BarackObama Barack Obama
Are you hosting a #SOTU2012 watch party? Get your cameras ready and send us your best pics—we can’t wait to see them.
13 minutes ago Favorite Undo Retweet Reply

BarackObama Barack Obama
If you're not headed out to a house party, you can watch the President's State of the Union live at 9pm ET here: OFA.BO/Bdr8Eg

I'm sure the 2.6 million new entrants to the ranks of poverty will be blowing balloons for ya.

And I'm sure it'll filled with fantastic moments like this, in 2010:

Socialism and Tyranny, A Terrific Combination: Kind of like a Martin and Lewis reunion. I was never happy about their previous work together, and I'm not looking forward to the new shit.

Old Dennis Miller joke about the reunification of the Germanys.

Here are some snippets leaked:

BreakingNews Excerpt from State of the Union: Keeping promise of fair economic shot for all is `defining issue of our time' - AP

TheFix "I intend to fight obstruction with action." Obama #sotu excerpt.

More:

"As long as I'm president, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.

No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last -- an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values."

Thanks to Miss80sBaby.

Posted by: Ace at 01:27 PM | Comments (368)
Post contains 314 words, total size 2 kb.

Back in 1979.

Wait, Uhura was fourth in command?

No. I never got the sense of that at all.

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (85)
Post contains 35 words, total size 1 kb.

This isn't an attack on Newt; don't take it that way. I am making no point about Newt here; of course the media will do this to any Republican.

The publication date of this issue was December 19, 1994, one month after the Republican Revolution gave the GOP the majority in Congress, but weeks before they'd actually take the gavel.

But they want you to know they're nonbiased, nonpartisan. They just call pitches and strikes like an umpire without fear or favoritism.

Peter Jennings talked about the American public having thrown a "temper tantrum."

And the liberal media? Any temper-tantrum of their own, perhaps?

Yeah you're doin' just fine, MFM.

I got this from Geraghty, whose article is, in fact, anti-Newt, in as much as it discusses something his supporters don't want to discuss, his high negatives.

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (174)
Post contains 139 words, total size 1 kb.

Damn Yankees.

Baltimore Ravens kicking consultant Randy Brown told Angelo Cataldi and The Morning Team today on 94 WIP that the scoreboard in New England was incorrect during that final drive. “The scoreboard was one down behind, the entire last three plays, from what we understand,” Brown said. That caused Billy Cundiff to have to rush on to the field with just seconds left on the play clock to try and make the kick, which he missed.

When Cataldi asked Brown if he thought the Patriots did it it on purpose to gain an advantage, Brown replied, “I don’t think you can rule anything out in New England, can you?”

[Update - Andy (transplanted Masshole)]:

Newt vs. Mitt? Pfft!

Posted by: Ace at 11:53 AM | Comments (232)
Post contains 141 words, total size 1 kb.

Romney, 15%.

Biden, of course, has given literally hundreds of dollars in a year.

You see, they don't have to give money to charity; they breathe and shit charity.

Posted by: Ace at 11:15 AM | Comments (267)
Post contains 41 words, total size 1 kb.

Apparently. I assume that because the media told me so, by failing to even note it occurred.

Since they covered the tens of dozens of Mostly Peaceful Occupiers every hour, I assume no one at all showed up for the March for Life. Or, at least, no more than six, tops.

Nah, they're not biased.

Posted by: Ace at 10:40 AM | Comments (157)
Post contains 75 words, total size 1 kb.

Newt skipping debates? Unlikely.

Headline Correction: Commenters say the NYT and Drudge headlines are misleading- - Newt never said a word about not showing up for debates. In fact, he did not say a word about that. I have changed the headline accordingly.

He did turn an argument about preserving a strategic advantage for himself into a an attack on the elites:

“I wish in retrospect I’d protested when Brian Williams took them out of it because I think it’s wrong,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”

...

Mr. Gingrich clearly noticed something was off, too. “We’re going to serve notice on future debates,” he told Fox. “The media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be allowed to applaud if they want to.”

Over at his blog, Drew argues that Newt would be the most electable candidate.

Gingrich's stuff like this -- the free speech rights of an audience (do they have the right to heckle? do mic-check stunts?) -- seems kind of transparent to me. Sort of shamelessly bombastic.

Not Implied: Ed Morrissey says that skipping the debates is implied:

eople are complaining that the original headline is misleading. I’ve changed it to narrowly fit what Gingrich said, but what was the obvious interpretation of “serv[ing] notice”? Was it that Gingrich would demand audience participation but take no action if the debate moderators didn’t comply? What about that is “serv[ing] notice”?

Nah, it's not, because there is an obvious alternative. Newt could simply ignore the first question and deliver an argument that the audience should cheer if they like, and attack the media for attempting to control them, and lay down his own rule that they should cheer.

And then, of course, he'd be cheered.

And then, of course, the rule would be inoperative due to open mockery of it.

I would say skipping the debates might be implied if and only if there were no other possible way to "serve notice."

But there is. An obvious one.

Posted by: Ace at 09:20 AM | Comments (376)
Post contains 388 words, total size 3 kb.

