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Biden Choice Shows Obama Doesn't Believe His Own Rhetoric

Posted by Juliana Johnson on Monday, August 25, 2008 1:20:55 PM
Barack Obama learned an important lesson from John Kerry's 2004 Presidential campaign--do not express two contradictory positions in the same sentence. Instead, wait awhile.

Kerry infamously contended in a single statement that he had voted for funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan before he voted against the funding.

Conversely, Obama has smartly spread out his flip-flops. During the primary, Obama asserted that qualification for the Presidency should be measured primarily on the basis of one's judgment not their experience.

During the primary, we were told by Obama that Washington was broken and that Washington insiders were the problem.

During the primary, we were invited to feast on the munificence of Obama's fierce urgency for a new kind of politics marinated in the special sauce of his uplifting rhetoric.

And then on Saturday, it turned out that experience does matter; that being a Washington insider for 35 years is not such a bad thing; and that the trite class envy political rhetoric of the Left should indeed be central to this campaign.

It turned out that those things are also more important than one's personal judgment particularly relative to their public integrity, as Obama's running mate has a troubling tendency of confusing the work and words of others for his own.

Just as we are entering the homestretch of this possibly historic and probably transformational campaign (so we were told), it turns out that Obama is just another craven politician.

Thus, the spectacle of Obama, the great consensus-builder, gleefully presiding over Hacksaw Joe Biden's formulaic pillorying of McCain during what passed for his acceptance speech as Obama's vice presidential nominee on Saturday in Springfield.

"Ladies and gentlemen, your kitchen table is like mine," said Biden. "You talk about how much you are worried about being able to pay the bills. Well, ladies and gentlemen, that's not a worry John McCain has to worry about. It's a pretty hard experience. He'll have to figure out which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at."

Obama and Biden are apparently living paycheck-to-paycheck.

Obama speaks of hope and employs cynicism. Obama speaks of judgment and he abides the lack of it. Obama fancies himself transcendental and yet, other than the telegenic physical packaging, remains mired in the failed conventions of big government liberalism.

So then if Obama doesn't believe his own rhetoric, why should we?
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Obama's Surprise VP Choice?

Posted by Juliana Johnson on Thursday, August 21, 2008 12:46:08 PM
Joe Biden, Tim Kaine, or Evan Bayh?

Oh, you silly country rubes. There is not an audacious name in that bunch.

On Saturday, Barack Obama will return to the initial scene of his crimes against humanity with his vice presidential choice in tow.

That choice?

Does the phrase, "We're putting the band back together," mean anything to you, Chicago?

That's right, Obama's choice will be a friend to lobbyists big and small, the master of economic disaster, a man of few usually unintelligible words, and the man at whose ample teet Obama suckled for his seven vanilla years in the Illinois State Senate--I am of course talking about retiring State Senate President Emil Jones.

The campaign commercials write themselves: Let the Chicago Democrats do for America what they have done to Illinois.

While some may view this as the ultimate patronage hire, that take misses Emil Jones' robust record as an agent of change.

Think of all of the change Illinois has realized during Jones' tenure as Senate President and Governor Rod Blagojevich's BFF.

For example, Illinois has shed 60,000 manufacturing jobs, currently enjoying an unemployment rate 28% higher than the national average.

Not convinced? What if I told you that Illinois is number one in the nation in its unfunded pension liability?

Still not sure Jones is the best choice?

Did I mention that Illinois is 44th in the nation in per capita income growth?

One has to appreciate how difficult it is to rack up numbers like that in a state with the logistical advantages, transportation infrastructure, corporate bases, and post-secondary educational institutions that exist in Illinois.

To achieve these changes, one must have the fortitude to stare down common sense policies and say, "Not on my watch."

Jones has shown this willingness to discard conventional wisdom-and the laws of supply and demand. While other politicians offer up loose talk in support of higher taxes, onerous, job-killing regulations and politically expedient subsidies, Jones has always been a man of action.

So who better than Jones to ride point for Obama's carbon tax and his capital gains tax increase and his income tax hike and…well, you get the idea.

+++++

Proft v. Kurth on WBEZ's "848" talking Veepstakes

I also had the opportunity to square off against a worthy adversary in Democrat (she hates when I say "Democrat" instead of "Democratic") strategist Kitty Kurth, a principal with Kurth Lampe, a strategic communications firm in Chicago on WBEZ-Chicago Public Radio's well-regarded "848" program for a lively discussion about the upcoming vice presidential selections of both Sens. McCain and Obama. Mild-mannered host Richard Steele deftly managed our spirited exchange.

