The Ricochet Podcast - Nested Comments

Episode Date: February 21, 2014

Direct link to MP3 file Foreign policy and mid-terms: anybody care? The Obama administration’s and NBC’s whitewash of the news in Ukraine. Then, AEI’s Arthur Herman joins to gives us more perspective on the Ukraine and the leviathan oil field. Later, Washington Examiner’s Byron York on the woman who shall not be named, Republican chances of taking the Senate, and what politicians are Cruzing for a... Source

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson and Rob Long. I'm James Lilacs, and today we've got Arthur Herman talking gas and Byron York with his trademark sass, and I'm sorry for that rhyme. We've also got Ukraine. We've got Russia. We've got Al Franken. We've got hope. Let's have ourselves a podcast. There you go again..com slash Ricochet audible podcast.com slash Ricochet and get a free audio book and a 30 day trial. Also brought to you by encounter books. And this week's pick is Fred Siegel's,

the revolt against the masses, how liberalism has undermined the middle class for 15% off this or any other title. I believe use the coupon code Ricochet at your checkout and a voila, it's cheaper. I had also brought to you by, by Ricochet and here to give you the obligatory I had also brought to you by, by Ricochet. And here to give you the obligatory pitch for that is himself.

Well, thank you, James. If you are listening to this and you're a Ricochet member, we are happy to have you. We are pleased to be a member along with you here at Ricochet.com. If you're listening to this podcast and you are not a Ricochet member, you are missing out.

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Join now. Thank you. The midterms. Wow. I hadn't even thought about that, but you're right. Just galloping towards us right around the corner. Oh yeah. They're right there. I mean, it is, it is fundamentally, I think every sort of even mildly politically interested person on the right or even in the center, the center right, as we say is, is eagerly anticipating and kind of prognosticating on the midterms and the generals. Well, let's welcome into this fold Peter Robinson and ask him a question.

Peter, have you in your memory recall a midterm election that had anything to do with foreign policy? We've got calls now for sanctions on Ukraine. Oh, I'm sorry, the Ukraine. And can you imagine something like this playing a part in a midterm or just barely mentioned to expose the presidential weakness on matters foreign? Back during the 80s, the foreign policy was always the second issue, I believe. I believe – I don't think the polling was all that fine-grained in those days. But Americans felt queasy with Jimmy Carter. Well, from George McGovern on, Americans felt queasy about the Democrats' ability to stand up to the Soviets in the world.

By the way, Ukraine isn't going to be the leading issue this time around either. It's all Obamacare, Obamacare, Obamacare if the Republicans get it right. Well, that's saying a lot, isn't it? Right. But I mean, no, it's not going to be front and center. But ought it to be mentioned in the context – But it's the same – oh, for sure. And it's very much the same kind of thing where Barack Obama – Ukraine, I don't know how many – I have to say I went online the other day and I had to remind myself what's the shape of – right.

OK. The left-hand side is populated by Ukrainians and the right-hand side is Russians. I don't know much about Ukraine. But the notion we're somehow or other, we're weak in Syria. He doesn't have a plan for Afghanistan. Now he's saying he's blustering about Ukraine. So what are you going to do about it? What are you in a position – just the notion that the president of the United States is conveying weakness, that no one takes him at his word or cares what he says. Whoa, whoa, whoa. That's just – that's more of that neocon raving there. The man drew a line. Oh, Peter's no neocon. A line was drawn yesterday. Rob, did you hear him draw the line?

I did. I didn't see the line but I heard it. What's fascinating to me is of course it's all it all happens right now with impunity on the doorstep of russia russia's the prime mover in the ukraine unrest and um and we're all over there right now for the olympics yeah and no one's talking about it this is simply not news what's happening ukraine that's what i wanted to ask you to media mavens that you are. Bob Costa.

Costas? What's his – Costa. OK. Sorry. Will you be the guy with the eye infection or the reporter? Bob Costas. Bob Costas. Bob Costas.

Lester Holt. There's a – so they've got the whole crew over there and it was one thing to have them go along with the russian whitewash of soviet history during the opening ceremonies but now you know so she is i think it may be only 100 miles from the border of ukraine they are right there where this is happening not a peep nothing is that a white is that a whitewash well i mean i think it's one of the many whitewashes that people are doing now for the series of failures. It's like dominoes. Barack Obama made all these choices early in his first term and the first half of his first term especially and set up these disaster dominoes, these crap pile dominoes.

And now they're all coming – they're all tumbling down, weakness abroad. Not even weakness abroad. I think that's kind of – that sounds old-fashioned to say. That's true. The problem is not that it's weakness. It's that he projects strength and bravado. It's that he marched – not that he stuck to his knitting and said, well, you know what? The world is a difficult place.

It's a dirty place. And I think enough Americans have died overseas for the next decade. That's a policy. I get that. I may not agree with it. I may agree with it in some cases, but it's a policy. But instead, he marched around, rattled his saber, drew lines in the sand, said this will this will not happen. That will not happen. You cannot do this. You cannot do that. And then at the end of it, he kind of shrugged our shoulders and said, well, OK, it's OK if the Iranians now renege on their – not only renege on the agreement. If they now deny having made the agreement, it's OK if the Russians – see? You go right back to Soviets.

If the Russians double-cross us here and there, it's OK to do that. Why? Why is it OK? Well, I mean it's not OK. But people were saying that because – well, other things are happening. But the problem is that this guy has spent – he talks like George W. Bush. But he acts like Jimmy Carter. I love the image you set up there, Rob.

It's just brilliant. He is – I don't know about – midterms 20, 30 years ago, I'm not sure. But I am sure that Barack Obama is the first president of the United States who has gone around the world setting up his own dominoes. Unbelievable. But what's amazing to me about it is that it all – it's all consistent. These are not failures out of pattern. They're all consistent failures. A guy who believes that by talking something, by saying something, it magically comes to be, just exactly the way he described it,

that there is no real world. The rubber never meets the road. No one ever has to sort of pound the rivets into the steel. That Obamacare works because he says it works. That the website works because he said it does, that Iran will disarm because he says it will, and Assad will take away his chemical weapons because Vladimir Putin has guaranteed that. down to the beach to prove to his sycophantic courtiers that he actually can't control the tides we have a man who's sitting around drumming his his fingers on the chair waiting for them to take him down because that tiding could go out by itself those damn racist tides yeah well here's the thing there are also those who say that uh you mentioned that it's part of a pattern that it's intentional um it's either intentional because he believes that to speak is to do enough, to say something, to be Barak about something is sufficient.

