Or, 40 million fewer people approve of Obama now…*
One of the sites I check every morning, just because I’m that much of a political nerd, is Rasmussen Reports to see what Obama’s approval rating is on their daily tracking poll. Some big news from the release this morning:
Overall, 56% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance so far while 43% disapprove.
That 56/43 split is the worst for Obama since the inauguration. Pollster.com’s average has Obama dipping below 60% for the first time since taking office today as well.
I guess this is what happens when unnaturally high expectations collide with reality. Welcome back to earth, Obama supporters.
*At his high water mark, Rasmussen had 69% of Americans approving of Obama. A decline of 13 percent of Americans is roughly 40 million people.
UPDATE: Thanks to Max’s posting of this awesome chart from Pollster.com, we can see at 56% that Obama is now less popular than Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, Bush 41, and Bush 43 were at this point in their Presidencies.
So you can’t afford food, but you can buy a cellphone? Good to know our tax dollars are hard at work helping to buy cellphones for deadbeats like this.
On a side note, I’m sure the media is devastated that Michelle Obama covered her arms. Dry your eyes Jack Cafferty.
Jonathan Krohn, the 14-year old firebrand author who spoke at CPAC, has been all over the media. An incredible speaker, and obviously highly intelligent, Krohn is a very articulate defender of conservatism. He’s bound to become a powerful politician and/or radio talk show host and commentator. It’d be interesting to see if the audience of this site, which primarily consists of conservatives (I’m more of a centrist who hasn’t found his political identity) believes this is the sort of voice that’s needed in the future.
Click here for Krohn’s CPAC speech.
Click here for a follow-up interview.
There’s also a great interview/debate with Krohn on the Thom Hartmann Program that I listened to but I can’t find the link.
I must admit that the whole “Is Rush Limbaugh the Leader of the Republican Party?” dust-up rather confuses me. I can hardly think of a less relevant topic at this point in time — or such an incredibly dumb one, for that matter. Who cares? Why are the president’s press secretary and the media so obsessed with Rush Limbaugh? The Democrats control the presidency, the House, and the Senate, and have a broad public mandate — and they’re spending political capital…attacking a radio talk show host?
Well, regardless, the main line of attack seems to be two-fold.
The first is that Limbaugh is the de facto “leader” of the GOP because prominent Republicans such as Michael Steele and Mark Sanford have publicly backtracked on tactless statements that they’ve made that were critical of Rush. But since when does an apology constitute evidence that the person being apologized to commands some sort of leadership power? Quite frankly, the remarks by both Steele and Sanford were both off-base — Steele’s (Rush’s commentary is “ugly”) because he, as RNC Chairman, shouldn’t be commenting on such matters; Sanford’s (“anyone who wants Obama to fail is an idiot”) because he wildly misconstrued what Rush had to say. You know, CNN, sometimes people are genuinely owed an apology. But if being misconstrued by one’s contemporaries is all it takes to become a leader of the GOP, then I want to know where my own wall-to-wall media coverage is, quite frankly.
The second, of course, is Rush’s by-now-famous declaration that he does not want Obama to succeed. I must say that, in an unusual bout of circumstance, I tend to sympathize more with him than with his current center-right detractors. Yes, we want Obama to succeed, but, to paraphrase Ann Coulter during her recent Early Show appearance, that means that we want him to govern conservatively. We know that if he attempts to remake America in a socialist image, it will end in utter ruin, and to that extent, yes, we want him to fail. If it means that he wants to fundamentally change the American economy and expand the government, then no, we do not wish him success. I’m not quite sure how Rush could have better phrased it, and moreover, I’m not quite sure what’s wrong with the statement.
Rush is just partaking in a healthy bit of patriotic dissent, really. Just because a lot of people like to listen to him — sorry, Robert Gibbs, but you just don’t measure up in the public interest department — doesn’t mean that he’s “the leader of the party.” But given that the current alternatives are either fixated on hip-hop summits or are resigned to irrelevance in the Senate (imagine if the consensus was that the public face of the party was Mitch McConnell — then we’d really be in trouble!), I must say that we could probably do worse.
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Alex Knepper can be contacted at apkkib@aol.com
Prolific author and professional conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi is probably best known for his most recent book The Obama Nation and his co-authorship of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth tome Unfit for Command. A favorite of Sean Hannity’s, he was a featured guest at CPAC last weekend and commands a rather large audience, writing for sites such as Human Events Online and WorldNetDaily.
It’s time to purge Mr. Corsi from the ranks of the conservative movement (are you listening, Sean Hannity?).
* Corsi on Catholics: “…Boy buggering in both Islam and Catholicism is okay with the Pope as long as it isn’t reported by the liberal press.”
* Corsi on Hillary Clinton: “Anybody ask why HELLary couldn’t keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not lesbo or anything, is she?”
* Corsi is leading the charge against Obama’s citizenship.
* Corsi has been on the forefront of the North American Union conspiracy movement, penning a best-selling book about it, The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger With Mexico and Canada.
* Corsi has even embraced 9/11 conspiracy theories. Click the link.
Ahem.
Why was this man invited to CPAC? Why is he a regular guest on Sean Hannity’s talk shows? Why is he not resigned to the outer realms of punditry, out in Prison Planet Land? Can someone help me out here? I don’t think that Corsi has ever met a conspiracy theory he didn’t like.
Before we turn our guns on Arlen Specter, it’s time to turn them on Mr. Corsi.
Not sure why there hasn’t been a thread about this yet, but here it is. Sarah Palin appointed a former Planned Parenthood member, Morgan Christen, to the Alaska Supreme Court.
Here’s an article with the relevant facts, which are:
* A list of nominees from which to choose is given to the governor by an independent panel — in other words, Palin did not pluck this woman out of nowhere.
* The list Palin was handed basically boiled down to someone who is staunchly environmentalist — that is, someone who opposes her energy agenda — and Christen, who was once a member of Planned Parenthood.
* Palin ultimately chose Christen, against the wishes of Christian Right groups in Alaska.
* Palin clearly put her energy agenda above abortion in this case.
Not that we do this here at Race42012, but viewing this decision purely through the lens of what the implications are for the presidential race would mean that Palin is (1) Counting on her socially conservative base to stick with her no matter what, and (2) Planning a makeover to attempt to capture the center by embracing pragmatism. She is not dumb; she knows that the Alaska Supreme Court has little say in matters of abortion. Religious conservatives tend not to like any sort of compromise on “the life issue,” though. Can she hold them if she continues to do things like this? Hmm…
It’s Saturday, so it’s time for an open thread.
