Another late night

I got home a bit ago. It was great to attend the Young Republicans Club (the independent one) event tonight, with Mark W. Smith and Larry Kudlow speaking. Karol and I met for the first time, and in fact we recognized each other immediately. Afterward a good number of us went to Margarita Murphy's on 39th and 3rd Avenue. I'd have liked to stay longer, but I left a little after 11:30 so I could catch the 12:08 train home.

I'll elaborate more tomorrow, but for now I'll say that Smith was pretty good. His advocation of conservative "judicial activism," however, concerned me. Naturally he wants a litmus test to retake the judiciary, but the only litmus test should be whether the nominee has a strict constructionist, originalist interpretation of the Constitution.

Kudlow was brilliant. I don't agree with his support of widespread communications monitoring, but I agree with everything else he said. He started by saying that "today [Thursday] is a big day for freedom," and I agree. My only regret of how Zarqawi died is that he couldn't have possibly suffered enough. Kudlow went on to talk about the strong economy (and that Bush just doesn't tout it like he should), the need for the Fed to strengthen the dollar, and the non-concerns of our budget and trade deficits. He's right on all counts. I'll say for now that the present increases in federal debt, properly measured as a percentage of the economy, are not as bad as the 1980s, and it is currently manageable. It's wasteful spending that's the problem, because if the federal government went into debt for useful things and not pork, that wouldn't be so bad. I cannot, though, share Kudlow's optimism that Bush "is itching" to veto spending bills.