... I have been quoted as saying that when I die, I am to be cremated, and the ashes are to be thrown in Rick Perry’s hair. Yet, simply put, Rick Perry and I are incapable of resisting each other’s charm.
He is not only a good sport, he is a good, kindhearted man, and he once sat in on drums with ZZ Top.
A guy like that can’t be all bad. When I ran for governor of Texas as an independent in 2006, the
Crips and the Bloods ganged up on me. When I lost, I drove off in a 1937 Snit, refusing to concede to
Perry. Three days later Rick called to give me a gracious little pep talk, effectively talking me down from jumping off the bridge of my nose. Very few others were calling at that time, by the way. Such is the nature of winning and losing and politicians and life. You might call what Rick did an act of random kindness. Yet in my mind it made him more than a politician, more than a musician; it made him a mensch.
These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama. Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay.
...
... There exists a visceral John Wayne kinship between Israelis and Texans, and Rick Perry gets it.
That’s why he’s visited Israel on many more occasions than Obama, who’s been there exactly zero times as president. If I were Obama I wouldn’t go either. His favorability rating in Israel once clocked in at 4 percent. Say what you will about the Israelis, but they are not slow out of the chute. They know who their friends are. ...
What Rick Perry has achieved in his inaugural strut on the political stage is unprecedented in the annals of modern conservative history from Barry Goldwater to Sarah Palin. It is not just that the
Texas governor has dominated the news cycle, overshadowed the Iowa Straw Poll, vaulted over every GOP contender except Mitt Romney in the national polls , and reduced Karl Rove to sputtering frustration. All that is admittedly impressive for a first-time candidate whose name was familiar to only half of Republican voters just a few weeks ago.
But what sets Perry apart and earns him his niche in the far right corner of Mount Rushmore has nothing to do with the gyrations of the 2012 campaign. Indeed, Perry is not only a presidential candidate, but also a cowboy-booted sociological experiment. It is almost as if
Perry’s political persona was constructed by bundling together all the fears and phantoms in the left-wing anxiety closet. Since the hysteria of the 1950s Red Scare, no Republican figure has matched Perry in his
God-given ability to give liberals the heebiejeebies. Others can rival the governor’s disdain for academic achievement (Palin), his cross-on-the-sleeve religiosity (Michele Bachmann and Mike
Huckabee), and his antipathy to Social Security and Medicare (Paul Ryan and Barry Goldwater). But never before has a top-tier presidential candidate embodied the whole lethal package
—and more: ...
... But whatever his underlying beliefs, Perry could give both Bachmann and Palin lessons in liberal baiting. The swagger and the bristling self-confidence suggest a political leader who is often wrong, but never in doubt. It is all so reminiscent of another wrong-way-Corrigan president. Intellectually, it is easy to remember the Texas-sized enmities that divide the Bushies and Perry. But emotionally, every time liberal s hear that Perry twang and those dropped “g’s,” the instinct is to quake at stumbling into a horror-movie remake entitled, Mission Accomplished 2: Return to the White House.

Despite being the longest serving governor of one of our most populous states, a state currently generating more jobs than the rest of the country combined (or close), Rick Perry is supposed to be a dummy. At least, that’s what some of the lefty blogs and pundits would have us believe — you know, brainy types like Ed Schultz.
I am a graduate of two so-called elite Ivy League universities and I never noticed this problem when I met Perry. But never mind. Maybe an intellectually-challenged reputation is good to have from a stealth point of view. Remember Tom Sawyer and that fence?
Unfortunately, however, the jig is up. As of the last few days “Rick Perry and His Eggheads: Inside the Brai niest Political Operation in America” has been making the rapid rounds on
Kindle (#2 in
“politics and current events”). This download is actually a longish chapter excerpted from a work-inprogress by Sasha Issenberg — “ The Victory Lab ” — about new, scientifically-based campaign techniques said to be transforming the American electoral process. ...
The rising impatience with the leadership of President Obama was epitomized on Aug. 8 in the middle of one of the now-habitual Wall Street roller coasters. His speech on the economy was 53 minutes late. What showed on TV screens was an empty White House podium, an image suggestive of the absence of leadership. When the president did speak, the best he could come up with was "We've always been and always will be a triple-A country." The market's response was a Bronx cheer, a drop of another 300 points.
Mr. Obama seems unable to get a firm grip on the toughest issue facing his presidency and the country
—the economy. He now asserts he is going to "pivot" to jobs. Now we pivot to jobs? When there are already 25 million Americans who are either unemployed or cannot find full-time work?
Does this president not appreciate what is going on?
Fewer Americans are working full-time today than when Mr. Obama took office. We have lost over
900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone, and long-term unemployment is at a post-World
War II high. The public's faith in his ability to deal with the economy has plunged. As Doyle McManus of the L.A. Times put it, "Can this president persuade voters to let him keep his job when so many have lost theirs?" Even Jimmy Carter didn't plumb the depths of national dissatisfaction revealed in the stunning Gallup poll taken Aug. 11-13.
...
Not long ago I wrote about how the private sector outraces and laps government. While governments dither and dispute, the private sector discovers.
The example I mentioned then was energy. For years, governments, national and local, have been promoting wind and solar power, to little practical effect. Curiously, the biggest wind power producer is Rick Perry's Texas. But wind power isn't reliable, and both wind and solar cause serious damage to the environment.

