Category: Politics

We need to stop using oil, but it shouldn’t cost too much.

Better to control through blunt force than through individual receptiveness to economic pain, right?

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit.

Will that be broken out by make and model? Will we next proceed to mandatory speed limits built into cars sold in America? Does it matter, as long as Congress gets to Do Something?

Warner asked the department to determine at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient, how much fuel savings would be achieved, and whether it would be reasonable to assume there would be a reduction in prices at the pump if the speed limit were lowered.

Is it reasonable to assume that motorists will drive at or below those speed limits? Not to get too anarchist, but as a motorist, every successful, traffic-free experience I have on the highway involves a spontaneous order, with some optimal speed above the limit “magically” appearing to smooth the flow of traffic. If Congress imposes a national speed limit, we’ll have one of two realities. Motorists will ignore the speed limit, or states will allocate more police enforcement. What is the net effect of saving a few pennies on gas if we spend a few pennies to enforce that savings? And what of the extra court costs? Insurance premium spikes?

Or we could consider something else:

The [Department of Energy’s] Web site says that fuel efficiency decreases rapidly when traveling faster than 60 mph. Every additional 5 mph over that threshold is estimated to cost motorists “essentially an additional 30 cents per gallon in fuel costs,” Warner said in his letter, citing the DOE data.

Maybe we can assume that motorists are capable of deciding how willing they are to pay an additional 30 cents per gallon. And maybe the market is capable of slowing drivers down when the price of gas is “too high”. But why let the market work when Congress can interfere?

I’m ready for this election to be over.

I take John Cole’s view on Wesley Clark’s statement regarding the relevancy of being shot down and tortured to an individual’s ability to faithfully execute the office of President of the United States and preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. In short, General Clark is correct on the specific statement. That makes all the ranting border on the hysterical. Predictable, perhaps, but still strange.

The worst example I’ve encountered, which is a key distinction here because I’ve actively avoided the outrage machine, comes from Andrew Sullivan in response to a reader’s dissent. Mr. Sullivan writes (my emphasis added):

Strictly speaking, it is irrelevant for the presidency if someone was shot down and tortured. It doesn’t make anyone a better potential president. But there are plenty of ways to put this and to frame this without descending to a default position that seems to devalue McCain’s service. Clark is a dreadful politician and his off-the-cuff response, while technically true, is terrible politics and about the last debate Democrats need or should want to have. It has dominated a news cycle in ways that help McCain not Obama and drowned out Obama’s patriotism speech. The only silver lining is that the small chance that Clark might be an Obama veep is now zero.

General Clark is correct in his statement. Mr. Sullivan is correct in acknowledging that General Clark’s statement is “technically true” and terrible politics. I’m not here to refute the latter point because the rest of Gen. Clark’s interview with Bob Schieffer was classic shill. So what? The question is whether we’re really interested in an election that puts good politics ahead of the truth? Our unwillingness to deal with the truth because it’s politically unpalatable is why we’re in so many of the national messes we’re in. I’m not interested in enabling that further by pretending like this matters. It’s bad enough that we all have to play the game.

But what about the politics of this? The media has engaged itself in the long-standing narrative that Sen. McCain is a Hero™, so we can’t question him. Why? One need not question his heroism, patriotism, or sacrifice to get at the present reality. His history is a facet of his application for the office of President. Because his experience is (thankfully) rare does not give him a free pass. If getting shot down and tortured contributes something to the merit of his qualification, let him explain why. But do not treat it as a given. There is a viable thread that his experience gives him unique, applicable experience. There is also a viable thread that it’s not a requirement for the job. If one wants to be feisty, maybe his experience is even a knock on his fitness to be president because of how he processes it.

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Semi-related, today Mr. Sullivan posts this general defense of Sen. Obama.

But Obama’s post-primary pivot to neutralize all the usual GOP attacks – and reintroduce himself to Middle America – has been more than usually pronounced. He can live with FISA telecom immunity; he’s flexible on troop withdrawal from Iraq; he’s happy with executing child rapists; he doesn’t need public financing; he’ll out-patriot the Right; he’s touting his support for welfare reform; he’ll expand Bush’s faith-based programs; and he’s okay with the Supreme Court’s view of the Second Amendment. Oh, and he’ll reduce taxes on the middle class, while hiking them for the rich or successful or whatever you’ll let me call them.
…

It’s been clear for a long time: A man who beat the Clintons is as ruthless as they are. Just smarter, and less susceptible to losing his grip on the core principles he still believes in.

