Blogs for 2008 - Road to the Middle Class

THE CHAIRMAN of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Britain has created a firestorm by writing that the candidacy of Barack Obama postpones the racial healing of America. Trevor Phillips, a Caribbean black, writes that for whites

A vote for Obama is a pain-free negation of their own racism.

With Obama, whites can say, OK. Now we voted for a black. Let’s call an end to the stain of slavery and the politics of unfold

Media Turns on Clintons

by Christopher Chantrill

THE FUNDAMENTAL thing to understand about the media is the blood-in-the-water principle.

The media is always lovey-dovey with people in power. But as soon as there’s blood in the water, and a powerful person appears wounded, then the media sharks appear from near and far to take a bite. It’s called the feeding frenzy.

I remember when I first understood this. It was twenty years ago when the coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Jack Patera, was fired. All of a sudden we learned that the sports personalities who had been unfold

Bill Buckley Dead at 82

by Christopher Chantrill

EVEN THE New York Times agrees that William F. Buckley, Jr., dead at 82, was essential to the modern American conservative movement. Quoting Hugh Kenner, Douglas Martin writes:

“Without Bill — if he had decided to become an academic or a businessman or something else — without him, there probably would be no respectable conservative movement in this country.”

I’m not sure that unfold

When Liberals Write About Religion

by Christopher Chantrill

EVER SINCE the Enlightenment liberals have liked to talk about religion as something they are separate from. Liberals are the voice of reason, freed from the superstitions of conservatives, reactionaries, and other simple people.

So when liberal religion writer Alan Wolfe writes in The Atlantic about “the coming religious peace,” he doesn’t mention the great secular religions. No, what he’s talking about is the coming peace between Islam and unfold

NYT Trashes Working Women

by Christopher Chantrill

IN POLITICS, or at least the politics of personal destruction, anything goes.

So if the New York Times wants to trash John McCain by dredging up a ten year old story about McCain and an attractive female lobbyist, well all’s fair in love and war. Even if there’s no evidence, apart from the fears of staffers, that anything “happened.”

But think of what a story like this does to working women in general, writes unfold

Obama: Read the Commenters

by Christopher Chantrill

NEVER MIND about the vapid messianic tone of the Obama campaign. Never mind about his snobby wife’s disdain for America. When you get down to specifics this is a pretty left-wing guy, writes The Times’ Gerard Baker

He plans large increases in government spending on health and education. He wants to tax the rich more to pay for it. He is against companies using the opportunities of free markets to unfold

"Another Reagan" Wouldn't Run

by Christopher Chantrill

TODAY’S Republicans all live in hope of “another Reagan.” Not a chance, says lawyer Ann Coulter. It could never happen. And you can think the campaign-finance laws for that.

I ask: How many Reagans have we lost to campaign-finance reform?

Coulter goes through the progress of Reagan from the first time that businessman Holmes Tuttle approached him with an offer to help unfold

Really Proud of America

by Christopher Chantrill

LIBERALS have always had a real problem feeling proud of America. In fact you could say that the defining mark of an American liberal is that he or she is proudly ashamed of America.

So Michelle Obama’s statement that now, for the first time in her life, she could feel “really proud” of America is unremarkable. All liberals think and feel similar thoughts until America does what they want for them.

But another Michelle, the notorious conservative “woman of color” unfold

Clintons Snark on Obama

by Christopher Chantrill

OUR GOOD friends at Clinton Central are shocked, shocked that Senator Barack Obama has been lifting chunks of his speeches out of other peoples’ speeches. And they want us to be shocked too. Mark Hemingway retails the Clinton spin weaved by Howard Wolfson:

“Senator Obama’s record as a legislator and a public official is thin. He has not had a long record in public life, so he is really unfold

Castro Steps Down At Last

by Christopher Chantrill

LEFTIES say the darnedest things. That’s because they regard the continuance in power of left-wing tyrannical regimes as a natural and harmless thing. But they hate every moment in power of right-wing regimes, elected or not.

So you’d expect the left-wing BBC to take a benign view of the tyrannical Fidel Castro’s decision to step down after nearly 50 years as the dictator of Cuba.

After taking the line that Castro was provoked into aligning unfold

Obama's Immigration Problem

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S no secret that the Democratic Party is a lot more “liberal” on immigration. That’s partly because the political elite is pro-open-borders. And partly because the Democrats are the party of Latinos. And Latinos with relatives back home want their relatives to be able to immigrate to the US.

But Senator Barack Obama has a problem with Latinos. And the problem is simple. Latinos don’t like blacks. For instance, while there remain a few whites who think that blacks are unfold

Obama-the-Empty-Suit Day

by Christopher Chantrill

FUNNY HOW our noble punditoriate all manage to write the same story on the same day.

