The black caucus in Congress likes to think of itself as the conscience of Capitol Hill. But this year it has been beset by scandal after scandal. Mention Charlie Rangel and Maxine Waters and your interlocutor is likely to roll his eyes. It looks as if Eddie Bernice Johnson and Sanford Bishop fall into the same category. Is everyone in the black caucus a crook? It would be very sad, indeed, if this were true.

Unless my demands are met, I'm going to burn a copy of There is No Alternative: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters at 0700 tomorrow, EST. I'll also be burning Free to Choose, The Road to Serfdom, and The Wealth of Nations. If I'm feeling really frisky I may follow this by frying a few volumes of Public Choice.

If that's what it takes to make free-market conservatives go berserk, that's what it takes. (Apparently, the words "another round of stimulus funding" didn't do the job.)

Is it possible the media and the government are making just a teensy bit too much about this on-again, off-again book-burning stuff? If this preacher would just relent and burn a few American flags, everyone could relax.

In early June, Glenn Reynolds published a column in The Washington Examiner arguing that the housing bubble of yesteryear was nothing in comparison with the bubble in higher education. In the interim, Andrew Hacker (whom I knew forty years ago) and his “partner” Claudia Dreifus have written a book on the subject, and Michael Barone, Matthew Schaffer, James Poulos, Mark J. Perry, Mike Riggs, Schumpeter at The Economist, and others have taken up the theme.

They are all worth reading (especially Mike Riggs on student loans), and I agree with everything that they have said. Back in the Fall of 1998, when my former student Brigid McMenamin interviewed me for Forbes on the subject, I told her that “the B-minus student may be better off not going to college,” and I suggested military service as an alternative, ticking off – as she summarized my remarks –“the pluses: Getting paid rather than paying for something you're not using, learning a marketable skill, discipline, and an opportunity to mature.”

The simple truth is that most high school graduates are either unsuited to college-level work or uninterested in it. The massive, much-celebrated expansion of American higher education that began in the 1950s has eventuated in a dumbing-down of our colleges and universities, and the four or more years that most students spend in these institutions are more like an expensive vacation than anything else.

I have been in the world of higher education for forty-three years. Four great changes have taken place in this period. First, the proliferation of programs in fields where undergraduates learn little or nothing – education, psychology, sociology, communications, business, and the like. Second, grade inflation on a massive scale. Third, a vast expansion in the size of university administrations. And fourth, the transformation of institutions of higher learning into a cross between country clubs and brothels (complete with condom machines in the bathrooms). All follow, as the night the day, naturally from higher education’s ill-conceived expansion.

In nearly every college or university, the faculty know where the administration parks those lacking the wit or the desire to get an education, and generally it is these departments that have grown like topsy (both in majors and in staff). In the last four decades, there has been very little increase in the number of those teaching history, philosophy, literature, and the like, and it looks to me as if, down the road, the liberal arts could conceivably get crowded out. They have already been marginalized; and, given what has happened to departments of literature in the last couple of decades and the changes that are now taking place in the history profession, it is hard to see how, when the bubble bursts, the humanities professors will be able to articulate a cogent argument as to why anyone should study what they teach.

I am fortunate to be teaching now at Hillsdale College – an institution to which the criticism sketched out here does not apply. But before coming to Hillsdale three years ago, I spent almost a quarter-century at the University of Tulsa, watching it slowly drift away from its moorings, and listening to laments from historians, students of literature, and philosophy professors who taught elsewhere. If the bubble were to burst, it would be a good thing – certainly for the young people who refrained from piling up debt, but also, I pray, for our colleges and universities. They might find it necessary to imitate Hillsdale College, which takes neither federal nor state subsidies, and ruthlessly eliminate administrative bloat. They might even be forced to reconsider why they exist and what it means to be educated.

What am I doing in Long Island, you ask? Beats me! I just woke up here. But I woke up after eight gorgeous hours of deep uninterrupted sleep, so I'm not grumpy anymore. In fact, I love everyone again. Slow-moving old people--you're the salt of the earth! Airplanes--what a miracle to live in the age of low-cost mass air transport! Can you believe I made that trip in only eight safe and cannibalism-free hours? It wasn't that long ago that a trip like that left the Donner Party eating each other.

And above all, I love PR genius Eden Gordon, who in yet another move of PR genius told me to check into this obscure hotel in Long Island, where the policy against bringing hookers into the room after midnight is extremely strict, and where I'd be sure to get a good night's sleep. Right she was! Thank you, PR genius Eden Gordon, who is indeed the Garden of Eden when it comes to PR. She's got me on Fox and Friends this morning at 7:30 EST. She's got me lots of other appearances today, too. Just flip on the TV or the radio; you'll probably see me. Anyone need the world's best publicist? She's PREden on Twitter.

Basic, my publisher (cue hissing from the audience) refused to pay for this hotel room. It wasn't in their budget, they said. I guess authors are supposed to sleep on the luggage carousel as soon as it stops spinning and knock off the whining about it. It's also not in the bookstores--Basic says the bookstores didn't order it. You can buy it on Amazon, though.