I don’t question that Sen. Obama is an effective politician. This is why I think he’ll be more ineffective in office than some want to believe. Being a gifted politician means getting what you want, but it also means making enemies. Hopefully he’ll make enough in the Congress.

But I’m not able to decipher a coherent, consistent set of core principles in Sen. Obama’s growing spectrum of public declarations. The telecoms broke the law. He won’t advocate repealing campaign finance regulations. Faith-based programs miss the point of the First Amendment, among other problems. Adjusting the mix of financial “winners” and “losers” – a rejection of the idea that merit should mean something – ignores property rights and equal treatment under the law in favor of his idea of more equal outcomes. Narrow that down in a way that each set of facts can be filtered through through the same idea and I’ll retract my criticism that he is not acting from core principles. Until then, let’s not confuse winning with correct. Manipulating the message is great marketing, but it’s hardly proof of a statesman.

(Comments are closed. Cross-posted at Publius Endures, where comments are open.)

Interpretation of facts is the key.

Perhaps the large hadron collider created a black hole and our world has ended. I can think of no other way to explain Robert Samuelson’s latest column.

Tired of high gasoline prices and rising food costs? Well, here’s a solution. Let’s shoot the speculators. A chorus of politicians, including John McCain and Barack Obama, blames these financial slimeballs for piling into commodities markets and pushing prices to artificial and unconscionable levels. Gosh, if only it were that simple. Speculator-bashing is another exercise in scapegoating and grandstanding. Leading politicians either don’t understand what’s happening or don’t want to acknowledge their own complicity.
…

A better explanation is basic supply and demand. …

Politicians promise to tighten regulation of futures markets, but futures markets aren’t the main problem. Scarcities are. Government subsidies for corn-based ethanol have increased food prices by diverting more grain into biofuels. A third of this year’s U.S. corn crop could go to ethanol. Restrictions on oil drilling in the United States have limited global production and put upward pressure on prices. If politicians wish to point fingers of blame, they should start with themselves.

I was content that he didn’t seek a government solution, his usual default. Directly (and accurately) blaming politicians is more than I could’ve ever hoped for. I think I’m going to stock up on canned goods now. The end is near.

———-

And yet, there is proof that there are some constants. Following his whining about the Heller decision, E.J. Dionne is back with more lamenting on the conservative court and what it means for the people. Basically, he writes an ode to jurisprudence based on outcome rather than principle. He concludes:

The four conservatives on the Supreme Court, when empowered by the swing vote of Justice Anthony Kennedy, have already shown their willingness to overturn the will of Congress and local legislatures when doing so fits their political philosophy. The same majority could keep conservative ideas in the saddle long after the electorate has decided that they don’t work anymore.

I still hold to the idea that truth is independent of when public opinion reaches 50.1% in favor of an idea. They may correlate, but the latter is not a requirement for the former.

Assumptions need to be tested as much as principles.

Commentary on yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller (pdf) is widespread around the Internets. I won’t delve any deeper than to say I agree with the ruling and much of the libertarian commentary. The Second Amendment is an individual right. Reading it any other way is ridiculous. Yesterday was a good day for the Constitution.

With that behind us, Eugene Robinson understands and accepts the principle behind the Supreme Court’s decision:

This case, for me, is one of those uncomfortable situations in which my honest opinion is not the one I’d desperately like to be able to argue. As much as I abhor the possible real-word impact of the ruling, I fear that it’s probably right.

I’m not a fan of guns anywhere other than in movies and television. I don’t own one, and don’t expect to in the future. Partly this is because my father died in an accidental shooting. But that part of me can’t be used to interpret the Constitution. It says what it says.

Unfortunately, Mr. Robinson follows that reasonable statement with this support for his apprehension:

The practical benefits of effective gun control are obvious: If there are fewer guns, there are fewer shootings and fewer funerals. As everyone knows, in the District of Columbia — and in just about every city in the nation, big or small — there are far too many funerals. The handgun is the weapon of choice in keeping the U.S. homicide rate at a level that the rest of the civilized world finds incomprehensible and appalling.

