As I watch the GOP Presidential race start to heat up, I find myself struck with a wave of sadness. The old axiom that we "get the government we deserve" has never been more apt. We demand that our politicians "do what we want them to," then wonder why they can't figure out what the heck that is. We demand lower taxes, but will accept no cuts in government benefits or services. At Tea Party demonstrations, ardent Republicans stand with signs that say "Keep the Government Out of My Medicare!" On the other ideological side there is nothing but an insatiable desire for more government “care,” as if we will never have to pay back that largesse.

            At one of the recent debates, the GOP candidates heard an explosion of applause when Ron Paul said we needed to “get our troops out of Afghanistan now.” Only minutes later, they faced a question from a member of the audience, likely someone with impeccable “Tea Party” credentials, demanding to know what they would do “to protect the women of Afghanistan?” Huh?!            

            How did we get here? 

            When Ben Franklin walked out of Liberty Hall after the final touches were put on the Constitution, a woman asked him "what sort of government have you given us?" He turned to her and said, "a Republic, Madam, if you can keep it." Can we?

            These days, people demand to know what the government will do to “create jobs,” as if that were even possible. As States go bankrupt, their government union members violently demonstrate against the most minimal reductions in their lavish benefits. Wall Street enterprises insist on keeping their profits, but sending their losses to the taxpayers, and our Government meekly goes along. Are we still capable of doing as Franklin commanded? 

            We’ve lost the notion that our country is us,andthat we each have an obligation to pull our own oar. We have neglected our duty to our ancestors who delivered our grand Republic to us. We no longer think of the government as our representatives.  It seems to us now just a source of "free" money, whether through welfare transfer payments or corporate rent-seeking. Self-reliance has fallen out of fashion. Now, if you don’t slurp your share of “free” feed from the government trough, you’re just a chump.

            Was it really a half-century ago that a staunchly Democratic young President, rising to give his inaugural address, exhorted the crowd to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country!"? Didn’t he say to the whole world that Americans would “pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, and oppose any foe, to secure the blessings of liberty?” What’s happened to us in these last few decades?

            If John Kennedy were alive today, he would find no home in the Democratic Party. They have carried identity politics to such corrupting extremes that their constituency is reduced to an amalgam of need groups all clamoring for the government to "do something" for them. The word “liberty” has been stricken from their lips as an anachronistic thing of the past. They long ago abandoned the noble course Kennedy set for them that cold January day in 1961. The only “Big Idea” they can muster to get the economy back on track is to borrow trillions of dollars from our grandchildren to squander on bottomless pits of “stimulus” that fail to stimulate anything but the demand for more.

            But would he be a Republican? Not likely.   Their "Big Idea" on the economy begins and ends with tax cuts, as if businesses just need more cash for our economy to right itself. No one seems to notice that most large businesses are awash in cash, and banks are hoarding it in the trillions. Calling for “tax cuts” is easy—what’s lacking is the courage to ask the hard questions instead: how are we to actually cut spending? How small ought government to be in the new Millennium? No one in the GOP objected to deficit borrowing in the prior administration, and they seem no more interested than the Democrats in Kennedy’s notions of true American greatness and exceptionalism.

            So, what's the answer? We need to be honest with ourselves first. It all started to happen when we began viewing the government as an indulgent parent, instead of a daring, collaborative experiment in self-rule. The problem is not our politicians- it's us. We've lost the knack for looking out for ourselves. The time to get it back is running out.

            The “conservative” and “liberal” labels now en vogue are backwards. Historically, a Classical Liberal was someone who believed we had the unalienable freedom to govern ourselves, to chart our own course, free from undue interference from a sovereign. But we also understood this right came with a responsibility to remain self-reliant, and not demand “protection” from “the Government” for the consequences of our mistakes, big or small.   

            I am reclaiming that label today, and I hope it catches on. Classical Liberals believed in a small, competent government that did well the few things we entrusted to it. They were self-reliant, but also possessed of a civic spirit and a belief in the power of self-government. They took seriously the duty to be well-educated, active, involved, and willing to do their share for their country. They knew it wasn’t about me,it was about us.They were in good company. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin, were all classical Liberals. De Tocqueville identified the philosophy as classically American. If he were to travel the country today, he would cry at what he saw.

            The results of last November’s midterm elections were epic[1]. Speaker Pelosi and her Gulfstream V are out. Speaker Boehner and his commercial coach flights back to Ohio are in. Plus ça change…

Last November, our runaway government ran smack into the same wall it has seen before: the voters, and their fear of a government big enough to take everything they have. Most of the new GOP Congressmen rode to power on the strength of a conservative, Tea-Party friendly message of less government, lower spending, and a return to “Constitutional first principles.” Many actually seem like true believers. Time will tell.