But no worries about that. I had a great night's sleep, I love the world, and I've decided that I love it so much that I'm going to give it my book. If I can't make money on it, so what. I'm young and healthy; I'll make money some other way, and I'm not in it for the money, though it would be nice: I just genuinely think it's important for people to understand why Margaret Thatcher matters. We all desperately need to discuss these questions as we head toward the election. I think the world would be a better place if we all grasped the significance of Margaret Thatcher and her achievements. I genuinely do.

So if you want a copy, or know someone who would benefit from having one, drop PREden a note on Twitter. We'll e-mail the whole thing to you.

For free.

Whetting the dull knife of his rhetoric on the wet sponge of his preconceptions, the President said:

That’s what we Democrats believe in — a vibrant free market, but one that works for everybody. (Applause.) That’s our vision. That’s our vision for a stronger economy and a growing middle class. And that’s the difference between what we and Republicans in Congress are offering the American people right now.

Uh huh. Because Democrats today are all about the free market in health care, light bulbs, education, cars, mortgages, and so on. Because conservatives, when they get together and break out the cigars and the 100-year-old scotch, ask each other how they can get the economy going while still making sure it doesn’t work for some people. This Obama fellow, he’s going to spoil everything if he makes it possible for everyone to do better. Gentlemen, we’ve invested billions in making sure our products are unaffordable to large swaths of the population, and I do not intend for that money to go to waste. A free economy, no matter how much it vibrates, will never work for everybody, which is just proof it needs Super-Extra Geniuses to tinker with it some more. Hence the BUT. The ever-present fulcrum of the BUT: a middle-of-the-road statement is always teetering on a BUT, ready for the lardy glutes of the state to tip the argument towards the antithesis of the assertion. You hear this all the time: I support the right of people to do X, BUT. It’s a way of saying you don’t really believe what you just said. I’m more partial to speakers who say “AND” instead.

Trying desperately to get home in time to celebrate my son’s 25^th birthday on Saturday, I drove from Glendale, KY to Atlanta, GA today. As I’ll need to get an early start tomorrow, I thought I would briefly scan the news before retiring for the night. Then I saw this latest affront to decency. It seems the judiciary’s penchant for tormenting American citizens continues unabated, as a federal appeals court struck down Hazelton, PA laws that attempted to do something about its illegal alien problem.

Borrowing a page from the black-robed wonder in Arizona, the Olympian council otherwise known as the 3^rd US Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Hazelton’s law on grounds that it usurps the federal government’s “exclusive power” in the regulation of immigration. Here is the rationale provided from the court:

It is ... not our job to sit in judgment of whether state and local frustration about federal immigration policy is warranted. We are, however, required to intervene when states and localities directly undermine the federal objectives embodied in statutes enacted by Congress.

The heart of the matter here, glaringly large enough that even Ray Charles could have seen it, is not the federal policy on immigration, but rather the government’s refusal to enforce that policy. Local laws that enforce federal statutes do not “undermine federal objectives,” with regard to immigration any more than local laws against murder and kidnapping undermine federal statures in those areas.

As we lick our chops at the fast approaching November day when we send an unmistakable signal to two branches of the federal government, the question remains what to do about the third?

Earlier today I posted a thread on Michael Lewis's article on the mess in Greece. Now Ricochet member G.A.Dean has posted a comment so apt and encouraging--and such a lovely fit with all that Paul Rahe has been saying this week--that I couldn't resist: I'm yanking it out of the conversational thread to post it right here:

The Greeks riot to avoid responsibility, and in the US the Tea Parties march to demand that they be given back responsibility.

I was kicking back smoking a few pages of the Tao Te Ching, when it occurred to me there's an insidious pattern to the way the media treats right-wing crackpots. Specifically, I was thinking about this clown in Florida who was--but maybe now isn't--going to flambe the Koran. The media rush to make Bozos like this the face of the opposition to the Ground Zero Mosque, in the same way they love to use Joe McCarthy as the face of anti-Communism or Doctor-killers as the face of the pro-life movement. It demonizes and negates the opposition itself and leaves us in the position of spluttering something like, "Well, of course, I don't approve of burning the Koran, but..." I can't help wondering if there's a better strategical response. Offering a free recipe for S'mores with every copy of the Koran? No, that's not it...

I called my health insurance company this afternoon to see if I could make an adjustment to my deductible. After waiting 40 minutes to talk to an actual human being, it turns out I’d need to switch onto a different plan altogether to change my deductible. Fine. Until we had this conversation:

Agent: You might not want to change plans right now.

Me: Why’s that?

Agent: If you keep your existing plan, you’ll be grandfathered into the new system at your current premium. If you change plans now, you’ll be subject to much higher rates due to the mandates in the new health care legislation.

Me: How much higher?

