Jimmy Carter upholds his reputation ...

as a joke.

Questions for Al Franken

The Captain makes a great point on the Air America scandal involving the diversion to the network of government funds intended for seniors and poor children. If Franken decides to run for office, he really needs to let us know what he did to fix the problem once he learned about it:

I doubt that Franken will ever comment on this story in his role as on-air personality. If he decides to run for office here in Minnesota as rumored, however, we should ask him about this scandal and what he did to correct it once it became known. Voters should shun candidates who manage to demonstrate a callous disregard for spending government money without even being in office.

Explaining housing prices by market

As I discussed in a related post here government regulation has a huge impact on housing prices. This article in Slate addresses an academic study trying to find a shortcut to quantify the extent to which government is responsible for a housing bubble in various markets.

Proof before your very eyes

A guest blogger at janegalt.com (subbing for Megan McArdle) proves that even intelligent-sounding liberals are really brain dead stupid. Anyone who really contemplates such questions is too stupid to be put in charge of any government position -- even dog catcher.

I think this is an obvious case of relying solely on the MSM for news. It rots the brain.

An insight into the minds of terrorists

Good article from a British insider on the breeding grounds of home-grown islamic terrorists. Thanks to a reader for the heads up. There are several quotes which I intend to highlight later. My wife, Angie just poked her head in the door to tell me everyone is in the car waiting. Later.

Who'd a thunk it? Most terrorists are rich.

Liberals believe (passionately) that the Islamic terrorists are motivated by economic inequality. Like most liberal beliefs, this one fails to match the evidence. Of course, something as insignificant as evidence or reality has never caused many liberals to give up one of their treasured beliefs.

Roger Simon has more.

HGTV shoot plus city swim meet

What a busy weekend! On the road Friday before 8 am with my son and his friend to swim in the prelims of the city swim meet at UT's swim center. Madison qualified for the finals in all 4 events, so we will be back there Sunday.

As soon as he finished at 2:30 we raced back to the house where an HGTV crew was shooting some scenes involving a makeover in our kitchen. I had to shower and change into the same clothes I was wearing 2 weeks ago when we shot the first part of the commercial (to be shown on a different network) on our back deck. The spot is supposed to be two minutes long. The client is an association of propane manufacturers and the topic is safety, care and cleaning of gas grills. I was asked to do a non-speaking role demonstrating various instructions. All of this is kind of funny because we don't use our grill much and my wife usually does the grilling when we do.

Anyway, the last part of the shoot was done at a local hardware store. I was filmed handing an empty container to a gas employee who filled it up and handed it back. You would probably be surprised how long that can take. The excitement meter hardly budged.

I spent the time joking with a couple of the crew. One guy, also named Stan, had some great stories about stuff like continuity blunders -- where the final cut of a production includes parts of different takes and they fail to catch inconsistencies (drink level changes, cigarette changes lengths, etc.). Apparently, one of the early Clint Eastwood westerns has a scene where jet contrails are clearly visible in the sky.

So yesterday was a long day. Hope to blog a few posts today while Catherine has her nap.

Blogroll, comments and other housekeeping

My computer guy had my computer last week. He brought it back last night and showed me how to change a couple of things on this blog -- the blogroll and comments. He put up 3 sites that he knows I read. I'll put up the rest when I get a moment.

As for comments, it is no longer necessary to be registered to leave one.

No babysitter today. I have my three plus 2 of the neighbors'. Blogging will be light (i.e. later).

Ibsen as the father of modern assault on values

Via Roger Simon, I liked this essay by Theodore Dalrymple (the pen name of a British doctor who has written a lot of great stuff). Simon's headline sums it up, we can find the roots of the radical assault on convention by Abbie Hoffman and his ilk in the plays of Henrick Ibsen. Dalrymple writes:

The modernity of Ibsen’s thought hardly needs further emphasis. The elevation of emotion over principle, of inclination over duty, of rights over responsibilities, of ego over the claims of others; the impatience with boundaries and the promotion of the self as the measure of all things: what could be more modern or gratifying to our current sensibility? Not surprisingly, Ibsen regarded youth rather than age as the fount of wisdom. “Youth,” he assures us, “has an instinctive genius which unconsciously hits upon the right answer.”

Remember that when your kids are assigned A Doll's House to read.

