Category: Liberty Features Syndicate

Just moments after publisher HarperCollins announced Sarah Palin’s upcoming book would have its release moved up from next spring to November 17, the book’s presale numbers rocketed Going Rogue to number 1 on Amazon’s bestseller list.

The overnight success of Palin’s upcoming tome continued a trend where books by conservative authors like Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin have more than held their own in the marketplace. Unlike Palin, though, these four are conservative figures who dabble in other areas of media – Beck does a daily television and radio show, Levin hosts his own nightly radio show, and Coulter and Malkin toil as syndicated columnists. Thus, it can be argued they have more of a built-in audience for their books whereas Palin does not. Yet this conservative dominance of bestseller lists simply echoes the overwhelming ratings lead Fox News has over its competitors in the news network business, competitors which are perceived to be more left-leaning than Fox.

On the other hand, traditional newspapers and the so-called “alphabet” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC have seen their readership and ratings decline steadily over the last several years. True, part of this comes from the faster methods of information dissemination we have today – decades ago radio and television supplanted the newspaper as a device for breaking news because they were readily available and could be updated at any particular moment as opposed to a newspaper, and this evolution continues with the internet.

Certainly reporting on the internet shares the on-the-spot news gathering ability with television and radio, and many news outlets now supplant their broadcast or printed content with gaudy websites of their own. However, consumers have a larger multitude of choices through the World Wide Web than either television or radio can provide and it appears news consumers are voting with their patronage by choosing sources which don’t appear to slant their coverage toward a liberal worldview.

As the oldest technology among news sources (and generally considered the most left-leaning), the newspaper is also among the media’s most endangered species. There are even those in Congress clamoring for a federal bailout of the newspaper industry in return for those newspapers dropping overt political endorsements – a bailout President Obama is receptive to.

Ironically, the initial success of Sarah Palin’s upcoming book might be because she’s been heavily scrutinized and vilified by many of those same media outlets in the wake of her selection as part of the 2008 GOP ticket. Prior to last September Palin was barely known outside Alaska, but the incessant media coverage tended either to try to find as much dirt on her as possible or paint her as an unqualified back-country hick – never mind she was the lone major party candidate with any sort of political executive experience from being a mayor and governor. It’s most telling that the quote most famously attributed to Palin was actually uttered by an actress doing an impersonation of her on a late-night comedy show.

Given the negative perception with which many painted Sarah Palin, the fact that her upcoming book – which was completed months ahead of schedule – is going to be such a blockbuster may come across as a head-scratcher to observers in the business. But those in flyover country who saw the treatment Pain received from the media for having the courage to speak to issues dear to those on the conservative end of the political spectrum are getting the one piece of revenge they can by purchasing the Palin book and going rogue on their own.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

Editor’s note: Since the syndication network who puts out my opinion pieces is growing I’m only clearing one per week now. This is the latest release from October 8th.

This was held out for an extra-long time by LFS, but my tenth article originally posted October 1st.

Since his election last November, even before taking office in January, Barack Obama has reshaped the office of the Presidency into the image he envisioned when beginning his quest for the Oval Office.

But since his swearing in on January 20 Barack Obama has continued to blame his predecessor for “inherited” problems, and the President may indeed have had a few legitimate complaints. Yet he’s been unwilling to change many Bush-era policies, particularly in the realm of national security. Obama has also chosen to ramp up the war in Afghanistan while continuing the withdrawal from Iraq begun in the latter stages of President Bush’s term. As Commander-in-Chief President Obama has the perfect right to halt these military endeavors but chosen against complete withdrawal, frustrating his support base on the antiwar Left to no end.

This first eight months of Obama’s term have also been marked by the normal changing of the appointee guard one would expect during a shift in the party in power; needless to say the President placed his own stamp on domestic policy with his Cabinet selections and dozens of “czars” brought in without the benefit of Congressional oversight. In that respect his team is very much in place.

