Sharp Knife

JONAH vs. THE FISHY

Bob Shrum:

It’s amusing to watch unilateralist Republicans invoke European opinion to shore up their opposition to an American President. But perceptive conservatives are also beginning to fret that Obama just might be succeeding. George Will has opined that economic recovery won’t be due to Obama’s policy – a preemptive myth in the making.

Jonah Goldberg:

Shrum wants to smack "unilateralist" Republicans for invoking European opinion. But Shrum leaves out the reason why critics are invoking European opinion. It's that Obama and his spinners insisted that The One would be able to get our allies to cooperate with us more. He can't. Why on earth can't "unilateralists" point that out?

They did indeed claim that all of Europe would prostrate before His Prostate and bow before His Brow. But the point is that when even big-spending Bailout Recipient Euro-Socialists tell you you're spending too much...

In other words, when even the street-walkers think you're trashy, Jack--you trashy!

I HEARD THEY'RE HIRING AT MONSTER.GOV

Scrappleface hands 'em a pink slip:

Just hours after firing General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner for mismanaging the giant firm which has thus far received $26 billion in taxpayer cash to stay afloat, President Barack Obama announced that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into similar allegations. ...

"Their insurance products -- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- are actually elaborate Ponzi schemes," he said, "paying early investors with cash from later investors without creating an ongoing insurance fund. Bernie Madoff is behind bars for doing the same thing."

(hat-tip: the Teach)

"It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is'the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone.' Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."--Acts 4:10-12

IN LOCO AUTO EXTREMIS

“All the cars placed end to end would reach to the moon and back again
And there’d probably be some fool pull out to pass
How I yearn for the good old days without that carbon monoxide haze
hanging over the roar of the interstate.
If the Lord that made the moon and stars would have meant for me and you to have cars, He’d have seen that we was all born with a parking space.”–Jerry Reed, “Lord, Mr. Ford”

“Workin on a T-bone steak a la carte, flying over to the Golden State;
The pilot told me in thirteen minutes we’d be headin’ in the terminal gate.
Swing low sweet chariot, come down easy, taxi to the terminal zone;
Cut your engines, paint your wings so they won’t make a Hole in Ozone.”–Chuck Berry, “The Over-Promised Land”

Q: What does Detroit have in common with California?

A: They are both run by liberals and therefore both are bankrupt–because of things like this:

Infinite Monkeys:

The latest is a new proposal by the California Air Resources Board that will ban the sale of black cars in the state by 2012. Why? In the name of combating mythical global warming, of course. It just makes so much sense when you think about it.

Black cars absorb more heat than lighter-colored cars in the California sun. Therefore, the AC has to work harder to cool off the car after your trip to the multiplex to see the latest summer blockbuster. If the AC has to work harder, your vehicle will consume more fuel. Consuming more fuel means spewing more CO2 into the atmosphere. And despite the fact that CO2 does not cause global warming, the California legislature passed a bill requiring that the state reduce its CO2 emissions 25 percent by 2020.

So, according to the plan floated by the unelected and unaccountable CARB, auto manufacturers have two choices: come up with new black paint technology that will reflect 20 percent of the sun’s radiant energy, or stop shipping them to California dealers. (No one has yet produced a “compliant” black paint that doesn’t end up looking mud-puddle brown). Great. As if our auto manufacturers don’t have enough problems, this is just the kind of mandate they need — all to reduce the temperature inside your car by 1 degree Celsius.

Don’t be fooled–this is not federalism, the proper role of a state vis a vis the Feds. It is a perversion of that concept.

If North Dakota wrote a law that cars must get 100 miles per gallon, carmakers would laugh it off. But California is such a large market that automakers must comply or go even further into debt. They can’t possibly set up factories and profitably produce 50 different cars, one for each state’s specifications.

Obama and the DC crowd are glad to let California do this. Why? Because they don’t have to stand up and “take the heat” for unpopular and expensive regulations that they also favor. They get their extremist auto regulations for “free”. And the best part is, these regulations are imposed on all Americans who get no say in the matter. You and I don’t get to vote for California’s lawmakers–yet they get to write the laws while we have to pay for their foolish and expensive extremism.

