Since I couldn't think of a post to taint with this picture and I love it so much, I thought I'd just post it and give an award to the first member that can correctly i.d. the 1. Character, 2. His real name 3. The location of the picture.

Hint: Picture was taken in Orange County, CA. 

[Editor's Note: The following post, written by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels’ General Counsel, David Pippen, is a response to two posts written by Paul Rahe entitled “Thinking about Mitch Daniels” and “Mitch Daniels and the Judiciary.”]

Paul,

Yesterday you posted what is the latest in a several-month string of pieces regarding judicial selection and Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels.  First and foremost, I want it clear that Governor Daniels has unfailingly chosen rock-solid conservative jurists for the bench.  He takes that responsibility seriously.

In naming Justice David, the Governor explained "I heard from Steve David the clearest expression of commitment to proper restraint in jurisprudence, and to deep respect for the boundaries of judicial decision-making. He will be a judge who interprets rather than invents our laws."  The new justice echoed these thoughts at his induction: “…I have been selected to be a guardian of the law, not to make it.”  That notion is further reinforced by conservatives in the state: “Governor Daniels is to be applauded for taking this opportunity to steer the Indiana Supreme Court back to its proper role in strictly interpreting the Indiana Constitution,” said Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter.

Jennifer Rubin (of the Washington Post) and Carrie Severino (of National Review) posed questions, but didn’t dig into what we have done or why.  Superficial cherry-picking of memberships or comments made by an Army officer doing his assigned duty to defend the worst of the worst people is easy.  Reading twenty-seven years worth of Officer Evaluation Reports, fifteen years worth of court decisions and performing extensive background and personal interviews to actually learn who a man is, less so. It is, however, necessary when making a Supreme Court pick.  No one can know how Justice David will be viewed two or twenty years from now, but I can tell you I have a pretty good idea of the kind of conservative jurist he has been.   I can also tell you that Governor Daniels believes strict construction of our constitutions (federal and state) is as important as any issue. It determines whether the people rule or will be ruled by an unaccountable few.  He will not compromise on those principles.

Much attention has also been paid to half of the governor’s May 13, 2009 veto of House Enrolled Act 1491.  The vetoed act was an effort by the Democrats to reinstate judicial election-by-political-machine in a single county, virtual one-party selection of judges in the Democratic home county of our then-Speaker of the House.  Rather than an opportunity to expand public input in that county, it was a thinly veiled effort to consolidate political power.

The act had a second, equally large problem.  The political machine portion of the bill was coupled with the creation of a new two-million dollar a year Court of Appeals District of three new state judges.  Given the governor’s fiscal prudence, the cost of a new district was difficult to justify in 2009, and caseload did not justify the additional judges and expenses. The governor declared:

…if I were to sign a bill linking these two proposals, it could contribute to public cynicism by creating the appearance that my acquiescence was purchased with more appointments.  Whatever the merits of expanding the Court of Appeals may be, they should be considered alone. 

Rather than a referendum on the Missouri Plan, in any of its differing iterations, the vetoed act was an effort to consolidate political power wrapped in a deal too “good” to accept.  Hindsight aside, the veto message was delivered to declare that Governor Daniels would not sell the judiciary of one county in exchange for an expensive additional Court of Appeals District.  

These facts could easily have been checked, these considerations could easily have been discussed.  But no one has called.  No one has written.  Instead, assumptions and declarations are made about what Mitch Daniels would do.  I know what he does:  without fail he requires his staff to probe and investigate and decipher as much information as is possible to ensure strict construction of the constitution lasts long after he is gone from office.

The Innovative Design Protection and Piracy Prevention Act was introduced by Chuck Schumer last summer.  In December, 2010 the legislation was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and now currently awaits final passage in the full Senate.  From the NYT, a description of the legislation:

The proposed legislation provides very limited intellectual property protection to the most original design. A designer who claims that his work has been copied must show that his design provides “a unique, distinguishable, non-trivial and non-utilitarian variation over prior designs.” And it must be proven by the designer that the copy is “substantially identical” to the original so as to be mistaken for it. The bill would cover all fashion designs, including products like handbags, belts and sunglasses, for a three-year period from the time the item is seen in public—on a runway, say. Factors than can’t be used in determining the uniqueness of a design are color, patterns and a graphic element.

But does the fashion world really need the sorts of copyright protections that other forms of intellectual property -- books, pharmaceuticals, machine -- require out of economic necessity? Kal Raustiala and Chris Sprigman argue it doesn't:

The DPPA is unnecessary because for 70 years the American fashion industry has thrived in a world of free and easy copying. To be sure, some designers are unhappy with the status quo and support the DPPA...[W]hile individual cases of harm certainly exist, intellectual property law is meant to be designed with the big picture in mind. Without clear evidence of systematic harm, the case for the DPPA is very weak.