Aside from judicial appointees, though, the final vestige of the Bush era comes to an end when the calendar shifts from September to October and the new government fiscal year begins. No longer will Obama and Congress be forced to work under a budget prepared with the blessing of the prior administration – albeit with trillions in supplemental spending prepared for and approved by President Obama. Since it’s actually the Democratic-controlled Congress who creates the budget, the Bush budgetary framework has long since been warped with bailouts and stimulus spending well beyond anything he wished for, but George W. Bush was still in charge when the fiscal 2009 budget was approved last fall.

Even with a president and Congress hailing from the same party, the fiscal year 2010 budgetary process is again behind schedule and temporary stopgap measures necessary to prevent the federal government from shutting down. It’s highly likely, though, that a budget reasonably close to that proposed by Obama this spring will be approved. If so, it will be a budget with “trillion dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see” as House Republican leader John Boehner termed it then.

The so-called budget hawks on the left like to point out that the national debt surged under both Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush, blaming the tax cuts they enacted for the red ink. (Never mind federal revenue increased under both presidents due to a thriving economy.) Yet those two are pikers compared to the budgetary blueprint Obama and Democrats are creating. Even the Chinese, who fund a large part of our debt, fret about the massive spending proposed under the Obama plan because they’re worried about a coming wave of inflation.

Starting Thursday, that recipe for economic disaster will be placed squarely on the shoulders of Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats. With their poor track record of rising unemployment, misplaced stimulus spending, the prospect of higher energy costs, and stalled efforts at reforming health care, their favorite tactic of shifting blame to the previous president won’t play in Peoria anymore – or anywhere else for that matter.

President Truman famously remarked about his office that, “the buck stops here.” While blaming Republicans is a favorite sport among Democrats and their compliant friends in the media, the era of Bush-bashing needs to stop October 1st – it’s Barack’s baby now.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

Op-ed number nine for Liberty Features Syndicate, this cleared back on September 23rd.

Long a subject of derision from conservatives, the National Endowment for the Arts ran into more trouble earlier this month when it was revealed NEA funding was granted to artists for creating works of art designed to promote President Obama and his domestic policy agenda. This was a clear case of the taxpayer-supported NEA stepping outside the ideals under which it was created.

While some form of federal funding for the arts has occurred practically since our nation’s founding, the National Endowment was created by an act of Congress and signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 as part of the Great Society. Instead of shilling for a particular candidate or issue, the endowment’s original charge was to “help create and sustain not only a climate encouraging freedom of thought, imagination, and inquiry, but also the material conditions facilitating the release of this creative talent.”

The NEA survived a funding cut in the mid-1990’s brought on by a controversy over NEA-funded artists Andres Serrano and Robert Mapplethorpe, among others, but the current allegations are much more severe because the funding supposedly went to art designed to fit a political agenda.

Obviously it’s nothing new that artistic works are created for the purpose of glorifying a person or an entity – one need only look at the Sistine Chapel or any of the numerous monuments around Washington, D.C. as examples of art intended to deify or pay tribute to a person or group. Indeed, most of the newer examples about Washington were paid for at least in part by taxpayer dollars.

Yet the idea of art sanctioned by a governing body leaves it too broadly open to interpretation as to what is reasonable or proper, particularly in this age of political correctness we live in. Further, one needs to wonder about the vanity of a leader who uses public funds to engage in political propaganda masquerading as artistic effort rather than allowing free expression and encouraging the improvement of public taste and culture.

Those who are not the prototypical starving artists should not be fed on the taxpayer’s dime, regardless of whether public tastes favor their works or not. Needless to say, what is considered beauty is in the eye of the beholder and one man’s masterpiece might get quizzical looks from someone else; in either case the decision should not come at the cost of a taxpayer-funded grant. Millions of people make the choice on their own to cultivate and promote culture through donations and their patronage of many worthwhile artistic events. It’s clear the public good is not well served by government picking and choosing winners in the artistic field, and using art to promote a self-serving political agenda reeks of the practices of the worst tyrants the world has known.