Federalism does not mean one state gets to write the rules for the other 49 simply because our federal officials are at once gutless, extreme and opportunistic.

Meanwhile, back at el rancho, California’s liberals are fighting a plan to put a solar power plant in the desert. Even Ahnuld, the Girly-Man Governor (who, sadly, has gone native) asks ‘If you can’t put a solar plant in the desert, where can you put it?’

Local boy Doc Hanson captures the zeitgeist:

Californians count on the wealth of farming but would prefer their rivers to remain wild rather than tapped. They like tasteful redwood decks but demand someone else fell their trees for the wood. Californians drive imported SUVs but would rather that you drill for oil off your shores than they off theirs. They pride themselves on their liberal welfare programs, but drive out with confiscatory taxes the few left to pay for them. …

In short, after Californians sue, restrict, mandate, obstruct and lecture, they also get angry that there is suddenly not enough food, fuel, water and money to act like the gods that they think they have become.

I have a suggestion; California could outlaw all four-wheeled vehicles except those with bio-degradable emissions. And the best part is, this is proven technology. Indeed, it was once California’s preferred method of travel: the horse and buggy.

Banning black cars is just the beginning. It’s probably just a matter of time until California’s environuts ban black people for holding too much heat. And not just Tupac, Sug and Death Row Records, either. Then they’ll ban brown people. And then George Hamilton. And they’ll keep going until the only ones left are Carrot Top, Kate Winslet, Drew Carey and albinos Johnny and Edgar Winter. They used to play a mean version of Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose”.

Before California outlawed Otis, I mean.

"I had a dream the other night. I dreamed that Jimmy Carter came to me and asked why I wanted his job. I told him I didn't want his job. I want to be President."--Ronald Reagan

MOTOWN NO MO'

"Workin in the fillin station - too many tasks.
Wipe the windows - check the tires - check the oil - nine-dollar gas!
Too much monkey business. too much monkey business.
Too much monkey business for the Feds to be involved in!"--Chuck Berry, "Too Much Monkey Business"

The fugitive one-armed economist Mark Steyn:

Notwithstanding the Treasury secretary's protestations that the Yes/No prompt buttons of Turbo Tax were too complex for a simple soul such as himself, it's no reflection on the hapless Geithner that he's unable to fix the planet. When the Bolsheviks chose to introduce Russians to the blessings of a "command economy" 90 years ago, they were dealing with a relatively simple agricultural society largely contained within national borders. Obama and Geithner are trying to do it with a sophisticated global economy in which North American consumers, European bankers, Asian suppliers, Saudi investors and Chinese debt-holders are more tangled than an octopuses' orgy. Even with "global oversight" – with the Toxic Tims of Germany, Argentina and India all agreeing on how to fix the game – it can't be done.

Barack Obama, even when he's not yukking it up on "60 Minutes," barely disguises his indifference to economic matters. He is not an economist, a political philosopher, a geopolitical strategist. He is the President as social engineer, the Community-Organizer-in-Chief. His plan to reduce tax deductions for charitable giving, for example, is not intended primarily to raise revenue, but to advance government as the distributor of largesse and diminish alternative sources of societal organization, such as civic groups. Likewise, his big plans for socialized health care, a green economy, universal college education: they're about extending the reach of the state.

The president of the United States just fired the president of General Motors. Think about that for a minute--in English, not in Russian.

Obama:

"Because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warrantee."

Thank you, President Goodwrench. Next week, Joe Biden will be appearing as the Shell Answer Man.

And, yes, Bush fired the CEO of AIG. But there was misfeasance at AIG with the default swaps. All GM did was comply with government regulations and union demands. Furthermore, Bush claims he abandoned free market principles to save them. Obama doesn't want them saved and yet claims that his policies are consistent with free market principles. If that's true, then looting is also a free market principle.

To his credit, the CEO of Ford hasn't asked for bailouts. but, counter-intuitively, he has plugged higher gas taxes, to push up the price as high as $9.00 per gallon. Why? Because the new CAFE standards are fiction and nobody is even buying the hybrids that the government already twisted his arm to make. In other words, he wants more government interference to mitigate the previous government interference.