In the meantime the oil and gas industries -- the favorite target of Barack Obama and congressional
Democrats -- have developed new techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that have vastly expanded recoverable American energy supplies.
Now across my laptop comes news of another area in which private-sector actors have overtaken government. Again an older technology has been improved and adapted to fill a need while government dithers.
The old technology in this case is buses.
While the Obama administration has been desperately seeking to spend $53 billion on so-called highspeed rail lines, private businessmen have developed Chinatown and Megabus lines that provide intercity service that has attracted legions of price-conscious travelers. ...
... Democrats furiously oppose Walker because public employees unions are transmission belts, conveying money to the Democratic Party. Last year, $11.2 million in union dues was withheld from paychecks of Wisconsin’s executive branch employees and $2.6 million from paychecks at the university across the lake. Having spent improvidently on the recall elections, the Wisconsin
Education Association Council, the teachers union, is firing 40 percent of its staff.
Progressives want to recall Walker next year. Republicans hope they try. Wisconsin seems weary of attempts to overturn elections, and surely Obama does not want his allies squandering political money and the public’s patience. Since 1960, no Democrat has been elected president without carrying Wisconsin.
Walker has refuted the left’s sustaining conviction that a leftward-clicking ratchet guarantees that liberalism’s advances are irreversible. Progressives, eager to discern a victory hidden in their recent failures, suggest that a chastened Walker will not risk further conservatism. Actually, however, his agenda includes another clash with teachers unions over accountability and school choice, and combat over tort reform with another cohort parasitic off bad public policies
— trial lawyers.
As the moonless night of fa$ci$m descends on America’s dairyland, sidewalk graffiti next to the statehousesquare drinking fountain darkly warns: “Free water . . . for now.” There, succinctly, is liberalism’s credo: If everything isn’t “free,” meaning paid for by someone else, nothing will be safe.
A nd so farewell, Barack Obama, don’t let the hatch door of Air Force One hit you on the way out of
Massa-tu-setts, as you pronounce it.
The first family came in sep arate planes, and they’re leaving, ditto. Hey, it’s only money, our money.
Even before Irene, this wasn’t much of a presidential vacation compared to the earlier ones. An
Obama vacation on the Vineyard has been downgraded from Cat 3 to tropical storm. It’s hard to get excited about the arrival, yet again, of the second coming of Herbert Hoover.
He’s already had at least two visits to the political ATM here this year, not to mention his wife Moochelle’s shakedown cruise a couple of months ago. What do they say? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and familiarity breeds contempt.

And what was that bunkum from Obama about a “historic” hurricane? Right now it’s only a tropical storm, and he’s trying to conflate it into the Blizzard of ’78. But hey, he and his whole administration, whenever they talk about the economy, they sound like weathermen. Whether it’s the tsunami, or the drought, or the financial crisis ... it’s gotta be somebody else’s fault. ...
Kinky Friedman once ran against Rick Perry for the Texas governorship. So would the singer and writer vote for him for president? Hell, yes! The world’s most famous Jewish cowboy on why he wants to live in Rick Perry’s America.
by Kinky Friedman
Rick Perry has never lost an el ection; I’ve never won one. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with the world.
On the other hand, I’ve long been friends with Bill Clinton and George W., and Rick Perry and I, though at times bitter adversaries, have remained friends as well. It’s not always easy to maintain friendships with politicians. To paraphrase Charles Lamb, you have to work at it like some men toil after virtue.
I have been quoted as saying that when I die, I am to be cremated, and the ashes are to be thrown in
Rick Perry’s hair. Yet, simply put, Rick Perry and I are incapable of resisting each other’s charm. He is not only a good sport, he is a good, kindhearted man, and he once sat in on drums with ZZ Top. A guy like that can’t be all bad. When I ran for governor of Texas as an independent in 2006, the Crips and the Bloods ganged up on me. When I lost, I drove off in a 1937 Snit, refusing to concede to
Perry. Three days later Rick called to give me a gracious little pep talk, effectively talking me down from jumping off the bridge of my nose. Very few others were calling at that time, by the way. Such is the nature of winning and losing and politicians and life. You might call what Rick did an act of random kindness. Yet in my mind it made him more than a politician, more than a musician; it made him a mensch.
These days, of course, I would support Charlie Sheen over Obama. Obama has done for the economy what pantyhose did for foreplay. Obama has been perpetually behind the curve. If the issue of the day is jobs and the economy, Rick Perry is certainly the nuts-and-bolts kind of guy you want in there. Even though my pal and fellow Texan Paul Begala has pointed out that no self-respecting
Mexican would sneak across the border for one of Rick Perry’s low-level jobs, the stats don’t entirely lie. Compared with the rest of the country, Texas is kicking major ass in terms of jobs and the economy, and Rick should get credit for that, just as Obama should get credit for saying “No comment” to the young people of the Iranian revolution.
More to the poin t, could Rick Perry fix the economy? Hell, yes! Texas is exhibit A; Rick’s fingerprints are all over it. He’s been governor since Christ was a cowboy. The Lone Star State is booming. The last time I checked, Texas is kicking in a hell of a lot of the U.S. GDP. Unemployment is lower than the vast majority of the other states. Hell, we could probably even find a job for Paul Begala.