            At least they’re starting to ask the right question, one that has fallen out of favor over the last sixty years or so: Exactly where in the Constitution did we, the People, grant the Federal Government the power to do that?! New House rules will require all proposed legislation to contain a detailed citation to its precise Constitutional authority. 

            But this new respect for the Constitution, like everything else in politics, has two sides.  The overreaching and excessive government spending and growth that spawned the Tea Party cannot be laid solely at the foot of the Democratic Party. Indeed, most of the biggest power-grabs, (and the freest spending), in the previous two administrations (Clinton, Bush) were Republican in origin. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the Orwellian Department of Homeland Security (DHS),[2] Medicare prescription drug coverage, federally guaranteed, ridiculously easy, mortgage money shoveled into the economy by federally backed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, cozy, rent-seeking deals with Wall Street investment bankers and Texas oilmen, government subsidies in farming, manufacturing and natural resources, and the TARP Bank Bailout—were all GOP-sponsored Bad Ideas. I heard no mention then about the limits of Constitutional power before any of these ideas became law. 

That’s why I am particularly happy to see that the GOP finally dusted off their Constitutions, and are giving them a quick read during the new Congress. Maybe we will see legislation this term repealing DOMA, abolishing DHS, retiring NCLB (doing away with the whole Department of Education while they’re at it), and reversing the other power-grabs of the last Republican presidency.

Or, maybe not.

You see, like everything else in politics, what started out as a slogan to attract Tea Party voters, with their “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden flags[3] and “We Want our Constitution Back” signs, must now make the hard turn into a governing philosophy. Those Tea-Party backed candidates could always count on rousing applause when they told their crowds that the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to make us buy health insurance. But what would we hear if they told their next Town Hall Meeting audience about some of the other “core principles” of limited federal government held by our Founders? Perhaps our incoming Congressmen should dust off another piece of writing,   “The Federalist Papers.”

They should be careful, though. Let’s imagine what that might look like. Here’s our earnest young freshman GOP Congressman, striding to the front of the room at the next Townhall Meeting, his copy of the Federalist Papers under his right arm: “The people, through their Constitution, did not delegate to the federal government the power to ban handguns or mandate the purchase of health insurance!”  (pause, to bask in the applause).  “But it also granted no power to Congress to mandate prayers in state public schools!” (sound of crickets chirping, and nervous shifting in seats).

Undaunted, he continues: “The Constitution does not give the federal government the power to use taxpayer money to bail out or favor one business or industry over another, or pick winners and losers in the private sector! (Applause returns)... But neither does it empower us to enact a federal ban on marriage between persons of the same gender, control the states’ exercise of police power in regulation of abortion practices, or pay farmers not to grow corn! (Duck, Congressman, they’re throwing things at you!).  

As the Tea Party gears up for the 2012 Presidential race, and their GOP congressmen begin crafting the legislation they will offer in this new Congressional term, they should all be careful what they wish for. The Constitution they have rediscovered was indeed a limited delegation of very circumscribed power from the states, (and the people at large), to the federal government. Our Founders distrusted the national government, and wanted to keep it small enough to be controlled. 

But that limit applies to both sides of the political spectrum. If the GOP pushes for full repeal of the Obama health care reform legislation on Constitutional grounds, then it must be equally mindful that the old red-meat issues they trot out every election cycle (prayer in schools, gay marriage bans, federal prohibition of certain abortion practices, federal grain or farm subsidies, etc.) are also beyond the reach of the limited powers granted to the federal government.

So, what will it be? Will I hear GOP presidential candidates in local forums telling their audiences that the federal government has no power to meddle in state definitions of marriage, or state laws governing abortion practices? Will I see GOP candidates who favor a robust interpretation of the Second Amendment also advocate dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security on the grounds that it threatens the very freedoms and sovereignty the Constitution reserves to the people?

For some time, I have felt I am becoming more of an independent than a Republican, as I see my old GOP abandoning its principles as the party of limited government, balanced budgets, low taxes and low government spending.  It has gotten worse lately, as I see the sorry crop of GOP presidential hopefuls, none of whom inspire confidence like the man who first turned me into a Republican, Ronald Reagan.  However, the more I have thought about it, the more I realize I am not an independent-- like Reagan, I am a JFK Democrat.  I wonder where that party has gone.  I wish I could have it back.  Like Reagan, (once a card-carrying union local president and proud Democrat), once said, "I didn't leave the Democratic Party-- it left me."

