According to Brett J. Blackledge at the Associated Press, when it comes to unspent stimulus money, cue the MC Hammer (“U Can’t Touch This“) and go away.

In a Friday “analysis” in the wire service’s “Spin Meter” category (HT Sweetness & Light), Blackledge, using words which clearly communicate which side he’s on, in essence tells those whose goal it is to reduce federal spending to a more sustainable level that they’re going to have to go somewhere else to find money that can’t be spent.

There are a couple of silver linings in Blackledge’s otherwise leaden analysis. First, he admits in his very first sentence that the stimulus program is “politically unpopular.” Second, he notes that the government wasn’t able to spend the money as quickly as promised in the heady days of February 2009, when passage of the stimulus bill that no one had time to read was supposedly the only thing preventing economic Armageddon:

SPIN METER: Not much savings from stimulus money

Congressional Republicans say they want to cut federal spending by raiding $45 billion from President Barack Obama’s politically unpopular economic stimulus program. But they won’t be able to get their hands on most of that money.

At most, only about $7 billion of the $814 billion in economic recovery money awarded under the 2009 federal law hasn’t already been spoken for, according to the latest White House estimates. And Republican leaders now acknowledge they would be lucky to identify as much as $5 billion in stimulus-related spending cuts as part of a plan to save taxpayers $2.5 trillion over 10 years.

Where did the money go?

It’s not that all the stimulus money has been spent; it has been committed for specific projects and programs. In the confusing money flow from Washington to the rest of the country, there’s still about $168 billion in stimulus money that has not actually been paid out, according to the administration. But it says nearly all of that money already is tied up in contracts with companies, obligations with states and local governments, promised taxpayer relief and commitments to government programs.

For states, much of that money for Medicaid and education has been worked into budgets, so if Congress took it back it could leave shortfalls, said Raymond Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. “That would be a serious problem, I think, because they’re depending on that money.”

The unspent money remains in the federal pipeline despite Obama’s promise that recovery spending would occur swiftly to stimulate the nation’s economy after Congress approved the program nearly two years ago.

Even the $7 billion the White House says is not yet obligated can’t readily be yanked back by Republicans as savings because, administration officials said, planning is well under way for the projects expected to benefit.

Gosh, you would think that the federal government has never altered the terms of a contract or failed to send money to people who were counting on it. I suspect that some of these contracts (perhaps most?) have “out” clauses saying that if Congress doesn’t provide the funding for the purchases involved, the government won’t be able to continue the contract (if they don’t, they probably should). S&L makes a related point:

Funny, but we never hear about such concerns when the Department of Defense is having its budget cut. Don’t they have contracts and obligations? Don’t they have commitments?

Of course they do. But “somehow” military programs in progress do get eliminated from time to time.

Following Blackledge’s illogic, how can that be?

Let’s also go after the AP spinner’s scare words:

• Hey Brett, you want to talk about “raided”? How about Social Security, to the tune of over $2 trillion over a period of decades?
• GOP and other legislators attempting to do something about the deficit aren’t “going to get their hands on” anything. Any spending reductions will only reduce projected deficits. But it doesn’t have the same impact if you say reducing spending “will slow down Ben Bernanke’s printing presses a little bit,” does it?
• “Yanked back” is a ridiculous term as well, because the money hasn’t been spent, and Blackledge even acknowledges that all anyone has done in relation to the $7 billion is to “plan” for it. Big whoop.

But somehow, “U Can’t Touch” anything resembling a significant chunk of the $168 billion unspent stimulus money.

Blackledge’s weigh-in at the AP’s “Spin Meter” causes it to more closely resemble an industrial scale whose needle is in the red — because it’s overloaded with horse manure.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine’s campaign web site (saved here at my web host for the inevitable takedown; bolds are mine):

Protecting Jobs by Opposing Obama Health Care
I am going to fight for Ohio jobs by fighting against the Obama health care plan!

On my first day in office as Attorney General, I will join with the 20 state attorneys general that have filed a suit against Obama health care. I am committed to fighting for our rights and protecting every Ohioan.

Not only is the Obama health care plan an unconstitutional encroachment by the federal government, it is an Ohio jobs killer. It hurts our economy at a time when we can least afford it. It slashes Medicare benefits for seniors. And it is going to cost Ohioans $1.45 billion in new Medicaid spending in just the five years between 2014 and 2019!

I will not sit on the sidelines. It is ridiculous to think that Ohio should just wait, while other states litigate. There is simply too much at stake to just sit back and rely on others to act on our behalf.