In a political climate as charged as ours coupled with a government set on bailing out its friends in the business world, this usage of the National Endowment for the Arts for crass political purposes places the onus on Congress to finish a job it half-heartedly started a decade ago. It’s long past time to save the American people over $150 million and withdraw federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. Simply convert the NEA into a completely private entity and let them compete in the free market just as millions of those who make their living in the artistic field manage to do every day.

Then if artists wish to promote a political agenda at least it won’t be paid for through funds confiscated from the American taxpayer.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

The eighth of the continuing series of op-eds I’ve done for LFS, this originally cleared September 21st.

Back in August civil liberty activists were appalled to find that the Obama Administration was openly encouraging supporters of the Democrats’ health care plan to report items they thought inaccurate to an e-mail address set up for that purpose. Hundreds reported getting unsolicited e-mail messages from the White House, purportedly to set them straight on the facts as Obama’s team presented them. After much initial public outcry, the flap over the “flag@whitehouse.gov” e-mail address dwindled down.

A new report made the news this week, however, and this time the crosshairs have been trained on a number of popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter. It was revealed that the White House is collecting and storing comments and videos placed on its respective social networking sites but is not advising users or asking for their consent about the data collection. This runs counter to the vow made by President Obama back in January that he would make an “unprecedented” effort to “establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration” during his tenure.

The practice is defended by Obama’s apologists, saying that the information is required to be collected by the Presidential Records Act (PRA). But the PRA, which dates back to 1978, only requires the collection of “documentary material”, meaning “all books, correspondence, memorandums, documents, papers, pamphlets, works of art, models, pictures, photographs, plats, maps, films, and motion pictures, including, but not limited to, audio, audiovisual, or other electronic or mechanical recordations.” Eventually it may be up to a court to decide whether comments left on a social networking website fall under any of these categories but in the meantime it provides a chilling effect on discourse, particularly on that critical of Obama’s policies.

Another development in this area finds President Obama seeking to extend three provisions of the PATRIOT Act, further angering supporters who were enraged with the original adoption of these restrictions under former President Bush.

Obama asked Congress last week to consider extending three portions of the PATRIOT Act dealing with the seizure of certain business records, roving wiretaps, and apprehending so-called “lone wolf” terrorists. While this administration still seeks to close down the holding facility at Guantanamo Bay, try suspected terrorists on our soil and grant them as non-citizens and enemy combatants full Constitutional rights for their defense, conservatives rightly fret that these tactics could be used to further stifle lawful dissent.

It’s not a difficult step to take from fighting the real threat of Islamic terror within our borders to perhaps something akin to this situation. Imagine a businessman and TEA Party organizer who made a comment on the White House Facebook site opposing socialized medicine or some other initiative thought to run counter to Constitutional government. Would it not be out of the realm of possibility for Big Brother to run through his business records in order to harass him into silence? The next step could be listening in on his private conversations as a perceived “lone wolf” threat.

This example, mythical as it may be, was certainly an argument for making the PATRIOT Act a temporary one. Placing the reins of our nation in the hands of an appeaser can be the prelude to taking an act enhancing national security in a time of threat from without and standing the intent on its head. A President who twists “love thy neighbor” into “love thy enemy” and “hope and change” into “snitch on our opponents” deserves to be stripped of as much power as legally possible.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

The seventh in my op-ed series for Liberty Features Syndicate, this cleared September 17th.

If you ask Americans about campaign finance reform, most likely they’ll answer something about the need for it because “there’s too much money in politics,” not realizing that to many the freedom to donate to the political candidate of their choice is a right equated with everything else granted by the First Amendment. It’s quite possible those free speech advocates will soon be pleased as a key part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform package may be overturned by the Supreme Court.