The DPPA is also unwise. Extend copyright to the fashion industry, and designers are going to start fighting over who started a trend.  Litigation of this sort is great for lawyers—and those firms who can afford good lawyers—but not great for small designers or start-ups, who can be easily cowed or crushed by a lawsuit. And in a field where many believe there is nothing new under the sun, creating monopolies in fashion designs is bound to lead to a lot of lawsuits.

And here's Reason's response to the question of whether the fashion industry needs copyright protections:

James Pethokoukis' blog at Reuters is terrific.  In the past day, he's written three great posts.  The first, about how Scott Walker in Wisconsin is shaking the Democratic Party machine to its core, is insightful.  The second is entitled, simply, Why a Government Shutdown is Worth It.  Enough said.

I'm probably way behind, here.  All of you are probably reading his stuff all the time.  But the post that really grabbed me was this one, about a new report on the state of the United States economy.  Compiled by investment banker and venture capitalist Mary Meeker -- with a foreword by George Schultz, among others --  it looks at the state of our country as if it were one giant company, USA inc.  The conclusions aren't too cheery, as you might imagine:

Mary Meeker, the famed technology stock analyst now at venture firm Kleiner Perkins, has produced a ginormous report/PowerPoint presentation that looks at the United States as if it were a corporation. Now there’s little factually in the report that couldn’t be found by perusing the Congressional Budget Office website or the recent report put out by President Barack Obama’s debt commission. And I think her menu of policy recommendations isn’t particularly novel either. I wish, for instance, she had looked at Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to reform healthcare.

But Meeker and her team sure put together some 400 pages of pretty — and pretty informative — charts.

He's right about the charts.  And he's right that the report is ginormous.  But it's great weekend reading, if you're looking for some.   It looks at USA inc. in a pretty cold, bloodless, green-eyeshade way.  It's not a pretty picture.

On the other hand, here's how the report concludes:

Sounds right to me.

The latest from our friend Rick O'Shea on Ireland's general election:

Ireland goes to the polls today, 25th Feb.  We've had to endure a lot, a very lot, in recent months - more bank debt being loaded on taxpayers, more businesses closing, more unemployment and emigration, and the need to go to the EU/IMF for a bailout package in November of €67.5bn or over $90bn for three years.  This was the moment when Ireland bemoaned its loss of sovereignty. 

The new Government, to be formed on 9 March, will, however, preside over the restoration of sovereignty, if all goes according to the EU-IMF plan.  We may yet celebrate again, more quietly perhaps.

However, there's a lot of economic heavy lifting to be done.  The debt-GDP ratio could reach 124% before stabilizing.  The bank bailout element of that could be 36% of GDP - which shows how much reckless lending and regulatory failure has cost taxpayers.
And a heavy price is being paid already in 14% unemployment and a renewal of emigration.

A fuller analysis will follow on the result of the election.  But what must be interesting to Ricochet readers is that the winner of the election, the party with most seats, will likely be Fine Gael, which promised not to increase income taxes, to cut VAT, to sell State-owned assets and to reduce public sector employment the most of all parties.  Not quite the narrative of leftist commentators who were convinced that this would, finally, be the moment when Ireland became 'a real republic', or in other words, socialist.  We were to have a left-led Government for the first time.  Well, let's see.

But pause and rewind to November.

The prospect for Ireland was supposed to be:  shameful EU/IMF bailout followed by stringent budget, virtually impossible to pass, followed by social unrest and political instability, a wave of public anger, a lurch to the left, the emergence of new political forces, and a surge for Sinn Fein. 

Lurid portraits of the property boom and bust were filed in international media, making Irish people wince with their mix of fact, caricature and quips from locals, a sort of faux-anthropology any clever visiting writer could pen of Americans, Germans, French, British, anyone for that matter, to show up national quirks,  absurdities and failures.   Yes, I do indeed point the finger at Michael Lewis in Vanity Fair in particular.  Very smart writing, but so what? No new facts, no new insights, just cleverality.

In the meantime, a budget and Finance Act were passed.  Serious social unrest occurred, but in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.  There were student demos in, er, London...not Dublin.

Prominent commentators, who dabbled with rousing the people to a great new reform movement, fell away when the realities of winning votes dawned. The most prominent among them is Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times columnist, who regularly is interviewed for his opinions on international media, without any mention from those media of his high profile retreat from electoral politics.  

An election has been held.  People are angry, with good cause. But they vote with purpose.  And wait til you see the result. 

Beware of media narratives predicting the future.  

Don't miss the cultural event of the season this Sunday at 4:45 PT/7:45 Eastern. 