Kinky Friedman, left, listens to Texas Gov. Rick
Perry during the 2006 Texas gubernatorial debate.
As a Jewish cowboy (or “Juusshh,” as we say in Texas), I know Rick Perry to be a true friend of
Israel, like Bill Clinton and George W. before him. There exists a visceral John Wayne kinship between Israelis and Texans, and Rick Perry gets it. That’s why he’s visited Israel on many more occasions than Obama, who’s been there exactly zero times as president. If I were Obama I wouldn’t go either. His favorability rating in Israel once clocked in at 4 percent. Say what you will about the
Israelis, but they are not slow out of the chute. They know who their friends are. On the topic of the
Holy Land, there remains the little matter of God. God talks to televangelists, football coaches, and people in mental hospitals. Why shouldn’t he talk to Rick Perry? In the spirit of Joseph Heller, I have a covenant with God. I leave him alone and he leaves me alone. If, however, I have a big problem, I ask God for the answer. He tells Rick Perry. And Rick tells me.
So would I support Rick Perry for president? Hell, yes! As the last nail that hasn’t been hammered down in this country, I agree with Rick that there are already too damn many laws, taxes, regulations, panels, committees, and bureaucrats. While Obama is busy putting the hyphen between “anal” and
“retentive” Rick will be rolling up his sleeves and getting to work.
A still, small voice within keeps telling me that Rick Perry’s best day may yet be ahead of him, and so too, hopefully, will be America’s.
by Walter Shapiro
What Rick Perry has achieved in his inaugural strut on the political stage is unprecedented in the annals of modern conservative history from Barry Goldwater to Sarah Palin. It is not just that the
Texas governor has dominated the news cycle, overshadowed the Iowa Straw Poll, vaulted over every GOP contender except Mitt Romney in the national polls , and reduced Karl Rove to sputtering frustration. All that is admittedly impressive for a first-time candidate whose name was familiar to only half of Republican voters just a few weeks ago.

But what sets Perry apart and earns him his niche in the far right corner of Mount Rushmore has nothing to do with the gyrations of the 2012 campaign. Indeed, Perry is not only a presidential candidate, but also a cowboybooted sociological experiment. It is almost as if Perry’s political persona was constructed by bundling together all the fears and phantoms in the left-wing anxiety closet. Since the hysteria of the 1950s Red Scare, no Republican figure has matched Perry in his
God-given ability to give liberals the heebiejeebies. Others can rival the governor’s disdain for academic achievement (Palin), his cross-on-the-sleeve religiosity (Michele Bachmann and Mike
Huckabee), and his antipathy to Social Security and Medicare (Paul Ryan and Barry Goldwater). But never before has a top-tier presidential candidate embodied the whole lethal package —and more:
1. Anti-Intellectualism . Liberals revere high SAT scores. That is why it is no accident that, over the past century, the Democrats have nominated for president five former college or law school professors (Woodrow Wilson, John W. Davis, George McGovern, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama) plus Hubert Humphrey, who was a graduate teaching fellow while working on a Ph.D.
Democrat s snootily ridiculed George W. Bush’s scholarly performance, but compared to Perry, the
43rd president —who earned a B.A. from Yale and a Harvard M.B.A.—seems as well educated as
John Stuart Mill. And Perry revels in this kind of comparison. Asked last week about how he differs from Bush, he tellingly replied, “He’s a Yale graduate. I’m a Texas A&M graduate.”
Perry plays this educational populism to the hilt. The official bio of the Texas governor boasts that at university he was a “senior yell leader and an animal science major.” A bootlegged copy of Perry’s college transcript is the antithesis of grade inflation, with the architect of the purported Texas jobs miracle receiving a “D” in “Principles of Economics.”
More ominous to progressive values is that Perry, as governor, has tried to run the state university system like a business , seemingly unaware that the European history program should be held to different standards than, say, the animal science department. Texas A&M, now headed by a former
Perry chief of staff, actually rated professors based on whether they brought in more outside funding than they cost.
2. The God Card . Liberals should be nostalgic for the days when Ronald Reagan frequently invoked a nondenominational deity but rarely attended church. Even George W. Bush’s public religiosity was connected to a compelling biographical narrative —embracing Christ gave him the power to stop drinking.
But Perry, far more than Huckabee during his 2008 campaign, seems willfully oblivious to the reality that his personal theological beliefs are not universally held, even within the modern Republican
Party. In April, as Texas suffered from a deadly combination of wildfires and drought, Perry issued a proclamation calling for three days of prayer for rain. And at his 30,000-person prayer meeting a week before he declared his candidacy,
Perry embraced “the living Christ” and the “salvation agenda.” This evangelical rally was held in Houston, the same city where John Kennedy gave his famous fullthroated defense of the separation of church and state during the 1960 campaign.
3. The Living Constitution . The GOP presidential field has more self-appointed constitutional scholars per capita than any group since the Founding Fathers assembled in Philadelphia. Not too long ago,
Bachmann refused to fill out the entire 2010 Census form because she contended that it went beyond constitutional requirements.
But even by these standards, Perry stands out for his creative cut-and-paste approach to the
Constitution. With the exception of the states-rights claims of the Tenth Amendment and the right-tocarry provisions of the Second Amendment, it seems like the rest of the document is more or less fair