Signing a Treaty = accomplishing the goal

Lori Byrd at Polipundit directs us to this post by a guest blogger for Andrew Sullivan. She writes:

CLINTON REWRITES HISTORY IN BOSNIA: A couple of days ago I was watching Clinton tell a BBC reporter that his administration stopped Al Qaeda from establishing a base in Bosnia. In the same vein, his UN representative and Secretary of State wannabe Richard Holbrooke
wrote that "we would probably have had to pursue Operation Enduring Freedom not only in Afghanistan but also in the deep ravines and dangerous hills of central Bosnia, where a shadowy organization we now know as al Qaeda was putting down roots that were removed by NATO after Dayton." Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Dayton accords did indeed require the eviction of the "foreign fighters" but Izetbegovic (whose indictment as a war criminal was made public only after his death) ignored that condition with the same impunity Arafat ignored the Oslo agreements demanding the dismantling of Hamas. Consequently, when Bernard-Henri Levy visited Bosnia he found Taliban-run villages and it was from Bosnia that the so called charities financed the Al Qaeda operations.

Because Bill got them to sign a piece of paper making a promise, he thinks he has actually accomplished something. The fact that they never intended to keep the promise doesn't matter to him.

This attitude, shared by the Democratic establishment, is the most dangerous of all the silly follies embraced by liberals today. It is the most important reason why we (and the world) cannot afford a Democrat in the White House directing foreign policy.

One more point -- regardless of what one's views of policy might be, serious voters (e.g. a liberal like Roger Simon) understand that a vote that puts people like this back in power is simply immoral.

Dick Morris on Bush's Court pick

Dick Morris (via Real Clear Politics) says the pick of Roberts, or any conservative who was confirmed to a lower court without a Democratic filibuster, is brilliant. It may well be, but not necessarily for the reasons Morris gives. I find Morris to be somewhat erratic in the quality of his political analysis and predictions.

He says:

The key is that Bush has used the Democrats’ opposition to his district and circuit-court judicial appointments against them and made it a ratification of the Roberts candidacy. Simply put, by choosing a judge whom the Democrats confirmed unanimously when he was nominated for the D.C. Circuit Court — and whom they did not filibuster — Bush has made the Democrats impotent.

This assumes that Democrats care about consistency or that the MSM will hold their feet to the fire. I don't think either is true. Roberts seems headed for confirmation. However, I don't think the Morris formula is as foolproof as he does.

Mirengoff exposes Dem hypocrisy

Liberals always insist on having it both ways. Powerline's Deacon makes the point that they don't want to follow the ground rules established when Justice Ginsburg, an extreme left-winger, was questioned at her confirmation hearings.

Of course, they have a long tradition of this. With a Republican administration, even the appearance of a potential impropriety requires resignation. With a Democrat as president, an admitted felony is a mere trifle unworthy of comment.

With a Republican, the use of a sexually suggestive term in the presence of a women is a disqualification for office. For a Democrat, rape isn't even worth a second glance.

Feel free to add your own examples in the comments.

Liberal con artists at Air America

Michelle Malkin is all over this story about grant money intended for kids, the poor and sick senior citizens being used to shore up the finances of Air America, the liberal talk radio network.

Howie Dean has completely lost his mind

I saw this from Betsy which ultimately came from CNS News. "The president and his right-wing Supreme Court think it is 'okay' to have the government take your house if they feel like putting a hotel where your house is," Dean said.

Say what?!

Howie, get a grip, a clue, an idea, whatever, but do it soon. But as bad as Howie is, the real question is this:

What kind of dumbass applauds a line like that?

Press rolling over for Hillary

In a post entitled, "Hillary's Cheap Dates", Mickey Kaus notes how eager the press is to help Hillary be perceived as moving to the center. He writes:

it's now also clear that her shift to the right doesn't have to be that dramatic, because the equally Cheap Date press is ready to interpret even the subtlest, most insubstantial shading as part of Hillary's New Moderation. She can get credit for centrism without having to actually take too many positions that the left would disagree with (and hold against any another politician). Paleoliberals can love her, the DLC can love her, and she never has to say anything, either leftish or moderatish, that commits her publicly to a position that might annoy someone. Her primal drive for vagueness is free to trump her drive to the center.

An Insane Policy

I had no idea that our immigration policy was this crazy. Tom Bevan is right.

What if a Clinton aide broke the law?