I hope Mike DeWine doesn’t believe that his work is done, and that he’s kept his campaign promise merely by joining the now-successful legal action against Obamacare. I get the impression he may, despite the obvious fact that “fighting against the Obama health care plan” is far from over.

DeWine’s Attorney General web site has this brief press release issued last Monday in reaction to a Florida federal judge’s ruling on “the Obama health care plan,” and nothing else (bold is mine):

DeWine Praises Ruling Striking Down Health Care Law

1/31/2011

(COLUMBUS, Ohio) – Senior U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson of the Northern District of Florida today ruled in favor of Ohio and 25 other states that challenged the constitutionality of the federal health care law. The judge found the law’s “individual insurance mandate” unconstitutional and declared the entire act void.

“This ruling confirms the alarming overreach made by the federal government and sends a clear message that the federal government cannot regulate commerce by forcing citizens into the marketplace to buy a product,” Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said. “The Constitution makes clear that the federal government does not have unlimited powers. This ruling helps protect the rights of all Americans by enforcing important constitutional limitations on federal authority.”

The DeWine press release’s final sentence is incorrect. The judge’s ruling doesn’t “enforce” anything.

Yes, the judge has told the Obama administration in no uncertain terms that “Obama health care” is unconstitutional, that the law is null and void, and as such, that the administration must cease and desist any and all attempts to implement the law.

But the ruling in and of itself does not have an enforcement mechanism.

Further, the Obama administration has made it clear (“Implementation will continue“) that it will spend tax dollars and other government resources as if the ruling never took place, either expecting to win on appeal (to my knowledge, it has not yet filed one) or perhaps (I hope not) defying the ruling and saying: “You don’t like it? We dare you to do come and do something about it!”

It is also clear that the administration expects the states to continue to be involved in implementing “Obama health care.” But, as Mark Levin observed last week, at least two states are saying they will not comply with that illegal expectation:

Now the states of Wisconsin and Florida, it appears, have decided that there’s no law for them to implement any longer. And they are in fact correct, since the last position of the law as it applies to Obamacare is that there is no law. And so the states should stop implementing this statute until there is a different ruling from a higher court. If the Obama administration wants to continue to violate the Constitution, to defy a federal judge, and play rope-a dope, then you states have no responsibility whatsoever to comply.

That’s exactly what Wisconsin’s AG is saying:

In a statement yesterday, Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, a Republican opposed to the law and a participant in the Florida lawsuit, said he doesn’t believe the federal statute needs to be enforced following Vinson’s ruling.

“For Wisconsin, the federal health-care law is dead — unless and until it is revived by an appellate court,” Van Hollen said. “Wisconsin was relieved of any obligations or duties that were created under terms of the federal health-care law.”

If Mike DeWine agrees with Wisconsin and Florida, I haven’t seen or heard about it.

The state Attorneys General need to go further if they are to carry out their sworn duties. They need to serve as the enforcers of the constitutional limitations the judge recognized. They need to accumulate evidence of defiance, bring it to the judge, demand a contempt order, and demand that any and all punishments that follow from such an order, if again defied, be meted out against the administration in general and the individuals involved.

Unless and until Mike DeWine joins an attempt to stop the administration from any and all implementation of the voided health care law, he will not be meeting his campaign commitment of “fighting for our rights and protecting every Ohioan.” He will also not be meeting his obligation to carry out the duties of his office and his duty to Ohioans.

You’re the one who said, “I won’t sit on the sidelines,” Mike. Get off your duff and do something.

_________________________________________________

UPDATE: I have left a voice message for Lisa Hackley, the identified contact in the DeWine press release above, specifically asking her the following —

How is the Attorney General going to respond to the Obama administration’s defiant and clearly expressed plans to continue implementing the Obama health care law despite Federal Judge Vinson declaring it null and void?

I will update readers concerning any response or, if 48 hours goes by, any non-response.

First, he had Reagan fired from his General Electric TV gig.

Son Michael Reagan told the story in an Investors Business Daily op-ed on Friday (bolds are mine):

If liberals had supported Ronald Reagan the actor, they wouldn’t have had to deal with Ronald Reagan the politician.

In 1954, my father Ronald Reagan began hosting a weekly TV series, “General Electric Theater.” The show aired Sunday nights at 9 on CBS, and consistently ranked in the top 10. Dad hosted the show and appeared as an actor in a number of episodes. Nancy made sure we watched it every week.

Under my father’s contract with General Electric, he toured the country by train and visited GE factories, local chambers of commerce and civic groups. The thousands of speeches he gave helped prepare him for bigger things to come.

