The U.S. Steers Left on Honduras

Why would Hugo Chavez expect Obama to help him?

• By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

When Hugo Chávez makes a personal appeal to Washington for help, as he did 11 days ago, it raises serious questions about the signals that President Barack Obama is sending to the hemisphere's most dangerous dictator.

Associated Press

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (left) with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

At issue is Mr. Chávez's determination to restore deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya to power through multilateral pressure. His phone call to a State Department official showed that his campaign was not going well and that he thought he could get U.S. help.

This is not good news for the region. The Venezuelan may feel that his aims have enough support from the U.S. and the Organization of American States (OAS) that he would be justified in forcing Mr. Zelaya on Honduras by supporting a violent overthrow of the current government. That he has reason to harbor such a view is yet another sign that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of history.

In the three weeks since the Honduran Congress moved to defend the country's constitution by relieving Mr. Zelaya of his presidential duties, it has become clear that his arrest was both lawful and a necessary precaution against violence.

The Americas in the News

Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.

Mr. Zelaya was trying to use mob rule to undermine Honduras's institutions in much the same way that Mr. Chávez has done in Venezuela. But as Washington lawyer Miguel Estrada pointed out in the Los Angeles Times on July 10, Mr. Zelaya's actions were expressly forbidden by the Honduran constitution.

"Article 239," Mr. Estrada noted, "specifically states that any president who so much as proposes the permissibility of reelection 'shall cease forthwith' in his duties, and Article 4 provides that any 'infraction' of the succession rules constitutes treason." Congress had little choice but to take its next step. It convened "immediately after Zelaya's arrest," Mr. Estrada wrote, "condemning his illegal conduct, and overwhelmingly voting (122-6) to remove him from office."

Mr. Zelaya was shipped out of the country because Honduras believed that jailing him would make him a lightning rod for violence. Interim President Roberto Micheletti promised that presidential elections scheduled for November would go forward.

That might have been the end of it if the U.S. had supported the Honduran rule of law, or simply refrained from meddling. Instead President Obama and the State Department joined Mr. Chávez and his allies in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be restored to power. This has emboldened Venezuela.

On July 5, Mr. Zelaya boarded a plane manned by a Venezuelan crew bound for Tegucigalpa, knowing full well that he would not be allowed to land. It didn't matter. His intention was to incite a mob on the ground and force a confrontation between his supporters and the military. It worked. One person was killed in clashes near the airport.

Yet the tragedy did not produce the desired condemnation of the Micheletti government. Rather, it empowered Honduran patriots. Perhaps this is because the airport violence reinforced the claim that Mr. Zelaya is a threat to the peace.

He was not the only one to lose credibility that day. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza had encouraged the fly-over stunt despite its obvious risks. He even traveled in a separate plane behind Mr. Zelaya to show support. The incident destroyed any possibility that Mr. Insulza could be considered an honest broker. It also proved the charge that by insisting on Mr. Zelaya's return the U.S. was playing with fire.

The next day Costa Rican President Oscar Arias offered to act as a mediator between Mr. Zelaya and the new government. Mr. Arias would seem to be far from an impartial referee given that he is a supporter of Mr. Zelaya. Yet it is also true that Central America has the most to lose if Honduras descends into civil war. It follows that the San José venue offers better odds for the Honduran democracy than, say, the auspices of the OAS.

Other influential Central Americans have expressed support for Honduras. Last week the Honduran daily El Heraldo reported that Salvador's OAS ambassador said he hopes to see the resolution that suspended Honduras from the group revoked under the new permanent-council president. Catholic Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga has condemned Mr. Zelaya's violent tactics and says that Honduras does not want to emulate Venezuela.

Mr. Chávez understands that Mr. Zelaya's star is fading, which is why he called Tom Shannon, the State Department's assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere at home at 11:15 p.m on July 9. Mr. Shannon told me that Mr. Chávez "again made the case for the unconditional return of Mr. Zelaya, though he did so in a less bombastic manner than he has in the past."

Mr. Shannon says that in response he "suggested to him that Venezuela and its [allies] address the fear factor by calling for free and fair elections and a peaceful transition to a new government." That, Mr. Shannon, says, "hasn't happened."

Nor is it likely to. Yet the U.S. continues exerting enormous pressure for the return of Mr. Zelaya. If it prevails, it is unlikely that Mr. Zelaya's mobs or Mr. Chávez will suddenly be tamed.

The U.S. Steers Left on Honduras

Why would Hugo Chavez expect Obama to help him?

• By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

When Hugo Chávez makes a personal appeal to Washington for help, as he did 11 days ago, it raises serious questions about the signals that President Barack Obama is sending to the hemisphere's most dangerous dictator.

Associated Press

Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya (left) with Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

At issue is Mr. Chávez's determination to restore deposed Honduran president Manuel Zelaya to power through multilateral pressure. His phone call to a State Department official showed that his campaign was not going well and that he thought he could get U.S. help.

This is not good news for the region. The Venezuelan may feel that his aims have enough support from the U.S. and the Organization of American States (OAS) that he would be justified in forcing Mr. Zelaya on Honduras by supporting a violent overthrow of the current government. That he has reason to harbor such a view is yet another sign that the Obama administration is on the wrong side of history.

In the three weeks since the Honduran Congress moved to defend the country's constitution by relieving Mr. Zelaya of his presidential duties, it has become clear that his arrest was both lawful and a necessary precaution against violence.

The Americas in the News

Get the latest information in Spanish from The Wall Street Journal's Americas page.

Mr. Zelaya was trying to use mob rule to undermine Honduras's institutions in much the same way that Mr. Chávez has done in Venezuela. But as Washington lawyer Miguel Estrada pointed out in the Los Angeles Times on July 10, Mr. Zelaya's actions were expressly forbidden by the Honduran constitution.

