A Bithead’s Christmas, 2009

Editor’s note: Originally posted on Christmas Eve, 2004.

This is a time of year when I don’t envy the position of members of the cloth.

Such men and women find themselves in the position of having to write a sermon on essentially the same message every year while making that message sound fresh. It’s not an easy thing to do. That’s why, for the last couple of years at Christmastime, I have simply re-posted “A Bithead’s Christmas”. It’s not laziness that drives that but an inability to come up with a fresh angle every year ; when I have an idea firmly in my mind I can explore and goals of that idea until I’m blue in the face and red in the fingers, and my keyboard is suffering under the strain. But often, the fresh ideas simply don’t come.

There’s this too. I have gotten more e-mail in the past six weeks requesting that article be reposted, than any of the many thousand other articles I’ve ever placed on this web site. It’s obvious that what I wrote in that article struck some serious chords, in the readership of this website, and on the web at large, since the vast majority of people reading the article are apparently coming in from Google, looking specifically for it. I am amazed.

Perhaps it’s better that way.

Sometimes the expression of an idea comes out perfectly, and explains it well, no matter how many times it’s repeated. The Christmas story, the Christmas promise, is most certainly one of these. It is precisely as I said last week in this space; Christmas, and thereby, Christianity itself, has been going on for a little over 2000 years, in spite of all the naysayers, protesters and government regulations that history has managed to toss up in those 2000- plus years. It does so, because at the core of it all, is a message that all the naysayers, Protesters and government hacks will never understand, much less conquer. It is a message that will survive the ravages of time, government, and liberals, facists, and anything else long after you and I are no longer even a memory in this world.

The Christmas message, you see, is eternal, and ever green.
(Evergreen.  I am suddenly struck with the symbolism here)

There is something of a journalistic precedent for this as well. . I do not pretend to hold myself quite so high in the world has these media outlets, but I’d like for you to consider two examples from some well-regarded media outlets; Papers from around the country this day will be Printing “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus”. A Wall Street Journal has for years posted the same editorial every Thanksgiving for the last 47 years, and if I’m not mistaken they perform similarly on New Year’s Day as well.

So with all this in mind I will offer once again this year:

A Bithead’s Christmas

I find myself wanting to take more seriously, the challenge of writing to the subject of Christmas, today, than I have in years past. It’s not clear in my mind as to why, but this isn’t unusual… I never really do have a firm grip on why I want to attack a subject in these spaces. In fact, the writing of a coulmn for me has becomes more an effort of exploring a subject; the codification of random thoughts. The act of putting those thoughts into words on a screen allows me to think about, and RE-think about the subject at hand. My thoughts on a given subject often do not fully take shape until such time as I’ve re-written them twice. Often, indeed… usually, the ideas are already there, waiting to be cast into words, but not fully defined until the act of sitting down and typing them out. I suppose this subject is no exception.

To this effort, some blogs, this time of year will quote the great Gospels of Christ’s arrival, and expound on that. And that’s worthy, and right. Some others will take the secular angle of the holiday and go off on that. That too, is fine, though frankly it’s always for me missed the core of the topic, a little.

But not me, for either of those tacks. Not this year. I’m going to go off the beaten path, for this post, at least in context of this blog, given it’s Christmas, and off the beaten path in terms of the Liturgical calendar, given it’s me. I’m going to stick with the meaning of Christmas, but to point it up, I’m going to turn to something a little later… about 30 years later… for my subject. I trust you’ll see why when I’m done.

This story is in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We’ll use Luke’s version for the purpose.

In Luke 18 it reads:

15 Now they were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they rebuked them. 16 But Jesus called them to him, saying, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of God. 17 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

Now, all three versions add a little something to the story, and I suggest you read them yourself to get it all. Most times that Christians hear this text or read it, a child is being baptized. The apparently intended thrust of reading it in those situations is to make a loose connection with the Children being accepted by Christ. And, that’s a valid angle for the story.

But, think about the story line, here, so you can get the flavor of what I’m going to describe to you. There’s a far bigger angle that many miss.

Christ has been playing “superstar” for a while, now. He’s been attracting flat out huge crowds wherever he goes. The disciples are starting to become concerned for the (human) well being of Christ. Children are, then as now, a source of some stress to adults already under stress, so the disciples decide, wordlessly to give the Lord a break. But Jesus says.. “Hey… No.. Let ’em come… It’s OK. ” Apparently, seeing some remaining resistance in their eyes, he reinforces the command with a statement that must have shaken them badly. “It’s to the likes of these as belongs the Kingdom of God.”

Now, It’s not hard for us to imagine what’s going on in the minds of the disciples…. They must have felt a little put back… While not saying so, they must have figured they had an inside track to Heaven. (Shrug) It’s human nature.

