President Obama acknowledged Saturday in his weekly radio address that he’s nervous about the effect of high gas prices on his re-election bid. He should be.  With gas prices surpassing $4 per gallon nationally – two full months before the summer driving season when gas prices really spike – he knows the backlash against him is imminent.  He has to begin inoculating himself against the political body blow it will deliver, which was what Saturday’s speech was all about.

But instead of inoculating himself against gas hikes, the President mystifyingly jabbed himself in the foot, right where it was freshly bandaged.  Just last week, the President was showing signs of understanding, finally,  that the nation needs to STOP SPENDING MONEY.  But there he was in his address on Saturday unabashedly talking about “investments” again, which everyone knows means higher taxes and more debt.  “Instead of subsidizing yesterday’s energy sources, we need to invest in tomorrow’s,” he said in classic Obama-speak.

Did someone forget to hit “refresh” on the teleprompter?  Weren’t we just talking about fiscal responsibility?

The President also beat up on the oil companies and pledged to crack down on fraud and speculators, which is to be expected.  But the key takeaway in the news was the message the President’s handlers had been working so hard to reverse:  The President still thinks we can spend and borrow our way into the future.

Here is the ironic thing:  The U.S. does not need to “invest” in tomorrow’s” energy sources, not with $4-plus gas prices.  With the cost of gas that high, and rising, the private sector will do it for us – and far better and faster than the federal government possibly can. Entrepreneurs have always found solutions when the economics of a product become untenable.

If President Obama had hastened that eventuality by slapping a hefty tax on gas — like an extra $2 or $3 per gallon– two years ago, he could be legitimately boasting today that government intervention is hastening our independence from fossil fuels.  But that would have been political suicide. So why not stay out of it and let nature and markets take their natural course?  The cost of gas will soon enough make its use prohibitive. And when that happens, market-based technologies will emerge, just as they always have.

Rising gas prices are not all President Obama’s fault.  But he will pay the greatest price for them.  His only viable political option is to open more U.S. wells to drilling.  That will lower prices and show he is doing everything he can to address this crisis.

Or is he resisting lowering prices because it will slow transition to “tomorrow’s energy”? Is he that much of an ideologue?

Marriage Equality Advocate Barbara Bush

Is anyone else watching with awe the masterful public relations campaign for gay marriage in New York unfold? It’s a real beaut, and communications students would be wise to study it.

Gay marriage looked dead in New York less than a year and a half ago. The bill faced resounding defeat, 24-38, in December 2009, after being rushed to the floor for a vote by a clumsy Democratic state senate majority and a teetering Governor David Paterson.  It was a disaster.  The general consensus after that vote was that it might take years for pro-gay marriage advocates to muster enough political will in Albany for another vote.  With New York in fiscal chaos, the gay marriage issue would have to take a back seat.

But then five or six months ago, New Yorkers for Marriage Equality began rolling out  plainly written – non-confrontational – face-to-camera web videos featuring people like Sam Waterston, Mario Batali, Lucy Liu, Bill Bratton, Russell Simmons, Joan Rivers, Barbara Bush, Whoopi Goldberg, Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon, Fran Drescher, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Julianne Moore.

The mix of supporters was a brilliant blend.  All likable people, touching all necessary demographics.  But more importantly, the ads were not forced.  They were neither angry, nor in your face.  They just began laying out a background conversation, without riling up opposition.

At the same time, the organization has been quietly lobbying Governor Cuomo and legislators behind the scene, both Republican and Democratic, to ensure that there are enough votes for passage this time.  The bill will not be allowed to fail in a roll-call vote again.

Today it was announced that long-time Republican state senate communications director John McArdle – a pro among pros in Albany  – has been retained by the marriage equality coalition to help lock down votes and messaging in the now Republican senate.  It was the perfect hire.

The pieces of this puzzle look to be fitting together nicely. Whether you  agree with gay marriage or not – I do – you have to tip your cap to a campaign well run.  There is nothing clumsy about this one. Nothing at all.

France’s attempt to ban veils worn by Muslim women through me for a loop.  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.  In doing so, France, the liberal Mecca – is it okay to say that? – flagrantly offended the Muslim faith.  Why would it do that?

The action is counterintuitive to that nation’s reflexively egalitarian demeanor toward minorities.  I could easily see the French insulting majority Catholics or Huguenot  Protestants even, but Islam is a religion that liberals, especially French liberals, fall over themselves to defend.  Why would they do something so…reactionary?

It was bugging me all week, but then came clarity in the shape of a sphere, a Spring Sphere to be exact. For those who you not familiar with that orb, think Easter Egg in Seattle, which is exactly what it is. A teacher in that Northwest Territory, renamed Easter Eggs “Spring Spheres” in her school this year in an ostensible effort to protect the feelings of non-Christians, theoretically including Hijab-wearing physicists at Microsoft.

The two stories rattled about in my head all week, seeming somehow related.  But I wasn’t sure how.  In one case,  Easter was being cast aside to protect the feelings of Muslims and Jews, and in the other, Muslims and Jews were being blatantly insulted (skull caps were banned, too. ) How could these seemingly disparate actions stem from the same belief cell?

