Free Republic

The other great liberal political success story has been the rise of public-sector unions, which fueled both Obama’s reelection and Bill de Blasio’s victory in New York City’s mayoral race. They are now a key component of the liberal coalition. The upshot of Obama’s policies is that he has, Chicago-style, fed the top-bottom alliance of crony capitalists and the social-service state—the government-worker providers and the recipients of aid. This has left the private-sector middle class out in the cold. Chait’s rhetorical nuance leaves no room for anger at a president whose supervision of Obamacare combines the administrative failings of George...

When it comes to green gentry liberalism, think of an Americanized version of the PBS hit—where everyone knows his or her place, and our betters look best. Last week was a good week for natural gas, but a bad one for green gentry liberalism. John Podesta, a veteran of the Clinton White House who is once again a presidential adviser, tried to explain some energy facts of life to the true-believing liberal base. Still, it’s unclear if Podesta’s intended audience was listening, and that willful blindness may cost the Democrats control of the Senate. Podesta warned that opposition to natural...

'What has the country so angry," says Fred Siegel, "is the sense that crony capitalism has produced a population that lives off the rest of us without contributing. They're right. It's not paranoid." The economic historian of the American city has spent a lot of this autumn on Wall Street. He met many of the protesters who camped out at Zuccotti Park, before the city's finest cleared them out last week. He also knows the bankers and finds the theater of the Occupy movement ironic. "They're on the same side of the street politically," he says. "They're both in favor...

Hypocrisy is an abiding weakness of most politicians. Republicans tend to specialize in hypocrisy regarding sex and family—think of Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde, or Robert Livingstone—while Democrats go in for financial or class hypocrisy—think of John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, or John Edwards. Recently, I went with friends to a talk by former Senator Edwards at New York’s Cooper Union, to hear, in the candidate’s words, how he plans to “dramatically reduce poverty.” Laudably, he wants to cut the current poverty rate of 12.6 percent by a third within a decade. But he offered few specifics. Those that were trotted out,...

Author and veteran political observer Fred Siegel talks to contentions about Giuliani, Bloomberg, 9/11, and more: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/contentions/index.php/munson/693

Michael Bloomberg’s all-but-declared presidential campaign suffered a serious setback on Monday, when the New York state legislature refused to sign on to plans to impose congestion pricing on New York City. The mayor’s plan would have charged people to drive into midtown Manhattan between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays. Congestion pricing is a good idea—in principle. There were, however, numerous substantive problems with Bloomberg’s plan, which would not have reduced traffic so much as redistributed it to less well-to-do areas bordering the mid-Manhattan congestion zone. But what may have been its real undoing was the mix of arrogance...