Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Tea Party folk across the nation and in Connecticut tend to be more active politically than, say, sunshine patriots. What has been said here often enough bears repeating: The Tea Party is not a party; it is a movement grounded in the notion, not at all un-American, of a politics of limits. By way of example, the U.S. Constitution marks a limit, as does the Bill of Rights or any statutory law. Right reason marks a limit. The laws of nature and of nature’s God mark a limit.

“What the three [Madison, Hamilton, Jay] did not know, could not know, was that the right to have the Constitution ratified would . . . rival any that would follow in the history of the country” -- Triumvirate, p. 38 The Articles of Confederation were a failure. They needed not to be improved but wholly rewritten. The Constitution was the best form of government ever offered to the world. But to get it ratified, nine of the 13 states were needed. Madison, Hamilton, and Jay started writing essays, all under the name of Publius, (with widespread support from the biased newspapers). How they got started, was not revealed in the mass of letters available to author Bruce Chadwick for his new book, “Triumverate” (Naperville, IL, Sourcebooks, 2009). Fears by Anti-Federalists and Federalists were intense. If the Constitution were not ratified, what would become of the states that voted against it? Anarchy? Like a ship without a rudder or pilot. The chief obstacle was the need for...

WASHINGTON - An overwhelming advantage in experience and lopsided support from working-class and suburban whites have lifted Republican John McCain to a slender lead over Barack Obama less than two months from Election Day -- ALAN FRAM , Associated Press Writer That is what we call a red flag. Running short on message, Sen. and presidential aspirant Barack Obama first borrowed an idea from a cartoon bubble and then, for good measure, threw in a trite saying about lipstick and pigs, all to no avail. The moose hunter and her partner have galloped past him in the polls. Why? Obama’s Achilles’ heal is his lack of administrative and foreign policy experience. His trip to Germany, France and England earlier in the year was a frenetic attempt to acquire quickly the semblance of foreign policy experience. Palin has the edge on him with respect to administrative experience, and presidential aspirant John McCain is light years ahead of him on the foreign policy front. Importing Biden into the...

“ You can go to live in Turkey but you can’t become a Turk. You can’t go to live in Japan and become Japanese. But . . . anyone from any corner of the world can come to America and be an American.” -- Ronald Reagan Americanism is a matter of the mind and heart; Americanism is not, and never was, a matter of race and ancestry. A good American is one who is loyal to this country and to our creed of liberty and democracy .” -- Franklin D. Roosevelt In 1776, we declared ourselves independent and committed ourselves to certain principles and ideals. Our ideals, set forth in the Declaration of Independence, implemented in the Constitution, go back to the Magna Carta, common law, Athenian democracy, and the Hebrew covenant. What does it mean to be an American? Opportunity , reward for hard work, respect for talent, entrepreneurship, leader in productivity, respect for education; the chance to get ahead, to name a few characteristics. What makes us a nation is our heritage, but we ar...

Campaign reformists may have thought that they had saved democratic politics from the sweaty men in the smoke filled back rooms when primaries were instituted to clip their influence. But the smoke filled back room – minus the smoke, of course -- is back. In pre-primary days, party tickets were fashioned by party delegates in state and national conventions, but the deciders were party bosses, usually state and national party chairmen allied with political shakers and movers. Then came primaries, and the backroom boys gave way to new movers and shakers. Primaries were supposed to put party voters in the catbird seat. Then came, open primaries, in which non-party members were permitted to shape the party ticket and campaign finance reform, followed by the general dissolution of political parties. The result of all this reforming may be seen most dramatically in the failed presidential campaign of Connecticut’s US Sen. Chris Dodd. Dodd, who never garnered more than 2% of the vote in his b...

The few sentences that follow below were selected almost at random from a commentary on Judge John Roberts, whose nomination to the U S Supreme Court, we are told by the commentator, “has reignited the controversy over faith and the confirmation process… From everything that has been reported so far, Roberts looks eminently qualified for the high court. His record paints a picture of a temperamentally moderate jurist who would be very unlikely to challenge precedent in the name of ideology, or to use his public position to advance his personal values. But what if there was a nominee who showed less restraint? Would that candidate's beliefs still be out of bounds for questioning as long as they were religious in nature?” Now, the first thing we should notice in this commentary is the author’s use of the devil word “ideology. Is religion an ideology? If it is an ideology, and if it is the only ideology not to be permitted to inform the decisions of Supreme Court justices, have we not...

Dare I presume To disturb the universe? – T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock The much fabled “presumption of innocence,” temporarily retired during the darkest days of the Rowland scandal, has been taken off the shelf and given a spit shine by leading Democrats. Rep. William Hamzy, state chairman of the Republican Party, was trying mightily to avoid commenting on the recent troubles of Democratic senator Ernest Newton but found he could not hold his tongue after the FBI had carted off the senator’s files. "I certainly didn't want to jump to any conclusions,” Hamzy said, “but when somebody's legislative office gets raided, that takes it to another level. Once a legislative office is raided by the FBI, there's something to this." The FBI raided several homes and offices of people connected to Newton. According to news reports, the snoops had been following a trail of federal money paid to Newton’s sister. The FBI was also tracing state money paid to ...