Text of President Obama's speech tonight

Listening to: "Won't Get Fooled Again," The Who

A wag on Facebook declares that Tuesday night's presidential speech regarding the troop buildup in Afghanistan has been leaked. A sampling:

We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny. And only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure.

This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets. Yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason, and the waste of war, the works of peace.

We wish that this were not so. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be as we wish ...

We hope that peace will come swiftly. But that is in the hands of others besides ourselves. And we must be prepared for a long continued conflict. It will require patience as well as bravery, the will to endure as well as the will to resist.

I wish it were possible to convince others with words of what we now find it necessary to say with guns and planes: Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to any challenge. Because we fight for values and we fight for principles, rather than territory or colonies, our patience and our determination are unending.

Once this is clear, then it should also be clear that the only path for reasonable men is the path of peaceful settlement ...

We will do this because our own security is at stake.

But there is more to it than that. For our generation has a dream. It is a very old dream. But we have the power and now we have the opportunity to make that dream come true.

For centuries nations have struggled among each other. But we dream of a world where disputes are settled by law and reason. And we will try to make it so.

For most of history men have hated and killed one another in battle. But we dream of an end to war. And we will try to make it so.

For all existence most men have lived in poverty, threatened by hunger. But we dream of a world where all are fed and charged with hope. And we will help to make it so.

Read the whole thing and weep.

The last president

So his agenda is finally made clear ...

"I am not the first President to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last."

For some time it's been clear this guy is hellbent on steering the U.S. of A. into bankruptcy, and now he says it out loud: He's determined to be the last president of the U.S. of A.

At least now we know what we're dealing with.

Would you buy a car from this guy?

Associated Press said it best:

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a defining moment for American capitalism, President Barack Obama ushered General Motors Corp. into bankruptcy protection Monday and put the government behind the wheel of the company that once symbolized the nation's economic muscle. The fallen giant, the largest U.S. industrial company ever to enter bankruptcy, is shedding some 21,000 jobs and 2,600 dealers. Sparing few communities, the retrenchment amounts to one-third of its U.S. work force and 40 percent of its dealerships.

"A defining moment for American capitalism"? Under what definition of capitalism does the government own 60 percent of one of the largest corporations in the country? Don't worry, I know the answer; it's a rhetorical question.

As Mr. Obama assumed the reins of General Motors and touted the smaller, more environmentally sound cars that the new GM will bring to the people, I couldn't help but recall the grainy film images of another powerful leader who coaxed automakers into producing the People's Car, or as they said in his language, the volkswagen.

Maybe it's because I'm currently plowing through Milton Mayer's brilliant book, They Thought They Were Free. No, I'm not saying Mr. Obama is a 21st century version of Mr. Hitler. Yet.

Kumar invades the White House

At first I was completely baffled by Monday's episode of House, where co-workers discover the body of colleague Lawrence Kutner, who completely out of nowhere had committed suicide. On reflection and reading the real story of actor Kal Penn, from an artistic standpoint it makes great theater to have the curmudgeonly Dr. House, who can figure out anything, have a mystery strike close to his life that makes no sense.

The hard thing to wrap my brain around turns out to be Penn's decision to take a job in the White House as "associate director in the White House office of public liaison." Then I realized it was not such a stretch — after all, as Kumar in Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, he had visited the western White House and smoked dope with George W. Bush. That's him on the left, in case you missed that particular cinematic moment.

In the interview I linked, Penn said he was inspired by his grandparents — "They marched with Gandhi in the Indian independence movement, and that was always in the back of my head." In that case I'm further perplexed. First, because he's going to work for an establishment that is devoted to locking up people like Kumar and throwing away the key. Second, because Gandhi is one of history's most revered philosophers of nonviolence, and Penn is going to work for a man who is in the process of ramping up the war in Afghanistan and reneged on his pledge to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months, instead putting a plan in motion that will leave an occupying force of 35,000-50,000 soldiers after 19 months.

I'm guessing Penn's grandparents are spinning in their graves.

Make something

Something in the human soul makes us creative. We make things, for ourselves and for others. Created things are the basic unit in the massive, unwieldy structure that has been dubbed The Economy.