In what began as a quite innocent case brought out as a clarification request by the producers of “Hillary: The Movie” asking whether they were bound by McCain-Feingold’s 60-day pre-election prohibition on independent groups airing campaign ads and other campaign financing laws in buying commercial time to advertise their documentary, the argument was widened by the Supreme Court into a much more broad discussion on whether the century-old ban on direct corporate and labor union electoral donations should be lifted.

A clear sign of their possible intent came in questioning by Chief Justice John Roberts, who compared the government’s interference in campaign finance as akin to “Big Brother” and dismissed the federal government’s argument by Solicitor General Elena Kagan, noting sharply that the power to enforce the First Amendment doesn’t belong in the hands of Federal Elections Commission bureaucrats.

When it was enacted seven years ago, McCain-Feingold was supposed to take the money out of politics. But we need only look at the vast monetary advantage enjoyed by President Obama once he reneged on a promise to use public funding for the 2008 Presidential election to see where these reforms failed. Obama outspent Republican John McCain – who played by the public funding rules he ironically helped create and was thus hamstrung in general election campaign spending – by a factor of better than 2-to-1 over the yearlong campaign, with the total on all sides exceeding $1 billion.

Critics charge that overturning the longstanding ban will result in corporations and unions “purchasing” House and Senate seats – in essence, government to the highest bidder. However, current law only prohibits direct donations; instead, various special interests on both sides of an issue create front groups with innocent-sounding names such as Healthy Economy Now, a group favoring Obamacare, or Patients United Now, which opposes nationalization, to solicit donations. It’s doubtful this sleight-of-hand would abate even if restrictions on corporate and union donations were lifted.

It’s also taken for granted that corporations would donate to Republicans as unions traditionally favor Democrats. But that wouldn’t necessarily be so – some major corporations may see the large federal government favored by Democrats as an advantage as they pursue rent-seeking opportunities in fields like “green” energy or health insurance. Most of the major players cater to the party in power at the time in order to find advantage over competitors or seek protection from regulation.

With the freedom of lifting prohibitions, though, will come the responsibility of the media to be watchdogs and unearth the situations where corporations, unions, or – if individual donation limits are struck down in the future – people invest heavily in a race and favor a specific candidate. There’s already a number of good websites which track campaign finance on the state and federal levels and their work will surely continue whether the rules are changed or not.

Yet even if the prohibitions on corporate and union donations are lifted by Supreme Court edict, there will still be the need to follow an unyielding centuries-old rule – caveat emptor.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer

The sixth in my series of op-eds for Liberty Features Syndicate, this cleared back on September 11th.

Ten-year-old Amanda Kurowski was probably pretty nervous last week, as most girls that age are when faced with the prospect of starting at a new school. While she joined thousands of school-age children in having to make that adjustment, the reason young Miss Kurowski needed to make the change is rather unique.

In July, a New Hampshire District Court judge ordered that Amanda be sent to public school because her mother was homeschooling Amanda with a too “rigidly” religious focus. Judge Lucinda V. Sadler made the decision at the behest of Amanda’s father, Martin Kurowski, who argued that being taught in such a manner was preventing Amanda from receiving other, more secular viewpoints.

Yet while Amanda Kurowski was being homeschooled in basic subjects along with Bible study, she was also attending supplemental public school classes in art, Spanish, theater, and physical education, and active in extracurricular sports. Certainly she was not being completely sheltered from the outside world, and Judge Sadler agreed that Amanda’s schooling has “more than kept up with the academic requirements” of the public school Sadler compelled Amanda to attend.

While the tug-of-war over custody and affection between father Martin Kurowski and mother Brenda Voydatch has consumed most of Amanda’s young life – the couple divorced in 1999 – this spat is noteworthy because of its religious aspect. Amanda, like her mother, is a devout Christian whose homeschooling has helped shape her religious beliefs.

