Did Obama Play Politics With Troop Deployments?
— DrewM

Based on this post from Greyhawk, it sure looks like it.

One brigade diverted from Iraq to Afghanistan to great public fanfare, meanwhile another brigade is quietly sent to Iraq in it's place. All while months of training and vital skills are wasted.

Now imagine if Bush had done this. Of course you can't because it's simply unimaginable that he would have done this.

Posted by: DrewM at 01:41 PM | Comments (1)
Post contains 78 words, total size 1 kb.

My Final Word
— Ace

In a comment, I wrote [some edits):

Well, we have some really big fights here ahead of us and all people seem to have the passion for arguing about is whether "I hope he fails" is now core conservative doctrine.

It's not.

We have more important fights.

I don't want to criticize rush for it. To the extent I'm forced to -- I say it's a remark which hurts us, which is why, get this, the media won't stop talking about it.

See? The media have blacked out coverage of Obama's snub of Gordon Brown. Because that hurts the Democrats.

This, they want to talk about.

And when it is suggested to you that

1) This is not an important hill

and

2) This is a hill which is difficult to defend

so

3) We should move on to more important hills,

the "cocktail party elitist" crap starts.

This is fundamentally an unserious and unimportant issue. And those who keep fighting it are apparently happy to dwell on the trivialities and distractions that Obama has admitted he's cooked up for precisely the purpose of distracting you.

My take? It's simple. It was not a helpful comment. I will not defend it because I do not have the time or inclination to waste my time on trivialities. So let's turn the page and move on.

Like -- how about we fucking talk about the stuff Obama does not wanting us talking about?

This is the silly shit Emmanuel, Carville, and Begala came up for us to talk about. Is that what we're doing now?

Why are you guys so jazzed to do precisely what Obama wants you to do? The White House has admitted it cooked this up as a distraction, and i'm trying to tell you fuck the distraction, make a decision either way and let it go and move on, and all I get is this nonsense that I'm not fighting Obama enough by concentrating on the little trivial distraction he constructed for me.

I don't want to fight on this issue, because I could not win even if I tried -- trust me, the average distressed voter is going to be turned off by one party's spokesman rooting against his family's prosperity, or sounding like he's doing so -- and on top of that it's Obama's preferred issue.

You guys say you want to oppose everything Obama does -- how about starting by opposing the menu of conversation topics he's cooked up for you?

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (28)
Post contains 422 words, total size 2 kb.

Steele, Emasculated
— Ace

I'm going to add my voice to those calling for Steele to step aside.

He's a bad organizer and has not been a good communicator so far. If one shirks on one's main duty -- organizing, hiring staff, making money -- to focus on a secondary one, one had better do a bang-up job at it.

Steele didn't.

Worse yet he is now badly damaged and emasculated by his scrape with Rush Limbaugh. He will be parodized, as he is in the clip below, of serving Rush Limbaugh rather the party, the movement, or, most importantly, the country.

This is why I dearly wished that Rush Limbaugh and his supporters would just let this go and not insist on an apology. Because the apology, on top of all of other Steele's negatives, makes him entirely ineffectual.

The skit is not particularly funny but it demonstrates the perception -- or the reality -- that anything Steele says has to be cleared first through EIB.

We're going to have yet another round of this, and another round of bad press and "Republicans in Disarray" stories, when Steele steps down. Not to mention all the sniping that "the country gave Barack Obama four years, but the racist Republican Party only gave Steele four weeks."
more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 237 words, total size 2 kb.

Audio: Mark Levin vs. David Frum
— Ace

Here.

I think Frum has something to add to the debate -- even if he's wrong, then proving him wrong is important, and will help the conservative movement.

However, Frum continues "spicing up" his more substantive columns with gratuitous slams against his own personal enemies list. For example, in discussing the reasons the public lost confidence in Republican governance -- chiefly Katrina -- he gratuitously adds "And that was before the nomination of Sarah Palin."