"Article 239," Mr. Estrada noted, "specifically states that any president who so much as proposes the permissibility of reelection 'shall cease forthwith' in his duties, and Article 4 provides that any 'infraction' of the succession rules constitutes treason." Congress had little choice but to take its next step. It convened "immediately after Zelaya's arrest," Mr. Estrada wrote, "condemning his illegal conduct, and overwhelmingly voting (122-6) to remove him from office."

Mr. Zelaya was shipped out of the country because Honduras believed that jailing him would make him a lightning rod for violence. Interim President Roberto Micheletti promised that presidential elections scheduled for November would go forward.

That might have been the end of it if the U.S. had supported the Honduran rule of law, or simply refrained from meddling. Instead President Obama and the State Department joined Mr. Chávez and his allies in demanding that Mr. Zelaya be restored to power. This has emboldened Venezuela.

On July 5, Mr. Zelaya boarded a plane manned by a Venezuelan crew bound for Tegucigalpa, knowing full well that he would not be allowed to land. It didn't matter. His intention was to incite a mob on the ground and force a confrontation between his supporters and the military. It worked. One person was killed in clashes near the airport.

Yet the tragedy did not produce the desired condemnation of the Micheletti government. Rather, it empowered Honduran patriots. Perhaps this is because the airport violence reinforced the claim that Mr. Zelaya is a threat to the peace.

He was not the only one to lose credibility that day. OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza had encouraged the fly-over stunt despite its obvious risks. He even traveled in a separate plane behind Mr. Zelaya to show support. The incident destroyed any possibility that Mr. Insulza could be considered an honest broker. It also proved the charge that by insisting on Mr. Zelaya's return the U.S. was playing with fire.

The next day Costa Rican President Oscar Arias offered to act as a mediator between Mr. Zelaya and the new government. Mr. Arias would seem to be far from an impartial referee given that he is a supporter of Mr. Zelaya. Yet it is also true that Central America has the most to lose if Honduras descends into civil war. It follows that the San José venue offers better odds for the Honduran democracy than, say, the auspices of the OAS.

Other influential Central Americans have expressed support for Honduras. Last week the Honduran daily El Heraldo reported that Salvador's OAS ambassador said he hopes to see the resolution that suspended Honduras from the group revoked under the new permanent-council president. Catholic Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga has condemned Mr. Zelaya's violent tactics and says that Honduras does not want to emulate Venezuela.

Mr. Chávez understands that Mr. Zelaya's star is fading, which is why he called Tom Shannon, the State Department's assistant secretary for the Western Hemisphere at home at 11:15 p.m on July 9. Mr. Shannon told me that Mr. Chávez "again made the case for the unconditional return of Mr. Zelaya, though he did so in a less bombastic manner than he has in the past."

Mr. Shannon says that in response he "suggested to him that Venezuela and its [allies] address the fear factor by calling for free and fair elections and a peaceful transition to a new government." That, Mr. Shannon, says, "hasn't happened."

Nor is it likely to. Yet the U.S. continues exerting enormous pressure for the return of Mr. Zelaya. If it prevails, it is unlikely that Mr. Zelaya's mobs or Mr. Chávez will suddenly be tamed.

Glass Houses, Left and Right

The wildly overblown issue of political "hate speech"

Cathy Young

Political hate speech has been all the rage in recent days. After the shocking attack at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC by a white supremacist, New York Times columnists Paul Krugman and Frank Rich have charged that the right-wing media are creating a dangerous climate of hate in America. Meanwhile, conservative outrage has focused on David Letterman's nasty jokes about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family's trip to New York—more proof, many commentators argue, that enlightened liberals condone hateful sexist slurs as long as the target is a conservative woman.

The charges on both sides are wildly overblown, but they also point to a real problem—one to which, unfortunately, both sides respond with stones thrown from its own glass house.

For starters: the actions of 88-year-old James von Brunn, who fatally shot a Holocaust Museum security guard, had exactly nothing to do with Krugman and Rich's chief villains: Rush Limbaugh, the king of right-wing talk radio, and Glenn Beck, the clown of Fox News. Neo-Nazis are not part of the following of mainstream or even far-right conservatives; they are people who see the United States government, under Republicans or Democrats, as a tool of Zionist puppet-masters. As conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg points out on website of National Review magazine, one could at least as convincingly link anti-Semitism to the animus toward Israel and its American Jewish supporters in certain quarters of the left. Indeed, Von Brunn's possible targets included The Weekly Standard, a leading conservative magazine.

While the right-wing pontificators are not responsible for von Brunn, that doesn't quite get them off the hook. Limbaugh, Beck, and quite a few other talk show hosts, journalists, and bloggers on the right have undoubtedly trafficked in political paranoia and hate. There has been much irresponsible, over-the-top scaremongering about looming fascism or (Soviet-style) socialism, the imminent loss of our freedoms and even federally run concentration camps. Barack Obama has been cast as Hitler, Stalin, and a radical Muslim mole. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the target of an assassination joke read over the air on the Rush Limbaugh show by substitute host Mark Davis.

Even if none of this ever leads to violence, it is toxic stuff. But the liberals who rightly deplore it rarely acknowledge the equally toxic stuff on the left—including, not long ago, Bush assassination jokes, Bush/Hitler comparisons, and hysterical claims that Bush's America was five minutes away from fascism if not already there. The left has its own Glenn Beck in writer Naomi Wolf, who published an essay titled "Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps" in 2007 and then a best-selling book called "The End of America." Wolf got to make her case on National Public Radio and the Colbert Report; later, The Huffington Post, a leading left-wing website, published her article calling Sarah Palin "the muse of the coming police state."