On this crisp Friday afternoon, perhaps you'd be willing to help a trucker out. My assignment, and I'm not making this up, ...is to deliver 22 tons of baked beans in New Jersey this afternoon. So here it is: Dave is taking 22 tons of baked beans to New Jersey because, A) The New Jersey Symphony Orchestra's tuba section is on strike; B) so a large number of people can surround Newark International and re-enact the campfire scene from Blazing Saddles; or C) to provide more talking points for the teacher's unions. Any other ideas? Oh yes, ...and there really is a high wind advisory in New Jersey this afternoon. No kidding...

My participation on Ricochet will prove a little thin over the next couple of days.  This weekend I'll be flying to Washington, where I'll be conducting a slew of interviews for Uncommon Knowledge, and today I'm holed up, reading research materials and pulling together some notes.  

Before I disappear, though, one paragraph--just one!--that struck me as I was preparing just now for my interview on Sunday with Mitch Daniels. ("With Mitch Daniels?"  Excuse me.  I meant to say--and if I don't correct myself, Trace Urdan will--I meant to say "with Ricochet's own Mitch Daniels.")

From "Ride Along with Mitch," Andy Ferguson's Weekly Standard cover story on Gov. Daniels that appeared this past summer:

The reforms began instantly.  On his first day [in office as governor] Daniels reversed an executive order signed by a Democratic predecessor granting collective bargaining rights to state employees.  Union membership plummeted overnight....Unhindered by union demands, the governor instituted a "pay for performance" scheme, rewarding state employees who met explicit goals with raises ranging from 4 to 10 percent.  The salaries of underperforming employees stayed flat.  No one was fired, but every time a job went vacant a supervisor had to justify hiring a replacement.  The number of state employees has fallen from 35,000 to under 30,000, back where it was in 1982.

And with that, my fellow Ricochetians, I bid you, for awhile, adieu.

P.S.  Would somebody be sure to help Rob with his bow tie on Oscar night? 

It's interesting to watch events in Wisconsin from across the lake here in Michigan. In Michigan, the new Republican governor was also elected on a platform of fiscal sanity. Unlike Wisconsin, Gov. Snyder here has not taken on government employee unions directly. To the contrary, he has done what is usually called for but so seldom acted upon: cut spending, and actually increased taxes on, for example, pensioners. He keeps saying that he's interested in budget measures and not a war on collective bargaining.

Like to hear from anyone in the region on this. As an outsider, what strikes me is that whatever Gov. Snyder intended his battle to be, Wisconsin is changing it. The union guys taking buses to Wisconsin to support protestors there are not distinguishing between Walker and Snyder (and indeed there is a measure moving through Michigan legislature that would give emergency financial managers emergency authority to end contracts negotiated through collective bargaining -- which the unions see as the thin edge of the wedge). My hunch is that Governor Snyder is going to get Governor Walker's battle whether he wants it or not, and that other governors are going to get the same. And one of the reasons is federalism, Democrat style: the Democrats see, rightly, even the most modest reforms as a mortal threat to the public cash machine that funds both their party and their unions.

But I'd love to hear from people out here who know more than I do...

The Delaware Supreme Court has overturned a decision of the state's "Human Relations Commission" that found a movieplex guilty of discrimination.   It's worth taking a look at the underlying decision to see how much damage can be done when a state appoints "commissions" to enforce racial "correctness." 

In this case, the theater manager made an announcement to the (predominantly black) audience at a Tyler Perry movie -- it was the standard announcement about turning off cell phones, etc.  But one of the audience members was the state director of "Human Relations."  She stood up and announced that he was being condescending and racist, and she gathered up a petition to bring charges against the theater before the very same bureaucracy of which she was a part. 

Despite uncontested evidence that the manager's announcement was standard theater policy - used before any sold-out show - the Human Rights Commission found that the manager's "condescending" tone was illegal, and fined the theater nearly $80,000.   Mind you, the specific violation was of the state's "Equal Access" law; meaning that the theater was seeking to deny blacks access to the theater.  If the theater did not want African Americans in the theater, why did the management choose to show a Tyler Perry movie on three screens of the multiplex?  Nobody seems to have asked that question.

The Delaware Supreme Court rightly smacked down the Commission, and pointed out that the Commission had placed an unfair burden on the theater manager, essentially asking him to prove that he's not a racist, rather than having the plaintiffs prove that he is.    Sanity carried the day, but nobody is safe while these commissions remain at large.   (Hat tip: Red Eye)

The Iranian Green Movement suffers from some really bad timing. In the summer of 2009, the democracy activists in that country stunned the world when they came out en masse--and peacefully--to protest Iran's rigged presidential elections. It was front-page news for a couple of days. And then, Michael Jackson died, and that became front page news--the hot topic, for days if not weeks--and, unsupported by the Obama administration, the Green Movement seemed to flicker and die out. 