“Conservatives believe compassion is reaching into their pocket and giving to a person they deem worthy of help. Liberals believe compassion is reaching into a conservative’s pocket and giving to everyone else.”
h/t Me (but I’m almost positive someone else said something like this before…)
Well, at least we can agree on who pays!
The DCCC has launched a petition aimed at Michael Steele and against Rush Limbaugh for his comments regarding Senator Ted Kennedy.
First, both liberal blogs and the DCCC are lying about what Limbaugh said. Take this headline from Huffingtonpost for example:
Limbaugh: Kennedy Will Be Dead By The Time Health Care Bill Passes
Limbaugh’s actual quote was “before it’s all over, it’ll be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care”. Considering the Democrat party’s history of using sick children to help pass SCHIP, I felt this to be a tough, but legitimate critique of their tactics.
This pathetic harping on every word uttered by Rush, and the even more absurd distorting of his actual words is reaching new levels of disgrace.
Most of all, however, it underscores the disturbing wave that has taken over the political world: the deification of Ted Kennedy. This is an egregious and ridiculous phenomenon, one that I was going to overlook considering the man’s health problems, allowing him to fade away gracefully. Unfortunately, the radicals at the DCCC and the blue blogs have made it an impossibility. Their contention is that any negative statements against Senator Kennedy are unpatriotic and should be condemned. Rubbish. Ted Kennedy is a man whose accomplishments are outweighed only by his mistakes, bad judgements, and addictions. He is not a role model or a ‘lion’. He is someone to look at when describing how not to behave upon becoming a senator. He has had more bad moments than good, and the good ones are not nearly worthy of praise. Ted Kennedy believes healthcare will be his legacy, and he is wrong. He already has a legacy, one that is forever linked with Mary Jo Kopechne, and the negligence that led to her death. No amount of fuzzy speeches or glowing tributes will erase that fact. The DCCC can whine all they want, but rewriting history is above their pay grade.
Bill Maher made a number of bigoted comments about Governor Bobby Jindal on his HBO show this evening, including ‘clicking his heels and turning into a cobra’ and another relating to ’7-11′ (a hat tip to Jode Biden no doubt).
This follows liberal radio host Mike Malloy’s ‘Apu’ accent attack on Jindal, as well as the Garafalo/Olbermann attacks on black republicans.
Anyone think Sharpton and Co. will care? NOPE
Link coming soon…
Ok, this is a small thing. Really, it is, if you see it in isolation. The problem is, it smacks of an arrogant assumption of being right, with no need to do anything to verify. I couldn’t see Sec of State Rice making this kind of mistake (ok, she actually speaks Russian, so that’s not really fair). Here’s the quote that really amused me (before I stopped to think about the situation a little more):
Clinton joked to Lavrov: “We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?
“You got it wrong,” said Lavrov, smiling as the two pushed the reset button together before dinner at a Geneva hotel.
He told Clinton the word “Peregruzka” meant “overcharge”, to which Clinton replied: “We won’t let you do that to us.”
They “worked hard to get the right Russian word?” BS. Someone in the State Department who had taken 2 semesters of Russian was asked for the word for “reset,” and either someone screwed up writing it down, or they got the wrong word to begin with. In all of 30 seconds, I was able to google a language translation program, type in “Peregruzka,” and came to the realization that it didn’t mean “reset.” It’s a relatively harmless screwup, however, if you don’t consider the mindset it would take to come up with this in the first place.
What am I talking about? Yes, I get it that, diplomatically, we would really like to have good relations with ALL nations, ESPECIALLY a country as large and influential as Russia. When that other nation is being led by a man who appears intent on re-establishing a world-threatening, totalitarian government with himself at the helm, I’m thinking that’s not going to happen unless we start helping them achieve that goal. Personally, I have no desire for that. We knew that was the kind of thinking we’d get from Pres Obama, so I’m not really surprised.
That’s not really the big issue I have with this, though. What I have the problem with is the message that was sent on a variety of levels. First, it sent the statement “Hey, the US is sorry we made you mad. Please forgive us and let’s be friends!” The problem? We didn’t do anything wrong! It’s a show of weakness to a person who doesn’t respect weakness. Also, it sent the message “Pres Bush was a meanie, and we’re going to take a cheap, low-brow, very public shot at his foreign policy through this simple-minded gesture.”
God help us all if they continue to use foreign policy as a big game from which to take pot shots at Pres Bush.
Arkansas – Blanche Lincoln vs Mike Huckabee – Huck needs to be encouraged to run where he can actually win and help the party overall. Lincoln’s stimulus vote and her shaky stand on Card Check mean Huck can win this one in a walk. Gov. Huckabee wants to president, and if that hope is sincere, than taking out a currently safe Democrat senator is the best way to win over a party that in large part has been reluctant to embrace his candidacy. Word to the wise Mike, get off t.v. and run for senate.
California – Barbara Boxer vs Chuck DeVore – Who needs a pretend action hero? 24-year veteran of the Army National Guard and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore is likely to win the GOP nomination to take on the hapless Boxer. A Whitman/DeVore ballot just might snap CA out of its funk and help them remember when a REAL actor-turned-governor lead the state to prosperity. The soon-to-be 70 year-old Boxer, easily one of the worst senators in congress, should be ripe for the picking as CA’s economy collapses under liberal tax hikes and spending.
Colorado – Michael Bennett vs Bill Owens - The former Colorado Governor is the best candidate we can get, and should do everything we can to encourage the still-popular Owens to help stop his states leftward slide. Bennett has never run for office before and will be ripe for the picking by a long-time pro with a network like Owens’.
Connecticut – Chris Dodd vs Peter Schiff - I know the word is that Kudlow is thinking of running, and Jodi Rell could win a landslide. However, the best bet would be Peter Schiff, the man who was right about our economy all along and who could give the GOP a national voice against Obamanomics with more credibility than anyone out there. The Paulites/Libertarians are already raising money for him, and the rest of the party should join their effort.