The passages don’t record if they said anything, but you just know what they’re thinking, here… “Comon, Jesus… We’re tryin’ to give you a break here! And you elevate these lowest of low, mere children, into the ownership of heaven? You raise a polite nothing to a path to heaven and eternity? What’s THAT about?”

And you know, Jesus knows it too. He knows full well what they’re thinking, because watch what he comes back with: “I’ll tell you the truth;”, he says, “Unless you change… Unless you transform, and accept the kingdom of heaven like a child, you’ll never enter it.”

But what does he mean, here? He’s talking, I’m afraid, about how you lose touch with happiness and the sense of wonder, as you become an adult. That loss prevents us from seeing the Kingdom of heaven as it is.

For most of us, the happiest times of our lives was when we were children. When we’re younger, we have less in the way of cares, and troubles. Let’s admit, too, that as we get older, we become aware of, and allow more and more sadness into our lives.

It’s true; It’s a hard world out there, and being adults we’ve come to understand this, in a way of understanding that only long exposure and experience… and lots of scar tissue, can bring.

It seems that every year we have more worries and concerns.

Oh, yeah, do we EVER worry. We worry about our health, and those concerns increase with advancing age. We worry about our jobs, about our investments, our savings, about the future in general. Retirement is a concern. Will we have enough? We’re too fat, we’re too skinny. We’re too tall, we’re too short, our once wavy hair is still waving… Only, it’s waving bye-bye. We worry about the future our kids will have and the normal growing up problems, but we also worry about the future that we’ve left our kids. We look at the news, and we wonder what kind of a world have we left them? We even worry if we worry too much.

We’ve seen marriages and relationships we thought would pass the test of time, pass away, instead. Things we had hoped would come to pass, didn’t, and those we’d not dreamed, in our wildest nightmares would happen, did. We see loved ones die. Jobs disappear. Hearts get broken.

And friends, those are just the hum-drum… The everyday worries that every generation has had, since Cain bopped his brother’s bean with a rock. Then you get into the problems particular to us and our times; AIDS, oil shortages, cancer, drugs, the way our own technology seems to be spiraling out of our control…And Islamofacists. Ah, yes, there’s nothing at all, to my mind, like the specter of 3000 plus people dying on national television, in Washington, NY and Pennsyvania… while we watch, to remind us that we’re not in control.

And yes…. it’s all about control, if you think on it for long. All these things I’ve listed are worries about things we cannot control, try as we might.

The list of these reverses, these scars, gets longer as the years progress, and it starts eventually, to break down the positive outlook in every one of us… Each according to their ability to resist. Each step, each worry, each bit of emotional scar tissue, if you will, moves us farther away from the relative joy of our comparatively carefree childhood.

By now the sharper among you will notice where I’m going with this; This is where Christmas comes in. This is why Christmas holds a special place in our hearts, and our traditions.

You see, even for the not-so-religious, it is a time of renewal of our fragile human spirit. All of the hurts, small and large, become less pronounced, and fade under the soft glow of the lights, the candles, the fireplace, and the smile of the children.

Have you ever noticed that it’s the children, in fact, that do us the most healing? Christmas, it’s said, is for the children. Presidential speechwriter and WSJ columnist Peggy Noonan noted recently about some of the qualities of children:

“They are susceptible to wonder. A child can look at a red toy car in the red-green glow of Christmas tree lights and imagine an entire lifetime. A child can play with a new doll and smell good things being cooked and hear sweet music and it can make that child imagine that life is good, which gives her a template for good, a category for good; it helps her know good exists. This knowledge comes in handy in life; those who do not receive it, one way or another, are sadder than those who do.”

Of course, we move away from that ability as we grow older. Our long experience has hardened us to the realities of the world around us, and perhaps jaded our point of view. But here comes Christmas, which gives us, individually and collectively, the chance of looking at the world though the wonder-filled eyes of a child once again… Becoming childlike ourselves in the process, and becoming healed and renewed.

The experience is a far deeper one for those who have accepted the Christmas promise, and it’s meaning. Reacting to that promise includes allowing someone else to run the controls of our lives. Remember I said it was all about control? Well, I want you to think about the features of being a child. It was Randall Jarrell, I tihnk, who once quipped:

“One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.”

Well, let’s remember.
You’re NOT in control of much of anything. Someone who knows better, and is by far more powerful than we, is running things. And looking back, I’m sure most of us would conclude that having that situation back would be of comfort to us. Haven’t we all wished to resign from the world of adulthood at times?

I guess this would be a good place to slip in a parallel story. Consider the fictional person of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Think about how the story develops; He’s had some serious emotional setbacks in early life… and those have become a self-feeding, never ending circle by the time we meet him, 7 years after his best friend’s death.

All these setbacks have made him cold, and hard, and for all outward appearances, non-feeling. He’s covered with emotional scar tissue. Being hard, is his way of dealing with what he cannot control.

