I've been wondering how the MBM would spin thee rise gas prices to protect Obama and if it's anything like this piece from Daniel Gross, "economics editor at Yahoo! Finance", it's going to be a long, long campaign.

Here's a taste.

..the U.S. economy is better situated to handle higher gas prices than it was last year, four years ago, or ten years ago. The upshot: higher gas prices are going to hurt, and will be painful for many. But they won't torpedo the economy.

For a host of reasons, the world's largest consumer of gasoline is much less likely to be the victim of high gas prices than it was a few years ago. Here's why.

First, compared with 2007 and 2008, corporate and personal balance sheets are in much better shape, and hence better able to absorb rising costs.

...

... the U.S. is a bigger producer of oil than it was a few years ago. Oil consumption is in many ways a zero-sum game: more money spent by consumers on gasoline means more money going into the pockets of oil producers — most of them overseas.

...

...Americans simply drive less, and use less gas, than they used to. Part of that can be ascribed to the fact that employment remains far below the 2007 peak. But on the aggregate, the U.S. economy has figured out how to move more good and people around while driving fewer miles and using less gas.

...

...more people have alternatives to driving than did four years ago. When gas prices rise, ridership of mass transit usually rises in its traditional strongholds like New York, Washington, and Boston. But in the last several years, light rail systems have opened and expanded in many states. And that means more people around the country have alternatives to driving.

...

This is not to say that rising gas prices won't pinch the budgets of many Americans, or that they won't filter into the economy via higher prices for services and fuel surcharges. They will. But given the changing shape of the U.S. economy over the last several years, the damage is likely to be less severe.

I'm not going to Fisk all of this pile of nonsense and Obama talking points because well, there are only so many hours in the day. But think about this:

Who really thinks that personal balance sheets are better off today than they were in 07 and 08?

Higher production...ok, some of us even want more domestic oil production. In fact if some of us ("us" being "not Democrats") had our way 10 years ago, lots more production would be coming online right about...now (according the schedule the liberals gave us ten years ago).

If people could afford it, either because they had more money or gas was cheaper they'd drive more, they always do in good times.

More mass transit? Hey congratulations to those folks in deep blue Democratic cities who won't be hit by higher gas prices but you yokels out in the country? Well good luck with that!

Light rail? Yeah, that's pretty much right out of the Obama State of the Union speech.

So in short, thanks to the miracles that have happened in "the last several years", which just happened to be the same time as Obama has been in office, higher gas prices aren't a problem. Anyone who says otherwise must just be a partisan hack or a racist.

Related enough: Obama gave an energy speech in New Hampshire today (which just happens to be a state he needs in November but it was an official trip so we get to pay for it). He said drilling wasn't the answer because of increasing demand from places like China.

What kind of idiot do you have to be to think that increasing supply isn't a legitimate response to an increase in demand?

Posted by: DrewM at 12:33 PM | Comments (268)
Post contains 671 words, total size 4 kb.

I'll have a few on your behalf.

Posted by: Ace at 12:12 PM | Comments (145)
Post contains 13 words, total size 1 kb.

Andrew Breitbart died today. But he took David Frum's last shred of credibility with him.

In fact, it’s hard even to use the word “issues” in connection with Andrew Breitbart. He may have used the words “left” and “right,” but it’s hard to imagine what he ever meant by those words. He waged a culture war minus the “culture,” as a pure struggle between personalities. Hence his intense focus on President Obama: only by hating a particular political man could Breitbart bring any order to his fundamentally apolitical emotions.

Because President Obama was black, and because Breitbart believed in using every and any weapon at hand, Breitbart’s politics did inevitably become racially coded. Breitbart’s memory will always be linked to his defamation of Shirley Sherrod and his attempt to make a national scandal out of back payments to black farmers: the story he always called “Pigford” with self-conscious resonance.

Yet it is wrong to see Breitbart as racially motivated. Had Breitbart decided he hated a politician whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, Breitbart would have been just as delighted to attack that politicians with a different set of codes. The attack was everything, the details nothing.

...