Delaware – Biden vacancy – Mike Castle - Castle has been winning state wide in Delaware for years. Despite his age, it is important that Castle take this step to insure the sad nepotism of Joe Biden is not allowed. Its obvious the the lame appointment was made to hold the seat for Beau Biden, and this fact can be exploited. This nepotism has divided the state democrats, and gives Castle the chance to make a huge gain for the party.
Hawaii – Daniel Inouye v Linda Lingle - Inouye is a popular incumbent, however he will also be 86 in 2010 and Linda Lingle, the popular governor, will be term limited. Lingle would start the race behind, but would have a great chance to out-work and out-organize Hawaii’s sacred cow.
Illinois – Roland Burris vs Mark Kirk - Illinois should be ours for the taking. The Blago/Burris pay-to-play should give us this seat hands down, but of course in Illinois, nothing is that simple. With Peter Roskam saying he is not interested, Congressman Kirk is the best bet to be able to overcome the Chicago Machine and deliver Illinois from this sad affair.
Nevada – Harry Reid vs Kenny Guinn - The popular former Nevada governor, who left office with an approval rating of 66%, would be ideal in knocking off the incredibly unpopular Senate Majority Leader. As Reid’s numbers continue to crumble, and with Obama lapdog Dick Durban in the #2 spot, the situation is perfect for a GOP takeover. This will be the primary pick for the GOP and a powerful message to the President and the Democrat party.
New York – Kristen Gillibrand vs George Pataki - The former governor has a proven record at winning in the Empire state, including beating liberal icon Mario Cuomo. Pataki can take advantage of the likely primary challenge Gillibrand will face, expose her for her flip flops upon her appointment, and use his proven track record to win another major seat.
North Dakota – Byron Dorgan vs John Hoeven – Hoeven declined to run in 2008 because of re-election bid, but wouldn’t be up in 2010 and would be the ideal GOP statewide nominee. Hoeven is very popular across the right-leaning state, and despite good numbers for Dorgan, would be the favorite.
Oregon – Ron Wyden vs Gordon Smith – Smith was very narrowly defeated, caught up in the Obama wave, but is still popular in Oregon, and like Chambliss, could benefit greatly with Obama not on the ballot.
Washington – Patty Murray vs Dino Rossi – Rossi has gotten close several times to knocking off Democrats in a very blue state. He was robbed before, and I’m sure they will try again to steal it from him, but I feel Dino is due.
Ohio and Missouri already have strong candidates in Rob Portman and Roy Blunt respectively. In New Hampshire, if we cannot convince Gregg to run again, then I believe John Sununu can make a comeback, benefiting from the Obama-less ballot and the bad economy. Florida is Charlie Crist’s seat for the taking, and all signs seem to point to him running. If not, Marco Rubio seems to be the best of the other candidates, and would give the GOP a young and diverse face.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Newt Gingrich Eyes 2012 Run.
Newt Gingrich is keeping an eye towards 2012, the former speaker of the House told reporters Thursday evening before a speaking engagement at Randolph Macon College.
Gingrich said he and his wife, Callista, “will look seriously and we’ll probably get our family totally engaged, including our two grandchildren, probably in January 2011, and we’ll look seriously at whether or not we think it’s necessary to do it,” he said, according to the Richmond Times Dispatch.
“And if we think it’s necessary we’ll probably do it. And if it isn’t necessary we probably won’t do it,” he said.
At the Feb. 28 annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., Gingrich garnered 10% in a straw poll of potential 2012 candidates. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won—for the third straight year—with 20%, followed by Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal with 14%, Texas Rep. Ron Paul, and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin—both of which received 13%.
Even if he opts not to run, Gingrich intends to be very involved in the Republican Party’s soul-searching. “I think it’s conceivable that by 2012 you could have a second Contract for America,” he said. Gingrich is credited as the architect of 1994’s Contract with American that swept Republicans into power in Congress.
In today’s “right/left” “point/counterpoint” offering in the Investor’s Business Daily editorials site, there’s an offering by E.J. Dionne entitled “Obama Quietly Mending Our Cultural Divide.”
The column is essentially making the argument that Obama’s selection of pro-choice Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services will eventually help ease the cultural conflict of abortion. You can read the linked article to grasp his reasoning.
But beyond the theme or thrust of the column, Dionne’s piece offers an opportunity to translate a good number of the phrases used in the column so that we can better understand “Obamaspeak.”
For example:
“Mending” — Orwellian terminology meaning “divide and conquer.”
But two of Obama’s recent decisions underscored how brokering cultural peace will keep presenting him with ticklish challenges.
“Brokering cultural peace” — Meaning: Pounding the opposition into dust.
The president has cast his effort to reduce polarization around moral questions as a search for “common ground.”
“Common ground” — Every person who’s permitted to express their opinion agrees with the leftist agenda.
The rapid mobilization behind Sebelius marked the emergence of an organized movement of religious progressives
“Religious progressives” — People who don’t believe the Bible.
The propaganda effort in Dionne’s column is so transparent, it’s almost funny. Except that it actually isn’t.
Alright, then. Given that I was the main Steele cheerleader from the time that he announced his bid until the time he was elected (and the only front-page poster to predict at the end of December that he’d win — boo-yah, Adam Graham), I suppose that I’m obligated to put a word in about how I think he’s measuring up.
I certainly do not regret supporting him. He was the best candidate in a field filled with flawed choices (from Steele’s main competition, Mr. Whites Only, to Mr. Magic Negro), and he has plenty of potential that would serve the party well if channeled into a proper venue.
I must admit, frustrated as can be, that he has thus far failed to find that venue. What on Earth was Steele thinking to threaten to use RNC funds to support primary challengers to Olympia Snowe and Arlen Specter? Why did he take the Rush Limbaugh bait, getting caught up in a needless, juvenile fistfight? Why exactly did he go off on a dumb rant against civil unions, calling them “crazy”? Does he want to win back the Northeast or not? I don’t care how “off-the-hook” your strategy is, Steele: opposing civil unions ain’t a way to turn it on in the Northeast, baby.
I’m inclined to disagree with Jay Cost’s recent piece stating that Steele doesn’t know what his place is. Cost misses the point of what a Steele chairmanship is about: few supporting him were doing so because they believed that he’d be the most competent behind-the-scenes man, the superior organizer or fundraiser. Steele was always meant to transform the role into what he’s making it: a public face of the party, a PR man, and a representative of new ideas.
