NJ Voices

You've got opinions, New Jersey

This is a retread from October, 2007. For those watching tonight, keep these facts in mind:

1.Both parties have funded the war in Iraq for five and a half years now.
2. Both candidates support immigration reform (amnesty) even though the vast majority of Americans oppose it.
3. Both parties have spent and borrowed the nation into submission.
4. Both candidates supported the $850 billion dollar bailout.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. -- James Madison The Federalist #51

New Jersey finds itself well short of angels. The incredibly long list of corrupt politicians compiled over the last several years should be proof enough of that. That list should also serve as evidence that our government also falls short on the obligation to control itself.

Ever see the film "Born Yesterday?" It's a classic comedy in which a delightful Judy Holliday plays Billie Dawn, a beautiful airhead with a rare talent for combining corny cliches and mind-boggling non sequiturs in a single sentence, and a ditzy charm that dazzles listeners and leaves them dumbfounded, especially if they thought they'd just asked her a question.

I never had met anyone like Billie Dawn or ever expected to. But I've finally come across one. It's Gov. Sarah Palin, who's got more evasive answers, "darn rights" and "you betchas" than Billie Dawn ever came up with.

Consider this recent statement from Gov. Jon Corzine on the issue of affordable housing:

"If we don't step up to the plate and start fulfilling our requirements at a steady clip, the courts do hold a pretty big hammer."

The governor seems to be invoking the image of a baseball player ducking in the batter's box as the chief justice of the state Supreme Court tries to beat him with his gavel. That's as mixed a metaphor as I've seen, but it accurately describes what's happening in a lot of towns around the state.

A few years ago, term limits were all the rage as populists across the nation attacked governments and the people they had elected to run them. New York City was swept along with the tide, with the public twice supporting the restriction of city officeholders, including the mayor, to two terms.

Now, a popular billionaire mayor, Michael Bloomberg, seems bent on sweeping aside the restrictions through City Council action, and seeking a third term. But the question of whether term limits are a good idea deserves debate, regardless of how one feels about this particular flap in New York City.

No wonder they were keeping Sarah Palin away from the press.

Every time Palin opens her mouth, she reveals herself to be more in tune with liberal Democrats than conservative Republicans.

At that debate the other night, Palin engaged in what conservatives consider a heresy when she insisted that more tax dollars should be poured into the failed public-education monopoly. We later learned that she opposes vouchers, an unacceptable stand for a Republican contender for national office.

And then the other day when she was asked to name Supreme Court decisions she disagrees with, Palin sided with the trial lawyers on the issue of punitive damages in the highly important case concerning the Exxon Valdez.

This case represented a rare victory in the effort by conservatives to put some sort of a cap on out-of-control punitive damage awards. But Palin sided with the liberal judges against the court's conservatives.

So not only does Palin side with the teachers' unions, a key Democratic constituency, on vouchers, but she also sucks up to another key Democratic group, the trial lawyers, on punitive damages. On both issues, she is more in tune with Ralph Nader than with Republicans.

As I noted the other day, Palin is motivated not by a coherent political philosophy so much as by a set of inchoate urges. That led a couple of my friends to ask me what "inchoate" means. It means "Just begun and not yet properly developed" and it is derived from the Latin "incohare" which means "to make a beginning."

Well, the vice-presidency is a bad place to begin. Didn't anyone from the McCain campaign ask Palin her views on key issues before he nominated her? Maybe they did and that's why they're keeping her under wraps.

Moron Perspective Alert: Read the Supreme Court decision before commenting. And please confine the comments to the issues at hand, vouchers, punitive damages and your views on them.

In a 1984 Democratic presidential primary debate, Walter Mondale got a rise out of the audience by asking opponent Gary Hart, "Where's the beef?"

The line was in reaction to Hart's emphasis on the many "new ideas" that he claimed to espouse. The problem with Hart's new ideas was that they weren't new and they weren't ideas. The real ideas were coming from Ronald Reagan that year, and Hart was just trying to move the Democrats toward the right.

Like many Americans these days, my workplace will be undergoing some change, and some people I routinely spend my day with will be moving on.

A co-worker I particularly enjoy was chatting with me about Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter, after his Olympics medal sweep. She was telling me how instantly popular he had become among Jamaicans.

We laughed, and as we parted ways to resume our work, I realized with sadness that, if she were to leave, I'd probably never see her again. We live far apart and travel in different circles, so it is unlikely our paths would cross.