And this is where it becomes difficult to honor the Roman injunction to speak no ill of the dead. It’s difficult for me to assess Breitbart’s impact upon American media and American politics as anything other than poisonous. When one of the leading media figures of the day achieves his success by his giddy disdain for truth and fairness—when one of our leading political figures offers to his admirers a politics inflamed by rage and devoid of ideas—how to withhold a profoundly negative judgment on his life and career?

Especially when that career was so representative of his times?

We live in a time of political and media demagoguery unparalleled since the 19th century. Many of our most important public figures have gained their influence and power by inciting and exploiting the ugliest of passions—by manipulating fears and prejudices—by serving up falsehoods as reported truth. In time these figures will one by one die. What are we to say of this cohort, this group, this generation? That their mothers loved them? That their families are bereaved? That their fans admired them and their employees treated generously by them? Public figures are inescapably judged by their public actions. When those public actions are poisonous, the obituary cannot be pleasant reading.

We shall say of them that their legacy consists of more than three words -- "Axis," "of," and "Evil."

We shall say of them that they were warriors, and not bitter Vichyites mourning their loss of -- loss of? was it ever even possessed? -- relevance and reach.

From the dawn of time the primitives in the woods envied and feared those with the Magic of Fire.

David Frum exceeded Andrew Breitbart in one measure only, span of life.

But not in life.

David Frum will die as he lived, gray, timid, small, spiteful, cramped in thought and bent in spirit, slender of talent and obese in self-regard, unloved, unnoticed, unremembered and unread.

Better to live outrageously for only a short spell than to hiss from the shadows, content to live within the niggling license of Master's Leash.

If Andrew Were Alive... and I mentioned to him that David Frum had lit into him, I have to imagine he'd say, "Who now?"

I'd then say "oh, he's been making his rent off of 'Axis of Evil' for ten years," and Andrew would say, "Oh, okay. I liked the 'of.' "

"The Man in the Arena." A commenter recalls his TR.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

What was truly charismatic about Breitbart was his never-ending enthusiasm and energy. He spoke fast because he thought fast. He changed topics quickly because he had six or seven plans in mind at any one time.

He actually did things. He was instinctual. Athletes cannot afford the deliberation of thought. They move by instinct and training and muscle memory. They act.

Why did Breitbart sign a lease for a pricey townhouse in DC? Because, he said, "it feels mischievous." It felt mischievous to establish and Embassy of citizen empowerment in the capital of statist overreach.

He had ten plans a month. He accomplished five of them a month. He acted.

He took over the Weiner press conference because it felt like something he ought to do.

He was brazen. He was bold. The right had no more enthusiastic champion and the left had no more implacable foe.

On the other hand there's David Frum.

He writes blog-posts for a liberal rag which doesn't even get published on paper. His most notable "conservative" colleague at this very non-prestigious posting is Meghan McCain, who's primary mission in life to prove that Rick Santorum spoke too charitably when demeaning the value of college.

Breitbart was a busy man. If his heart did not kill him, one day an airplane mishap would. He was constantly on planes, rallying the troops in this city or that. Agitating. Moving. Changing. Persuading. Defending. Attacking. Rebutting. Remaking.

On the other hand, as I say, there's David Frum.

As I type this, Breitbart is more alive than David Frum has ever been.

I doubt very much that will change as the years march on.

It is the nature of the rat to envy the lion.

We should not fault the rat overly for this. For what else can the rat do?

But we should say that there are lions, and there are rats. And they are easily distinguishable.

And they are as different from each other as the sun is from the mirror that reflects it.

Scavengers have their place. They serve a function.

But scavengers know their place.

And scavengers only challenge the lion when it lies, safely, dead.

Breitbart had two things that men envy: Guts, and drive.

I almost can't blame Frum for resenting Breitbart for having balls.

I resented Breitbart for having such balls. It's natural to resent your betters.

It is, however, an embarrassment to commit petty jealousies to print.

David Frum had a revelation today.

But sometimes it is wiser to conceal than to reveal.

Posted by: Ace at 10:41 AM | Comments (629)
Post contains 1185 words, total size 7 kb.

The First Amendment? Never heard of it, must be an internet thing.