He came into the office with sky-high expectations, and so far, he’s been a bit of a let-down. Christine Pelosi described it in the Politico as being something that Mr. Steele would just need to get used to: “you are the Thanksgiving turkey,” she said — “they bring you out to oohs and ahs then proceed to carve you up.” But Steele needs to be given more of a chance. He’s been in this role for a month, and he’s still settling into it. So in the end, don’t expect any hip-hop summits or 12-step programs. Don’t expect Steele to take the bait after a couple of months. Let’s not proceed to call for his head just yet, Ms. Fisher.
PS — Steele be da man!
Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal will detail a bill introduced by the wildly popular Chris Dodd to “allow the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to temporarily borrow as much as $500 billion from the Treasury Department”. The Journal then proceeds to note:
Mr. Dodd’s bill could also give the FDIC more firepower to help address “systemic risks” in the economy, potentially creating another source of bailout funds in addition to the $700 billion already appropriated by Congress…
…The FDIC would be able to borrow as much as $500 billion until the end of 2010 if the FDIC, Fed, Treasury secretary and White House agree such money is warranted. The bill would allow it to borrow $100 billion absent that approval. Currently, its line of credit with the Treasury is $30 billion.
Now, of all the bailouts we have heard about or seen since September, I would have to consider this the only one I support, at least in concept. The FDIC has acted as a resolute guarantee to bank users that their deposits will remain safe and secure, a promise that safeguards the fundamental relationship between banks and their customers. However, borrowing jumping from $30 billion to $500 billion? Coming from Dodd, something doesn’t seem right. Also, the bill’s provision to allow the the FDIC to borrow $100 billion – triple its current credit limit – without approval from the Fed, Tim Geithner and the President unsettles me. Regardless, the dollars keep stacking…$700 billion for TARP 1, $800 billion for the “stimulus”, $500 billion for the FDIC, hundreds of billions more for government-run health care and TARP 2, and the list goes on.
In a startling change of pace, a member of the mainstream media – Gary Langer of ABC News – took Pres. Obama to task for his “mischaracterization” of health care data.
“The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds,” Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform. The problem: That claim, based on a 2001 survey, is simply unsupportable.
The figure comes from a 2005 Harvard University study saying that 54 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were caused by health expenses. We reviewed it internally and knocked it down at the time; an academic reviewer did the same in 2006. Recalculating Harvard’s own data, he came up with a far lower figure – 17 percent.
A more recent study by another group, approaching it another way, indicates that in 2007 about eight-tenths of one percent of Americans lived in families that filed for bankruptcy as a result of medical costs. That rings a little less loudly than “one every 30 seconds.”
The extrapolation of Harvard’s data to “a bankruptcy every 30 seconds,” which Obama also mentioned in his address to a joint session of Congress last month, comes, per the White House, from a 2005 Washington Post op-ed by Prof. Elizabeth Warren, a co-author of the Harvard paper. Fact-check.org has noted that even using Harvard’s numbers, it’s more like a bankruptcy every minute; indeed if you add up all bankrputcies in a year you barely get one every 30 seconds. (I’ve e-mailed Warren for comment.) But more to the point is that the Harvard data are clearly inflated, or at best, mischaracterized.
We can only hope that the public eventually begins to see through Obama’s smoke and mirrors rhetoric and recognize the disparaging disconnect between the pledges and proclamations Obama has used both on the campaign trail and in the White House and the actual actions he has taken since assuming office.
Continuing with the “contradictory Obama” theme, Wednesday Jay Cost at RealClearPolitics published a blog entry that criticized the “immature White House” for abandoning the post-partisan ideals Obama expressed at the outset of his campaign. Cost uncorks some particularly scathing disapproval of Obama’s embrace of straw man tactics:
[W]hen the first major political battle of his administration came, the President tossed “change the tone” out the window. Sure, he was willing to ply his Republican opponents with some cocktails at the White House – but when that didn’t do the trick, he resorted to attacking a straw man, falsely implying that his opponents preferred to do nothing at all.
Now, we have come to the second major political battle of his administration, and – whaddaya know! – his team is attacking a straw man once again. This time, they are doing so by pushing the patently absurd claim that Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the Republican Party.
Cost then concludes by remarking:
I understand why Democrats in Congress, the media, and the DNC are doing this. Frankly, that doesn’t bother me at all. That’s the way political games are played, and GOP politicos have certainly done their fair share of this over the years to deserve all that they get. But I am deeply disappointed that the President himself is playing this game – not just because he is the President and this kind of nonsense should be beneath him. It’s also because he is the President in part because he promised he wouldn’t do this stuff! And yet, we’ve seen this kind of immature nonsense quite a bit from an administration that has only been in place for a month.
I applaud Mr. Cost for holding accountable a President who expressed a desire to end the practice of “never-ending campaigns” in Washington, as I believe he put it. How quickly things can change, huh?
Finally, continuing with my habit of posting stories about Mark Sanford, Wednesday’s Washington Times featured an op-ed from the Governor on how the Republican Party can revitalize its brand. As a marketing student, I really appreciate this kind of analysis coming from Sanford, a guy with an MBA from the Univeristy of Virginia. In general, I agree with his conviction that the GOP must return to consistent implementation of soultions grounded in conservative principles, instead of venturing into a more moderate big tent-style conservatism. Sanford organizes his plan into six parts:
First, it’s important for brands to, as Tom Peters put it in “In Search of Excellence”: “Stick to the knitting.” If John Deere‘s tractor sales are declining, it doesn’t broaden its engineering by producing cars and airplanes. Instead, it focuses on producing better tractors.
Second, the necessity of having a clear philosophical mooring cannot be overstated. We must be insistent that with the candidates we support, the officials we appoint and the causes we fight for, there be a clear, overriding philosophy.
Third, we have to be willing to take risks. When Republican governors such as Wisconsin‘s Tommy Thompson and Michigan‘s John Engler first took up welfare reform in the 1990s, they were widely disparaged. The American left and the media rose up to defend welfare as it stood, but the governors’ perseverance and the tangible, undeniable successes of their programs laid the foundation for the reforms that followed at the federal level.
Fourth, we would do well to remember that this nation was founded on the principles of federalism. There are lots of problems out there, but not all of them are the purview of the federal government…How can a local government function when half the time the feds take care of something and half the time they don’t? The answer is, it can’t.