The use of the word effective is key. Gun prohibition has been the law in D.C. for decades, yet people still die regularly. It doesn’t work, if only because we haven’t figured out how to make it effective. If a 100% prohibition is not effective, I’m not convinced anything could be.

There’s also the pesky matter of his unscientific assumption of what statistics would show. Theoretically it’s probably true that fewer guns would mean fewer shooting, but reality shows we’re back to (in)effective. And the idea that we’d have fewer funerals is little more than an appeal to “don’t kill Bambi”. There are plenty of ways to kill people.

But come on, it’s not as if the law was making gun violence in the city any worse — and it’s not as if striking down the law, and perhaps adding hundreds or thousands of weapons to the city, will make things any better. The law was flawed, but it was a lot better than nothing.

Do we really know that the law wasn’t making gun violence in D.C. any worse? It’s at least as reasonable to assume that a law-abiding citizen who owns a (legal) gun could stop her murder better than a law-abiding citizen who would own a gun if she weren’t prohibited by the D.C. City Council.

E.J. Dionne, meanwhile, sticks to his partisan line.

In knocking down the District’s 32-year-old ban on handgun possession, the conservatives on the Supreme Court have again shown their willingness to abandon precedent in order to do whatever is necessary to further the agenda of the contemporary political right.

The court’s five most conservative members have demonstrated that for all of Justice Antonin Scalia’s talk about “originalism” as a coherent constitutional doctrine, those on the judicial right regularly succumb to the temptation to legislate from the bench. They fall in line behind whatever fashions political conservatism is promoting.

Mr. Dionne fails to acknowledge the difference between a principle and a preference. He also can’t seem to understand that his boogeyman – the contemporary political right – is not quite reality. Agrees With Me and Disagrees With Me aren’t political parties.

Also, Justice Scalia is the broken clock of legal jurisprudence, not the bulwark of any particular principle.

Finally, this gem:

It was telling in the gun case that while Scalia argued that the Constitution does not permit “the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home” — note that the Second Amendment says nothing about “self-defense in the home” — it was Justice John Paul Stevens in dissent who called for judicial restraint. He asked his conservative colleagues where they were able to find an expansive and absolute right for gun possession.

Mr. Dionne writes this despite having written in the previous paragraph that the Supreme Court “ran roughshod” in its ruling striking down a portion of campaign finance law. Where in the Constitution can he find the power in the Constitution for Congress to make laws abridging the freedom of speech?

The rest of his editorial suggests fealty to the democratic majority. I wonder how much he’d bow to that if his perception of that opinion if he felt the majority had a disdain for gun control. The Constitution may not be a suicide pact, but democracy certainly is.

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Bonus question: Why does the editorial in favor of the Supreme Court’s ruling have a 600×204 pixel picture of a handgun? Admittedly I get most Washington Post editorials through RSS, but I’ve never seen a picture added to the editorial column. Perhaps a giant picture of the Constitution preceding Dionne’s editorial would’ve been equally appropriate?

I don’t know, it’s a mystery.

I don’t buy the hype that rising oil prices signal the death of our economy, or even significant long-term harm. This isn’t silly denial. There will be consequences, and many of them will be economically painful. Such is the manner of change. But this is just another in the always present process of creative destruction. Because we’re intelligent, we will adapt. We did so in the late 1970s when we entered Peak Oil for the first time. We’ll somehow survive again.

That could’ve been the direction of Robert Samuelson’s latest column on the latest developments in oil prices and markets. It seems like he holds the seed for this opinion. Late in the essay:

How can we retrieve some of our lost power? The first thing is to get out of denial. Stop blaming oil companies and “speculators.” Next, we need to expand domestic oil and natural gas drilling, including in Alaska. Although we can’t “drill our way” out of this problem, we can augment oil supplies and lessen price strains. It might take 10 years or more, because new projects are huge undertakings. But delay will only aggravate our future problems.

He’s essentially calling for action rather than the whining and sob stories about retirees selling their RVs. We’re going to get there eventually. Better to start now.