He offers no argument on this proposition. He doesn't seem interested in advancing any agenda -- including his own -- so much as he's interested in provocations against the base. Unnecessary ones, I might add. It may be a necessary and useful argument to have regarding whether there's as much political juice in tax cuts as there may have once been, but I do not see the usefulness of gratuitously cheap shotting a woman who, as far as I can tell, lost her bid to be Vice President and now is doing what even Frum and his kind admit she was competent at doing previously, governing the state of Alaska.

These various issues are all necessarily emotional to one extent or another, but when the target is someone well-liked by the base, the emotional part of the reaction is the primary one. Frum claims that he's only interested in having a policy debate -- a purely intellectual, rational debate -- and yet spits in the eyes of the very people he's trying to convince by derailing what should be a debate on abstract issues into a passionate scrum about real, living, tangible human beings. And, as much as we might like to believe we're a party of ideas, not men, people have a natural and unsuppressible instinct to defend members of their family. Even "adoptive" members of the family, like Sarah Palin.

So why keep on doing this? If Frum's case is so critically important to the future of conservatism, and if, as he claims, he's dedicated to advancing the conservative cause, why does he constantly insult and demean people beloved by the base he's trying to persuade?

Frum raps Limbaugh for putting his ego ahead of the party -- which I will now risk the wrath of my readers by noting my own sympathy to that critique. And yet in column after column, in blog post after blog post, Frum elevates his own ego -- his own need for vindication, his need to take down those he has personal (and cultural) antipathy towards -- ahead of his self-announced mission of saving the Republican Party from its own instincts.

Well, David, if that really is your mission, perhaps you could manage to stop cocksucking it up for two minutes, stop with the traffic-bait and hit-whoring provocations, and realize that the first step in actual persuasion is building a rapport with those you wish to persuade, rather than insulting them by proxy by insulting people they just flat-out like.

But he can't stop. Because as much as he might accuse of Rush Limbaugh of adding gas to a fire which is destructive to the party for purposes of goosing his own ratings, Frum is doing the exact same thing. Albeit -- no offense -- on a vastly smaller scale.

Frum knows damn well every time he slams Sarah Palin he raises ire and, consequently, traffic; thus his almost Sullivanesque fixation on a woman who is currently not in national politics at all, except through others speculating about her.

Frum's critique of Limbaugh is that he unnecessarily alienates those we need to persuade -- the moderates and almost-conservatives -- by engaging in gratuitous provocations which are more cathartic than forensic. And yet when it comes to the people Frum first needs to persuade -- the mainstream of the conservative movement -- he engages in precisely the same style of "debate" through invective.

Physician, heal thyself. It's like an insurance salesman trying to sell me on a fixed-rate annuity while sporadically referring to my wife as "that bitch-whore who's eyeballing me."

This whole controversy is a traffic boost to anyone talking about. It's all anyone wants to talk about, it seems, because it is, ultimately, about personalities, people, scrapes, sniping, emotion and draaaamaa.

You don't need a lot of analysis or heavy intellectualizing to enjoy this debate, or get in on it. Just pick your side and go to town.

I've tried to avoid the subject myself, by and large, because while I could certainly garner a few hits by wholeheartedly embracing one partisan camp and bashing the other, I find the entire argument tedious.

Oh, some will say the fight for core principles is crucial and not tedious at all; to which I'd reply, "Oh? We're having a fight about core principles, then? I thought we were just watching a bunch of men acting childishly hurling insults at one another with 'core principles' as the pretext for why these petty personal spats are somehow elevated and ennobling."

And it's not just tedious -- it's destructive.

I think some of the self-style "elites" might have some worthwhile ideas to contribute -- again, even if these ideas are discarded as wrong, the process of figuring out why their wrong, and why another idea is right, is helpful.

But what debate can we have when those seeking, by their own declaration, to shape and change conservative opinion attempt one or two desultory efforts at actual argument, become frustrated to find their powers of persuasion rather more lacking than they imagined, and so begin simply insulting those who are so uncouth as to not agree with them?

Rush is tossing out red meat against Obama and the liberals -- and some of that red meat is of poor quality.

