Why Do Bad Politicians Happen To Good Countries?

Quitters never win, and winners never quit.

Unless you're Sarah Palin. Then you can quit, whine about how mean the media elites are, and get a big hug from millions of conservatives pining for a charismatic leader.

Naysayers who thought Palin was finished after her disastrous vice-presidential run and subsequent resignation can think again. Everyone's favorite hockey mom is back with a vengeance, and she's got a best-selling book, crowds of adoring fans, and heaps of of 2012 presidential buzz to prove it.

That's good news for Palin's bank account -- and bad news for the country.

The excitement over Sarah Palin has little to do with her accomplishments, her policies, or her ability to lead. Like Obama before her, Palin is a vessel for the discontent of millions of Americans. This time, it just happens to be conservative discontent. It doesn't matter what she says, does, or writes. Some conservatives will always see a political savior when they look at Sarah Palin.

But the question begs to be asked: has there ever been a political idol less worthy of worship?

The frenzy over Barack Obama was absurd. Presidential rumblings began the moment he started his first term in the Senate. Nothing in his paper-thin list of accomplishments suggested he would be a transformational figure.

But at the very least, Obama was bright, clean, and articulate.

He went to Harvard.
He sounded smart.
He reached out to the other side.

Palin, on the other hand, manages to combine Obama's lack of experience with the eloquence of Dubbya and the depth of Dan Quayle. Her policy positions consist of conservative buzzwords wrapped in layers of winks and you betchas. True, it's no secret that conservatives are suckers for folksy politicians. And there's nothing wrong with that -- as long as there's some substance beneath the folksiness.

On an even more disturbing note, Palin represents a brand of identity politics that flies in the face of everything conservatism stands for. The fact that Palin is a woman is used as a sledgehammer against her critics; every attack is automatically branded as sexism. The same people who've railed against affirmative action for decades have suddenly discovered that being a woman is the only qualification anyone needs to be a national political leader.

This is a critical moment for the conservative movement. There's an incredible amount of anger and disappointment surging up against Obama and his policies. Conservative leaders can either try to channel this energy into a positive force for substantial change, or become buzzword-chanting demagogues, fueling the worst instincts of the conservative base and alienating everyone else. Sarah Palin – who won't even draw the line at giving a nod to the “birther” movement – has chosen the latter path.

There's no question that the Republican Party needs leadership. But Palin has nothing to bring to the table. She can draw crowds -- but those crowds are made up of people who are already in the tank for the GOP.

Every minute Palin stays in the spotlight is a PR disaster for conservatism. She may have bailed out on Alaska, but Palin can still perform one more act of public service: retiring to private life.

That's a change even I could believe in.

Maine Comes Out Of The Closet.

When California voters passed Proposition 8, it was a stunning victory for supporters of traditional marriage.

California is a blue state. And although California is home to a strong conservative minority, Proposition 8 even managed to pass in notoriously liberal Los Angeles county. Increased minority turnout -- usually considered a boon for liberals -- pushed the proposition over the top.

To cope with the loss, the gay-rights movement invented a convenient fiction: it was all those darn Mormons! Yes, the insidious Mormon church, with its infinite supply of money, had hoodwinked the good people of California. Because we all know that Mormon coercion is the only possible reason for opposing something as awesome as gay marriage.

In retrospect, there was nothing surprising about the victory. Every time the issue of gay marriage has been brought to a direct vote, Americans across the country have soundly rejected it.

And last Tuesday, Maine joined the ranks of states that have defeated gay marriage at the ballot box.

Earlier this year, members of the Maine State Legislature legalized gay marriage. They probably assumed they were doing what the people wanted. A reasonable assumption, given Maine's demographics.

Like California, Maine is a blue state. Although Maine's senators are Republicans, both are moderate-to-liberal on the issues. And Maine isn't exactly a part of the Bible Belt. A recent Gallup survey on religious identity ranked Maine as the 3rd least religious state in the country, just beneath New Hampshire and Vermont.

