A little over a year into a failed presidency and the Democrats already know who is at fault...everyone else. They do this by ignoring the year* they had a 60 vote super-majority in the Senate (something that only disappeared when they managed to lose the seat held by Democrats for over 50 years) or the overwhelming House majority they still enjoy. No, like a child looking to deflect blame for their failure to 'remake' America as Obama promised, they claim to have not have had enough power to overcome 'special interests' 'Fox News' and of course, those pesky 'people'.

Citing the Reagan and Clinton presidencies, Charles Krauthammer takes the, um, hammer to their claims that this some how proves America is now "ungovernable".

It turned out that the country's problems were not problems of structure but of leadership. Reagan and Clinton had it. Carter didn't. Under a president with extensive executive experience, good political skills and an ideological compass in tune with the public, the country was indeed governable.

It's 2010, and the first-year agenda of a popular and promising young president has gone down in flames. Barack Obama's two signature initiatives -- cap-and-trade and health-care reform -- lie in ruins.

Desperate to explain away this scandalous state of affairs, liberal apologists haul out the old reliable from the Carter years: "America the Ungovernable." So declared Newsweek. "Is America Ungovernable?" coyly asked the New Republic. Guess the answer.

The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model, while America flails about under its "two parties . . . with their duel-to-the-death paralysis." The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system.

Yet, what's new about any of these supposedly ruinous structural impediments? Special interests blocking policy changes? They have been around since the beginning of the republic -- and since the beginning of the republic, strong presidents, like the two Roosevelts, have rallied the citizenry and overcome them.

Liberals never admit they are wrong or that the majority simply rejects their ideas. It's simultaneously childlike in it's refusal to take responsibility and dangerous in that their answer is always to change the rules to give them even greater power to do what they want.

Ask a die hard lefty about the failure of socialism and communism everywhere it's been tried and they will simply tell you it's never really been tried as intended. The Soviet Union, Cuba, China (before going capitalist) really weren't pure enough examples for them. Give them one more chance, a little more power, a little higher body count and they will usher in utopia!

Obama isn't failing because conservatives lie or cheat. Obama is failing because he's an ideologue who wrapped his hard left agenda in a gauzy film of Hope and Change. Now that people have gotten a look at what it really means they are rejecting it.

Unfortunately for liberals, this system of checks and balances is a feature, not a bug of the American system.

*As Zimrel points out in the comments, the Democrats only had 59 votes until July when Franken was seated. Two things...59 votes is a lot and other than the 'stimulus' (which passed) the big ticket items like health care and Cap and Trade weren't ready for votes until after Franken took his seat. They still couldn't get it done.

Rogue Regime [ace]: As Drew mentioned, the filibuster is singled out as a villain in most of these pieces.

The implication is that the filibuster is an anti-democratic gimmick that thwarts the will of the people.

It may be an anti-democratic gimmick, but note that in this case it certainly does not thwart the will of the people -- by majorities often approaching 60%, the people say they don't want ObamaCare.

So what they are really complaining of is that there is a procedural hurdle in the Senate that is keeping Obama and the liberals from passing into law a bill that the public loathes.

Does that make any sense? They call America "ungovernable" and blame the filibuster (among other things), despite the fact that the filibuster is being used on behalf of the majority of voters to advance their actual agenda (or rather halt a bill that is contrary to their agenda).

America isn't ungovernable. Lacking responsive and responsible governance from the accidental power the Democrats have, America has chosen to govern itself, via the only levers of power over its rogue government it has left.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:55 AM | Comments (171)
Post contains 810 words, total size 5 kb.

Its sure looking like it is.

...Tandja first took power in democratic elections in 1999 that followed an era of coups and rebellions. But instead of stepping down as mandated by law on Dec. 22, he triggered a political crisis by pushing through a new constitution last August that removed term limits and gave him near-totalitarian powers...

...Tandja claims he is only pushing to stay in power because his people have demanded it...

Let's see if foggy bottom gets this one right, or more likely, sides with the deposed would be dictator for life. Being comprised of mostly dictators, defacto dictators, and corrupt kleptocrats, the African Union has of course condemned the coup.

So far, the anti-dictator forces have keep the former dictator alive, which historically is a grave mistake. D. J. Goodspeed examined the characteristics of successful and failed coups in The Conspirators: A Study of the Coup D'Etat and allowing the deposed to live to mount opposition, make international appeals and such, frequently results in failure of the coup. With the deposed taking a dirt nap, coups have a much better chance of being presented, and accepted, as done deals. After a modest period of grousing and bitching, the international diplomatic community moves on and accepts the new reality when return to the old reality is physically impossible.

Q: Is this "new crew" any better than the old crew?
A: That remains to be seen.

Q: Why should we care about this coup one way or the other?
A: One word - U.R.A.N.I.U.M. Niger has lots of Uranium ore and hasn't been too particular about who they sell it to in the past.

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 07:33 AM | Comments (69)
Post contains 308 words, total size 2 kb.

I can't take it anymore.

I hate the Winter Olympics.

The one important moment they have spawned in the last 30 years (The Team USA's "Miracle on Ice" victory over the Commies) is just barely worth the 1000's of hours devoted to televising men in sequined unitards skating to contemporary versions of classical music.

I mean, c'mon. Sure the Ancient Greeks were pretty effeminate too, but I think even they would draw the line at giving out medals to an international assortment of men's ice dancers.