… But I haven’t felt warm and fuzzy toward GE since that day in 1962 when Dad came home and told us he had just been fired by GE and his show, “General Electric Theater,” was canceled.

Dad explained that CBS hadn’t canceled the highly rated show. Instead, GE had pulled the plug. As the company was negotiating some government contracts, Bobby Kennedy, the attorney general of the United States, bluntly informed GE that if the company wished to do business with the U.S. government, it would get rid of “General Electric Theater” and fire the host.

Dad had criticized the Kennedy administration in some of his speeches, and the administration fought back through the president’s brother. Within 48 hours of Bobby Kennedy’s call, Ronald Reagan was out of a job.

So, in a backhanded way, Bobby Kennedy launched Ronald Reagan’s political career. It was a classic case of liberals outsmarting themselves. If Bobby Kennedy had let Ronald Reagan continue hosting his successful TV show, would my father have run for governor? Doubtful. And if he had not been elected governor, he certainly would not have run for president of the United States.

Sometimes the Law of Unintended Consequences is a good thing!

One can see that thuggery is a long-established Democratic Party tradition.

Five years later, Kennedy got his butt kicked in a national TV and radio debate with Reagan about the Vietnam War (transcript here), greatly enhancing Reagan’s national political cache, as described by Paul Kengor at National Review in 2007 (bolds are mine):

The Great Forgotten Debate
Reagan taught RFK a lesson that ought to be remembered.

On May 15, 1967, there was a fascinating debate between California’s new Republican governor, Ronald Reagan, and New York’s new Democratic senator, Robert F. Kennedy. The subject: the Vietnam War. The debate was titled “The Image of America and the Youth of the World,” and was billed by CBS as a “Town Meeting of the World.” It was broadcast from 10:00-11:00 P.M. EDT by CBS TV Network and CBS Radio Network. It was produced by later 60 Minutes brainchild Don Hewitt and hosted by CBS News correspondent Charles Collingwood. The debate was watched by a huge audience: 15 million Americans.

There was total agreement, including among media sources who revered Bobby Kennedy, from the San Francisco Chronicle to Newsweek, that Reagan overwhelmingly won the debate. “To those unfamiliar with Reagan’s big-league savvy,” reported Newsweek, “the ease with which he fielded questions about Vietnam may have come as a revelation.” Newsweek judged that “political rookie Reagan … left old campaigner Kennedy blinking when the session ended.” Not having a crystal ball into the tragic year ahead for Kennedy, Newsweek pondered whether the debate might be a “dry run” for a future set of “Great Debates” between these two promising presidential aspirants.

The late historian David Halberstam acknowledged that “the general consensus” was that “Reagan … destroyed him.” Lou Cannon, in a 1969 book on Reagan and California assemblyman Jesse Unruh, agreed that “Reagan clearly bested Kennedy.” Another of Reagan’s first biographers, Joseph Lewis, recorded that the “tanned and relaxed” Reagan “talked easily and precisely without a hint of uncertainty or hostility,” and “deflated” the “anguished” Kennedy, who “gulped in restrained agony” when answering questions. Kennedy, said Lewis, “looked as if he had stumbled into a minefield.”

Lewis’s metaphor was a good one, since the hostile questioners treated both Kennedy and Reagan like war criminals. Truthfully, this was not a debate between Ronald Reagan and Bobby Kennedy. Rather, it descended into a venomous America-bashing session by a panel of extremely rude international students, who seemed to bask in their big chance to unleash their torrent of anger on the two available representatives of the country they despised. Newsweek rightly described the leftist students as “interrogators.” Among them, there was one American student, Bill Bradley, the Princeton basketball star, future NBA all-star, and future U.S. senator, who at the time was studying at Oxford, and appeared troubled and overwhelmed by the level of bile directed at his country. Also among them was a beaming Soviet student, clearly thrilled with what he was witnessing from this group of young dupes who had obviously swallowed every dose of Kremlin propaganda hook, line, and sinker.

Reagan and Kennedy ended up debating the group of students, not one another. And it was there that Reagan was so effective, whereas Kennedy was passive, meek, and apologetic. Alarmed viewers looking for a defense of the United States as anything other than history’s greatest purveyor of global misery were frustrated by Kennedy’s lame responses but buoyed by Reagan’s strong retorts.

Newsweek … (noted) that Reagan “effortlessly reeled off more facts and quasi-facts about the Vietnam conflict than anyone suspected he ever knew.”…

… Especially notable, but forgotten by history, were Reagan’s remarks that evening concerning the Berlin Wall. The governor asserted: “When we signed the Consular Treaty with the Soviet Union, I think there were things that we could’ve asked in return: I think it would be very admirable if the Berlin Wall, which was built in direct contravention to a treaty, should disappear. I think this would be a step toward peace and toward self-determination for all people, if it were.”

