Kevin Drum, tool

You can choose between Radley Balko's takedown and Brian Doherty's takedown.

It really isn't about which team wins this week. It is actually about trying to get the best policies.

Nanny of the month

I'd been hoping for a bit more change. This is an issue area where the Ds are supposed to be better than the Rs.

The Obama as Preacher

A different and I think quite insightful take on the State of the Union address by Robert Nelson of the Independent Institute.

His closing paragraph:

Unlike some of our previous presidents, President Obama barely mentioned God by name in his State of the Union speech (only once in the closing obligatory line, “God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America”). But his speech was Christian and specifically Protestant through and through. That is the way it is with religion in America in the twenty-first century. In our secular age, our thinking is no less religious, but the most important forms of religion are now implicit and at least partially disguised.

Indeed.

Addendum: clever readers will note the pun in the title of the post.

Obama administration on trade

Some thoughts on trade policy from Scott Lincicome. The current administration could be doing much better in this area than the mushy mercantilism they have adopted, and the "doubling exports" bit in the State of the Union Address was just silly, even by the standards of that event.

And one should always note in these contexts that trade policy is anti-poverty policy as pretty much all really poor people in the world live in other countries, many of whose products we tax or otherwise exclude in order to protect politically influential American producers. Compassion is a bit more compelling when you do not receive votes in return.

Obama at UM

Well, look what some clever person in the administration managed to do! President Obama is delivering the commencement address here at Michigan this spring. One hopes the additional donations this generates from enthusiastic democrat parents, students and alumni outweigh the donations lost from non-democrat parents, students and alumni plus the cost of all the additional security and such like.

It could be better. At Chicago, where I did my graduate degrees, they get professors who are also good lecturers to deliver a 20-minute mini-lecture about some aspect of their research that is of general interest at commencement. We had law professor Richard Epstein at one of my two graduations, as I recall. No actors, no comedians, no politicians and no pandering. Just the life of the mind. It warms my heart just thinking about it.

It could also be worse. At Washington, where I did my undergraduate degrees, the tradition was to have the president of the university give the commencement address. I think the president when I was there was called Gerberding. I am sure he must have had some exceptional talent for something or other, maybe PR or fund-raising, but he was not particularly talented at either public speaking or economic policy analysis. Nonetheless, the assembled graduating masses (and they are masses at UW) were treated to 30 minutes (or was it an hour, it sure seemed like it) about how "we" should do more to emulate Japanese industrial policy. Ooops.

Hat tip: Angela Wyse (on FB)

Addendum: official UM announcement

Obama as populist

A history-filled reflection on Obama's somewhat implausible recent attempts to repackage himself as a populist by Jesse Walker of Reason (but published in the WSJ).

I hope Jesse finds his way back to Ann Arbor. It was fun having him around.

Diwali

It turns out that Diwali is a "significant festival in Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, and an official holiday in India." It is also the subject of a new video by President Obama, whose writers appear to have consulted the wikipedia entry linked to above:




Many readers may not know this, but US Presidents have been issuing proclamations on American Thanksgiving for a long time. This behavior, and its apparent recent expansion beyond Thanksgiving, raises the question: should the president spend his or her valuable time recording what are essentially glorified Hallmark Cards? If so, where does one draw the line? Are there religions too small or politically touchy to merit this attention? Can we expect a video on the anniversary of Joseph Smith's murder or on Mary Baker Eddy's birthday? Who decides which religions merit presidential videos and which do not? What rules are used?

I suppose this is all harmless enough, but it does seem to reinforce the view that the President is something other than just a functionary, which, it seems to me, is the correct view of the president of a democratic republic. The president is not our grandparent, or our leader, or a moral guide, or a source of inspiration. He is just the head of a large, publicly held company that does a mediocre job of providing some public goods and suffers from an excess of both sanctimony and mission creep. More time on task, and less on holiday fluff, would not be amiss.

More on Obama's Nobel

Matt Welch at the NY Post focuses on the Norwegians.

Via Virginia Postrel, clever twitter comments on the award.

Even David Warsh at Ecnoomic Principals has a negative take!

Warsh hints at, but does not explicitly say, that the decentralization of the awarding of the prizes to multiple organizations means that none of them take into account the effect of their own decisions on the prestige of the other awards. I'd say the Norwegians are pretty clearly not internatlizing these negative externalities.

In my view, a "hope and change" administration would have politely declined the award. In doing so, Obama still would have gotten credit for being chosen, would have silenced all the critics and would have shown some real seriousness. His advisors let him down here.