Agent: Much higher. We don’t know precisely how much, but it will be a lot. I’d advise that you not purchase new insurance for the next three years since new mandates will be going into effect every few months that will continue to increase your premiums.

Dismayed that Obama’s health care triumph amounts to less choice, higher costs, and more uncertainty in the health insurance market? Yes. Surprised? No.

And now I join Claire in her grumpiness.

We've got a star driven panel this week as Pat Sajak, and Jonah Goldberg join the show. It's a fascinating conversation as they talk polling and how pollsters ask the delicate questions, movie marketing, why Obama's agenda polls terribly, but he himself doesn't. Also, dogs, liberal economics, Jonah Goldberg's unintentional impression of a Cylon, the predictable (and gratuitous) Star Trek reference and much more. All this, and Ethel Merman bringing up the rear. Yes, you read that right. Listen in!

Now, a hail of bullets:

• Disney hires an outside marketing exec to help build awareness for Pirates of The Caribbean 4
• Peter Robinson has a cold
• Pat Sajak's They Think He's a Muslim? So What's Your Point? post
• Father Charles Coughlin's Wikipedia entry
• Richard Cohen's Washington Post op-ed piece: Obama's Shrinking Presidency
• Victor Davis Hanson's piece ‘Like a Dog’: The Origins of Barack Obama’s Petulance on PajamasMedia.com
• A primer on Keynesian economics
• The Sponge episode from Seinfeld

Music from this week's episode:

• Wake Up by Arcade Fire
• There's No Business Like Show Business by Ethel Merman

Direct link to this week's show or better yet, subscribe and have the show delivered automagically each week.

Hello, Chicago. Thanks for charging me an extortionate rate to use the wireless here in O'Hare. That was mighty hospitable of you.

Look, I'm not insensible to the blessings of modern airline travel--every time I think of it, I'm amazed that we convey ourselves over vast distances every single day by means of flying metal tubes, that this procedure is astonishingly safe (especially since human beings are involved in it), fast, and absurdly commonplace.

But must my fellow passengers make this whole business so much more unpleasant than it need be? I understand that none of them are responsible for our pointless, theatrical security procedures--and I must say, even though I think the TSA's rules are ridiculous, I've been unfailingly impressed by the politeness and good-nature of its employees, and even by their vigilance--they caught my contraband water bottle with a quickness, that's for sure, so points to them. TSA versus Claire, 1-null.

But passengers! Where are your brains! Don't take a carry-on bag that's too heavy for you to pick up and then stand there in the aisles trying helplessly to heft it, making it impossible for everyone behind you to board. Don't just stand in the aisles, period, when there are people behind you. Move aside. And when the flight lands, get that bag down while we're waiting for the doors to open--you've got plenty of time to do it--instead of holding everyone up because you're not in a hurry and can't be bothered.

Also, please: I've got no problem with gum chewing, but if I can hear you doing it from ten feet away, you're just a disgusting human being. I don't want to smell the cheese hoagie you just bought at the food court, and frankly, it doesn't look to me like you need it. I don't want to hear your voice, actually: If you're talking so loudly that I can hear you from this distance, you are vastly over-estimating my interest in your conversation.

Overall: Just pay attention. We're all eager to get on that plane and we're all eager to get off it. If you're making it harder for everyone else to do that because you're just standing there in everyone's way, you're adding to the overall misery of this experience. You're the reason flight attendants go berserk and depart the aircraft via the emergency exit. You're the reason I too might go berserk and, I don't know, post something mean about you on Ricochet.

That'll teach you some manners.

In the summer and Fall of 2009 – when, thanks to the generosity of the proprietors, I was posting on Powerline – I produced a series of brief essays (linked here) exploring the tyrannical ambition of Barack Obama, the character of his agenda, and the manner in which he conveyed by gesture the contempt and loathing that he felt for our European and Israeli allies. Somewhere, along the way, I suggested that his outlook reflected that of the New Left enamored of what used to be called the Third World.

In the current issue of Forbes, Dinesh D’Souza has put flesh on the bones of what, in my case, was a matter of intuition. After reading Obama’s memoir – Dreams from my Father – Dinesh explored the words and deeds of Obama’s father with greater care than anyone to date, and he argues with considerable persuasiveness that, if you want to make sense of some of the more puzzling aspects of the younger Obama’s conduct in office, you should consider how they might look to an African opponent of colonialism who had bought into Kwame Nkhrumah’s attack on what he called neo-colonialism.

Put simply, Dinesh is persuaded that Obama is in thrall to a line of thinking that died out some time ago in the former colonies. Dinesh's remarks are well worth reading. He himself grew up in Bombay in the aftermath of the British withdrawal. He knows whereof he speaks, and his analysis explains why our President seems to hate this country and everything that it stands for and why he is so dangerous.

This summer, President Obama speaking on the Ground Zero Mosque controversy:

Ground Zero is, indeed, hallowed ground...But let me be clear: as a citizen and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country. That includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances.