Only after his overnight experience do all these cares get swept away, along with his anger of not being able to control his situation…. The realization comes to him that he never really WAS in control in the first place, so stop fretting about it all… Think about what are essentially the first words out of his mouth as he realizes that the weight of his worries.. Not unlike worries you and I have had, are gone; “I’m as light as a feather….” The weight of that scar tissue… And all the concerns they represent having been lifted off his shoulders…

“…and as giddy as a Schoolboy!”

Like a child.

“I’ll tell you the truth”, he said, “Unless you change.. Unless you transform, and accept the kingdom of heaven like a child, you’ll never enter it.”

Amazing parallels, aren’t they? I’m reliably informed that Charles Dickens was not as a rule what one would call very religious. Yet, in looking at the parallels in these two story lines, I must wonder in all honesty if he didn’t have some help with “A Christmas Carol”.

Now, you’ll notice I took some liberty with the way the Biblical text was quoted. Some liberty, I say, but not very much, really, since it’s long been pointed out by Bible scholars that the word that earlier versions of the text had as ‘change’ were really translated from the ancient Greek word for “transform”. This is a major point, because it demonstrates what the first step is, and whose it is… yours.

And no, change and transformation are not the same thing. The best description I’ve ever thought of to explain the difference between the two, runs along these lines:

If I take a rock, and in the other hand I take a large hammer, and I hot the rock with the hammer, and break it, I’ve changed that rock.

If I take that same rock, and take a small hammer and chisel, and very carefully, perhaps over a period of decades, sculpt that rock into a flower, I’ve still merely changed that rock.

Transformation, on the other hand, is when the rock itself, as a matter of responding to it’s own will, becomes a flower. And of course that’s beyond the normal power of the rock, by any standard we know. What Christ therefore is saying is, that we must become children, as of a matter of our own will. Which is, as I say, impossible by any standard we know…. Which in turn leads us to the source of all things, who teaches us how, and gives us the power to do it.

You see, the externalities I mentioned, the lights, the fire, the children…and that which Dickens writes of… the giving, the being open to what joys are around us, and so on, helps toward the goal of understanding the Christmas promise, but it’s not the whole deal.

At the core of it all… (and this is a connection that, alas, many people never make…) is that the one whose birth is being celebrated every December the 25th, is the one who takes over that long list of worries.

THAT’S WHY WE CELEBRATE!!

With those worries removed, lives get changed, hearts mended, child-like perspectives restored in a way that the lights, carols and greenery can never do on their own. And the newly remade Children find that the authority and responsibility and all the ponderous weight connected with them, are taken away by the one who said “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”.

Now, I must warn you; There are those who will resist being told all of this… to the point of removing such joy as they find, wherever they may find it, often using the power of governments, and force of arms to have it removed from town squares and schools, mocking, persecuting and yes, even killing those responsible for the spreading of the news of this miracle. It’s a sad truth, that a world used to darkness, you see, will continually fight to see the darkness continued.

That warning given, however, I will say to you also, that it’s no accident, Christmas being called the season of light, and that Christ is called the light of the world.

If I have one wish for this Christmas, it is that you will be open to the light…. With the wondering eyes of a child.

“The top regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is expected to announce millions of dollars in pay packages for top executives at the government-run mortgage-finance titans, people familiar with the matter said.

“The Federal Housing Finance Agency approved compensation plans for Fannie Chief Executive Michael Williams and Freddie CEO Charles Haldeman Jr. Those packages are expected to be in a range of $4 million to $6 million, people familiar with the matter said. The companies are expected to spell out pay details for their top executives in securities filings Thursday morning.

“The Christmas Eve announcement is likely to provoke a fresh round of controversy concerning the federal government’s role in propping up the two companies. Taxpayers have pumped more than $100 billion of capital into both firms to keep them from collapsing amid huge losses stemming from falling home prices and mortgage defaults.”  Read more at Wall Street Journal

There is no moral imperative driving this message, tonight — no calls for a life of self sacrifice, no direct calls for intensive reflection this night, not even a real punch line of the story.  I will let you decide if these thoughts call for that.

Tonight, I’m thinking back…. decades gone by, in fact.

Indeed, I’m going to relate to a tale of a Christmas Eve more years ago than I care to tell you. I could not been much more than 12 or 14 years old.

For some reason, and I don’t fully recall why, we happened to be at my maternal grandmother’s farmhouse.  We weren’t there for long — perhaps 20 minutes or so. I think she must have come with us to Christmas services that night, and apparently, my father was performing transportation duty.