And then there are those who say that part of the pattern also is an overwhelming – a consistent desire to weaken the position of the United States as a hegemon in a unipowered world. That he is driven by a sort of anti-colonial instinct that wants us – wants him not to hurt America. He doesn't want to hurt America. He just wants to diminish it. You buy that. Oh, without a doubt. Absolutely without a doubt.

That is certainly the case, that he believes we should only be one nation among many, that even this notion that America – I mean it's one thing to say that American force, we've made our mistakes, goodness knows. But by and large, the armed forces of the United States represent a force for good in the world. That's one thing to say. He won't say that. at least by example, the United States of America represents something unique in human history. And even by example, a force, a uniquely powerful force for good in the world. He won't even say that. We are just one nation among many. And by the way, we can't throw our notions of exceptionalism over the side fast enough. And it wrecked a welfare state like the European welfare state

fast enough. We just can't do it fast enough. But I mean that's a policy at least. I mean I may disagree with it, but it's a policy. That's true. Yes, yes, true. And as a spoken policy, we can argue about it. We can disagree with it. I mean I actually have a feeling that that as a spoken policy would be very popular with a lot of people.

A lot of people on the right might like that like every now and then. You know what? We're exhausted. No more policemen around the world. I get it. OK, fine. I may disagree with it here and there. I may agree with it on certain conditions in certain countries.

You know, whatever. It's pick and choose. But as a state of policy, it makes a certain amount of sense. There's a coherence to it. But instead, he acts as if – he doesn't believe that. He acts as if we are going to stop the murder and genocide in Syria, that we are going to protect the Middle East from Iranian nuclear aggression. And we're not. The solution – don't you think the solution to that puzzle is in Robert Gates' new book where Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are chatting and it's clear

that Barack Obama – there are a couple of passages in the Gates book, which I confess I haven't read but I read the excerpts where they appeared all over the place. In any event, Barack Obama views foreign policy as an instrument for – to advance his standing at home. It's a matter of domestic politics. He talks tough because that way – and by the way, it worked so well that in the third presidential debate, Mitt Romney had nowhere to go and didn't even attempt – didn't really even attempt a consistent critique of Obama's foreign

policy because Obama could come back and say, well, but I've said this and I've said that and we've done – he talks one game in – so there's a kind of dishonesty frankly. He talks one game and plays another. When you said that he talks tough in order to bolster himself at home, for a second there, I thought you meant within the marital construct. Come here, you big sassy. Line drawer, you. Well, nothing will be done and you're right. There is a wing of the Republican Party that doesn't want to do anything.

I think Ron Paul is out there saying Ukraine is none of our business. Just completely stay out of it. As though there's absolutely nothing we can do. As though with Iran there was nothing we can do when people rose up. As though in some of these other situations we're almost hesitant to do anything because then the bad guys will say, well, look, the United States is behind this. I mean for God's sakes, I was on the web the other day looking at Venezuela at the comments of course, the ever insightful comments that people were leaving. And there were four or five people who were convinced that the CIA was fomenting unrest in Venezuela because that's what we do. I like to think we could. When it comes to Ukraine though, I mean maybe there's some old Wilsonian idea here in Obama's head that says, well, you know, the Russians got a point.

If the country does speak Russian, looks Russian, sounds Russian, why don't we let them split it up and have some self-determination going on? I mean the relationship between the two countries, fractious and tortured and troubled as it is, is one of those brothers hating brothers living in the same house thing sometimes. I mean when you look at the great Ukrainian – well, like Gogol or Khol or however you want to pronounce it. I mean regarded as the greatest Ukrainian playwright, novelist, et cetera. Grew up in a Cossack household but nevertheless spoke – Yeah, but he grew up speaking Russian because a lot of families did. His father was a Ukrainian poet. He became the great Ukrainian poet and then he wrote this great epic of serfdom, which is largely considered to be a Russian

novel, even though it's inhabited by a Ukrainian soul. Now, the thing is is that I've never heard it. Which novel are you referring to? I've never heard that in the Russian, or Ukrainian, and I imagine it's a thing of a big, chunky beauty.

Of guttural beauty. Precisely. But in English, it's a wonderful story., chunky beauty. Of guttural beauty. Of guttural beauty, precisely. But in English, it's a wonderful story, a euphonious tale, a great look into 19th century Russia after the calamity, as they call the end of serfdom. And that's why if you go to audible.com, you can get Dead Souls. Actually, you can get it right there in addition to Russian short stories, even the nose by Gogol or Hul. As a matter of fact, get this audio book from audible.com just so you can hear a professional pronounce Gogol or Hul or however you wish. You can get it for free, by the way. If you go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet,

audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet, you can get a 30-day trial free, nothing to it. And you can get the book of your choice. And you will also avail yourself of WhisperSync technology that allows you to pick up it in one device, leave it in another, and wherever you go, WhisperSync will coordinate what you're reading so you never lose your place. Ten out of ten for that segue. Now that the Olympics are on, what would you give that judge, Rob?

I would give it a – you know what? I would give it a – you know what? I would give it a nine. Oh, nine. I thought for a moment – I thought for a moment we had the Torval and Dean of segues going. The reason you may want to – I probably did so well is because I'm married with a child and that alternative lifestyle of mine actually has done a lot to improve. Did you see what Molly Hemingway put up over – I think it was at the Federalist. People were barking about it elsewhere.

MS, not MSNBC, NBC, covering the Olympics, had a story about a snowboarder, Mr. Wise, who's been winning medals, I guess, and noted that he's 23, but he acts like an adult. I love that. He's married. He's got a two-year-old child, and he may be a pastor someday. And the headline in the piece was, Alternative Lifestyle of David Weiss Helps Him Focus.

I missed that. Well, that's certainly not that alternative for snowboarding. I mean, actually, snowboarders are kind of that way, right? Dave Weigel over at Slate was saying either these – I don't hear the music. Uh-oh. It seems to me that we've been – our signal has been penetrated. I think the KGB is actually swamping our signal here.

No, it's just Arthur Herman, I think. Oh. Just Arthur Herman. Well, listen, enough of snowboarding in the Olympics. I severed my ties to the KGB a long time ago. Well, you can't do that. A proper introduction, if I may here, folks. Arthur Herman is a historian and author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist Gandhi and Churchill,

the epic rivalry that destroyed an empire and forged our age, 2008, and the Mountbatten Prize nominated To Rule the Waves, How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World. At the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Herman authored a new book that traces the mobilization of American industry technology material production over the course of World War II, a fascinating tale. And we welcome him to the podcast. Good day. Thanks for having me on, gentlemen.