Take a listen.

Click here to listen

--DP
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Illinois School Funding Redux: Lies, Damn Lies, and Al Sharpton

Posted by Juliana Johnson on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 12:25:13 PM
In case anyone thought that we were on the cusp of a thoughtful discussion about education in Illinois, enter Al Sharpton.

Thanks to a confused Chicago press corps that has mistaken him for a "civil rights leader", Sharpton is now enjoying local airplay for piggy-backing onto State Senator James Meeks' Chicago Public Schools (CPS) student boycott scheduled for day one of the school year.

By allowing himself to be cast with Sharpton and other professional liars, Meeks is frittering away his breakthrough opportunity for low income families whose children are unfairly locked into failing schools.

While I disagree with some of Meeks' means and methods, I am tempted to believe he understands the need for system change in CPS and that his advocacy to that end is real.

That is not the case for Sharpton and the other vanguards of ineptitude like CPS Superintendent Arne Duncan.

Duncan, who exercises about as much independence of action from Mayor Richard Daley as does a monkey from its organ grinder, jumps up and down screeching that the problem with the Chicago Public Schools is that Illinois is 49th in the country in school funding.

Duncan's premise is a joke and his reference is misleading.

The state's percentage of the overall dollars spent on education does put Illinois at 49th in the nation. However, when one includes mainly local property taxes, Illinois ranks 18th in the country in total dollars spent on education (source: American Legislative Exchange Council, 2007 Report Card on American Education). Further, in the past 20 years, per pupil expenditures in Illinois have increased 42% in real terms and yet student performance has been virtually static.

There is a reason Duncan and his brethren never quite get around to explaining how school performance would improve if we tinkered with the composition of the individual funding sources that make up the entirety of the dollars spent. It is because school performance would not improve.

Duncan's monkeying around with statistics is a purposeful misdirection play. He wants to argue about system inputs because there is no defense to what the Chicago Public Schools output--namely, children who were not even given an opportunity to acquire the skills they need to find success in our global, digital economy.

Like Duncan, I too can have fun with numbers.

I submit that Illinois ranks last in the nation in political courage. There has not been a serious debate about the needed K-12 reforms in Illinois for decades. Those who suggest system change are greeted either by the chirping of crickets or the disingenuous talking points of obstructionists like Duncan.

The General Assembly is back in session this week. The kids in CPS start school next month. One wonders which group is destined to accomplish the least.
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Rethinking Meeks

Posted by Juliana Johnson on Tuesday, August 05, 2008 2:50:54 PM
I was too tough on Illinois State Senator James Meeks.

Last week, I offered both a commentary and rigorous interview of Rev. Meeks on the WLS airwaves as to Meeks' controversial declaration that he will bus thousands of Chicago Public School (CPS) students up to New Trier High School on Chicago's ritzy North Shore for the first day of school next month to protest state education funding inequities.

While I stand by the substance of what I said, I violated a cardinal rule of politics in making the perfect the enemy of the good.

On The Don & Roma Morning Show last week, in addition to discussing his PR stunt, Meeks also explained that he would be introducing legislation to effectively create statewide school choice whereby students could take state dollars and attend any public school they wish.

Meeks is on the right street but he's at the wrong address. While I have no philosophical aversion to his approach, major surgery on Illinois education is only politically salable at present to the sucking chest wound that is CPS.

Rather than creating regional conflicts that further push off the promise of choice in education, Meeks should use his political capital both in Springfield and among minority families in Chicago to apply pressure on a system whose results are indefensible by any measure.

While Meeks corrected identified the multitude of problems with CPS, Meeks failed to embrace the inescapable conclusion that followed his premise when he suggested that Illinois taxpayers pour $2 billion more into a system he concedes has proven to be incapable of educating our young people.

CPS should not be given more money; it should be subjected to a RICO prosecution.

His internal contradictions notwithstanding, Meeks is doing more than any other legislator, Republican or Democrat, to spotlight the ongoing criminal enterprise that is the Chicago Public School system, robbing young people of their futures, and demand justice.

If Meeks can shed his misdirected allegiance to the CPS bureaucracy, he has the opportunity to be for Chicago what Polly Williams was for Milwaukee nearly two decades ago--a black, inner city legislator with the courage to take on the teachers unions on behalf of low-income families whose children deserve so much more. In other words, Meeks has a chance to be a hero.
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