And here we are again: the Green Movement has gathered steam to rise up once more against its corrupt regime, with the activists currently planning weekly protests, but the news of Libya and Wisconsin has eclipsed the news of Iran. Of course, what's happening in Libya and Wisconsin is very important, and certainly weightier than the death of Michael Jackson, but let's not forget about Iran!

So here's a shout-out to Iran's democracy activists.

The brilliant Abbas Milani, writing of Iran today, is asking Obama not to forget about Iran either: "By supporting the Green Movement along with other liberal movements throughout the Middle East, Obama" can "easily tip the regional balance toward democracy, rule of law, and reason." 

It is time to speak up for democratization. With the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime so exposed, President Obama should no longer be worried that full-throated rhetorical and political support for the protesters could redound against the United States. And now that the international community is united around sanctioning Iran for its nuclear activities, there is less need for Obama to assure Khamenei that he does not want regime change. Along with other members of the international community—particularly Turkey—the United States should further isolate the regime, thus serving notice to them that continued brutality against the people will beget it a fate similar to South Africa. (Turkey, too, must be reminded that it cannot be the leader of a democratic Middle East while embracing the region’s most brutal regime.)

It is by no means clear that the government in Tehran will crumble next week, next month, or even in the next decade—yet the same thing could have been said about Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya, ten years, a month, or even a week ago. Moreover, the benefits for the Middle East could be truly breathtaking: With Egypt on a perilous path to possible democracy, and with Turkey already a working democratic polity, the advent of democracy in Iran could easily tip the regional balance toward democracy, rule of law, and reason. By supporting the Green Movement along with other liberal movements throughout the Middle East, Obama can help to make it so.

Here's hoping that Obama comes out to support Iran's Green Movement. I won't hold my breath, but I hope my misgivings are dead-wrong. 

Do you know how government health control supporters actually try to argue that Obamacare will actually save everyone money and lower the deficit?

I tried the following argument on for size today and it went over well. "We are against the public employee unions because they siphon too much from the system and we actually believe that without them

, teachers will make more money. We are pro-teacher, pro-student, and anti-corruption. All the efficiencies we can create by taking the money that used to go to the unions and in the politicians re-election coffers, can now be used for higher salaries for teachers, more benefits, and safer, more efficient schools. "

Makes more sense than that Obamacare smoke and mirrors. 

The view from my window this morning:

This shovel ready project required five men: one to dig a hole, and four to watch and offer moral support. The project clocked in at three hours, or 15 man hours.  (To be fair, I'm not sure if the man without an orange vest -- top right corner -- was with the crew.  But he seemed to enjoy standing there with the men the whole time.)

In his newest Klavan on the Culture, Andrew explains multiculturalism in under three minutes, using a mermaid, a centaur, a vampire, and a dinosaur.  Beat that David Cameron.

In her compelling auto-biographical essay, "Falling Off the Ladder: How Not to Succeed in Academia," former biochemist Kathy Weston writes about the end of career as a scientist.  Her assessment of how she failed herself strikes me as a lesson that all young professionals, whether in academia or in some other field, would be wise to consider:

What could I have done to check my descent into mediocrity? I should have put aside my fears of looking dumb and got on with the networking stuff anyway. And -- very importantly -- I should have found myself a mentor. Every scientist needs someone in a position of power who has faith in his or her abilities, to provide advice and do a bit of trumpet-blowing on his or her behalf. I should have taken more scientific risks, gone for bigger stakes, and thought harder about direction. Finally, I should have followed my instincts and quit my job before it quit me -- but I was hampered by an exaggerated terror of being labeled a failure. (In fact, none of my friends and family seems to care a hoot about my fall from grace, and of course I should have known that all along.)

(h/t Ideas Market)

Today Hillsdale had the 5 finalists in the Edward Everett Oratory competition each give his or her 10 minute speech -- memorized -- to the audience. A very impressive young woman won, but all were very close. It's interesting to see so many kids with such self-composure stand up and speak. The topic was terrorism and the threat to personal liberty (e.g., by our government's overreacting).

Everett, of course, was the famed orator who spoke for almost two hours before Lincoln at Gettysburg. Apparently he also spoke at Hillsdale around this time, but there seems to be no extant text. And he later donated some of his library to the school. In one of the Hillsdale buildings, there is a framed copy of a letter Lincoln sent back to Everett after the Gettysburg Address, in what looks like Lincoln's hand, where Lincoln acknowledges the novelty of one part of Everett's address the day before.

One wonders: What would Everett have been like had he been confined to ten minutes like these Hillsdale students? I tried to read through his speech but couldn't get through it. Lincoln spoils you for that.