Fifth, we can’t just be the party of “no.” While it’s important to argue against that with which we disagree, the American people will in the end respond to policies that make a tangible difference in their lives.
Finally, the notion of being conservative applies to more than just financial assets, and on this too many conservatives have been absent from debates on the key environmental issues facing us today…I do think grandmother’s notion of leaving the world better than you found it, the biblical notion of stewardship, and even Teddy Roosevelt‘s idea of conserving for future generations are of great appeal to the modern-day electorate – and if approached from the standpoint of private-property rights and conservative philosophy, it can be a win in growing the conservative mantle.
Sanford surprised me at the end by taking a rather pronounced stand in favor of conservation and “stewardship” of the environment, something that may please moderates if he ever needs their support in three years… If he does decide to make a White House bid in 2012, his positions on these and other issues could attract a lot of support among younger voters, in addition to the libertarian-leaning members of the party and strong conservatives disillusioned with the GOP, as we saw occur with Ron Paul’s campaign.
After watching Dr. Ada Fisher school Air America embarrassment Maddows, maybe she wants the job herself:
In one fell swoop, former Press Secretary Ari Fleischar destroys the ‘Rush is Leader’ argument, and guarantees himself a place as one of the ‘Worst’ people in the world.
Spruiell takes up for the GOP congressman and potential nominee for governor of TN over at the Corner.
I’m not sure what else Zach Wamp said to incur the wrath of the blue-blog zombies, but he is absolutely right about one thing: Health care is not a right, at least not according to the conception of rights upon which this country was founded. Your rights include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You may not be unjustly deprived of these things. Your rights do not include things that I or anyone else must be forced to provide for you, such as a home, a car, a job, or health care.
It might or might not make sense for the government to help people obtain these things, but that’s not the same thing as saying that we all have a right to them. It only takes a moment’s thought to see why this is so. What is meant by people who say we all have a right to health care? Do they mean that we all have a right to any sort of treatment that modern medicine can provide, regardless of cost or necessity? Or do they mean that we all have a right to some basic level of care? If it’s the latter, who decides where we will draw the line?
Take a heavy drinker who develops cirrhosis. He desperately needs a liver transplant in order to survive. But there is a shortage of available livers, and there are many other patients in need. Does he have a right to receive a life-saving transplant, or has he given up his right? Let’s say he has, and we deny him a transplant, but there are still not enough livers to save the deserving patients. How do we decide among them without arbitrarily depriving some of their right to health care?
This is the problem we face when we shift from a negative to a positive conception of rights. We encounter shortages, we face tradeoffs, and at some point we have to make arbitrary decisions. When that happens — well, to quote William Munny, “Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.”
For some time now, the debate over how best to allocate scarce resources has been a settled matter. The market, with its system of price signals, is the most efficient way to direct resources to where they are most urgently needed. We need health-care reform that enables the market for health care to function more efficiently. Removing the distortion in the tax code that favors employer-based health insurance would be a good start.
The last thing we need is public policy based around the idea that health care is a “right” to which we are all entitled. We’ve seen the results when other countries have adopted such policies: shortages, rationed care, higher taxes and a less innovative health-care sector — in short, a state of affairs that infringes on everyone’s right to pursue the best care he or she can obtain.
Note to Spruiell: Wamp’s been known to goad the Dems publicly on the House floor with taunts such as “we outfoxed ya!” Gotta love my congressman!
UPDATE: My congressman… in person.
UPDATE 2: For those of you not familiar with him, Wamp was one of the congressmen elected in 1994 who stood up with Steve Largeant and Tom Coburn against the cave ins to the democrats by the house leadership, (notably Newt and DeLay).
During the run up to the general election, I remember reading quite a bit about Meg Whitman as a possible VP to John McCain. I don’t remember who said what, but that there were quite a few positive remarks. If there were some negatives, I don’t remember them off the top of my head.
Now that she has officially declared her candidacy on the GOP ticket to replace Ahnuld, I thought I should read up a bit on her. So, I checked her out and… I am NOT liking what I see so far.
She does have an impressive resume, but she is hardly someone who I would want to lead the party. She doesn’t seem to yet have a firm grasp on a number of issues. On top of that… She’s pro-choice, and though that is not necessarily a dealbreaker as long as she supports the overturn of Roe Vs. Wade (the deal-breaker, in my book), she supports public funding of abortion. She’s pro gun control (a big no-no in my book). She’s against offshore drilling. She opposed Proposition 187 (another topic is my wonderment as to why Mitt Romney is supporting her. I get that she supported his presidential campaign, but this isn’t winning him any points with me.)
Of course, the GOP has to take what it can get in California these days (see Schwarzeneggar, Ahnuld), and on top of that, it is probably not going to be easy to hold on to this office after eight years of termin-ology. Then there’s the fact that one of the best, most qualified, conservative candidates was finally elected to congress and likely has no interest in running for governor (see McClintock, Tom). Hopefully, someone can convince former Fresno Mayor Alan Autry that he should throw his hat into the ring.
Am I wrong to not be excited about Meg Whitman? If so, please explain this to me…
We seem to be focusing an awful lot these days on the divisions between Republicans (see the Steele/Limbaugh debacle) and there’s a kind of consensus that 2012 will be a fight for the party’s soul. On the one hand, you have a band of more moderate GOP’ers like Huntsman and Crist, who’ve made ideological concessions to the left recently (see their Stimulus bill support), and who project a softer tone. On the other, you have various strains of base conservatives, from Huckabee on the evangelical right, to Palin, Romney, and Sanford promoting (or likely to promote) something more or less like a 3-legged stool conservatism. To the winner goes the spoils, according to conventional wisdom. But, this is simply wrong.
Think about what it would take for the moderate GOP’ers- who have a much smaller base with which to work- to make headway. When would an argument for moderation and a lighter tone likely resonate with a mostly conservative GOP? If President Obama has 65% approval ratings and the economy has recovered, this strategy MIGHT be persuasive. In that scenario, the Rush Limbaugh’s of the world, decrying Obama on principle as the facts seem to run against them, will be marginalized. A Charlie Crist could grab the nomination only if Obama’s popular, and therefore Republicans simply aren’t as receptive to the “let’s fight on principle” strand of argument. But, of course, if Obama has a 65% approval rating come election day, we’re going to lose no matter who we nominate. Crist gets the nomination and is promptly sacrificed as Obama waltzes to 400+ electoral votes.
