Chris Christie: Man of the People, or Ruling Class?

Many praises have been heaped on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie by liberty lovers and opponents of the Obama administration. I'm beginning to suspect, though, that what attracts people to him is his blunt and unyielding manner in dealing with critics in the press and other generally left-leaning groups.

Christie drew fire recently for using a State-owned helicopter to travel to his son's baseball game. While family is important, his son was happy he could come, and a State spokesman said the helicopter would be in use for training at the time anyway, it still has the appearance of impropriety.

Now there's a report that Christie has ordered flags in the State of New Jersey to be flown at half-staff on Thursday, to honor deceased saxophonist Clarence Clemons's contributions to the state and its people. Personally, I don't mind honoring Clemons as a great and popular musician. On the other hand, such an order is beyond the provisions of federal law.

The federal law regarding "Position and manner of display" of the United States flag is contained in Title 4 USC, Ch. 1, Sec. 7. Subsection (m) lists the situations in which the President or a Governor may issue a half-staff proclamation. Note that "death of a popular musician" isn't one of them.

Of course, the report doesn't say that the US flag will be flown at half-staff. It may be only the New Jersey State flag, and that may be entirely consistent with law.

After all, isn't a consistent application of the rule of law something all lovers of liberty would want?

Huntsman: the Un-Republican

It appears the title of this article has been changed, because the title in the URL is "huntsman-to-enter-presidential-race-as-un-cola-republican-in-2012-field". Under the 4th subtitle down, "'No Mainstream Politician'", Mark McKinnon (why does that name seem familiar?) is quoted as saying, "He's the un-cola of the Republican candidates…."

I found the link to that article in this piece by James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal. A bit before the Bloomberg article is linked, Taranto discusses how Huntsman apparently believes in global warming--not necessarily human-caused--as reported in Time magazine by Alex Altman.

I had seen some discussion of Huntsman on Twitter, including the opinion that the simple fact of his working for the Obama administration was not sufficient cause for disqualification as a Republican candidate. After all, he speaks fluent Mandarin. I expect the reader to decide for himself or herself, but I don't think that I could work for this administration, no matter how well-qualified for a particular job I may be.

For what it's worth: another tweet I saw recently stated that one of the MSNBC anchors (I believe) said he preferred Huntsman to Romney.

Update: It wasn't a news anchor. It was Harry Reid, as reported in a tweet from @GayPatriot.

My Take on What Newt is Doing (vs. Rush's)

On his show today, Rush Limbaugh stated that Newt Gingrich is making statements that are disliked by the Constitutionalist base and by "tea party" activists, but that are exactly what "establishment" or "ruling class" Republicans want to hear. Rush is speculating that Newt is doing this because he knows he won't win the nomination, but he wants to get "in" with the establishment, and possibly obtain a lucrative position at a think tank, if I've interpreted what Rush said correctly. Therefore, Newt is moving from a Constitutionalist position to a more establishment position.

I disagree. I don't think Newt is moving; I believe he did that some time ago. I believe Newt already has an inside-the-beltway, establishment mentality. I've said before that when I first looked at his "American Solutions" website a couple of years ago, his 12 solutions included about 8 that were bureaucratic programs or subsidies.

Newt isn't saying these things just to curry favor with people who might employ him. He's saying these things because he is one of those people.