But – you had to guess that was coming – this wouldn’t be a Robert Samuelson column if he didn’t work the government into his solution as a necessary, integral ingredient. Economics somehow demands it. He concludes:

Finally, we need to realize that high prices may stimulate new biofuels from wood chips, food waste and switch grass. Production costs of these fuels may be in the range of $1 a gallon, says David Cole of the Center for Automotive Research. If true, that’s well below today’s wholesale gasoline prices. To assure new producers that they wouldn’t be wiped out if oil prices plunged, we should set a floor price for oil of $50 to $80 a barrel, says Cole. This could be done with a standby tariff that would activate only if prices hit the threshold. Oil prices are unpredictable, and should a price collapse occur, Americans wouldn’t be deluded into thinking we’ve returned permanently to cheap energy. We’ve made that mistake before.

We need to find new, cheaper, better alternatives to oil. But economic competition might mean new producers could be harmed by the realization of their risks. Who knew, right? So we should set a floor price for oil, apparently even if new producers can produce fuel at a price equivalent to or lower than the pre-established guarantee of a standby tariff. The possibility for rent seeking and unnecessary subsidization is obvious.

So. High prices are bad. Low prices are bad. Which is it?

Do I get to opt out of this contract?

I don’t wish to be a part of the new social contract proposed by two history professors. Contracts are, or should be, voluntary. I don’t think the authors have that in mind.

For the first time since 1964, Democrats have a good chance not just to win the White House and a majority in Congress but to enact a sweeping new liberal agenda. Conservative ideas are widely discredited, as is the Republican Party that the right has controlled since Ronald Reagan was elected. …

I’m not interested in defending the Republican Party, but this is petty, partisan propaganda. We haven’t tried “conservative” ideas, which I take to mean limited government, in many years. The current administration, and its sychophants in Congress, hardly represent conservative, limited government. Do we really need to walk through a list of the past seven years? Or do we need to wait until the next four-to-eight years are finished and look back and compare successes, or more likely, failures?

The new agenda focuses on protecting middle-class families from the insecurities of the global economy.

How about an agenda focused on all individuals in our society, rather than just middle-class families? Besides, isn’t an obsessive focus on families as the building blocks of society a conservative idea that’s been discredited?

Obama speaks of strengthening families by putting “the rungs back on that ladder to the middle class,” giving “every family the chance that so many of our parents and grandparents had.”

He also speaks of breaking the rungs on that ladder that lead higher than the middle class. Striving higher would be bad, but attempting to stay higher would also be bad. This is implicit in much of his tax ideas.

Also, many of our parents and grandparents had no indoor plumbing at some point early in their lives. It’s a shame we’ve only progressed backwards.

He calls for a tax credit to offset the Social Security tax …

It would be more efficient (and honest) to restructure the payroll tax to reflect an exemption up to a defined salary figure.

Social Security gave support to the elderly, lessening the burden on their children.

This is the height of the fantastical nonsense in the essay. Social Security gave support to the elderly, (possibly) lessening the direct burden on their children. It also increased the indirect burden on their children all younger workers. Not that the return on that support (i.e. payroll taxes) is sufficient to support a retiree. I earn a decent income and I could not live now on the benefits I’m being promised in 2040.

The authors eventually seem to unite on a vision that reshaping our nation on a vision of a national, unionized economy will resolve everything. Like the rest of their pleasant proclamations, they provide no basis for any of this superficial argument. They ignore the all data contradicting this wishful thinking. How are unions treating the auto industry in Detroit, for example? And bowing before the record of FDR is an unwise tactic to convince anyone who’s bothered to understand basic economics.

Politicians like power, not lessons.

Here’s another example of why Sen. Obama’s economic thinking scares me. (Not enough to vote for Sen. McCain, but more than enough to not vote for Sen. Obama.)

Sen. Barack Obama rolled out a proposal yesterday to curb speculation in energy markets, which his advisers said would help stabilize soaring gasoline prices.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee laid out a four-step program that would, among other things, close an “Enron loophole” that protects some trading in energy futures from federal oversight, his advisers said.

I don’t know enough about oil futures to offer any educated comment. But I know that suggesting placing allegedly-benevolent government regulators with a specific goal in mind (i.e. lowering gas prices) is a recipe for disaster. Central planning does not work. The laws of economics are not mere suggestions. Where price can’t reach its natural point, even if that includes speculation, supply will decrease.

An interesting insight into how economic facts are irrelevant to all politicians:

“I think everyone believes there’s too much speculation in the oil markets, and a lot of it flows directly from that particular loophole,” New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D) said on a conference call hosted by the Obama campaign.