I'm sensing a pattern here.

I'm old enough to remember the era when presidents HIRED General Motor execs, such as the time Ike chose "Engine Charlie" Wilson to serve as SecDef.

The Detroit Free Press:

Sen. Robert Hendrickson, R-N.J., asked [Wilson] whether, given his investments in GM, he could make a decision that would hurt the company. Because the hearing was closed, reporters relied on secondhand descriptions from senators and staffers of what Wilson said.
"His answer, as quoted by one senator, was 'Certainly. What's good for General Motors is good for the country,' " the Free Press reported a few days later.
Opponents jumped on the comment as a sign of Wilson's -- and GM's -- hubris. The committee released a transcript of the hearing several days later, but the phrase already had lodged itself in the national mind. By September, former President Harry Truman was using it as part of his speech to Detroit's Labor Day festivities.
Wilson's actual reply, in full:
"I cannot conceive of one, because for years I thought what was good for our country was good for General Motors and vice versa. The difference did not exist. Our company is too big. It goes with the welfare of the country." ...
He would go on to make other verbal gaffes, spurring cartoonist Al Capp to base a character in his Li'l Abner strip on him named General Bullmoose. He was fond of saying "What's good for General Bullmoose is good for the U.S.A.!"

Today, what's "good" for General Motors is bad for America...but very good for Obama and his plans for a Command Economy. In fact, this is a two-fer; he gets to expand government and also bailout the autoworkers union, the true intended beneficiary.

Steyn closes:

In their first two months, Obama and Geithner have done nothing but vaporize your wealth, and your children's future. What began as an economic crisis is now principally a political usurpation. And, to return to the president's "false choice," that "chaotic and unforgiving capitalism" is exactly what we need right now. It's the quickest, cheapest, fairest, most efficient route to economic stabilization and renewal. A regimented and eternally forgiving global command economy with no moral hazard will destroy us all.

Let me help explain what Mr. Steyn means:

By "regimented", he means that government will suck all the life and growth out of the economy and base decisions on favoritism and ideology, not sound business practices.
By "eternally forgiving", he means bailouts today, tomorrow and forever.
By "command economy" he means Washington chooses, not you-ses.
By "no moral hazard", he means there will be no consequences for bad decisions so bad decisions will multiply, such as privatizing gain and socializing risk. That means they are gambling with your money--but if they win, it's theirs. If they lose, it's yours.
By "will destroy us all", he means "will destroy us all".

It's funny; I always thought of myself as a cultural and national security conservative, not as an economic conservative. But I do now.

Thanks, President Goodwrench.

Say--could ya top off the wiper fluid before you go to the G-20?

DID I SAY "WAR"?

Sorry; I meant "overseas contingency operation".

I must have been thinking of the immortal words of Sen. John Oprah Chopra "Butch" Kerry, who famously said

"I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive War on Terror that reaches out..."

Ah--the old "sensitive" war. In other words, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ah...hey, watch out for those baby ducks!" It brings to mind this quote by Robert E. Lee:

"It is well that war is so effective, thoughtful, strategic, proactive, sensitive & inclusive, else we should grow too fond of it."

So true.

You almost couldn't tell if Kerry was talking about war or a new federal tattoo-removal outreach program. Sorry, Mike.

Now the Linguist-in-Chief Obama has joined Sen. Kerry in this war of words, or rather, the War on the Word "War". Wow--layers!

This puts Obama and Kerry firmly in the ranks of some of history's greatest tacticians, leaders, thinkers, generals and talk-show hosts:

"In overseas contingency operation, there is no substitute for victory." --General Douglas MacArthur

"O overseas contingency, thou son of Hell!"--Shakespeare

"Contingency Operation is the continuation of politics by other means."--Karl von Clausewitz

"We have met the enemy and, boy, are they ever contingent!"--Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry

Herbert Hoover: "Older men declare war. But it's the youth who must endure rock stars and Democrats posturing about it."

Remember this Patton quote?