That brings us to Palin, a favorite target of left-wing hate, and the brouhaha over Letterman. The acerbic late-night TV host has been skewered for his humor about Palin's "slutty flight attendant look" and, especially, about her daughter getting "knocked up" by New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez at a baseball game. That joke turned out to be especially unfortunate since the Palin daughter at the game was 14-year-old Willow. Letterman has apologized while claiming he was thinking of 18-year-old single mother Bristol. Palin was grudgingly appeased; some feminists have taken Palin's side, accusing Letterman of sexism.

While Letterman's explanation sounds plausible, his joke was undoubtedly coarse (though, as far as sexism goes, had one of Palin's sons gained notoriety as an unwed teenage father, he probably would have been an equal-opportunity target). But it's hardly the worst of anti-Palin invective. During the campaign, major left-of-center sites including Salon.com attacked her in blatantly sexual language: "Republican blow-up doll," "pornographic centerfold." Comedienne Sandra Bernhard railed against Palin in an unfunny foul-mouthed monologue that included a wish to see her raped. For some on the left, the usual taboos against misogyny clearly do not cover right-wing women.

But the conservative outrage, too, has an element of hypocrisy. Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity has vocally deplored the insults to Palin and leftist "hate speech" in general. But where was he in 2007 when right-wing rock star Ted Nugent called then-Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton a "worthless bitch" at his concert and suggested, while brandishing two assault rifles, that she "ride one of these into the sunset"? Actually, Hannity was actively defending Nugent as a "friend and frequent guest on the program" and brushing off complaints about his remarks with a dismissive, "If you don't like it, don't go to the concert, don't buy his new albums."

The stones keep flying from glass house to glass house, which may be why following much of today's political discourse is about as pleasant as wading through broken glass. Wouldn't it be nice if both the right and the left focused a little less on getting offended and a little more on curbing hate and hysteria in their own ranks? One can always dream.

European election results

Battered and bruised

A mauling for the left across much of Europe, and especially in Britain

IT WAS a terrible night for European socialists, but also a worrying night for those who believe in a Europe of open borders. As elections for a new European Parliament ended on Sunday June 7th, after four days of voting in 27 countries, it became clear that not only Britain’s Labour Party had received a pasting. In the words of the socialists’ leader in the Euro-parliament, the centre left suffered a “very bitter evening”, confirming their failure to take advantage of a financial crisis that might have been tailor-made for critics of free market excesses.

At the same time, the vote for mainstream conservative parties in several countries only held steady or even slightly fell, against a backdrop of the lowest ever turnout for a Euro-election, with just 43% bothering to vote. In many countries, large protest votes went to populist, fringe and hard-right politicians vowing to close borders, repatriate immigrants or even dismantle the European Union in its current form.

Britain elected two members of the avowedly racist British National Party and in the Netherlands, a populist party which vows to ban the Koran and close the European Parliament, picked up four seats with 17% of the vote, coming second only to the ruling conservative Christian Democrats. Far-right and anti-immigrant parties picked up seats in Austria, Denmark, Slovakia and Hungary. The hard-left picked up an extra seat in Denmark, but failed to make breakthroughs predicted in France and Germany.

Gloom for Britain’s Labour government became outright humiliation when the party was pushed into third place by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which advocates withdrawal from the European Union. UKIP was a big beneficiary of British voter rage at an expenses scandal that has left the British Parliament reeling. This is ironic, given that of the 12 UKIP members of the European Parliament elected in 2004, one was later jailed for fraud and a second is now facing trial for money laundering and false accounting. UKIP now has 13 seats, one ahead of Labour, and well behind the opposition Conservatives, who picked up 24 seats with nearly 29% of the vote.

The appalling results for Labour came after a week in which Gordon Brown, the prime minister, had to fight off calls for his resignation, including from members of his own cabinet. Oddly, Mr Brown’s mauling last week may save him now: his survival thus far seems to show that his own party has no appetite for his immediate removal.

Using provisional figures as final votes were tallied, in Germany, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) suffered its worst ever result, with just 21% of the vote. The SPD has suffered badly from being locked in an uneasy coalition with the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) of Angela Merkel. Mrs Merkel will be relieved to take first place, but the CDU vote still fell compared with the Euro-elections in 2004. The big winners of the night in Germany were the pro-business liberals of the Free Democratic Party, whose vote almost doubled to 11%, perhaps gaining from free-market minded Christian Democrats worried by Mrs Merkel’s recent shifts leftwards.

In France, the Socialist Party only just escaped being pushed into third place by Greens led by a former student firebrand of the May 1968 movement, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. The ruling Socialists in Spain lost painfully to the centre-right opposition, while in Poland, the left was simply crushed, with 75% of the vote going to conservative parties.

The pattern of misery for the left was powerful enough to trump the adage that deep recessions punish governments in office. In France, the governing UMP party of President Nicolas Sarkozy was left jubilant after coming first, with 28% of the vote. The result seemed to endorse Mr Sarkozy’s jackdaw-like approach to the Euro-campaign, in which he has played to the right with stern talk about cracking down on crime and opposing Turkey’s entry to the EU, while appealing to the left with attacks on financial “speculators” and promises to construct a “social market economy” which “protects” workers from unfair foreign competition.

In Italy, a similar focus on controlling illegal immigration and protecting workers was enough to hand victory to Silvio Berlusconi and his conservative Party of Freedom. As in France, Mr Berlusconi was helped by disarray among his opponents on the left. However, the Italian prime minister did not emerge unscathed from an ongoing press furore about his private life: his 35% of the vote was down from his general election showing last year, and less than the 45% he had predicted.

