Something for Sullivan to think about during his Mental Health Break

Andrew Sullivan (political commentator/blogger for The Atlantic magazine), April 17th, 2009:

My view is that no one is above the law, and that when a society based on law prosecutes the powerless and excuses the powerful, it is corroding its own soul.

Fast forward a few months. As reported by The Docket, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly’s news blog:

Political commentator, author and writer for The Atlantic magazine Andrew M. Sullivan won’t have to face charges stemming from a recent pot bust at the Cape Cod National Seashore — but a federal judge isn’t happy about it.

U. S. Magistrate Judge Robert B. Collings says in his decision that the case is an example of how sometimes “small cases raise issues of fundamental importance in our system of justice.”

While marijuana possession may have been decriminalized, Sullivan, who owns a home in Provincetown, made the mistake of being caught by a park ranger with a controlled substance on National Park Service lands, a federal misdemeanor.

The ranger issued Sullivan a citation, which required him either to appear in U.S. District Court or, in essence, pay a $125 fine.

But the U.S. Attorney’s Office sought to dismiss the case. Both the federal prosecutor and Sullivan’s attorney said it would have resulted in an “adverse effect” on an unspecified “immigration status” that Sullivan, a British citizen, is applying for.

Read the judge's full opinion here. It's very much worth a read, particularly in noting that U.S. Attorney’s Office had other pot-bust cases they were going to prosecute before the same judge on the same day.

Sullivan's latest blog post says he's taking a "Mental Health Break." Here's hoping he'll spend some time during said break thinking about the repugnant hypocrisy of this.

(H/T Internet Scofflaw)

Not His Brother's "Keeper"

In the climax of his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama proclaimed:

If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief — I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper — that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.

And at the Saddleback Debate, Obama opined: "we still don't abide by that basic precept of Matthew: that whatever you do for the least of my brothers, you do for me; that basic principle applies to poverty."


I reject the notion that it's the fundamentally the government's job to be my or anyone else's "keeper." But what I embrace is the idea we, acting as individuals, should have a concern for our common man - especially our families - and engage in private acts to make the world a better place.

Barack Obama seems to reject that later idea - namely, engaging in private acts to care for one's family and common man.


Item 1:

Based on the Obamas' tax returns, from 2000 to 2004, Barack Obama had an average income just shy of the $250,000 he considers "wealthy". During that time he, on average, gave under 1% of his income to tax deducible charity. In 2005 and 2006 his percentage of givings did climb, although so did his massive earnings. (And, if I'm ever pulling down a cool million a year like the Obamas, I certainly hope I'll be giving more than a paltry 4.7% of it to charity.)


Item 2:

In August, the press found Barack Obama's half-brother, George. For all his talk about us being our "brother's keeper," Barack Obama hasn't done anything to help his brother living in Africa on less than a dollar a month.


Item 3:

Originally I didn't think too much of the George Obama situation, and actually dismissed it when a friend of mine brought it up in conversation. The two brothers didn't grow up with each other. They've visited a few times, and George has a mention in one of Barack Obama's memoirs, but they are separated by an ocean and aren't particularly close.

Why I mention it now, is that Obama apparently has a pattern of ignoring the needs of his relatives.

We find out today that Obama's aunt has been living in Boston for at least four years. In state-funded public housing. And as an illegal immigrant.

Why hasn't Barack Obama been helping her? Between his wealth and legal connections, couldn't he have helped her be here legally or at least be in living conditions better than public housing?

Obama is now claiming he wasn't aware his aunt was in the United States. Which, if true, raises additional questions about Obama's family connections. If you lived in the United States - and you were close enough to your aunt to have her attend your swearing in as a Senator in 2004 - don't you think you'd be aware of if your aunt moved from Kenya to the U.S.?


But the bottom line is that Obama himself is not his brother's keeper and does not, himself, "abide by that basic precept of Matthew." Before jacking tax rates up on the wealthy to "spread the wealth around" to the less fortunate, perhaps Obama should take a moment to abide by a second precept from Matthew.

Independent Voters: What I don't understand

Dear independent voters,

Please enlighten me: What I simply don't understand is why you are thinking about voting for Barack Obama.

If you were someone on the left, someone who thinks bigger government is better government, someone who thinks "spreading the wealth" is a good idea, someone who thinks Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are the best thing since sliced bread: OK, I get it, you and Senator Obama share the same ideology. You hold common values and policy positions. Knock yourself out with an Obama vote.

But if you are independent?

OK, let's start with McCain. If you are an independent, why wouldn't McCain be your guy? This is a Senator who's keystone pieces of legislation are named in the form McCain-Democrat. McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, McCain-Lieberman, etc., etc.

As a conservative I still cringe at about 30% of the things that come out of McCain's mouth because so much of his policy positions are distinctly un-conservative. I've railed against McCain right here on this blog, and if he were to win the presidency, I'm sure I'd so again. I only support McCain because's he's the least anti-conservative candidate who has a reasonable chance of winning.

McCain originally earned the title of "Maverick" as a pejorative because he so often took the offensive against Republican people and positions. He is the very definition of a "moderate" politician.

