February 17, 2012
— Ace I really wish I could find a wav of Carolla saying "Wait, my head is spinning" with the "Wait my head is spinning" musical stinger he uses.
You'll just have to imagine it.
For some Washington reporters and media execs, cheering their team from the sidelines just isnÂ’t good enough: Tugging on a red, white and blue Team Obama jersey is the answer.ThatÂ’s the case for a whopping 19 journalists and media executives, including five from the Washington Post and three each from ABC and CNN, whoÂ’ve gone into the administration or center-left groups supporting the president.
...
The revolving door isn’t a surprise to critics of the media and Obama. “The number of reporters going into the Obama administration merely confirms what I knew and what most conservatives long believed,” said Noam Neusner, himself one of the few reporters hired as a Bush speech writer. “There is a vast supply of liberals in newsrooms, they are very happy to support Obama administration policies if they can get hired and they barely hide their ideology in the way they cover the news.” Neusner, who I worked with at U.S. News, said that he too might have been guilty of a pro-Bush bias, but said correctly: “My editors and colleagues were surprised to hear that I was a Republican.”
One guy spins all this as awesome, especially after the super-partisan liberals return to their jobs as "objective reporters." His theory is that it's just super-awesome that they can now be better reporters, now understanding how "government really works."
Wait -- they only understand that after serving a Democratic White House?
Funny, the lot of them without such experience never seem less than 100% certain they know exactly how government works.
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09:33 AM
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— Ace For those of you taking comfort in the idea "at least we'll have the Congress" -- yes, you'll have a Congress which is always at a disadvantage to the power of the White House, and you'll have four years of caving.
This deal is politics at its worst — an irresponsible plan that adds to the deficit, accomplishes little and aims mainly to cast Congress and the president in as sympathetic a light as possible. We’re supposed to think: They passed a middle class tax cut! Aren’t they just great? If you’re a millennial like me, you better stuff the money you see through this tax cut in a retirement fund because Social Security won’t be around when we reach retirement age.
Right. Well, the guy in the Kirk Chair can make an issue out of this $40-per-month tax "cut" (which simply robs the Social Security trust fund, the one that's supposed to be self-funding; thus, this "cut" will have to be repaid via higher taxes at some point).
The American system of politics is set up so that the President sets the agenda and Congress can largely only react to it.
If we don't win the Presidency, ObamaCare goes through, forever.
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Sarah Palin: Nanoo-Nanoo
— Ace Unlikely, says an RNC guy.
"The last time we had a brokered convention was in the 1940Â’s, and weÂ’re four contests in that have awarded delegates," Mr. Spicer told me on Wednesday. "We are four weeks and four states into a process. I get that itÂ’s the buzz, but I literally spend as much time worrying if some space alien attack happens."
Unlikely, but not as unlikely as a space alien attack. It would require Newt Gingrich to catch some fire again, then lose a bit of it. It just basically requires three, not two, competitive candidates trading victories and losses.
However, the tendency has been there is One Front-Running Not-Romney, and then most of the Not-Romney votes flock to that candidate. One catches fire; the other gets no oxygen. That's why, for this to happen, we'd need the less-likely situation where Gingrich rises, then falls, then maybe rises and falls again (and Santorum falling and rising in opposite tandem).
Meanwhile, Sarah Palin is encouraging just such an outcome, and offering herself as a draft candidate in brokered convention:
Former Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, though, is supportive of the idea of a brokered convention in August. She recently told Fox News Channel's Eric Bolling, when he asked if she would still be interested in a White House run if a brokered convention were to happen in Tampa:"Well for one, I think it could get to that. And if it had to be kind of closed up today, the whole nominating process...then we would be looking at a brokered convention. Nobody is quite there yet." Palin then added, "So I think that months from now if thatÂ’s the case, then all bets are off as to who it will be willing to offer themselves up in the name of service to their country. I would do whatever I could to help."
John Ziegler thinks Palin should be suspended from FoxNews for these comments. Before anyone goes Ape Bomb on him (a new film to be written by Cackfinger, released by Asylum Productions), his logic does seem reasonable: FoxNews has decided that anyone campaigning for office should not be an on-air commentator, as that person is therefore strongly biased towards his own candidacy.
Since Palin is making, at least, baby steps in that direction, isn't she campaigning for the nomination, albeit in an "unconventional, nontraditional" manner? (Which was frequently the way her hypothetical campaign for the office was predicted to be.)
On the other hand, she's not really a candidate.
On the other other hand, she does seem to have the characteristic that requires suspension: A personal (or political) stake in the outcome which creates a conflict of interest in her commentary. She has an "interest" in legal terms; she is not a disinterested party.
Of course, that could be said of Mike Huckabee or any other potential candidate as well, I imagine.