In contrast, the conservative faction of the party is likely to benefit precisely when Obama becomes vulnerable. Rush Limbaugh, shouting socialism, may sound a little off to Middle America 2 months into the Obama Presidency, but he’ll seem prescient if 3 years from now, we’re still in this awful recession. Charlie Crist may sound reasonable calling for reconciliation and unity when Obama is our national savior, but he’ll seem clueless if we sink into a depression due to the policies he urged us to accept. Ultimately, moderates can only win the nomination, when no one can win the general election. And of course, if the moderate faction does win the nomination, in a lost cause election, they become the scapegoats for defeat. This, folks, is why inertia inevitably draws a party’s center of gravity back towards the base. So make no mistake about it: no Republican will win the Presidency on a moderate agenda in 2012.
John Hawkins details a truly stunning example of the incompetence of the Republican Party in this respect over at Right Wing News.
Fair warning: the absurdity of it all will turn a fellow Republican’s stomach.
Michael’s concluding thoughts in his post on the Senate Democrat’s amendment to the Omnibus Bill (that will result in 1,700 low income students in Washington D.C being stripped of their scholarships) really got me thinking about the kind of leadership that Americans ending up receiving from President Obama–and how truly meaningless Barack Obama’s claims to bipartisan and/or post-partisan problem solving during the campaign apparently were.
Any illusions of bipartisanship were crushed by the dictatorial manner in which the Stimulus Bill was formulated and passed. Any hopes of a post-partisan presidency were dashed by the swift rewards bestowed upon liberal special interest groups in the infancy of the Obama Administration: the rescission of the Mexico City Policy rewarding the abortion lobby, increased federal federal funding of ACORN, the impending battle over Card Check to reward the unions, and now this Senate amendment to reward the Teacher’s Unions.
Education was always at the forefront of Gov. Romney’s 2008 campaign, and the following statement on the Senate amendment reminds me of the kind of leadership he provided on the issue during the campaign and as Governor of Massachusetts.
Per spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom:
“This is an opportunity for President Obama to demonstrate leadership and prove that he’s not beholden to the selfish interests of the teacher’s union. We all have a stake in providing choices to children who are trapped in underperforming public schools. It would be cruel to destroy the hopes of these children and their families by potentially stripping away their opportunity for a better education.”
I certainly never bought into the hype regarding Obama’s claim to bi- or post-partisanship. But I am truly surprised by Obama’ seeming arrogance and callusnes in sacrificing the education of almost 2,000 children at the altar of the teacher’s unions (and I am still in utter shock over Obama’s decision to make war on American Churches by going after their tax exemption.)
In the end, Americans will have to make a decision on the leadership they received versus the leadership they were promised by Barack Obama. If the President continues to reward Democratic special interests at the expense of the people and causes that everyday Americans hold dear, he will lose to a Republican candidate with a proven track-record of leadership and accomplishment.
As I am sure you all know, Kansas is a real hotbed for politics for the 2010 election season, with both the governorship and a U.S. Senate seat completely open. In Republican nomination for Governor, Senator Sam Brownback and Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh are squaring off for support. In the race for Brownback’s open seat, you have two current Congressmen, Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt duking it out.
However, the race that has received the most attention so far, both locally and nationally, is the open Congressional seat in the “Big First,” which is being vacated by Cong. Jerry Moran. The Big First is absolutely massive, encompassing over half the state and 69 counties. It is also as Republican as they come — Democrats don’t stand a chance in the Big First, meaning that the Republican primary is the real race.
So far, four Republicans have jumped into the race. Below is information on each candidate and you’ll quickly see how hot this race already is.
1. Rob Wasinger of Hays is former chief-of-staff to Senator Brownback and has served as an aide to then-State Senate Majority Leader Jerry Moran, and also to former Governor Bill Graves. Rob grew up in Hays as the son of a truck driver and a public school cook. During his sophomore year of high school, a teacher and mentor asked Rob to apply to a boarding school in Massachusetts, which he did. He got in on full scholarship, and boarded a plane for the first time in his life and went. He then went on to Harvard, thanks to grants and scholarships. Immediately after college, he returned to Kansas and the rest is history. Rob’s opponents have unjustly accused him of carpetbagging, but clearly this isn’t the case… he has served Kansas all his life.
Rob has received some major endorsements, including Fred Thompson; major conservative and evangelical leader David Barton; Bobby Schinder, the brother of Terri Schiavo; and has received statements of support from pro-life leaders Fr. Frank Pavone (Priests for Life); Doug Johnson (National Right to Life); Marjorie Dannenfelser (Susan B. Anthony List); and Rick Valentine (fmr. dir. of Americans United for Life).
In terms of the money game, Rob raised over $100K in the 4th quarter of 2008 fundraising. He has already signed on Kansas’ top media firm, and just today announced a 69-county tour and a launched a blog run by his wife, Meghan.
Rob’s opponents have already been caught playing dirty, including taking pictures of his home in Cottonwood Falls, and of his children at the local public school (he has nine children). The photos were posted on a blog run by the Tim Huelskamp campaign (see below). The Huelskamp campaign also trashed Fred Thompson, saying “he has about as much liveliness as my 90 year old grandmother on a Monday night” following his endorsement of Rob, which is certainly an interesting political strategy. To discourage such tactics, Rob signed a Clean Campaign Pledge and sent it to his opponents… which none of them have signed as of today.
I strongly support Rob in his race, as I am sure many of you know I worked with him on the Brownback campaign. He has been a behind-the-scenes leader in Congress, especially as an expert on bioethics issues including stem-cell research and cloning. Furthermore, as a personal testament to Rob, he is adored by his nine kids, and has a loyal following of the people who have worked with him over the years.
2. Tim Huelskamp is currently a state senator in Kansas and is from Fowler. Like Rob, Huelskamp is Catholic and is the father of four adopted children. Behind Wasinger, Huelskamp pulled in close to $75k in the 4th quarter of 2008 fundraising. He has also brought in some big guns, including endorsements from Mike Huckabee, Ken Blackwell, and Concerned Women for America.
Huelskamp plays dirty on the “Huelskamp Herald,” a blog run anonymously but clearly from the Huelskamp campaign (and a blog that is humorously convinced that I am after them).