The Senate voted 51-48 to kill the amendment, which was offered by Senate Republican Minority Leader Roy Blunt of Missouri as an add-on to the transportation funding bill. Blunt and fellow Republicans cast the amendment as a fight to protect First Amendment rights (which include the freedom of religion.) Prior to the vote, Blunt argued that the language should be deemed noncontroversial by his colleagues, stating on the Senate floor that every member of the Senate, barring some of the most recently elected members, "have voted for bills that have this language in them."

...

The future of Thursday's amendment in the closely-divided Senate hung on decisions from a handful of Senate centrists. Retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine voted with the majority of Democrats to table the amendment, while three centrist Democrats-- Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska-- crossed party lines to vote with Republicans in favor of the amendment.

I think it's important to fight for religious freedom but I think making a stand there concedes too much ground from the start. Why in the world is the federal government in the business of telling insurance companies what has to be included in their policies? Oh right...ObamaCare. We need to be careful that we don't win the religious exemption fight only to be left holding the bag on freedom infringements that have nothing to do with religion.

As for the Democrats "argument" that this is about "women's rights" that's insane. Women have the right to the pill, they simply don't have the right to expect others to pay for it.

Sometimes I think conservatives get too hung up on the fight of the moment and the battle right in front of us while losing sight of the bigger war...government encroachment on freedom. We need to fight the immediate fights but we should always tie it to the larger war.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:38 AM | Comments (199)
Post contains 354 words, total size 2 kb.

...from just three weeks ago.

This is horrible.

"Right now, my twitter feed is already calling me a big fat homosexual.

"Hello Children at home. No, your dad's not gay. That's just how the left rolls."

"Because they've held over our heads, with contempt, the false narrative of their innate tolerance. The least intolerant people you'll ever meet, I know it, I live it every day, and I retweet it [I republish their hateful remarks so they have a wider audience] to remind them I know exactly who they are."

This guy collects some of the hateful dance-on-your-grave tweets from the left.

I was just making the point on Twitter that even in death, especially in death, the left makes Andrew Breitbart's case for him. They never seemed to understand that while the right is his audience, the left itself is his most potent ally -- they prove everything he says with each hateful remark, each "ur a fag why don't you get AIDS and die" tweet.

The left makes all of his arguments for him. All Breitbart had to do was add two letters: "RT" [re-tweet].

The left had a chance to prove Andrew Breitbart wrong today.

Instead, they proved him right. Even in death, Andrew Breitbart makes the stupid hate-bag puppets dance for his amusement, and for ours.

I thought at first his death was a punking. In a way, it is. He continues punking the left into exposing exactly what it is.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 08:34 AM | Comments (322)
Post contains 240 words, total size 2 kb.

Posted by: Ace at 07:29 AM | Comments (213)
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.

Awful news.

Andrew passed away unexpectedly from natural causes shortly after midnight this morning in Los Angeles.

We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior.

Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love.

Update - The best tribute I can think of at the moment:

[Update - Andy] Greg Gutfeld

I met Andrew Breitbart in 2005 when I was asked to write for the Huffingtpon Post. He was running the show. Everyone who knew him - left and right - said he was brilliant, eccentric, one of a kind. I instantly fell in love with the guy. To this day, i've never met anyone as fearless. He was my first guest on Redeye, a show I got largely because he told people about me. He became a cheerleader for my work, but more important, a dear close friend I could confide in, about anything. My wife called him the wizard, for he could conjure up anything at any time with limitless energy.

He's the only person I know who operated without a safety net. He always knew things would turn out the way they were supposed to - so he didn't worry about money or, i guess, his health, too much.

He was the spiritual leader of the modern conservative, libertarian cause. He was immersed in pop culture and wished to drag the right into the modern world - knowing this is how America speaks to the world. He was the heart of the matter. The fighter. Losing him is like a fiery planet going dark.

My heart felt condolences go out to Susie and the kids.

(h/t Jay in Ames)

Posted by: Slublog at 05:12 AM | Comments (874)
Post contains 305 words, total size 2 kb.

Happy Thursday.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:53 AM | Comments (174)
Post contains 10 words, total size 1 kb.