game to the governor. In an interview last year , Perry raised doubts about whether the Social Security system was constitutional. And in his book, Fed Up!
, Perry ominously claims, “With the passage of the Sixteen and Seventeenth Amendments, states handed over a significant chunk of their sovereignty and wealth to the federal government.” Not since the days of William McKinley or even earlier has a serious presidential contender warned about the threat of a federal income tax and the direct election of senators.
4. Pistol-Packing President . For Eastern liberals (myself included), nothing is more baffling than the desire to carry around a metal cylinder with a trigger attached that could easily kill someone. This may explain why debates over gun control often seem far more cultural and theological than discussions of, say, tax policy.
What distinguishes Perry from his GOP rivals is the enthusiasm with which he embraces the lockandload ethos of the West. The Texas governor’s definition of academic freedom extends to his support of legislation that would allow college students to carry concealed weapons on campus. And
Perry doesn’t just talk the talk; he also shoots the shot. While jogging last year in a heavily wooded area of Austin, Perry nailed a menacing coyote with a pistol that he carries during his workout routine to ward off snakes.
5. Daring to Call It Treason . Right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter violated one of the few remaining standards of acceptable political discourse when she titled her 2003 book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism .
Coulter undoubtedly knew that shouting “Treason” in a crowded bookstore would conjure up the specter of a new McCarthyism.
This explains what was so scary about Perr y’s claim that Ben Bernanke would be “ almost treasonous ” if he persisted in loosening monetary policy to ward off a double-dip recession. The combination —tarring the ultimate middle-of-the-road authority figure (Bernanke) with one of the most diabolical words in the political lexicon
—proved poisonous. In contrast, Bachmann has been a far more disciplined campaigner, never resorting to this kind corrosive rhetoric against anyone not named Obama.
Based on his ten days as a candidate, the Texas governor lacks an internal governor to modulate what he says in off-the-cuff settings. Even on his best behavior in New Hampshire last week, Perry could not stop at the right-wing talking point that the scientific case for global warming is unproven.
Instead, Perry had to go the extra conspiratorial step and claim, “There are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so they will have dollars rolling into their projects.” Next time around, Perry might well call these supposedly corrupt climate scientists , who only exist in right-wing mythology, “almost treasonous” as well.
TO BE SURE, there’s more to Perry than his cowboy boots—footwear rarely worn on the Upper West
Side or in Brookline
—and his standard-issue “unproven theory” claptrap about evolution. And the problem with extrapolating a presidency from all these Perry-isms is that it is hard to tell at this stage in the campaign how much is conviction and how much is clever pandering to the Tea Party zealots.
Personally, I am intrigued by the theory of Dave Mann, editor of the Texas Observer
, that Perry’s only governing ideology is “ crony capitalism .”
But whatever his underlying beliefs, Perry could give both Bachmann and Palin lessons in liberal baiting. The swagger and the bristling self-confidence suggest a political leader who is often wrong, but never in doubt. It is all so reminiscent of another wrong-way-Corrigan president. Intellectually, it is easy to remember the Texas-sized enmities that divide the Bushies and Perry. But emotionally, every time liberals hear that Perry twang and those dropped “g’s,” the instinct is to quake at stumbling into a horror-movie remake entitled, Mission Accomplished 2: Return to the White House .