3. Tim Barker is a businessman from Pratt and has yet to make a big splash in the race. He launched a website and a blog, but the blog hasn’t been updated. He is trailing financially, reporting raising $30k with $25k cash on hand. He also tried to make a corporate contribution from his own company to himself, which is a no-no. Barker’s family is involved in the ethanol business.
4. The latest candidate to enter the race is Sue Boldra, a longtime educator and realtor from Hays, Kansas. Boldra has had a rocky entry into the race, having been greeted by a blog called “Draft Sue Boldra,” which claims that she is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage. The Huelskamp campaign claims it was the Wasinger campaign, which claims it was the Huelskamp campaign, etc… When the media picked up on the blog, Boldra said it was full of lies, but did say that the issue of abortion has been settled by the Supreme Court. It is unclear if Boldra has opened up a fundraising committee, and obviously trails the other three candidates in the money game.
It is certainly going to be a competitive race, especially with national sluggers getting involved this early, as the primary isn’t until August of 2010. Kansas is going to be a hotbed for politics this cycle. While I’ll be in the trenches, sit back and watch the fireworks!
As the Senate appears poised to insert language in the $410 billion omnibus tomorrow to kill the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for 1,700 low-income students, the Heritage Foundation asks President Obama why he wishes to take away the opportunity that comes with these scholarship from minority students when he himself benefited so greatly from private education:
Taking away scholarships from low income minority students… Destroying American charities by eviscerating their taxable deduction… Is this really the change you wanted America?
Here is Joe Scarborough, the has-been former Florida congressman who bows and scrapes at the alter of Matthew-Olbermann-Maddow, slinging one of the more blatantly racist and pathetic attacks at RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
Look Joe, I know you have to keep Olbermann happy to keep from being sent to whatever island Dan Abrams is currently banished to, but do you think you can appease your pay masters without being a disgraceful bigot?
I think I am going to coin a new word; ‘Lettermanesque’, which describes the pitiful rants these ego maniacal talk show hosts delve into whenever a guest cancels. The word is an obvious reference to has-been David Letterman’s attack on John McCain (Hey Dave, how does if feel to know both Leno and Conan got Carson’s show, yet you NEVER will). Now we see Scarborough launch these racist attacks in the same way, and we saw Jon Stewart do it as well to CNBC’s Rick Santelli.
I for one think Mika should go solo, just for the chance that she will go nuclear on Paris Hilton again.
Today’s edition of the Washington Post includes an article that details Pres. Obama’s order to review federal contracting procedures. Not surprisingly, the article depicts Obama as a responsible defender of taxpayers’ money. Consider the following excerpts:
Obama’s announcement, joined by a bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), served as a philosophical break with the Bush administration, which vastly expanded the role of contractors in running the government and fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president said, “We will stop outsourcing services that should be performed by the government,” noting that annual spending on contracts had doubled to more than $500 billion over the past eight years.
Isn’t it comforting that we have a president so brilliant that he knows exactly which services “should be performed by the government”? What’s that, you say? Private businesses guided by the profit motive can provide better innovation and efficiency than government departments shrouded in bureaucracy and anti-competitive forces? Nonsense! You’re just another Bush-Cheney crony out to hike up the price of oil!
“We’ll have to break bad habits that have built up over many years,” Obama said at a news conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. “But we can’t keep spending good money after bad. All across America, families are making hard choices, and now we’re going to have to do the same thing.”
Funny how Obama can boast about how the government will start making “hard choices”, right after he proposes a budget that smacks the economy with a dangerously costly cap-and-trade program, in the interest of funding new government programs and chasing an unproven scientific theory.
Obama made the announcement less than a week after presenting his $3.6 trillion budget proposal, which Republicans have criticized as too extravagant given the nation’s dire fiscal straits. But he noted pointedly yesterday that he has “inherited a fiscal disaster” from the Bush administration, which in the most recent fiscal year spent more than $350 billion on Defense Department contracts alone.
What a surprise: Obama shifts all of the blame for the “fiscal disaster” to the Bush administration. Nevermind that Democrats have controlled Congress for the last two years without following through on their promises of fiscal restraint and pay-go budgeting. Nevermind that Obama served in the Senate for about four years without taking serious, meaningful legislative actions advancing fiscal responsibility. It’s all George’s fault. Oh, and I guess Obama also thinks the government should start manufacturing weapons, machinery and aircraft for the military, since defense contracts have become such an abomination.
Obama’s announcement appeared designed to counter Republican arguments that spending rather than efficiency guided his budget priorities. The president plans to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term, and he said yesterday that the results of the contracting review would save an estimated $40 billion a year.
So after delivering to Congress a budget that would increase the national debt by $12 trillion over the next decade, the President unveils a groundbreaking contracting review that will “save an estimated $40 billion a year”. Masterful, absolutely masterful. This guy really has taxpayers’ best interests at heart.
This issue has too much attention already, and I know I’m only adding to it by posting this, but we all need to get real about whether Pres Obama is a natural-born citizen or not. The real answer is this: it doesn’t really matter, and pushing the issue (as opposed to allowing the courts to rule on it) won’t come to a good end.
Let me explain. Assume the allegations are false. Any and everyone attached to the accusation take a PR hit, and Pres Obama gets a PR bounce. Democrats win seats in the House and Senate in ’10 and take full control of the census. Generally, it’s a very bad result for Republicans and conservatism in general.
Next, assume the allegations are 100% true. I could easily see a 5-4 decision rejecting ANY remedy in the case (meaning Pres Obama stays Pres). I could even see the case not being heard at all. Same result as above. Assuming the SCOTUS actually DID declare Pres Obama ineligible, I could easily see a very drawn-out legal battle where Congress declares him fit to serve, mass rioting in major urban centers in protest, and/or a whole slew of very bad things. Resentment would build against the Republicans for using the courts to overturn the will of the voters (regardless of whether it was the right thing to do or not). Same as above, but worse.
I just don’t see a way this ends well. Let Phillip “Don Quixote” Berg (a lifelong Democrat) take his shot. He’s going to lose, regardless of whatever the facts may be. Let’s focus on doing something that WON’T draw independent voters to Pres Obama en masse, like come up with real alternatives to his socialistic agenda.