I appreciate it. Absolutely. Now, I believe that Peter had a question. Peter, fire away. Well, I'd just like to start with Ukraine, Arthur. We were just kicking this around. I went online yesterday and to be frank, I don't know much about Ukraine. And there was a map about which bits are populated by Russian speakers and which bits are populated by Ukrainian speakers. And of course, as I'm sure you know in great detail, the south and the east of the country

is pretty solidly Russian speakers. The Crimea is totally Russian, as best I can tell. So what do you make of all this in the long sweep of Russian and Soviet history? Should the western half of the country try to break away? Is it a country? Let's start there. Is it a real country? Ukraine is a country in a modern sense. In other words, you know, a chunk of territory from a crumbling empire, in this case, Russia and the Soviet Union, that gets carved out as a homeland for a particular ethnic majority, in which case it would be the Ukrainians.

But as you just pointed out, they've also got, over the centuries, large numbers of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers who live there. The Ukrainians, their problem has been they've always been ruled by somebody else, whether it was the Poles in the Middle Ages or the Habsburg Empire, the Austrians in the 19th century, or the Russians. And so they're kind of overdue for a real national destiny in the kind of classic nationalist sense. The problem is that they're kind of, will forever be in the Russian orbit, and it makes it very difficult geopolitically for the Ukrainians to pursue what I guess they really sort of see as their future,

which is with the West, not as a satellite of the East, particularly under the Putin regime. And we have to sympathize with them about that. Sure. Next question. Russia, aside from its extractive industries, natural gas, oil, some minerals, aside from that, it has an economy that's much smaller than that of the Netherlands. The population is old and shrinking. The population of European Russians is old and shrinking, whereas the population of Muslims along the southern tier of Russia is growing. China is off in the Russian Far East, south of Siberia. China is just booming.

Russia has a very, very weak hand. How does Vladimir Putin, how does he get away with such a large footprint in the world when in fact his country is in such obvious decline? Well, you know, there's two things. One is it helps when you've got nuclear weapons and when you have a military that can deploy them in a worst-case scenario. And that's always been the hold that Russia has held since the fall of the Soviet Union, well, obviously before the fall of the Soviet Union, but since. And they're not afraid to flex their military muscle. And the other issue is natural gas.

And here I think, and in fact I'm thinking about writing about this for Ricochet next week, guys. I think the country that really holds the key, perhaps, to what happens in Ukraine and for defusing that situation is actually Israel. Really? Now, why do I say that? will be out next week, is now becoming, is poised to become a natural gas exporter of really large proportion. Big discoveries that they've made in the Mediterranean. Is this the Leviathan field?

That's exactly right. It's the Tamar and Leviathan fields together. And the perfect place from a political, geopolitical, strategic place to export that is to Europe and Western Europe. Do a lot to change Western Europe's attitude about Israel, and it could also be a way in which to wean the European community off of that Russian natural gas. Now, Ukraine is essential to that market for Russia because the main pipelines all pass through Ukraine. Now, they're building new pipelines to the north of that for supplying Europe. But the fact of the matter is that as long as Russia holds the whip hand over Europe's economy by supplying it with natural gas,

Europeans are not going to step up in this Ukrainian crisis. You know, the pro-Western forces have asked Angela Merkel to help with this, and she's very diffident about getting involved. The same is true for the other European countries, because they're terrified of a Russian shutoff if they act too tough. Now, if you have that gas supplied in large quantities by Israel, and that's going to happen, that could happen in about two, three years, then that loosens up Europe's hand to enjoy more leverage in dealing with its Eastern European neighbors. And that's going to be bad news for Russia, but I think it's going to be really good news

for countries like Ukraine, who see their future with the West, but who really desperately need some help and allies to get them out from under Putin's stump. And since Barack Obama is not interested in doing that, could be ways to bring Europe into that. And Israel just may hold the key. It's ironic, but... Oh, ironic doesn't begin to describe Israel saving Germany by selling them gas, but let's move on to something else.

W-L, You're absolutely right. There's a matter, as I understand it, though, that the Leviathan field and maybe some of the other smaller ancillary fields, aren't the Cypriots involved in this as well? And there's a bit of a clash between Israel and Turkey as to who has the rights to this. When the strike was first made, as I understand it, the development was under some cloud because of who else would have access to it. Has that been cleared up, or is that still going to be a bone of contention between Israel and Turkey?

It's not so much about the exploitation of the field. It's a question of where pipelines will run, if there are going to be pipelines. And the Turks, obviously, were very keen on doing that. And there'd be reasons for Israel to actually supply natural gas to Turkey, because, again, guess who Turkey gets its natural gas from? From the Russians. So it could do a lot to change the way in which... And for the Iranians.

So it could do a lot to change Turkey's perspective on a range of geopolitical issues in the Middle East. Cyprus, the situation in Cyprus is this. They have a very large field, recently discovered, which has about 600, it's about 500 million cubic feet, which sounds like a lot of gas. It's not in terms of worldwide resources, but it's not quite enough to really be able to export. Cyprus has small demand, so what are you going to do with this gas? Sell it to somebody. Now, you need about

600 million cubic feet in order to export. Israel could easily supply that extra hundred million from the Leviathan field. And so there's been a lot of talk about a joint Israeli-Cypriot building a natural gas facility, possibly pipeline, but more likely than not, it'll be processing that liquid natural gas, again, it could be the way in which we see a big change in sort of who is the economic, who calls the economic shots in Europe. And Southern Europe, Cyprus, Greece, those economies could come roaring back if they've

got access to that kind of natural gas market. There's been a shakeup coming in the next two or three years. There really is. And its implications and repercussions are going to reverberate all across Europe, I think. And Israel is really the driving force here. Hey, Arthur, it's Rob Long in Los Angeles. How are you? Nice to have you.

Just sort of maybe pivot away from pipelines for a minute, because the BTC pipeline, which starts in Baku, and its oil goes through Baku and Georgia and Turkey. And there was always talk, and I think there still is talk, I don't know if it's built yet, of adding to it a natural gas pipeline from across the Caspian from the old Turkmenistan. And that's a huge amount. And the Russians are incredibly exercised about that pipeline

during the brief military skirmish they had with the Georgians a few years ago. They sort of tattooed bombs on either side of it to sort of make their point. Is this the new Cold War that we're struggling with this, with what we thought was a shell of a Soviet Union but in fact is kind of a robust and pipelines uh and and and and we're still essentially talking about who's got europe by the scruff of the neck and right now it's putin with his oil or another even more sensitive well yes i was i was i was walking upstairs is that is that the new is that the new Cold War we should be preparing for? I think it's shaping up that way.