Despite being the longest serving governor of one of our most populous states, a state currently generating more jobs than the rest of the country combined (or close), Rick Perry is supposed to be a dummy. At least, that’s what some of the lefty blogs and pundits would have us believe — you know, brainy types like Ed Schultz.
I am a graduate of two so-called elite Ivy League universities and I never noticed this problem when I met Perry. But never mind. Maybe an intellectually-challenged reputation is good to have from a stealth point of view. Remember Tom Sawyer and that fence?
Unfortunately, however, the jig is up. As of the last f ew days “Rick Perry and His Eggheads: Inside the Brainiest Political Operation in America” has been making the rapid rounds on Kindle (#2 in
“politics and current events”). This download is actually a longish chapter excerpted from a work-inprogress by Sasha Issenberg
— “
The Victory Lab
” — about new, scientifically-based campaign techniques said to be transforming the American electoral process.
The chief architect of Perry’s strategies — and central figure in the chapter — is Dave Carney, a hulking three hundred pound, six foot four political pro from New Hampshire who once worked for
George H. W. Bush. Said to be camera shy , if Perry wins, or even if he is nominated, Carney is likely to become as much of a household political name as Karl Rove or David Axelrod.
Indeed, if I were Axelrod, I would have been up last night poring over “Rick Perry and His Eggheads.”
It’s filled with radical ideas about campaigning. Carney abjures such staples as lawn signs, targeted mailings, robocalls (Thank God!) and even, to a large extent, TV ads. He advocates instead personal appearances and flesh-pressing by the candidate, taking it to the people, as it were, something for which Perry clearly has a gift. This, in turn, generates a constant flow of media coverage on old and, perhaps more importantly, new media (Twitter, Facebook, even ye olde PJM).
Indeed, the MSM is almost purposefully disdained (up to a point, anyway). In his recent campaign for governor, Perry refused even to meet with the editorial boards of leading Texas newspapers, preferring to spend time with actual voters.

This strategy
— which is counter to decades of conventional political wisdom — comes from research undertaken for Perry and detailed by Issenberg in the chapter. Several years ago Carney brought in a pair of liberal Yalie academics to test the efficacy of various traditional campaign techniques and came up with the surprising findings. This resulted in changes in tactics and the supposedly-dumb
Texas governor won re-election big, twice.
Will these tactics work well on the national stage? Time, as that hoariest of cliches reminds us, will tell. But it is worth noting that the three first — and highly significant — primary states respond well to
Perry-style retail politicking. And as the stage expands, the media entourage that success engenders will only grow, following the victorious candidates like you-know-who trailing soldiers in war time.
But let’s examine the larger question of political leadership and intellect, at least as reflected in academic achievement. Many of our recent presidents and presidential candidates were Ivy
Leaguers. Interestingly, however, only Clinton was much of a student. Bush was so-so. John Kerry was worse and Gore was a disaster. For some reason we don’t know how Obama did at Columbia,
Harvard or even the less prestigious Occidental College, this even with the 1939-1940 JFK Harvard records readily available online . Is somebody hiding something? Whatever the case, the popular wisdom that liberals are smarter academically than conservatives is silly. As one who attended those institutions (as a liberal), I can attest to that.
I can also attest to the fact that an Ivy League education isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. Whatever small accomplishments I have in life are not easily traceable to my academic achievements (even though I was considerably closer to Clinton than Gore in class ranking). Arguably, the most successful president of the post-war period, Ronald Reagan, attended the ultra-obscure Eureka
College. I don’t know what his grades were and I don’t much care. All I know is he got Gorbachev to
“tear down that wall.” (Not exactly, but you know what I mean.)
Turning to Perry, he was a mediocre student at Texas A & M, a school that emphasizes a more practical form of education than Yale. What does this mean? Don’t know, but these days going to an
Ivy no longer appears to be the royal road to career success it once was. This study of Top 10 Job
Placement Colleges only shows one Ivy, Cornell, in the tenth position. Number one, not surprisingly, is The University of Texas at Austin.
Perhaps more importantly… and amusingly… this study from the Wall Street Journal shows Perry’s
Texas A & M the number two choice of corporate job recruiters with nary an Ivy in sight until Cornell
(again) at fourteen. Harvard, Princeton and Yale did not make the top twenty-five.
So if Rick Perry is a dope, he’s the kind of dope we need. But obviously, he’s not. It’s all projection and wish fulfillment.
Like many Americans who supported him, I long for a triple-A president to run a triple-A country.
by Mortimer Zuckerman
The rising impatience with the leadership of President Obama was epitomized on Aug. 8 in the middle of one of the now-habitual Wall Street roller coasters. His speech on the economy was 53 minutes late. What showed on TV screens was an empty White House podium, an image suggestive of the