The ruling by Judge Sadler fails to account for a number of factors, though, and sets a poor precedent for future jurisprudence. It’s clear that Amanda was not living in a bubble because she was interacting with other children in both academic and athletic settings, nor was there any apparent physical or mental abuse in the case. Essentially the decision came down to the personal preference of both Judge Sadler and a court-appointed guardian for Amanda, who both believed that strong religious beliefs were not correct for a ten-year-old child to have. To them, it seemed better for Amanda Kurowski to worship at the altar of Hannah Montana and be exposed to the coarseness of public school culture several hours a day – conveniently they found an ally in Amanda’s father.

Over the last couple decades more and more parents have decided to take refuge from failing public schools by homeschooling their children, and often they turn out to be our best and brightest. In many states teachers’ unions have pushed back by making it more difficult to educate children outside the realm of organized schools, whether public or parochial, while federal law has shaped a curriculum which rewards teaching to a test rather than students learning how to think for themselves.

Judge Sadler’s ruling, which wasn’t based on rectifying any educational harm but simply showed a desire to instill a “tolerance for different points of view”, was an unnecessary incursion into the affairs of one family. In that bid for “tolerance”, Judge Sadler clearly failed in not attempting to mediate the middle ground of an appropriate parochial school where Amanda could continue her education in a setting with other children but reflective of her and her mother’s faith.

Brenda Voydatch attempted to raise her daughter with values of God and not necessarily of men, but political correctness prevailed in Judge Sadler’s court. In a culture which defines deviancy down, hopefully Amanda’s exposure to public school will be mercifully brief and her parents will find a more suitable learning environment for her.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.

This is the fifth in my series of op-eds for Liberty Features Syndicate, which cleared September 14th. I’m told it was picked up by at least one newspaper so I guess I could have added this to my “in print” series.

When over a million people gather in one place to speak about issues, that may be the maturing of a political movement. Add in the thousands who attended related 9-12 events across the country or gathered to greet a bus caravan dubbed the Tea Party Express and the number approaches 2 million. These are not just voters, but activists motivated for a cause – and they are the people who can truly win elections by being the ground force both local and national candidates need to succeed.

In seeing this march on Washington, one is reminded of the last large issue-based conservative movement. In the 1980’s a group coalescing around social issues, particularly abortion, eventually became known as the Christian Coalition and attempted to become a dominant political force in the Republican Party. While they greatly assisted in the elections of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the religious Right eventually grew disillusioned with the process and drifted away from political activity. Similarly, much of the impetus behind the TEA Party cause stems from fiscal irresponsibility by Beltway politicians of both parties – but there are a large number of social conservatives allied in the cause too.

To address this prospective rift between fiscal and social conservatives, one needs to find common ground. But the most fervent social conservatives support what the deficit hawks and libertarians in the movement see as big government in the form of legislating morality, such as Constitutional bans on abortion and gay marriage. The perceived ignorance of those two issues by the Republican Party was the straw that broke the camel’s back, splitting social conservatives away from the GOP fold. Those voters staying home helped defeat the Republicans in 2006 and 2008.

Despite these electoral defeats, all but a handful of Republicans inside the Beltway seem to be wary of embracing the fiscal conservatism of the TEA Party movement much as they eschewed the values voters’ agenda over the last two decades. Taking these voters for granted without addressing their “red meat” issues comes at a great risk for GOP strategists, especially in states and Congressional districts which used to be solidly Republican but swung toward President Obama and, especially, the “Blue Dog” Democrats over the last few cycles.

The answer may be in a renewed push for Tenth Amendment rights, which over time have been eroded by the federal government overreaching into issues more properly defined and addressed by the several states. Most tend to think of the federal stranglehold on state purse strings as the greatest example of this usurpation, but social conservatives can point to abortion as one issue which would be correctly more worthy of argument at a state level. Moreover, the current law on abortion was decided by federal judicial fiat rather than by the legislative process, and creating law from the bench is another common enemy despised by advocates across the TEA Party political spectrum.

