Let’s not bail out the auto industry, too, writes Rich Lowry of National Review. Giants like GM and Ford have long mismanaged their empires, and the argument that the country can’t afford to lose 100,000 jobs casts Detroit automakers as job and welfare programs, he writes. Bailing them out would put us on track for a new wave of protectionism from free-market competition. And President-elect Obama has signaled he may be willing to do it.
On economic policy, Barack Obama’s not really about change. So holds Jonathan Weil at Bloomberg. The president-elect chose 17 people last week for his transition economic advisory board, and many of them ought not to be guiding his decisions on financial matters because they’ve got shady pasts of their own. One of them, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, was chairman of Citigroup’s executive committee when the bank “helped Enron Corp. cook its books.” There’s more.
Should the courts defer to the popular vote on Prop 8? Jeffrey Rosen and Richard Just, respectively the legal affairs editor and managing editor at The New Republic, have an on-going debate on the issue. The first two parts are here and here. In the third part, Rosen argues that when the Supreme Court’s constitutional authority over an issue is uncertain, as he says they are in the case of abortion and gay marriage, then it should defer to the people and to the Legislature. It’s a high-minded debate.
A black man is president; America no longer needs racial quotas, writes Ken Blackwell in National Review. Racial preference programs harm minorities, anyway, he writes. For example, a 20-percent minimum requirement for minority attendance at a school quickly becomes a 20-percent maximum in practice. Barack Obama has championed change and put forward a vision of a post-racial America, and that’s something everyone should celebrate.
What-next fest continues. David Brooks at the New York Times sees two camps in the struggle for philosophical control over the Republican Party: the Traditionalists, who want to cut taxes, cut big government, and restrict immigration; and the Reformers, who want to address inequality and middle-class economic worries and who tend to see global warming as a more serious issue. His prediction? The Traditionalists will win the near-term battle, but the outcome of the war is uncertain. Over at National Review, Deroy Murdock’s mantra: “What would Reagan do?”
What about Sarah Palin? She appeared in an interview with Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren yesterday, covering everything from the clothes fiasco to why she feels the McCain-Palin ticket lost. Part one is below. Part two is here.
