From Sanford's clip file

A colleague calls my attention to Frank Rich's column over the weekend, which starts in on our governor about halfway down:

    At least the G.O.P.’s newfound racial sensitivity saved it from choosing the white Southern governor often bracketed with Jindal as a rising “star,” Mark Sanford of South Carolina. That would have been an even bigger fiasco, for Sanford is from the same state as Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the junior high school student who sat in Michelle Obama’s box on Tuesday night and whose impassioned letter to Congress was quoted by the president.

    In her plea, the teenager begged for aid to her substandard rural school. Without basic tools, she poignantly wrote, she and her peers cannot “prove to the world” that they too might succeed at becoming “lawyers, doctors, congressmen like yourself and one day president.”

    Her school is in Dillon, where the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, grew up. The school’s auditorium, now condemned, was the site of Bernanke’s high school graduation. Dillon is now so destitute that Bernanke’s middle-class childhood home was just auctioned off in a foreclosure sale. Unemployment is at 14.2 percent.

    Governor Sanford’s response to such hardship — his state over all has the nation’s third-highest unemployment rate — was not merely a threat to turn down federal funds but a trip to Washington to actively lobby against the stimulus bill. He accused the three Republican senators who voted for it of sabotaging “the future of our civilization.” In his mind the future of civilization has little to do with the future of students like Ty’Sheoma Bethea.

    What such G.O.P. “stars” as Sanford and Jindal have in common, besides their callous neo-Hoover ideology, are their phony efforts to portray themselves as populist heroes. Their role model is W., that brush-clearing “rancher” by way of Andover, Yale and Harvard. Listening to Jindal talk Tuesday night about his immigrant father’s inability to pay for an obstetrician, you’d never guess that at the time his father was an engineer and his mother an L.S.U. doctoral candidate in nuclear physics. Sanford’s first political ad in 2002 told of how growing up on his “family’s farm” taught him “about hard work and responsibility.” That “farm,” the Charlotte Observer reported, was a historic plantation appraised at $1.5 million in the early 1980s. From that hardscrabble background, he struggled on to an internship at Goldman Sachs.

Of course, with enemies like Frank Rich, the governor's liable to get some sympathy from me. Never have liked that guy's work -- he has all of Paul Krugman's objectionable characteristics as a mindless hateful partisan, without the saving grace of being a Nobel winner in economics.

Anyway, I'm less impressed with that sort of mention than I am the kind that our governor gets in his favorite journalistic habitat, the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, where they continue to try to construct an alternative universe in which Mark Sanford, possibly the least accomplished governor in the nation, is an actual contender for President of the United States sometime this century. (I don't know about you, but I found "Serenity" way more believable -- I just can't see terraforming taking hold in this world the WSJ is trying to conjure into being. Do you think Sanford could get the Reaver vote?)

Which reminds me that I meant to pass on this piece by WSJ board member Kimberley A. Strassel about our gov, which ran 10 days ago:

    South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is mooted as a GOP presidential contender. During the stimulus debate he told President Barack Obama, to his face, that the Palmetto State wanted no part of a spending blowout that would be harmful to the economy, to taxpayers, and to the dollar. He even traveled to Capitol Hill to stiffen Senate Republicans against the plan....
    The 48-year-old South Carolina governor is of the party wing that believes it failed in its core promise of fiscal responsibility, and in tackling the bread-and-butter issues (education, health care) that worry voters today. He's made his name partly by confronting his own party, which runs the legislature.

My very favorite part is when she strains to make it sound like Mark Sanford has actual achievements in S.C. to boast of:

    Nearly every year since he was elected in 2002, Mr. Sanford has proposed to cap spending at state population growth plus inflation. His state senate has ignored him. He's used his line-item veto more than 500 times, usually on pork projects. The legislature routinely overrides. Far from diminishing his standing, these lost battles have made him popular in the state.
    His policies have made South Carolina more competitive. In 2005, the state passed its first-ever cut in marginal tax rates for businesses, and in 2007 broader tax relief. He's shepherded tort reform, and crafted incentives to encourage property insurers to remain in the state after a spate of hurricanes. South Carolina still has problems (in particular, education), though since 2003 it has had the 16th fastest job growth in the nation. Its unemployment rate -- the third highest in the country -- has been exacerbated by record growth in the state's labor force.