Here was possibly Ronald Reagan’s first public call for the removal of the Berlin Wall, offered in May 1967, 20 years before his famous challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev.

… Reagan performed so well that his presidential boosters sought to use clips from the debate during the 1968 Oregon presidential primary, and requested a copy from CBS. Kennedy, however, reportedly did not want the video to be made available; CBS, naturally, acceded to his request. Kennedy himself conceded defeat to Reagan, telling his aides after the debate to never again put him on the same stage with “that son-of-a-bitch.” Kennedy was heard to ask immediately after the debate, “Who the f— got me into this?” Frank Mankiewitz was that aide, as Kennedy was quick to remind him a few weeks later: “You’re the guy who got me into that Reagan thing.”

We owe an incalculable debt of thanks to Bobby Kennedy. :–>

From Sunday’s Cincinnati Enquirer:

The most famous protest during a Reagan visit to Cincinnati took place 10 months into his presidency.

In November 1981, the president and First Lady arrived at the Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky International Airport on Air Force One and took a motorcade to the Westin Hotel downtown for a $1,000-a-plate Republican fund-raising dinner.

The country was in the middle of a severe recession; and, while Reagan’s presence guaranteed a packed ballroom of GOP donors, hundreds of people held a protest right across the street from the hotel. Fountain Square was full of people with bullhorns denouncing Reagan’s economic policies and waving anti-Reagan signs in full view of the Republicans looking down on the square.

A soup line was set up, and hundreds of people lined up for a cup of beef broth on the raw November night. One of them was the Democratic mayor of Cincinnati, David Mann, who made an anti-Reagan speech to the crowd.

For months afterward, Mann was pilloried by Republicans for showing disrespect for the president by joining the protest outside the hotel where he was appearing.

“Boy, did I hear about that,” said Mann, who later served a term in Congress. “And I still hear about it from time to time.”

The Reagan administration, Mann said “was pursuing policies that had a disproportionate impact on poor people in this city, and all over the country. I made a decision that my place was with the people on Fountain Square. It certainly wasn’t my place to be at a Republican fund raiser.”

Horse manure, David. Complete horse manure:

Once Reagan’s policies took meaningful effect in 1983, the poverty rate began to fall significantly and continued to do so until 1989, the last year his presidency’s policies had direct effect.

David Mann was wrong, and remains wrong. He still won’t Mann up and admit it.

From Montgomery, Ohio, north of Cincinnati:

Updated: 2:13 am | February 4, 2011

Born in rural Georgia with poor vision and declared legally blind, Catherine Pinkston had clarity throughout her life.

Bellies needed to be filled and enriched with a multitude of tastes, textures and nutrients. People needed to be cared for.

Mrs. Pinkston, who moved to Walnut Hills as a young woman, was a mom regardless of blood.

The Montgomery resident, 90, died Monday at Bethesda North Hospital.

To leave her final send-off for others to tend to wouldn’t be very Catherine “Maw” Pinkston-like.

Her clothes were to be blue, which they were.

Her casket was also to be blue, which it was.

And it was high time to shed those glasses that were forever perched to her nose.

So they were.

Mrs. Pinkston picked out the scriptures, the songs and the preacher. She even wrote her obituary.

“She was still taking care of us in death,” said her daughter, Gail Mundy of Sycamore Township.

Mrs. Pinkston busied herself in life boarding buses and running across town as both her husband and son fought the perils of diabetes for years. She volunteered at a rehabilitation center. For a handful of years, she worked as a teacher’s aide in Silverton and as an assembly line worker for the Cincinnati Association for the Blind.

But mothering and caring for others always came first.

Mrs. Pinkston was such an uplifting woman that many who thought they knew her had no idea she was in the midst of battling cancer herself, her friends and family said.

In fact, she had cancer three times.

Mrs. Pinkston pushed forward in life with clarity: She was a devout Christian, and she loved and cared for those around her.

“She was Maw,” said Lashell Sanks, who works in the admitting department at Drake Center. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

April 1984 was the U.S. economy’s 19th post-recession month while Ronald Reagan was President. It was a month during which the government initially reported that the unemployment rate remained at 7.7%, while the number of jobs added was 269,000. By the time the government made all its subsequent revisions over the next few years, the final jobs-added figure was 363,000.