Blaming Mormon cash probably won't fly this time. Protect Maine Equality, the campaign supporting Maine's gay marriage law, raised $4 million, compared with only $2.5 raised by Stand for Marriage Maine, which aimed to overturn it.

Social conservatives were outspent and outmaneuvered in unfriendly territory.

So why did this haven of secularism decide to put the gay man down?

Here's my guess: most people are just fine with the current definition of marriage -- even some people who who have no moral qualms about homosexuality. Like Barack Obama, they believe marriage is between a man and a women. And as long as Americans can vote gay marriage down by secret ballot, they will.

Which means that gay-rights activists will have to increasingly rely on courts to impose their will on the people. American voters may not approve of gay marriage, but when courts rule that gay marriage is an inalienable civil right, there's nothing they can do about it.

Sure, some people might be ticked off at first, but conventional wisdom says that history will vindicate their judicial activism.

Or will it?

Advocates of gay marriage assume their cause is the continuation of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This assumption rests on the premise that marriage is simply the union of two individuals -- making laws banning gay marriages as arbitrary as the laws that prevented mixed-race couples from marrying in the past.

But social conservatives -- along with plenty of social moderates -- believe that marriage was designed to enshrine the unique male-female relationship. No one is being denied the right to get married; it's just that being married involves spending your life with someone of the opposite sex.

Ultimately, the issue isn't about civil rights. It's about the definition of an institution -- and who should be allowed to define it.

This nuance escapes the gay-rights crowd. People who disagree with them are hateful, or homophobic. And they believe that eventually, like the racists of the past, these bigoted neanderthals will quietly fade into the margins of society.

It's true that homosexuality is gaining more public acceptance, and the same thing can be said about gay marriage. But even if the entirety of secular America embraces gay marriage (hardly a foregone conclusion), the religious beliefs held by millions of other Americans will make gay marriage a controversial issue for the foreseeable future. And America's increasing ethnic and religious diversity could play a major role in undermining the gay-rights agenda. Immigrants from third-world countries tend to be more culturally conservative than their native-born counterparts, and the expanding Muslim community in the U.S might prove to be a powerful conservative force in the culture wars.

In other words, resistance is not futile; Americans will not be assimilated. Whenever an advocacy group adopts the language of inevitability, mental flags should go up. This is no exception. Maine's rejection of gay marriage revealed just how tone-deaf gay activists have become. There are deeper issues at work here than a simple conflict between bigotry and acceptance. And if supporters of gay marriage want to continue to ignore and marginalize their opponents, they should brace themselves for the sting of defeat.

Think About It.

Decisions that are weighed carefully are better than stupid decisions. And when members of our government are making decisions, the importance of rational thinking is paramount

Bills rushed through Congress in a couple days can financially burden the nation for decades. And half-baked strategies cooked up by a commander in chief can lead to tragedy.

The "never let a crisis go to waste" mentality is the root of all kinds of evil. When a crisis strikes, bad ideas can become reality in the blink of an eye. We saw this happen in the aftermath of 9/11, the aftermath of the financial meltdown, and we're starting to see it in the midst of an overblown health care crisis. Government officials become intoxicated with fear, make a flurry of drunken decisions, and wake up a month later with a serious legislative hangover and angry constituents flooding the phone lines.

So, when Obama promised to "never rush the solemn decision" of sending American troops into combat situations, it seemed pretty reasonable. The use of military force is a complicated issue, both financially and morally. War is not a game.

The war in Afghanistan, which Obama was addressing in his speech, is an especially sticky situation. More manpower may be needed, but it's only a small part of what needs to be a multi-pronged strategy. The surge in Iraq produced incredible results, but ultimately, it was the Sunni awakening movement as much as increased troop levels that quelled the violence. In Afghanistan, where corruption is endemic, tribalism reigns, and opium powers the economy, it'll take some serious thought to cook up a comprehensive strategy that can stop the country from returning to the arms of the Taliban.

But prominent conservatives, including Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Rush Limbaugh, have decided that Obama's policy of actually thinking about things will lead to ruin.

According to Cheney and Limbaugh, Obama is "dithering" on Afghanistan.

Rove claims Obama is being too "wobbly."