David Frum does something I had been thinking about -- comparing the press orgasm over Rove to what never happened to Ken Bacon who purposely and knowingly committed a crime in releasing Linda Tripp's file to a reporter:

Bacon's actions - unlike anything Karl Rove is said to have done - were clearly illegal. And what happened in that case? Basically a big pile of nothing. There was never much media interest in the matter, and when eventually Bacon was reprimanded and issued an apology of sorts, the matter dropped from sight. Tripp's reputation suffered irreparable permanent damage; Bacon went on to a distinguished post-governmental career as president of Refugees International

Would a Democrat lie?

I want to highlight this part of today's post by Hugh Hewitt, dealing with Senator Durbin and his story about Judge Roberts which Jonathon Turley published:

I think Dick "you'd think I was describing Nazis" Durbin is a double-talking hack who wanted to plant a story but didn't think Turley would quote him. It is pretty clear that Durbin lied to Turley, and that is a warning to the nominee to always have a witness with him when he talks to Democrats.

Update -- see Betsy for more. Apparently, Durbin's press secretary also has difficulties keeping his stories straight.

The stupid quote the ignorant

There is something almost comforting about Bob Herbert's column in the NY Times. We all need to have some regularity in life that we can count on and Bob Herbert's cluelessness in the Times sure fits the bill.

Bob tells us that he knows the war in Iraq is not making us safer. He knows this because some subway riders in New York said so.

Have any of the documents or terrorists captured in Iraq provided intelligence that has been vital to stopping planned attacks? Bob doesn't know and neither do his subway buddies.

In fact, all Bob seems to know is whatever he reads in the Times.

As Forrest Gump said, "stupid is as stupid does."

It's the Values, Stupid

Michael Medved explains why Hollywood is having such a bad year at the box office.

John Leo with good advice

When liberals with an agenda cite numbers, consider it a work of fiction. John Leo has the goods.

Of course, as he points out with the example of the homeless stats, liberal fun with numbers goes way back. Bjorn Lonborg showed how bogus environmental stats are in the Skeptical Environmentalist. Over twenty years ago, Ben Wattenberg showed how bogus were the job discrimination claims of feminists and civil rights agitators.

The examples are endless.

Hollywood blows it

According to real soldiers, Over There is bogus. There really is no reason for this to be so bad. A little contact by the writers with real soldiers with real experience could have fixed most of this mess.

Looks like one more TV show I can't wait to miss.

Barone has a must-read

Many will have already seen this column by Michael Barone. The significance of it stems from who he is -- an extremely smart grad of Harvard Law School who clerked for a federal appeals job (big honor) and started his career working as a political advisor for Democrats.

No honest liberal can dismiss him as a right-wing extremist.

Funeral Crasher

Michelle Malkin has a report on how the liberal Lt. Gov. of Pennsylvania crashed the funeral of a marine and spouted her anti-war views.

Journalism exam

For your mid-term exam in Journalism 131, Making a Difference in the World, compare and contrast the press coverage of Karl Rove and the Plame investigation with the press coverage of two other matters involving White House aides:

1) After Webb Hubbell pleaded guilty to felony charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors investigating President Clinton, White House aides arranged for Hubbell to be paid a total of almost a million dollars by various Clinton supporters (for which he did virtually no work). After the payments, Hubbell refused to cooperate with the prosecutors. Despite Hubbell's status as a felon convicted of cheating his clients and the loss of of his law license, the million dollars represented, by far, the most successful earnings year of his law career.

2) In 1998, a federal judge released evidence which established that White House chief of Staff Leon Panetta and his deputy, John Podesta, had orchestrated a massive coverup and obstruction of justice in a federal case involving a scandal within the Commerce Department.

In your answers to these two questions, be sure to analyze the differences in the amount of press coverage, the tone of the coverage, the editorial content of newspapers in each case, and the likelihood that a serious crime was committed by the White House aides involved.

Whatever happened to "alleged"?

In all the accounts I read in the MSM, Plame's status as a covert CIA operative is reported as if it were an established fact. That a "leak" of that status took place is also reported as if it were an established fact.

When was it established as fact that she was covert?

Now I must confess that I am at a loss as to why her status wasn't conclusively determined within a day or so. How hard can it be for a prosecutor to get the CIA records and depose the appropriate person at the CIA?

Desperately clawing journalists

Peter Bronson does a good job of describing the desperation of Democrats and the press trying to get Karl Rove. Reading it, I was struck at how seamlessly he moved from the Democrats to the news media. Is there even a difference?

The fruits of multiculturalism

Mark Steyn describes the benefits we reaped from the multicultural training received by US government official, Johnelle Bryant.