And there's going to be a reshuffle of the players that are involved with this, too, because of these new unconventional oil and gas sources that are coming. And what you're going to see is, you're going to see on the one hand, I think Rob's point is really well taken, that now the issue over who controls those sources of energy and access to them are going to become major geopolitical issues that are going to dwarf the questions that really dominated the era since the fall of the Soviet Union. Yeah, I mean, you were... War on terror, but also, too, and here's what's also interesting about this, too, is that it's also been a shift to focus more away from the conventional Middle East powers that we always think about as, you know,

controlling the world's energy market, like Saudi Arabia, like Kuwait, like Iran. I mean, Iran's going to be in a very difficult situation if this natural gas export market opens up to Israel and Cyprus. So you're optimistic. You're optimistic, Arthur. The good guys, the United States and Israel, are the ones who are leading this energy revolution. We're the ones who are developing fracking.

We have the property rights that enable people to invest capital and figure out pipeline construction and mineral rights. The good guys should do well over the longer haul, right? I think that's true. And don't forget Canada as well, too, who are also leading in the technology to go with this kind of new energy market. And it's one that's really going to shift the power to those who not just have the resources,

but as Peter just said, also the ones who understand the technology and who can develop that. And that's what the Israelis do really well. That's what we do extremely well. That's what the Israelis do really well. That's what we do extremely well. That's what the Canadians are good at. And that's the kind of leverage that you're going to have as the world energy market and energy picture shift away from the big conventional, the old-fashioned conventional powers that controlled it, like Saudi Arabia, like Russia, and will shift instead towards those who really understand how to open those resources

and to exploit and innovate those technologies. And that's going to be us, and that's going to be Israel, and that's going to be Canada and Norway. These are the kinds of places where you're going to sort of see this new push coming. And the old conventional powers are going to have to adjust to that change of their status as controlling the world energy market and who pays deference to them as well. Arthur, this is the first time since 1988 that I've engaged in a conversation about foreign policy that ended on a high. Well, I hope not too high and not an artificial high. I tend to be a real optimist about many things. I think that I think that the United States is in for a for a big resurgence in the post-Obama era.

Energy is going to be a driving factor of it. Our high-tech industries are. We just need to have some politicians who are willing to sort of step up. And I think we'll all agree. We're willing to step up and say that the key to all of this is going to be economic growth for us. Yes, yes, yes. And we're so poised to do that. And we're so poised to have a foreign policy that's geared around showing others

how to grow their economies, how to become prosperous. We're ready to do it. You just need some politicians who are willing to step up and make it happen. Absolutely. Just because we're going to have a transfer of dynamism from the old sclerotic, corrupt, oligarchical countries

to the dynamic ones of the West and Israel doesn't mean that we're going to be lacking for any foes. And one of the pieces that you just really recently wrote was a piece about the need for an arsenal of democracy and how President Obama might himself take a page out of FDR's history and help America become that again. We, however, are going to have to leave that for another conversation. And I'm also glad that we didn't get around to health care because that's a subject that is grindingly boring and doesn't leave us with the same optimism that you've left us with here. Arthur Herman, thanks a lot for coming on the show today.

It's been great and we can't wait to have you back. Arthur, thank you. Thanks, Arthur. It's a real pleasure. Thank you. Cheers. Bye-bye. Bye.

You know, the thing is, though, is economic growth, Arthur. It's a real pleasure. Thank you. Cheers. Bye-bye. Bye. You know, the thing is, though, is economic growth, great. We've got to have more of it, and energy is one of the ways in which we're going to get it. The problem is, and of course, there's always a problem, right? If you go to North Dakota right now, you see the horrible things that prosperity has inflicted on the people. You see the long waits at the barber chairs. You see the roads that need to be rebuilt at an increasing pace. You see

people in the middle of the wintertime burning out the tanning bulbs because they need so much ultraviolet. Everything that prosperity has brought to North Dakota is going to be sneered upon because it does not result instantaneously in somebody sitting in a gallery with a small little glass of wine and an exquisite piece of cheese looking at a Kandinsky and saying this is the epitome of the human experience right there.

That's interesting. This makes me sad and happy at the same time. Yeah. Well, that's true. But what I think was very interesting about energy was that – But, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but what I'm here to tell you though, Rob, is that while it may be that person in the gallery who is looking down at all of the energy and the progress and the people and the dirty, horny-handed folk who had to construct this to make their exquisite life in Manhattan possible, those people themselves will look upon the hoi polloi below them and decide what they need is shaping and instruction. They can't be allowed to just foment on their own. Absolutely not.

And if only somebody could have written a story about how the high-minded views of these people has affected – I apologize. I interrupted that. As well you should as you just – I actually thought you were making a point. It was like you put the jaws of life in the middle of a segue and ripped it apart. And you're still doing it.

I'm sorry. I apologize. And you – as are you. I don't mean to interrupt. Yeah. Well, it's a revolt of the high against the middle. The revolt of the masses here. How liberalism has undermined the segue that James made.

I'm sorry. How liberalism is – how the rhino has – how the squishy rhino undercut the segue. No, that's not the title. Fred Siegel wrote a book called The Revolt of the Masses, How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class. It's sitting on my desk at the paper. It's a great read. It's fascinating. What's it about?

It's a short book about something that concerns us all deeply, modern American liberalism and the ideas behind it. The idea of our betters, Herbert, Crowley, Robert, Randolph Bourne, H.G. Wells, Sinclair Lewis, Mencken and the rest of them. The idea of creating an American version of the aristocracy that they long associated with European statism. Oh, if we could only have that here. It would be just so wonderful that these people who stand around and think they're talking culture when they're talking about Ford automobiles. God, how terrible. The bourgeoisie, if only they could be shaped. Well, that was the idea, the conventional paternalism that seemed to work for decades.

And when it happened, this is what we have now. Today's brand of liberalism, led by Barack Obama, and I'm back on the praises now, has displaced the old Main Street private sector middle class with a new middle class composed of public sector workers allied with crony capitalists and the country's arbiters of elite style and taste. Sound like an apt description of the situation in which we find ourselves?

Well, for 15% off this book, you can go to encounterbooks.com and use the coupon code Ricochet. Do so. Revolt Against the Masses, How Liberalism Undermined the Middle Class by Fred Siegel. Buy it, read it, enjoy it, absorb it, learn from it, and thank them for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. Rob, you were going to say something. Well, I kind of can't remember what it was.