Overall, the European Parliament will look a different place after these elections. The socialists remain the second largest group, but they are a reduced force and will have to seek alliances more of the time with Greens and others. The largest centre-right grouping will also be transformed by the departure of Britain’s Conservatives, who say they will form a new anti-federalist alliance in the Euro-parliament with other right-wing parties, mostly from eastern Europe.

Deceiver-in-Chief

Deceiver-in-Chief Darts Left, Right, Dizzies All: Kevin Hassett

Commentary by Kevin Hassett

May 26 (Bloomberg) -- If Ronald Reagan was the Great Communicator, Barack Obama is the Great Deceiver. Time and again, from the beginning of his presidential campaign until today, Obama has taken a strong stand on an issue only to reverse himself.

Obama has more power than any modern president to enact his agenda. His party has control of the House of Representatives and an almost-filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. And yet he chooses to disregard his promises.

The contrast between Obama and his predecessor is stark. President George W. Bush promised to deliver an across-the-board tax cut, education reform, and prescription drugs for seniors. He doggedly pursued these objectives and used his Republican majority to hammer through legislation.

Even when he faced long political odds because of opposition from his own party, he poured resources and personal effort into doomed attempts to deliver on campaign promises such as reforming Social Security.

Does anyone, even Obama, now remember what he promised during the campaign? The conservative story-line explaining all of the flip-flops is that Obama campaigned as a moderate but is governing as a radical left-winger. The truth is more puzzling than that. Fact is, the far left is seething too. And seething for a good reason: Obama has broken many of his promises to the left as well.

Take the shift on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Campaign Attack

During the campaign, Obama pandered to union members by attacking free trade with gusto. “I will make sure we renegotiate” NAFTA, Obama promised shortly before the Ohio primary. “I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt- out as leverage.” Obama the campaigner also used “devastating” and “a big mistake” to describe NAFTA.

Then last month, U.S. Trade Representative Ronald Kirk announced that Obama had discussed NAFTA with the Mexican president and “they don’t believe we have to reopen the agreement now.”

There are many examples of similar reversals that vex the left.

Obama decided to continue to use military tribunals to prosecute terrorists after criticizing their use while on the campaign trail.

He spoke movingly as a candidate about the need to overturn the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military, but has failed to act as president. He has refused to intervene as gays in the military, such as National Guardsman Dan Choi, have been expelled from the military after revealing their sexual orientation. One presumes that members of the armed services have been outing themselves because they believed that they had a commander-in-chief who is sensitive to their cause.

Warming to Bill

On climate change, Obama once argued that all carbon permits issued in a “cap-and-trade” system must be auctioned off. Now, much to the dismay of Greenpeace and other environmental groups, the administration is signaling a willingness to support the current House bill that hands most of the permits out for free, mostly to big polluters.

On health care, candidate Obama ridiculed John McCain’s proposal to fund health insurance for the uninsured by reducing the tax preferences that induce employers to provide gold-plated plans. Obama’s rhetoric could hardly have been more damning. He said McCain’s approach was “radical,” “out of touch” and “out of line with our basic values.”

Now that Obama himself is seeking to reform health care, he needs to pursue McCain’s approach because he needs the money. Taxing health benefits “most firmly should remain on the table,” Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director, said at a congressional hearing.

Politician’s Pattern

That’s right -- something that a few months ago was radical and out of line with our basic values now most firmly should be on the table.

So what’s going on here?

A pattern has been established. Obama seems to be a politician who has made the calculation that he can’t acquire political power without pandering to the far left. But he also recognizes that he can’t keep political power if he actually pursues the left’s policies. He can talk a good game at an activist meeting, but in the end, he is smart enough to know what could irretrievably harm the country.

So he drops renegotiating NAFTA and allows the so-called card-check legislation -- which would let unions do away with secret-ballet workplace elections -- wither on the vine in the Senate.

When the issue is less visible, and his talk more moderate, he stealthily throws bones in the left’s direction. He pushed billions toward the unions in the auto bailouts. He allows a tax hike, such as the one contemplated for health care, to proceed even though he opposed it in the past.

When the talk is moderate, the actions are liberal. When the talk is liberal, the actions are moderate.

That might be good short-term politics, but at some point, voters are going to notice the deception.

Will Specter Turn the Senate Left?

by David Boaz

Last week, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter was one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate. Today, he's the most conservative Democrat. Specter has said he will retain his independence, which would mean he's not necessarily the filibuster-breaking godsend the Democrats hope. Still, historical evidence argues that Specter is poised for a leftward veer that will be terrific news for President Barack Obama.

Specter has been a genuine moderate, with ratings hovering around the 40 to 60 percent range from conservative and liberal groups. He has often voted for free trade, tax cuts and spending restraint. He also voiced opposition to the pro-union "card-check" legislation, and his support of Obama's "cap-and-trade" environmental effort is doubtful given the strength of Pennsylvania's coal industry. If he continues that record, he won't be a solid Obama supporter.

Why do senators vote differently when they change parties?

But party-switchers often change their votes as well as their labels.

The day after Republicans won control of the Senate in 1994, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama switched to the Republican Party. He had been a relatively conservative Democrat and had high-profile conflicts with President Bill Clinton, so the switch wasn't a great surprise. But observers might be surprised to look back at what happened to Shelby's voting record. According to the American Conservative Union, for eight years Shelby's conservative voting percentage had ranged between 43 and 76. Even in 1994, as Shelby often found himself opposing the Clinton administration, the ACU gave him only a 55. But from 1995 to 2000, his ACU rating only once dipped below 90, and he scored a perfectly conservative 100 in 2000 and 2001 (even though Citizens Against Government Waste dubbed him the "King of Pork"). Meanwhile, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action had rated the Democratic Shelby 35 percent liberal in most years. As a Republican, however, ADA rarely found him more than 10 percent liberal. Shelby's voting clearly changed when his party label did.