absence of leadership. When the president did speak, the best he could come up with was "We've always been and always will be a triple-A country." The market's response was a Bronx cheer, a drop of another 300 points.
Mr. Obama seems unable to get a firm grip on the toughest issue facing his presidency and the country
—the economy. He now asserts he is going to "pivot" to jobs. Now we pivot to jobs? When there are already 25 million Americans who are either unemployed or cannot find full-time work?
Does this president not appreciate what is going on?
Fewer Americans are working full-time today than when Mr. Obama took office. We have lost over
900,000 full-time jobs in the last four months alone, and long-term unemployment is at a post-World
War II high. The public's faith in his ability to deal with the economy has plunged. As Doyle McManus of the L.A. Times put it, "Can this president persuade voters to let him keep his job when so many have lost theirs?" Even Jimmy Carter didn't plumb the depths of national dissatisfaction revealed in the stunning Gallup poll taken Aug. 11-13. The president's approval rating was only 39% with a mere
26% approving of his handling of the economy.
Meanwhile, everyone in the business world is pleading for some kind of adult supervision to build a national platform for sustained growth that includes a long-term fiscal plan that addresses our ballooning debt. They are desperate for strong leadership and feel that all we are getting out of
Washington is a lot of noise as Democrats and Republicans blame one another.
Since the president is the one who represents all of America and all Americans, the buck stops with him rather than with the Congress. It is the president's job to offer a coherent program for the twin threats of a static economy and an unsustainable explosion of our debts and deficits. But the only core issue on which he took a clear position in the recent debt-ceiling negotiations was that it would have to include new taxes on the wealthy —and he didn't even hold to that.
He made the politically tested and calculated statement that if you raise taxes on billionaires and millionaires you could solve the problem. This is not so. Even for those who support higher taxes on the wealthy, as I do, we must remember that we have an income tax system in which fully half the
"taxpayers" pay no tax at all, and in which the variety of loopholes cries out for a real reform of the tax code. Even if the government instituted a 100% tax on both corporate profits and personal incomes above $250,000 per year, it would yield enough revenue to run the government for only six months.
Why? Because under Mr. Obama's presidency, government spending has swelled to 24% of GDP from 18%.
We need real reform of the tax code in which everyone is asked to make some contribution, however small. Hardly anyone on either side of the aisle has a good word to say for the present hodgepodge of selective punishment of the middle class —replete with exceptions, loopholes, and special

allowances. Worse, there are no serious proposals being canvassed among the White House, the
Congress and the Treasury.
Erskine Bowles, co-chair of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission appointed by the president in
2010 to devise a plan for dealing with the fiscal crisis, put it well: "It is one that is completely predictable and from which there is no escape." The president said he would stand by his commission, but as of today he's remained silent on its many proposals, seemingly unable to speak honestly on the subject.
Everyone recognizes that as populations age, the ratio of worker-to-retiree dependency plummets.
Remember that the first baby boomers statistically retired on Jan. 1 of this year. There are now 79 million more of them to be supported in their retirement and with their medical requirements. This has obvious implications for our debts and deficits. How are we to meet this obligation in the face of longterm deficits that stem from approximately $60 trillion of unfunded entitlement liabilities?
It is no surprise that many have begun to doubt the president's leadership qualities. J.P. Morgan calls it the "competency crisis." The president is not seen fighting for his own concrete goals, nor finding the right allies, especially leaders of business big or small. Instead, his latent hostility to the business community has provoked a mutual response of disrespect. This is lamentable given the unique role that small business especially plays in creating jobs.
The president appears to consider himself immune from error and asserts the fault always lies elsewhere —be it in the opposition in Congress or the Japanese tsunami or in the failure of his audience to fully understand the wisdom and benefits of his proposals. But in politics, the failure of communication is invariably the fault of the communicator.
Many voters who supported him are no longer elated by the historic novelty of his candidacy and presidency. They hoped for a president who would be effective. Remember "Yes We Can"? Now many of his sharpest critics are his former supporters. Witness Bill Broyles, a one-time admirer who recently wrote in Newsweek that "Americans aren't inspired by well-meaning weakness." The president who first inspired with great speeches on red and blue America now seems to lack the ability to communicate any sense of resolve for a program, or any realization of the urgency of what might befall us. The teleprompter he almost always uses symbolizes and compounds his emotional distance from his audience.
We lack a coherent and muscular economic strategy, as Mr. Obama and his staff seem almost completely focused on his re-election. He should be spending most of his time on the nitty-gritty of the job instead of on fund raisers, bus tours and visits to diners, which essentially are in service of his political interests. Increasingly his solutions seem to boil down to Vote for Me.
Clearly the president will have to raise his game to win a second term, especially if the Republicans find a real candidate. Will voters be willing to give him another four years? Like many Americans who supported him, I long for a triple-A president to run a triple-A country.
Mr. Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report.

