A few observations about the NLCS (07:21PM)

1. Aren't Larry Bowa and Davey Lopes wearing the wrong uniforms? If not, can't the Dodgers and Phillies make a quick trade?

2. I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't second guess a manager unless you have a working knowledge of his team. I don't have a working knowledge of the Dodgers. But I was quite surprised when Joe Torre pulled Derek Lowe following the fifth inning, after he finally seemed to have settled down, and brought in a 20 year-old rookie (Clayton Kershaw) with a relatively high ERA. Torre is certainly no Fred Haney (his older brother's first major league manager).

3. Some of the pitching decisions Torre made later in the game seemed suspect as well, considering that this is the NLCS and he was a game down (now two games). For example, why would you hold back your closer in the eighth inning when the season is probably on the line and you have an off day coming up? Torre is certainly no Casey Stengel.

Obama's disdain for democracy -- will it stop at the workplace (01:46PM)

I've written several times about the "Employee Free Choice Act." Far from promoting employee free choice, this legislation would enable a union to be certified as the bargaining representative of employees merely by presenting to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) cards executed by a majority of employees in the bargaining unit. The presentation of cards would mean no election. Thus, instead of making the decision about whether to be represented by a union in private and in secret, employees could be subjected to all manner of coercion to sign a card.

Barack Obama supports this legislation. As ever, though, he and his campaign are dishonest about what his position entails. As I noted here, the campaign claims that if workers "wish to vote by secret ballot instead of a card-check process, they can; the law does not strip them of that right." In truth, however, if the union, under unsupervised conditions, can browbeat more than half of the employees into signing cards, there is no election. Employees, in other words, are stripped of the right to vote.

This reality is sufficiently obvious that CNN's "fact-checkers" have affirmed it. CNN examined a statement by John McCain that "Senator Obama is. . .planning with Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to … take away your right to vote by secret ballot in labor elections." In one of the no-brainers of this election, CNN concluded that McCain's claim is "true."

Obama's low regard for free elections can be attributed, in this context, to his desire to placate organized labor. Increasingly, though, there is reason to wonder whether it is also connected to a more general disregard for democratic freedoms and a willingness to rely on (or at least tolerate) organized thuggery to promote his purposes.

Jackson Foresees Changes in American Foreign Policy (01:22PM)

Speaking in France, Jesse Jackson expanded on the ways in which American foreign policy will change in an Obama administration:

Prepare for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.

He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration."

The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.

Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.

While predicting that the Obama administration will implement drastic changes in domestic policy as well, Jackson declined to be specific about what might be done. He was more willing to be concrete with regard to foreign policy, specifically the Middle East:

Jackson is especially critical of President Bush's approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

"Bush was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss," Jackson says. "Barack will change that," because, as long as the Palestinians haven't seen justice, the Middle East will "remain a source of danger to us all."

"Barack is determined to repair our relations with the world of Islam and Muslims," Jackson says. "Thanks to his background and ecumenical approach, he knows how Muslims feel while remaining committed to his own faith."

It's noteworthy that Jackson does not consider himself a Zionist, and believes that Obama is not a Zionist, either. I don't often agree with Jackson, but this time I think he's right.

Watch This Space (01:16PM)

Some time in the next 48 hours, we will be moving Power Line to a new, much more powerful server that should make our site load faster and reduce (eliminate, we hope) outages. At the same time, we are implementing a face-lift that will give the site a new look and enhanced functionality, including more and easier ways to share our posts with others.

So check back periodically over the next day or two and let us know how you like the site's performance and design.

Obama's persistent dishonesty on health care reform (08:10AM)

Yesterday, I referred to the "dishonest, but facially highly effective, ads" Barack Obama has employed against John McCain. The most persistent of these dishonest ads, at least in the Northern Virginia area, pertain to McCain's health care plan. They follow the line taken by Lyin' Joe Biden in his debate with Sarah Palin, where Biden claimed that McCain's plan effectively gives Americans $5,000 and then takes away $12,000.