You see, my grandmother sometime in the late fifties had bought a farmhouse about 60 miles out of town, and perhaps five miles off the nearest paved road.  She was one who loved nature in all its forms.  For a lot of years, she had two houses.  She had one in the city, in a neighborhood which had never been all that good, in my memory.  She lived in town during the week, because she worked at a manufacturing plant just around the corner.  On the weekends, though, she jumped into that battered 1952 Chevy she had,  and came down to this somewhat beat up and certainly ancient farmhouse.  The place had to be over 100 years old when she got it — closer to 200 years old, now.  It was far enough off the beaten path that at the time, it was a long distance call to contact the fire department, or the police.  Grandma tended to come down here on holidays too, in fact every chance she had, really.  I can see her, in my mind’s eye, sitting on the porch in the summertime, bird book in one hand and a really good set of binos in the other.

Not for this night, though. Far too cold for birds, and besides, the porch swing was covered with snow.

We got to the farmhouse, and everyone but myself went inside.  I knew we’d be leaving shortly, so I saw no need for going in. Anyway, the darkness and the cold night was somehow calling to me.  As I say, it was a cold clear night…. nearly zero in fact. Cold and clear.  The kind of night where the stars far outshone any Christmas ornaments that might have been in someone’s outdoor display, looking like, as Charlie Daniels once said, diamonds on black velvet stretching from horizon to horizon.

Being the young boy I was at the time, I suspect that between being dressed up for Christmas services, sitting through those services, and another hour in the car getting there, I hadn’t had any chance to blow off steam in several hours.  My mother expressed mild reservations about the welfare of my good clothes particularly my shoes, and then let it pass when she noted I had my boots on, and went about attending what she’d come down to do.

So, off I walked into the cold night for a brief respite from being around people all evening.  I suppose there was a certain level of boyish excitement over Christmas, and the gifts that would certainly come in the morning.  These quickened my steps somewhat as I plodded through the snow.  The cold did too.  For some reason I always find myself walking just a shade faster when it’s cold outside.

Suddenly, I found myself about a half a mile away from the farmhouse.  In my speed and being centered on my own thoughts,  I’d covered rather more ground than I had intended.  I stopped to turn around and look at the farmhouse. I remember the sight of the house lights through the windows, and the porch light over the distance covered.  It looked warm and inviting. But something wanted me to stay for a moment.

I remember that it was a moonlit night that night, and that the farmhouse, which was painted white, gave off a rather surreal blue-tinted glow as it reflected the moonlight. It was at that point that I noticed that the snow that had fallen for the last few days, which was fairly well unspoiled this far away from the city, also had the same glow. The entire valley, in fact, was bathed in moonlight and shadows. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the place look so beautiful before, or, for that matter, since. I had always thought of farm fields in winter as being bereft of life, and for that matter, of joy. Not so, tonight. Instead, I found to my surprise that there was a beauty here.  Beauty, despite the isolation, or was it because of it?

And I paused. It was hard not to.

Have you ever sat back or stood alone and simply listened to the quiet?  Particularly, at night.  Your senses, used to being flooded with sounds and sights, become starved for input; you start paying closer attention to what little sound and sight there is… you become more attuned, more aware. And somehow, more alive.

I listened to the little bit of wind that was coming down the valley, and chilling the tips of my ears, and of my fingers.  I often did that, here… simply focused on available noise…. But not often, in winter and seldom at night.  Normally, during the day in the summer months in this valley you can hear all sorts of animals and insects and birds. All that being what  my grandmother to found attractive in the first place.  Usually, you can also hear jet planes going overhead, back in that day, turboprops. This was, after all, the mid- sixties.  Not tonight for that, but there was a train, I recall. The Erie Railroad put up a mainline in 1852, through here and still owned it at the time a little over 100 years later….  perhaps six miles to the north of the house.  It belongs to Norfolk Southern these days. On most summer nights if the crickets were quiet enough you could hear the horn.  Often, you could hear the diesel engines.  Tonight, it was so quiet, you could hear every wheel on that train.  You could count every axle as it bounced over the switch just to the west of the little town.  You could hear every knuckle’s squeak it strained against the others going over uneven spaces of track. I stood frozen still in the cold, breath rising in steam about my head, listening; amazed I could hear so much detail from such great distance, even being carried on the cold north wind that night.

Once the train passed, and faded out of hearing, I could hear voices.  Now, understand… The nearest house, other than the farmhouse, was three miles or so away, and in the middle of that deep valley, the echoes were rather pronounced and confusing.  I had no idea where they were coming from, or what they were saying, even, but it didn’t really matter, in truth.  I could hear, though, they certainly sounded happy. And yes, you could hear, just by listening, the happiness…. no…. the JOY...in their voices. It was that quiet. Remarkable!

I don’t fully understand why I found this experience such a moving one.  Maybe it was the combination of the cold and the blackness of the night sky (aside from the moon and stars of course) that made me feel particularly lonely.

Well, maybe lonely isn’t exactly the right word.  Because I swear to you I almost felt that I could hear the voice of God himself speaking to me, in that place.