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his." — George S. Patton

Just to further clarify things, the administration has helpfully released its own version of Gen. Patton's maxim:

No at-risk male offspring of a single female-headed household ever won an overseas contingency operation by expiring for his outdated nation-state structure. He ended it and achieved an exit strategy by making the "Other" economically-distressed educationally-underserved individual currently engaged in anti-Islamic activity expire for his.

It just doesn't get any clearer than that.

UPDATE: We repealed the charitable quote deduction to bring you these bonus war quotations:

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."--Jeannette Rankin, First Woman in Congress, a Republican, naturally.

Perhaps--but an earthquake never built gas chambers or tried to change the languge of your children.

And speaking of clarity, Chesterton:

"I cannot see how we can literally end War unless we can end Will. I cannot think that war will ever be utterly impossible; and I say so not because I am what these people call a militarist, but rather because I am a revolutionist. Absolutely to forbid fighting is to forbid what our fathers called 'the sacred right of insurrection'. Against some decisions no self-respecting men can be prevented from appealing to fortune and to death."

"WORDLE"?

"I hate political correctness because it's founded on the idea that by means of language you can escape truth - that if you simply give a different name to something you've somehow changed it. It is a very childlike idea."--P.J. O'Rourke

"So, henceforth, any terrorism perpetrated by persons of an Islamic persuasion will be designated "anti-Islamic activity." Britain's Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, unveiled the new brand name in a speech a few days ago. "There is nothing Islamic about the wish to terrorize, nothing Islamic about plotting murder, pain and grief," she told her audience. "Indeed, if anything, these actions are anti-Islamic." Well, yes, one sort of sees what she means. Killing thousands of people in Manhattan skyscrapers in the name of Islam does, among a certain narrow-minded type of person, give Islam a bad name, and thus could be said to be "anti-Islamic" – in the same way that the Luftwaffe raining down death and destruction on Londoners during the Blitz was an "anti-German activity.""--Mark Steyn

The Obama administration has a new word for terrorists:

"the next-door neighbors".

This, despite the fact

...they are all affiliated with and/or members of a designated terrorist organization, received training at a training camp in the al Qaeda/Taliban stronghold of Tora Bora, and have admitted that they were trained by two known terrorists. And, on top of that, the group that trained them threatened to attack the Olympic Games in China last year.

Releasing terrorists into America --now that's Really, REALLY Comprehensive Immigration Reform(tm)!

And I knew that Welfare Reform had been gutted by the Stimulus Bill, but giving welfare checks to Gitmo detainees--hey, that's "Welfare Reform We Can Believe In(tm)!" Or as the administration likes to call it:

"Aid to Families With Dependent Terrorists".

Andy McCarthy sings "Overseas Contingincy--What is it good for? Absolutely Nuthin'! Say it again!"
:

“This administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror,’” according to the guidelines, which were first reported in the Washington Post. Our warriors were curtly told, “Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”

That this “overseas contingency” on which we are “operating” has left a rather large hole in the ground in lower Manhattan apparently is beside the point. Or maybe that’s exactly the point. War is a powerful word, redolent of power, force, zeal, and national purpose. That’s precisely why the Left routinely invokes war in its beloved campaigns against poverty, obesity, and other abstractions. But real wars, the forcible defense of our nation and the pursuit of our interests, are to be avoided. As are real enemies. Thus, the complementary announcement that “enemy combatants” aren’t enemy combatants anymore. They are simply “individuals currently detained at Guantanamo Bay,” according to an affirmation filed in federal court by Attorney General Eric Holder. ...

Meanwhile, those not released outright will enjoy a new title: “defendant.” That is the same title they had during the 1990s, when “extremists” repeatedly engaged in “anti-Islamic activity” until things got very contingent on 9/11, resulting in nearly 3,000 regrettable terminations of vital functions.