Is it even likely that should the unlikely happen, Palin would come out with the nomination?
Are the delegates -- mostly GOP insiders -- really fertile ground for a bit of Palin prairie-fire?
I'm wondering about the GOP psychology in this eventuality. We'd be worn out, chewed up, demoralized and gas-lighted by an unending, brutal primary that yet failed to produce a winner. We'd probably be very worried about winning a race with only two and half months to put together an entire 50-state campaign apparatus.
In that situation, would the party, as a whole, be looking for additional drama and infighting?
Or would it try to beg some kind of nonpolarizing figure like Jindal to step in? Or a blank like Jeb Bush?
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07:55 AM
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— Ace I've said this forever, but the Democrats can't speak a plan aloud, because there are only two options:
1. Reduce benefits, which they don't want to do, as they're playing Mediscare yet again.
2. Massively increase the tax burdens on the middle class, which they claim they don't want to do, but they do. All of their schemes rely on pulling more money from the middle class which is, as Willie Sutton said of banks, "where the money is."
I actually think the Democrats want a crisis, because in crisis, the politically impossible becomes merely the politically unpalatable.
Good video of the confrontation between Geithner and Ryan.
Geithner confesses that his very own chart and very own numbers show the country melting down into sub-Greece territory in out years. And his plan? He doesn't have one:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, speaking on behalf of the Obama White House, to Rep. Paul Ryan: "You are right to say we're not coming before you today to say 'we have a definitive solution to that long term problem.' What we do know is, we don't like yours."
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— Slublog Why yes, the Maine GOP can make itself look more foolish.
Maine Republican Party chairman Charlie Webster has admitted that the state party made numerous clerical errors in counting the state’s caucus results — even omitting some votes because emails reporting tallies “went to spam” in an email account.Remember, this is a caucus in which only about 5,500 people voted and the winner is still in doubt. This is an embarrassing amount of incompetence on the part of the Maine GOP and Waldo County Republicans are right to call for Webster's censure. No delegates are actually awarded as a result of the caucuses, so this process was already meaningless. This post-vote bumbling is just the exclamation point at the end of an already bad joke.However, Webster insisted that the errors did not change the outcome.
On Saturday, he had declared former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney the winner of MaineÂ’s Presidential Preference Poll by fewer than 200 votes, even though not all municipalities had reported results.
“There were clerical errors that did not significantly change the numbers. There were several smaller towns that were left out, the reporting was wrong. … We’ve corrected those clerical errors and will send those numbers out [soon],” said Webster in an interview with POLITICO.
The inept handling of this process brings up a good question: isn't it time to get rid of caucuses?
When youÂ’re dealing with caucuses versus primaries, the impact can be more easily seen. A caucus thatÂ’s held starting at 7pm on a weeknight in the middle of winter is obviously going to draw far fewer voters than a primary where the polls are open for twelve to thirteen hours a day and where voters have an opportunity to vote absentee if they arenÂ’t going to be able to make it to the polls on primary day (as Ed Morrissey recently discovered in Minnesota, there is no such thing as absentee voting in a caucus). Turnout for a primary is often low to begin with, but turnout for a caucus is even worse. Many people donÂ’t have the time to spend two or three hours on a work night sitting in a school gymnasium, firehouse, or meeting hall going through the often tedious process that ends with the (non-binding) straw poll that the cable news networks breathlessly report as the results of the caucus. This is especially true for people who work late, or have children.There are many things about the primary process that need to be overhauled. Getting rid of an outdated system for choosing delegates (or in Maine's case, not choosing delegates) seems a good place to start.
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06:09 AM
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— andy After many posts and many thousands of comments on the primary, there's not much new information being added about any of our choices. Unless the Sweet Meteor of Death shows up soon, we really are going to have to nominate one of these guys to go head-to-head with the SCOAMF in November.
As flawed as all our guys are, though, at least they appear to take our financial situation seriously, unlike the current occupant of the White House (via Mark Steyn at NRO).
And here was the exchange between Geithner and Ryan, after Ryan pointed the terrifying baseline (in red):GEITHNER: You could have taken [the chart] out [to the year] 3000 or to 4000. [Laughs]
RYAN: Yeah, right. We cut it off at the end of the century because the economy, according to the CBO, shuts down in 2027 on this path. (emphasis added)
Obama submitted a budget that bankrupts us, his Treasury Secretary laughs it off, and I'm supposed to give a crap about their ginned-up election year bogeymen of income inequality or contraception? Please.
None of our candidates are perfect. Far from it. But that's not an attainable goal, and we really need to get back on target.
And for God's sakes, let's quit freaking out about every little thing that might theoretically scare off mush middle voters.