Private Sector Laps Government Again by Michael Barone
The Chinatown bus: Unlike high-speed rail, it's economically viable and costs the government nothing.
Not long ago I wrote about how the private sector outraces and laps government. While governments dither and dispute, the private sector discovers.
The example I mentioned then was energy. For years, governments, national and local, have been promoting wind and solar power, to little practical effect. Curiously, the biggest wind power producer is Rick Perry's Texas. But wind power isn't reliable, and both wind and solar cause serious damage to the environment.
In the meantime the oil and gas industries -- the favorite target of Barack Obama and congressional
Democrats -- have developed new techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (fracking) that have vastly expanded recoverable American energy supplies.
Now across my laptop comes news of another area in which private-sector actors have overtaken government. Again an older technology has been improved and adapted to fill a need while government dithers.
The old technology in this case is buses.
While the Obama administration has been desperately seeking to spend $53 billion on so-called highspeed rail lines, private businessmen have developed Chinatown and Megabus lines that provide intercity service that has attracted legions of price-conscious travelers.
Chinatown bus service started in 1998 to provide a cheap way for Asian immigrants to get from New
York to Boston. You lined up at the curb, paid your $20 fare to the driver, and settled into a comfortable bus for four hours or so.
Now there's service to multiple destinations (including gambling casinos) from New York and on the
West Coast too. And competitors have arisen. Megabus routes exist between Maine and Memphis and Minneapolis, notably including many college towns.
The buses have bathrooms, AC power outlets, and free Wi-Fi. They're not as fast as the much more expensive Acela train, but they tend to run on schedule.

Bus travel used to be decidedly downscale, with a clientele that scared off middle-class travelers.
That's because, back in the days of heavily regulated transportation, bus lines followed the passenger railroad model, with stations in central cities, routes with multiple stops, fares propped up by monopolies, and operators with no economic incentive to provide comfortable or pleasant service.
Chinatown and Megabus operators ditched this model for one that works for travelers for whom money is scarce and time plentiful. Who needs a station? Intercity buses can occupy curb space briefly just as city buses do. Who needs multiple stops? You can make money on people who want to go from one specific location to another.
Needless to say, the cost to the taxpaying public is minimal. City streets and interstate highways already exist, and maintenance gets financing from gas taxes. And the system has enormous flexibility. If fewer passengers want to line up in Chinatown and more on the Upper West Side, the bus can change stops.
Private bus operators have effectively taken a 100-year-old technology, the bus, and adapted it seamlessly to the 21st century.
Compare high-speed rail. It is tethered to enormous stations that must be built or refurbished and limited to particular routes that, once the rails are laid down, cannot be changed except at prohibitive expense.
And it is enormously costly. In just two years the estimated cost of the Obama administration's pet project, California high-speed rail, in the "flatter than Kansas" Central Valley, has risen from $7.1 billion to $13.9 billion. Oxford economist Bent Flyvbjerg has found that high-speed rail projects always end up costing more, usually far more, than estimates.
In addition, operating costs almost always end up higher than fares. And fares always turn out to be expensive, comparable to airfare if you book a popular flight the day before your trip.
So high-speed rail is a form of transportation on which government subsidizes business travelers.
You don't see backpackers any more on the Acela or Amtrak trains from Washington to New York.
They're taking the Chinatown bus or one of its competitors.
Finally, most of the high-speed rail lines the Obama administration is touting are a whole lot slower than France's TGV or Japan's bullet train. You can beat the proposed Minneapolis-Duluth line by going just slightly over the speed limit on I-35. The proposed line from the college town of Iowa City to
Chicago would take longer than the currently operating bus service.
So the private sector provides cheap intercity transportation while government struggles to waste $53 billion. Please remind me which is the wave of the future.

by George F. Will
MADISON, Wis.
The residues of liberalism’s Wisconsin Woodstock — 1960s radicalism redux: operatic lamentations, theatrical demonstrations and electoral futilities — are words of plaintive defiance painted on sidewalks around the state capitol. “Solidarity forever” was perhaps painted by a graduate student forever at the University of Wisconsin. “Repubs steal elections” is an odd accusation from people who, seeking to overturn the 2010 elections, cheered Democratic lawmakers who fled to Illinois — a congenial refuge for labor-subservient Democrats — in order to paralyze the duly elected legislature.
The authors of the sidewalk graffiti have at least read Jefferson: “The tree of liberty is watered by the blood of tyrants.” The tyrant is “$cott Walker American Fa$ci$t.”
Who, on a recent morning, was enjoying the view and the turn of events. From the governor’s mansion on the shore of sparkling Lake Mendota you can see on the far shore the famously liberal university, from which came many of those who protested his “ budget repair” bill
that already seems to have repaired many communities’ budgets, in addition to the state’s.
Ostensibly, the uproar was about Walker’s “assault” — Barack Obama ’s hyperbole — on union rights.
Walker’s legislation does limit the issues subject to collective bargaining and requires teachers and most other public employees to contribute more of the costs of their health and pension plans.
Hitherto, in Wisconsin’s school districts, teachers contributed on average 5 percent or less to their health-care premiums.
Having failed to prevent enactment of the Walker agenda voters had endorsed, unions and their progressive allies tried to recall six Republican senators . If three had been recalled, Democrats would have controlled the Senate, and other governors and state legislators would have been warned not to challenge unions. Fueled by many millions of dollars from national unions and sympathizers, progressives proved, redundantly, the limited utility of money when backing a bankrupt agenda: Only two Republicans were recalled — one was in a heavily Democratic district, the other is a married man playing house with a young girlfriend. Progressives also failed to defeat a Supreme Court justice.
An especially vociferous progressive group calls itself “ We Are Wisconsin .” Evidently not.
During the recall tumult, unions barely mentioned either their supposed grievance about collective bargaining, or their real fears, which concern money, particularly political money. Teachers unions can no longer bargain to require school districts to purchase teachers’ health insurance from the union’s preferred provider, which is especially expensive. This is saving millions of dollars and reducing teacher layoffs. Also, unions must hold annual recertification votes.
And teachers unions may no longer automatically deduct dues from members’ paychecks. After
Colorado in 2001 required public employees unions to have annual votes reauthorizing collection of dues, membership in the Colorado Association of Public Employees declined 70 percent. In 2005,
Indiana stopped collecting dues from unionized public employees; in 2011, there are 90 percent fewer dues-paying members. In Utah, the end of automatic dues deductions for political activities in 2001 caused teachers’ payments to fall 90 percent. After a similar law passed in 1992 in Washington state, the percentage of teachers making such contributions declined from 82 to 11.