Just as I started entertaining that odd thought, midnight came, and with it, the sound of bells.  To the south, a single joyous chime over and over and over again.  To the north and a bit to the east, a Clarion that previously I didn’t even know existed, started to play “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”.  And I sang along, softly. Reverently. The situation seemed to call for some degree of reverence. There was a kind of awe in all of this, the degree of which I’ve never felt in any church I’ve ever been in, and I’ve been in many, in the years since that night.

Winter Moon, watercolor, Chris Tessnear courtesy Blisstree.com

After a time, the cold started to seep in, and so, I turned around and started back to the house. I observed my shadow in the snow as I walked along, placed there by the moonlight behind me, and the sound of the snow as it cracked and crunched beneath my feet.  It was easy enough to imagine that if it turned around, a host of angels would be there, ready to burst into song.  The moon was certainly bright enough that night, and the small miracles that I had been exposed to on a simple Christmas Eve walk, had prepared me for no less. I didn’t dare turn around, for fear of breaking the spell, somehow.

About this time I heard my mother’s voice sweeping up the valley on the wind, calling my name.  My parents were ready to leave. I shook my head, smiling. My timing, apparently, was perfect. We got back in the 66 Chevy BelAir that Dad drove at the time,  and drove the 60 miles to our home.  I remember  that I was rather subdued on the trip home.  If either of my parents noticed the change, they didn’t say anything.  Perhaps they thought, it being a long day that I was tired.  That wasn’t it at all, however.  Truth is, I was still reveling in the experience. I felt I’d been given a special gift, that night. That regardless of whatever gifts may have been waiting for me under the tree at home, I’d always have this one.

I was right, too.

That very special and irreplaceable gift  is refreshed and renewed every time I hear a Christmas Clarion.  Loud or soft, near or far, I’m always straining to hear it come down the valley on the clear midnight wind, with the cold nipping my ears… and the moon… or is that a band of angels… over my shoulder.

Author’s Note: I want to take a moment to gratefully acknowledge the proofreading and editing efforts of Lorie Byrd.

And yes, I will be reposting “A Bithead’s Christmas” tomorrow night. -E

As discussed and promised on The Conservative Reader Report on December 22, here is the full Senate Minority Leader’s speech (Mitch McConnell of Kentucky) just prior to the Monday’s Cloture vote.  If you don’t have 13 minutes, you can see a 3 minute highlight just below it.  This was a power and compelling speech, and Mitch won the TCR Report’s Smart Politician of the week for this speech.

You can also checkout more info at Shane Vander Hart’s Caffeinated Thoughts, Eric Florack’s Bitsblog and Michelle Malkin’s site as well.

The House passed one version of Obamacare, and the Senate seems intent on  passing a totally different version.    Will Mrs. Pelosi have the House roll over and endorse Dirty Harry Reid’s bill?  Maybe not.   The chair of the House Rules Committee,  Louise Slaughter, D- Fairport, is signaling that she does not accept Dirty Harry’s version of Obamacare::

Washington (CNN) — The Senate health care bill is not worthy of the historic vote that the House took a month ago.

Even though the House version is far from perfect, it at least represents a step toward our goal of giving 36 million Americans decent health coverage.

I venture to say, the Obama will not get any healthcare legislation passed unless he does more than merely voting present.  I agree with Mrs.  Slaughter that Dirty Harry’s bill is not worthy, but for altogether different reasons.

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the sphere… The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• ANOTHER LEFTIE DOUBLE STANDARD: I doubt if the gate today, we note, with a laugh, the left trying to have it both ways on healthcare. Observe Sam Stein at the Huff and Puff:
  

  President Barack Obama, in an interview with The Washington Post, said on Tuesday that in the two years leading up to his election he “didn’t campaign on the public option” for insurance coverage.

  Could that possibly be true? A plan for government-run insurance has been the focal point of the soon-to-be-concluded health care debate; the catalyst of white-hot partisan warfare; and the provision that progressive and conservatives alike have deemed the arbiter of whether legislation is a success. Is it possible the political world was, by-and-large, confused when they assumed this was what candidate Obama had wanted?

  Not entirely.

  The Obama campaign clearly did incorporate the public option into its health care agenda. The then-candidate signed a statement put together by the pro-reform group Health Care for America Now, which included the provision as part of its principles for reform. On issue forms Obama filled out for several publications he pledged to “create a new public health plan for those currently without coverage.” His campaign arm, Organizing for America, continues to champion a “public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice.” The White House website says that: “The President believes [public health insurance option] will promote competition, hold insurance companies accountable and assure affordable choices. It is completely voluntary.”

  It does, indeed, seem fair to say that a public option for insurance coverage was a component of the Obama health care agenda. But exactly how serious a component was it?