Our goldfish, Melon, died last night.

Our 6-year-old had “earned” this goldfish for not crying when she had to switch schools last year. We moved from New York City to Connecticut in May of last year, and so she had to finish out kindergarten at a new school with children who’d been together for months. I knew it would be difficult. She is a notorious crier.

Our move was stressful, and coming as it did on the heels of the sudden deaths of both my mother-in-law and my father, I knew I couldn’t handle two weeks of prying the fingers of my sobbing child off my pants leg.  So, I did what all desperate parents do in times of crisis: I bribed her.

If she didn’t cry, I promised, she’d get a goldfish.

My daughter used every ounce of the 36 pounds on her teeny-tiny frame to ward off tears. She faked smiles with pools in her eyes. She gave herself red splotches on the face and quivered with determination. But she didn’t – didn’t! – cry. 

As it happened, it took us 8 months to follow through on the promise of the goldfish. A few Sundays ago, my husband took her to the new fish store in town. In a sea of goldfish, she chose the ostentatiously HUGE one. I thought (knew?) this was a bad sign.

Our daughter arrived home, saturated with joy, carrying her plastic bag like it was a new baby.

A few names were tossed about. I rejected “Rainbow” and “Goldie” outright. Too girly. Too clichéd. She then wanted to name her “Mary,” since she’d recently mastered the “Hail Mary” prayer. I was a little reluctant – would that have been blasphemous? – but okayed it. My daughter changed it to “Melon” after seeing a Honeydew melon, cut open, on our kitchen table.

Melon struggled from the get-go. We didn’t have a filter. We got suckered into buying fluorescent gravel for the bottom of the tank. Long story short, Melon (we think) got ammonia poisoning and then went into shock. Her final hours were brutal.

She swam backward. Eyed us pleadingly. Waved her fins listlessly. Then, at about noon yesterday, she lay on the bottom of the tank on her side. My husband and I had surreptitious and panicked chats in the kitchen. We searched obsessively on the Internet, changing tabs quickly to avoid our children seeing photos of cancerous goldfish.

Melon’s breathing became labored.

“We have to get rid of her!” I whispered. “This is too hard to watch!”

“Do you want me to EXECUTE her?” my husband asked incredulously.

Well, no. But we had to get out of the house. I took the 6-year-old to get the car serviced. My husband texted me: “Melon’s struggling. I don’t think she’s going to make it.”

“Can’t she even hang on until we get home? DO SOMETHING!” I typed back, angling the cell phone away from my daughter.

All through dinner, Melon lay on the bottom of the tank. Her gills lurched in erratic gasps; bubbles collected on her fins.

“What’s wrong with Melon?” our daughter asked, eyebrows furrowed.

The lies flowed forth. They were scattershot:

She’s resting.

She was probably sick when we got her.

She’s happy to be here instead of in an impersonal pet store. She’s spending her final hours with her favorite people (!).

Maybe God wants Melon.

Clara cried and cried. We all knew the end was near. Her shoulders slumped. She stood up on the stool and waved goodbye before going upstairs to brush her teeth. She held her plastic rosary beads tight at bedtime.

At about 8 p.m., shortly after our daughter fell asleep, Melon’s body sort of … arched upward. The gill-gasps no longer came. She was gone.

My husband and I discussed end-of-life plans. Burial? The backyard is covered in snow. The sewer? I think, bless her heart, Melon qualifies as waste. Wouldn’t want to get a fine.

So, my husband, brave fellow that he is, did a ceremonial flush.

This morning was filled with more lies.

“Daddy took her to the pond across the street and put her in there.”

This afternoon, walking along the pond, Clara stared longingly into the pond. “Bye, Melon,” she said plaintively. Then, while hanging over the bridge and inspecting the water closely, “Where, exactly, did you put her?”

I felt God’s wrath.

Any theologians out there? I’m sorry for my lies, on principle. But they worked out exactly as I wanted them to, so I guess that doesn’t qualify as real sorry.

Aren’t “gold” lies better than white lies?

They were our guests on many of our early podcasts. We knew right away that we had a couple of stars in our midst and that they needed their own show. It took a while, but we're thrilled to finally bring you the first episode of Law Talk with Epstein & Yoo, which as Rob point out below, is courageously hosted by our own Troy Senik. This week, the Professors cover the constitutionality of Obamacare, the Patriot Act, whether or not a foreign country really could arrest a former President, and a fascinating debate on whether corporations deserve the same expectations of privacy that individuals get. It's law school without the tuition or the stress!

Give it a listen. Or better yet, subscribe!

Note: You must be a Ricochet member to hear this podcast.

Here at Ricochet, we've got a simple proposition.