I do not believe that there is too much speculation in the oil markets. I believe there may be unwise speculation in oil, but that will catch up to the speculators.

I, like everyone who travels any distance in a vehicle powered by gasoline, feel the effect of any speculation in oil. So what? What legitimate claim do I have to say to you that you can’t speculate in oil? The arrival of speculators in baseball cards in the late ’80s/early ’90s killed the economical fun of the hobby for me. Where a pack of cards used to cost 50 cents for a dozen or so cards, the price changed to $2 for six cards. Should the government have regulated that? It even had the built-in “for the children” excuse.

But oil is different!

Is it? People have made choices, whether to live far from work or drive inefficient cars (relative to other available choices). Choices have consequences.

If we approach this debate honestly, many of those being hurt today by the rising price of gas are speculators. They speculated that oil would be cheap and abundant forever. They speculated that oil prices would stay within their comfort zone. They lost. And now the market for less efficient SUVs is changing.

Why should I trust that politicians actually care about the problem when proposals like this clearly demonstrate that the most recent lesson – the speculative effect on housing – is entirely lost on politicians? More importantly, will this increase in “gotcha” regulation decrease if/when the speculative bubble pops? Speculating does assume that prices are artificially high, that there’s some lower point at which prices “should” be. It is about nothing but the price of gas, right?

Post Script: Proposals like this strengthen my belief that Bob Barr’s candidacy will harm Sen. Obama. There are libertarian/moderate voters who will never vote for Sen. McCain and want to see the death of George W. Bush-style Republican government. Where they might’ve voted for Sen. Obama, spewing stupidity after stupidity in a populist appeal to those ignorant of economics will cost him votes. Maybe the net will benefit him, but there will be a trade-off. How is Sen. Obama a new kind of politician?

It shocks his conscience (that he might not get more donations).

With the news that FCC Chairman Kevin Martin would support the proposed Sirius-XM merger after achieving “voluntary” “concessions”, a merger (without the extorted concessions) I’ve loooooooong supported, I should’ve known some further rent-seeking would interfere. It’s just too obvious for politicians to bypass the blood in the water when the companies are willing to cut themselves. And so it was yesterday:

Senior members of the Congressional Black Caucus yesterday criticized a compromise plan for the proposed merger of the XM and Sirius satellite radio companies, saying the deal does not provide enough opportunities for minority-owned programming.

The companies already agreed to lease 4% of their channels. Central planning now should surprise no one since the FCC created this mess by stipulating from the beginning that exactly two companies would be involved in the satellite radio business. Hubris is a bizarre flaw inherent in central planners. Still, this new extortion extension of the sleaze is amazing. I can think of no recent examples quite as bold and shameless.

[North Carolina Democrat Rep. G.K.] Butterfield said he got the idea for the 20 percent set-aside for minority-owned companies from Georgetown Partners, a minority-run private-equity firm based in Bethesda, and its managing director, Chester Davenport.

The firm, which has invested in wireless and media companies, objected last year to the merger, arguing that a monopoly could limit opportunities for minority programming.

Georgetown Partners isn’t claiming that it expects to receive that 20 percent. (Nor does it suggest terms that will inevitably be dictated rather than negotiated.) And I’m sure its political donations to certain Democratic congressmen is entirely coincidental.

Delving further into the role of mafioso as public servant, this:

“It’s shocking to the conscience in this day and age, where “the minority populations” comprise a significant part of the satellite radio audience, that Mr. Martin would settle for what I deem to be crumbs that have fallen off the table,” [Maryland Democrat Rep. Elijah] Cummings said. “We can do much better. I am hoping that this can be revisited.”

If “the minority populations” are listening, it’s incomprehensible to think that Sirius and XM are not already serving this market in a manner that the market deems acceptable enough to pay $13-plus-taxes each month. It’s also incomprehensible to imagine that “the minority population” does not already own a portion of the satellite radio market. I am neither a minority nor a woman, but I imagine that many individuals who qualify for one or both of those distinctions own stock in Sirius and/or XM, just as I do. Amazing as it is, no one is restricted from being financially involved. With Sirius’ stock price, each 100-share block is under $300. The Free Money Congress is mailing could buy nearly 250 shares.