To succeed in their political goals, the newly-formed coalition of 9-12 will have to make a few internal compromises between fiscal and social hardliners. The overall idea they have of supporting Constitutional and limited government is a very sound one, and it’s an idea which has a number of enemies already bent on ridiculing and marginalizing the very thought of government for and by the people, with decisions made mostly at the local level.

The mandate for change didn’t end with the 2008 election; on the contrary, that call for change has only just begun and the events of 9-12 proved the point.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

This was the fourth in my series of op-eds for Liberty Features Syndicate, a piece which originally cleared September 9th.

The impact of a bill signed back in April could be hitting home this week as Americans pause to remember 9/11.

When President Obama signed the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act into law it was noted that, “there isn’t a better or more fitting way to remember 9/11 than for all of us as Americans to voluntarily set aside time on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks to help others in need.” The thousands of Americans who serve in harm’s way on far-off battlefields waging war against Islamic terrorism might beg to differ on that particular point.

Over the previous seven years since the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and the demise of United Airlines Flight 93 in rural Pennsylvania, liberals complained that remembering the events of that fateful Tuesday morning served only to benefit President Bush and Republicans by whipping up a pro-war, hyperpatriotic frenzy. They whined about the 9/11 hangover affecting the midterm elections in 2002 and keeping President Bush in office after 2004. Even with the continuing refusal of television networks to rebroadcast footage of the attacks, once Democrats gained control of the levers of government they sought to further erase the memory of tragedy and give the day a different significance – hence the language in the national service act.

On the other hand, no one needed to create a day of remembrance for the previous infamous attack on America. Just like the events almost 60 years later, a generation of Americans knew exactly where they were when they heard the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and, as their grandchildren would, thousands volunteered to take on the enemies who attacked us. Our steady resolve held through the dark days immediately after Pearl Harbor and victory was attained nearly four years later.

No politician in his right mind would ask that December 7th be declared a day of service, yet that’s what Democrats have achieved in just eight years after a similar dastardly attack we’ll solemnly recall next week. Community service is an admirable goal, of course, but here’s a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Most people still recall the terror they felt on September 11th, 2001, and there was nothing overtly political about wondering where the next attack would be. Nor were there political considerations in questioning what else in our everyday lives could change, and that feeling was especially true when stricter security measures were put into place at airports and elsewhere to prevent a similar tragic incident. Yet those Democrats who accused their opposite number of exploiting events for political gain are now trying to shift the message in their favor for those very same reasons, even while there is still work to do in eliminating the threat of Islamic terror which led to 9/11 in the first place.

In essence, Democrats are making yet another attempt to return to a 9/10 mentality. The problem for them is that, aside from their liberal ilk, very few buy into the new Era of Good Feeling that Obama and his supporters would like us to believe is on the verge of beginning now that the evil George W. Bush has departed the scene. They can pick any other day on the calendar to ask us to serve our fellow man, but for most Americans September 11th will remain as it should – a sacred day of remembrance for those who have fallen and renewal of support for those who volunteered to fight and avenge what was taken from us.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

This column was picked up by Liberty Features Syndicate September 2nd.

When the Massachusetts legislature next convenes it’s possible that their very first order of business will be to complete the final chapter in the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s legacy and preserve the precious 60-seat majority the Democrats currently hold in the Senate.

The story dates back to 2004. Senator John Kerry became the Democratic nominee for President and during most of that summer it looked like he could unseat the incumbent President Bush. Worried Bay State Democrats fretted about a Massachusetts state law which allowed the Governor to select a successor if the Senate seat became vacant because at the time Mitt Romney, a Republican, was the state’s chief executive. Democrats, spearheaded by the urging of Ted Kennedy, rammed through a new law which provided the state fills its Senate vacancies solely through a special election. As events played out the new law was rendered moot; however, no one took any steps to change the law back and it remains on the books in Massachusetts.

