The week

National Review, Dec 18, 2006

* Admit it: You're grateful Michael Richards isn't a Republican.

* When old footage that showed Rep. John Murtha nibbling at a bribe dangled by an FBI "sheik" appeared online, the hero of the Iraq resistance was transformed overnight into a dull-witted crook. At least we can say that Murtha's fondness for dubious Arabs is enduring. The House Democratic caucus rejected Murtha in his race for majority leader, in favor of Steny Hoyer, by a vote of 149-86. The Democrats' other dirty would-be leader, Rep. Alcee Hastings, also went down. Hastings was favored to head the Intelligence Committee, until the media and his colleagues began focusing on his past. In the 1980s Hastings, then a federal district judge, was impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate for conspiring to accept bribes. Since both Murtha and Hastings were initially approved by incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi, their travails are early black marks for her. But they may not be lasting. When Hastings joined Murtha on the sidelines, it was good for the country--and good for the Democratic majority, which made itself cleaner and more effective thereby. Republicans and conservatives still face a long march back.

* Trent Lott is back in the GOP Senate leadership, as the new minority whip. There are some good arguments for his return: He's a great vote counter and a master of the Senate's arcane ways. Other arguments are less good, but have some merit: The White House unfairly threw Lott under the bus for its own purposes following his Strom Thurmond gaffe; he has paid a steep enough price for a small mistake; it's the Senate's prerogative to declare its independence; etc. But Lott is not what the GOP needs right now. Fair or not, he symbolizes the image that cost the GOP its majority. He is a pork-barrel politician first, last, and forever. He sees being in the Senate leadership as akin to being the recording secretary of the local country club, and his public comments often seem aimed at his colleagues rather than the wider world (he coined that albatross of a phrase "the nuclear option"). Lott's rehabilitation represents justice for him, but not for those to whom falls the task of rebuilding the GOP's shattered majority.

* Sam Brownback, the Republican from Kansas, is a fine senator: His lifetime voting record, as rated by the American Conservative Union, is 95 percent. On right-to-life issues and the humanitarian aspects of foreign policy--AIDS relief in Africa, assistance to North Korean refugees, etc.--he has established himself as a legislative leader. He played a constructive role in turning back the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. But now Brownback appears to have succumbed to the temptation that all senators seem to face: He's on the verge of running for president. "We're very close with announcements," he said on November 26, appearing on ABC's This Week. "I think there is room, on the Republican side, for somebody that's a fullscale conservative." Several other GOP candidates may quarrel with that assessment, and they'll be quick to point out that Brownback supported both the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law (initially, at least) and the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill. A lot of "full-scale" conservatives opposed both, and vigorously. If Brownback does choose to run, he will no doubt acquit himself honorably. He may also do so irrelevantly. Or worse: He could fracture the conservative base and contribute to the success of a "half-scale" Republican. If Brownback wants to advance conservatism, perhaps he should consider pursuing the governorship of his own state in 2010 and seeing where that leads. He's only 50 years old. Or he could stay right where he is, doing what he's already doing.

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* Now that Democrats aren't threatened with political irrelevance, they just might be willing to cut a deal on Social Security. Treasury secretary Henry Paulson says he is willing to talk with "no preconditions." Better, we think, to set reciprocal conditions. If the Democrats want to rule out personal accounts, to which they react like vampires to the cross, then Republicans should rule out tax increases too. The most popular liberal proposal of the moment is to extend the payroll taxes to cover all wages, not just the first $90,000 of wages. That's a massive increase in marginal tax rates. It would affect only 6 percent of the workforce in any year, but more than a fifth of workers over the course of their lives; and it would make up less than 15 percent of Social Security's shortfall. We believe that there is room for constructive negotiation, if Democrats are willing to have it; some of them are trying to blackball Bush's choice for deputy commissioner of Social Security, Andrew Biggs, because he has advocated personal accounts. But there is no case for giving away the store just to get a deal.

* Just days after the election, Robert Rubin urged his fellow Democrats to raise taxes to shrink the deficit. We're not sure why a marginal reduction in the deficit is worth sacrificing growth for. Our looming future deficits are alarming, but they are a reason for reforming entitlements, not raising taxes. It should not be difficult for Republicans, no matter how far they have been knocked off their game, to figure out how to respond to any attempt to raise taxes, even on "the rich." If President Bush vetoed a tax increase, he would win that political battle. A Democratic attempt to raise taxes would be a political gift to a Republican party that needs one. Which is why we can't quite believe that the attempt will, in the end, be made.