So, maybe you don't like his choice of Palin. But you should. She, like you, has an independent streak. She took on members of her own party. She formed an administration that consisted of Independents, Republicans, and Democrats. If you want a "Washinton outsider", well, there is exactly one person out of both tickets that meets that requirement - and it's Sarah Palin.

What is more, it was you, the independents, that made McCain the frontrunner for the GOP presidential choice. McCain won the New Hampshire primary but didn't come in first among self described Republicans. He also took the South Carolina primary, but again, didn't come in first among self described Republicans. It was you, the independent voters, that picked McCain for the Republican party.

But now you're putting your support behind Obama?! This confuses me in so many ways.

For starters, don't you realize how liberal he is?

I've always imagined "independent voters" as a bunch that are sick of politicians lying to them, doing whatever shady things they can to win, promising change and reform and bipartisanship and then governing from the ideological extremes.

But Barack Obama is that kind of politician. And I think you could claim he is the very worst of that kind of politician because of the degree to which he tries to cover up the fact he is that kind of politician.

OK, so maybe that flies in the face of the conventional wisdom and the media's Obama narrative: So, please, hear me out on this.

First all, for all his talk about a "new politics", Obama has happily engaged in "old" dirty trick politics when it's been to his political advantage.

Obama has also routinely falsely make things up out of whole cloth when it's been to his political advantage. Put most starkly - he has no problem lying to you. And, given his history of breaking pledges, Senator Obama's word certainly doesn't seem very trustworthy.

As if making things up and saying false statements weren't bad enough, Obama also has no problem leveling hypocritical attacks against his opponents.

And how do you get, as an independent voter, get past Obama's thug-like attempts to silence his critics?

Finally, there are all the (overplayed) Obama connections. I don't want to get deep into these, but please take a serious moment to consider the following: Would you be comfortable sitting through Rev. Wright's sermons? Would you be comfortable attending a political event hosted by William Ayers? Would you be comfortable having Tony Rezko spending $625,000 to help you complete a deal on a house?

None of those seem to me like situations independent voters would be comfortable with.


Barack Obama can deliver an amazing speech and has run a tremendously well executed campaign to make people believe he is a "post-partisan" moderate fighting to bring hope and change. But he's not. He is simply a typical liberal politician using the worse kinds of political techniques of hypocrisy, spreading falsehoods, and intimidation to try to bring a distinctly non-moderate agenda to Presidency.

I ask again - if you are an independent voter supporting Barack Obama... why?

For the record, Obama has made numerous hypocritical attacks

This campaign has shown that Obama hypocritically attacks his opponents for things that are equally true of himself.

As a few of many examples:

In the primary, he attacked Hillary Clinton for "taking money from oil companies", but by the same standard by which he leveled his attack, Obama, too, was "taking money from oil companies".

Now in the general election campaign, he has attacked McCain because's McCain's chief strategist own a lobbying firm ... but the same is true of Obama's chief strategist.

He even attacked both McCain and Clinton with this line back in February: "Unlike Senator Clinton or Senator McCain, we haven't taken a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs," which was just outright false.

One of the most recent attacks has been against McCain running negative ads, but Obama's spent more on negative ads than any other candidate in history.

The extent of Obama's hypocrisy even goes so far that he smears people while trying to "fight the smears" about himself.

Bill Moyers - Attacking Journalism

In Bill O'Reilly's "Culture Warrior," there a section about Bill Moyers which quotes Moyers as saying "I declined [appearing on 'The O'Reilly Factor'] for the simple reason that I do not believe journalism is about journalists attacking each other" (emphasis mine).

This archived copy of a LA Daily News article dated January 2003 backs up the authority of Moyers having said just that:

Moyers was asked for his reaction to Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly's recent on-air criticism of his reporting as having a liberal bias. Moyers said he does not usually watch other networks' newscasts, but he answered an O'Reilly column on the subject in the New York Daily News with an ad responding to "the false statements he made" about Moyers.

Moyers would like the issue to end because, he said, "I do not believe journalism is about journalists attacking each other."

So, my question to Mr. Moyers is how he reconciles that "simple reason" - that "journalism is about journalists attacking each other" - with his new PBS documentary, "Buying The War", which is nothing more than a giant attack on the press as a whole and conservative media in particular?

Although I don't think I would particularly enjoy Moyer's documentary, I think America was over-due in looking at the media's investigative failures prior to and during the beginning of the Iraq War. However, if you are going to play the "it's wrong to criticize other journalists" card when someone criticizes you, you've got a lot of explaining to do when you start criticizing other journalists en-masse.

Good recent coverage of Moyers over at NewsBusters:

• (April 19, 2007) PBS Helps Bill Moyers, Dan Rather Team Up to Denounce Right's 'Slime Machine'


• (April 22, 2007) Moyers and Maher Avoid Facts as They Attack President Bush on ‘Real Time’


• (April 24, 2007) On Hannity & Colmes, MRC/NB's Bozell Targets Bill Moyers and PBS Hypocrisy


• (April 25, 2007) Bill Moyers Said Conservatives Smeared His Show 'For a Bias That Didn't Exist'


• (April 25, 2007) O'Reilly Staffer Catches Bill Moyers Trying to Lie About His Attacks on Fox News 'Venom'


• (April 25, 2007) Moyers the Flamethrower: Bushies Were Basement 'Burglars' and 'Arsonists'