Neither can I. I was – oh, energy, which I think was interesting is that the great thing about energy, which is one of the reasons why I cannot wait for the next president. I almost can't wait for the next president even – I think even if it's Hillary Clinton because I think she'll understand this. Is that energy resources here and elsewhere move to natural gas in general. Not only helps us and helps our economy, it hurts our enemies. It's rare that you have that kind of opportunity. It's a twofer where we can actually move to abundant natural gas that we have, abundant resource natural gas that we have and that our allies have and that is traded and in fact is still sort of abundant everywhere. And we can hurt our enemies and we can impoverish them in a way that is useful to us and benefits us. If the –

By our enemies, you're referring to the Upper West Side of Manhattan? No. Worse. I'm referring to the Upper West Side of Manhattan? No. Worse. I'm referring to the Upper West Side of Riyadh. The more impoverished they are, the better off we are. The more impoverished Putin is at home, not from Muslim separatists in Chechnya but from ordinary Russians in the street, what's happening in Kiev should be happening in Moscow. And when it does, we'll be better off.

Well, Putin will never be poor himself and what I do suspect is within a few years, he will revive the hammer and sickle except the hammer will be replaced by an orthodox cross. He will come up with some new national identity that plays on the old soviet identity if you if you saw those appalling we discussed this last week the opening ceremonies where they went through russian history the mystical baffling uh transgressing country russia and they had that segment on the communist years which were just blithely cheerful and pastel, apparently. Nostalgia for that, I think, is a powerful ally. And as things crumble at home, as the country contracts and the men continue to die off at the age of 55,

nobody has any kids, there will be a powerful appeal to get the young, the drunk, and the restless into some sort of national identity with a good handy symbol that'll look cool on a t-shirt. We should, well, actually, you should tell me to shut up. Speaking of looking good on a t-shirt. Yeah, exactly. Or in a tie or any manner of the thing.

We've got the style setter, the arbiter of fashion in Washington, D.C., Byron York, who also happens to be the chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner, Fox News contributor, author of The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy, a D.C. resident. We welcome him back to the podcast. Good day, sir. How are you today? And wearing a T-shirt and a tie. Oh, wow. There you go.

Yep. Hey, Byron, it's – Just for you guys. I dressed up for the podcast. Exactly. You're wearing a suit for radio. Hey, Byron, it's Rob Long in L.A. How are you?

I have a question. Great. How are you? Good. Good question. So you're you recently I think you wrote yesterday was posted yesterday that Hillary Clinton's past is fair game for Republican, you know, for her opponents in the presidential race. How do you anticipate? That it will come up in the primary?

Do you anticipate a primary challenger for her on the left or more progressive who says things like, you know, she's kind of a crony capitalist. Get that $1,000 magically turned into $100,000 and all of her rich fat cat Walmart friends. Is this oppo going to happen in the in the in the primary do you think i think in a primary you're more likely to see her talk about her voting for the iraq war for example so it irritated them in 2008 and it would irritate them now um i think this would be more uh an issue in a general election and uh i think what we've seen is we've had a number of Republicans, in my opinion, kind of clumsily, bring up the 1990s, the Clinton White House years, and they bring up the Lewinsky scandal, which is the one in which Mrs. Clinton actually played kind of a dual role.

One was the wronged wife, and actually her approval ratings went up during the Lewinsky scandal. She was also kind of the director of the anti-Kenneth Starr misdirection campaign. But if you're going to talk about Hillary Clinton's past in the White House, you're not talking about Bill Clinton's sexual infidelities. You're talking about a lot of stuff she actually did. You know, sorry, I start, obviously she, you know, I think that President Clinton's biggest mistake, policy mistake, occurred in his first month in office, which was he appointed his wife to run his signature domestic initiative, health care reform. It turned out to be a disaster.

Then we later learned, you know learned about the whole cattle futures, which you alluded to, which didn't happen in the White House, happened before the White House, but looked really, really smelly. Travelgate, in which she ordered the firings of the White House travel office to benefit a crony of hers who wanted the business, the whole Whitewater affair where she essentially ignored a subpoena about her legal past for a couple of years and then said, oh, wait a minute, I found these billing records. You know, I had to say, Byron, I had They were right in a closet in the White House. I have to say, Byron, I had forgotten that until I read it in your column yesterday.

I can't tell you how many people after this column have said, you know, I forgot about this or I forgot about that. I forgot all about the billing records that were found in a closet in the White House as if somehow – In a White House residence, by the way. I mean, you could think one of them. Let me say one more thing here, which is that a lot of people will say this is ancient history. What difference does it make? Two factors to remember. One, I mean, the press showed a lot of interest in the 2012 race and business deals that Mitt Romney had made in the 1980s. Go back to the 2004 race, the press showed incredible interest in what

George W. Bush did with the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, and also what John Kerry did in Vietnam in that same year, 1968. In 2000, I'll tell you, the press worked long and hard to try to find evidence that George W. Bush had used cocaine three decades earlier. So this stuff is not too far in the past. It's entirely consistent. Looking at what Ms. Clinton did in the White House, for goodness sakes, is certainly not looking too far in the past. And the last thing is, in 2016, voters who had not been born when Bill Clinton first took the oath of office in 1993 will be eligible to vote.

They need to know more. This is kind of a Paul McCartney and wings thing. I mean they need to know more than that Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. What you're saying is that the Republican Party is going to prove once again that they hate women and believe that they have no place in politics whatsoever. I think that's a great way to shorten what I just said. Yeah, I think that's – it might be seen that way. Well, there's a huge debate you saw in reaction to this piece that I wrote. I mean there's this huge debate that Republicans shouldn't go there, and it led to – it didn't hurt Bill Clinton.

He survived impeachment and left with high approval ratings, and his wife left with high approval ratings and his wife left with high approval ratings. And, I mean, I'm not a political operative here, but I think that there's a lot in her past that needs reporting in the context of a president, if she's going to run for president. And so you say that Rand Paul has been – Peter here, Byron. You say Rand Paul has been clumsy in bringing all of this up. So is Rand Paul just talking? He said something and then followed up and just got himself into trouble? Or is this a kind of test run to see whether this works in effect? Well, there could be a method to it.

You doubt it. And if there's a method to it, I think you found out maybe it doesn't work, because, you know, clearly to talk about the Lewinsky scandal is to talk about the one issue in which Mrs. Clinton was the victim. And she was also a player in this in the sense that, I mean, the misdirection campaign against the federal prosecutor was unbelievable. Ken Starr was a tobacco lawyer. Can you imagine that? You can't believe a word he says about Monica Lewinsky. It was this concerted campaign that she helped direct against a federal prosecutor that I

think is part of it. Of course, we wouldn't have the term vast right-wing conspiracy, except that she coined it on the Today Show a few days after the scandal broke and blamed the whole thing on that. So she was, in addition to being the victim in this, and she was, she was also a serious player in the political fight as well. Go on, Peter. Okay, Byron, the Republicans now stand a good chance, a very good chance, at least on paper, of taking the Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, any fair reading of his record suggests that he is as conservative as the practical politics of the moment permit him to be.