Obama has said "Words have meanings". But weasel words have marmot meanings that need to be ferreted out, so here's some more airy diction from our New Soviet dictionary:

deficits= investments in the future, as in "Obama blamed the Bush deficits and proposed $10 Trillion in new investments in the future."
bankrupt= You are not bankrupt--you're a "future bailout recipient".
union= "Mother"
Federal government= "Father"
Army= the Jobs Bank in camo
Navy= YMCA Cruise Lines
Marines= The Jack C. Murtha Over the Horizon Guamian Defense Force
Coast Guard= Yachts Without Borders
Air Force= the Man Wasn't Meant to Fly League
AmeriCorps= Obama Youth Korps
volunteer= employee
draftee= volunteer
"Dreams of My Father"= the Gospel
terrorist= "bro"
Staue of Liberty= Statue of Permissions
taxes= paycheck
charitable contribution= unlawful distribution of government property
homeschooling= unlawful distribution of government property
private property= unlawful distribution of government property
Bailed-out newspapers= Organ-Grinders of the State
reporters= "monkies" or "friendlies". Or in Chris Matthews' case, "stalker".
NY Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo= "Mafia Don with subpeona power."
The Bill of Rights= "Oh Yes, We Shall" or "the Bill of Government Dispensations"
The Constitution= Our Living Will and National Suicide Note
Our Nation's Founding= the French Revolution
National Debt= How dare our greedy great-great-grandchildren steal from us!
Giant Failures= Too Big to Fail
National Park Service= Gorky Park Service
automobile= a self-propelled personal vehicle powered by an internal combustion engine that were once legal to own.
hijacker= a non-unionized, undocumented flight attendant with unmet anger management needs.
businessman= enemy combatant
terrorist leader= Rush Limbaugh

"Government hires a rat-catcher and the first thing you know, he's become a 'rodent control officer'."--President Reagan

And other times, we catch the rat and make him president.

WE'RE BEING FORCED TO LIVE OUT THEIR FATHERS' DREAMS

Like Father, Like Sonny

Ralph Peters assesses the foreign policy damage thusfar:

"AMERICA'S enemies smell blood and it's type "O." All new administrations stumble a bit as they seek their footing. But President Obama's foreign-policy botches have set new records for instant incompetence. ...By comparison, the Carter administration is starting to look like a model of manly strength, courage and patriotism."

However, regular readers of this blog will know that this is not Obama's first foreign policy debacle. That honor goes to his 2006 trip to Kenya, where he crisscrossed that country, campaigning against the pro-American government on behalf of Communist Raila Odinga.

When Odinga lost, he ordered his Islamist allies to go on a murder spree of ethnic cleansing and church burnings. The terrorism was successful, forcing the government to give him a high position.

Naturally, there was an almost total media blackout during the American presidential campaign about Obama's horrible lack of judgment and the complete and total failure of his only hands-on foreign policy experience. We're now paying the price for the Media's Complete Professional Bankruptcy.

There was one thing I didn't get, though. Why would Obama travel halfway around the world to support the election of one particular Communist? Was it simple solidarity?

After all, Obama's mother was a college socialist. His father was a Marxist bureaucrat. He was surrounded by Communists literally since the moment he was conceived. At every turn in his life, he sought out Communist, socialist and Afro-Marxist mentors, whether Bill Ayers at the Human Fund, Rev. Wright, Frank Marshall Davis, his Marxist professors at Columbia, etc., etc., etc.

But why would Obama endanger his own career by sticking his neck out for flagrant Communist Raila Odinga, knowing that he was soon going to run for president?

Greg Ransom at von Mises:

Barack Obama organized his life on the ideals given to him by his Kenyan father. Obama tells us, "All of my life, I carried a single image of my father, one that I .. tried to take as my own." (p. 220) And what was that image? It was "the father of my dreams, the man in my mother's stories, full of high-blown ideals .." (p. 278) What is more, Obama tells us that, "It was into my father's image .. that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself." And also that, "I did feel that there was something to prove .. to my father" in his efforts at political organizing. (p. 230) (quotes from "Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance")

Ransom goes on to explain how Obama hid his father's socialist views from readers (and voters) and what those views were, as written in Obama Senior's "Problems Facing Our Socialism", published July, 1965. But then there's this:

"...Barack Obama's father, a Harvard trained economist, attacked the economic proposals of pro-Western 'third way" leader Tom Mboya from the socialist left, siding with communist-allied leader Oginga Odinga, in a paper Barack Obama's father wrote for the East Africa Journal. ...