Really?

For the record, there's nothing conservative about behaving rashly. Few things are more antithetical to the conservative mindset than a gut reaction to a problem. William F. Buckley famously wrote that his National Review stood "athwart history, yelling stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so." For decades, conservatives have fought against ill-conceived experiments in social engineering. They would do well to encourage the same critical thinking when it comes to American military action.

At least George Will gets it. After Cheney accused Obama of "dithering," the masterful columnist offered this rebuke:

"For a representative of the Bush administration to accuse someone of taking too much time is missing the point. We have much more to fear in this town from hasty than from slow government action."

Yea, verily.

A bad leader can still make a bad decision after months of rigorous thought. Obama may indeed drop the ball on Afghanistan. And if he ends up making a bad decision, critics should feel free to fire away. But criticizing him for trying to make a good decision is absurd.

Obama is trying to do the right thing in Afghanistan. For that, he deserves a tasty cookie -- not ridicule.

Michael And Me.

Anyone who goes to a Michael Moore movie expecting a logical argument will walk away disappointed. Moore is a populist, not an intellectual. He goes for the gut.

And in his latest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, it works. Sometimes.

Capitalism has everything you'd expect from a Moore film. There's the ironic, '50s-era stock footage (more so than usual), Moore-on-a-mission stunts, honest Americans facing economic ruin, and a lesson about the evils of -- what else? -- capitalism.

To make the case that capitalism is the root of all evil, Moore presents a loosely connected set of emotional vignettes:

Families being forced out of their homes.

Airline pilots who have to work a second job to survive.

Companies taking secret life insurance policies out on their employees.

And so on.

Some of the things Moore shows us are troubling. But ultimately, Moore is kind of like a man who sees a house on fire and launches into a tirade on the evils of oxygen. It's sad that some people are losing so much. But everything they had in the first place was the result of -- *gasp!* -- capitalism.

And many of the things Moore complains about don't seem to have much to do with capitalism at all.

In the final portion of Capitalism, Moore lambasts the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions as corporate robbery, and marches to Wall St. demanding the American people's money back. Fair enough. But government handouts to failing businesses are hardly a product of pure capitalism.

Similarly, when Moore tells the story of a for-profit juvenile prison that rakes in the dough thanks to a couple of corrupt judges, the problem seems to lie with the dangerous collusion of business and government -- not laissez faire economic policies.

Michael Moore claims to be non-partisan, but conservatives hoping to see Obama get some comeuppance for his continued support of corporate welfare are left empty-handed.

Moore does go after some prominent Democrats, most notably Chris Dodd. But Obama largely gets a pass. Even when Moore rips apart Tim Geithner, he never mentions the man who appointed him.

And while Michael Moore shows footage of house Democrats -- including Dennis Kucinich -- boldly standing up to the first bailout bill, he ignores the fact that a wide majority of Republicans voted against the bailout.

And as always, Moore plays it loose with the facts. When Moore reveals that wages have remained steady since the '80s while productivity has shot upward, he concludes that Americans are being forced to work harder for the same amount of pay. While this may be true in some cases, it's pretty lazy to ignore a little something called the digital revolution that's been going on for the last few decades.

Interestingly enough, Capitalism has a strong religious message, unusual for a Moore film. Moore, a liberal Catholic, interviews several priests who have some harsh words for America's economic system, and mocks the idea that Jesus would support capitalism. To drive home the point, the movie's takeaway message is worded in distinctly moral terms: "capitalism is an evil, and you can't regulate evil."

Like all of Moore's films, Capitalism is cleverly crafted and entertaining. But your enjoyment of the film may hinge on your ability to temporarily shut down large portions of your brain.

Near the end of Capitalism, Moore shows footage of Katrina survivors stranded on the roofs of their houses, and tells the audience that this is what capitalism bring them.

Actually, that's what large hurricanes combined with bad engineering bring us. Common mistake.

Everything In Its Place.

Nancy Pelosi is ticked off at Republicans again. This time, it's because they're so very sexist.