Then it hit me:  Protecting feelings has nothing to do with either.  Sameness does – the philosophy of a single secular truth to which  both French and American liberals adhere.  Banning Christmas Trees and renaming Easter Eggs has nothing to do with sparing feelings of the odd man out; it has everything to do, instead, with creating uniformity of opinion, a world where everyone sees things the same way.

French Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozi comes right out and says it: “The full veil is not welcome in France because it is contrary to our values…”  — he continues his sentence with a clever rhetorical oblique — “ …and contrary to the ideals of we have of a woman’s dignity.”  If this were about women’s dignity, why would the wearing of skull caps be banned in addition to headscarves?

What Sarkozi is really saying is that the values of the 21^st Century French state, as his government sees them, are not only universally “correct”, they are physically enforceable.  Pardon me for suggesting it, but that’s dangerous thinking.

The case of the Easter Eggs is perfectly in line with it.  The French are just a couple of decades ahead in their absolutist idealism.  Everyone should be able to enjoy a “Spring Sphere”, the teacher suggests (except maybe the Easter Bunny who’s watching his gig get corrupted.)  In time, perhaps, according to her thinking, we can roll all our religious and cultural traditions into one universalist fellowship — and a rousing verse of Kumbaya.

What ever happened to vive la difference?

New York City is planning to install massive solar panels atop the Fresh Kills landfill that could generate enough energy to power 50,000 homes.  It gets better:  All this would be done for free, at least according the city’s Director of Sustainability, David Bragdon.

“The cost is not a cost to the city,” Bragdon explains to New York Post City Hall Bureau Chief  Dave Seifman. “It is not a taxpayer-funded project.”

Except it is.  At the conclusion of his story Seifman correctly notes that the $40 million  start up cost would come from the federal government.

You cant blame Bragdon for how he sees it: This comes at no cost “to the city,” he said.  So to him, “it is not a taxpayer funded project.” That is, it does not come out of the city budget. It is therefore “free.”

That is, unfortunately, how government officials are trained to think.  As long as it doesn’t come out of their budget, all is okay.  It’s why the federal government passes costs to states; states pass costs to counties, and counties pass costs to municipalities.  All those costs, though, are passed to taxpayers, and that somehow gets papered over in the press release.  It is the kind of thinking that has landed us in this hole.

This solar panel project? Sounds like a grand idea to me.  I’m all for it.  But let’s be honest about its cost.

I posted an item a couple of weeks back about drug violence in Mexico and the responsibility of pot-smoking Americans to do something about it. I received a lot of good feedback, including from proponents of marijuana legalization in the U.S.

The Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) published an interesting paper today on legalization that it is worth reading.  It has lots of good arguments, but I still cannot imagine a realistic legalization scenario here, nor do I yet think it’s a good idea.

The effective prohibition of tobacco seems more realistic, frankly.  If anything, that seems to be the direction in which the US is headed, with the banning of smoking in public parks and private residences. In the conclusion of its paper on legalization, the left-leaning COHA winks at that idea, writing:  “Freedom is at issue here as well: U.S. citizens are being deprived the right to use a substance that is less harmful and has higher potential for responsible use than its legal counterparts.”

Wouldn’t it be ironic if marijuana is eventually legalized in America, and tobacco is outlawed? You can almost see it…

A few months ago, in the midst of the political campaign season, I tried to start my car with a Blackberry. Not with new Bluetooth technology that allowed such a maneuver, but with the device itself. It was in my right hand, and, without looking, I was trying to manipulate the thing into the car’s ignition slot.  I  couldn’t figure out why the “key” wasn’t cooperating.

Some time before that, I “lost” my Blackberry while on a campaign conference call. I was at home, and, while trying to sound 100% engaged in the topics at hand, I spent 97% of my energy during the call looking under newspapers and turning over pillows in search of the missing device. It wasn’t until the call was over that I realized I was talking on it.

I did the same thing in an earlier campaign, but with my then-infant daughter. “Where’s Georgia?, I bellowed throughout my house, panicked.  The little one was nestled snuggly in the crook of my arm.

Okay, that one’s hard to admit.

I realize this behavior is crazy, and, when it occurred, I assumed it was caused by the early onset of old age, exacerbated, maybe, by the frenetic political campaign lifestyle — three or four hours of sleep a night and 500-plus emails a day for months on end. But, after confessing this bizarre behavior to colleagues, I was relieved to learn that others working in my industry — young people in their 20’s even — were experiencing the same thing: wallets in refrigerators, mismatched shoes, trips back home to turn off a coffee machine that had never been turned on.

I now know that people in similarly crazy industries have experienced comparable symptoms. Studies from Stanford, the University of California San Francisco, and elsewhere have proven it and are digging into the cause.  What they are finding is that this über communicative and multi-tasking lifestyle of ours is melting our wits. It is destroying our short-term memories.