I remember a comforting detail about the belovedly strange television program The X-Files: At the close of the program, a very young voice proclaiming with pride, "I made this." Little boys and girls have an inherent understanding of the joy of creation, the satisfaction that comes from building or making something.

I remember a chill going through my soul when I heard they were closing the last Zenith plant in the US of A, and no Americans anywhere were to be building television sets anymore. It is a little more than 15 years later now, but it was about then that I started to believe the U.S. economy might reach the precarious stage where it now seems to be perched.

The key to success in the marketplace is to make something other people need or want. I'm all for the things produced by a service economy — I'm a wordsmith by trade, for God's sake — but I have always had an uneasy feeling about moving the facilities to create things far, far away. Steel factory closings, automobile factory closings, television factory closings, shoe factory closings — labels that say Made in China, Korea, India, Sri Lanka, Japan — I'm not declaring patriotic platitudes here; I'm simply asking the question: What is left for my neighbors to make? Where does the steelmaker or the shoemaker get her next meal?

This is not intended to be an appeal to your fears, although these words and phrases are often cobbled together by fear mongers to make you afraid. But I am saddened and troubled by words attributed to Barack Obama from Tuesday night's audience with journalists: "... with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back to life."

"... the only entity left ..."? I suspect many people will not recognize in Obama's words the fulfillment of Mencken's ancient prophecy, the one I have quoted here more than once: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

It is always false that "only" the federal government can lead an alarmed populace to safety. You certainly understand this in your soul, or you wouldn't be attracted to writings like this one. If you want resources to jolt the economy back to life, look at the ends of your arms. Peer into the mirror and consider the resources between your ears.

What we call an economy is the cumulative product of billions of exchanges among folks like you and folks like me. You have created something I want or need, and I have created something you want or need, and we exchange them. It doesn't all begin with the federal government. It begins with your hands and your head.

The president or Congress do not have the power to feed you or clothe you or shelter you. Arguably they can only get in your way. Again, I am not saying this to scare you. I am saying this to empower you.

If you want to jolt the economy, learn how to make something, and make it. The rest will follow.

If it was us

It took about three minutes to find what I was looking for — all I needed was to Google "sentenced income tax evasion."

Here's what I found ... all but one of the names have been removed to protect the guilty. And I barely went halfway down the first page of links. The first page had "Results 1-10 of about 94,300 for 'sentenced income tax evasion."

XXX was sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 36 months, supervised release term of 3 years and ordered to pay restitution of $717,899 to the IRS. In August 2000, a federal grand jury charged XXX with three counts of income tax evasion for the years 1993 through 1995. According to the indictment, XXX attempted to evade paying a total of about $180,000 in taxes.

YYY was sentenced to a year in prison to be followed by one year of supervised release. YYY was also ordered to pay costs of $1,227 and an assessment of $200 ... YYY admitted evading over $183,000 in federal income taxes for tax years 1997, 1998, and 1999.

ZZZ has been found guilty in federal court on four counts of income tax evasion ... He will be sentenced Jan. 21. He faces a maximum five-year sentence and $250,000 fine for each count, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

On October 18, 1931, Capone was convicted after trial, and on November 24, was sentenced to eleven years in Federal prison, fined $50,000 and charged $7,692 for court costs, in addition to $215,000 plus interest due on back taxes.

If it was us, and not Tom Daschle or Timothy Geithner, we'd be going to prison. For the rulers of the U.S. of A., all it takes is an "I'm sorry" and a check. You may not get to be health & human services secretary, but you get to go home tonight — and you may even get to be treasury secretary and give the IRS its marching orders.

"Hope and change," my muscular buttocks. The U.S. government is still run by thugs and criminals. People are angry. Angry enough to change things? We'll have to see.

The John Galt Plan

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The John Galt Plan will reconcile all conflicts. It will protect the property of the rich and give a greater share to the poor. It will cut down the burden of your taxes and provide you with more government benefits. It will lower prices and raise wages. It will give more freedom to the individual and strengthen the bonds of collective obligations. It will combine the efficiency of free enterprise with the generosity of a planned economy.

The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Life imitates art

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. Those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control — and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.