No, he wasn’t commenting on the wisdom of building a mosque at Ground Zero, but rather:

I was commenting very specifically on the right that people have that dates back to our founding.

Today, palpably absent from the president’s criticism of the Koran-burning church (KBC) in Florida was any mention of First Amendment rights to free speech. Instead, Obama commented solely about the wisdom of burning Korans.

If he’s listening, I just hope [Pastor Terry Jones] understands that what he’s proposing to do is completely contrary to our values as Americans.

What accounts for President Obama's inconsistency in handling two very similar controversies? Did Obama perhaps learn a lesson from inserting himself into the GZM debate – that it’s acceptable, and even commendable, for the president to judge the wisdom, or lack thereof, of actions that may deeply offend or harm a large segment of the American population? Or is condemning the KBC but another instance of Obama kowtowing to Islam?

Brace yourself: the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) is moving aggressively to protect . . . ex-cons.

The EEOC has announced that an employer's refusal to hire workers based on criminal records or credit problems can be illegal "if it has a disparate impact on racial minorities." The problem is that, according to Justice Department statistics, in 2008, African-Americans were about six times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. The incarceration rate for Latinos was 2.3 times higher than whites. Ergo, screening out ex-cons is presumptively suspect.

Any employers out there? Can you confirm that your background checks are really just an excuse to weed out minorities? Or is it possible -- just possible -- that this is another case of identity politics gone mad?

Years ago, U.S. District Judge Jose Gonzalez threw out a similar claim by the EEOC, saying: If applicants "do not wish to be discriminated against because they have been convicted of theft, then they should stop stealing." (As reported by Walter Olson, who spotted this trend years ago).

If your job is to write comedy, there's only one way to know you're doing it right: the audience laughs. Lately, though, the problem from some comic writers -- on both sides of the fence -- has been to deliver a joke that's actually funny, rather than a joke that just pleases the political outlook of its audience. What happens then isn't laughter, it's applause. Or "clapter."

Tina Fey explains what clapter means in this interview with Reader's Digest:

RD: What pleases you more, applause or laughter?
Fey: Laughter. You can prompt applause with a sign. My friend, SNL writer Seth Meyers, coined the term clapter, which is when you do a political joke and people go, "Woo-hoo." It means they sort of approve but didn't really like it that much. You hear a lot of that on [whispers] The Daily Show.

She's right. Look, we all know that's basically what the Daily Show is, mostly -- a soothing round of clapter for the left. And we've complained about it and complained about it, but mostly all we've done on our side is deliver up some clapter of our own.

Which is too bad, because done right, comedy can be politically powerful. Once you make a fool out of someone, once you can evoke genuine laughter (as opposed to clapter), it's awfully hard to take that person seriously again. We haven't done such a great job at that, on our side. We've made each other laugh, of course, but we haven't yet managed to draw real blood.

This, though, is different. if I could embed it, I would. The immensely clever folks at RightChange.com have done something truly funny, truly witty, and devastating to that useless bag of bones Harry Reid. They've turned him into Michael Scott, the hapless and futile character from The Office.

Don't miss it.

Again and again since Obama took office, our Mark Steyn has warned that expanding the welfare state isn't like raising or lowering the capital gains tax a few percentage points or choosing, say, to spend more money on the Navy and less on the Air Force. At some point--and Mark insists that we're approaching it--the welfare state becomes all but irreversible. Why? Because it corrupts the populace, rendering people incapable of taking responsibility for themselves.

In the current issue of Vanity Fair, Michael Lewis confirms Mark's argument. Not that he intends to do so. What he intends to do is report on the astounding mess in Greece. But Lewis is a shrewd reporter. Get a load of this:

The Greek state was not just corrupt but corrupting. Once you saw how it worked you could understand a phenomenon which otherwise made no sense at all: the difficulty Greek people have in saying a kind word about one another. Individual Greeks are delightful: funny, warm, smart, and good company....[But] the hardest thing to do in Greece is to get one Greek to compliment another behind his back. No success of any kind is regarded without suspicion. Everyone is pretty sure everyone is cheating on his taxes, or bribing politicians, or taking bribes, or lying about the value of his real estate....The epidemic of lying and cheating and stealing makes any sort of civic life impossible; the collapse of civic life only encourages more lying, cheating, stealing....

The structure of the Greek economy is collectivist, but the country, in spirit, is the opposite of a collective. Its real structure is every man for himself....

The day before I left Greece the Greek Parliament debated and voted on a bill to raise the retirement age, reduce government pensions, and otherwise reduce the spoils of public-sector life....Thousands upon thousands of government employees take to the streets to protest the bill. Here is Greece's version of the Tea Party: tax collectors on the take, public-school teachers who don't really teach, well-paid employees of bankrupt state railroads whose trains never run on time, state hospital workers bribed to buy overpriced supplies....a nation of people looking for anyone to blame but themselves....

There's no question that the government is resolved to at least try to re-create Greek civic life. The only question is: Can such a thing, once lost, ever be re-created?

