Far be it from The Scrapbook to begrudge Barack Obama his summer vacation. The president, like all presidents, has earned the right to a little rest and recreation. And in the midst of Obama’s various missteps, miscalculations, and misery-inducing labors on the nation’s behalf, he no doubt welcomes time away from the Oval Office. Our only quibble is with his choice of venue: Martha’s Vineyard. More about that in a moment.
Of course, few presidents ever mollify their roughest critics, and when they lay down their burdens at taxpayers’ expense, out come the sticks and stones. Criticism of Obama’s time off—the mere fact that he is taking it, never mind where and how—is nothing new. Harry Truman liked to relax at the Naval Air Station at Key West wearing loud Hawaiian shirts; Dwight Eisenhower played rounds of golf on the naval base at Newport; Jimmy Carter went chugging down the Mississippi on the Delta Queen; Richard Nixon strolled along the beach at San Clemente clad in dress shirt and tie. Each was excoriated/advised/lampooned in his turn.
When Woodrow Wilson vacationed at a New Jersey retreat called Shadow Lawn, Theodore Roosevelt delivered a critical address at Cooper Union—“There should be shadows enough at Shadow Lawn . . . ”—that played on the name innumerable times. Nor is this phenomenon unique to American politics. For exercise, the Victorian prime minister William Gladstone liked to cut down trees on his estate in Wales, prompting Lord Randolph Churchill (Winston’s father) to quip that “the forest laments in order that Mr. Gladstone may perspire.”
So The Scrapbook has nothing reproachful to say about Barack Obama’s leisure time. Our complaint is about the wearisome fact that, yet again, the president has chosen to retire to Martha’s Vineyard for the duration. We can understand why: Bill Clinton was always happiest unwinding on the Vineyard, and since Clinton remains the sole Democratic president elected to two terms since Franklin D. Roosevelt, Obama must regard Martha’s Vineyard as charmed real estate. Then again, most vacations are the pursuit of a comfort zone, and how comfortable it must be for a besieged Barack Obama to spend his leisure hours among the left-leaning/check-writing denizens of Martha’s Vineyard, lapping up the adoration.
But that’s exactly the problem. In illustrating President Obama’s isolation from what we might call mainstream America—consider, for example, the Canadian-made behemoth of a bus with which he recently toured the Midwest—it would be difficult to think of a more fitting symbol than his choice of a privileged East Coast playground within hailing distance of Chappaquiddick. Say what you will about George W. Bush attacking the underbrush on his ranch: That would not be the chill-out choice of the New York literati, or Wall Street hedge fund managers, or Hollywood moneybags.
Which raises an obvious question: Where should Obama have spent his vacation? The Scrapbook is partial to historic sites and destinations far from the beaten path. But a president’s work is never really done, and so the case could be made for Obama to have embraced that all-American innovation—the “staycation”—in the comfort of his stately, taxpayer-subsidized residence, starting work on an endless series of repairs to his ramshackle presidency.
Rick Perry and the Alien Invasion
Last week, Rick Perry was roundly mocked by the journalistic establishment for saying, “I do believe that the issue of global warming has been politicized. I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.”
The very next day, a woman showed up with her child at a campaign appearance by Perry, thrust her obviously reticent tyke at the Texas governor, and loudly instructed him to “Ask him why he doesn’t believe in science!”
Fellow Republican Jon Huntsman even took a jab at Perry on Twitter later: “To be clear. I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.”
Well, call The Scrapbook crazy but putting blind faith in the abstract notion of collective scientific “consensus” rather than evaluating individual scientists and their findings on the merits is not only counter to the scientific method but seriously ill-advised. Case in point—the Guardian reports on some of the latest “research” to come out of NASA:
It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth’s atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control—and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a NASA-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make contact at some point in the future.
Here The Scrapbook can’t help but note that the late Michael Crichton—the bestselling author, physician, and noted global warming skeptic—once gave a speech satirically titled “Aliens Cause Global Warming,” wherein he put forth the crazy notion that “Rather than serving as a cleansing force, science has in some instances been seduced by the more ancient lures of politics and publicity.” Crichton had a Harvard medical degree and was famous for his fantastic tales that provided a respectable soupçon of public education on everything from genetics to nanotechnology. But clearly, having a similar opinion to Rick Perry makes one an ideological troglodyte.
After all, Rick Perry got “four -Pinocchios” from the Washington Post’s official “fact checker” Glenn Kessler for offering the opinion that global warming science is politicized and further suggesting climate scientists have been manipulating data. In a Weekly Standard cover story last year, Steve Hayward ably noted how leaked emails from the hugely influential Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia have raised serious and as yet unanswered questions about the group’s integrity. Just last month the wildlife biologist whose claims about dead polar bear sightings became a rallying cry in the global warming debate was suspended by the federal government pending an investigation into the integrity of his work.