Yuval Levin, in the Weekly Standard, has exposed the multiple liberties Obama-Biden have taken with the truth on this subject:

Senators Obama and Biden both mentioned the taxation of health benefits in recent debates, and their campaign has run ads pointing to it as well, but all have failed to note the tax credit that more than makes up for it. The net tax burden on middle class families declines under the McCain plan, while insurance options improve. If they do mention the tax credit, they suggest it is all that families would have if they left their employer coverage--as Joe Biden put it in his debate with Sarah Palin, you would have to "replace a $12,000 plan with a $5,000 check you just give to the insurance company." But that ignores the simple fact that employer-purchased health care is purchased with employee wages. Right now, employers pay workers less in cash wages because they pay so much in premiums. With McCain's reform, workers who opt out of coverage will get more take home pay and a tax credit to more than make up for lost employer contributions to health care.

But perhaps the most dishonest charge concerns the prospects for the employer-based system itself. The Obama campaign has implied that McCain's plan would unravel the system and cause workers to be dropped from their employers' health plans. "Twenty million of you will be dropped," Joe Biden said in the vice presidential debate. In fact, the McCain plan does not alter the basic financial incentives facing employers. Workers might choose to leave employer coverage, but the McCain plan would not force them out.

Indeed, it is Barack Obama's health care plan that raises the prospect of masses being dropped from the employer-based insurance system, and his vulnerability on this crucial front may explain some of his intense defensiveness on health care. In the second presidential debate, Obama sought to address this concern through a brazenly misleading depiction of his own plan. "If you've got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it," he said. "All I'm going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it." But you can only keep your plan if your employer doesn't eliminate it, and Obama's health care proposal, unlike John McCain's, gives your employer a powerful incentive to do just that.

Where McCain seeks to address the problems of our health insurance system by building a market for private individuals, Obama seeks to do so by building a public-insurance system. His plan would force all but the very smallest businesses to either provide insurance coverage that meets the plan's requirements (which the Obama campaign has not specified, but would surely involve extensive particular coverage mandates like those in the federal employee health plan, which exceed what most popular employee plans provide today), or pay a tax to the government. Many employers would thus face the choice of increasing their insurance costs to comply with the new coverage requirements or dropping their workers' coverage. Obama, meanwhile, would create a new government-run insurance program (funded by the new tax on employers who don't offer coverage) that would compete with private companies to cover people who are not insured by employers.

In effect, the Obama plan creates an incentive to drop employees from existing plans, and then takes private insurers out of the race to cover them by using price controls to make the public option cheaper. The plan's goal is to drive Americans into a public Medicare-like insurance system by default.

Unfortunately, Obama's dishonest attacks on McCain's plan are perfect for use by an unscrupulous politician in a negative ad. For although McCain's health care plan isn't terribly complex, it can't be explained effectively in 30 seconds. For that reason and because, in any event, McCain lacks the resources to air the truth about his plan with anything like the frequency that Obama is able to tell falsehoods about it, the Obama attack has gone unanswered.

This disparity in the candidates' resources points to perhaps the greatest irony of this campaign: Obama's ability to misrepresent facts about substantive issues largely without response is predicated on another Obama falsehood -- his promise that, if his opponent agreed to do the same (as McCain did), he would finance his campaign through public funding.

JOHN adds: Bob Cunningham points out that one criticism of McCain's plan is not frivolous, and suggests a possible fix:

The critique is that there will be cherry picking and adverse selection by employees, employers and insurance companies. In other words, the old and the sick can be peeled away from the young and the healthy. Employer plans charge everyone the same (except for the "Robin Hood" plans where more highly compensated employees get charged a higher proportion of the premium than the average). The employer's cost is an average cost of coverage for young and old and the employee's share of the average premium is usually (but not always) constant. That's why the usual example given is of a $12,000 policy with the employee paying $3,000 and the employer $9,000. In reality the cost of the risk for the younger/healthier cohorts is much less than for the older/sicker cohorts…and it isn’t linear. So in a well-functioning individual market one would expect that the former cohort would be able to get the same coverage for, say, only $6,000…while for the latter cohort the same coverage might be, say, $18,000. The problem is precisely that proper underwriting and risk rating would incentivize older/sicker to stay in the group plan and younger/healthier to enjoy lower premiums. The group plans would necessarily then cost more, leading to less employer coverage. Old/sick are left out in the rain. I think this, unlike the other attacks from The One, has merit. Fortunately, it can be answered, but the answer, I think, requires a tweak in the plan. The tweak is that the credit or the salary adjustment paid to a worker in lieu of in-kind health benefits, or both, must be risk-adjusted, by using an age adjustment as a proxy for actual health risk adjustment. So a very young worker might receive only a $1,000 credit and an older one $7,500, say; and/or the salary adjustment might be the actual premium cost contribution of the younger/older worker, say, $6,000 and $18,000, respectively. By age-adjusting the parameters of the plan the problem cited by Obama and his minions can be fixed. It's totally fair and in synch with all the beneficial free market incentives but eliminates the income effect of cherry picking and adverse selection. Each cohort would STILL be better off and the total cost/benefit for the employers and employees as a whole remains the same.

There is a basic conflict of interest between young, healthy people and older people with more medical needs. Liberals often describe the uninsured as lacking "health care," but of course this isn't true. Uninsured people get health care all the time. Moreover, a great many young people, knowing that they are in little danger of being seriously ill and knowing, moreover, that if they do get sick or have an accident they will be cared for whether they have insurance or not, make a rational decision not to pay for health insurance. They prefer to take their incomes in cash.

One of the main (albeit unspoken) objectives of liberal health care plans, including but not limited to socialized medicine, is to force young people to pay into the system to support the medical needs of their elders. So the conflict that Bob describes is not unique to McCain's approach. However, it does need to be considered whenever government intervention in the health care industry is contemplated.

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Obama's audacity (06:40AM)

The new (fall) issue of the Claremont Review of Books is accessible to subscribers online. The lead essay by CRB editor Charles Kesler is "The audacity of Barack Obama" (subscribers only). Based on a comprehensive reading of Obama's books and speeches, Professor Kesler deduces that Obama's ambition is not merely personal, but is political and Rooseveltian in scope. Indeed, he finds that Obama faults Bill Clinton for failing to pursue large, transformative policies, or for being unable to pursue them because of his personal failings:

Obama praises Bill Clinton more highly than any other contemporary Democrat, because Clinton recognized the staleness of the old political debate between Left and Right and came close to moving beyond it with his politics of the Third Way, which "tapped into the pragmatic, nonideological attitude of the majority of Americans." But Clinton blew it, and the author gradually lets you know it. First, he regrets Clinton's "clumsy and transparent" gestures to the Reagan Democrats, and his "frighteningly coldhearted" use of other people (e.g., "the execution of a mentally retarded death row inmate" before a crucial primary). Then Obama notes sadly that Clinton's policies—"recognizably progressive if modest in their goals"—had commanded broad public support, but that the president had never been able, "despite a booming economy," to turn that support into a governing coalition. Finally, he gently accuses Clinton of the worst offense of all: strengthening the forces of conservatism. Due to his "personal lapses" and careless triangulations that ceded more and more ground to the Right, Clinton prepared the way for George W. Bush's victory in 2000.

In his campaign speeches, Obama can't afford to be so candid—he needs Hillary and Bill's supporters, after all—but he subtly makes his point. For example, in his Acceptance Speech in Denver, the single biggest speech of the campaign, he laid at Bill Clinton's feet the oldest backhanded compliment in the books, thanking the former president "who last night made the case for change as only he can make it...." That's a disguised double insult: it reminds the discerning ear of Clinton's characteristic bloviation, and then of his political failings (when you see Clinton, you're reminded why the Democrats need Obama).