Did you catch that? We have so much employment here because there are just to darned many of us! Mark Sanford has made S.C. into such a Nirvana that people are a-comin' here quicker'n we can find jobs for 'em!

Comments

[Lee Muller]

If we had a legislature full of Mark Sanfords, most of the social problems would be gone. Instead, the Democrats keep their illiterate voting masses in poverty and in line.

Brad, have you ever read "Breaking the News", by James Fallows? He is the very liberal editor of Harpers, who despises the shallowness of modern editors and TV personalities posing as newscasters.

Speaking of partisan blowhards like Frank Rich and Paul Krugman, whatever happened ot William Greider?

[Mab]

"What such G.O.P. “stars” as Sanford and Jindal have in common..."

is a knowledge of the economic truths espoused by Milton Friedman, et al.

Markets don't always behave according to plan -- according to the platitudes of unrealistic people like Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.

[KP]

Does South Carolina really have the 16th highest job growth in the nation since 2003? The tables I looked at are since 2001, but we're 37th or worse on those.

[Bill C.]

Brad, what are you going to do when in 2011 when you don't have Sanford to write about? It's not even worth reading your comments anymore because it's the same bitch and complain comments that you've had for the past 6 years. I realize that not everybody is held on the same pedestal as Sam ($2000 Visa card) and Inez (50th best Education Supt) Tennenbaum and James (I didn't do it for political reasons) Smith, but give it a break... not everybody loves a liberal Democrat like you media folk.

[martin]

There's that parallel universe, again.
That woman must be using his press releases or has he already started his headstone like Sen. Burris?
Lee, really, has Mark Sanford ever shown any interest, one way or another, in any social issue? Or, do you just think his fiscal and environmental poliicies would cause the social changes to happen?
And, another really: isn't the Republic Party in control of both SC House and Senate? Isn't the deal that he can't work with members of his own party?

[Ralph Hightower]

New York City real estate mogul, Howie Rich, has a "two-fer" in his investment and ownership of Governot Mark Sanford:

1. School Vouchers


2. TABOR (euphemistically called the Tax Payers Bill of Rights

Howie Rich supports and buys candidates that follows his agendas.

I have done my own personal research into Howie Rich and also follow the SC Barbeque and Politics blog. I have used the campaign financing websites to track Howie Rich and his cronies.

I won't go into a discussion about school vouchers because that has been debated about ad nauseum in Brad's blog.

TABOR is "cap spending at state population growth plus inflation". It became law in Colorado and it crippled the state until they could get it repealed.

Sanford is a puppet controlled from New York City.

Count down to new leadership in South Carolina: Six hundred and eighty-one days.

[Randy E]

Brad, you slam Rich yet it appears you agree with his evaluation of Sanford. Partisans can make valid and even insightful points. By dissing any partisan out of hand, you ingore this fact - baby out with bath water. Rich nailed it this time!

Krugman's insight has been incredibly important these past few months, despite your diatribes. On This Week this past November, George Will, a man of immense intelligence, stated that the Great Depression was extended because the capitalists were sent mixed signals by The New Deal. Krugman explained that GDP shot up except when Roosevelt caved and tried to balance the budget - notice the dip.

Some propagandists on the right either blame Roosevelt for the Great Depression or state that WWII and not The New Deal that had any impact (again, look at GDP during the New Deal). Thankfully, Krugman the partisan is around to squash such bluster (such as Lee's or Weldon's next post).

[Brad Warthen]

Randy, in case you haven't noticed, I've been using Krugman from time to time over the last few months, as his area of expertise has become the biggest story in the country.