Which means, that in order to balance the unfortunate number of wimpy Winter Olympics posts this blog has seen in recent days, I have to put up a post about a real, red blooded, American sporting event: The Daytona 500.

Now, that is an event! And this year's 500 more so than ever.

Why?

5 words: Sarah Palin and Richard Petty.

(Additional Daytona images available at Palin's facebook page). more...

Posted by: Jack M. at 07:00 AM | Comments (255)
Post contains 401 words, total size 3 kb.

First two general notes on the OlympicsÂ….

The US is kicking ass. Right now the US leads in the medal count with 15 total and lead in number of events won (5 Gold, 4 Silver, 6 Bronze) compare that to the total of 25 in Turin (9/6/7) and weÂ’re not even a full week into completion.

USA! USA! USA!

Unfortunately, we suck at Curling. Both the men and women are winless having played 4 games each. The men’s team is particularly troubling since they had the chance to win each game on the last shot and the “Skip” John Shuster has blown each one. I enjoy the game and think it’s great it’s the “it” sport but this is America, you have to win or people won’t find it interesting for very long.

Now, the most important sport at the gamesÂ…hockey.

The US played their second game of the tourney and beat Norway 6-1. DonÂ’t be fooled by the score, the game was closer than that. The US scored 3 goals in the last 5:30 of the game when Norway just ran out of gas.

As in the first game there were far too many defensive lapses. Only timely saves by goalie Ryan Miller and a general lack of scoring skill on the Norwegian side kept if from being much of a game.

All is not bleak though, there were some good signs. The top line of Patrick Kane, Paul Statsny and Zach Parise scored a goal. Later in the game it looked like coach Ron Wilson took Kane off that line and moved Jamie Langenbrunner up. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 05:38 AM | Comments (108)
Post contains 1376 words, total size 8 kb.

FRIDAY!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:14 AM | Comments (126)
Post contains 9 words, total size 1 kb.

Likely a teabagging knuckledragger, Robin Dehaven, a window worker who happened to be driving by the building in Austin when that other teabagging right wing hater bombed it, decided to pull up and see if he could help.

Motivated by his deep frustration with the current administration (and likely latent racism), he pulled his ladder off the truck, threw it up to the second story where people were being overcome by smoke, and when unable to talk them through securing it, climbed up the unsecured ladder anyway, made it safe, and helped five people down to safety.

"I held onto their waists and their backs so they wouldn't fall if they slipped," he said.

Said the former US Army Combat Engineer and tool of the Bush administration.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 06:14 PM | Comments (120)
Post contains 143 words, total size 1 kb.

Happy Thursday M&Ms. For those of you in the SoCal area don't forget about the LA Moron meetup this Saturday.

So Which Countries Take in Refugees?
Here's a chart showing the number of refugees per 1000 inhabitants that each country takes in. Surprisingly the US is rather low - Canada and the UK take in almost 5x as many refugees proportionately. And Sweden and Norway accept almost 10x as many refugees which explains some of the social problems they have. There's probably an optimal level of immigration where immigrants aren't so few that they're completely isolated but not so numerous that they can retreat to their native language-speaking ethnic neighborhoods.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:33 PM | Comments (637)
Post contains 353 words, total size 4 kb.

Well, no man who has ever enjoyed the intimate company of a member of the opposite sex, I suppose. Or perhaps even of the same sex. I mean, we're talking straight up virgins only on this trip, yo.

I speak, of course, of going tothe following discussion thread currently burning up the interwebs over at the New Scientist. It was forwarded to me by someone who said "don't you dare attribute this to me" so I won't.

(That Salem check better clear, Allahpundit.)

I kid..It wasn't really Allahpundit who tipped me to this. I promise.

Anyway, the topic of such heated discussion? Whether Captain Kirk and crew would be instantly killed by radiation from hydrogen atoms should the Enterprise actually achieve warp speed. The short answer? Yes. Yes they would.

I tried to read the article, but I had a hard time getting thru the correction made at the beginning of the article. Did you ever think you would see a correction that looked like this in a kinda prominent science magazine?

Update: An earlier version of this story referred to the Borg using cloaking technology, which several readers pointed out is not supported by televisual evidence. Of course, we were speculating on the technology existing in the alternate universe created by J. J. Abrams. However, to avoid confusion we have amended the decloaking reference to cite the Romulans.

Damn that lack of televisual evidence! Seriously though, wouldn't you like to read the emails from people pissed off enough about this to write in and complain? I bet some of them are real fun at parties, in an I'm Dr. Amy Bishop! kinda way.

Anyway, i really have very little to add to this discussion. I just figured some of you morons would get off on this subject. And that you might be able to help me do some detective work.

Because I know that Ace has probably commented several times in the 383 comments posted to date. I'm setting the over under at 17. Think you can help me find them all?

Posted by: Jack M. at 02:24 PM | Comments (266)
Post contains 357 words, total size 2 kb.

The Teabaggers, whose beliefs could come right from a Tea Party poster, were part of a Muslim, I mean Arabic, translating unit, and are alleged to have attempted to poison their fellow soldiers, as Teabaggers tend to do, when they're teabagging.

Let's just call Iran's mullahs Teabaggers while we're at it.

Posted by: Ace at 02:19 PM | Comments (133)
Post contains 73 words, total size 1 kb.

Via Twitter.

From Dave in Texas.

Just like a Teabagger, huh?

Posted by: Ace at 02:10 PM | Comments (42)
Post contains 35 words, total size 1 kb.