  Of course, Stein is arguing beyond this quote that Obama was not entirely focused on the government healthcare takeover, otherwise known as the “public option”.  This is downright comical. Seems to me, that it wasn’t so very long ago that the left…. Sam Stein among them… was making an awful lot of noise about the original purposes of the Iraq war as proposed and prosecuted by President Bush. Seems to me that the left, again Stein among them, has been for a long time all fired up about the idea of prosecuting President Bush for getting us into war on false pretext.  Does it surprise anyone that Stein is going to lead to the defense of Obama in this case?  More than granted that there are some major differences between a war and a Healthcare plan.  The defense of our country is constitutionally mandated, for example, whereas the health plan currently being cooked up by the Democrats is not.  Also, of the two, the health care plan is by far the more expensive.

• BUT WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE LEFT WAKES UP TO OBAMA? An interesting article from Matt Welch over at Reason today.  This situation that he describes, seems to me analogous to the excuses that Sam Stein makes above.  Eventually, even likes of Stein are going to figure out that reality has caught up with The Chosen One.  that their neo socialist what dreams are not going to occur on this one’s watch.
  

  But the Democrat’s strongest supporters had their eyes glued on the twin prize of repudiating George W. Bush and electing the nation’s first black president. Intra-party policy disagreements just weren’t a part of the conversation.

  That began to change with the steady drip of minor disappointments early in the new administration: delaying closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison, writing a brief in support of the odious Defense of Marriage Act, ridiculing questions about legalizing marijuana, promiscuously invoking state secrets privileges, breaking campaign promises about transparency, and so on.

  Meanwhile, with the economy continuing to spit blood, liberals became increasingly aware of—and irritated by—what libertarians could have told them all along: You can’t credibly claim to be cracking down on Wall Street “fat cats” in one breath while in the other shoveling hundreds of billions into their pockets and letting industry insiders write financial policy.

  Just put that one aside for the moment, and observe Welch’s larger point ;

  But let’s also give some credit where it’s due. Conservatives didn’t get around to hating on George W. Bush until after he’d safely been elected to a second term.

  I suppose, that at least in part this could explain Stein’s reluctance to pounce on Mr. Obama.  But one really must wonder how long that reluctance is going to last in the face of the abysmal performance of the emocrats in both houses of Congress and in the executive branch. In all likelihood, Obama is not going to have enough progress of support to get reelected.  He’s already lost to the center.  What will happen to the left in 2010?     Now, as for the idea of shoveling government bailout money at Wall Street while badmouthing Wall Street……

• CORRUPTION? YOU DON’T SAY…. It turns out that there he is a direct link between the financial bailout and corruption.  So says the university of Michigan.  Daniel Mitchell at the Cato institute explains.
• LIFE PANEL: Glenn’s comments don’t cut neatly, so given it’;s a short quote I’ll pull the whole thing:
  

  PALIN: I Told You So. “It didn’t take long for Jim DeMint’s outrage over highly unusual language protecting a care-rationing board to generate a response from Sarah Palin . . . When government rations commodities, it does so with the force of law. Considering the power it would have had in a completely government-run system to make the kind of decisions now left to insurers in a competitive market, people are correct to be worried about how exactly IMAB would bend the cost curve.”

  It’s not a scary “Death Panel” that determines who’s denied medical treatment and dies. It’s a friendly “Life Panel” that determines who gets treatment and lives! Mostly friends of the regime, I’d guess, based on recent history.

  Forgive me the observation, Glenn, but this appears to be completely consistent with everything that democrats have been doing lately.  If he had apparently is being objected to by the electorate, their solution is not to change the plan, but to change the name.  How many deaths, for example, did Nancy Pelosi, propose for the cover takeover, otherwise known as the “public option”?  Somewhere in the neighborhood of a half a dozen, but I lost count there after awhile. And I’m glad to see that you’re starting to catch on to the question about who gets health care and who does not, will invention Lee Intel questions about what political party you belong to.  I can imagine such conversations being held in Berlin 80 years ago.

• DEBT LIMIT AND HELATHCARE BILL ON THE SAME DAY: Here it comes… bend over, America.  There are a number of reasons I can think of why are you read would be trying to push both these bills through on the same day.  He likely figures this is going to be the lowest resistance point he’s going to find.  And with that Healthcare bill he’s definitely going to need the increased the debt limit.  I’m going to tell you something, though; there’s going to be a lot of people who are going to be looking at who voted and how tomorrow.  They’re going to be remembering it in the next several elections.  Mr. Reid does not have nearly the support he thinks he does in the matter.
• BYE BYE RAT: The news from nearby Tonawanda New York was not all that good last week.  The last GM L18 big blockrolled off the assembly line in Tonawanda about midweek. which of course means that there’s 150 more people in Buffalo looking for work. I don’t have to tell you that Buffalo is already been hurting, employment wise.  This is not going to help.   I’ve said it before I will say it again; going green costs jobs.  And for what?  Rather makes one wonder where the RV industries going to be getting their engines, from now on.  For that matter, what about the Corvette?
• BRITTANY MURPHY REDUX: You will doubtless recall the other day that I mentioned that Brittany Murphy had died in their of anorexia, or of drugs.  It appears my call was not far off that of the experts.
• HAPPY BIRTHDAY: I am advised via feedback that I forgot birthdays recently, Sissy Willis  being among them.  Hope it was a good one, Sissy. And one to my Big Bro Lee, who celebrated one yesterday.