Mitt likes firing people and making them poor so he has more people to not be concerned about. Santorum's going to issue an executive order banning the pill and non-procreative sex. Newt is going to form a swingers' club on the moon. We get it. The MFM is going to run these guys down to get their boyfriend reelected, no matter what. Let's stop helping them.
As Milton Friedman said, "It's nice to elect the right people, but that isn't the way you solve things. The way you solve things is by making it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing."
We're going to elect the wrong person. We always were - they're politicians, after all. Let's devote more energy to nudging them all in the right direction and less to tearing them down over stupid stuff. more...
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— Gabriel Malor Maybe Santorum should get points for flip-flopping in the right direction sometimes?
He voted NO on raising the minimum wage in 1995 and 2005. But on the same day he voted NO in 2005, he sponsored an amendment that would increase the minimum wage, which he later boasted about to skeptical voters in a 2006 campaign brochure he released called “50 Things You Didn’t Know About Rick Santorum.”He displayed similar duplicity on ethanol. In early 2011, Santorum said, “Prior to 9/11, I was not a big fan of ethanol subsidies, but 2001 change[d] my mind on a lot of things, and one of them was trying to support domestic energy and this is part of it."
The evidence does show that Santorum was opposed to ethanol before 9/11. Twice, in 1997 and 1998, Santorum voted to end ethanol subsidies. And the evidence also shows that, at times, he was supportive of an ethanol mandate after 9/11. But in 2005, Santorum voted to end the ethanol mandate. If the original flip-flop was a principled stand taken by Santorum because of national security concerns, weÂ’re at a loss to explain this flip-flop-flip-again vote.
CFG notes similar "duplicity" on the GAS Act, which I wrote about on Tuesday, and on SarbOx.
On the other hand, for some issues it seems like Santorum's heart is in the right place. He just lets his principles slip a little when he's running for election:
An examination of his scores in the NTU rating of Congress shows that Santorum compiled a very strong record on taxes and spending in the first four years of each of his two Senate terms, then a sharp swing to below the Senate Republican average in the Congress before his reelection campaign. In the 2003-2004 session of Congress, Santorum sponsored or cosponsored 51 bills to increase spending, and failed to sponsor or co-sponsor even one spending cut proposal. In his last Congress (2005-2006), he had one of the biggest spending agendas of any Republican -- sponsoring more spending increases than Republicans Lisa Murkowski, Lincoln Chafee and Thad Cochran or Democrats Herb Kohl, Evan Bayh and Ron Wyden.
Lisa Murkowski? Lincoln Chafee? Eesh.
CFG's bottom line:
As president, Santorum would most likely lead the country in a pro-growth direction, but his record contains more than a few weak spots that make us question if he would resist political expediency when it comes to economic issues.
He was a go-along-to-get-along Beltway senator. It's not unreasonable to expect him to be a go-along-to-get-along Beltway president.
Posted by: Gabriel Malor at
03:26 AM
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— Gabriel Malor Happy Friday, at last! Some items:
A new poll has Sen. Scott Brown pulling ahead of Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts.
Amazon has surpassed Samsung as the No. 2 tablet-seller in the world. Apple is still tops, though it's lead is shrinking.
The NHTSA's new guidelines for cars nix touchscreen, interactive dashboard devices while the car is on the move.
That's all I got. Have a great weekend.
UPDATE: WaPo profiles the Romney-obsessive behind the recent spate of Mormon baptism stories.
Oh, and one more: Rep. Maxine Waters demonizes Leader Cantor and Speaker Boehner. Literally.
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02:50 AM
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February 16, 2012
— Maetenloch
A thought for our times...
If
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!
- Rudyard Kipling
[And yes I know this breaks my own no-poetry-on-the-ONT rule - I'm sending ace $20 for an indulgence]
more...
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05:59 PM
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— Ace She didn't actually say she was "standing with her fellow Catholics" this time, as she claimed last time -- but the rest of it is accurate enough.
By the way: cost of the birth control pill, per month: $9
Cost of the morning after pill: $20-30
This is about sparing workers those costs, huh?
And here's the world's most boring question: Will the Maine Twins defect from the GOP on the mandate?
I don't really think this is a question. Of course they will.
After Obama's "compromise"...
“It appears that changes have been made that provide women’s health services without compelling Catholic organizations in particular to violate the beliefs and tenets of their faith,” Snowe said.Collins made a similar statement: “While I will carefully review the details of the president’s revised proposal, it appears to be a step in the right direction.”
Snowe, by the way, has been introducing contraception-coverage mandates for years -- with no exemption for religious organizations or conscience objectors.
So.
Not a hard one, huh?
By the way, in that case, absolutely, primary them out. At that point, if they can't even show up for an easy vote, what good are they? None.
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