Fast forward to 2009 and the news that Senator Kennedy was gravely ill. Despite the fact that Democrats have a hammerlock on state government and Massachusetts owns the distinction of being the largest state with a single-party Congressional delegation, a recent letter by Kennedy to Governor Deval Patrick revealed a cynical ploy to reverse the 2004 law and allow Patrick to appoint a temporary caretaker successor – presumably as early as late September. With the Democrats no longer sitting on a filibuster-proof cushion in the United States Senate, Kennedy’s death and the resulting vacancy puts the Democrats in a position where any measure they wish to pass needs at least one Republican vote to invoke cloture.

As written 5 years ago, the Massachusetts law compels Governor Patrick, a Democrat, to call a special election at a date between 145 and 160 days after the seat becomes vacant due to death or resignation but does not allow him to choose a temporary placeholder for the seat. With Kennedy’s August 25th death it leaves the special election date to sometime in late January or early February, 2010. (Editor’s note: the election is set for January 19, 2010.) Obviously the long lag time was enacted to give candidates some time to ramp up a statewide campaign and allow voters to better know who their choices are for Senate representation.

Ironically, in 2006 Republicans introduced a bill to allow the Governor to appoint a replacement similar to that proposed by Kennedy but it was shot down on a largely party-line vote by the heavily Democratic Massachusetts House. Republicans are clearly correct in calling the Democrats hypocrites in wishing to change the law now, under these circumstances.

But it’s well known that Democrats have a lingering distrust in electoral results, even when the deck is as stacked in their favor as it is in Massachusetts. One candidate already being mentioned as a possible Republican aspirant is former Governor Romney, who could use the Senate seat to assure himself a place on the national stage for another Presidential run. Giving a Democrat appointee nearly six months to build a resume and war chest would obviously put most other Republican candidates at a disadvantage and give the Democratic machine which controls Bay State politics a chance to ramp up its attack campaign against whoever the GOP would place in contention.

With so many legislative achievements – good and bad – where Senator Kennedy was instrumental, perhaps it’s a fitting epitaph to find Ted Kennedy placed party above public to the end and engaged in one final cynical ploy before he left this world.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

This piece for Liberty Features Syndicate originally cleared August 31st.

The Democrats’ most recent drive for health care reform many have dubbed “Obamacare” centers on the “public option”, a step many leftists feel is necessary to soften America’s resistance to their overall goal of nationalized health care similar to that found in Canada or Great Britain.

While the on-again, off-again prospect of government-backed competition to private insurance defines progress of this rendition of reform to those on the Left, arguably that desired end result of socialized health care is already here – embodied in the Veterans Administration. In return for their military service, the men and women who served in our armed forces have the option of a lifetime of care in facilities open primarily to them and, aside from a trifling co-pay based on income, essentially paid for by the federal government.

In most cases the VA provides our veterans the top-notch care they need. But the VA’s resources have strained more and more from a huge influx of casualties from war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the VA bureaucracy has been slow to catch up, at times leaving veterans in worse shape than they were upon entering the system.

The poster child for VA incompetence was revealed back in 2007 when a Washington Post investigation detailed horrific conditions at Building 18 of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center; a litany which included black mold, rodent infestation, and outright neglect by overworked staff. While Democrats took glee in blaming the Bush Administration for the conditions and used Building 18 as another example of a war the Left considered wrong, the critics failed to bring up an obvious point – government-run health care was shown once again to be inferior to that being performed by the private sector. Health facilities in private hands would quickly be shut down if left in that dilapidated condition for any length of time.

However, Building 18 was not intended as part of the Walter Reed campus when built. It was originally a motor lodge but when Walter Reed needed additional space in the late 1980’s the building was purchased and converted for usage as an outpatient recovery facility. The demand for care at Walter Reed increased significantly once hostilities in the Middle East began and government inertia proved to be the largest obstacle to recovery for those scarred by battle.