I heard a story which has made me wonder about what other baffling, inappropriate, or demented things people had heard from interviewees trying to put the old best foot forward.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:48 AM | Comments (273)
Post contains 117 words, total size 1 kb.

He supports a "variation" of it, but it's not really even a variation: His idea is that you're required to pay for health insurance, or post a big bond (your money, but you can't touch it, as it's held as a bond) to cover any potential health care costs you might encounter.

Presumably, if you refused to do that, you'd be fined... which is just the individual mandate. The only "variation" here is that Gingrich would allow very wealth self-insurers to post a bond in lieu of buying insurance.

Fine. Whatever.

Just don't tell me that Romney would merely "manage the decay" of the big government social welfare state while Gingrich would "fundamentally" shake it up.

As I've said before, the dominant strain of thinking in the past couple of decades was neoconservatism, which was proposing alternate solutions (preferably without as much government involvement) to the liberal checklist of problems that needed to be addressed.

Gingrich was and still is a big neocon. So was and is Romney.

Now since then, this style of "solution" has been greatly criticized by many conservatives as being, fundamentally, part of the problem.

But if you can overlook one you can overlook the other.

Oh, right: Except Gingrich, in the past several months, apparently discovered he'd been wrong for twenty years about this. more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:27 AM | Comments (246)
Post contains 239 words, total size 2 kb.

Via Hot Air, Romney's fundamental lack of political skill is catching up with him:

Ya know, for a long, long time I was saying "Romney's not as electable as people seem to think." With Rick Perry out (bad call on that, GOP), I had to pick from the rest, and I thought that of the rest, Romney was the most electable.

But he's not really a good politician. Never has been. Someone more invested than I can spin that in a positive way ("Hey, that just shows he's not good at huckstering people") but it's a drawback in politics.

Huckstering people is, after all, what politics is all about. Some people are good at it; some people aren't. The ones who aren't we called "would-be candidates" or "former politicians."

Jonah Goldberg has been thinking about this.

As IÂ’ve been writing for a very long time, Romney has an authentic inauthenticity problem. In other words, he seems like heÂ’s faking things even when heÂ’s not. He may take positions he doesnÂ’t hold in his heart, but all politicians do that. The problem is that the vast majority of the time heÂ’s no more passionate or convincing about the positions he almost surely does hold in his heart.

On the Ben Howe podcast, a few weeks back, Ben Howe asked me if I thought Romney would get away with something -- some crude attack he'd made, or something. I said, "Of course not; Romney can't get away with anything."

By which I meant he always seems like he's hiding something -- even when he's probably not. I called this strange property of Romney's a type of "anti-charisma."

Bill Clinton had charisma. He could convince people he had their best interests at heart when he was actually just scheming how to deceive them.

Romney has a vibe where even when I think he's on the level, he seems like he's keeping something from me. I think it's a "seems" thing, most of the time. He just doesn't seem comfortable.

Maybe it's some kind of Winner's Guilt, where he's constantly aware of his own prosperity and success and possible resentments thereof, so that air of discomfort he projects is our sensing of him constantly analyzing his own performance and wondering how it's coming off-- which gets perceived as showing dishonesty, because that's what we usually attribute excessive caution and calibration as meaning.

I thought Romney had his best performance at that first South Carolina debate, though I didn't say so, because I still thought Rick Perry was our best candidate and didn't want to call out Romney for having done especially well.

But his best moment came, for me, when he admitted, pretty honestly, that SuperPACs were a scam the law was pushing everyone towards, and he would rather do without the scam.

Although, on a policy level, I agreed with him, about undoing this nonsense system that Mr. Integrity John McCain had insisted on, what I liked about that was that he seemed honest. He didn't seem like he was bullshitting me. He was saying, "Yes, I've got these people who formed this PAC, and I think it's a scam, but the law says I have to do this, so I'm doing it."

Another one of Romney's problems -- if I had to guess -- is that he's a very Type-A, very organized personality type, and he does most things very well. And sometimes with people like that, they wind up being excessively defensive -- they're not used to losing, or erring, or just screwing up, and don't have the ability to easily just acknowledge errors. (See Romney's defense of RomneyCare; he just couldn't admit it was an error.)

And the problem isn't restricted to the "has problem admitting errors" part. The problem goes deeper, because that sort of person becomes very uncomfortable in their bad moments, jangly and prickly with defensiveness and a controlled hostility, and human beings feel that, and have an unpleasant feeling themselves.

I don't even know what I'd advise him, because the advice I'd offer -- "You know how you are? Yeah, be someone else entirely" -- is just silly.

Eh.

A final problem is that no one seriously examines their errors and miscalculations while they are still limping along. A football team doesn't fundamentally re-examine its assumptions, for example, after a three-point loss, or after a 7-9 season.

Romney is doing just well enough to justify keeping on with the same basic act. Alas, for him, and for us.

I can see no possible solution to our problems except:

Let's get Rick Perry back on the ballot.

(I'm kidding about that; he's done.)

Posted by: Ace at 06:36 AM | Comments (331)
Post contains 792 words, total size 5 kb.