Nobel WTF

This is just bizarre.

The press release is here. Key paragraph:

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

Maybe next year they can give it to Santa, who has had a similar worldwide impact on hope, especially among THE CHILDREN.

Mankiw makes the main point here.

The Economist's Democracy in America blog offers competing accounts, but I think the "pro" account actually makes the negative case more strongly than the "con" account. Most of it consists of announcing things. Politicians are always announcing things. That's not the hard part. Not being George Bush is also not hard. McCain could have done that, so could Hilary Clinton. It is hardly award-worthy. It is like handing out pulitzers for not being Glen Beck or Lou Dobbs.

The Norwegians have made fools of themselves on this one. What were they thinking?

Addendum: another humorous take, this one from Dan Drezner.

Addendum 2: reason's "rapid response" video. Nick really is having too much fun.

Addendum 3: a remarkably prescient SNL skit

Hat tip (on addendum 3): Taylor Hui

Olympics

I have a very simple explanation as to why the Olympics went to Rio. My explanation relies on basic human desires.

Here is an article on Danish prostitutes flocking to Copenhagen for the meeting of the International Olympic committee.

Here is an article declaring the Rio the sexiest city on earth. Prostitution is legal there. Indeed, when I was in Rio for the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) meetings the year that Heckman won the Nobel prize, I can remember watching (subtle, but obvious enough even when observing only sporadically while reading papers and drinking beer) transactions taking place in the bar of the upscale hotel at which the meetings were held.

In Chicago, on the other hand, the Cook County sheriff is busy (like so many other public officials looking for ways into the headlines without actually doing their jobs) suing Craigslist. Good to know that there are not any other crime problems in Cook County that might call for the Sheriff's attention.

Probably the reader can connect the dots from there.

As to the Obamas, they should not have been there if Chicago was not going to win, and whether or not Chicago was going to win is something that the administration should have known about in advance. This is not a big deal in the scheme of things, but it is not a signal of competence either.

Hat tip (on the Denmark piece): Lars Skipper

Enough Obama

I'm sure you've been thinking the same thing I have. Where is Obama? You never see him on TV and no one ever seems to talk about him on the internet. So, if you are suffering from Obama deprivation, you can add more Obama to your life with these Obama checks. Four options are offered, each with a different picture and different inspirational saying, like "Yes, We Can!".

Actually, I'll just remain perplexed that people look to politicians of any flavor for guidance or inspiration. For me it is one of those mysteries of life, like the continued existence of White Castle restaurants.

Hat tip: Lisa Smith

Boring parts of otherwise interesting jobs

The boring parts of my job are grading exams and writing letters of recommendation.

The boring part of the president's job is, evidently, taking photos. Obama demonstrates.

Via: instapundit

Hitchens on Obama

I am gradually catching up on the Atlantic, having finished the February 2009 issue in Australia this past week.

I quite liked the post-election column on Obama by Christopher Hitchens, who in general is one of my favorite bits of the magazine.

Here is the first paragraph as a teaser:

I have a small wish of my own in this season of public and private Utopias. It is that the emergence—or should I say ascendance?—of Barack Hussein Obama will allow the reentry into circulation of an old linguistic coinage. Exploited perhaps to greatest effect by James Baldwin, the word I have in mind is cat. Some of you will be old enough to remember it in real time, before the lugubrious and nerve-racking days when people never knew from one moment to the next what expression would put them in the wrong: the days of Negro and colored and black and African American and people of color. After all of this strenuous and heated and boring discourse, does not the very mien of our new president suggest something lithe and laid-back, agile but rested, cool but not too cool? A “cat” also, in jazz vernacular, can be a white person, just as Obama, in some non–Plessy v. Ferguson ways, can be. I think it might be rather nice to have a feline for president, even if only after enduring so many dogs. (Think, for one thing, of the kitten-like grace of those daughters.) The metaphor also puts us in mind of a useful cliché, which is that cats have nine lives—and an ability to land noiselessly and painlessly on their feet.

Read the whole thing here.

Art works both ways

These posters are really eye-catching, though weakened by the fact that Obama is not actually a socialist under any reasonable definition. I would have put something like "Love and Obey" instead.

No new taxes

You know, I seem to recall that there was another president who made bold claims about "no new taxes" and came to regret it.