But NASA using taxpayer dollars to speculate on an alien invasion destroying life as we know it if we don’t pass laws reducing our economy to something out of the Bronze Age? No need to doubt that scenario. It’s science. You do believe in science, don’t you?
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Stop Coddling Buffett
The Scrapbook was not the only reader to plow through Warren Buffett’s self-serving op-ed in the New York Times—“Stop Coddling the Super-Rich” (August 15)—and feel a mild regurgitative sensation in the gut. Here’s the short version: Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor from Omaha, is still a paid-up member of Team Obama, and so claims that he and other unnamed poltroons might easily retire the national debt if Congress would just inject some fairness into the tax system and raise his bill.
Since then, better economists than The Scrapbook have taken the trouble to explain the faulty, if not surreal, economic thinking here, as well as two salient points that Buffett fails to mention. First, instead of amending the income-tax code—thereby sending his fellow billionaires into new and better shelters, and raising rates on the rest of us—he could advocate a wealth tax, which really would affect the Warren Buffetts of the world and complicate their own “philanthropic” tax strategies. Moreover, if the Sage of Omaha really wants to contribute more cash to the Treasury, he need only uncap his fountain pen and write a check.
But The Scrapbook’s complaint is more tonal than economic. Warren Buffett knows that when President Obama talks about raising taxes for “the rich,” he is not really talking about people like Warren Buffett but about two-income families whose worth is measured in thousands, not millions or billions, of dollars. Hike taxes to suit Warren Buffett and you raise taxes on people for whom the lost income actually means something.
As he often reminds us, Warren Buffett’s investment-based wealth is variously estimated to be in the neighborhood of $50 billion, possibly more. Which means that, if income taxes were doubled or tripled or quadrupled or increased a hundredfold, he would still have $50 billion left—a financial safety net that the vast majority of Americans, including most of President Obama’s “rich,” do not have.
The Scrapbook believes in shared sacrifice, especially in time of war. But there is something unseemly about someone with billions of dollars exhorting the rest of us to dig deeper and pay higher taxes. Apparently discretion and good manners are not always consistent with hardball negotiation and shrewd investment.
Wedding Bell Blues
The first unintended consequence of New York’s legalization of gay marriage appeared in a press release from the University of Rochester earlier this summer: “Effective July 24, 2011, University of Rochester employees are no longer able to enroll same-sex domestic partners (or children of domestic partners) in the University’s benefit plans.” That’s right—the university is cutting off benefits to same-sex couples who were registered as “domestic partners” and telling them to marry or get lost. How fast does the university want them to tie the knot? They have a grace period to continue receiving benefits until June 30, 2012.
On the one hand, it’s unsettling to see a university pushing gay marriage on its employees. But on the other hand, how could they not? If they didn’t cut domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples after gay marriage was legalized, then they’d have to begin offering them to unmarried hetero couples, too. Should be a fat year for wedding planners in Rochester.
Sentences We Didn’t Finish
‘So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks, long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do. More important, they . . . ” (David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam in the New York Times, August 17).
Y.M.C. . . . You in Court
Laugh as much as you want at the ridiculousness of a song like “Y.M.C.A.” with all its silly gestures (not to mention the costumed men who performed it—the Village People), but practically every time it’s played—whether at professional sporting events, on television, or in movies—someone is collecting royalties. That someone happens to be two companies, Scorpio Music and Can’t Stop Productions. But this may change due to a copyright law that, if enforced, would return ownership of the 1978 hit to the songwriter.
As the New York Times explains, “Victor Willis, the original lead singer of the group, filed papers this year to regain control in 2013 over his share of ‘Y.M.C.A.,’ whose lyrics he wrote, under a copyright provision that returns ownership of creative works to recording artists and songwriters after 35 years.” (In case you’re wondering, Willis was the cop and sometimes the sailor boy.)
The two companies insist, how-ever, that Willis lacks what are called “termination rights” and that he was merely a hired performer. As one of the firms’ lawyers told the Times, “The Village People were a concept group, created by my clients, who picked the people and the costumes. . . . We gave them the material and a studio to record in and controlled what was recorded, where, and what hours and what they did.” (Well, probably not everything they did.)
The 58-year-old Willis is also claiming his rights to 32 other Village People songs (frankly, we couldn’t come up with more than five). Interestingly, the Times reports that Willis already earns between $30,000 to $40,000 annually from Village People hits, though he obviously stands to earn in the millions if he wins this legal tussle. Whether or not he plans on sharing his profits with a cowboy, construction worker, leather-clad biker, and an American Indian remains unclear.