On May 5, 1984, in an example of what Tim Graham at NewsBusters cited on Wednesday of the press’s poor economic reporting during the Reagan era, the New York Times’s Robert D. Hershey Jr. (link is to Proquest Database article copy, presented for fair use and discussion purposes) did what he could to downplay the good news, highlight the bad news, and create an impression that the good times might not last long, The report doesn’t have the intense negativity found in many press reports during the George W. Bush era, but there is definitely an undercurrent of surprise and disappointment that things were going so swimmingly:

(click on graphic for full-sized version)

Comments:

• Start with the headline. Reported employment growth was 269,000 (see bottom of third column). The Times creatively rounded down in its headline to 250,000. Since when does one round down to the nearest 50,000?
• Hershey seemed genuinely stunned by the “the continued surprisingly strong growth in employment.” Why there was any element of surprise is a mystery to me. According to final figures from that era at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, April 1984 was the eighth consecutive month showing job growth of over 200,000, and the 12th in the past 13.
• In a fit of what looks to be wishful thinking, the Time reporter wrote that “the economic recovery that began in late 1982 is not yet running out of steam” — as if it should have been, but for some reason wasn’t.
• Hershey also alluded to “recent signs of (a) slowdown.” Slowdown, schmodown. Final growth stats from that era indicate that first quarter 1984 growth was an annualized 8.0%; the second quarter came in at 7.1%. We could use that kind of “slowdown” right about now.
• And of course, great news couldn’t be reported without citing a factor that might come along and ruin things. The growth in payrolls “was cited as likely to put additional upward pressure on interest rates.” Although the Federal Reserve did raise its prime rate of interest shortly thereafter from 12% to 12.5%, by the end of the year the rate was down to 10.75%. Meanwhile, final figures indicate that the economy added over 2.3 million more jobs by year’s end.

By contrast, as noted this morning (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), a pair of Associated Press reporters described a combination of a 0.4-point drop in the unemployment rate to 9.0% and the addition of 36,000 seasonally adjusted jobs in January 2011, the 19th post-recession month under President Obama, as “the latest sign that the economic recovery is picking up speed” and worked to create an impression of positive momentum: “But the swift decline in the rate could also lift confidence at a time when businesses and individuals are already spending more money, fueling more hiring and still-more spending.”

As this graphic shows, through the first six quarters of the post-recession Reagan Era, the economy added over 4.2 million jobs (over 4.1 million in the private sector). In the first six post-recession quarters under Obama, pending possible future adjustments, the economy lost 264,000 jobs, while gaining a “whopping” 44,000 in the private sector. In Month 19, as illustrated in the post, the Reagan era’s lead over the era of Obama lengthened by over 300,000 (363,000 vs. 36,000).

Almost a week before Hershey’s employment report treatment appeared, William Serrin at the Times wrote a 1,761-word report on the difficulties the long-term unemployed were enduring (“Plight of Unemployed Goes Beyond Figures”). Extensive establishment press treatments such as like Serrin’s have been very rare during the past two years. I wonder why?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Someone needs to tell the Associated Press’s Jeannine Aversa and Christopher Rugaber that just because the number of unemployed people declines, it doesn’t mean that they “found work.”

That must be what the pair believes. Their error-riddled and suspect supposition-driven Friday afternoon report, whose title predictably focused on the unemployment-rate drop while ignoring the pathetic increase in seasonally adjusted jobs, actually made that claim (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

Unemployment falls to 9 percent, lowest since 2009

The unemployment rate is suddenly sinking at the fastest pace in a half-century, falling to 9 percent from 9.8 percent in just two months [1] – the most encouraging sign for the job market since the recession ended.

More than half a million people found work in January. [2] A government survey found weak hiring by big companies. But more people appear to be working for themselves or finding jobs at small businesses. [3]

… The Labor Department survey of company payrolls showed a net gain of 36,000 jobs in January. That’s scarcely one-fourth the number needed to keep pace with population growth.

… the payroll survey (the source for the jobs number — Ed.), about 140,000 businesses and government agencies send forms to the Labor Department showing how many people are on the payroll and how many hours they worked. The payroll survey can be slower than the household survey (the source for the reported unemployment rate — Ed.) to recognize startup companies. [3]

… The government also said fewer jobs were created last year than first thought – a net 909,000, down from an estimated 1.1 million. [3]

Specific comments:

• [1] — The “sinking at the fastest pace in half-century” claim should have been framed as “the fastest two-month decline in a half-century.” This phrasing was required, because in July 1983 during the Reagan presidence, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped from 10.1% to 9.4%. That month remains the fastest single-month decline since 1949.
• [2] — Aversa’s and Rugaber’s “more than a half million people found work” assertion is flat-out false. You obviously won’t find it in the Establishment Survey, which was the source for January’s reported seasonally adjusted gain of 36,000 jobs. It’s not in the seasonally adjusted Household Survey either:

  

  While the number of unemployed decreased by 622,000, the number of jobholders only increased by 117,000. The rest (504,000) left the labor force. The only way these folks would have “found work” is if they all began to devote more time to household chores. The not seasonally adjusted figures show a steep and expected decline in the number of people working, mostly because January is the month when retailers let go of employees they hired to get through the Christmas shopping season.