Granted, Obama holds Clinton to higher standards than he does the other party elders. Jimmy Carter, Gore, Kerry—these gentlemen lacked the political talent that Clinton squandered, in Obama's estimation, and they were innocent of political daring. Their shortcomings are palliated, to some extent, by the fact that the times were not auspicious. Still, Obama is fairly clear that if the party is to move forward it must return to earlier exemplars, and especially to its heroes who brought about major political changes lasting for a generation or more.

Professor Kesler provides a close reading of Obama's call for "change" and finds that it requires "nothing less than a full-blown electoral earthquake that will permanently shatter the 50-50 America of the past four presidential elections. He thinks liberals can get beyond the old debate [between right and left] by finally winning it." Kesler writes:

Eking out a bare Democratic majority isn't good enough," he writes in The Audacity of Hope. "What's needed is a broad majority of Americans—Democrats, Republicans, and independents of good will...." After the New Hampshire primary, he told his supporters "you can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness." A month later, after winning the Wisconsin primary, he explained what he called "my central premise," that "the only way we will bring about real change in America is if we can bring new people into the process, if we can attract young people, if we can attract independents, if we can stop fighting with Republicans and try to bring some over to our side. I want to form a working majority for change." That's easier said than done, of course, and likely would require several elections. Speaking to the AFL-CIO in 2003, he laid out the long march that would be necessary:

I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program.... [a] single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.

As a matter of fact, he is not officially a proponent of a single-payer health care plan; his 2008 platform stops far short of that. Nor has he repeated this sweeping, candid endorsement of his ultimate goal, which might be described by that hoary but accurate epithet, socialized medicine. In the meantime, however, the Democrats in 2006 recaptured both the Senate and the House of Representatives. If after 2008 the Democratic party controls all three elective branches, then his "working majority for change" will be in a position to go to work.

This is the possibility that Fred Barnes contemplates in "Worst case scenario." In a sense, however, Barnes only scratches the surface. Professor Kesler's important contribution -- from which I have only quoted the set-up to Professor Kesler's extended exploration -- makes out the scope of Obama's ambition and the seriousness of his purpose.

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William Katz: I did not know that (05:59AM)

Occasional contributor Bill Katz presides at Urgent Agenda, though he saves his longer reflections on life and politics for us. Today Bill draws on his experience working for Johnny Carson to comment on the current campaign:

Some readers may know that I used to work for Johnny Carson. Johnny had a favorite expression: “I did not know that.” You may recall him using it.

I’ve found myself repeating that line regularly during this election campaign. It’s amazing, the things I did not know. For example, it’s apparently wrong to bring up a presidential candidate’s 20-year affiliation with an anti-American, anti-Semitic pastor.

I did not know that.

It’s apparently wrong to discuss that candidate’s working affiliation with a man who is unrepentant about setting off bombs in public buildings.

I did not know that.

And it’s apparently wrong, maybe even racist, to mention the candidate’s close relationship with a pro-Arafat professor who defends suicide bombings.

I did not know that.

Well, now I know, and maybe I should have known. It’s wrong to bring these things up because they involve, say it in a whisper please, “guilt by association.”

Now, that term I know. I’ve known it all my adult life. And I also know that it’s been completely twisted out of shape in this presidential campaign. And why not? The term has been increasingly misused for half a century. Like an angry guard dog, it scares off all comers.

First of all, a simple question: What’s wrong with guilt by association? We judge people by the company they keep, by their pals, by their business affiliations. We all remember bringing home a friend from school, and having mom later say, “You know, I’m sure he’s nice, but I don’t like the kids he hangs out with.” We may have argued with mom, but we knew what she was saying, and we knew she was watching out for us. Yet, if we apply the same standard to a guy who wants to sit at Bill Clinton’s...well, Abraham Lincoln’s desk, we’re told we’re not only out of order, but we’re political degenerates as well, and maybe unsuitable for marriage.