(edit) DL

We are going to try and keep it simple on this one.

The bill stinks.

Put aside the fact that it expands Medicare.

Put aside the fact that it establishes coverage mandates (you will be forced to buy health insurance somehow).

Put aside the fact that it is a colossal power grab for an industry that has been well managed by the states for a long time.

Put aside the fact that it will increase taxes.

Put aside the fact that it will dramatically increase the cost of insurance for everyone (and they sold this to us originally as being needed to stop the soaring cost of insurance!).

Put aside the fact that it will wreak havoc on the tax code, balloon the size of the IRS and increase the size of corporate tax management teams (which will increase consumer costs in all industries).

Put aside the fact that this bill is overloaded with earmarks… in a bill that was intended to bring equality in health care.

Put aside all of those issues and focus on the one true deception that will be broadcast throughout the weekend and coming weeks: that the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the bill will have a reducing impact the deficit.

The lie here is that although the Federal deficit will certainly, according to the new CBO report (which only reviews the original November 19 Senate bill plus the “Manager’s Amendment” but NOT include any of the other amendments approved since November 19) , have about a $132 Billion negative impact over 10 years, it will dramatically increase overall spending and taxation or reductions in other services.

This is not free.  The bill plans on the Federal government spending of about $871 Billion over 10 years.  And in order to spend $871 Billion on supposed reform, the Government is going to take almost ONE TRILLION DOLLARS out of our pockets.

That averages out to about $300 per person (every man, woman and child) per year.

But wait, there’s more.

The total estimated 10 year (2014 – 2023) cost is about $2.5 Trillion.  That’s total government and industry costs.  Wait, why am I looking at 2014 – 2023?  Because the real spending starts in 2014!  The first four years is spent taking our money, with little in the way of benefits.  The real (99%) benefits kick in starting in 2014.

I am anxious for Health Care Reform.  Health Care Reform should be about reducing the cost of health care in order to make it more affordable for more people (preferably by fixing the broken tort system and providing greater transparency to competitive costs), ensuring that people with pre-existing conditions are not kept from affordable health care, and fixing the flagrant fraud that is corrupting the already bloated Federal segment of health care.

This bill does NOTHING to reduce health care costs and does NOTHING to fix fraud.  It actually does the EXACT OPPOSITE. While many of us have come to expect nothing else from the Washington elite, how can we possibly come to accept this morose   of legislation?

The bad news is that a lot of the costs will be exacted from us starting on January 1, 2010.  The good news is that the system does not become fully engaged until 2014.  That means if we can get the right people into Congress in 2010, we have a good chance of rolling this unmitigated piece of garbage back and work toward REAL reform that actually makes the lives of ALL Americans better and more secure.

HOWEVER, now is the time to act, even if you have been acting consistently up until now.  Contact your congressman, senators and the White House.  Continue to call into radio shows and write to your newspapers and leave comments on web sites like this.  Keep the pressure up!

“Fearing that millions of illegal immigrants may not be counted in the 2010 census, Latino leaders are mobilizing a nationwide drive to urge Hispanics to participate in the survey, including an intense push this week in evangelical Christian churches.  Latino groups contend that there was an undercount of nearly one million Latinos in the 2000 census, affecting the drawing of Congressional districts and the distribution of federal money. Hispanic organizations are far better organized for next year’s census, but they say that if illegal immigrants — an estimated eight million of whom are Latino — are not included, the undercount could be much greater.  One study suggests that Congressional delegations in eight states with large Hispanic populations could grow if all Latinos — the nation’s largest minority at some 47 million — are counted.”
Read more at The New York Times

Welcome, one and all to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the web; The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

• THE LEFTIST DOUBLE STANDARD WRIT LARGE: So now we find ourselves watching an argument between Ezra Klein and Jane Hampshire….arguably two of the most dishonest , in a large vat of leftist dishonesty.  For quite some time now, on the order of decades in fact, we underwrite have been subject to all kinds of derision when the more conservative among us decide not to support an action because it is not conservative enough.  Yet, watching this argument tells me all I need to know about that whole scene.
• AS BAD AS IT IS, IT”S WORSE THAN THEY”RE TELLING US: Ed Morrissey tells us:
  

  Almost two months ago, the Commerce Department cheered the announcement that the third quarter GDP had grown at an annualized rate of 3.5%.  The Obama administration hailed it as a sign that their economic policies had spurred real growth.  Even when Commerce sharply revised the number downward a month later to 2.8%, the White House continued to argue that the lower number still meant that the US had turned the corner, even after a number of critics asked how Commerce could have missed the number so widely.