A few months after Shelby, Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell also switched from Democrat to Republican. He underwent a similar ideological migration. ACU rated him 12 and 25 in his first two years as a Democrat in the Senate, then 96 in the year of his switch. After that, his conservative score ranged from 72 to 96 until his retirement in 2005. His ADA score fell almost like stair steps — to 55 from 75 percent liberal in 1993 to an unusually low 30 the year he switched, then 45, 25, 25, 15, 5. According to Michael Barone, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, Campbell switched his stands on partial-birth abortion, oil drilling in Alaska and assault weapons.

In 2001, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican Party and became an independent. Conservatives said he was actually voting like a liberal Democrat. But that wasn't quite right. Since he entered the Senate in 1989, his average ACU rating had been 27 — definitely the most liberal Republican, but not Ted Kennedy country. His ADA average was 58 — liberal for a Republican, but a long way from Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy. After the switch, Jeffords' ACU rating started falling like GOP approval ratings: from 40 in 1999 to 29 in the year of the switch to 6, 10, 4, 8 and 4 during the rest of his tenure. He and Leahy became twins.

David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute.

More by David Boaz

Why do senators vote differently when they change parties? First, the pressures from the party caucus obviously change. Surrounded by new colleagues, pressured to help the party deliver on its promises, the new guy finds himself going along with his new team. Of course, the real point here may be that the party-switcher has been liberated from the pressures in his former caucus that kept him from voting as he would have preferred.

Second, when an elected official switches parties in Washington, he also switches constituencies back home. Campbell's political challenge as a Democrat was to persuade some 60 percent of the voters of Colorado, ranging from center to left, to support him. As a Republican, his goal became to get some 60 percent of Coloradans ranging from center to right to back him.

Specter will face similar pressures, in Washington and Pennsylvania — and he'll also be free of the pressures of the Republican caucus. There's every reason to expect his voting record to shift left.

Lexington

Party-hopping

Arlen Specter has shifted the balance of power in Washington yet farther to the left

THIS week was always going to be a gloomy one for the Republicans, with Barack Obama celebrating his first 100 days in office and the media singing “hallelujah”. But the mood got a lot gloomier on April 28th when one of the most senior Republicans in the Senate announced that he was switching parties.

Arlen Specter’s statement could not have been better timed from the White House’s point of view. Just as Obama was about to hit the 100-day milestone, the press was suddenly obsessed by the spread of swine flu. Mr Specter’s party-hopping not only shifted the spotlight back onto politics. It also provided the White House with a perfect opportunity to hammer home one of its favourite messages: that the Republican Party is becoming such a rump of Rush-Limbaugh-worshipping fanatics that sensible people have no choice but to back Mr Obama.

Mr Specter explained his decision to switch parties by saying that his vote in favour of Mr Obama’s stimulus package had caused an irreconcilable schism with Pennsylvania’s Republican Party, particularly the hardcore members who vote in primaries. But in truth he could probably have pointed to any number of irreconcilable schisms with his former party. Mr Specter parted ways with the Republican Party because the Republican Party is ceasing to be a viable force in Pennsylvania.

Mr Specter faced a strong challenge in next year’s Republican primary from Patrick Toomey, a fierce conservative who has been ahead of him in the polls by some 20 points, buoyed by white-hot Republican fury at the Obama administration and generously financed by the low-tax, minimal-government lobby, the Club for Growth. And even if he had survived Mr Toomey’s onslaught, he would then have had to perform the difficult trick of moving back to the centre to beat a Democrat. Why subject himself to trial by fire when he could simply switch party?

Mr Specter’s party-hop will dramatically change the political terrain that Mr Obama faces in his second 100 days, all but guaranteeing the Democrats control of the 60 seats in the 100-seat Senate that allows them to pass legislation without the threat of a filibuster. The only thing that now stands between them and this supermajority is Norm Coleman and his interminable legal battle to prevent his Democratic rival, Al Franken, from being seated, and that battle looks increasingly doomed.

Yet the supermajority may not prove to be the cure-all that many Democrats hope. Party discipline is much looser in the Senate than in the House—and an inveterate maverick such as Mr Specter is not going to cease behaving like one. In his statement he insisted that he would not be “a party-line voter any more for the Democrats than I have been for the Republicans.” He also noted that his opposition to a law to make union organising easier will not change. Moderate Republicans, like Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, will undoubtedly find themselves voting with their old colleague often enough in the future.

But Mr Specter’s decision nevertheless changes the dynamic on Capitol Hill. Hitting the magic 60 will change the psychology of life in the upper house, emboldening the Democrats and enfeebling the Republicans. And shifting parties will subtly change the thinking of even such an independent as Mr Specter. He will no longer have to keep a wary eye on his right flank, particularly over judicial appointments. He may also find that the simple fact of caucusing with Democrats nudges him farther to the left. Thus Mr Specter’s move will both increase Mr Obama’s chances of getting his domestic agenda through Congress and boost his ability to put liberals in the courts.

Mr Specter’s decision is yet more proof that the once mighty Republican Party is in a perilous state—abandoning the middle ground of politics to the Democrats and retreating into an ideological and regional cocoon. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed that the proportion of Republicans had shrunk from 25% in late March to just 21% today, the party’s lowest figure for more than a quarter of a century. That compares with 35% for Democrats and 38% for independents. A recent Democracy Corps poll also shows that Mr Obama enjoys a 16-point advantage over the Republicans on the economy, a 24-point advantage on heath care and a 27-point advantage on energy policy.

