The Tea Party Line

It was supposedly Benjamin Disraeli who called conservatives "the stupid party." So far this year, Republicans have been doing their best to prove him 100% right. For proof, check out the special election in New York's 23rd Congressional District. Though the 23rd narrowly voted for Obama in 2008, it's still Republican territory. GOP Rep. John McHugh was re-elected with 65% of the vote in 2008.

But that was then and this is now, and now doesn't look so good for the GOP. Doug Hoffman, a former Republican, has broken with the party and is now running as the Conservative Party candidate. He's getting support from the usual conservative suspects: Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth, et cetera, et cetera. Hoffman might just cost Republicans the election a recent poll shows him splitting the conservative vote with Dede Scozzafava, the Republican candidate, giving Democrat Bill Owens a narrow lead.

This is why talk of a GOP revival in 2010 is, for the moment, highly overrated. The Republicans will never win until they get their ideological house in order. Do they want to move towards the center to win back moderates? Or would they rather move right and re-energize conservatives? It's hardly a recent debate; the conservative and moderate wings of the GOP have been duking it out for decades. But the party's never been in worse shape than it is now. They need to come to some kind of consensus, or else risk being wiped out for the third straight election.

It's decision time for the GOP. Right or center? Moderate or conservative? They don't need to come up with a final answer. But they need an answer. And they need it fast. Only a year to go before the midterm test. Tick-tock...

WILL SCHULTZ

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The "Don't Give Me That Crap" Theory of Jurisprudence

I have a comprehensive theory of recent United States Supreme Court church and state jurisprudence.

You have to be a First Amendment geek to know how ballsy that statement is. Really, it’s pretty confusing – why is one ten commandments display judged kosher while another is condemned as meshugana? I hope I used that right… go easy on the gentile, I’m a shegetz.

Very recently the Supremes--of the John Roberts variety, not the Diana Ross kind--heard a case about a memorial to our WWI dead that stands in the Mojave desert… because when the Death Valley VFW post wants people to ignore a monument, they go all out.

Why does anyone care? It’s in the shape of a cross. There’s been a cross-shaped memorial there since 1934, but it's only now that someone has gotten upset about it. So now there’s a memorial to our WWI dead that stands in the Mojave desert in a plywood box.

What will the Gang of Nine do? I’ve got some ideas about these sorts of cases. I call them the “Don’t Give Me That Crap” view of jurisprudence. Somehow, this theory didn’t fly in the church/state course I took in law school. I think I used to much reality and not enough Latin.

Here’s the way it works – say you’ve got two ten commandment displays at two different courthouses. One of them is erected by conservative Christians intentionally trying to stick a fork in Chief Justice Roberts’ eye because they think that the United States isn’t Christian enough. They try this case in the US Supreme Court building, which has a frieze of Moses and the ten commandments over the entrance.

Go figure.

The second display has been around forever and nobody’s really cared, but now somebody, hungry to be oppressed (I imagine them at home, desperately sanding “In God We Trust” from all their coinage and being deliberately unthankful on Thanksgiving) is intentionally trying to stick a fork in Chief Justice Roberts’ eye because...they think the United States is too Christian.

Why, on the same day, does the Court declare commandments one through ten out of bounds and eleven thru twenty fair play? Well, the Supremes don’t like getting jabbed by some little tattletale troublemaker. Under my theory, the Court has adopted a “Don’t Give Me That Crap” approach: don’t go around looking for a fight and then come crying to the Court because you want a nation of theocracy/Godless heathenism – don’t give me that crap.

What Justice Breyer, the swing vote in these cases, really wants to do when some Bible-thumper-who-can’t-stand-the-existence-of-atheists-and-Episcopalians or zealot-atheist-(or Episcopalian like me)-who-won’t-deal-with-conservative-Christians tries to give him an earful is to come down from the bench and jam the fork up the offending party’s...well, you know. But he can’t, so he just votes against them. And after Breyer is done with the utensil, Scalia wants to take it and stick it in their throat.

Under my theory, if you’ve got a legitimate beef, the Supremes will do you right. The desert war memorial cross case has some interesting issues in play, and I’m curious to see which ones the Court latch onto. Regardless of which way they swing, I’m sure I’ll find a way to spin their decision to say they’re enforcing my theory – I’m a lawyer.

But if you go to the Court just to gripe and moan, they’ll send you packing with a fork up your….

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Screwing Over the Huddled Masses

We’re being immigration visa jerks and that’s gonna hurt us in the long run.

America’s always done well by taking everybody else’s best people and making them ours – Einstein, Von Braun, my mother.

Okay, those were all Germans, but I’m sure there are good people from other countries who also came to the US.

It works out well for the United States – we get brilliant physicists, rockets that take us to the moon, and me. Who can complain about that? We attract smart, hardworking folks to our industries, universities, and culture, and milk them for all their worth.

Seriously, folks, we won WWII with a guy named Eisenhower. Doesn’t sound like a Native American name to me – we used a German to whup the Germans.

But part of this system is us being willing to work with foreigners. That’s pronounced “Furrnurs.”

Better yet, try saying it without any vowels.

If we’re gonna brain drain the rest of the world, we have to be willing to play the immigration game and have a relatively open (one-way) door to the international neighborhood (and bars on the windows). If we close the door too tightly, Prof. Wu will go unravel genetics at Cambridge and Dr. Schneider will go open his company in France.

Instead, we’re being tools.

I know a British woman doing public interest work here in the states, trying to fix things we’ve screwed up for free, and we’re making it an unholy pain in the arse for her to stay more than a few months.

And that’s how we treat our friends! C’mon – we’re allies with the UK. They’ve been our closest friends in the global game of Risk ever since we kicked them out. They’re the only ones who’ve had the pluck/bad judgment to stick with us in Iraq in any force!

Then there’s a German buddy of mine who wanted to come study here. There was a metric tonne of paperwork, and when even a German complains about the paperwork, that’s a lot.

My buddy had to make an in person visit to the consulate in Munich – I dunno, to show folks he didn’t look like a terrorist or something – but the best I’ve heard was about some foreign academics at a local university. They couldn’t apply to renew their visas till, say, two months out from the expiration date. But it’d take the government six months to process the paperwork….

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses” and screw em."

JOHN DERRICK

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Thoughts on Obama's Nobel Prize

A few days have passed, and we've all had time to think over the meanings and implications of Barack Obama's new Nobel Peace Prize. Most people are still puzzled. Why him? Why now? Most--but certainly not all--pundits think that the award came much too early. A few think he should turn it down. Others say that, no, he really did deserve it.

My reaction? I thought of Notre Dame football. No, wait, I can explain! Think back a few years, to when Ty Willingham was head coach of the Fighting Irish. Notre Dame's storied program looked on the verge of collapse. Willingham's biggest crime was that he couldn't beat arch-rival USC. Each and every time the two teams played, Notre Dame took an unholy beating. After three years of this, the school kicked out Willingham and brought in Charlie Weis.

Weis also lost to USC. But--here's the thing--he almost won. That's what made the difference: it looked like Notre Dame was at least trying to win. That was enough to land Weis a multi-million dollar contract for a gazillion years.

So it goes with politics. Bush is Willingham and Obama is Weis. Obama hasn't actually done anything, but he seems to be trying. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts rather than achievements. Is that a good or a bad thing? You decide. But be warned--the Weis experiment hasn't worked out so well for the Irish.

OK, one last thing. For an interestingly contrarian take on the Nobel, read David von Drehle's piece in Time. I don't know if I agree, but it's a very thought-provoking argument.

WILL SCHULTZ

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