We know from Obama's memoir that his father is an "uncompromising" man whose ideals and principles gets him in trouble with the "big man" who ran Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, leading to a dramatic scene in which Kenyatta personally confronts Obama the father and in one fell swoop destroys not only his government career but ultimately his life. ...

Obama [Sr.] was challenging the policies of Kenyatta's government from the left in the most prestigious forum possible, the East Africa Journal, at exactly the same moment when Vice President Odinga was challenging the Kenyatta government from the left.

Obama risked his own shot at the presidency to support an ethnic-cleansing Communist named Odinga to avenge his father...and to fulfill his father's dream! Obama Sr. supported Odinga Senior, so Obama Jr. supports Odinga Junior. Daddy wanted it that way.

This ain't just history. These Daddy Issues are as fresh as the morning's headlines.

For example, Raila Odinga just met with Hugo Chavez, who had made some initially encouraging remarks about Obama. After the meeting, Chavez began to insult Obama. It's as if Chavez were informed that his praise for Obama would only hurt Obama's agenda here.

Right now people are digging a garden on the White House lawn because Obama's father said so. Barack is compelled to support a Communist because his father said so. He is indifferent to high taxes because his father approved of taxes as high as 100%, as long as the government doled them out properly! Obama Sr. wanted to tax hotels--one of his country's largest buinesses-- or even nationalize them. Obama wants to nationalize our largest businesses. He's told people not to travel to Las Vegas and wants an Energy Tax that would cripple tourism.

His father believed Kenya should be nonaligned between the Cold War powers...and Barack Obama believes America should be nonaligned between its own interests and the "world's".

He has a foreign policy for America as if it were a foreign country. And it will be if he has his way.

By the way, Barack just collected a half-million to publish a dumbed-down version of "Dreams of My Father" for textbook use. That's creepy. Perhaps the book is a field manual intended for the paid "volunteer" civilian "army" he keeps mentioning. Who's crazy dream izz dat, mein Herr?

Livin' the "Dream"? No, thanks, Daddy-O.

"What drew me to conservatism years ago was the fact that it gave discipline a slightly higher status than virtue. This meant it could not be subverted by passing notions of the good. It could be above moral vanity. And so it made no special promises to me as a minority. It neglected me in every way except as a human being who wanted freedom. Until my encounter with conservatism I had only known the racial determinism of segregation on the one hand and of white liberalism on the other -- two varieties of white supremacy in which I could only be dependent and inferior. The appeal of conservatism is the mutuality it asserts between individual and political freedom, its beautiful idea of a free man in a free society. And it offers minorities the one thing they can never get from liberalism: human rather than racial dignity. ... In a liberalism that wants to redeem the nation of its past, minorities can only be ciphers in white struggles of conscience."
--Shelby Steele

Q: DUDE, WHERE'S MY TELEPROMPTER?

A: Rush scared you off of it! Some exsurps:

Now, it's important to remember that this crisis didn't happen overnight and it didn't result from any one action or decision. It took many years and many failures to lead us here.

"For which I and my party have accepted absolutely no responsibility, nor ever will. Say--did I mention Bush never admits when he's wrong?"

Yesterday, Secretary Geithner announced a new plan that will partner government resources with private investment

"You know--just like Fannie and Freddie. What could possibly go wrong?"

We know that an economy built on reckless speculation, inflated home prices, and maxed-out credit cards does not create lasting wealth.

"But a government built on maxed-out credit cards does."

And in this budget, we have — we have to make the tough choices...

"Should we spend a quillion zillion billion...or a brazilian quillion zillion billion?

necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term,

first and only, James Earl II.

Q: Why do you think the public should sign on for another new sweeping authority for the government to take over companies, essentially?
OBAMA: Well, keep in mind that it is precisely because of the lack of this authority that the AIG situation has gotten worse. ...We don't have that power right now; that's what Secretary Geithner was talking about. And I think that there's going to be strong support from the American people and from Congress to provide that authority

Not "wasting the crisis" again, eh, Vladimir? How come Obama is unwilling to use the existing bankruptcy process for business...but he's perfectly willing to bankrupt the government?