Other complaints about VA treatment usually stem from a lack of accessibility, particularly for veterans who choose to live in more rural areas. Many times they are forced to drive hours for “free” treatment, bypassing several facilities which could have provided the same service but aren’t connected to the Veterans Administration.

The VA example brings up a point usually lost in the debate over providing cradle-to-grave health care for all: are facilities and manpower going to be available for all those who desire it? We already face a shortage of those wishing to go into health care professions and that lack of manpower promises to become more acute as America’s population – including veterans already in the VA system – becomes grayer and sicker.

If health care truly needs reform, perhaps the best route to proving the worth of government solutions would be to concentrate reform on the systems already in place – certainly there’s a lot in Medicaid, Medicare, and health care through the Veterans Administration which could stand change well before subjecting the rest of us to the inertia and red tape bureaucracy always brings.

Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated Writer.

Note: This was my “audition” post for the Liberty Features Syndicate and was cleared on August 25th. It’s mildly edited from my original submission, including the title which originally did not have “TEA Parties” in it, but the point remains.

In this year of fueled media admiration of the Obama agenda, Americans with a limited-government mindset are taking delight in the recent uprising against an excess in the growth of government. Those who organized the local TEA Parties have banded together to create numerous local chapters of small-government political groups but were rarely among those in the circle normally attending local political events. The labels  “tea-bagger” or “Astroturf” placed on the pro-liberty side by left-leaning network pundits and Democratic Party leadership, couldn’t be farther from the truth.

So what these passionate people who are putting a lot into these recess protests need to be made aware of – even with the slanted media coverage they receive – is that change is a long, slow, and sometimes torturous process. Obviously those who have been around the block remember the optimism after the 1980 and 1994 elections, believing America was just around the corner from beating back those who were taking away liberty. But sadly, as history has shown, the gains achieved were soon wiped away once electoral tables turned – if not even sooner.

Recent polling suggests that at least a plurality of residents identify themselves as conservative in every state, with the lone national exception being the District of Columbia. And this also seems to reflect the TEA Party mindset – conservative in most respects until it gets inside the Beltway. This perception is among the key reasons the smoldering dissent among average Americans became a brushfire among the grassroots this summer; a summer that will culminate with a national-scale rally on September 12th in Washington, D.C.

Unfortunately the Republican Party as presently constituted in our nation’s capital is powerless to do anything except make the mistake of being “bipartisan”, thus allowing the Democrats to escape electoral suicide next year. As in a recent example, the conservative movement was proud of the total unanimity in the House against the stimulus bill but felt betrayed when three moderate Republicans bent to that siren song of bipartisanship and allowed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to become law.

But the true test of the newly-minted “angry mob” will come once big-ticket Obama schemes like socialized medicine and “cap and trade” are beaten back. Assuming success there, what is the next step? Thoughtful advocates of limited government need to make sure that the education they gain this summer doesn’t stop. The American people tend to be all for eliminating what they consider wasteful entitlements – that is, until their favorite entitlement is on the chopping block.

Just a few years ago many of the older TEA Party attendees were calling their Congressman pleading with them not to privatize Social Security. Yet, Social Security is an unsustainable entitlement and runs counter to the idea of limited Constitutional government many in the grassroots now claim to hold dear.

To make this new limited government push accomplish its stated goal, venerable programs will have to be phased out and space prohibits listing every entitlement running counter to anything but the most liberal interpretation of Constitutionally-sanctioned items.

But obviously this isn’t a task achieved overnight and the trick will be to hold together a cohesive movement long enough to get to the desired result, always keeping elected officials’ noses to the grindstone.Because otherwise historians will look back at 2009 and see yet another “temper tantrum” on par with Ronald Reagan’s election and the Contract With America in 1994.

To make this summer of discontent last, our anger must turn into a laserlike focus on the exact America that we wish for coming generations. Along with making the sacrifices necessary to achieve these ends.

Michael Swartz is a guest contributing writer for Liberty Features Syndicate.