Also, his stuff is more useful now that W. is no longer president, so we don't have to be bored with his ranting about how much he hated him, and how everything was his fault, yadda-yadda.

Unfortunately, he still has trouble writing a few simple declarative sentences about the economy without getting in a mini-rant or two, so it's a tradeoff.

Let me try to be specific as to what's wrong with Krugman, so you can see my problem more clearly.

Take his column that I ran on our op-ed page Sunday. Clearly, I thought it was worth publishing. But I had to overlook some really ridiculous partisan asides, such as this silly little ideological whine: "The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats who were starting to feel a bit of post-partisan depression." In other words, God forbid the president should try to lead the whole country. I mean, Krugman really thinks that way. He gives the impression that if there were two ways to save the economy, and they were equal in every other way except that only Democrats would want to choose Course A, whereas there is bipartisan agreement on Course B, Krugman would insist upon Course A. He constantly writes things that betray that sort of petty mentality.

Then there was this bit right out of planet Bizarro: "So if Obama gets us out of Iraq (without bogging us down in an equally expensive Afghan quagmire)...." What the hell? Yeah, we know that you don't like our involvement in Iraq, because it's associated in your mind with You Know Who, but now you're speaking of our commitment in Afghanistan as being the same sort of "quagmire" that will only involve us if Obama makes the mistake of "bogging us down" in it? I mean, do actual facts out there in the world have any bearing on your thinking at all? Let's see: The Taliban is resurgent, Pakistan's about to collapse, Osama bin Laden (you know, the guy Democrats keep saying that Iraq was keeping us from going after) is still over there somewhere as far as we know, and you think it's just a matter of whether the president willfully "bogs us down" in another "quagmire?"

I mean, let's set aside the unbelievably tacky assertion that whether we should live up to our commitments or pursue the nation's national security interests in the world depend on whether it costs money. Let's even set aside the purely mercenary consideration that government spending on wars can be stimulative, as long as you're talking money. What gets me about this passage -- and it's very typical of Krugman -- is that it speaks of our national security priorities in terms that are painfully restricted by political ideology, and that's very disturbing.

There is something about the way Krugman writes -- and Rich is even more so, on the rare occasions that I look at his stuff -- that suggests he lives in a hermetically sealed, VERY limited little world, in which everyone has exactly the same political attitudes that he does, and where it doesn't matter whether they are right or not, because it's not about choosing the right policies for the good of the nation in the real world; it's about adhering to the group orthodoxy.

I hope this helps.

[slugger]

If we had a legislature full of Mark Sanfords, most of the social problems would be gone. Instead, the Democrats keep their illiterate voting masses in poverty and in line.

Brad, have you ever read "Breaking the News", by James Fallows? He is the very liberal editor of Harpers, who despises the shallowness of modern editors and TV personalities posing as newscasters.

Speaking of partisan blowhards like Frank Rich and Paul Krugman, whatever happened to William Greider?

The economy of this country needs to do what the saying is about water seeking it-s on level.
We need to let the economy seek it-s own level. The more Obama and Polosi, Reid, Barney Frank etc pour money into "saving our economy" is destroying our way of life and turning this country into a socialist nation.

Do you folks know what quicksand is? We are mired in the quicksand that is paying for the destruction of our country.

The idiots that sit in Washington that vote to destroy our nation need to be contacted. Please contact your representa
tives.

Sit on your behinds. Stay involved in the TV sports. Watch your ball games. Read your newspapers that give you more sports news than they deliver to you about the road to destuction of our country.

Obama is the enemy of our country. He is in the process of destroying our country that was founded by a constitution. He has an agenda that makes us a socialist/communist nation.

[It Doesn't Matter]

Conf. to David -- Superman could be Lee OR slugger...according to "the matrix."