The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good. Patience, faith and unity — that's the recipe for progress.

We must stand united among ourselves and united with the rest of the world, as a great big happy family, all working for the good of all. We have found a leader who will beat the record of our richest and busiest past — it's his love for mankind that has made him come here — to serve you, protect you and take care of you! He has heard your pleas and has answered the call of our common human duty. Every man is his brother's keeper! No man is an island unto himself! And now you will hear his voice, now you will hear his own message! Ladies and gentlemen, John Galt — to the collective family of mankind!

The camera moved to Galt. He remained still for a moment. Then, with so swift and expert a movement that his secretary's hand was unable to match it, he rose to his feet, leaning sidewise, leaving the pointed gun momentarily exposed to the sight of the world — then, standing straight, facing the cameras, looking at all his invisible viewers, he said:

Get the hell out of my way!

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I defy you, without looking it up, to spot the point where I stopped quoting Tuesday's inauguration speech and started quoting from Mr. Thompson in Atlas Shrugged.

We live in interesting times.

Meet the new boss

Still musing about what the man said in Grant Park to the teeming masses. Still wondering why the scene looked so chilling, as if I'd seen something like that before and it was not a pretty sight.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

There it was, the surprise for those who expected a messianic leader who would lift them out of the muck all by his lonesome: He expects something in return. There is a price to pay. Yes, we can require you to serve. Yes, we can require you to sacrifice for the brave new world we promised.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Our new ruler believes not that we are our brother's keeper, because we are; it is inherent in human nature to look after not only ourselves but to help those in need. This is an instinct that needs no government force to fulfill; in fact government efforts to fulfill that role inevitably fall short of the efforts of charity and cheerful giving. But our new ruler does not believe we will be our brother's keeper unless he implements that force in the name of patriotism, in the name of service, in the name of sacrifice.

And if the thousands in Grant Park believed he was someone different from those who came before, he brought his saber to rattle.

To those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you.

Oh yes, he followed those words with these reassuring platitudes:

And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

But let there be no mistake, this is a man who believes, like his predecessors, that the US of A is the world's police force. He believes, like his predecessors, the individual exists to serve and sacrifice for the state.

I know what the scene reminded me of, and I hope and pray it's just a disturbing mistake on my part. For now let's just let the man enjoy his victory, his moment of destiny, his triumph of the will.

The endorsement game

Let me make this clear: Nothing could make me report to a polling place at this stage in U.S. history. The differences between candidates are defined only by the priorities by which they intend to wield the forces of tyranny. Every vote is an endorsement of the state's authority to control individual lives and choices.

But as a practical matter a mainstream newspaper is not going to say that, unless you're in Las Vegas and Vin Suprynowicz is your editorial page chief. So we had to pick between the white-haired dictator wannabe and the black-haired dictator wannabe. It's an interesting intellectual exercise.

I drafted the following to guide my contributions to the discussions; I knew it would be fruitless to submit it as an actual draft endorsement. I did manage to sneak a hint of these thoughts into our final product, although you have to study long and hard to find them. Enjoy. Now I have to go wash my hands; I try and try and try but I can't seem to get them clean ...
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Newspapers across the country have begun endorsing Barack Obama for president, many using poetic words about a time of great challenge, a dramatic speaker, a change of direction. We have no poetry to offer, but we present our conclusion that Obama is the better choice for America at what could be a turning point in this nation's history.

Obama is the better choice for no greater reason than the last eight years. George W. Bush campaigned eight years ago as something better than the previous eight years, a time when America's military had been used as a vast police force, invading Somalia and Kosovo, bombing Iraq and Sudan and Afghanistan. Like his father before him, Bush promised a kinder, gentler approach, a more modest foreign policy — "I don't believe in nation building," he stated flatly during one debate with Vice President Al Gore.

Sept. 11, 2001, changed everything. For a time it created a more united country, ready to chase Osama bin Laden and his followers to the ends of the earth to bring justice to those who killed innocent men, women and children on American soil. But the venture went terribly wrong.

