Lightning Round – December Edition

Quiet Turns Consequential...
Quiet Turns Consequential…

This has been an unusual December, with newsworthy events occurring at such an accelerated rate that there is not enough time for thoughtful writers to keep up.  To get ahead of the curve, below, in condensed form, are the Soapbox’s considered opinion on the most recent stories to dominate the headlines.

The Omnibus Spending Bill: yes, this was an abysmal piece of legislation. Nothing good ever comes from a “kitchen sink” approach to spending tax dollars and there are truly regrettable items in this package. But hyper-ventilating charges by the conservative commentariat of a Republican sellout and the pending end of Republic are misplaced and overblown.

This ugly bill was made necessary by Harry Reid’s general intransigence and specific refusal to pass appropriations bills in the regular order. A catch-all bill was the only way to fund the government and move past the “governance-by-crisis” that has been the hallmark of the past four years.

It’s true, the GOP did not hold spending over the Administration’s head as a tool to challenge Obama’s unconstitutional immigration order, or defund Obamacare.  But that is simple recognition that in the lame duck session, Harry Reid still held the Senate, and Obama wields the veto pen. Futility is not a winning political strategy, and, as Einstein said, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results. Four years of government shutdowns have only served to tar and feather the Republican brand. Wiser minds prevailed in the Omnibus, and in doing so, cleared the way for genuine conservative governance by a united GOP Congress next year.

Jeb Bush Presidential Bid:  upon assuming office in 2009, Barack Obama was among the least qualified people to hold the presidency in modern American history. His presidency is tragic proof of what happens when voters value charisma more than a solid resume.

When Republicans put up a candidate in 2016, the most important quality will be real governing experience. Someone with executive experience, preferably a governor of a big, diverse state. Someone who has laid out a conservative vision; managed budgets and policy initiatives; someone who has worked across the aisle and proven their ability to achieve meaningful results.

Jeb Bush meets all these criteria.

In addition, he’s Catholic, married to a Mexican-American, speaks Spanish fluently and ran up respectable margins among minority and Latino voters in his two successful runs for governor in Florida. If the GOP wants to win in 2016, it will need to win Florida and do better than McCain and Romney among minorities.

 Yes, he’s a Bush, and whether America is ready for three Bush presidencies in less than 30 years is an open question. But that very exposure to the presidency, the intangibles of governance at the apex of American politics, is a net positive. There is very little that Jeb Bush does not know about the perils and pressures of the American presidency. He has seen it up close, twice, and therefore is perhaps best positioned (Hillary for the Democrats) among all those who will run in 2016 to get it right from the beginning.

If Republicans want a conservative winner who can hit the ground running to repair and restore America after the ravages of eight years of Obamaism, a Bush nomination is the surest ticket to success.

SONY, “The Interview” & North Korea: you have to be shooting for a new level of craven when you allow a Gulag state (whose national GDP is half your corporate operating revenue) to dictate the terms of a movie release. But that’s what SONY did.

Helpless in the face of hackers who have gleefully exposed the emails – and rank hypocrisy – of the Hollywood elite, SONY doubled down in the face of crude extortion and abruptly pulled the release of “The Interview,” a slap-stick, Seth Rogen parody the ends with Kim Jong Un’s untimely demise. The company further stated that the movie would not be released on-line or in any form.

If there is good news in this epic demonstration of corporate cowardice, it is to remind us all, again, about the power of free speech and the terror it inspires in totalitarian regimes.

We enshrined free speech in the Constitution 223 years ago and have been arguing about what its meaning ever since. But rarely do we think of speech as a potent national tool in the arsenal against oppression. Yet it is our very freedom that keeps the leaders of China, Iran and so many others, awake at night.

“The Interview” was threatening to the North Korean government not simply because it shows the end of Kim (perhaps planting insidious ideas), but because it so effectively  mocked the pint-sized Kim and his bizarre regime. The key to any nation-state is legitimacy, and “The Interview” mercilessly undermines that for the NKs. Indeed, Seth Rogen did with a movie what 50,000 more troops on the DMZ or new sanctions could never have accomplished.

If SONY refuses to release the movie – through pay cable or streaming content providers – the US government should buy the rights and put it on YouTube. No combination of economic sanctions would be as effective in standing up for free expression, and dealing a crippling blow to the North Koreans.

Normalized Relations with Cuba: when the US government placed an economic embargo on Cuba in 1961, it made sense. A new, dangerous communist beachhead in the Western hemisphere that had the potential to destabilize friendly Latin American countries, all  with the active support of the Soviet Union.

There was Missile Crisis in 1962 – the closest we have ever come to the end of civilization as we know it – all with Fidel Castro’s active support. That was followed by Castro’s active support of left-wing movements in the 60s, the export of Cuban fighters to Africa in the 1970s, and Cuban support for the Sandinistas in Central America in the 1980s.

But that all came to a crashing halt in 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed and the $5 billion annual subsidy payment from Moscow went with it. In the years since, Cuban communism seems more pitiful than threatening, ironically embodied by Fidel himself; gaunt, ill and expiring. Cuba’s marque moments of late have been as the go-to destination for inadequate medical care for Latin America’s leftist tyrants.

In 2014 there is no reason to keep the embargo in place, except for spite. We’ve been gunning for Castro since 1959 and ending the embargo with the Castro’s still in power is an implicit admission that, in this immediate goal, we lost.

Other than spite, there is no rationale for continuing the embargo. The rest of the world openly trades with Cuba. There is little that the Cubans cannot get from other countries, limited only by their dire economic circumstances. Human rights abuses in Cuba are rampant, but the same applies to China, but we not only trade with China, we gladly invite them to finance our annual budget deficits.

Situational piety is hollow, no matter how impassioned the words from the Senate floor can be.

In sum, a change in our relationship with Cuba is long overdue. The only debating point are the terms.  Here, the Obama administration seems bent on stealing defeat from the jaws of victory.

Cuba’s impoverished 11 million people clearly need the US more than the US needs Cuba. Moves by the US to open relations and trade should be tied to specific goals, including resolution of expropriated property claims, Cuban government guarantees regarding the rights of foreign investors to buy property, set up joint ventures and repatriate capital without punitive taxation. All of these actions prevent Cuba from using the American opening to entrench the Castros and their regime, while creating the opportunity for Cubans to enjoy better lives, and eventually, a more open and inclusive political life after the Castros are gone from the scene.

Keep your eyes on Guantanamo. No Cuban leader – communist or otherwise – could agree to full diplomatic relations with the US without some guarantee that occupied sovereign territory would be returned.  President Obama, who has been trying to shut down Club Gitmo for six years may have finally found a way to do so, forcing the closure of the camp by returning Guantanamo to Cuba.