He's the one who held the Senate Republicans together so that there wasn't a single Republican vote in favor of Obamacare. And yet Mitch McConnell is getting attacked by organizations affiliated with his fellow Republican Senator, Ted Cruz. And you have this young group of younger, essentially reform-minded senators, Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, about half a dozen or so of them, all they need to do is play nice in the Senate between now and November to transform that chamber and the national agenda and set up a Republican victory in 2016. And they refuse to do it. I'm making the argument here to see how you push back if you choose to push back. And Ted Cruz is a very destructive force. Well, I would ask you, in this current situation we're talking about, is Ted Cruz a more destructive force or is Jim DeMint a more destructive force? I think there's something odd going on in the whole McConnell matter.

McConnell, I think everything you said about him is absolutely correct. He has very high conservative ratings. You said it's something he's as conservative as the practical politics of this day will allow. And yet there's this ugly battle going on in Kentucky in which he's facing a primary challenger, which is fine, but there's a group called the Senate Conservatives Fund that is just really attacking and attacking and attacking. And the most recent ad said that McConnell was worse than Obama's IRS for conservatives, which is kind of a low in in my humble opinion uh... so you have to wonder uh... with these other circumstances that you said which is that

that that uh... republicans stand their best chance in a long time of winning the senate obama care is a huge issue the president's popularity is going down down down in the midterms of the second term for president are usually pretty bad for him anyway. All those stars appear to be aligning. And yet there's all this bloodletting and anger, you know, in the Senate. Cruz is absolutely part of that. What he did the other day with the debt limit gambit seemed to be just coming out of spite.

He said it was because he does not believe that Republicans should just go along. They should fight every attempt to increase spending, increase the debt limit, do the whole Democratic thing. But it just really spread a lot of bad blood. The only thing I would say about Cruz, though, is that a lot of Republicansans certainly establishment republicans get very mad at him and i can't tell you how mad they were in the senate when he stood up at that meeting last tuesday and said you know i'm going to demand a sixty

vote standard uh... they need to rep they need to remember who he represents i mean there there are there's a large significant part of the republican base that wants somebody to really stir things up in Washington. They want somebody to throw a wrench in the spending machine and make it stop. And they don't care about niceties, and they don't care about Senate protocol. And to them, Ted Cruz is doing exactly the right thing. So Republicans who are angry at Cruz should remember he represents much more than

just Ted Cruz. Well, okay, so is it personal? It's that Jim DeMitt and Mitch McConnell have bad blood and it's that Ted Cruz wants to cost John Cornyn, his fellow senator from Texas who's also undergoing his Tea Party challenge and whom Ted Cruz forced to vote in favor of raising the debt seal. Did he cause John Cornyn his job? No, I don't think so. As a matter of fact, I don't even think that was a real factor in it. I mean, Cornyn, for all intents and purposes, faces no real primary challenge.

And I don't think there's any great worrying about that i mean mcconnell is is in much more danger than cornyn is because uh because if you look at the general election polls in kentucky they're very very tight and the number of polls show allison london grimes the the democrat to be you know a little bit ahead so um to to me i think it was probably a worse day for mcconnell than for cornet got it and will republicans take the senate what's your call well i think they i think they have uh...

how should we say this never underestimate their ability to mess things up uh... and they do have to call kind of an inside straight to do it remember uh... they picked up six feet they need to do it. Remember, they picked up six seats. They need to pick up six to win. They picked up six in 2010. That's when they won 63 seats in the House. It was a huge, huge, smashing Republican victory. Certainly things could line up that way again, but I am, you know, I'm not predicting that they will.

I think it's too early to say that Republicans have a good chance of winning the Senate. So my last question, so on balance, is Ted Cruz a constructive or a destructive force for Republicans and conservatives? That is a great, great question, because I think there are a lot of Republican senators, even some of the old guard, who when Cruz came in, you know, we started hearing about Cruz when he'd been in the Senate for about 10 minutes, which is not the way a lot of new senators operate. I think there were a lot of senators, even some of the old guard, who said, you know, we really did need somebody to shake some things up.

But maybe those guys are going too far. I don't know. So I really think that's a very close call at this moment, because there is new energy in the Senate, and it is that group you're talking about, Cruz, Mike Lee. We should really call out Mike Lee, especially now as the guy who seems to be offering a lot of conservative policy proposals. You know, at the same time that he's standing with Ted Cruz to shut down the government, driving Republicans crazy. He's also building a conservative agenda for the future. Mike Leeds of Iran, Paul, Marco Rubio, you went through some of the names. So, yes, these guys are sowing trouble, but they're also revitalizing the Senate to some degree.

So I think it's a very close call. Hey, Byron, it's Rob again in L.A. I got one last question for you. We know about Mary Landrieu. We know about the Democrats in trouble in November. And obviously, you mentioned Mitch McConnell is facing a little bit more of a fight that he expected. But who are the other Republicans in trouble?

Who are the other Republicans who right now are trying to figure out just how far Cruz to go in their reelection or how far to the center? Which ones are the most nervous? There really aren't a lot of Republicans in trouble at the moment. The most endangered is McConnell in part because democrats it just made such a national cause uh... of defeating him and also they get a reasonably good candidate there uh... but they're not a lot of republicans who are in serious trouble first of all there's fewer of them uh... so there's what thirty

shu up this year uh... total senators and you know like maybe ten publicans so it's there there aren't that many of marie but not and they're very few who are endangered i really don't look to see in the republican incumbents with the possible exception mcconnell and i do think he will ultimately win i don't look to see them knocked off it's going to be a whole question of

can they pick up enough democrats i mean landrew appears to be in trouble but you know she's smart. She's got a solid base in Louisiana. Bill Cassidy, the guy who's probably going to be a Republican opponent, is untested. We don't know exactly how he'll do in a statewide race. So that's not the kind of – I think Mark Pryor looks just like death warmed over in Arkansas. Landrieu I wouldn't really say that about. So we really can't say with a lot of these races.

Byron, I – go ahead. I was just – No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Peter Robinson has a fourth last question, and I would no more – Gentlemen, gentlemen, get it together here. This is just a comment. Tom Cotton, the congressman who's running for the Senate from Arkansas, who is 37 years old and grew up in Cattle Ranch in Arkansas, Harvard, undergraduate Harvard Law School, then redeemed himself by serving two tours in the United States Army in Iraq. That guy will step right into the Senate and join the reformers, the new, young, bright reform conservatives, Mike Lee, Barrasso.