Yesterday, everyone was writing a Valentine to John McCain. Today it’s “Obama the Empty Suit”.

You might think this is shameful, or a sign of laziness. But I think it is the same phenomenon as the idea of the Japanese as one hundred million hearts beating as one.

The fact is that the same idea is always occurring to a bunch of people at the same time. You could look it unfold

Valentines for McCain

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S Valentine’s Day, so every Republican pundit is sending flowers to John McCain.

Michael Reagan writes that his father would have supported McCain. Ronald Reagan, he recalls, had a real dust-up against Jerry Ford in 1976.

When it was over and Ford had won, what did Ronald Reagan do? He simply went all-out to help Ford win his re-election, as did I and as did my sister Maureen. My dad simply followed his unfold

Obama in the Driver's Seat?

by Christopher Chantrill

AFTER SENATOR Barack Obama convincingly won the Potomac Primary yesterday, is it time to start selling tickets to the Fall of the House of Clinton, as some wags call it?

Or have the reports of their death been grossly exaggerated?

RealClearPolitics’ resident political scientist and number-cruncher Jay Cost says: wait a minute, chaps. Take it easy with the claims of Obama unfold

The Problem Isn't Just McCain

by Christopher Chantrill

IN THE AFTERMATH of Senator John McCain’s presumptive victory last week in the race for the Republicans presidential nomination the fur is starting to fly.

It’s a bit disappointing to see folks like writer Mark Helprin, along with Jack Kemp and others, dragged out to spank the reluctant orthodox unfold

The Trouble with an Establishment of Religion

by Christopher Chantrill

EVERYONE has something to say about the Archbishop of Canterbury and his suggestion that the adoption of some aspects of sharia law in Britain is “unavoidable.”

In the New York Post John O’Sullivan feels that the Archbishop is preemptively appeasing the Muslims in Britain.

He seems to be blessing a creeping development in British life that would divide the nation into unfold

Democrats: Safeway vs. Whole Foods

by Christopher Chantrill

THOSE OF us cursed with a conservative temperament view the current Democratic race with perplexity. What is going on?

Conservative columnist David Brooks has the answer. Think retail. Think of Mrs. Clinton as Safeway and Senator Obama as Whole Foods.

Hillary Clinton is a classic commodity provider. She caters to the less-educated, less-pretentious consumer.

Yes. In case you unfold

Romney Out

by Christopher Chantrill

THEY CALLED him a flip-flopper and a robocandidate, but mostly Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney just had class.

And now he is suspending his campaign after the disappointing results of Super Tuesday. Speaking to the CPAC conference today he said:

If I fight on in my campaign, all the way to the convention, I would forestall the launch of a national campaign and make it more likely that Senator Clinton or Obama would win. unfold

After Super Tuesday: Wait Until 2009!

by Christopher Chantrill

OUR DEMOCRATIC friends are racing towards the nomination in a dead heat. They are all excited about change. They are setting high expectations for their supporters.

Sad-eyed Republicans look like they are going to be led by Senator John McCain. He has made his national reputation by working with Democrats on Democrat-style legislation and frustrating the Republican agenda.

So it certainly looks like the Democrats must be prohibitive favorites to win in November. What would that mean?

It’s time to remember unfold

McCain: Why Does He Do It?

by Christopher Chantrill

WHY IS IT that Senator John McCain’s is most impressive when sliming other Republicans?

First, he’s been accusing Mitt Romney of being on the cut-and-run side on the war. Which is baloney, as Kathryn Jean Lopez makes clear.

In a debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, he continued to insist, as he had just before the Florida primary, that Romney was on the side of defeat in Iraq.

Not unfold

Big Spending Increase in US Budget

by Christopher Chantrill

IT’S "Dead on Arrival." That’s what the Democrats like to say when a Republican president sends them a Budget of the United States Government.

What they mean is that they intend to make a few changes on the margin, and make sure that a few more Democrats get their noses in the federal trough. This is called compassion.

But here at Road to the Middle Class we have a better way of analyzing the president’s budget. We have unfold

Ted Kennedy Calls The Clintons Out

by Christopher Chantrill

IT IS CERTAINLY a moment, when Ted Kennedy comes out for Barack Obama and disses the Clintons.

The implication is clear. The Clintons are corrupt and it is time for the Democratic Party to move on. Kennedy, according to Peggy Noonan, is part of

a great rebellion, a coming together of former officials, members of the commenting class, and the Kennedy family to stand athwart the Clintonian future and say, unfold