You'll have to hold your nose to flip past the silly, ham-fisted hit piece on Sarah Palin to find it, but "Beware of Greeks Bearing Bonds" is an astute, marvelous read.

The demographic crisis that Claire alludes to is, in part, a product of the welfare state. As Gunnar Myrdal noted in a set of lectures that he gave at Harvard in the 1940s, political communities which adopt programs of social insurance (what we call Social Security) eliminate one of the chief reasons why women and men marry and have children. He suggested compensatory tax legislation, and the Truman administration responded by legislating a very substantial tax break for those who have children. That tax break was, in effect, frozen and dwindled gradually in importance as inflation did its work, and we now find ourselves with little or no population growth. In Europe, where social insurance was invented and implemented -- at least in some cases -- much earlier, there is a demographic implosion. And, irony of ironies, that implosion, seconded by greater longevity, has bankrupted the welfare state: too few people laboring and paying in, too many taking out. This year, for the first time, Social Security tax receipts have been outpaced by the payment of Social Security benefits.

There is an entitlement crisis; it is time for serious entitlement reform.

I'm in the departure lounge at Sea-Tac. (Sorry, friends in Seattle, I know I didn't call--I was only here for 24 hours.) I'm looking around me. Almost everyone in eyesight is old. I have seen exactly two children in this entire airport. The visual difference between Sea-Tac and Atatürk airport, in this regard, is stunning. It's visually obvious across America, but for some reason especially pronounced in Seattle.

Clearly, and you can see this just watching these confused elderly people trying to figure out how to get through airport security, these people are not going to be dynamic contributors to the American economy ever again. (From a purely personal standpoint, I'm not sure what's worse--being in line behind two dozen slow-moving, bewildered old people, or confronting the prospect of sitting next to a crying baby on a long-haul flight. I think the latter, but it's a hard call.) Clearly again, it is going to cost a lot to keep these people in good health, and just as clearly, they're going to be around for a long time: They're not dying, they're just old. And there simply aren't enough kids--not that I can see--who are going to be making enough money to pay for their health care and their pensions.

I'm not exactly the solution to this problem, I know. In fact, I am the problem; I'm one of the legions of Western women who had a lot of other exciting things going on and somehow never managed to apply myself to the problem of perpetuating the human race. But that doesn't stop me from recognizing, immediately, that the West has a problem on its hands. A really, really big problem.

Just as an aside, a country is a sadder place when there are so few good-looking young men around. I saw one, back near the ticket counter, but he was notable as the demographic exception.

I'm finally catching up with Norman Podhoretz's new book, Why Are Jews Liberal? It's a great read, as usual. It provokes in me, however, the obverse question here: Why are so many liberals so hostile to the state of Israel?

I'm no expert here. It does strike me, however, as it strikes Norman, that though Israel started as a progressive project, with its strong labor contingent and socialistic predilections of its founders, it is now mostly reviled by the Western left. And one wonders: is that not inevitable? Inevitable, because the very concept of a Jewish state, at least one that takes that serious, is fundamentally irreconcilable with the dominant Enlightenment view that these kind of distinctions must be washed away. If so, it suggests that no matter how "progressive" Israeli policies may be, so long as it holds to the idea that it has a Jewish identity, it is just something the Enlightenment cannot ever digest. I'm not talking about religiosity or theocracy, just the idea of identity. Just curious.

While recording this coming week’s podcast for Ricochet, Rob Long, Peter Robinson, James Lileks, Jonah Goldberg and I—predominantly white males, as The New York Times would dutifully report—spent a good deal of time practicing armchair psychology on our President. (Though, since he was the only one in L.A. at the time, I’m convinced Long was in a lawn chair.) Anyway, I observed that Mr. Obama seemed to be getting smaller. I didn’t mean that metaphorically or symbolically; I meant he was actually shrinking. Unless some gag-oriented White House staffer had a larger Oval Office desk brought in for his recent address, the President seemed to me to be losing size.

There are two possible explanations for this phenomenon. One is that he actually is getting smaller under the weight of the office, and the other is that he merely appears to be getting smaller compared to those around him. Perhaps my senses are deceiving me, and he isn’t actually wasting away, and, if that’s so, there must be some explanation for the misperception. That explanation, I think, is that he has shrunk in direct proportion to those he’s made larger by whining about them.

It’s pretty pathetic when the President of the United States talks about being treated like a dog or acts as if he’s the hapless victim of enemies like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. He’s the President of the whole darned country! He can launch a nuclear attack if he feels like it! He can even preempt American Idol for a speech! If Limbaugh or Beck goes even one second over his allotted broadcast time, a computer will shut him down.

Whining is what shrunk Jimmy Carter. Even when he wasn’t having sex with that woman, Bill Clinton managed, at least, to let his wife do most of the whining about the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. George W. Bush had plenty of reasons to whine, including the fact they were making mainstream movies about assassinating him, but he managed to avoid the temptation. And, even when he was shot, Ronald Reagan didn’t whine. He didn’t have to. He was, I repeat, The President of the United States!