WITH hindsight, the defining encounter of the age was not between Mohammed Atta's jet and the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but that between Mohammed Atta and Johnelle Bryant a year earlier. Bryant is an official with the US Department of Agriculture in Florida, and the late Atta had gone to see her about getting a $US650,000 government loan to convert a plane into the world's largest crop-duster. A novel idea.

The meeting got off to a rocky start when Atta refused to deal with Bryant because she was but a woman. But, after this unpleasantness had been smoothed out, things went swimmingly. When it was explained to him that, alas, he wouldn't get the 650 grand in cash that day, Atta threatened to cut Bryant's throat. He then pointed to a picture behind her desk showing an aerial view of downtown Washington - the White House, the Pentagon et al - and asked: "How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it?"

Fortunately, Bryant's been on the training course and knows an opportunity for multicultural outreach when she sees one. "I felt that he was trying to make the cultural leap from the country that he came from," she recalled. "I was attempting, in every manner I could, to help him make his relocation into our country as easy for him as I could."

So a few weeks later, when fellow 9/11 terrorist Marwan al-Shehhi arrived to request another half-million dollar farm subsidy and Atta showed up cunningly disguised with a pair of glasses and claiming to be another person entirely - to whit, al-Shehhi's accountant - Bryant sportingly pretended not to recognise him and went along with the wheeze. The fake specs, like the threat to slit her throat and blow up the Pentagon, were just another example of the multicultural diversity that so enriches our society.

Beldar makes the case against Lithwick

I'd say he wins on summary judgment. Attorney Bill Dyer has a very good blog. Here he points out, politely but convincingly, that Dalia Lithwick of Slate is a liar. She responds, nicely, but fails to refute the charge.

Bottom line -- she slimed John Roberts with a patently false smear. She tried to cover herself by pleading humor, but Beldar slams the door with evidence and logic, leaving her exposed by the truth.

Making it up

Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman have been exposed as writers who knowingly edit quotes from conservatives in order to distort their meaning. Jonathon Chait has joined their club. One of Michelle Malkin's readers caught him distorting a comment by President Bush by leaving out an important detail.

Of course, Chait's column was already bizarre enough for Michelle to fisk even before the distortion was pointed out.

MSM fact checkers hard at work

Details here.

short vacation over

My wife and I got away to the beach for a few days-- our first time to do so since our first child was born in 1993. I didn't go online or even read the paper.

On our way home now. Sigh.

But we do miss the kids and look forward to hugging them tomorrow.

I'll post on the HGTV experience this weekend. And the Elvis experience.

TV Appearance

I had hoped to get some blogging in today, but I have been volunteered to be in a TV show for HGTV. The TV people are supposed to be here at the house in a few minutes to set up for the taping. I have no idea when it will run.

That reminds me of the first time I was on TV -- for talking with Elvis! More on that later.

MSM Credibility

The ridiculous, over-heated coverage of Karl Rove and the Plame investigation is noteworthy. Not because it shows how biased the MSM is (although they are). Or even because it reminds us of how hopelessly partisan they are.

The coverage is instructive because it shows how how pathetic they are; how much they lack substance. Admittedly, this is just another in a long line of examples, but one has to ask how they expect to retain even a shred of credibility with the coverage they provide.

The Rove coverage is the insanity of the Times' jihad against Augusta National for Martha Burk extended industry-wide. Journalists as lemmings -- dashing their credibility on the rocks.

Dean Wormer's wisdom

I've referenced his famous words several times (fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life). This blogger references them in a post about the scary liberal ideas of Paul Krugman and some Massachussetts cops.

"Extremist" nominee for Court

One of the President's nominees for the Circuit Court bench is William J. Haynes, II. Left-wing groups have been going absolutely bonkers smearing him and denouncing him as an extremist because of his work for Secretary Rumsfeld as general counsel for the defense department.

What is really fascinating to me about this is that I know him (slightly). He was two years behind me at Davidson and he married Meg Campbell, who was a classmate of mine. He was Phi Beta Kappa at DC and went on to Harvard for law school. I believe Meg was also Phi Beta Kappa and she is also an attorney.

The irony of the condemnation of Haynes as an extremist is that his wife is very liberal in her politics and her work. As the director of the American Bar Association's Child Support Project, she was elected to chair the Commission on Interstate Child Support created by Congress in the late '80s.

