (shown alphabetically, not by ranking) included:

Armed Forces Personnel
Douglas Bruce
Dick Cheney
Vaclav Klaus
Ron Paul
David Petraeus
Police & Firefighters
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Robert Spencer
Rick Warren

Single votes have also been cast for the following:
 
Chuck Baldwin
William F. Buckley
Jim Bunning
Saxby Chambliss
Tom Coburn
Constitution & Bill of Rights
Dinesh D’Souza
Anthony Flew
Fernando Flores
Bobby Jindal
Mort Marks
John McCain
Millennial Generation
Albert Mohler
Paul Newman
Henry Paulson
Putin & Medvedev
Ronald Reagan
Natan Sharansky
Tony Snow
Tom Tancredo
Peter Wallison
John Walsh
Oprah Winfrey

A man is walking into the hospital where his wife had been admitted the day before. She was being treated for high blood pressure and a slightly irregular heart rhythm. As the man arrives, he sees the doctor who had been treating his wife being led out of the hospital by security, with the doctor muttering "it was just once...it was just once.."

The man gets to his wife's hospital room to find a team of doctors and nurses around her. She is unconscious and attached to a heart-lung machine...obviously in far worse shape than how she arrived.

The senior doctor in the room sees the man and takes him aside to explain what's happened:

Man: I saw Doctor Bosh leaving the hospital with security, and now this! What the hell is going on?

Doctor: Sir, there's no easy way to explain it, but Doctor Bosh somehow got it in his head that curing you're wife's high blood pressure was the ultimate goal, even surpassing his Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. So he gave your wife a combination of drugs which fixed her blood pressure and heart rhythm, at least temporarily, and which seemed to work perfectly for a brief time, but which then caused your wife to lapse into a coma.

Man: Oh my god! That son-of-a-bitch! What exactly is my wife's current situation and what's going to happen?

Doctor: The good news is that there does not seem to be permanent brain damage, though while in a coma it's always very hard to tell and the longer she's in a coma the more likely it is that something slightly or very significant of a permanent nature has happened. I'm only aware of one prior case like this, and it happened more than 50 years ago. That patient is still alive today, and has done quite well, though not without a few lasting ill effects. The difference is basically only in the combination of drugs that was used on the patient...so in that sense your wife's case is unique. We need to determine what combination of antidote drugs and rehabilitation therapy is most likely to bring your wife back, but I need you to realize that even the best possible recovery will likely leave her not quite the same person as before. And it is possible that she could come out of the coma and have the blood pressure and heart issues return, but at least she'll be conscious and we can deal with those by more rational means.

Man: This is unbelievable, ridiculous, outrageous...there really aren't words to properly describe it! What an utter betrayal by Dr. George Bosh! Even if my wife recovers fully, I'll never forgive him. He has betrayed everything a doctor is supposed to be, and all the trust we placed in him.

Doctor: I know...I know. I'm so sorry, sir. All I can tell you is that we'll do our best to save your wife.

Man: But many of your staff have worked with Dr. Bosh for years, and some even trained the same places he did. How do I know that they won't just make the problem worse?

Doctor: Sir, you'll just have to trust me on that....

There are two possible outcomes to this story:

Outcome 1: The man and his wife are in their home, speaking, and living a nearly normal life. The wife walks with a limp and is unable to compete in the marathons which she used to regularly win. But she's conscious and is nearly her normal self.

Outcome 2: The man is looking at his wife who remains in a coma in a hospital bed. A doctor who had been trained in a sub-par foreign medical school attempted to cure the wife's coma with a second round of the same drugs that had put her in the coma. That doctor has also been fired, but the damage is done. The medical director of the hospital is telling the man that they're still optimistic that the wife will come out of the coma but that she'll almost certainly have substantial damage that will take at least a decade to recover from, and that full recovery is most likely out of the question.

I presume that anyone reading these pages is smart enough to understand my rather obvious allegory: The comatose wife is the US free-market economic system after President George W. Bush decided to bail out automakers with money from the TARP, the financial bailout fund created by Congress some months ago, along with Bush's statement that he had "abandoned free-market principles in order to save the free market." The husband is any business or entrepreneur who relies on our capitalist system and who knows that that system is the only way he can survive, or at least the only way he can reach his lofty goals. The Doctor is the incoming administration, especially its economic team.

Bush's move is economic treason, and it could be argued political treason as well given Bush's oath (which he's violated before) to protect and defend the Constitution. One can not save the free market by temporarily abandoning it. All one can do is cripple it for an unknown time into the future.

What particularly concerns me is that the incoming administration is more likely to continue giving economic long-term poison to the patient and that Outcome 2 is more likely than Outcome 1.

In any case, I have said for a few years that Bush's chief failure was his signing of McCain-Feingold while acknowledging that it is unconstitutional. That is now Bush's second-biggest failure and it pales in comparison with his biggest: His direct attack on our entire economic system along with words that appear to give aid and comfort to enemies of capitalism both here and abroad. There are two major reason that capitalism is so unpopular right now: One is that Democrats and their media stooges have people believing that President Bush's administration was characterized by widespread deregulation, so that a lack of regulation and a surplus of economic liberty is the cause of recent troubles. But that is absolutely untrue, with federal regulation growing at least as fast under Bush as under other recent administrations. And the second reason capitalism is unpopular is that the average citizen, poorly educated about economics, sees President Bush as capitalism's representative. It's like having Benedict Arnold as the representative of the American military during the revolution...most people wouldn't recognize the treasonous nature of the man; some will only have learned it in history books much later, and some will never understand the truth.

I couldn't be more disgusted with President Bush. I couldn't be happier that he's leaving. After this sad turn of events, it's hard to imagine that even our incoming socialist president could be much worse. Well, it's not that hard to imagine, but the lesser of two evils is still evil, and I remain exceptionally proud that I never voted for George W. Bush. Like the doctor who abandons the Hippocratic Oath, Bush abandoned capitalism and the Constitution at the same time. It may not be a hanging offense, but it certainly has earned Bush my everlasting enmity.