The reason for this hypocrisy is fairly clear. The term “guilt by association” got its modern start in the so-called McCarthy era, the early fifties. For half a century the political left, including much of the literary, Hollywood and journalistic establishment, has decreed that any practice linked with that era must be banned from society, on pain of sin. The problem, of course, is that guilt by association meant something entirely different in McCarthy’s day. In its strict political sense, defined in the early fifties, it meant a casual, or even an accidental or unintended association. It even, in some cases, meant a nonexistent association, but one that was implied by vague evidence.

Here is a classic description of guilt by association: Senator Jones is invited to address a meeting of small businessmen. He appears, makes his speech, and then poses for a routine picture with officers of the group. A year later the man standing next to him is exposed as a pedophile. When Senator Jones runs for reelection, the picture surfaces. His opponent waves it before TV cameras, saying, “This is the kind of person Senator Jones counts among his friends.” That’s guilt by association.

There were several famous guilt by association cases in McCarthy’s time. In one, an Air Force lieutenant, Milo Radulovich, was stripped of his commission and declared a security risk because his father and sister were thought to be Communist sympathizers. The evidence against both was absurdly thin, at best. Edward R. Murrow, then the dean of broadcast journalists, exposed the matter on CBS, leading to national revulsion against such “guilt by association” tactics. Radulovich was later reinstated.

The most famous case, and perhaps the most damaging, involved Democratic Senator Millard E. Tydings of Maryland. Tydings chaired the Tydings Committee, formed to investigate Joseph McCarthy’s charges of Communist influence in the State Department. The committee’s report was harshly critical of McCarthy and his allegations. In retaliation, when Tydings ran for reelection in 1950, McCarthy’s staff distributed a faked, composite photo of Tydings with Earl Browder, former leader of the American Communist Party. Browder had testified before the Tydings Committee, and so a plausible case could be made that the two “knew” each other, or had contact. Although Browder’s testimony was stormy and hostile, Tydings said, “Thank you, sir,” when it ended, a quote later used to “prove” that he was friendly toward Browder. The “association” was damaging to Tydings, who was defeated for reelection.

Those are “guilt by association” cases. That’s what the term means. Those who fought against the tactic in the fifties would probably be shocked to see it applied to Barack Obama’s 20-year relationship with a pastor or his working connection, over years, with Bill Ayers. Those are issues of judgment. They were not casual or accidental. They go to the heart of who Obama is, the kind of people he’s chosen to work with and follow. We should not be deterred from examining those relationships, and demanding details.

It’s sad is that the press has gone along with the twisting of “guilt by association.” There are probably no veterans of the McCarthy era left in journalism to raise the caution flag. Young reporters who covered Millard Tydings would be in their eighties now. The editors running things today are graduates of the sixties, with all that implies, not much of it good. They are not serving the public well in many areas, but they could at least try to get the vocabulary right. Instead, they tell us we must not question, we must not probe, or we’re guilty of negativism, McCarthyism, racism, and insensitivity.

I did not know that.

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ACORN: The Fraud Continues (07:55PM)

This is one of those news stories you can hardly believe. In Lake County, Indiana, ACORN turned in 5,000 new registrations. The authorities there started reviewing them, and quit after they found that the first 2,100 were all fraudulent. The mind boggles: ACORN turns in thousands of new registrations, and not a single one represents a legitimate voter. Here is CNN's report:

News reports have suggested that Indiana, traditionally a Republican state, may be in play. We're beginning to understand why.

UPDATE: I forgot to say this this is via InstaPundit. One of Glenn's readers writes:

I watched the clip you linked. Couldn't tell from the report. Does ACORN work more closely with one party/candidate than another? Heh.

Good point. There are some things you need to know, and others you don't. The connection between ACORN's voter fraud and the Democratic Party? Forget about it.

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Spreading the Wealth Around (07:15PM)

A lot of people are noting this exchange between Barack Obama and a plumber who has figured out that under an Obama administration, his taxes will be increased. Obama explains that he has nothing against the plumber personally, but wants to "spread the wealth around":