It must be really tough on a liberal like Meg to read and hear her husband described in such harsh terms by her political friends and allies. It must also bug her to wonder if they really think she would marry and raise a family with a man such as the "extremist" they describe.

The reality is that he is a really outstanding person with an outstanding legal mind who would make a great judge. Even a liberal like Meg knows it.

Martin Eakes in the WSJ

The dead tree edition of the WSJ has a profile of on the front page of the Money and Investing section entitled, "When Eakes Speaks, Citigroup Listens." It is a good read. Eakes and his wife, Bonnie Wright, were both students at Davidson when I was there. The article describes how Eakes graduated from Yale Law School and formed a non-profit to provide financial help to minorities.

As I recall, Eakes was very liberal in school and I suspect his political views haven't changed much (unlike his good friend at Davidson, Tony Snow of Fox News, who has changed quite a bit from those days on the left). I did have to laugh at this: "At first, Mr. Eakes says he assumed that African-Americans had trouble getting loans simply because mainstream bankers were ignorant racists." After two of his first three loans defaulted, "I realized that I wasn't as smart as I thought, and my banker friends weren't nearly as stupid as I thought."

Disaster in slow motion

My wife and I have reservations for Destin in a week for our first vacation without the kids since our eldest, Madison, was born in 1993. I've had the Weather Channel on all morning. The announcers keep talking about Dennis being a record-setting hurricane and it is heading right at Destin and Pensacola.

Obviously, our vacation ranks really, really low on the priority list. Your heart has to go out to folks who took a hit from Ivan less than a year ago.

As I watch, it occurred to me that this is like helplessly watching a wreck happen in slow motion.

Hollywood values --G movies or anti-US propaganda

Some values are more important than cash.

As Michael Medved has pointed out a number of times, movies that are rated G make a great deal more money than those rated R. This has been true for decades and is well-known in Hollywood. Yet, Hollywood produces a great deal of "R" movies and very, very few "G" movies. Why? Because in Hollywood, art is considered more important than money. And Hollywood's film "artists" don't feel that they can make their art without sex, violence or profanity.

Keep that in mind while reading this (via Glenn) from Mickey Kaus about how out of touch Hollywood must be to let left-winger and virulent anti-American director Oliver Stone direct a movie about 9/11. Roger Simon points out that foreign box office cash might be the reason.

Got that? Making a G-rated movie for the money is unthinkable. Making an anti-American propaganda flick for the money is not.

It is all about the values.

Stupid Critics of Flypaper Strategy

I'm heading out on the road, but had to address how stupid the lefties' latest talking point is. The contention that the London bombings are proof that our strategy in Iraq is not working isn't just wrong. It isn't just ridiculous. It is an indication that basic rational, logical thinking is completely foreign to those on the left.

Remember the dumb blonde who was surprised that her checking account was overdrawn since she still had checks left in her checkbook? She thinks more clearly than these wackos.

NY Times admits making stuff up

The Captain comments on a correction at the Times:

The Times acknowledges here that their editors make a habit of rewriting op-ed contributions, not just for clarity, but apparently to significantly change the meaning of the article.

Go read it all. If the Times weren't already well known as a joke, you wouldn't believe it.

Ann Coulter on O'Conner

She pretty much covers what I would have said. Only she did it better and funnier. Read it all.

Terror Bombings Hurt Democrats

I am sitting in front of the TV getting angrier and angrier at the Islamic terrorist assholes. I imagine that a lot of other Americans are experiencing the same emotions.

I'm also getting increasingly angry with the Democratic Party. In all likelihood, these bombings will hurt Democrats at the polls. Think how much stronger our country will be when we can no longer say that.

The hell with political advantage for the GOP. It is about damn time for the Democrats to figure out who the real enemy is and get on board with the rest of America.

Gloom and Doom for the GOP

Jayson at Polipundit reminds us of all the times the media/Democrats have warned the GOP that doom and gloom would result for us if some change were implemented. Talk about a consistent track record! Remember it is hard to be wrong all the time. Even a fool flipping a coin to figure out which side to take would be correct more often than liberals have been over the last 30 years.

The fact-checking MSM

Lori at Polipundit points out how the MSM just can't seem to get the facts straight on Joe Wilson and the Plame affair. And Patterico takes the LA Times to task for inadequate fact checking. Not only did the Times get an easy to check fact wrong, they based their entire editorial on the faulty fact. He writes:

Today's L.A. Times editorial on Justice O'Connor opens with this statement:

One fact sums up Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's pivotal role on the Supreme Court and the enormity of her resignation — she alone was in the majority of every one of the court's 13 5-4 decisions this last term.