We think that if smart, thoughtful center/right Americans from all across the country engage in civilized, friendly conversations -- each bringing to bear his or her experiences, life wisdom, and sense of humor -- we'll end up with a humming beehive of entertaining conversation that edifies and engages all of us.

And we think that will be a place that leaders and politicians and everyone else turn to, instinctively, for thoughts on the day's events.

In other words: Ricochet is a national think tank, and our members are the thinkers.

But Ricochet is also a business.  When we kicked the project off, we made that conscious decision: let's put ourselves out there, in the marketplace.  Let's use the market to keep our product disciplined and attractive.  Non-profits, like think tanks, have donors.  We have customers.

If you look to the right hand column of this screen, you'll see our new list of podcasts.  The now-legendary weekly Ricochet podcast is there -- and as usual (and into the future) it's free for all.  We want as many people as possible to hear it, download it, and get involved with Ricochet through it.  The free podcast will always be free.

But we've got some other things up our sleeves.

Introducing The Ricochet Members-Only Podcasts.

The Ricochet law firm of Epstein & Yoo -- moderated by the courageous Troy Senik -- will be appearing monthly.  And in the coming weeks, we're going to be adding new podcasts for members.  James Lileks will be delivering a special podcast, in addition to his duties on the flagship weekly podcast.  I'll be doing one with a famous conservative firebrand, called "RINO Intervention."  Jonah Goldberg, Mickey Kaus, David Limbaugh, and a host of others will be appearing regularly as well.

In other words, Ricochet remains the best place for center/right conversation around.  Both the typing kind and the listening kind.  All for the same $3.47 a month.  Which I know you'll agree is the Deal of the Century.

If you're a member of Ricochet, get ready for more.  And if you're not, what are you waiting for?

[Editor's Note: I wrote to Governor Daniels yesterday explaining that he'd riled up quite a few folks here at Ricochet and asked him if he'd like to explain his decision to oppose the right to work bill that was proposed by the Republican legislature in his state.  I didn't expect to hear back right away from a man who'd just had shoulder surgery, had to contend with Democrats walking out of his legislature, and was preparing to fly to Washington for the National Governors' Association annual meeting, but --lo!-- he wrote right back. Below, his response as e-mailed to me. --Diane Ellis, Ed.]

Diane, I've explained myself in the home state press for weeks, but since you asked:

Here in Indiana we have a very extensive 2011 agenda that these critics, if they took the time to look, would strongly applaud: another no-tax budget, an automatic refund to taxpayers past a specified level of state reserves, sweeping reform of archaic and anti-taxpayer local government, reduction of the corporate income tax, and the most far-reaching reform of education in America, including statewide vouchers for low and moderate income families.  We laid all this before the public during last year's elections.

Into this a few of my allies chose to toss Right to Work (RTW).  I suggested studying it for a year and developing the issue for next year.  No one had campaigned on it; it was a big issue that hit the public cold.  I was concerned that it would provide the pretext for radical action by our Democratic minority that would jeopardize the entire agenda above, with zero chance of passing RTW itself.  And that is exactly what has happened.

We're not giving up on the agenda we ran on, but this mistake presents a significant obstacle.  RTW never had a chance this year and now the task is to make sure that it doesn't take a host of good government changes down with it.

More By Mitch Daniels:

The Solution to Indiana's High Prison Costs

A Word About My Neighbors, Marge and Homer Simpson

Apparently, the left has been paying attention.  From The Hill:

Democratic strategists believe their Tea Party moment has arrived. 

One labor organizer said that members have been urged to attend congressional town hall meetings to ask Republican lawmakers “pointed questions” about the cuts they supported last week.  

“We are targeting various House Republicans in town hall meetings during the recess to let them know these budget cuts are beyond the pale,” said the labor source, who added that it has been difficult to mobilize supporters to public question-and-answer sessions with lawmakers because “they’ve been pretty circumspect in giving out information about the meetings.”
 
Justin Ruben, the executive director of MoveOn.org, a progressive advocacy group, has also encouraged members to grill lawmakers at town hall meetings.

Good.  Let's have it out.  I look forward to the tracking polls, which should be delivering public opinion data throughout the weekend and next week.  My gut is telling me that Scott Walker is the most popular politician in America, and that the protestors in Madison are steadily losing the American center.  But that's what my gut is telling me.  Their guts are telling them something else.  So, let's find out who's winning.

Via the Wall Street Journal: 

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested a 20-year-old Saudi student suspected of planning a terrorist attack using explosive chemicals in Texas.

The FBI said his possible targets included the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, attending college near Lubbock, Texas, was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Federal prosecutors say he had been researching online how to construct an improvised explosive device using several chemicals as ingredients.

Federal authorities say Mr. Aldawsari's diary indicated the young man had been plotting an attack for years and obtained a scholarship so he could come directly to the U.S. to carry out a jihad.