Near the end of the 1957 sci-fi film The Incredible Shrinking Man, Grant Williams has to fight a spider with the aid of a needle. Eventually, as he shrinks into nothingness, he attains a kind of mystical peace and becomes one with nature. Barack Obama hasn’t quite reached that point yet, but it might be time for him to keep a few needles handy.

Since this question has come up more than once in recent conversations on this site, I will address it. Our republic is based upon the doctrine of the separation of powers, which was first fully articulated by Montesquieu in his Spirit of Laws, and which was subsequently adapted by the Framers of the American Constitution and defended by James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist.

It is based on a functional division of governmental powers between the legislature, which makes laws; the executive, which enforces them; and the judiciary, which judges particular cases. At the heart of the doctrine underpinning our Constitution is the principle that powers cannot be delegated – that the legislature cannot execute the laws or judge particular cases, that the executive cannot make laws or judge particular cases, and that the judiciary cannot make or execute laws.

The separation of powers is a device for making government at a distance from the people visible, for encouraging legislative prudence and executive responsibility, and for making those who govern us accountable. It encourages public deliberation; it virtually guarantees that there will be low-level conflict between the branches of government; and it makes each branch a watchdog over the others.

The administrative state is based upon a concentration of all three powers – which Montesquieu thought incompatible with liberty – within a single executive agency. In a fashion that constitutes an abrogation of the Constitution, Congress sets up administrative agencies, empowers them to issue regulations having the force of law, to enforce these regulations, and to judge infractions. What this means is that most of what is done by our government takes place in camera behind closed doors – out of sight and out of mind.

Congressmen and Senators love this. It means that no one is accountable for unpopular measures, and it means that they are not held responsible. When I suggest that the administrative state be eliminated, I mean that we should return to constitutional government and the separation of powers – that, before taking effect, every regulation proposed by an administrative agency be discussed in the House and the Senate, be voted on and passed by each of the two legislative branches, and be signed by the President. Then, the government would be visible: we would know who is responsible; we could hold them accountable; and, if need be, we could replace malefactors with honest women and men.

Six years ago, the Foundation for Health Coverage Education created a web site that has the entire U.S. public health care system on-line. Our board consists of Leonard Schaeffer -- the founder of WellPoint, the 32nd largest company in the U.S.; Alain Enthoven, a world renowned health care economist and former undersecretary of defense; and Congressman Tom McClintock among others. Since its establishment, over two million Americans have used our services free of charge. Last March, Mr. Schaeffer introduced us to the HHS folks. We showed them how our site works and offered it to them to use. They were very impressed, and told us so. They must have been because they simply copied the concept and claimed it as their own. Here is the video of the President touting the first of its kind web site.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery.

I haven't checked the news in about two days beyond making sure that whatever city I'm supposed to be flying to hasn't been swallowed up in a tsunami or invaded by aliens. I'm therefore not qualified to be a pundit today. I know that wouldn't stop some of us, but I like to think that just as Margaret Thatcher was a Conviction Politician, I am a Conviction Pundit. (If pushed to the wall for an opinion on the day's news, though, whatever it is, I'm against it.)

Would you all mind covering for me for a bit and being the pundits today? (I'd do it for you, you know I would.) Because I have a question that's bothering me more and more with every day I spend here. I'm hearing these murmurings, everywhere I go, that Mexico has become a failed narco-state ruled by gangster kings. Although I'm over here arguing that people aren't paying enough attention to Turkey, I suspect I'm just as guilty of failing to pay enough attention to Mexico.

I have to confess that I know almost nothing about Mexico. I spent a few months backpacking through the country when I was about eighteen years old, but that was a long, long time ago, and all I remember is that I probably had way too good a time, and politics weren't really the focus of my attention. I haven't seen much reporting about Mexico in Turkey, or perhaps I just skimmed over it, because from that vantage point it seems far away and abstract, just as Turkey does from here.

When I last lived in America, Mexico had problems, sure, but no one was calling it a failed state. And I've obviously pretty much missed everything that's happened since.

Can Ricochet readers explain to me what's happened, starting from the basics? Is it true that it's now a failed narco-state, or is that just sensationalism? What's most important to grasp if I want to understand the situation? What are the implications of these developments? And whose fault are they?

If it's true, I'm definitely against it.

The principle difference between simple misery and abject wretchedness, is the difference between a full bladder on a long stretch of highway, and a full bladder on a long stretch of very bumpy highway. Several years ago, upon learning of my happy fortune to get a load going through my hometown in Louisiana, I celebrated by stopping to fill my travel mug with delicious Community Coffee. Nectar of the gods it is, provided the gods have ready access to the necessary accommodations. As I negotiated the final leg of I-10 leading to the truck stop, my longing to see my family was replaced by a more urgent and pressing need. Thanks to my usual luck, and a good dose of government incompetence, that last stretch of I-10 had enough holes, craters, gashes, cavities, breaks, wounds, fractures, gaps, chasms, and outright canyons to make the moon envious, and me a sloshing bio-hazard.