After Pelosi suggested Monday that the public was wary of sending more troops to Afghanistan -- and that McChrystal's recommendation to President Obama for more troops "should go up the line of command" rather than be aired in "press conferences" -- the National Republican Congressional Committee issued a mocking press release titled "General Pelosi Knows Better, Slams McChrystal."

"If Nancy Pelosi's failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope McChrystal is able to put her in her place," concluded the release, setting off a barrage of criticism from Democrats and liberal blogs that the GOP was employing sexist rhetoric.

Pelosi herself weighed in Thursday at her weekly press briefing.

"It's really sad they really don't understand how inappropriate that is," Pelosi said. "I'm in my place -- I'm the Speaker of the House, the first woman Speaker of the House, and I'm in my place because the House of Representatives voted me there. But that language is something I haven't heard in decades."

Nancy Pelosi took the NRCC's statement to mean she needed to be put in her place as a woman. But that's obviously not what the NRCC meant.

Stanley McChrystal is a general in the U.S. Army. He thinks we should put more troops in Afghanistan.

Nancy Pelosi is a politician. She thinks he's wrong.

When the NRCC says that McChrystal should put Pelosi "in her place," they're saying they want McChrystal to remind Pelosi that, as a military official, he knows a thing or two about military policy. And to make that point crystal clear, the NRCC encapsulated it in the press release's title: "General Pelosi knows better, slams McChrystal."

The issue isn't whether a woman can be speaker of the house. It's whether the speaker of the house should pretend to be a general.

Pelosi is smart enough to know this. But phony outrage over non-existent sexism is much more fun than real debate.

Olympics Part Deux.

The International Olympic Committee gave Chicago a stunning slap in the face last Friday. If Chicago had gone toe-to-toe with Rio in the final round of voting and lost, no one would have been shocked.

But the combined power of Oprah and Obama couldn't even carry the second city past the first round.

Ouch.

Make no mistake -- this wasn't about Obama. There was never a compelling reason to bring the Olympics to Chicago. Rio De Janeirro deserved to win. Chicago didn't.

But at the same time, Obama's Olympic disappointment is a microcosm of his flawed understanding of foreign policy.

Critics enjoyed roasting Bush over his "arrogant" approach to world affairs. He was a gunslinging Texan with a messiah complex -- embarrassing at best, dangerous at worst.

And more often than not, Bush was guilty as charged. He thought we could swoop into the Middle East and transform it into a democratic paradise. Bush envisioned America as the savior of the world -- a nice thought, but an unrealistic one. Now, Obama is left to pick up the pieces of Bush's failures.

But arrogance comes in different guises.

Obama's employs a kinder, gentler arrogance. It's an arrogance that says that the world will bend to our wishes if we butter it up with smiles and heartfelt mea culpas. On a more personal level, it's an arrogance that says the magnetism of one man can reverse decades of anti-Americanism around the world.

There's nothing wrong with being nice to other countries. It's certainly better than being an international jerk. But it's not going to win any major concessions from the international community.

And the fact that Obama is an international celebrity doesn't mean the world will hand him what he wants on a silver platter.

Obama showed up in Copenhagen assuming that the IOC delegates loved him. They probably did. But it wasn't enough to change their minds.

People in Europe may swoon over Obama, but we're not seeing our NATO allies rush to reinforce U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Why? Because nations are selfish, and they don't want to make that kind of sacrifice. Their personal affinity for Obama isn't worth a dime when it's time to make policy.

The utility of warm-fuzziness is limited.

In the end, an American president needs to have the courage to do the right thing, regardless of what other countries say. Bush's decision to invade Iraq was a bad one -- but it would have been just as bad if every member of the UN had backed it.

"Going it alone" isn't an ideal strategy when it comes to dealing with the world's problems. But sometimes, if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself.

A Thought.

If Roman Polanski were a plumber from Hoboken, who would be petitioning for his release?

Justice is supposed to be blind. Being a creative genius isn't grounds for clemency. Neither is being a holocaust survivor.

Some situations are complicated; this one isn't. Polanski committed a terrible crime, and admitted his guilt. He should be punished. Justice delayed is better than no justice at all.