Mr. Aldawsari is expected to appear in federal court in Lubbock on Friday.

My post yesterday on Mitch Daniels stirred up what I regard as a healthy, informative, and highly civil debate. Those commenting addressed my argument concerning Daniels’ proposal that there be a “truce” on the social issues and what I had to say concerning his failure to say a single substantial word to date regarding our strategic situation and the direction of American foreign policy.

No one took up my third point, however, and I think that it deserves careful attention – so I will return to it and invite comment. On Friday, as I indicated in my earlier post, Jennifer Rubin posed this question: What about the Supreme Court? What sort of judges would Daniels be apt to appoint?

And what Rubin had to report with regard to Daniels’ record in appointing judges in Indiana was disturbing in the extreme. Here is what  Carrie Severino had to tell us:

The single most important judicial issue in Indiana is the ongoing debate over the state's method for appointing appellate judges. It's not much of a debate, actually, thanks in part to Daniels. Indiana uses a form of the Missouri Plan, the commission-based method for choosing judges that was designed by Progressive Era lawyers to put "experts" in charge of judicial selection. The "experts," of course, are lawyers. When the issue was in front of Daniels, he took the worst possible approach. In 2009, overwhelming majorities of the Indiana General Assembly (88-3 in the House, 35-15 in the Senate) approved legislation to kill that method in parts of Indiana. Governor Daniels vetoed it. ...

Then, when Indiana had a supreme court vacancy to fill, he failed to say a single word about the state's flawed judicial-selection process and dutifully appointed a nominee sent to him by the state's nominating commission.

Who was that nominee? None other than Steven H. David. And who is David? Here is what Severino reports:

David is a former chief defense counsel for detainees at Guantanamo Bay who praised the majority opinion in Boumediene v. Bush with this trite quote: "The most important thing that Boumediene held is something that I always thought was obvious ... that in America, there are no law-free zones." Or maybe he could explain why the official Steven David bio released by his office announced the fact that David is a member of the American Judicature Society, the leading institutional proponent of the Missouri Plan, and beneficiary of more than $1 million in contributions from George Soros's Open Society Institute since 2000. Daniels may well have chosen the least bad option presented to him by the commission, but that cannot excuse him supporting a system that ties the governor's hands to such an extent that he can only choose the least offensive of three liberal nominees.

I would suggest – yesterday I did suggest – that this set of events ought to cause conservatives to pause and rethink. There is, as Rubin put it, “danger in electing a conservative who is focused on only one big thing; the other side winds up winning many important fights.”

We know that Daniels is a fiscal hawk, and we all admire him for his perseverance and resoluteness in that regard. Yesterday, I asked whether that is all that he is. He seems on occasion to have a way of standing in the way of very good things – such as bringing the Missouri Plan to an end, such as Right-to-Work. None of the recent Republican Presidents – not Reagan, not either Bush – turned out to be as good as he should have been when it came to appointments to the Supreme Court. Would Daniels be any better? It looks to me as if he would be much, much worse. Is there anyone within the Ricochet community who is willing to defend Daniels on this ground?

One final observation. Mitch Daniels is a member of the Ricochet community. It is in his power to respond to the criticism that I have made, and I urge him to do so. I would prefer, however, that he prove my misgivings entirely unfounded by articulating a stance with regard to our strategic situation and by acknowledging that the “truce” he proposed was a very bad idea.

Running for the Presidency can and ought to be educational. Among other things, it tests whether a candidate can rethink. I do believe that Mitch Daniels needs to do some rethinking, and I hope that Ricochet can contribute to this process. At this point, I myself look upon him as a potential prodigal son.

Why is it that all the folks who are not outraged by the daily failures of our big-city public schools are likely to be all exorcised by the steps this mom is taking to get her teenage son to learn? Maybe the ones who reported this woman to the state's Department of Children and families are right, that it won't work, and maybe the lad's self-esteem will indeed suffer, as the experts say. If it does work, however, I can see this young man one day recalling this with a smile -- and gratitude for a parent who didn't give up.

A Tampa mother is defending her decision to stick her teenage son on a street corner with a sign that says, among other things, "GPA 1.22 ... honk if I need education."

Ronda Holder says she and the boy's father have tried everything to get their 15-year-old to shape up academically. They've offered help, asked to see homework, grounded, lectured him and confiscated his cell phone. James Mond III's indifference at a school meeting last week was the final straw. The next day, Holder made the sign and made her son wear it for nearly four hours.