Getting into the parking lot as quickly as possible, I found a small but seemingly maneuverable “hole” to back the trailer between two other trucks. This is called, “slow maneuvering,” for obvious reasons and it is, in my experience, the principle reason why many would-be truck drivers wash out of training. The trucks on either side of me had done a sloppy job of parking, leaving me precious little room to squeeze in between them,…but I was on a mission. My set-up for the maneuver was less than stellar, and left more “blind side” on the passenger side of the trailer than was prudent, …but I was on a mission.

Slowly backing up, I had cleared the truck to my left (driver’s side) and was maneuvering the cab so that I could see through the right mirror to check my clearance on the blind side when I heard a blast from an air horn. Yep, the passenger side of my trailer had crunched the mirror of the truck to my right. In my haste, I had abandoned the fundamentals of proper backing, and the result was predictable. It didn’t help my bladder situation either.

I was remembering all this while reading the Washington Post today, because the Post always brings out the best in me. Discussing the advice being given the Obama administration, Jena McGregor weighs whether or not a massive staff shakeup is in order. It’s as if, when calling my dispatcher to tell her that I had screwed up, I should have blamed it on the air conditioning, or the cd player. I did confess to my boss that I was distracted by the urgent need to tinkle, but it was still my mistake and I owned it totally. I was smack in the middle of a no-whining (and no-whizzing) zone.

Not so with the President, who fancies being talked about like a dog but insists that George Bush ate his homework. Richard Cohen is quoted in the article as saying, "What Obama can do, what he must do, is get some new people. ... His staff ill-serves him so that he presents a persona at odds with his performance."

That his performance corrupts his persona (or is it the other way around?), has nothing to do with his staff. He persona on the campaign trail was messianic, while his performance is just plain messy. Nevertheless, he is the one at the wheel. He can’t blame it on his staff, or the new carpet, or the Queen’s Ipod. He is the one who set the agenda with the stimulus, the takeover of private enterprise, the payoffs to unions, the horrendous healthcare law, a job-killing moratorium in the gulf coast, and a regulatory / confiscatory boot on the very throat of the private sector. The results have been as predictable as my own act of stupendous idiocy in that parking lot. So Mr. President, you’ve got the results your agenda guarantees. Grow up and claim ownership. The oval office is a no-whining zone. And don’t worry about a staff shakeup. The American people will begin handling that for you soon enough.

Experience has taught me that all stories on CFL bulbs generate the same comments:

• I hate the light
• The light's gotten better!
• Bah. LED FTW!
• They're poisonous
• This is the sort of green energy-saving technology that will wean us off coal
• Hitler loved those bulbs too

That's it, more or less. The coal-weaning one is a favorite, since the amount of coal we'll probably save per year will be half what China spills every week unloading the fuel for its factories. But since the bulbs are eco-licious, stories like this cause no rending of garments among their adherents:

The last major GE factory making ordinary incandescent light bulbs in the United States is closing this month, marking a small, sad exit for a product and company that can trace their roots to Thomas Alva Edison's innovations in the 1870s.

The remaining 200 workers at the plant here will lose their jobs.

Apparently the company was offered tax credits to modernize, but said no. And why shouldn't they? The Chinese factory is probably newer, cheaper, and they don't have to worry 20 years later that someone will find three molecules of mercury in the groundwater and sue them for eleventh billion dollars. Point is, tax credits wouldn't be necessary and jobs would be saved if they hadn't banned a perfectly fine product and cast it on the dust-heap of history because it made Mother Gaia cry.

How did we lose the old Edison bulb? You search your mind for the name of the bill that took them away - surely something mendacious like the Energy Choice and Freedom Act, or somesuch piece of tin-eared newspeak - and wonder why the President didn't veto it. Someone must have told him this would impress independents who are one step away from switching Republican, if only they'd get green religion and pass a law requiring everyone be composted in a hemp sack when they die. I suspect those people would be more impressed by a president who said it's none of anyone's business what kind of bulb you use, and released YouTube footage of the leader of the free world wadding up each page of the bill individually and tossing them into the wastebasket in the Oval Office. Up for a game of Horse, Rove? Here, you take the riders.

This may be the other thing the voters want from a new Congress: there's less spending and fewer taxes, but also fewer beaks poked in our lives, thank you. But first the Republicans would have to be willing to deal with serious, concerned journalists on TV talk shows asking them why they vetoed a bill for clean light bulbs, and responding "for the same reason I don't vote for a bill requiring everyone's oven mitt to be plaid. It's your own damned choice."

They might also note that if they’re going to ban something people like, it’ll be a bill that does that and no more, and not one provision in an enormo-wad of laws that also increases biodiesel mandates AND regulates the number of type size of the BEST USED BY expiration date on potted meat products. Just a thought.