There is also an element of addiction to it, the studies are finding.  And like with any addiction, this one tells you that you don’t really have it. I-can-drive-better-stoned has been replaced with I-am-a-multi-tasking-golden-god, which of course isn’t true either. The rush of talking on two lines, blasting an email to 10,000 people, and Tweeting and Facebooking 10,000 more all at the same time is too often followed by the kind of keen remorse one can only experience after inadvertently issuing a news release with a headline beginning: “President Barack Osama…” — under one’s candidate’s name (That wasn’t me.)

The Internet revolution is still a baby.  And the speed and portability with which it is moving is exhausting and debilitating. And yet I am the first guy on line at Best Buy when that new gadget is released — just a little something to keep the other gadgets company while in bed with me at night.

Why do I get the feeling that I’m going to end up chained to a bed with porridge dribbling down my chin?  Then again, I’ll be in good company.  We can Tweet.

http://youtu.be/l55jZclGDsI

Here is that Texas interview.

President Obama’s communications team, which has long been accused of shutting out the media,  announced recently that the President would begin doing small market television interviews. It was the President’s way of saying he was getting out to the people.

I wasn’t privy to the planning of this strategy, but I can pretty well guess that the idea was to circumvent the tough Washington, DC press corps in an effort to find more amenable and grateful interviewers — ones without presidential reporting experience.

Well, this video shows that the strategy may be backfiring.  It an interview at the White House between a local Texas TV reporter and the President, the reporter seems unbowed by the President; in fact, he grills him a bit and the President clearly doesn’t like it. (He tells the reporter that in no uncertain terms at the conclusion of the clip.)

Two thoughts: 1.) If you were a minor league baseball player offered a turn at bat for the Yankees one night, wouldn’t you swing for the fence? I would think local TV reporters granted a once-in-a-lifetime interview with the President would do the same. 2.) What would that reporter have to lose? The President — and the President’s handlers — aren’t on any of these stations’ regular beats, so what can White House Communications do to them?  Shut them out of the next story — the one they would never get anyway?

Wonder how long these Apollo Creed-inspired interviews will go on…

The genius at the New York State Health Department who came up with this should be tied to a Tetherball pole and pelted with Dodgeballs.

New York State, it seems, is not content to regulate businesses out of the state, it is now targeting fun. Kickball, Dodgeball, Wiffle Ball, Capture the Flag, Red Rover, and other popular childhood games have just been deemed “dangerous” activities by Albany bureaucrats, and, as such, they must be regulated and medically supervised. There is a strategy behind this of course; this is New York’s attempt to license and regulate ad hoc community summer programs — and collect a $200 annual fee from each of them in the process.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way:  This is nonsense.  It is utterly ridiculous.  Kids play.  They get hurt sometimes.  And they learn to toughen up from it. I’ve caught my share of Wiffle Balls in the testes, but, hey, you get back in the field, just a few steps further back. It’s part of growing up. Besides, who can afford a dozen kids these days anyway?

This is also the ten-millionth example of what happens when government gets too large — it begins seeking targets to rationalize and pay for its existence. That’s why legislators propose so many dumb laws every year. They and their staffs sit in back rooms all year dreaming this stuff up.

But there is a more serious issue at play here. In regulating common childhood games, the State is taking responsibility for which games are appropriate to play unsupervised and which must be chaperoned. If one gets hurt playing the former, can one sue the State?  There was no warning…

Does New York really want to get into that business?

I’m a believer in American Exceptionalism and I have no yearning to live elsewhere,  but I am always amazed in visiting
other countries to see how, well, free people there are to make their own mistakes. Cliffs come without railings; toasters — actual toasters; ones you can burn your fingers in — are in hotel lobbies, and ladders don’t warn  against using them.

And yet people cautiously use them. It’s amazing. They decide on their own to be careful, and they have no one to blame but themselves if they fall.

Regulations like those just announced by the Health Department are routinely dismissed in the U.S. as “nanny state” annoyances, but in the long run, they are more pernicious than that. Ubiquitous regulations rob us of our freedom; they strip us our responsibility to make judgment calls and create a system of victimhood for those who get hurt. There’s nothing trivial about that. It is eroding the American spirit and turning us against one another.

Oh, why a Tetherball pole? Well, our friends at the State Health Department seem to have left that game off the list. Have you ever caught the nub of a Tetherball with your wrist? It hurts.  That menace of a game should be outright banned. Who can I sue?

UPDATE:  The State Health Department just scrapped these new regulations. More on that here.  No Dodgeball pelting necessary.  Kudos to those who changed their minds.  It’s not easy to do in public.

If the book, Deconstructing Obama, is half as devastating as this review suggests, it is going to sell quite a few copies in the next year.  The book, according to this review,  directly calls into question the President’s honesty, specifically challenging Mr. Obama’s repeat assertion that he wrote his own memoirs.

Deconstructing Obama author  Jack Cashill suggests it was Bill Ayers who penned the Obama books, the former Weather Underground leader.  The President’s personal bio is challenged as well.

All very controversial.  All potentially devastating.  All very well-timed by the publisher.