As I suggested above, it’s also possible for anyone, minority or not, to approach Sirius and/or XM about creating programming aimed at segments of the market. I’m speculating, but I doubt executives at either company would refuse to consider such new ideas. Not that they’re actually new.

This is just another example of the inevitable embrace of ego, greed, and power become the only reason for regulation. Protecting consumers is the ruse. Whether regulatory actions benefit consumers is irrelevant to the regulators. Cummings demonstrates this with his contradiction that “the minority populations” demand minority-owned channels, even though they’re already listening to satellite radio and have yet to advocate for divesting of some assets to (other) minority-owned companies at shareholder meetings.

Beware: The vegetables are out to kill you!

How many times do we have to go through foodborne illnesses, with vegetables blamed as the cause rather than carrier, before someone with a national forum finally speaks the truth and tells people to stop being stupid? Once again a vegetable is tainted with harmful bacteria – this time, tomatoes and salmonella, respectively – and the reaction is to blame the vegetable and act stupid. For example:

Restaurants are removing tomato slices from sandwiches and grocery stores are plucking red plum tomatoes from their produce aisles following a nationwide alert that raw tomatoes may have infected scores of people with a rare form of salmonella.

Of course that’s a reasonable response because tomato slices are served raw, which allows the bacteria to survive. But how does that then lead to this?

Salmonella is more frequently associated with poultry, which carry the bacteria. But produce is increasingly a vehicle for salmonella infection as well. Scientists and public-health experts don’t completely understand how pathogens contaminate produce. …

Don’t completely understand? Fine, but are they aware of the link? Let’s see how the paragraph continues:

… The bacteria can be found in animal feces, which can spread through contaminated water, manure or improper handling. It can enter tomatoes through the roots or flowers, or through cracks in the skin of the fruit or the stem scar. Once inside, the microbe is hard to kill without cooking. Tomatoes have been linked to 13 outbreaks of salmonella since 1990, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington advocacy group.

Holy smokes! Who would’ve guessed that? Too bad we don’t have any prior evidence to suggest that animal agriculture is the cause. Blame the vegetables! Except, that’s irrational. We have prior evidence of salmonella contamination, as well as evidence involving E. coli that suggests this exact link:

The likely source of an E. coli outbreak in spinach that killed three people and sickened more than 200 was a small cattle ranch about 50 kilometres from California’s central coastline, state and federal officials said Friday as they concluded their investigation.
…

They found E. coli “indistinguishable from the outbreak strain” in river water, cattle feces, and wild pig feces on the ranch about a kilometre from the spinach fields, the California Department of Health Services and U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in a joint report.

Let’s continue burying that in the story, though. Meat is fine because it should be cooked. I, dirty hippie that I am, with my “natural” foods, I need to be careful because that will kill me. And, anyway, I’m not getting enough protein, so who am I to tell anyone else what is and is not the cause of anything to do with food?

Thankfully, with our main course of ignorance, we’ll get a heaping side dish consisting of rent-seeking regulation:

Consumer advocates and produce trade groups say fresh produce needs mandatory safety standards. Currently, growers follow voluntary guidelines issued by the FDA.

Lovely. Our existing animal agriculture safety regulations are followed so closely that vegetables regularly become contaminated. But, if we just regulate the vegetables enough, we’ll all be safe. That’s a brilliant line of thinking.

Or I could just mutter “barriers to entry” and end this entry.

Spite: Another Argument Against Majoritarianism

We’re all hearing how Sen. Clinton’s supporters may protest and either refuse to vote for Sen. Obama or go the extra step and vote for Sen. McCain in November. I don’t think that’s too realistic on a large scale because I think most people realize how ridiculous that logic is. The latter, especially. I didn’t doubt that it will occur on some scale before yesterday, but I overhead confirmation.

While in Whole Foods yesterday, a man talked on his phone (loudly) to a friend about Clinton. He was clearly a Clinton supporter, but had enough sense to understand that Obama basically matched his policy hopes. His friend, not so much. He eventually asked his friend if he was seriously going to vote for McCain because Clinton didn’t win the nomination. (I got the impression his friend holds the “stolen nomination” view.) The friend clearly indicated yes. Are people really this stupid and spiteful?

To his credit the man in Whole Foods responded to his friend’s answer with “three words: John Paul Stevens”. Indeed.