[bud]

Then there was this sentence right out of planet Bizarro: "So if Obama gets us out of Iraq (without bogging us down in an equally
expensive Afghan quagmire)...." What the hell? Yeah, we know that you don't like our involvement in Iraq, because it's associated in your mind with You Know Who,...
-Brad

Now you're just showing a petty bias against Krugman. That comment is condescending, insulting and just plain wrong. Krugman doesn't dislike our involvment in Iraq because it's associated with Bush. He disapproves of it because it's WRONG. And if Obama gets us into a quagmire in Afghanistan that will be wrong too. In fact isn't that exactly the point he's making? Why can't you warmongers understand a very basic principal of us anti-war folks. We think the damn war was wrong, is wrong and will always be wrong. That is true regardless of who is president, or whatever so-called progress is supposedly made. It's a killing field without end. Thankfully we have a president that gets that. Or at least I hope so. And if he doesn't get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan soon he'll be disliked also.

[bud]

The budget will, among other things, come as a huge relief to Democrats
who were starting to feel a bit of post-partisan depression." In other words, God forbid the president should try to lead the whole country.
-Brad

Krugman's making a joke Brad. You're just too stuborn to enjoy this bit of humor. Lighten up man.

[Randy E]

slugger, if you don't want our Constitution to be defiled, then jump in your time machine and retract your votes for W-Cheney. Look at what came out today:

The Justice Department on Monday released a long-secret legal document from 2001 in which the Bush administration claimed the military could search and seize terror suspects in the United States without warrants. In other words, W could identify ANYONE as a terror suspect and throw them in jail. If you had access to the original Constitution and peed on it, you wouldn't defile it more than that!

I'm always surprised at conservatives who claim to be champions of the Constitution but turn a blind eye to such unabashed actions taken to circumvent the very principles supposedly being protected.

Regarding Obama, he's busy cleaning up the elephant dung.

[Birch Barlow]

Some propagandists on the right either blame Roosevelt for the Great Depression or state that WWII and not The New Deal that had any impact (again, look at GDP during the New Deal).

And that New Deal still has an impact today:

The Government Accountability Office points out that without entitlement reform, deficits and the U.S. public debt will rise to unsustainable levels.

[Lee Muller]

That is donkey dung that Obama is afraid to touch.

Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, and Bill Clinton dung on their Minority Mortgage Fraud Scandal.

Rahm Emmanuel, Jamie Gorelick and a half dozen other Obama advisors' dung on the falsified reports of FNMA and FMAC, which Democrats stuggle to paper over with taxpayer bailouts.

Investors started bailing out of the stock market in June, when Hillary slipped and the media was laying down a smokescreen of excuses for Obama's racist and communist pals.

Business investors quickly put all expansion on hold until the elections, then began layoffs, correctly anticipating a Marxist vendetta of wanton spending by Democrats.

[Lee Muller]

Yes, martin, I do believe strong economic policies are a primary means of effecting social change. So do the Marxists in the Democratic Party; we just have different social goals.

Free market capitalism is based on honesty and hard work. Socialism is based on the appeal to do as little as possible, and live off the work of others.

Capitalism thrives on diversity, choice and opportunity for buyers and sellers, and competition between all the choices.
That is why all economic progress, and social progress, has come under capitalism. Socialism consumes wealth, encourages depravity and sloth, and enforces conformity with lethal force.

[Lee Muller]

Brad, FYI, fiscal and monetary policies to combat recession and deflation are not Paul Krugman's areas of expertise, and it is evident to most economists and businessmen.

[Randy E]

Hey Lee, 1 out of every 2 new immigrants to the US is HISPANIC! They vote Democrat! The republicans are morphing into the dixicans. 48% of North Charleston is HISPANIC! Cinco de Mayo will be a national holiday in 20 years! Que bueno!!

[Mab]

From the evening news roundup
########################

Newt Gingrich/FOX:

Obama doesn't want America to prosper. He wants to redistribute wealth -- this is about power and implementing socialist policies. If this costs him a second term, that is irrelevant to Obama.

Zimmerman[?]/CNBC:

"Hope makes a good breakfast but a bad dinner."

[Lee Muller]

Actually, the LEGAL Latino immigrants vote Republican, because they are anti-abortion and work hard.