Every morning, I receive--and look forward to receiving--an e-mail from The Daily Beast called "The Morning Scoop" outlining the hot stories of the day. This morning, the Beast chose to highlight a story about Scott Walker. Here is its teaser paragraph, with a very unfortunate typo in the lead sentence:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker apparently would like to see pubic-employee unions busted outside his own state borders as well: He has been calling other governors and encouraging them to adopt similar tactics, according to The Washington Post. He speaks regularly with Ohio Governor John Kasich and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, and he has suggested to Michigan and Florida's governors that they break public unions also. Walker's conversations with these governors were made apparent after a liberal blogger prank-called him pretending to be conservative billionaire David Koch. 

The pubic employees are not going to be happy about that one. 

It's a good bet that Sheik Hassan Nasrallah loved the Egyptian uprising. The Hezbollah coup that had just taken place in Lebanon, which scarcely rippled across American newspapers in the first place, was well and truly erased from the collective consciousness as a significant regional development. When's the last time you read a line about the UN tribunal's pending indictment of Hezbollah for the assassination of Rafik Hariri, and Hezbollah's attempts to extort his son Sa'ad's cooperation in scuppering it? 

Similarly, Ahmadinejad and his mullahs are no doubt savoring the diversion of Western attention away from the embattled Iranian protesters and onto the carnage in Libya. I'd venture to speculate that President Obama, too, is relieved that the pressure is off him to call out Ahmadinejad directly in support of the Iranian citizens who continue to risk life and limb in yet another apparently futile attempt to evict their tormentors in Teheran. It is also certainly to the advantage of the Iranian nuclear program for Western eyes to be directed elsewhere.

Now, it's entirely appropriate for the world to join together in condemnation of Qaddafi's vile tactics. But it's dangerous to American interests to focus exclusively on Libya and lose sight of the bigger picture. The party who stands to gain the most from turmoil across the Arab world -- be it in Tunisia, which continues to show signs of resisting Islamist influence but remains vulnerable, to Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood enjoyed significant net gains as a result of the popular uprising -- is the Iranian regime. The threat that that regime represents increases as attention to its provocations diminishes.

Iran has already literally tested the waters by sending two warships to Syria through the Suez Canal. That move was obviously intended to provoke Israel and the US, but was also a message to Iran's Arab enemies, particularly Saudi Arabia. Iran already has a foothold to Israel's west in Hamastan in the Gaza Strip. Add that to Iran's influence over Lebanon via its Hezbollah tentacle, its unholy alliance with Syria, and the influence it gained in Iraq following the deposing of Saddam Hussein, and you have a deeply alarming scenario for the Saudi regime.

As Michael Slackman explains in today's New York Times, the uprisings "shredded a regional paradigm in which a trio of states aligned with the West supported engaging Israel and containing Israel’s enemies, including Hamas and Hezbollah...The pro-engagement camp of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia is now in tatters. Hosni Mubarak of Egypt has been forced to resign, King Abdullah of Jordan is struggling to control discontent in his kingdom and Saudi Arabia has been left alone to face a rising challenge to its regional role."

Ali Reza Nader, an expert in international affairs with the RAND Corporation, told the Times that the Saudis fear that "the region is ripe for Iranian exploitation. Iran has shown that it is very capable of taking advantage of regional instability.” Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, former NSC staffers, said that "If these ‘pro-American’ Arab political orders currently being challenged by significant protest movements become at all more representative of their populations, they will for sure become less enthusiastic about strategic cooperation with the United States.” Iran’s leaders, they said, see that “the regional balance is shifting, in potentially decisive ways, against their American adversary and in favor of the Islamic Republic.” 

What can the US do about any of this? It can remind the region in clear language exactly what it stands for: not Jimmy Carter-esque democracy-lite ("Any of y'all are welcome! Jihadists, step right up!") but true, pluralistic, liberal democracy that treasures every citizen, regardless of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation -- and that actively excludes parties that seek ultimately to undermine those values. It can take better advantage of its own natural resources to reduce its vulnerability to oil extortion by unsavory regimes. It can express to populations in flux -- including the Palestinians -- that it will not financially or in any other way support a tilt towards extremism, which in effect would be a tilt towards Iran.  

Most importantly, the US must be fully prepared for further provocations by Iran and for an eventual engagement with it, either directly or via one of its proxies. One of the most shocking revelations accorded by the tumult in the Arab world was the Americans' evident bewilderment. The almost uniformly embarrassing performances by the President and his aides during the collapse of the Mubarak regime made clear that that scenario had never been envisioned. Obama, Clinton, Panetta, Clapper, et al were playing frantic catch-up with the whole world watching. Their awkward, tentative obliviousness was observed, no doubt with warm satisfaction, by America's enemies in Teheran. If the US is perceived to be uncertain, about either its own core beliefs or its ability to defend them at home or abroad, it will be tested. And it won't be given a week to dither before taking a stand.