Q: Why should the public trust the government to handle that authority well?
OBAMA: Well, as I said before, if you look at how the FDIC has handled a situation like Indy bank, for example,

Chuckie Schumer caused that bank run, just like the one in "Mary Poppins". Except that one was caused by young "Micheal Banks" and Dick Van Dyke as bank president "Mr. Dawes, Sr.". Schumer, of course, played the part of "The Bird Lady".

Let's get started now. We can't wait.

That's what you said the last time you didn't want us to read the bill.

The bottom line is, is that I want to see health care, energy, education

All of which were socialized in Europe...yet it hasn't spared their economies.

First of all, I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory,

You can't remember what you promised last week without teleprompter--that's why you got rid of him. Or... did he fire you?

I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit

If it's an inheritance, you'll confiscate it with the Death Tax.

The deficit is cut in half. And folks aren't disputing that.

After you quadruple it, you cut it in half. Whoopee. And after Madonna sleeps with half of the Tri-State Area, she's like a virgin, kissed for the very first time.

And we will continue to go line-by-line through this budget, and where we find programs that don't work, we will eliminate them.

"But they all work just fine, so it's a moot point."

And, unfortunately, over the last several years, all too often the VA. has been underresourced

Over the last several weeks, you mean. Only patrotic outrage stopped you from taxing vets for their Purple Hearts.

Q: When you and Secretary Geithner first learned about (AIG bonuses) 10 days, two weeks ago, you didn't go public immediately with that outrage.

"I was so mad at myself for writing and signing that bonus clause that I punished myself by only throwing one White House party for myself this week. Lobster Clawback with Arugula Dip, anyone?"

Q: You keep saying that you've inherited a big fiscal mess. Do you worry, though, that your daughters, not to mention the next president, will be inheriting an even bigger fiscal mess if the spending goes out of control?

"Who said there would be a "next president"? "

Of course I do, Ed, which is why we're doing everything we can to reduce that deficit.

Everything except, you know, stop spending.

This is hard.

That's what Talking Barbie said about math--but you don't see her afraid to get in her pink jeep and drive over to Republican Ken's house without her teleprompter.

Q: It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, 'Look, we're outraged'. Why did it take so long?
OBAMA: It took us a couple of days because I like to know what I'm talking about before I speak.

Take a week next time. Funny--I thought he went through that legislation "line by line". Speaking of "outrage", though, AIG executives should return the favuh and organize some bullhorn bus tours of ACORN organizers houses--after all, they got bonuses on the public teat, too. And all they do--aside from election fraud and operating a public conveyance without a permit--is breaking and enterings.

I wonder, sir, as a candidate who ran concerned about the image of the United States globally, how comfortable you are with the Chinese government, run by Communists...

Very, very comfortable.

less confident than they used to be in the U.S. dollar and European governments, some of them center-left, some of them Socialist, who say you're asking them to spend too much?

"Here's what I tell the Communists and Socialists: "U R not doin' it Rite!""

Q: Are you confident the charities are wrong when they contend that this [tax] would discourage giving?
OBAMA: Yes, I am. I mean, if you look at the evidence, there's very little evidence that this has a significant impact on charitable giving.

"Besides, I hate it when they compete against government for clients. And that's our money, anyway."

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. A recent report found that, as a result of the economic downturn, 1 in 50 children are now homeless in America.

If by "homeless", you mean when they put down the video games and go outside for an hour.

The rate of homelessness among veterans is much, much higher than for nonveteran populations.

"Hey--maybe I could tax the street!"

I think that there was justifiable pride on the part of the country that we had taken a step to move us beyond some of the searing legacies of racial discrimination in this country, but that lasted about a day.

That's a day longer than your campaign promises.

I wrestle with [my conscience] on stem cell; I wrestle with it on issues like abortion.

"And I always win."

We haven't immediately eliminated the influence of lobbyists in Washington.

No, but you immediately eliminated your promise to do so.

how are we going to get this economy moving? How are we going to put Americans back to work? How are we going to make sure that our people are safe? And how are we going to create not just prosperity here, but work with other countries for global peace and prosperity?