But Frum and his fellow base-baiters (like "Crunchy Con" Ron Dreher tossing out an unnecessary insult to good guy who dared to ask a question, Joe Wurzelbacher, asking "When did Joe the Plumber become the Whittaker Chambers of the Mongoloid Right?") are doing the same, except they're tossing out red meat for liberals, who of course feast on their attacks on conservatives.

Frum of course got the Strange New Respect he's been angling for recently, as the very partisan liberal Newsweek asked him to submit a 4 page essay on why conservatives suck. They didn't even mind that one-quarter of it was merely a complete cut-and-paste from a blog-post he wrote. A blog post, of course, that called Limbaugh, for no particularly good reason, a fat divorced drug-addicted fatso fat-ass.

And yet he sits there playing victim, scratching his head at all these terrible besmirchments of his character, wondering why it is we just can't sit here like sensible adults and hash these issues out in a dispassionate manner.

Hey Frum -- um, maybe it's because you're putting your SiteMeter and sudden favor with Newsweek above what it is you claim is your actual mission.

Lay off with the fucking nonstop baiting and insults, recognize, as any sane person will, that when you personalize an argument you've just ended the intellectual segment of the debate and begun the emotional name-calling part of it, follow your own counsel, and stop playing the sweetheart batting your eyes innocently as you ask, "Why can't we just discuss these things in a calm, measured way?"

Posted by: Ace at 10:42 AM | Comments (34)
Post contains 1231 words, total size 7 kb.

Patterico at Hot Air
— Gabriel Malor

Yes, it's still about Rush Limbaugh. No, the story will never die. Too much to excerpt and whatever I take will get me accused of something or other.

Read the whole thing.

Later: Okay, that was super passive-aggressive. This isn't going to help, but let me try and explain why I'm so tired of this little spat.

In sum, Patterico and others have said that he does not want Rush Limbaugh to be the de facto head of either the Republican Party or the conservative movement because he is too controversial. The idea is that while Limbaugh's controversial statements and offensiveness are great for his show's ratings, they alienate voters.

On the other side is a whole host of alternative views. Here are some of them, and I'm trying to be evenhanded about this:

(1) Some suggest that conservatives (or Republicans) shouldn't hold back, that "playing nice" is what got us President Obama, and that---by contrast---it was Democrats' unleashed hater-ade which won them power. For this group, playing nice is equated with being a moderate or a RINO.

(2) Some claim that being true to conservative principles requires "calling it like it is" and if that's offensive then so be it. The intent is not to be offensive, the intent is to be truthful. Not a few of these folks have also said that conservatives should not compromise on their principles. To silence themselves now would cause them to go out with a whimper when they'd rather go down fighting.

(3) Another alternative (and these alternatives aren't always mutually exclusive, by the way) is that a cabal of cowards in media has, as it has always done, worked to suppress and oppress the conservative movement within the Republican Party. That's what Steele was up to; that's what Frum, Brooks, and Krauthammer are up to; that's what Patterico is up to. Some of the people who subscribe to this alternative talk about starting their own Conservative Party.

(4) Finally, some dispute the premise that Limbaugh is controversial or alienates voters or that he wants to be the de facto leader of anything other than the Dittoheads.

My first response was weariness. If the argument is merely about how rude and crude the party should be defending its principles then it's just a waste of time. We're always going to have folks who are more apt to foam at the mouth than sit down at a table and work out a winning coalition. Telling them to change their methods just results in another round of argument (as it did with Limbaugh this past week). This is what we see with folks whose livelihoods depend on ratings. Coulter, Limbaugh, Malkin, I'm looking at you.

On the other hand, as the argument has been proceeding it has rapidly morphed from one about methods to one about message. Limbaugh is seen as carrying the conservative standard. Therefore, in the minds of many, those who oppose him must be doing so, not because of something so elementary as his method, but because they oppose his conservative message. Once that step has been made, the argument becomes much more important because now it is about the Future of the Republican Party.

And Yet More: It occurs to me that I didn't explain why I find this tiresome. I find it wearying and a waste of time because I don't believe Patterico was making an attack on Limbaugh's conservative message. Patterico was talking about the methodology. To the extent people have gone on to construe this as an attack on conservatives, their objection is a non sequitur.