The man who campaigned on a limited-government platform created a massive new federal department, the Department of Homeland Security, with authority to probe into Americans' private lives in the name of fighting terrorism. And that was the tip of a horrifying spending iceberg. The balanced budget forged by a Democratic president and Republican Congress was converted into a bloated deficit of unprecedented proportions. The national debt spiraled out of control — and when reckless policies led the nation to the brink of economic collapse this year, Bush's solution was more government, more borrowing and spending, a national debt of more than $11 trillion.

The nation that once stood as a beacon of freedom and human rights was infested with legalistic wordsmiths who justified nothing less than torture as a means of advancing our cause. The nation that eschewed the concept of a first strike when the Cold War was at its height now embraced the idea of pre-emptive war, invading a nation that "someday may" attack our shores even though it posed no imminent threat.

These are not the principles that the party of Lincoln, Taft, Eisenhower and Reagan stood for. The Republican Party has lost its way and needs to rethink its purpose and its values. That necessary soul-searching will be impossible if the party's standard bearer is allowed to enter the White House.

Barack Obama's political philosophy is far to the left of mainstream America, but no less a conservative authority than the Chicago Tribune has said that it knows this man and expects he will govern as a centrist. That's good enough for us. Washington, D.C., needs to be swept clean of the principles that have guided the administrations of the past 16 years.

Hail Obama Youth

Thanks, Wally, for posting this scary little piece:


And thanks to denizens of YouTube for posting a piece that may have inspired it:


Or two:


This one may be my favorite:

The missing name and, again, the missing word

In a couple of nights of speechifying last week, Barack Obama and Joe Biden did everything they could to tie John McCain to Emperor Bush. In a couple of nights of speechifying this week, McCain and Sarah Palin said the word "Bush" just once. And when it came up, it wasn't tied to "George W."

"I'm grateful to the president for leading us in those dark days following the worst attack on American soil in our history, and keeping us safe from another attack many thought was inevitable," is what McCain said Thursday night, adding: "and to the first lady, Laura Bush, a model of grace and kindness in public and in private." The Elephant Branch of The Party was not going to use the incumbent emperor's full name.

Clearly, the major players in the race for emperor sense that people who live in the US of A have had enough of the old regime. "Change" is the major theme of the day. Exactly what will they change? They'll put a new face in the Oval Office. They'll rearrange a deck chair or two.

But as with the Donkey Branch speakers a week ago, once again the proposed leaders of these independent states did not use the words freedom or liberty in their remarks. Peruse the texts and you will find neither McCain or Palin said "freedom," and you'll find McCain mouthed the word "liberty" only in the context of protecting and advancing the empire: "Today, the prospect of a better world remains within our reach. But we must see the threats to peace and liberty in our time clearly and face them, as Americans before us did, with confidence, wisdom and resolve."

And as he closed, he urged his supporters to "fight for the ideals and character of a free people." A free people, not free men and women. A collective, not individuals.

Freedom and liberty have become catchphrases, echoes from another era that are rolled out because they still resonate deep in our souls. After this ritual that the Donkeys and Elephants are performing now, the victors will retire to their chambers to pass more laws and new restrictions of our liberty.

I am grateful that I am allowed (for now) to write these things, to use the word emperor to describe the position that is often described as "leader of the free world," or to point out that The Party is a single monster with two heads, without being arrested or imprisoned as government critics in many places have been.

This freedom isn't free, however, because freedom has a cost: It is mine only as long as I consent to the seizure of one-third to one-half of my earnings to maintain the empire. And the rules may be changed at any time.

I do not delude myself by imagining that replacing Augustus Caesar with Tiberius will make any substantive difference. The central struggle of our day is not between the Donkeys and the Elephants; it is between the State and the Individual. I have no need to beat the State; I just want to be left alone. That's not likely to happen.

The missing words in Obama's speech

In his speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination for emperor Thursday night, Barack Obama used the word "freedom" twice, if the text I found online is accurate.

The first came as he spoke of "America's promise" —

It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect.

Notice the structure: The promise says we are free, but. Each of the next several paragraphs gives an example of a freedom that exists but has limits established by a powerful central government. Most telling is his list of things he does not believe Americans can do for themselves:

Ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves - protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools and new roads and new science and technology.