In JFK's day, this is what it meant to be a Democrat: Muscular foreign policy, commitment to Civil Rights when it really mattered, conservative fiscal policy, balanced budgets, a libertarian approach to business and free enterprise, tax cuts, and most important, an unabashed, patriotic defense of liberty both here and abroad. With the passing of the last of the Kennedy Lions today, I find myself longing for Teddy's older brother.  Here's an excerpt from his Inaugural Address in 1961 that says it all:

"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe -- the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans -- born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

This much we pledge -- and more."

Here's a link to the video:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural.htm

"The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God."  Sounds like Reagan, who said in his farewell address:

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: "We the People." "We the People" tell the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. "We the People" are the driver; the government is the car, and we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the People" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the People" are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past 8 years. (http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganfarewelladdress.html)

Where are these two Giants, now that we need them?  Where are their rightful heirs, in either party?  Who, in either party, has the grit to stand, rise above the pygmies currently running Washington, and proudly proclaim that they will take up the colors once held aloft by John Kennedy or Ronald Reagan, and hoist them once more? I see no one.

I wonder what JFK and Reagan would think of our government's shameless nationalization of the banking industry, GM, Chrysler, and now the health care industry?  What would they say to a 9 trillion dollar debt, chronic unemployment threatening to break through to double digits, ever-increasing throngs of interest groups and corporate insiders petitioning Washington for their share of the public dole, and a hamstrung private sector timidly waiting in the corner for the Government's next move?  What would they say to our current President's recent "apology tour," in which his speeches were filled with nothing but criticism of what it means to be American?  Have you once heard any of our current crop of "leaders" these days even use the word "liberty?"

It seems now that today's Democratic Party thinks of the word as nothing more than some quaint old notion that has outlived its usefulness. They talk instead of "economic justice," an Orwellian phrase taken straight from the Soviet glossary, as if money could be given to the many who want it, without taking it from the few who have it.

I think if JFK and Ronald Reagan were alive today to see what has happened to their parties, they'd be ashamed.  If the GOP has forgotten what it means to be Republican, maybe someone can bring JFK's Democrats back.  If they do, I will switch my affiliation tomorrow!

            Am I alone in detecting irony in the Left's embrace of Judge Sotomayor’s ethnic background as an enhanced qualifier for her nomination? Where were the accolades for Clarence Thomas in 1991, whose personal backstory was every bit as compelling as Judge Sotomayor's? Where were the glowing media reviews for any number of other candidates of diverse backgrounds nominated by former President Bush for Cabinet posts or appellate courts? Instead, some of them were treated to racially offensive cartoons or editorials in major liberal newspapers.[1]

            Spare me the hypocrisy. Judge Sotomayor’s ethnicity and upbringing are, of course, as much a part of her as is her Yale Law degree, and she is right to be proud of all three. But her ethnicity should not enter into any rational discussion of her qualifications to ascend to the highest court in our country.

            Did her belief that her ethnicity makes her "a better judge" negatively affect her judging? In the recent 2^nd Circuit decision of Ricci v. DeStefano,[2] she joined a per curiam decision (against the urging of her mentor and fellow Puerto Rican-American, Judge Jose Cabranes, who dissented eloquently and called for a full opinion) approving the summary dismissal of firefighter promotional test scores, not because the test had any racial bias, but simply because no African-American firefighters scored highly enough on it to pass. 

            Think about that-- as Judge Cabranes noted in his dissent, the City of New Haven tossed the test scores for no reason other than the race of those who passed. That Judge Sotomayor not only saw nothing wrong with that, but joined a bare majority of the panel in not even deigning to grace their decision with a reasoned opinion, speaks volumes as to her thinking about race and her role as a judge. What it says should give any conservative observer pause.

            Another disturbing pattern in Judge Sotomayor’s judicial background, and one that has gotten little attention, is her tendency to embrace the fuzzy concept of “legal realism[3].” First espoused by another 2^nd Circuit judge, Jerome Frank, in the 1930’s, it is anathema to any conservative interested in the permanence and immutability of the United States Constitution. The per curiam ruling in Ricci is redolent with its malodor. In a 1996 lecture, Judge Sotomayor, then a trial judge, embraced the notion that there are no immutable standards in the law:

 The constant development of unprecedented problems requires a legal system capable of fluidity and pliancy. Our society would be strait-jacketed were not the courts, with the able assistance of the lawyers, constantly overhauling the law and adapting it to the realities of ever-changing social, industrial and political conditions; although changes cannot be made lightly, yet law must be more or less impermanent, experimental and therefore not nicely calculable. Much of the uncertainty of law is not an unfortunate accident: it is of immense social value.[4]

More than her unfortunate comments about being a “wise, Latina woman,” it is this ad hoc, standardless approach to the law that any red-blooded conservative lawyer should choke on. Although I have learned not to expect any intellectual depth from the Republicans currently warming seats in the Senate, hope springs eternal—perhaps of the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee will ask her about her thoughts on this subject. 