As far as the four alternatives I listed above, when we consider them on the merits, they all fail in one crucial respect: they do not lead to electoral victory. Folks who believe the first alternative should consider that the Democrats won in spite of their feces flinging rather than because of it. There was a little bit of an Iraq War Slump in 2006 and an economic meltdown in 2008 that more readily explains their victories. After all, they lost quite badly in 2002 and 2004, despite rolling out the Chimpy McBushHitler namecalling.

As for the second alternative, being conservative and being true to conservative principles does not require that a person be offensive. Ur-example: William F. Buckley. Additionally, individuals who do not work and play well with others, that is, compromise, will have little success re-taking Congress and the White House. Democrats, and their preposterous coalition of interest groups with competing interests, are now running this country. They did it by highlighting the issues on which they agree and compromising on the issues about which they disagree.

Third, conservatives splintering off into their own party is not a recipe for the electoral success of their new party or the rump party they leave behind. How many years do you want to wander in the wilderness?

Finally, folks who do not believe that Limbaugh is offputting to a large group of people aren't paying attention. The Dittoheads aren't large enough to carry elections all on their own. Suggesting that the solution to his low ratings among independents and moderates is "More Rush, Louder" is, well, stupid. We've had More Rush, Louder for twenty years. Consider that it's not the message that is alienating potential voters, but the method.

In any case, the bottom line for me is this: Wouldn't it be nice to win back Congress and the White House? The current argument does not help us do that. So, for the love of Pete, can we please get over it?

Okay, For Reals The Last Update: Ultimately, Obama would like this to be about a choice: Choose Obama (who represents all Democrats) or Choose Limbaugh (who represents all Republicans). Obama likes this false dichotomy because he knows that his ratings are much better than Limbaugh's and that he has an even bigger microphone than Limbaugh.

So why the hell are we playing Obama's game? We should not pretend that our only options are to support Obama or to support Limbaugh. We should not pretend that Limbaugh represents all Republicans, or assume that Obama represents all Democrats. We have more freedom than that. Knee-jerk defensiveness gets us nowhere.

If we play his game, "You're either with me or you're with him" we lose. If that game worked, we'd have a Republican in the White House right now.

UPDATE (Russ from Winterset): Sorry about amending your post Gabe, but I had an insight that I thought would get lost in comments, plus I don't want to create ANOTHER post on the topic when you've wrapped it up fairly nicely yourself.

When I linked to Protein Wisdom on Friday, Patterico showed up in the comments to that post to disagree with my characterization of his position. I'd like to say that his disagreement was done in a very civil manner, and I'm always open to his opinion on any and all issues. What I have a problem with is his "You're mischaracterizing my position" position.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't that the same argument that Rush's supporters made against your original interpretation of Rush's "I hope he fails" comment? If you're going to criticize Rush for making a statement that COULD be twisted by his opponents into a willingness to blow up the American economy in order to be able to tell Obama "I told you so", then I think it's fair game for your opponents to interpret your "I hope Rush fails" statement as support for the Quisling Right (Frum, Chris Buckley, Noonan, Parker, et al) and their current War on Lowbrow Conservatism.

Even though I don't agree with Patterico on this issue, I do realize that a successful resurgence of Conservatism in America will require a truce between the Protein Wisdom and Patterico's Pontifications factions of the movement. Even though Patterico thinks that Rush Limbaugh made a mistake here, he's still "one of us" and we should be trying to convince him that his position is mistaken rather than firing up the rhetorical wood chipper that we use on apostates.

And the commenters who are lighting up Gabe for his post?

Three words, baby. Lighten up, Francis.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:31 AM | Comments (1)
Post contains 1378 words, total size 8 kb.

President Obama to the Nation: DonÂ’t Fear the Future (genghis)
— Open Blog

(overnight open thread too)

Last Friday aboard Air Force One, President Obama sought to reassure and comfort a troubled New York Times during one of his now-familiar fireside chats, resurrecting a long dormant tradition last utilized by President Jefferson during the Spanish-American War. (As is well documented in “Stuff Jefferson Said,” volume 9, limited human-leather-bound collectors edition, published in 1834. Necronomicon House Publishing))

CNN has all the details here.