• [3] — It seems that Aversa and Rugaber are clumsily attempting to lay the groundwork for some kind of future assertion that President Obama’s “Startup America” initiative is why the economy and the job market came back. In writing that “The payroll survey can be slower than the household survey to recognize startup companies,” they seem oblivious to the fact that the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) already attempts to estimate business startups and terminations every month using its Birth/Death model, and that the government has been overly optimistic during the past two years in estimating job creation arising from small business startups. This is a primary reason why, as the AP pair wrote later, “fewer jobs were created last year than first thought.” Per BLS, the total adjustment to prior figures spread over roughly the past two years “was 452,000 (483,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis)” — something Aversa and Rugaber chose to underplay by solely identifying the 2010 effect.

If these guys tell you that the sun rose in the east this morning, I would suggest looking outside just to be sure.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From a Weekly Standard rerun of a November 1997 Bill Kristol book review of Dinesh D’Souza’s Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader:

… Reagan was, of course, a staunch anti-Communist. But his anti-communism followed from his patriotism. He was able to take the moral offensive against communism not only because he believed the Soviet Union evil, but because he believed America a force for good. The Reagan Doctrine–a determination to aid anti-Communist insurgents around the world was a hard-headed and shrewd means of weakening the Soviet empire. But, as D’Souza points out, “Reagan conceived of his doctrine primarily in moral terms.” He always emphasized the universal right to freedom and self-government. Unlike the sophisticates of his time (and ours), Reagan “defined the conflict between the West and the Soviet Union as fundamentally a moral conflict.” Indeed, “Reagan saw himself as doing nothing more than clarifying what America stood for and against.”

Reagan was confident that what America stood for was right. He was also confident–far more so than most conservatives–that his country would prevail. If he was remarkably prescient about the weakness of the Soviet system, that merely followed from his confidence in the American system. And it was Reagan’s confidence that made possible his boldness. Elected with barely 50 percent of the vote, at odds with the entire foreign-policy establishment, Reagan in his first term set out, in the words of Sovietologist Stephen Cohen of Princeton in 1983, “to abandon both containment and detente for a very different objective: destroying the Soviet Union as a world power and possibly its communist system.” (Cohen, of course, was condemning Reagan for pursuing a “pathological” strategy.)

But it was also Reagan’s confidence in America that permitted him, in his second term, to move aggressively to take advantage of what Gorbachev felt forced to do in response to Reagan’s tough first-term policies. For, as D’Souza reminds us, “at a time when no one else could, Reagan dared to imagine a world in which the communist regime in the Soviet Union did not exist.” Reagan dared to imagine such a world because he really did believe that the West would not merely contain communism, but “transcend” it.

The point of transcending communism was not simply to allow America to come home again. Reagan’s view of America implies a distinctive American role in a post-Cold War world as well. It implies an America that is militarily strong, morally assertive, and politically daring–in the service of advancing American interests and American principles in the world, and not because those principles are American but because they are morally superior to competing principles. …

Because of a need to reinstall home page files, the miserable file that contained the comment posting problem accidentally got uploaded again.

It will be fixed reasonably soon, but in the meantime, if you wish to leave a comment, please use the comment pop-up form at the bottom right of each post exclusively.

Lila Rose’s LiveAction.org went into overdrive yesterday.

LiveAction videos released earlier this week (with both edited and unedited versions) exposed personnel at Planned Parenthood clinics in Perth Amboy, New Jersey and Richmond, Virginia as all too willing to help provide abortions, birth control, and other “reproductive health services” to underage hookers in a pimp’s employ while getting around laws requiring notification of law enforcement and/or parents. On Friday, the self-described “youth led movement dedicated to building a culture of life and ending abortion, the greatest human rights injustice of our time” released three more videos showing visits to Old Dominion State clinics in Falls Church, Charlottesville, and Roanoke.