It's the illegal aliens who come for welfare that would vote Democrat.

FYI, they are Latinos, not Hispanics. Learn the difference.

[Weldon VII]

Regarding Obama, he's busy cleaning up the elephant dung.

Actually, your particularly partisan Randiloquence, Obama's throwing your grandchildren's money onto a raging fire.

Today it was revealed two more of his nominees fall short of his standards for officials -- another with back taxes, and a housing official who has had a habit of approving developments for contractors who contributed to him directly before or after he approved their projects.

The estimate of his initial budget deficit climbed to $1.9 billion today, too -- more than four times the last Bush deficit.

You and your comrades, as well as the operator of this blog, turn a blind eye to that, though. Neither does it strike you as strange that so soon after Obama's inauguration his administration is trashing Bush as if the campaign were still going on, while day after day his popularity is waning.

Americans have better sense than to think you can solve economic woes with massive debt, Randy. Obama's grabbing hold of the recession, and when he turns it into a depression, he'll own it lock, stock and barrel.

I'll be looking forward to your apologies then.

[Birch Barlow]

Actually, your particularly partisan Randiloquence, Obama's throwing your grandchildren's money onto a raging fire.

Children can't vote.

So screw them!

This message brought to you by the Democratic and Republican parties.

[Phillip]

How many times do you have to be told, Brad, that opposition to the war in Iraq came about because...(drum roll, please....) people were OPPOSED to the war in Iraq, NOT, NOT, NOT just because George Bush thought of it. Bud is right on this, talk about Bizarro, your take on Krugman's comment is just plain odd.

Your continual delusion that somehow opponents of "bogged-down" Mideast adventurism hold their opinions only on the basis of a personal vendetta against one particular President is a cop-out of titanic proportions on your part, a contemptuous attitude that only those who share your opinion arrive at that view thoughtfully and sincerely.

If your view was true, then the same writers like Rich or Krugman would automatically have opposed the immigration reform proposals of recent years or Bush administration's large-scale AIDS spending in Africa, on the same basis. Because, after all, You-Know-Who supported those as well.

Time to let that delusion go, Brad.

Also enjoyed this: "...suggests he lives in a hermetically sealed, VERY limited little world, in which everyone has exactly the same political attitudes that he does..." That's rich, if you'll excuse the pun.

[bud]

From Politico:

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele says he has reached out to Rush Limbaugh to tell him he meant no offense when he referred to the popular conservative radio host as an “entertainer” whose show can be “incendiary."

We now have the RNC Chairman groveling at the feet of one big fat, oxycotin idiot. How irrelevant can the GOP become? It seems as though there is no bottom to the ridiculous antics this party can sink to. Rush Limbaugh is now the leader of the GOP. His ideas have been tried and they have failed. His hypocricy is total. Yet here he is, the defacto leader of the GOP.

I suggest that the Democrats can now pretty much write whatever legislation they want without fear of any relevant discussion from the Republicans. The real debate in congress now is between the various factions of the Democratic Party. Any continued discussion of bipartisanship should now focus on the 58 members of congress who are members of a real and relevant party, not the kooks who follow Oxymoron Rush. It's time to say goodbye to the filibuster rule in order to speed things up. Any remaining sane members of the GOP who want to come along will be welcome. But to continue to cotton to the completely insane remnants of a once proud party is nothing more than an excercise in futility.

[Phillip]

I also meant to add that the very same Frank Rich column you cited, Brad, criticized Geithner and moreover, Rich has not shied away from being critical of other Obama appointees or questioning various decisions of Obama himself. Liberal/progressive? Yes, Rich is, without a doubt. A Democratic Party partisan? Not really. I don't think you're reading him carefully, rather just allowing the fact that you disagree with him (mostly on foreign policy) to blind you. Truth is, on a lot of domestic issues (certainly things like education and health care) the two of you think more alike than you might imagine. And he's a great writer, which you above all should appreciate.