He then writes:

Wow. That's really impressive. Except for one small problem . . . there were 24 5-4 decisions this Term, not 13 -- and Justice O'Connor was in the minority in quite a few of those cases.

Given the reality, the Times' editorial is complete nonsense. Again.

Disagreeing with Barone

I think any sane person would think twice before disagreeing with Michael Barone's take on the political implications of some development. However, I do disagree with his conclusion in this column:

In filibustering a Bush Supreme Court nominee, Senate Democrats will be fighting yesterday's battle at the behest of the lobbyists representing one of their core constituencies. In overcoming this filibuster, if they do, Senate Republicans will be satisfying larger but more inchoate core constituencies.

My own hunch is that the Democrats' posture of frenzied opposition won't get them where they want to go. But I'm not sure whether a battle over yesterday's issues helps Republicans, either.

I agree that the frenzied opposition of the Democrats will be harmful to them with the voters who hold the key to their hopes in 2006. Where I disagree is with his assertion that the GOP will be fighting over "yesterday's issues".

While abortion is clearly one of the hot button issues, eminent domain (after Kelo), racial preferences, religion (e.g. Ten Commandments), protection of the Second Amendment, and judicial activism in general are all issues that a large number of GOP voters (or potential voters care about). Gun rights and religion are especially critical in red states where a Senate Democrat is up for re-election in 2006.

Finally, if W nominates a minority, the frenzied opposition of Dems and the pushback by the GOP will score big points for the GOP in the next few elections.

Prager agrees with Krauthammer

Via Bestsy Newmark, Dennis Prager has this piece in which he formulates the same observatiion that Charles Krauthammer has made previously:

Democrats believe that conservatives by definition are bad people. As Howard Dean, the head of the Democratic National Committee recently said, "in contradistinction" to Republicans, Democrats care if children go to bed hungry at night. In most Democrats' minds, conservatives/Republicans do not care if children go to bed hungry, and they are racist, intolerant, regard women as inferior, are stingy and mean spirited, and prefer war to peace.

They think we are evil.

Travis Hafner should be an all-star

Hafner is currently 2d in the American League in OPS (on-base pct + slugging pct) which is the best measure of a hitter's effectiveness. While he is currently on a hot streak with 3 homers yesterday, it should be noted that he finished the 2004 season ranked 2d in the AL in OPS. For the last year and a half he has been as good as any hitter in the league. If he played in Boston or New York, he'd be an all-star. But he plays in Cleveland.

Bring it On!

Looking at 2006, the best thing that could happen for the GOP would be for the president to nominate a solid conservative with a track record that fits comfortably with typical red state voters. Then have the Democrats filibuster.

Important points to remember: 1) this is the Supreme Court, so a lot more folks will tune in, 2) W is far more popular than Michael Moore.

Any battle that comes down to Bush vs. the Moore wing of the Dems is a positive for the GOP. The nominee gets confirmed and the GOP picks up Senate seats in 2006.

How Dems Cause Higher Home Prices

Mickey Kaus has this:

Two Smythe Items in a Row: Steve Smith discovers an intriguing correlation between robust housing prices and Democratic voting habits:

[E]very state (and the District of Columbia) that voted for John Kerry last year, without exception, was among the top 24 states in the country in terms of the increase in residential property values since 1980.

Do Democrats produce rising home values or do rising home values make people Democrats? (The latter seems implausible.) Are both phenomena related to high education levels and/or a large concentration of universities? And how does this correlation jibe with the much advertised GOP dominance in the fastest-growing states, which you'd think would be states with rapidly appreciating real estate? Explain it away if you can, Michael Barone! ... 2:26 A.M. link

Yes, Mickey, Democrats cause higher home prices. It is called supply and demand. If the local government makes it more difficult and more expensive for home builders to build new homes, it results in a smaller supply of homes. This results in higher prices.

Liberal Democrats are generally anti-sprawl, anti-development, and anti-developer. Through the use of zoning, land use restrictions, environmental regulations, building codes and rent control (to name a few), liberals in government reduce the supply of new homes and increase the cost to build the ones that developers manage to build.

And yes, that definitely correlates with GOP dominance in the fast growing areas which have governments that are much friendlier toward develpment. People tend to move to places where they can get bigger and better homes at a lower cost.

UPDATE-- thanks to Betsy Newmark for the link.