Jeffrey Goldberg has been writing about his recent visit with Fidel Castro for The Atlantic. His first installment made news as the kinder, gentler Fidel, among other things, expressed regret at his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Goldberg’s latest chapter is really bizarre, involving bread dipped in olive oil, Che Guevara’s daughter, the weight of the average dolphin, a nuclear physicist who was made Director of an aquarium, and—oh, yeah—the pronouncement from Castro that “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” It also features a photo of Castro not only out of uniform, but dressed in a what appears to be a red-checkered flannel shirt, looking as if he were heading up to a mountain cabin for the weekend to see if the trout were biting.

In short, good old Fidel appears to have turned a bit loopy. Not enslaving-a-people-and-crushing-dissent loopy, but more like isn’t-uncle-Moe-acting-a-bit-strange loopy. It sounds weird, but Goldberg appeared to have a good time with the new Fidel, and I can understand why. He was fun. It was kind of encouraging to see that even a Third World Dictator can loosen up after a half-century and toss off wisecracks. It makes you wonder how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would look in red-checkered flannel.

Why do we need a realignment? What’s in it for us? To these questions, the answer is simple. We live in a constitutional republic in which governance is always party governance. The alternative is chaos, and the chaos has a certain character.

Ours is polity based on federalism and the separation of powers. Because we distinguish the legislative from the executive and judicial powers, because the lower house of our bicameral legislature is elected in local constituencies and the upper house in the states, in our politics the centrifugal forces are more powerful than the centripetal forces. What I mean is: our Congressmen and, to a lesser degree, our Senators must spend some, if not most, of their time serving their constituents. To do so to effect, however, they must band together, make deals, and attempt to control the executive. Our parties tend, therefore, to be parties of patronage.

But patronage is insufficient for the support of durable parties, and durability is desired by the dispensers of patronage. Moreover, opinion is the element of politics. Man does not live by bread alone. When Aristotle argued that man is a political animal and connected this claim with his assertion that man’s possession of rational speech (logos) is his distinctive quality, he made public deliberation the central feature of politics. Its focus was, he said, advantage and therefore the just and the good. We may enter into an alliance for the sake of our own security and well-being, but once we have provided for these ends we are apt to concern ourselves with justice and the good. We simply cannot help ourselves.

Every one of our parties can trace its origins to a crisis in which the nature of justice and the character of our way of life was at issue. That was true for the Jeffersonians in 1800, for the Jacksonians in 1828, for the Republicans in 1860 and even 1894, and for the Democrats in and after 1932 – and it is no less true today. This is why I suggested in my most recent post that it is essential that, when John Boehner and his merry men lay out a new Contract with America later this month, they include a preamble in which they indict the Democratic Party as “a small group” intent on concentrating “into their own hands an almost complete control over other people’s property, other people’s money, other people’s labor – other people’s lives,” and in which they appeal to first principles and call for a restoration of constitutional government within these United States.

What can we expect from such a realignment? For a time, we can expect a government guided by the principles articulated in the preamble to that contract. What might this mean in current circumstances? An abandonment on the part of the federal government of those spheres of governance appropriate to the states (e.g., education), a repeal of Obamacare, an elimination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, entitlement reform aimed at a gradual elimination of entitlements, a reworking of the Byzantine scheme of financial regulation devised by Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, a balancing of the budget, an extension of the tax cuts initiated by George W. Bush, and a gradual elimination of the administrative state.

We can be certain of one thing. The items on this list that the Republicans do not sign onto later this month they will not do.

In this searing new web video released this week by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), President Obama is portrayed as cold, out of touch, and eerily nonchalant at a time when Americans are suffering under the gloom of depression. The video's soundtrack (Philip Glass?) is the type of menacing music you'd hear in a movie about psychopathic killers...or aliens. Nice touch.

Recovery summer? What recovery summer? The recovery starts November 2.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Ricochet’s own Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, provides a list of emergency economic measures for Republicans to consider after election day. The Governor’s measures include a holiday on payroll taxes and a freeze on federal hiring and pay increases. “[T]o have a prayer of avoiding fiscal ruin, we need to go to economic general quarters immediately.”

One of the Governor’s proposals in particular caught my eye:

Impoundment power. Presidents once had the authority to spend less than Congress made available through appropriation. On reflection, nothing else makes sense. Plowing ahead with spending when revenues plummet is something only government would do. In Indiana, we are still solvent, with no new taxes, money in reserve, and a AAA credit rating only because our legislature gave me the power to adjust spending to new realities. I promise you that a president who wanted to could put the kibosh on enormous amounts of spending that a Congress might never vote to eliminate, but the average citizen would never miss.

That’s Mitch Daniels through and through. He displays deep historical knowledge—presidents possessed impoundment power right up until 1974, when a Democratic Congress, still motivated by spite for the disgraced Richard Nixon, made the practice illegal—and then he provides a trenchant budgetary analysis. And then? Well, then Mitch Daniels writes about giving impoundment power back to the president almost as if—and this is part I really love—he’s been thinking about what he’d do with the presidency himself.