It seems doubly crazy in this case for two reasons. First, by any reasonable accounting, the pledge is already broken via the stimulus package, which represents a huge increase in future taxes. Second, unless Obama is planning to take over the Fed and start printing money (which is, of course, just a different way of raising taxes, in that case on cash balances), or to make huge cuts elsewhere in the federal budget, neither of which seems likely, there is simply no way to pay for the current health care policy changes on the table solely with taxes on those making more than $250,000 per year. There are not that many such people and they tend to have the most opportunities to avoid income taxation, either via legal loopholes or simply by not reporting parts of their income, or even by moving elsewhere.

I think Obama will regret this move, just as Bush I did. Why not be honest instead? It really is kind of amazing that this administration, after all the hoopla, hasnt' even really tried to be different. From day one it has been business as usual with spin, spin, spin.

Idle hands

On cults of personality

The economist on the cult of Obama and one branch of the cult itself.

This stuff makes my skin crawl. It is bad enough when people tie their hopes and dreams to musicians or actors, but politicians?

The president runs a large and important firm that happens to use a particularly odd method to choose its CEO and happens to have a legal monopoly on the provision of certain goods and services. Period. Yawn.

The honeymoon is over

I was stunned by these polls showing Obama in a dead heat with Romney in 2012. Even more stunning is that Sarah Palin polls at 42 percent against Obama.

That was a fast honeymoon given the extent of the love-fest in January and on-going fawning from much of the mainstream press.

One explanation for the rapid dissipation is that Obama gave away too much political / moral capital with the stimulus bill. While there is no realistic scenario in which the bill would have had no pork, it could have had a lot less. The fact that it had so much was an early signal to the electorate that the Obama administration would be more about politics as usual and less about change to be believed in than even cynics like me expected.

Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics has a thoughtful related post.

Obama at six months

Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch have a fine summary in the WaPo. Key bits:

The key to understanding Obama's predicament is to realize that while he ran convincingly as a repudiation of Bush, he is in fact doubling down on his predecessor's big-government policies and perpetual crisis-mongering. From the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists to gays in the military to bailing out industries large and small, Obama has been little more than the keeper of the Bush flame.

Bush learned the hard way that running government as a perpetual crisis machine leads to bad policy and public fatigue. Obama's insistence on taking advantage of a crisis to push through every item on the progressive checklist right now is threatening to complete that cycle within his first year.

But read the whole thing.

The problem is not that Obama is too good for his own good.

I have been pondering the question of to what extent what we have gotten so far differs from what we would have gotten under Hillary or even under McCain. I think the answer is very little, if at all, relative to Hillary and only modestly relative to McCain. All three would have produced giant pork-ridden stimulus bills, though the folks munching on the pork rinds would have differed a bit with Hillary and more so with McCain. McCain likely would not have backed off (in little teeny, tiny bits) from the drug war, Cuba and stem cells but Hillary might have done all of these, particularly the last two. I suspect all three would have failed, as Obama has, on the transparency front and on Gitmo (and torture issues more generally) as there is simply too much institutional force pressing in the other direction inside the beltway. Probably under McCain we get an IES director who looks more like a clone of Russ Whitehurst but fewer and lower quality economists elsewhere in government, not because there are not good non-democrat economists, but because a McCain administration would likely have been almost as non-intellectual as the Bush II administration. Doug Holtz-Eakin, bless his heart, was willing to tutor Sarah Palin in ECON 101, but I suspect the queue for that job is not a long one.

So this is too bad. It seems like Obama's honeymoon period could have been used to do one really good thing that went beyond politics as usual, say a carbon tax instead of a cap-and-trade bill so destroyed by the Congressional favor-selling machine that Dennis Kucinich voted against it, or budget-neutral health care reform that re-organized how we pay for health care for those who cannot afford it while also cleaning up other messes like Bush II's prescription drug plan, or a big move on drugs or Cuba or ... you get the idea.

So far, I would say that Obama has wasted his opportunity. And that's a shame.

Obama looks out for Brazil at the G-8 meetings

Much ado about this photo, which seems to show Obama engaging in a visual examination of selected aspects of the topography of a female delegate from Brazil at the G-8 meeting.

There is also a video you can watch. ABC News claims it shows that Obama was not doing anything amiss. I would disagree, but it does clearly show that Sarkozy was behaving much worse - though surely he gets some sort of handicap on his score for being French.

First thought: one wonders if this was a calculated move to make Obama seem like more of a regular guy and perhaps gin up some support among the bubba voters.

Second thought: think about how much someone must want power in order to put up with having their every move recorded and posted on youtube.

Third thought: does the fact that it is "news" make watching the video multiple times not politically incorrect?

Fourth thought: do we have this video and photo only because the news crews had their eyes focused on the same thing as Obama and Sarkozy?