Democrats furiously oppose Walker because public employees unions are transmission belts, conveying money to the Democratic Party. Last year, $11.2 million in union dues was withheld from paychecks of Wisconsin’s executive branch employees and $2.6 million from paychecks at the university across the lake. Having spent improvidently on the recall elections, the Wisconsin
Education Association Council, the teachers union, is firing 40 percent of its staff.
Progressives want to recall Walker next year. Republicans hope they try. Wisconsin seems weary of attempts to overturn elections, and surely Obama does not want his allies squandering political money and the public’s patience. Since 1960, no Democrat has been elected president without carrying Wisconsin.
Walker has refuted the left’s sustaining conviction that a leftward-clicking ratchet guarantees that liberalism’s advances are irreversible. Progressives, eager to discern a victory hidden in their recent failures, suggest that a chastened Walker will not risk further conservatism. Actually, however, his agenda includes another clash with teachers unions over accountability and school choice, and combat over tort reform with another cohort parasitic off bad public policies
— trial lawyers.
As the mo onless night of fa$ci$m descends on America’s dairyland, sidewalk graffiti next to the statehousesquare drinking fountain darkly warns: “Free water . . . for now.” There, succinctly, is liberalism’s credo: If everything isn’t “free,” meaning paid for by someone else, nothing will be safe.
By Howie Carr
A nd so farewell, Barack Obama, don’t let the hatch door of Air Force One hit you on the way out of
Massa-tu-setts, as you pronounce it.
The first family came in separate planes, and they
’re leaving, ditto. Hey, it’s only money, our money.
Even before Irene, this wasn’t much of a presidential vacation compared to the earlier ones. An
Obama vacation on the Vineyard has been downgraded from Cat 3 to tropical storm. It’s hard to get excited about the arrival, yet again, of the second coming of Herbert Hoover.

He’s already had at least two visits to the political ATM here this year, not to mention his wife Moochelle’s shakedown cruise a couple of months ago. What do they say? Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and familiarity breeds contempt.
And what was that bunkum from Obama about a “historic” hurricane? Right now it’s only a tropical storm, and he’s trying to conflate it into the Blizzard of ’78. But hey, he and his whole administration, whenever they talk about the economy, they sound like weathermen. Whether it’s the tsunami, or the drought, or the financial crisis ... it’s gotta be somebody else’s fault.
Thursday night, Austan Goolsbee was on Fox trying to blame the cratered economy on the
“earthquakes out of Washington, D.C. I mean, we’ve had a series of things that have put some heavy blows and slowed the economy back down.”
I’m not making this up. The “earthquake” is causing the double dip.
Which reminds me. I felt the tremor in Brighton the other day. And I still have yet to receive my FEMA debit card.
And now Barack Obama is gone, back to Washington. He had no choice, I guess. You can’t be playing golf while voters are getting hammered. And apparently he still believes North Carolina is in play next year — he wants to get down there to commiserate with the good folk of the Tar Heel state.
Meanwhile, as the president packed on the Vineyard, his dear pal the governor put his foot in his mouth big-time. A Ch. 4 reporter asked him about the illegal alien suspected of killing an American in
Milford last weekend. Deval’s lip curled, as if he were back at the State Road restaurant with the rest of the Beautiful People.
He said, haughtily, that the American
— whose name he couldn’t recall — wasn’t killed by an illegal alien, he was killed by a drunken driver. Who wouldn’t have been in the country if he’d been tossed the first time he was arrested for assaulting a cop, but what does Deval care?
Heck of a job, Devie.
If Barack didn’t say it as he was lifting off last night in Air Force One, he should have.