We need the government to protect ourselves from harm, educate our children, invest in new science and technology? I believe a strong argument can be made that government intrusion hinders, not helps, each and every one of the things on this list.

The second and final time he mentions "freedom" came in the context of restoring a positive image of the American Empire as it pursues its vision of the world.

I will end this war in Iraq responsibly, and finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. I will rebuild our military to meet future conflicts. But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. I will build new partnerships to defeat the threats of the 21st century: terrorism and nuclear proliferation; poverty and genocide; climate change and disease. And I will restore our moral standing, so that America is once again that last, best hope for all who are called to the cause of freedom, who long for lives of peace, and who yearn for a better future.

A search of the text for the word "liberty" came up empty. In the 21st century, these are concepts that are subordinated to concepts like security and our obligation to the state and to the collective.

While packaging himself as something new, Obama like most every politician before him believes the force of the state can be utilized as an agent of positive change. But change effected by force can only be described as oppression.

Obama gives a good speech that feels inspiring, until you start to think about the words. Words do mean something, and sometimes much can be learned by thinking about what words are missing.

Cheney II

Sen. Joe Biden's reaction to the USAPATRIOT Act was that President Bush and Congress stole his idea.

Biden was pushing intrusive bills with comfortable-sounding names like the Comprehensive Counter-Terrorism Act as early as 1993, and his recollection of the 2001 introduction of USAPATRIOT was that "the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill."

CNET does a nice job of chronicling Joe Biden's lifelong quest to crush privacy and other civil liberties in this article. Thanks, Kirsten, for the link.

I guess it's fashionable for 21st century politicians to represent themselves as agents of change and then select as their vice president an elderly career politician who routinely defiles freedom in the name of security. We all know what Benjamin Franklin is reputed to have said about freedom and security.

Again, in the immortal words of Peter Townshend, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Meet the old boss, same as the new boss

Mr. Obama has picked eternal candidate Joe Biden as his assistant emperor, fulfilling yet another cliché by "balancing the ticket."

With an "agent for change" leading the charge, apparently balance requires that the veep be a dinosaur.

No matter which ticket wins, the result of the November election will be a greater consolidation of state power against human rights. Don't know why I bother to follow this stuff, because as Mal Reynolds famously said, I just want to go my way. How 'bout dem Jets?

Doing the math in Barack Obama ad

One of the candidates for emperor has started running an ad that says his opponent would increase tax breaks for big corporations, especially big oil companies and companies that export their jobs, "while 100 million Americans get no tax relief at all." But lo! The ad's candidate would provide three times as much tax relief as the other guy.

Let's see, three times nothing is ...? I agree that there's not a dime's worth of difference between these two Big Brother wannabes, but this level of honesty is unusual.

Now this is fun

Now we need a version for Senator McCain. Anyone know of one?

Make one yourself. Thanks Brad via Wally.

An election party where nobody came

Well, it's been a quiet week in Freedomville, my hometown ... I sense a disturbance in the Force, or something. It's an uneasiness in a soul that has chosen not to participate in the charade we call a "presidential election." Or the anxiety, if that's the right word, is something other than that.

The discomfort must be something more than resigning myself to the fact that the two branches of the Party have presented the US of A with finalists in the presidential reality show who each proposes to be the dictator of our lives, improving only the efficiency of a safety net woven from chains that purports to protect us from cradle to grave while regulating, licensing or prohibiting nearly every known individual choice or course of action. Maybe it's something as easy as realizing that everyone who was voted off the island was also anxious to be our dictator.

But this is nothing new. Perhaps it's that this is my first "presidential election" since my disillusionment in this process became complete. I have reported to a polling place and voted for the Libertarian Party candidate for four of the last five of these exercises, which gave me some sense of empowerment. I never bought into the "if you vote for a third party, you've wasted your vote" nonsense. If you vote for someone who doesn't share your values or views in any meaningful sense of the words, THEN you've wasted your vote, I have always said. It's not about winning, it's about representation, and if the numbers show your viewpoints aren't representative, your views will be ignored. Or so I believed.