The law is many things, but if it truly ever becomes “experimental,” and thus free to mean whatever judges, “with the able assistance of lawyers,” say it means, we will cease to be a Constitutionally controlled Republic, and enter the nightmare world Franz Kafka described in his short essay, “Before the Law[5].” That is a world I want no part of.

"I think ... sort of the bottom feels like it is falling out for many people... They sense there's a total lack of leadership in Washington, that the White House is silent, the treasury secretary has been battered, the Federal Reserve can't speak up. These automakers come up to Capitol Hill and fail. And the president-elect is silent in Chicago."

•  Don't stuff earmarks into legislation like you're stuffing cocktail shrimp into your pockets at the White House reception;
•  Don't play footsie in the men's room stall;
•  Don't send dirty emails to Senate pages;
•  Don't take money from dirty lobbyists;
•  Try to avoid getting indicted, much less convicted;
•  Spend more time listening to your constituents, and less time at Beltway cocktail parties;
•  Remember why you were elected, and who elected you.

-George W. Bush, September 20, 2008

As a new President plans his transition, I am pausing lately to give a little thought to the one on his way out. When George W. Bush took office in January, 2001, no one could have predicted the calamitous eight years that awaited him. His Presidency was transformed, and in a very real sense, sacrificed, on September 11, 2001. From the moment the planes hit the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the fields near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, he knew that whatever plans he might have had for his administration over the next four or eight years were gone. His mission had fundamentally changed.

In his joint session address to Congress nine days after the attack, President Bush made the Nation a promise. Its essence is highlighted above. In the last days of his Presidency, many people in the chattering classes have forgotten that speech, and that promise. But he never did. Though the years since have been fraught with setbacks, and he and his administration have made more mistakes than can be counted, President Bush has never broken faith with his country. He never tired; he never faltered; and he has not failed.

It is not by accident that this country has not suffered a single terrorist attack, within its borders or in its embassies outside of the war zones of Afghanistan or Iraq, since September 11, 2001. Had anyone predicted then that the nation would remain safe from terrorist attack this long, they would have been considered delusional. Commentators at the time were certain there would be many more attacks, even catastrophic ones, with the only question being when. At the time, it seemed an impossible task to protect the country from the onslaught of Islamic terror attacks we all feared were coming. Yet it was that very task to which President Bush and his team dedicated themselves.

In the end, perhaps it is the very success of their efforts these last seven years that, more than anything, has led to the decline of President Bush's reputation.  The success of the Global War on Terror has given the country the luxury of worrying about its recent economic setbacks to the exclusion of everything else. We’re no longer worried about the existential threat of terrorism.  The success of the Surge in Iraq (a surge that President Bush embraced late, to be sure, but embraced nonetheless), has caused the war to fade from the front pages as an issue.

But as he leaves office, President Bush can take some heart in the fact that while many have forgotten, there are still millions of us who remember. We remember what this country faced seven years ago. We remember like it was yesterday. We also remember the promise he made to us on September 20, 2001. We remember he warned us that the battle to win the war against Islamic terrorists would be long, fought in the twilight of secrecy or obscurity. He warned us that it would be a war with little credit given to its heroes, and with "victories" we might never even see in the open. But he promised that with the battle on, he would never leave the field until he was done, or spent in the effort.  We know, (though his plummeting popularity polls suggest most no longer do), what it took for him to keep that promise.

More needs to be done, to be sure, and new threats lurk around every corner. We pray our new President is up to the task. But though you'll never see this written anywhere but here, he has President Bush, and that magnificent military he commanded, to thank for how close he will be to victory in the war on Islamic extremist terror when he takes office.

It may be a hundred years before the history of the Bush administration can be written with sufficient detachment to be accurate. I am by no means a Bush apologist, and could spend the next several entries in this journal cataloguing his failures. But I won't.  I know that in many ways Bush has willingly sacrificed his reputation for victory in the cause to which he dedicated himself on September 20, 2001. He did what he thought was right, and never backed down in the face of the whirlwind. Of course, I will also never forget that there are nearly five thousand soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in the country's cause, too. President Bush would want all the focus on them, as it should be. I am sure his first prayers, in his quiet moments, are for them and their families.

In thinking of this President as he fades from the stage and makes way for his successor, I recall the words from an old Irish rebel tune from the late 1700's, The Minstrel Boy:

The minstrel boy to the war is gone

In the ranks of death you'll find him.

His father's sword he has girded on,

And his wild harp slung behind him.

"Land of Song," said the warrior bard,

"Though all the world betrays thee,

One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard;

One faithful heart shall praise thee."

Godspeed, Mr. President.