The Bosque Boys

As I was fairly early on the scene with my assertion that the Senate should seat Roland Burris, I feel obligated to join the castigation chorus post haste.

I associate myself with these remarks from the Washington Post :

"Mr. Burris should resign."

Only God is God, and beside him there is none other. Only God is absolute, omniscient, and omnipotent. Only God is to be accepted without qualification.

Recently I have heard several conservative commentators speak of the Free Market, and laissez-faire Capitalism, as though it were God. Its decrees to be accepted without question.

Wrong.

For example, you can't be a social conservative and believe in the Free Market absolutely, or in laissez-faire Capitalism. Prostitution, in market terms, is simply product meeting demand. Producers of child pornography have found a demand, and create a product to meet that demand. Abortionists likewise. Hit-men are members of the Service Sector with a different skill set than plumbers. The free maket of laissez-faire Capitalism has no conscience, no moral code, no sense of Right and Wrong. Morality must be imposed on the Market from outside the Market System.

Recently, Mark Davis, a radio host I greatly enjoy and respect, argued that Energy efficiency should be left strictly up to the Market. If consumers want to buy fuel-efficient cars, then they should be allowed to. If buyers want horsepower and size, then they should be able to buy those cars. Car companies should be able to build and sell whatever the consumer wants to buy. These decisions should be left up to the market. His thought was--you don't mess with the free market.

Here are two reasons not to accept the decree of the Free Market, as though it were God, on the energy issue.

First, energy consumption in the United States is closely linked to world affairs, particularly our relationship with the Middle East, and all its instability. Dependence on oil puts our economy at the mercy of OPEC, jeopardizing our national independence. Reducing U.S. demand is a sensible goal. We either can wait until gasoline once more reaches $4 per gallon, and stays there--not good for our economy--or, we can take steps like mandating fuel efficiency standards for automobiles. As C.S. Lewis remarked in another context, the French Revolution should have taught us that the behavior aristocrats enjoy may not be the behavior conducive to the survival of aristocracy. In other words, the behavior free citizens enjoy may not be the behavior conducive to the survival of freedom.

Second, the Free Market tends not to reward good stewardship of the environment. Why do you think almost all plastic products sold in the U.S. are made in China? Because is is expensive to manufacture plastics in an environmentally responsible way, we outsource production to a country that is willing to destroy its environment for economic gain. Automobiles are hard on the environment. Increasing efficiency in a responsible way is a reasonable goal. Such a goal must be decreed from outside the market.

Regarding any economic system as absolute seems to me a form of idolatry.

If you missed the "cold open" for Saturday Night Live this weekend, you didn't really miss much hilarity. In a skit entitled "Republican Meeting," Dan Aykroyd guest-starred in a parody of House Republican leadership. After watching the bit in stunned silence, out of curiosity, I went back and reviewed the archive with pad and pen in tow to count the laughs. Needless to say, my hand did not tire tallying the yuks in one of the longest six minutes in the history of the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players.

Aside from a raucous welcome for Aykroyd, an original cast member and old friend, the best the audience could muster were a few anticipatory laughs in the early stages of the performance waiting for the bit to gain altitude. It never did. The rest of the piece could only generate a few titters and courtesy laughs as the buffoonish Republicans plotted impeachment proceedings and hatched a tone-deaf plan to pick a fight with the President's incredibly cute daughters. The burlesque had some of the elements of comedy (incongruity and irony), but the attempt lacked the essential element of plausibility without which the laughs just never could materialize.

Don't believe me? Watch for yourself--and report back on any funny lines I missed.

During the campaign, I often wondered what the inexperienced Obama crew would do if they achieved their implausible dream. As that fantasy drew closer to reality over the course of the long campaign, I began to wonder what the mainstream media would do if their dream candidate actually became President of the United States.

For twenty-five years SNL has existed as a pop-culture institution dedicated to "speaking truth to power." But what if these snarky anti-heroes finally succeeded in over-throwing the establishment and installing a revolutionary junta? What then? What would be left to lampoon?

Nothing, as it turns out. SNL has NOT come up with one funny line at the expense of President Obama. Most of us don't even know the name of the actor who plays the President. For the record, it is Fred Armisen, but he has not emerged as a star. Why? Because every one of his performances has been utterly forgettable. Why? Because the braintrust at SNL seems incapable of penetrating observational humor the portrays the President in an unflattering light.

That bears repeating: the braintrust of SNL seems incapable of casting the President of the United States in an unfavorable light.

So, what does SNL do now? They make fun of the opposition. They protect their president by parodying the out-party, mocking those who might be cravenly making fun of him behind closed doors. Sarcastic distortion of high-flying politicians, celebrities, and the mega-rich is almost always good for a laugh. But beating up on the underdog gets unfunny fast.

The ultimate ironic end for SNL? Their success in finally bringing down the ancien regime means that laughing at the powerful is now passe. And if poking fun at the president is now off-limits, the market for court jesters is not so lucrative.

Perhaps the Democratic Party will see fit to bailout their increasingly obsolete friends at 30 Rock.

Poor Judd Gregg.

What was he thinking?

That seems to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. Actually, I know exactly what he was thinking. The country is in trouble. Our party played an indispensable role in getting us where we are. Can I be part of the solution?

The old system has broken down--so much so that my party seems wholly disconnected with our traditional principles and original raison d'etre. Does this president from the other side of the aisle see the folly of his caucus--as I see the folly of my own? Can we come together and do the right thing for the country, transcending the old rules and creating a new political paradigm imagined long ago by the framers?

Okay. You guessed it. I am talking about me as much as him.

What was I thinking?

Judd and I were desperate--and desperate people do desperate things.

Why so desperate? After decades of Republican ascendancy, the electorate snatched away the keys as the country lurches toward our most lethal national crisis since the Civil War. Team Pelosi seems absolutely intent on pressing the accelerator to the floor as we approach the on-coming cliff, happily reminding the world that George Bush pointed us in this direction.

What to do? The Republican brand is busted, and it will be decades before Americans begin to forgive and forget the great GOP betrayal. What can we do right now?

Frantic questions in real time: what if this fellow really is something different? What if his plea "to be my president too" is sincere? What if he is smart enough to realize that Nancy Pelosi only wants to drive us off into the abyss? What if I could be one of the courageous statesmen who helps him inaugurate an entirely new American era?

I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and...

In the end, Judd Gregg and I could not coexist in a coalition in which Nancy Pelosi and Henry Waxman call the shots. Somebody had to go. Unfortunately, it was us.

"Do you ever wonder why the poor and the working classes, if they're religious-minded, are almost always followers of the most conservative forms of religion? And why the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to be a partisan of liberal religion, if you're a partisan of religion at all?"

Rod Dreher has some thoughts here.

Readers of Christianity Today have chosen their favorite movies of 2008.

#1 The Dark Knight

#10 (tie) Mama Mia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

NRO has a symposium today inviting historians, beltway pundits, and other expert commentators to pick their favorite U.S. President: "The Good, the Bad, and William Henry Harrison."

What say you? If you had to pick just one, who would you say is your favorite and why?

Link from LGF.

This is funny right here, I don't care who you are.

In honor of the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth, a multimedia collection of tributes:

In text,
Lincoln's official mini-biography, from the White House homepage.

In spoken word,
NPR's biographical remembrance, presented by an All-Star cast of voices.

And in pictures,
A video prepared by the RNC, celebrating the party's patron saint.

Here's to what's best about America.

Every economist worth his salt agrees that the only thing that can save this country is a trillion-dollar stimulus written by Nancy Pelosi.

Maybe the party of Herbert Hoover should watch the news more.