Now it seems clear that my views will be ignored anyway. And so I will join the majority that votes "None of the Above," who is not on the ballot. I have seen unopposed candidates fret because they received only 94 percent of the vote, wondering how they could have disillusioned as many as 6 percent. So I know the fewer people vote, the more it will get the attention of our rulers. The fewer people vote, the more it will trouble good men and women.

The dilemma is it's also true that the fewer people vote, the easier it is for a devious minority to maintain control, because all you need is 50.1 percent of a small minority to win the election. That's a motivation for voting for the "lesser of two evils." But the better choice between two evils is still evil. The only sane choice is neither, not one or the other.

I know and understand all of this, so why do I sense a disturbance in my heart? I wonder if it's something as basic as finally understanding to the core that the extent to which I am free has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with the chains so many freely choose. The extent to which I am free is up to me. The extent to which I have not been free was my responsibility. Freedom is not something granted by rulers; it's an "unalienable right" that I have given away.

How do I get back my freedom? First I understand that I never lost control of it, I merely chose not to be free. How do I get back my freedom? I take it back, gently but firmly. One small step is to note that neither Barack Obama nor John McCain represents me in any way, shape or form. Freedom is not about having the right ruler. Oh, wait, yes it is. Freedom is understanding that I am the boss of me.

How far we've come

This story is a little example of why it's hard to hold out hope for that republic Ben Franklin mentioned.

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — Democrat Barack Obama on Monday promised Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans help with their grievances — save one. "I know it drives you nuts. But I'm not going to lower the drinking age," the presidential candidate said.

Army veteran Ernest Johnson, 23, of Connecticut, said one of the things that peeved him before he turned 21 was that he couldn't come home and drink a beer — even though he was old enough to serve in the armed services and die for his country.

Obama told Johnson he sympathized, but that setting the legal drinking age at 21 had helped reduce drunken driving incidents and should remain.

Look at the assumptions behind that simple little exchange:

1. The government should have the power to dictate at what age a person may drink an alcoholic beverage.

2. This power is properly exercised at the federal level.

3. The president has the authority to raise or lower the drinking age on his own ("I'm" not going to lower the drinking age).

4. Because some people irresponsibly operate motor vehicles after drinking to excess, the government must regulate all drinking of alcoholic beverages.

No doubt there are several deeper assumptions that I'm missing.

The question to Franklin was, "Well, doctor, what have we got — a republic or a monarchy?" Implicit in the way Obama answered the question is that he believes he's running for king — and nothing in the past several decades of American experience gives him pause to believe he's wrong.

I don't relay this to make you afraid of a President Obama — the trouble with the U.S. government is more intrinsic than the identity of the elected dictator. I'm just pointing out how hard-wired the situation is. The presidential candidacy of Ron Paul failed to gain much traction in part because the concepts he voiced are so foreign to the average American's ears — not to mention so threatening to the status quo.

House upholds Bush veto of anti-torture bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress on Tuesday upheld his veto of a bill to ban the CIA from subjecting enemy detainees to interrogation methods denounced by critics as torture.

A largely party-line vote of 225-188 in the Democratic-led House of Representatives fell short of the needed two-thirds majority to override the president.

Bush maintains that the United States does not torture, but has refused to discuss interrogation techniques, saying that doing so could tip off terrorists ...

The bill vetoed by Bush was a sweeping intelligence authorization measure. A key provision would have required the CIA to comply with the rules set by the Army Field Manual in questioning detainees.

The rules forbid eight interrogation methods, including waterboarding, electric shock, beatings and mock executions. They permit 19 techniques, mainly psychological, such as trying to convince detainees that cooperation will shorten the war and save their country ...

Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was tortured while a prisoner in the Vietnam war and is now his party's presumptive presidential nominee, opposed the bill.

"I think that waterboarding is torture and illegal, but I will not restrict the CIA to only the Army Field Manual," McCain said last month.

Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, competing for the Democratic presidential nomination, both backed the bill and denounced Bush's veto.

I do have this vague recollection of a country that held itself to a higher standard and wouldn't do things like first-strike nuclear weapon use or torture of its enemies. "We're better than that," its leaders would say. I must have dreamed all that or read about it in a novel.

I excerpted liberally, but the whole article's here.