Random Thoughts on the Summer, Part I

… The gulf oil spill has been a story with several interesting layers. But from a presidential politics stand point, I feel a bit for President Obama. He could have been personally designing a device to stop the spill the past couple of months or on vacation in Maui the whole time and I’m not sure that it would have made a lick of difference. However, when you set yourself up as the president who will make the ocean levels recede and the nation heal, you shouldn’t be surprised when people criticize lack of results. Ultimately, this is another case of government impotence. Remind me again which political philosophy discourages massive federal involvement...

… I did not care much for the Elena Kagan hearings. I thought they were uninformative and unhelpful. I wish Kagan had lived up to her own standard, answering questions directly instead of dodging and deflecting. That said, I still think Ms. Kagan ought to be confirmed. She’s qualified, experienced, and those who moaned about the Democrats blocking President Bush’s nominees were right to moan, but must be consistent in their belief the President gets his choice of judges, save for egregious circumstances. And I think Miguel Estrada would agree…

… Hayek is making a comeback. Thanks to Glen Beck’s recommendation, The Road to Serfdom by Hayek reached the top of the Amazon bestseller list recently—which ought to make us all feel good about our nation. Say what you want about Beck—he’s over-the-top, he’s not a great writer, and he wanders into many areas I’m not comfortable going. But in asking people to not take his word for things and to read people like Hayek, works like The Federalist Papers, and look into the philosophical roots of progressivism, Beck is dead-on right…

… So Vice President Biden goes to a custard shop in Wisconsin (sounds like one of those Rabbi and Priest walk into a bar jokes…). After getting his custard and asking what he owed for it, the proprietor made a crack to the extent of “lower our taxes and we’ll call it even.” Instead of coming back with a pointed retort, oh such as, “We’d love to, believe me, but we’re focused on getting the deficit down…” Biden instead calls the guy a smartass. Wonderful. Good thing he didn’t ask for the Attorney General to be replaced or we may have had a fistfight. I miss the days when our VP didn’t cuss at ordinary citizens, choosing to instead save the expletives for Sen. Patrick Leahy…

… This Al Gore sexual assault allegation is quite a story. Although I must confess I’m not shocked because what he did to Tipper onstage at the 2000 Democratic National Convention can potentially be construed as sexual assault depending on what statute you’re using. Add this to the John Edwards story, and let’s check the scorecard: The candidates the Democrats ran for VP in 1992, 1996, President in 2000, and VP in 2004, turned out to be at worst a criminal and at best, shady and unpresidential (and that’s without even going into the impeached, disbarred, adultering, Bill Clinton). Kind of makes you think the ’08 ticket missed a slogan: Obama-Biden ’08, No Sexual Deviants!…