Even these dramatic numbers may understate how bad the situation is for the Republicans. The party is rapidly disappearing in whole swathes of America. The proportion of Republicans among 20-somethings has reached its lowest ebb since records began to be kept after the second world war. Just two and a bit years ago Pennsylvania had two Republican senators. Today it has none, and there are precious few in the entire north-east.

Club for shrinkage

Mr Specter argued that he had almost no choice but to abandon an increasingly shrunken and hardline party. More than 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans, most of them suburban moderates, shifted their party identification to the Democrats during the last election cycle, giving Mr Obama a ten-point victory in the state and leaving Mr Specter at the mercy of an ever-diminishing band of hardliners. Mr Specter’s particular nemesis, the Club for Growth, is proving to be a Club for Shrinkage.

The Republican Party would be wise to think carefully about its loss of Mr Specter, one of America’s best known senators, whose views are shared by many old-line business-friendly Republicans. Some clearly realise what a mess their party is in. Ms Snowe described his decision to jump ship as “devastating” both “personally and then for the party”. But all too many others were content to respond with lame jokes (“I read that he was switching parties, but was disappointed to learn he’s still a Democrat”) and even lamer declarations of ideological purity.

Will Specter Turn the Senate Left?

by David Boaz

Last week, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter was one of the most liberal Republicans in the Senate. Today, he's the most conservative Democrat. Specter has said he will retain his independence, which would mean he's not necessarily the filibuster-breaking godsend the Democrats hope. Still, historical evidence argues that Specter is poised for a leftward veer that will be terrific news for President Barack Obama.

Specter has been a genuine moderate, with ratings hovering around the 40 to 60 percent range from conservative and liberal groups. He has often voted for free trade, tax cuts and spending restraint. He also voiced opposition to the pro-union "card-check" legislation, and his support of Obama's "cap-and-trade" environmental effort is doubtful given the strength of Pennsylvania's coal industry. If he continues that record, he won't be a solid Obama supporter.

Why do senators vote differently when they change parties?

But party-switchers often change their votes as well as their labels.

The day after Republicans won control of the Senate in 1994, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama switched to the Republican Party. He had been a relatively conservative Democrat and had high-profile conflicts with President Bill Clinton, so the switch wasn't a great surprise. But observers might be surprised to look back at what happened to Shelby's voting record. According to the American Conservative Union, for eight years Shelby's conservative voting percentage had ranged between 43 and 76. Even in 1994, as Shelby often found himself opposing the Clinton administration, the ACU gave him only a 55. But from 1995 to 2000, his ACU rating only once dipped below 90, and he scored a perfectly conservative 100 in 2000 and 2001 (even though Citizens Against Government Waste dubbed him the "King of Pork"). Meanwhile, the liberal Americans for Democratic Action had rated the Democratic Shelby 35 percent liberal in most years. As a Republican, however, ADA rarely found him more than 10 percent liberal. Shelby's voting clearly changed when his party label did.

A few months after Shelby, Colorado Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell also switched from Democrat to Republican. He underwent a similar ideological migration. ACU rated him 12 and 25 in his first two years as a Democrat in the Senate, then 96 in the year of his switch. After that, his conservative score ranged from 72 to 96 until his retirement in 2005. His ADA score fell almost like stair steps — to 55 from 75 percent liberal in 1993 to an unusually low 30 the year he switched, then 45, 25, 25, 15, 5. According to Michael Barone, co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, Campbell switched his stands on partial-birth abortion, oil drilling in Alaska and assault weapons.

In 2001, Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont left the Republican Party and became an independent. Conservatives said he was actually voting like a liberal Democrat. But that wasn't quite right. Since he entered the Senate in 1989, his average ACU rating had been 27 — definitely the most liberal Republican, but not Ted Kennedy country. His ADA average was 58 — liberal for a Republican, but a long way from Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy. After the switch, Jeffords' ACU rating started falling like GOP approval ratings: from 40 in 1999 to 29 in the year of the switch to 6, 10, 4, 8 and 4 during the rest of his tenure. He and Leahy became twins.

David Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute.

More by David Boaz

Why do senators vote differently when they change parties? First, the pressures from the party caucus obviously change. Surrounded by new colleagues, pressured to help the party deliver on its promises, the new guy finds himself going along with his new team. Of course, the real point here may be that the party-switcher has been liberated from the pressures in his former caucus that kept him from voting as he would have preferred.

Second, when an elected official switches parties in Washington, he also switches constituencies back home. Campbell's political challenge as a Democrat was to persuade some 60 percent of the voters of Colorado, ranging from center to left, to support him. As a Republican, his goal became to get some 60 percent of Coloradans ranging from center to right to back him.

Specter will face similar pressures, in Washington and Pennsylvania — and he'll also be free of the pressures of the Republican caucus. There's every reason to expect his voting record to shift left.

100-Day Lurch to the Left

100-Day Lurch to the Left

By Lawrence Kudlow

In the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan's popularity and policies moved American politics firmly to the right. In only 100 days, Barack Obama's politics and policies have shifted America way to the left.

The president is seeking to change the whole relationship between the government and the free-enterprise private sector. He is steering the country away from democratic capitalism and toward his big-government command-and-control vision. We are witnessing a triumph of government bureaucrats over entrepreneurs, investors, and small businesses.

And with Sen. Arlen Specter switching from Republican to Democrat, Obama can now move the nation even further to the left. A filibuster-proof Senate will mean even greater economic restructuring with expanded government control of health care and energy and increased unionization.

This looks very much like a war against investors, businesses, and entrepreneurs. Shareholder rights are being eviscerated. Political decisions are replacing the rule of law, the rule of bankruptcy courts, and free-market principles.

We are witnessing more spending, deficits, and debt-creation than anyone ever imagined. Bailout Nation has run amok. This started under Bush, but Obama is raising the stakes exponentially.

The latest federal budget would double the debt in five years and triple it in ten. For some perspective, that debt level is higher than the combined debt levels generated under every president from George Washington to George W. Bush. According to the CBO, federal debt held by the public as a percentage of GDP under Obama is projected to rise to 82 percent in ten years. The budget deficit itself never drops below $670 billion and closes the period at $1.2 trillion. That's nearly a 6 percent share of the economy.

All of this will certainly lead to large tax-rate hikes that will rob incentive power from entrepreneurs, investors, and small-business owners. Just look at Britain, where the top tax rate has been raised to 50 percent from 40 percent. The Thatcher Revolution is being repealed over there. Unless current trends are reversed, the Reagan Revolution will be repealed over here.

The Obama budget already will raise taxes on overseas corporate earnings and oil-and-gas companies at home. It will elevate taxes on capital gains and dividends for investors and will lift the top tax rate for successful earners. And more is coming.

But this is the wrong direction for economic growth. Instead, business tax rates should be slashed -- which, by the way, would repatriate corporate earnings for domestic investment. We need a capital-gains tax holiday. We should be flattening individual tax rates across-the-board. And all manner of loopholes and special-interest deductions should be repealed to broaden the taxable-income base.

Nowhere is the Obama vision of government interference more evident than on the banking front. The White House and Treasury are using TARP as a bullying club to force government control on the country's financial institutions. There is no exit strategy; no endgame in sight. Quite the opposite: News reports suggest that six major banks could be subjected to government ownership, putting them in the same club as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, GM, and Chrysler. This reminds one of Francois Mitterrand, the former socialist president of France. It's way outside the American economic tradition.

And TARP itself is riddled with criminal-enterprise undertones. According to Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky, the $700 billion TARP program -- which has ballooned to more than $3 trillion in spending, loans, and loan guarantees -- is "inherently vulnerable to fraud, waste and abuse." Barofsky already has opened 20 separate TARP-related criminal investigations and six audits into whether taxpayer dollars are being stolen or wasted. Rest assured that they are.

Economic recovery is still likely in the second half of the year. And President Obama will claim victory for his big-spending policies. But the reality is much different. Massive Federal Reserve pump-priming is moving the economy from deep recession to some kind of recovery. Meanwhile, the combination of deficit spending and easy money increases the threat of stagflation.

Will Republicans take advantage of the wide opening created by Obama's 100-day lurch to the left? So far the GOP has produced only fragmented policy alternatives and no central spokesperson. That's not unusual for the party out of power. But the Specter defection underscores the GOP's sagging fortunes.

Right now, the most promising Republican leader -- at least in a policy sense -- is former Vice President Dick Cheney. His attack against the release of the CIA interrogation memos and his forceful call for the release of the information gathered during those interrogations -- facts that helped keep America safe after 9/11 -- clearly rattled Team Obama. Mr. Cheney should now launch a counterattack on Obama's tax-and-spend New Deal/Great Society enlargement of government power.

It would make for delicious irony, but Dick Cheney may be most effective spokesperson the GOP has.

The Great Left Smear Machine

The Great Left Smear Machine

by Rowan Scarborough

Liberals have created a powerhouse propaganda machine that helped Moveon.org smear a four-star general, promotes endless environmental scares and brags it can place its left wing themes in the nation's leading newspapers.

Fenton Communications pitches for trial lawyers, collectively the largest contributors to the Democrat Party, as well as for the hard line environmental group Greenpeace; Venezuela's socialist leader Hugo Chavez; anti-war demonstrator Cindy Sheehan; and gay and abortion advocates.

Its account executives arrive from such left wing outposts as the office of ultra liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich, abortion provider Planned Parenthood, the anti-Bush ACLU, Greenpeace and the news media.

Conservatives know liberals have built a powerful network of pressure groups who have entree -- where right wing groups do not -- into the newsrooms of the New York Times, Washington Post, NBC News and other left-leaning outlets.

What is not well known is that Fenton Communications, founded by liberal activist David Fenton, binds the two together to produce explosive public relations campaigns that conservatives have trouble matching or rebuffing.

Understanding Fenton's connections to the press, liberal Washington lawmakers, pressure groups and trial lawyers is increasingly important for conservatives if they are to emerge from their decidedly minority status in Washington.

Just recently, some of Fenton's clients and other left-wing groups formed a huge coalition to push President Obama's government-expansion agenda. The Campaign to Rebuild and Renew America Now boasts over 100 member organizations and promises a state-by-state media campaign: meaning it will attack Republicans who vote no.

With offices in Washington, New York, and San Francisco, Fenton operatives work up smear campaigns whether the target is Gen. David Petraeus, Fox News' Sean Hannity or the conservative movement in general.

For Petraeus, one of the most successful commanders in the war on terror, Fenton fashioned an ad for Moveon.org in the New York Times that accused the general of betraying his country. Moveon.org is funded by billionaire George Soros, who likened President George W. Bush to a Nazi regime and is using his fortune made in the free market to try to institute socialism. By the way, Moveon.org also ran an ad likening Bush to Hitler. The Open Society Institute, Soro's foundation for doling out money to Moveon.org and other liberal groups, has been a Fenton Communications client.

For Hannity, Fenton produced an ad campaign for the liberal media group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting that falsely depicted the conservative broadcaster as a bigot, liar and "Islamophobe." Other leading conservatives, including Fox News Channel colleague Bill O'Reilly, were labeled by Fenton as "Meet the Smearcasters. Islamophobia's Dirty Dozen."

In the meantime, Fenton has pushed Hugo Chavez's free heating oil scheme for needy Americans, providing the anti-capitalist leader good PR in the U.S.

Fenton, as do other liberal strategy groups, has a big advantage over their conservative counterparts. When a Fenton executive pitches a story to the New York Times et al., they are treated as a credible source trying to expose corporate or political evil. When a right-leaning PR firm tries to float a story, the liberal news media makes them the story: the vast right wing conspiracy trying to destroy an innocent liberal.

Fenton's web site profiles its account managers and brags about their access.

One executive, Fenton boasts, "has extensive relationships with top national political media, and he consistently places clients on CNN and MSNBC and in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Politico and the Associated Press."

Another operative "has landed clients in mainstream news outlets across the country such as Philadelphia Inquirer, Miami Herald and Politico as well as congressional publications such as Roll Call and CongressDaily. She has placed stories in many major media outlets, including the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News and the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Perhaps no other case better illustrates the network -- Fenton, the news media and liberal pressure groups -- better than a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. The substance is used in the production of bottles -- especially baby bottles -- and food cans. The Food and Drug Administration, based on two-industry studies that followed recognized scientific guidelines, ruled BPA as safe.

Enter the Fenton connection.

In 2007, a group called the Environmental Working Group sponsored a study that said BPA is hazardous to your health. Fenton Communications describes the working group as partner and client. David Fenton sits on its board of directors. There had been previous anti-BPA studies, but this one -- with Fenton's backing -- got the ball rolling.

Quickly, Fenton successfully placed anti-BPA stories across the liberal news media. Another group, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, spearheaded an anti-BPA petition drive. It asked citizens to demand that baby bottle producers cease using the chemical.

The CHEJ has been funded in part by the Tides Foundation, which helped Fenton set up its Environmental Media Services. Tides also has received George Soros money. The San Francisco-based Tides is another Fenton client, and it funds a number of environmental groups who are paying clients of Fenton Communications as well.

By 2008, the reporters were in a BPA frenzy. With the news media onboard and a grass roots effort under way to find BPA victims, a perfect storm arose for rich and powerful trial lawyers. They began filing billion-dollar lawsuits across the country against baby bottle makers and retailers who sold them.

Remember, trial lawyers are among Fenton's biggest clients. In this case, it not only handles their PR. With with the help of its client environmental groups, Fenton handed them a class-action law suit that may reap law firms millions of dollars.

Remember also that trial lawyers as a group are the largest contributors to the Democratic Party. Democratic lawmakers stop virtually every Republican effort to rein in huge jury awards that drive up the cost of health care and put some companies out of business.

Liberal Democratic members, such as Sen. Charles Schumer, joined the BPA cause. They introduced legislation to ban the substance, further bolstering the pending litigation.

As is the case with other environmental class action law suits, the pressure grew too great for users of BPA. Producer Sunoco said in March it would no longer sell it. Earlier, bottle manufacturers, including Playtex and Gerber, said they would stop using it. Wal-Mart, a favorite target of the Left who is also being sued over BPA, announced it stopped selling any BPA products.

Who wants to be in favor of unsafe baby bottles?

The possibilities for more law suits seem endless. BPA is in thousands of household products. Trial lawyers need only expert witnesses who will testify that BPA has caused cancer and other diseases. Lucrative settlements and jury verdicts are sure to follow. Plus, the Environmental Working Group has a list of other chemicals it is targeting.

The BPA saga illustrates Fenton's reach. A Fenton-allied group sponsors the study. Fenton drums up press coverage. A second Fenton-connected group stirs up grass-roots anger. And then a big Fenton client, the trial lawyers, swoop in to demand billions of dollars in damages.

"It's garbage," Steven Milloy, editor of JunkScience.com, says of the various studies on BPA which subject mice to large doses.

Of Wal-Mart and other companies bowing to Fenton and the trial lawyers, Milloy tells HUMAN EVENTS, "The whole thing just makes you want to throw up."

He said one ballyhooed study comes from a scientist who will not share his data. "That's about as unscientific as you get. So you have this secret science used to railroad this product. If you look at the government reports on this, they can't find any health effects ... There's not a single federal report out there that can find a single thing wrong with BPA.

Milloy says Fenton is part of the "Fear Profiteers," the title of a paper he edited on the huge amount of money PR firms, foundations and trial lawyers can make by scaring the public and targeting big corporations.

"Fenton Communications has ... been a key player in numerous scares, including those involving biotech foods, 'toxic' chemicals in breast milk, toys and medical equipment made with PVC plastic, chemicals in the environment alleged to mimic hormones .... Milloy wrote in a 2007 column. "None of these scares have a scientific leg to stand on and all have been debunked over the course of time."

Milloy said the Environmental Working Group-sponsored study is no different than previous studies. He explained the way they did it this way:

"I would say that EWG's testing revealed that BPA in food containers/food products was not at dangerous levels (i.e., not above 50 micrograms per kilogram of bodyweight) -- so EWG fabricated a new 'toxic dose' (2 micrograms per kilogram of bodyweight) so that EWG could then pretend that BPA was present at 'toxic' levels. EWG's pretend toxic dose of 2 is not supported by real-life experiences or scientific data. Moreover, the EPA safe dose of 50 has a substantial margin of safety built into it. This method of making up a "toxic" dose is an old trick of groups like EWG.

Milloy says of Fenton Communication, "You've got to admire them. They are ruthlessly effective and I fault industry and conservatives for not fighting them. Industry always has been afraid of environmentalists. They worry just a little too much about their reputation. Conservatives don't know anything about science; Run away from environmental issue."

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Mr. Scarborough is a national security writer who has written books on Donald Rumsfeld and the CIA, including the New York Times bestseller Rumsfeld's War.