Left-wing “bloggers” have swung into frantic action. Not to see how widespread the abuse of underage girls might be at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide. No-no-no. As Dana Loesch reported yesterday at BigGovernment.com, they are plotting how they can most effectively defend the rogue organization (links are in original):

JOURNOLIST 2.0: Soros Sites Hold Con Call To Map Strategy for Planned Parenthood Defense

It was reported that Alternet, Soros’ Media Matters, and other progressives staged a conference call this afternoon where they mapped strategy to defend Planned Parenthood from the choices Planned Parenthood staffers made on tape.

… Instead of focusing on the fact that there is an organization who turned a blind eye to child sex-trafficking, an organization that receives forced federal funding, the group of senior fellows ostensibly chose the route which affords zero defense of women, born or unborn, thereby saving them from compromising their female-hostile ideologies: attack Lila Rose. These outlets don’t see the insanity in feigning disgust that the racket was exposed, not that it occurred at all.

The majority of the call was spent discussing ways to discredit Rose because of her funding. They surmise that some group which donates to her pro-life magazine is a group donated to by a group given money by the Koch Brothers. So says people who just cashed a $1 million-dollar check from George Soros.

The opening of the Alternet post on the confab notes a couple of other interested parties who were in attendance:

On a conference call with bloggers convened by Media Matters for America with Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards and Vice President Stewart Schear, I got a little tip into where Lila Rose, who leads the right-wing sting group Live Action, gets some of her funding.

Well, isn’t that cozy? The organization under fire gets to meet with people who somehow believe that they are still “journalists” to plan its defense. There would seem to be little reason to doubt that those involved will share their plans and information with others at establishment press outlets who also somehow believe that they are still “journalists.” This is all being done to defend the reputation and funding of an organization shown over at least the past half-dozen several years as willing to flout the law and basic human decency to maximize the number of abortions it performs.

Paraphrasing a NewsBusters commenter’s tagline: This isn’t media bias. It’s a working relationship.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From South Bend, Indiana:

Feb 4, 2011 / 03:01 am

Developers of a new “confession helper” iPhone application say they found inspiration in Pope Benedict XVI’s call for more youth involvement in social communication.

“Confession: A Roman Catholic App” is the first iPhone, iPad and iPod touch application from the South Bend, Indiana-based publisher Little iApps, LLC.

Patrick Leinen, developer and co-founder of Little iApps, spoke about the program in a Feb. 3 interview with CNA.

He said the app is uniquely designed for cradle Catholics who go to Confession and attend church. It gives a “step-by-step” guide to Confession and a “personalized examination of conscience” based on the user’s age, vocation and sex.

“A priest won’t have the same examination as a teen girl or a married man. You will get something unique to you,” he explained.

Users who have not been to Confession in some time have reported that using the app takes away the “intimidation factor” of going to confess their sins.

Leinen added that he and his fellow developers wanted to respond to Pope Benedict’s 2010 World Communications Address, which encouraged using new media to serve God’s Word.

After debating what this meant, the developers decided to make applications that are “in communion with the Church” and “in support of our lifestyle” as Catholics.

Two priests collaborated in the app’s development: Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, the executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices, and Fr. Dan Scheidt, pastor of Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Mishawaka, Indiana. …

Go here for the rest of the story.

Sam Donaldson and the left run roughshod over the record.

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Note: This column went up at Pajamas Media and was teased here at BizzyBlog on Wednesday.

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On January 24, USA Today published nine commentaries on Ronald Reagan’s legacy. One of the selected contributors was Sam Donaldson. Why McPaper thought the former ABC White House correspondent deserved a place among the other eight (President Obama, House Speaker John Boehner, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese, biographer Lou Cannon, and scholar Leon Aron) is a mystery.

The former ABC White House correspondent deserves some credit. In his retrospective, titled “My Respect for Reagan Only Grew,” Donaldson confesses that many underestimated the Gipper. “I must admit,” he ruefully notes: “I was one of them.” (So did many in Reagan’s own party. It’s a historical fact that after the former California governor finally won the GOP presidential nomination in 1980, Ohio’s Republican establishment and then-Governor Jim Rhodes barely lifted a finger to assist in his general election effort. His Buckeye State grass-roots supporters did virtually all the work. I suspect that this was also the case in many other states.)

But Donaldson can’t seem to offer Reagan more than backhanded compliments. When it comes to “running up the national debt, it was Reagan, not George W. Bush or President Obama, who put us on the upward trajectory” — even though “forcing Soviet communism onto what Reagan called ‘the ash heap of history’ wasn’t such a bad way to spend the money.” Did Donaldson feel that way when it mattered? As it is, he conveniently forgets that Tip O’Neill’s Congresses repeatedly broke promises to rein in spending, and completely overlooks the fact that even after adjusting for inflation, our current president’s deficit spending, which is on track to break yet another record this fiscal year, is historically unprecedented. Worse, it has accomplished virtually nothing for the economy.