I mean all these guys need to do is keep from getting – tripping on their own feet, right? Right. This is fitting into the Peter Robinson theory that if they could just behave themselves until November, they'll have a power base unlike anything they've ever experienced. Exactly. Well, send them a memo. What can I say? All right. Thanks, Byron. I'm done. We know you have to go and do important Washington things like striding down a corridor while you play the House of Cards theme in the back of your head. So we're going to let you go to that.

I haven't watched it, okay? I think what Peggy Noonan said was right. I haven't watched it. Yes. Well, watch it, and next time we talk, perhaps we'll discuss whether or not Noonan says that its description of a decadent culture actually reflects what America thinks about the place. I think she's right. But anyway, we'll let you go. Thank you so much for coming back to the podcast

and we'll see you the next time. Byron York from the Washington Examiner, Fox News and all the other places in Washington, D.C. Thank you guys. I enjoyed it. You know, I haven't seen season two yet and I haven't read the Noonan piece. None of this, of course, a jot of it keeps me from discussing these things with complete confidence because I didn't see the first season. And while it's interesting to compare the American version of House of Cards with the British version, which I found almost unwatchable from the very beginning because I didn't have the same sort of marination and British machinations that you need for house of cards. I don't think the idea that Americans are looking at Washington as a place of decadence

and a place removed from the experience of the American people is particularly anything new. Can you think of a time, guys, in your memory in which people have had a tremendous amount of respect for Washington, the place, the institution, the city, the culture? I can't. Yes, but I believe, say, I'm going way back now. During the Eisenhower years when you had the man who had defeated Hitler in charge, those were also the McCarthy years. There were fights among Republicans.

I don't think anybody loved Washington. But there was a feeling then as there was maybe in the second half of the Reagan administration. Reagan was viewed skeptically by much of the country until the recovery kicked in. I believe there have been periods within living memory – well, I don't remember the Eisenhower years – when Americans at least felt there were grownups in charge. That I think is different that there's just this the pettiness uh seems to be the feeling that they're just babies seems to me i don't know i don't know if that's new i mean i think more that they're incompetent in a way that you know the thomas nass cartoons were always you know of highly competent crooks the corpulent fat and taking money from the newspaper trusts and

the you know timber trusts and the timber trusts and the sugar trusts and all that. And I think that was helpful in a way and more truthful. I think they got – I think when we started calling it public service was when it went south for me. When we started referring to some kind of charitable work like, well, some people go do the Peace Corps and inoculate poor kids in Africa

against malaria, and some are congressmen. And I think that needs to stop. The idea that being a congressman is somehow this magnificent sacrifice you're doing for the sake of the country, that has not been true for almost 200 years.

We've been making fun of congressmen and graft and DC for a long time, and we should continue to make fun of it. I don't know why they participate in it like Peggy Noonan. I'm not sure. I like the fact that they think it's funny too. It would be hard-pressed to find a positive depiction of a congressman or senator made by anybody before the 60s really or maybe before the New Deal. And after that, it was merely because you were bringing ministrations to the poor. Well, you always have the southern blowhard archetype, right? The foghorn leghorn. Senator Claghorn type.

We have a heritage, a sacred heritage. And I almost wish there were a few of those bloviating gas bags around. Instead, we have smaller gas bags, the sound of rhetoric from which leaks from them like air from a balloon that you've held the aperture very tight. Speaking of Al Franken, a friend of mine from the Washington post is in town to follow Al Franken around and, and, and find out exactly how he made the transition from comedian to serious person. And I, well, well, yes. Al Franken is now taken very seriously as a serious person. He hasn't been funny in person for a long time.

An awful long time, a really long time. But anyway, from what I understand, we're attempting to go out into the wilds of Minnesota to deal with actual people. I think this was canceled because we're getting five to ten inches of snow here and it wouldn't be safe. So I like the idea of a man of the people, Al Franken, coming back and not venturing out beyond the confines of the safe city because in the outstate, they're getting too much of that icky, icky white stuff. I guess the snow. Yeah. I love it.

Well, anyway, so speaking – I don't want to say anything bad about Al Franken but speaking of miserable, onerous bastards, Rob Long comes to mind because you son of a – you idiot, you evil, foolish, nasty person actually shut down a thread because the code of conduct was being violated somehow. Explain yourself about that one. Well, I mean it was – it was not my call by myself. I mean we have talented editors and judgment, I mean, it was, I was not my call by myself. I mean, we have talented editors and judgment, et cetera, et cetera.

Yeah, it seemed to us that there, for those of us who are not listening, there was a thread last weekend about same-sex marriage

and, you know, Ricochet represents a really broad and diverse part of the center-right community and we are proud of that and we're proud of the civil discourse that we have and we're proud that these are the places where these

things get debated and worked out and views viewpoints are shared and maybe people come to some kind of agreement maybe they don't i mean who knows but but they can yeah but you can always you could always have some kind of civility uh in this conversation and this one seemed to us to be spinning a little bit out of control, getting a little bit personal, a little bit ad hominem, and it didn't seem to be going anywhere. So we shut down the comments on that because it just seemed

like it was probably not productive. Not that we're shutting down the comments on, I mean, obviously this is a topic that's going to come up. I mean, there are some topics on Ricochet that seem evergreen. Same-sex marriage is one of them. Sarah Palin is another. I don't know.

She has not made a controversial appearance on the main feed or the member feed in a while, but she certainly will. So these things happen and you kind of – basically it's called a timeout. Everybody kind of retreats and takes a breath and then comes back at it a little later. I'm waiting for the Onion story headlined, Area Man Changes His Mind on Deeply Held Moral Issue by 568th Comment on a Political Thread. Yeah, well, right. Well, the problem is that there are people who feel very strongly about it and that and and people who feel very personal about it and those two things don't always mix

and sometimes the people who feel strong put it this way just just to be explicit the people who feel strongly against it in making a perfectly legitimate argument can sometimes sound to people who are living it and living it happily and living it in a productive and and you know incredibly useful way in many ways and also a way that is perfectly conservative as far as they're concerned it can sound like and feel like a personal attack and when that when that happens when lines are crossed um it's awfully hard to pull a conversation back. We've all been in those conversations. We've all been in those political debates.

Ricochet is no different. The best thing about Ricochet is we do have rules about discourse and that you can kind of shut it down and everybody cool off and I'm sure it will come back up. I'm sure it's back there now. It's not the first SSM thread. Right. And it will not be the last. It will not be the last. No, these are perennials.