  Today, Commerce backtracked even further.  The annualized growth number for Q3 turns out to have been 2.2%, a revision of over a third from its original estimate two months ago:

  The U.S. economy grew at a much slower pace than initially thought in the third quarter, restrained by weak business investment and a slightly more aggressive liquidation of inventories, according to data on Tuesday.

  The Commerce Department’s final estimate showed gross domestic product grew at a 2.2 percent annual rate instead of the 2.8 percent pace it reported last month. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast the report to show GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, unrevised at a 2.8 percent growth rate in the third quarter. …

  Growth was boosted by government stimulus programs, including the popular cash for clunkers and tax credit for first-time home buyers, and debate continues to rage over the sustainability of the recovery once government support wanes.

  No kidding.  The Cash for Clunkers program and the first-time homebuyer tax credit was estimated to have contributed as much as half of the original Commerce estimate of 3.5%.  Assuming that to still have contributed at least 1.5% of the final GDP, that leaves a rather pathetic 0.7% growth in Q3 without it.  It’s barely a recovery at that level.

  No, Ed, it’s no recovery at all. What ‘recovery’ there has been has been in government… and nothing in the private sector.  Can we be worried, now? And by the way, why are we taking the word of this administration at their word?

• FUNDING ACORN: According to John McCormick at the Weekly Standard, ACORN qualifies for funding in the senate health care bill.  That portion of the bill is being taken credit for by …. wait for it …. Roland Burris.  Welcome to Chicago.  Michelle Malkin points out that the whole thing is racist, as does David last night. Particular kudos to Michelle who has been pointing this stuff out since mid July.  Let there be no doubt what these people are all about.  Meanwhile, I notice that Chicago has shut down governmental services as a cash saving measure.  Mr. Burris has yet to determine where the funding for ACORN will come from.
• WHAT UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES? This stuff used to be amusing it was so out of hand ridiculous.  Now it’s frightening, because these idiots have the power of government behind them.  They are seriously considering running a hose up to the stratosphere to pump out sulfur particles.  The law of unintended consequences has to apply here.  Their plan looks good on paper, as they are selling it, but let’s remember that the level of government spending that Obama has placed on us sounded awfully good in the midst of the campaign, too.  The actual consequences of those actions are a little bit different than advertised.  We may (or, we may not ) recover from governmental this management of our economic system.  But doesn’t the same question apply to “global warming”, to say nothing at all of the proposals to fix the problem nobody can prove exists?
• DORGAN TRAILS BY 22 POINTS (The coal mine Canary):  Ed  at Hot Air:
  

  

  Ed Morrissey

  Call it the Wages of ObamaCare.  When only 30% of a state’s likely voters support the one piece of legislation on which the incumbent has worked for most of the year, they tend to get a little chippy about the idea of sending him back to Washington.  When paired up with Republican Governor John Hoeven in a 2010 midterm election, Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan trails by 22 points, 58%-36%:

  This is one pending loss of many for the Democrats. Approval for this monster is down to 36%.  Notice that the ratings rot starts at the top of the pile, with Obama’s approval at about 44% and on a downward spiral.  and moves down from there.  Let’s not make any mistakes about this.  There are no tears being shed over Dorgan losing his seat. The Democrats knew they were going to be losing a large number of people in Congress and indeed at every level of government once they started implementing their neo-socialist policy.  They consider it a small price to pay for the implementation of that policy.  The ultimate goal being ultimate control for government.

• PICTURE OF THE DAY: Comes by way of Roger Kimball:

On The Conservative Reader Report today we will have Kim Lehman, President of Iowa Right To Life and Iowa’s Republican Committee Woman to the RNC, on our show along with Shane Vander Hart, conservative uber-blogger from Caffeinated Thoughts and guest blogger on The Des Moines Register’s political web page.  Our focus today will be all about the Health Care Reform Massacre about to be perpetrated by the United States Senate.  The show starts at 3:00 Central on Des Moines Local Live Internet Radio.

Does anybody believe the studies anymore? 

PARIS (AFP) – Man’s best friend could be one of the environment’s worst enemies, according to a new study which says the carbon pawprint of a pet dog is more than double that of a gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle.

But the revelation in the book “Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living” by New Zealanders Robert and Brenda Vale has angered pet owners who feel they are being singled out as troublemakers.

The global warming crowd will stop it nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  Of course, the one thing that the article doesn’t address is the question of or whether not I can keep my SUV..  After all, I do have to have some place to put my dog when I’m driving.