These errors, and others, are bad enough. But Donaldson’s worst offense occurs when he shows that he has fallen hard for a false meme that has achieved gospel status within the historically revisionist left:

History will continue to assess his performance, particularly his policies — minorities and women were neglected …

This is one of those “everybody knows” assertions that apparently no longer requires anything like evidence or support. It happens to be completely without basis.

I’ll try to leave the female element of Donaldson’s dumb declaration alone after making two points. First, while they covered his presidency, cynical establishment press members like CBS’s Mike Wallace thought that the wonderful way Ron treated Nancy, the most important woman in his life, was some kind of public act. They had to quickly backtrack when Nancy published a collection of her husband’s incredible love letters in 2000. Second, the economic points I’m about to make with minorities can also easily be made about the economic progress of women during The Seven Fat Years.

There’s plentiful support for the idea that Reagan was personally concerned about the vestiges of racism that lingered in some Americans’ hearts. In 1982, a cross-burning incident five years earlier in Maryland troubled him so deeply when he read of it that he felt compelled to visit the affected family to “tell them this isn’t the way it is in America.”

The best information available about the economic progress of minorities comes from the government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Census Bureau. Here’s just a sample of what their statistics tell us about the period between when Reagan finally got most of the tax cuts he wanted and when presidential successor Bush 41 stalled the economic expansion by breaking his 1988 presidential campaign’s “no new taxes” pledge in 1990 (all figures presented are seasonally adjusted):

• From March 1983 to June 1989, according to the BLS’s Household Survey, white employment grew by 14.2 million, or 16%. Black employment during the same period grew by 2.7 million (29%). Hispanic employment also increased by 2.7 million (47%).
• How about the unemployment rate? From October 1982 through June 1990, it dropped as follows: whites, from 9.2% to 4.5%; blacks, from 20.1% to 10.5%; Hispanics, from 15.0% to 7.7%. Oh, and for good measure, and because I can’t resist addressing the female element of Donaldson’s dissing: During the same period, the overall male unemployment rate plunged from 10.9% to 5.3%, while the female rate went from 9.8% to a still-lower 5.2%.
• Census information tells us that inflation-adjusted median black household income grew by 18.7% from 1983 to 1989. For Hispanics, that figure jumped by 12.5%. White median household income increased 9.3% from 1984 to 1989 (1983 data isn’t available).
• Looking at average household income during the same years, the results were: blacks, +18.4%; Hispanics, +17.9%; whites (again, 1984-1989), +13.3%.

It’s obvious that not only did supposedly “neglected” minorities benefit significantly from Reagan’s policies; they also benefited disproportionately.

By contrast, through December 2010 under Barack Obama:

• White employment has declined by about 1 million, a bit less than 0.9%, since the recession’s official end eighteen months earlier. Black employment has inched up by only 83,000 (0.6%); Hispanic employment is up by a still-small 277,000 (1.4%).
• The unemployment rate for whites during the same period has declined slightly from 8.7% to 8.5%; for blacks and Hispanics, it has increased from 14.9% to 15.8% and 12.2% to 13.0%, respectively.
• During calendar 2010, the median weekly earnings of wage and salary workers went up by 0.5%. Unfortunately, prices increased by 1.3%. On the whole, average Americans fell behind. It’s virtually certain that blacks and Hispanics were not spared.

Obamanomics has hurt millions of Americans and their families; minorities have not escaped the pain. Everyone would welcome a bit of Reaganesque “neglect” at this point.

What really bothers Reagan’s detractors isn’t that he didn’t pander to minorities (though he didn’t). It’s that he was conservative and a Republican. In the naysayers’ world, “everybody knows” that neglecting and oppressing minorities is in the right’s DNA; facts don’t matter. In the real world, however, it’s as clear as can be that Ronald Reagan’s policies did more to improve the plight of America’s minorities than anything Barack Obama’s administration has done or is on track to do.

Exit question setup for Sam Donaldson: Ronald Reagan’s economic policies led to impressive progress for Americans of all races, creeds, and colors. Reagan was also staunchly pro-life. Jesse Jackson believes that we need more, not less, of the economic statism that hasn’t worked and isn’t working. More crucially, Jackson’s early-1980s repudiation of his previously courageous prolife views effectively ended the black civil-rights movement’s involvement in attempts to curb abortions. Largely as a result of that horrible shift, “Black women (today) are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are roughly 2 times as likely.”

Exit question: Who “neglected minorities” more, Sam?