Update: The peril to the GOP in this issue is the same as when they went after Pres Clinton and didn’t define the issue as more than about sex, and for the endless claims of a stolen election by VP Gore for the Dems. You get seen as small-minded and a sore loser, who resorts to underhanded tricks to try and win in court what the people have already awarded to someone else. Not only do I think the SCOTUS isn’t going to care what the facts are in the case, but the public isn’t going to care, either. All they will see is a whiny party mad about being beaten at the polls trying to take what isn’t theirs. The best you can do is ensure a Pres Biden, and at the cost of electoral viability.
The big news on foreign policy front, over the last few days, has been Obama’s über-secret (oops!) letter to Russian President Medvedev. The fish? Iran’s nuclear program. The bait? Bush’s proposed European Missile Defense shield. Here’s Krauthammer’s take (via the Corner) on Fox’s All Stars:
This is smart diplomacy? This is a debacle. The Russians dismissed it contemptuously.
Look, if we could get the Iranian nuclear program stopped with Russian’s helping us in return for selling out the Poles and the Czechs on missile defense, I’m enough of a cynic and a realist to say we would do it the same way that Kissinger agreed to delegitimize and de-recognize Taiwan in return for a large strategic opening with China.
But Kissinger had it done. He had it wired. What happened here is it was leaked. The Russians have dismissed it. We end up being humiliated. We look weak in front of the Iranians, and we have left the Poles and Czechs out to dry in return for nothing.
The Czechs and the Poles went out on a limb, exposed themselves to Russian pressure, and we have shown that Eastern Europe is not as sovereign as it appears if the Russian influence is there, and we will acquiesce in what they consider their own sphere of influence.
This administration has prided itself, flattered itself on deploying smart diplomacy. “Smart diplomacy” is a meaningless idea, but if it has any meaning at all, it is not ever doing something as humiliating, amateurish, and stupid as this.
This is right of course, but Krauthammer doesn’t go into what seems like a pertinent point. Lets lay aside the advantages of that sort of Missile Shield for the moment: what should we make of this, as a piece of diplomacy? A few months ago, I wrote two posts criticizing the so-called “nuclear umbrella” over Israel idea. I basically argued that an Obama nuclear guarantee wouldn’t alter Iran’s calculations one iota in pursuing, or even using, the bomb and that this was particularly true because of who Obama was. We have a similar situation here. Let me illustrate my point by two stories/scenarios. Let’s imagine that you and I were trapped on two separate desert Islands. My desert Island has a few trees- including 1 or 2 almond trees- running water (a stream) and carrot plants. Your Island has some dry twigs, barley, and a ton of fig trees. Occasionally we can trade with each other, by crossing a bit of the ocean and meeting on a small, craggy rock. There would probably be some profitable trades to be had. Maybe I’d give you 3 or 4 carrots and a canteen of water for a pound of barley. Whatever. You could imagine all sorts of scenarios where we exchange goods to meet our nutritonal needs.
Now, imagine instead that you’re off your Island, enjoying a hot cup of cocoa, and somehow my best friend has taken your place. He’s pretty upset about being interrupted in the middle of his workout. Plus, he just hates figs. By the time we finally meet up, he’s meaner, annoyed, and a bit feral. Now my friend notices something right off: I’m allergic to carrots. I, like, die and stuff if I eat them. I try to offer him that same deal: 3 or 4 carrots and a canteen of water for a pound of barley. “No can do”, he says. So I up it to 10 carrots. Still, he holds out, and dances a little jig in the waning moonlight. He’s got me and he knows it. After a bunch of haggling, he gives me a handful of dry twigs for my 10 carrots. I dejectedly accept his offer, climb onto my poor raft, and sail back to the Island with the rising sun. What went wrong? Well, my buddy knew me, and he knew that while I had little use for dry twigs, I had no use for carrots. My death roots were his Vitamin A miracle sticks. You’re probably sitting up on your couch now, putting the hot cocoa- it’s gotten cold anyway- back on your Budweiser coaster, and slapping your hand against your forehead. If you only you’d known, you’da fleeced me good! Well, it’s not your fault. I managed to cunningly shield my preferences from you. I’m just smooth that way. Unfortunately for me, my buddy had an inside scoop, and no amount of cajoling could have convinced him to give me something useful (to me) for something useless (to me). In negotiations we love to talk about the trade off between carrots and sticks, but we don’t usually mean it literally.
On to my second story. A couple years ago, I was in a fantasy baseball league with this monstrous Yankees’ fan. He never bothered to pay much attention until after the draft, so he ended up with a pretty weird, but usually strong, team. But, he had a weakness: he absolutely NEEDED Yankees players, and absolutely hated Red Sox players. Now this guy, Sam*, would try to keep it on the down low. He’d only ask for a Yankees player a few times a day, all sly-like. But, I saw through it. Every couple of days, I’d casually send him a message like, “hey, I’ve got Derek Jeter, but I already have Tejada. You interested in Jeter?” He’d feel me out cautiously with a “HeCk YeAh!!!!”. Making my move, I’d respond, “I see you have David Ortiz. Why I could use a first baseman”. And so I’d trade Derek Jeter for David Ortiz.
The trick in both these cases is the traders’ knowledge of preferences. My buddy knew I had no need for, or interest in, carrots, and he fleeced me. I knew that Sam thought the Yankees were just teh roxxor, and that he couldn’t stand Red Sox players, so I took him to the cleaners. Back to Obama. Obama opposes the proposed European Defense Missile shield. Most Democrats do. Russia knows this. Everyone knows this. It’s not exactly a state secret. So why, oh why, would Russia give Obama something he considers valuable (ending Iran’s nuke program) for something he’d love to do without (the European Missile Shield system)? It’s not like I’ve just discovered this nifty concept. Humanity has known about it since, I don’t know, the end of mass subsistence farming. Of course Presidents can’t keep all their preferences opaque and nor should they. If your power and influence are on the rise, allowing your antagonists to see your cards can act as a deterrent. But, it’s frightening to see this President try to offer up something that everyone knows has little value to him, in exchange for the holy grail of political diplomacy. For all his many political skills, Obama seems increasingly like a guy utterly incapable of dealing sensibly and rationally with his opponents (foreign or domestic). He’s bought the hype.
*I’ve changed the names to protect the guilty of worshiping an awful franchise.
Rep. Cantor appeared on CNBC yesterday to discuss President Obama and Turbo Tax Timmy’s budget:
