An Obama Ad

Perhaps, like myself, you've been following the political events of this election year. Perhaps not. But whether you have or haven't, you've likely seen Obama's new ad. It's the one starts out, "Well, he's made his choice." talking about Sarah Palin.

What drew my attention was a later phrase, both written and stated audibly for emphasis: "John McCain Votes with Bush 90% of the time." Now, maybe that phrase looks perfectly fine to you, apart from capitalizing the verb (it was two separate lines in the original). Maybe you're nodding your head saying, "he sure did" (with good or ill connotation). If you are, shame on you.

Shame on you.

Shame on you for not knowing the Constitution.

Shame on you for being clueless about the mechanics of your own government.

Since when the hell does the President of the United States VOTE?

Now, maybe this little oversight doesn't bother you. Maybe you're not concerned about the tiny distinction between the word "vote" and it's scrambled alter ego "veto."

If so then shame on you for an entirely different reason. Shame on you for being a subpar mathematician. Obama cannot presume in the slightest to be able to catalogue McCain and Bush's "voting records" with any level of intellectual honesty. For one thing, as established above, apples and oranges. But assuming them to be both apples, it potentially deals in unrealized alternate universes (i.e. speculation). Let me walk you through eight hypotheticals, generated by a three dimensional graph consisting of sets of yes/no variants. The variants are: A bill passes congress/A bill fails to pass congress, McCain votes yes/McCain votes no, Bush signs into law (a one-man "yes supervote")/Bush vetos.

````````+` CongressYes `+` CongressNo `+
--------+---------------+--------------+
BushYes + McCainYes/No `+ McCainYes/No +
--------+---------------+--------------+
BushNo `+ McCainYes/No `+ McCainYes/No +
--------+---------------+--------------+

In the eight scenarios possible, either McCain and Bush will be voting the same (yes/yes or no/no) or differently (yes/no or no/yes).

Also recognize that four of them are simply not possible to know. Should a bill fail to pass congress, however McCain should happen to vote, history, by our intentional mechanics, will never allow us to know how Bush would have "voted." The percentage of issues upon which McCain and Bush share ideology will not be revealed by what is only a portion of the bills proposed. Thus, while technically only incorrect in how it understands the mechanics of the government, it is also disengenuous or mathematically irresponsible in attributing a percentage. A percentage must deal with all available cases, or it means nothing to approach 100%. What is 90% of 1% is different from 90% of 99%. Do you know what percentage of congress-proposed bills make it to the president's desk? I don't, and it's always changing. With a democratic controlled congress, and the only evidence available to us on this proposed McCain/Bush synergy being bills passed by said democratic congress, it tells me something else: either the democrats seem to vote with Bush a lot (unlikely, but possible, see next paragraph), or both Bush and McCain think the stuff trying to pass right now is pork barrel or commie-socialist extremist B.S. and McCain can spot it roughly 10% more or less often than Bush. Or something inbetween. If you're a disparager of Bush (you shouldn't be, but history will rebuff you so I needn't at this time) you'll probably say he'll pass anything he's told to by Dick Cheney, but recognize that not everything makes it to their allegedly conjoined, irresolute desk. But a Presidency does more than just monitor the legislature and mispronounce important words. The Judiciary also can see their judgements reversed with pardons, which I suppose could be considered like the above supervotes. So quite often Bush "votes" on things McCain never does, and vice versa.

Now, a final point, assuming a bill passes congress and McCain votes identically with Bush's "vote," ask yourself, what is the likelyhood that that particular bill was in any way controversial? A great deal of the business of our government is day-in, day-out, ho hum business: good, bad and ugly pandering. Have you ever watched C-Span for more than two hours without falling asleep? If you have, I applaud you. If you haven't, understand that most of the time it will be a vote on something "boring" like renewals on old budgets, committees about committees, or proposed bills and endless amendments and addendums and posing and overexagerated railing concerning things like Girlscout cookie subsidies, aid for impoverished Africa, bridges to nowhere, that sort of uninteresting crap. Often it's stuff that's being dragged up as an issue by the elderly (moneyed) constituents of the politicians. You'll find the pet project trappings of sad, cat-owning shut-ins who actually take the time to write their congressmen, or are trying to make up for a lifetime void of humanitarian actions by advocating the expenditure of everyone else's money. Generally, though, it's marked by the votes going nearly all one way or the other. Often either the senators and representatives decide, "No, that's anarchy and dangerous, Ron Paul," or, "Man, I'll look like a jerk if I don't pass this one: it proposes funding aid to orphans of crackbabies who've lost limbs in service to mothers against drunk school lunches."

Anyway, a percentage of the time, Barack Obama votes with Bush, too. It's certainly not zero, unless he's also vindictive and fluent in weasel, as I believe Joe Biden to be (did anyone WATCH the Judicial Committee's Advise and Consent showboating witchhunts with Alito and Roberts? What an ass. I knew he was creepy long before he kissed Michelle, and his poor grimacing granddaughter on the mouth, for that matter).

The only real way I can see other people seeing the President's position as a "voting" position is if they simply have a larger picture than the rest of us. Perhaps they are Freudian speaking of that nebulous Star-Trekish high council, the esteemed United Nations, wherein the United States is seated with one vote alongside the rest of its proportionally wise and powerful affiliates, states with equal stakes, like Liechtenstein. Perhaps under a President with a better world approval rating, future Saddam Hussein types (i.e. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) will willingly allow full-disclosure nuclear non-proliferation inspection, should the UN votes go against them. Maybe after numerous instances of the votes going against them. Or maybe at the intimidating threat of potentially recieving the frowning of a lifetime.

Oh, by the way, do you know what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's campaign motto was during his Iranian election?

"It's doable and we can do it."

Very vague statement. Sound familiar? Yes, yes it does. The real question to ask ones self; however, isn't "Can we?" but "Should we?" The answer today is, no. We shouldn't. Sometimes change is bad. Changing a kid's dirty diaper is good; exchanging it for another old dirty diaper is hardly a visionary dynamic worth sipping latte head nods to. For example, if the guarantee of socialized medicine is such a great idea, why haven't the states legislated it individually? I'll answer that rhetorical, it's because they would rot from the inside and the people would flee the sinking ship. Conversely, if it works like they propose it will, seniors, artists, philosophers, satyrs, dryads and fauns will all flock under it this innovative state's banner of freedom and free medicine for all. If it flat doesn't work at the state level, (or county or city, I'm not picky, just as long as it's balanced and attempted for a long enough duration to judge) why would anyone want to impose it on yet more people in what is simply the next tier larger political scale? I have an answer for that. It's so its failure can be masked behind a myriad of other ideological failures that were likewise never attempted at the state level (or attempted once and proven rotten as policy). People think it's working in Canada, but then, they don't have another, more prosperous Canada to compare it to. Let one half of an experimentally expendable state like Kansas add it to their system and the other half not and we'll see if there isn't an eventual prosperity contrast reminiscent of east and west Germany. You want socialized universal medicine? Let me see a state (not the federal state) successfully implement it without everything getting far, far worse (real costs through the roof, service noteable for the length of its lines and lists). If it truly worked, I'd get behind it. But it doesn't work. They all know it. We all know it.

Boring as it may be, the best way for all to get medical care (and good medical care, not Russian needle-stabbing immunization cattlechutes) is through individual integrity. I suggest voting on the "moral" issues and let economics follow helter skelter. Right makes might, eventually. The best way to make healthcare available to all is to continue to break down the legislative lockjaw that pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies (who are a p[owerful force behind this new socialized medicine push) and even trial lawyer lotteries have imposed on government and inhibited free market. This should be done T. R. style. Oh, and either shut down the freeloader spigot or graft them in. Invoke a quasi-socialist system before these elements are rooted out and you insure deeply buried corruption for generations. For when they have the taxpayer funding them, the lobbyist dollar influx can be more cyclical, Rockefellerian influence spiralling faster yet. Hello European New World! There's always a cost, a reaction to any action in economics. Weigh carefully. If a policy cannot stand alone, it certainly cannot stand when it's hidden in the bottom of an expenditure renewal bill every term fraught with baseline budgeting and distantly administered, greased palm accountability. Which is exactly the system being proposed here.

But back to Ahmadinejad and Obama having the same campaign motto. Tisk, tisk. You know, one wonders if they aren't taking similar cues, or using similar coaching.

And no, I'm certainly not implying Obama is a closet Islamist trying to weasel in by lying through his teeth! Of course, I'm not actively dispelling the rumor either (how would I know either way? - know is 100% certainty for you non-math types) I'm not in anyone's head but my own. Speaking of in my head, did you know that I vetoed the same way as Obama 30 percent of the time, 100 percent of the time, it works every time?