Conservative Donnybrook

President Bush reached an agreement with lenders today that punishes a majority of lower and middle class families for being prudent.  That’s right, a deal to freeze interest rates for people who made bad decisions by paying too much for a home has been announced. 

This unfairly benefits persons who paid way too much for a home they could not afford by giving them reprieve from real-world responsibility of paying their debts and managing their expenses.  This agreement also punishes the countless prudent lower and middle class persons who did not over-extend themselves by purchasing over-priced homes with horrible loans.  The market needs to suffer through a large correction and prudent potential buyers should benefit from this.  With unsavvy homeowners benefiting from such a reprieve of responsibility the housing market with retain some of its over-inflated prices.  This, in turn, will help keep prudent and responsible buyers from entering the market and this will prevent the market from being built on the shoulders of responsible and economical buyers.

Way to go, Mr. President.  You just rewarded fiscal irresponsibility and ensured a large roll for an already over-sized government.

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Buckley seems to be coming out for increased restrictions on smoking:

Stick me in a confessional and ask the question: Sir, if you had the authority, would you forbid smoking in America? You’d get a solemn and contrite, Yes. Solemn because I would be violating my secular commitment to the free marketplace. Contrite, because my relative indifference to tobacco poison for so many years puts me in something of the position of the Zyklon B defendants after World War II.

Ugh. Jacob Sullum has some good comments over at Hit & Run.

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This seems like it will be very damaging to the Huckabee campaign.

As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee aggressively pushed for the early release of a convicted rapist despite being warned by numerous women that the convict had sexually assaulted them or their family members, and would likely strike again. The convict went on to rape and murder at least one other woman.

Huckabee for some reason seemed to believe that convicted rapist Wayne Dumond was wrongfully convicted, and pushed for his early release from prison. The HuffPo article contains new information that other victims of Dumond contacted Huckabee’s office, warning that Dumond would pose a continuing danger, but they were ignored.

To say the least, Huckabee’s handling of the affair does not reflect well on his judgment, and it seems that he has not been honest about it.

NR’s Byron York has more, suggesting that Huckabee’s predecessors in the Governor’s office bear some blame for this mess.

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