”(CNN) -- President Obama can't assure that the economy will bounce back this year, but he says he will "get all the pillars in place for recovery this year. Obama made the pledge in a 35-minute interview -- largely focused on the economy and the war in Afghanistan -- with The New York Times aboard Air Force One on Friday, according to a story published Saturday. "I don't think that people should be fearful about our future," he told the newspaper. "I don't think that people should suddenly mistrust all of our financial institutions."”

I couldnÂ’t agree more with the President. Sudden mistrust of our financial institutions, along with our governmental institutions is quite risky, so IÂ’m glad to see that most Americans started mistrusting them years ago. That indicates wise planning for the future.

According to sources, the pillars are being loaded on transports at Denver International Airport and will arrive in D.C. sometime Sunday, unless they get hung up in baggage claim or in a TSA quarantine area. The President goes on to speak of the austerity package heÂ’s been forced to implement during the first months of his administration:

”"Look, I wish I had the luxury of just dealing with a modest recession or just dealing with health care or just dealing with energy or just dealing with Iraq or just dealing with Afghanistan," Obama said. "I don't have that luxury, and I don't think the American people do, either."

Hateful right-wingers are already fanning out across the Intermesh, altering that statement, replacing the words “dealing with” with the words “fucking up.” Haters and malcontents they are.

So many troubles to lay on an already troubled mind. But it does appear we truly have elected a “Man of the People” who is willing to sacrifice luxuries with a stiff upper lip and stand alongside us as we try to take our next great leap forward as a nation. Aside from fearing the future and fear itself, the President also encouraged us to not fear other things, and stand tall in the face of them.
An example below the fold:
more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:45 PM | Add Comment
Post contains 448 words, total size 3 kb.

An AoS Public Service Announcement
— DrewM

Turn your clocks ahead one hour tonight because in most places, Daylight Savings Time begins at 2am Sunday morning.

This concludes the Ace of Spades HQ Public Service Announcement.

Posted by: DrewM at 06:38 PM | Comments (1)
Post contains 39 words, total size 1 kb.

Obama Reassures Nation: I Didn't Deliberately Snub Brits, I'm Just "Overwhelmed"
— Ace

That's what I want to hear from my president -- that he's "overwhelmed."

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been "overwhelmed" by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

British officials, meanwhile, admit that the White House and US State Department staff were utterly bemused by complaints that the Prime Minister should have been granted full-blown press conference and a formal dinner, as has been customary. They concede that Obama aides seemed unfamiliar with the expectations that surround a major visit by a British prime minister.

But Washington figures with access to Mr Obama's inner circle explained the slight by saying that those high up in the administration have had little time to deal with international matters, let alone the diplomatic niceties of the special relationship.

This excuse is weak coming from a UPS customer satisfaction representative.

But then, this is the first real job Obama's ever held, so I guess we'll just have to bear with him as he gets on the job training at being at an actual job.

Posted by: Ace at 05:12 PM | Comments (2)
Post contains 209 words, total size 1 kb.

Barack Obama, Our President, 'Reaches Out" to the People Who Want Him to Die in Flames
— Dave in Texas

You cannot make this shit up.

Because if you reach out to them, they will... what. Chew your hands and face off? Yes. I think that is what they will do.

This is what we called back at the stupid little Texas state school I graduated from (no, there wasn't a sub-ag school, we were one and anon), "fucking retarded".

I think that's what we called it. It was the late 80s and we weren't all that goddam polite.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 03:38 PM | Add Comment
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.

Nighttime Kepler Launch
— Dave in Texas

I still love this stuff.

When I was a kid, and I mean waaaaay back when I was a little kid, dad worked for a NASA subcontractor and we lived in Satellite Beach Florida. I remember (through that hazy kid memory that recalls the beach across the highway, and stickers in the yard which discouraged my barefoot kid habits) a couple of launches from my backyard, just a few miles from Canaveral. Never saw a night launch though.

They're awesomer.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 09:26 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 86 words, total size 1 kb.