These are evergreens. And that's what Ricochet is there for, to find the way in which these things can be debated and discussed. And not minds changed, but just positions laid out with clarity and kindness because the kindness is what's so often missing in these things. And so there, yeah, that's why that happened and just a little behind-the-scenes explanation there from Rob. And that's the benefit of Ricochet. That's what Ricochet is supposed to be for i mean i would not want that conversation we're not trying to disappear it um it's still there and it's really interesting to follow through it's interesting for people to read not not entirely because of the arguments presented

because there aren't really that the arguments aren't really that new we these are things been hashed and rehashed for many many times but. But to see how these things can spin out of control a little bit. And I think that's probably wise for everybody to take a look at and think, oh, okay, yeah, I can see where that would come sound like this, this, and this would sound like that. I get that.

And I suspect it'd be useful for all of us. You know, Paul Ray at Drinks yesterday told a wonderful story, which I will not tell you because I want him to, I want him to post about it. We thought it was great, but it involved him as a young reporter in Oklahoma city. And when he was very, I think he was 18 or 19 and he was sent to interview George Wallace, who was then in 68, was running for president. And, um, uh, Paul And Paul Ray was a man of the left at the time. But I mean, I think even now, there's no left and right in this respect. George Wallace was a segregationist, a Democrat didn't like him and just didn't want to shake his hand and didn't do it.

And there were repercussions from that and then – or they say those ridiculous upworthy links. And what happened right after will astonish you, so I won't give it away. I'm hoping Paul will post on it. Conclusion was he was wrong to do that because civility, even empty civility, even the simple things are important and are part of what keeps us all together. You shake the man's hand, you stand when they play Hail to the Chief no matter what your feelings are about the parent occupant and things like that. When you mentioned Upworthy and you won't believe what happened next. I hate that style. I hate those links. I hate the site intensely.

I fall for them all the time though, I got to say. But here's the good news. It may or may not be good news. The traffic in those places has dropped right off the cliff and it has to do with the way that Facebook has been changing the algorithms. And BuzzFeed is just skyrocketing partially because they say that BuzzFeed actually pays for ads on Facebook. But also a lot of these socially, virally, upworthy type links, they've tweaked it so that they no longer clog your Facebook feed as much as they used to. Now, as somebody who doesn't spend a lot of time on Facebook and the people that I follow don't really pass along this drivel,

I haven't noticed it, but it's large and it affects their traffic huge. Now, that you could say is a private company shaping the conversation, shaping what gets shared, which is perfectly their right. But then you get people who are looking at the Time Warner Comcast merger and saying, hold on a second here. How much conglomeration, how much concentration of media power in one company are we willing to put up with – are we going to get to the age where there's Facebook and then there's the other guys who put out the moving pictures and between the two of them, they establish the walls for content and the things beyond and the outside of that, we don't see. I know that Peter hasn't been in this for a while, but Rob, you're a content provider from the video side. Do you worry about things like this? Well, I mean sure. I mean the Comcast merger is interesting. I mean the only way for cable companies to stay alive is to get big, right? I mean, in fact, the only way for it to work. And I suspect it wouldn't – I mean I think our definition of a media monopoly will change in the next five years. Once you get digital compression, wireless digital compression, wireless signal compressed digitally and you start having more bandwidth as a commodity, which is sort of happening now everywhere.

It seems to become all that interesting for people to have cable or have – or pay some usurious fee just to get your TV shows. You'll pay for internet and that's that. I mean it's going to be a very tough model for the cable companies going forward. Luckily for them, we all send them checks every month. So they're swimming in cash and they get to do things. And when a company is swimming in cash, it gets to prepare for

a rougher future. That's what they do. Yesterday, Facebook bought an instant messaging app depending on how you want to add the numbers, between $16 and $19 billion. And everybody's saying, well, that's crazy. What are they doing?

But in many ways, the amount of adoption and the amount of use, 70% of people who have the WhatsApp app use it every day. That's a huge number. And if you're Facebook, and what you got is money, and so you may as well use the money to buy as much velocity as you can as much action as you can as much user activity as you can and i thought that was a very smart gutsy move that sounds expensive because i don't have 16 billion dollars and peter and james don't have 16 billion dollars but if you're mark zuckerberg you got it that's what you

got i got money so i may as well use it and I think that's probably what the same attitude with Comcast is going to be. These big companies with a certain amount of right now very, very strong position economically and in the business market are going to start making big plays. I don't think it's going to hurt people like me who are content providers. It's just going to make – it's already such a complicated Byzantine empire that we have to work through because you got to put something on. The question is whether or not they're going to start throttling, whether or not net neutrality is over and all the rest. I mean you're right. When we have wireless digital compression as you put it and we have ubiquitous fiber to the barn everywhere. There's a huge pipeline. The idea of throttling people back to 300 gigabyte a month, which sounds preposterous, but that could be six or seven Blu-rays that you're downloading. It does sound silly. We got to get beyond that. And as far as net neutrality goes, the idea of letting some guys pay for

faster access, let's hash that out in the comments. Let somebody go on Ricochet and let's debate net neutrality. Let's debate a la carte pricing. Let's debate whether or not people want to pay for Rob's television show the way they pay for Cabe. I mean, all of these things, it's all fracturing. If you take anything away from this podcast, it's not just the fracturing of the Republican Party.

If you look at Salon and Slate, it's doomed because of Ted Cruz. Take away the incredible optimism that you actually get when you see entrepreneurial companies creating new ways of communication, new media models, new energy futures

that will depose the old order just because we've got Barack Obama in the White House right now and just because we've got Obamacare crushing the economy doesn't mean there's so much stuff happening that it's going to transform our world and I think transform it for better. Let's not be the Eeyore party that's always telling people why everything is going to

hell and you should vote for us because frankly, we'll give you great instructions on how to make a handcrafted coffin that'll really look nice. No, no, we got to be the party of optimism and the party of liberty. And we are also the party of out of here. We thank audible.com. Go to audiblepodcast.com slash ricochet and get your free 30-day trial and your free audio book. And you should also go to Encounter Books and get Fred Siegel's The Revolt Against the Masses, How Liberalism Undermined the Middle Class. The coupon code ricochet at the checkout will get you 15% off the list price. Likely going to be off next week. We'll see you in a couple.

In the meantime, of course, we'll see you everywhere in the member feed, in the main feed, in the podcasts, all around the world that is Ricochet as we prepare for the great 2.0 unveiling. Rob, Peter, it's been great. Everyone else, thank you for listening, and we'll see you all in the comments. See you soon, fellas. See you next week. Thank you. Ricochet. Join the conversation.