I dunno either, Answer Man--ask John McCain and Sarah Palin. They'll know.

"Death is more eligible than slavery. A free-born people are not required by the religion of Jesus Christ to submit to tyranny, but may make use of such power as God has given them to recover and support their liberties...We implore the Ruler above the skies that He would bare His arm...and let Israel go."--The men of Marlborough, Massachusetts at the Boston Tea Party, Dec. 16, 1773

ON WAR AND PEACE

"If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War."--George Washington, who really did "step down into the presidency". But, then, he was merely "the Father of our Country", unlike the All Meaty, Almighty Telepromptulus I.

David Warren's "It's the policies":

As I mentioned during the presidential campaign, Mr. Obama was seriously unqualified for the job of president. He had no practical experience in running anything, except political campaigns; but worse, his background was one-dimensional. ...

His whole idea of where the middle might be, is well to the left of where the average American might think it is. To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, "Middle America" is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid. And the proof that it can be manipulated, is that he is the president today. ...

The video to Iran is the latest catastrophe. Mr. Obama simply does not understand how his "olive branch" will be received, not only by the mullahs in Iran itself, but wherever else on the surface of the planet the United States has enemies. It "reads" -- to people who do not share anything like America's aspirations -- as an unambiguous confession of weakness.

Here are Junior's Love Letters in the Sandbox.

If we are perceived as weak, we invite aggression. We must then either respond with force or submit to force. Either way, we will not have prevented conflict, but enabled it.

That's what George Washington believed--but what did he know?

He's never even been to Chicago.

(Hat-tip: Markie Mark from Syrup Lick, New Hamp-shah)

HE KNEW

"Speech delivery counts for little on the world stage unless you have convictions and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats. The Democrats may remember their lines, but how quickly they forget the lessons of the past."--Ronald Reagan, 1994

AND I'LL MAKE NEWS WITH YOU

Maureen...Dowd Would Be So...Proud.

Remember when three-and-a-half soy-based Code Pink hermaphrodites would show up in front of a Jiffy Lube with a nervous Shetland pony and George Bush's papier mache head on a pike...and it was front page news? "Protest Crowds Estimated in Thousands!".

But if thousands of Normal Americans throw dozens of Tea Parties to protest a Generational Armed Robbery, well, "We just don't have the staff to cover those ever since those mean bloggers started criticizing us."

The "fail-yuh to communicate" those Tea Parties is just another way the Main Course Meaty-Ahhh lies to you. They have more ways to lie to you than Obama has autobiographies. More ways than Chas Freeman has conspiracy theories and dictator employers. More ways than Madonna has small children captured from African villages.

I was trying to recall some of the ways they've lied to us just in recent years. I've seen manufactured photographs, staged phographs, photographs where the subjects were manipulated. Phony documents, altered documents, the Press helping to hide documents and making absurd and unsupportable claims about documents. Invented quotations, altered quotations, quotations taken out of context and burying quotations. Lying by omission, commission and with missionary zeal. I've seen reporters mention a politician's party when it hurts Republicans and omit it when it hurts Democrats. Hold one party to an impossible standard while holding the other to none at all. Trying to invent dirt where there was none and ignoring mudslides where there was. Printing their assumptions as facts and portraying facts as assumptions, if not superstitions.

You know what? That all sounds like fun. Let's try it on this Obama quote:

"By the end of the week, he [McCain] will be accusing me of being a secret communist because I shared my toys in kindergarten. I shared my peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Okay, here goes:

"...being a secret communist...I shared my...sandwich"

Wow--that is fun! I see why Maureen, Katie and Pinch like to play this game! Let's see...

"... the end of...me of being a secret communist... I shared..."

‘"By...me ...a secret communist..."

"me... being a secret communist...I shared my peanut"

"At the end of the week, I want to meet you behind the kindergarten and share my secret communist love butter with you. Sandwich, anyone?"

Okay, okay--I made up that last one. But then, I made up all of them--and that's the point. I've sold out. I'm Mainstream, now, baby! The seductive lure of being one of The Deciders is too strong. I'm going to sell my FFA medals, buy a ticket to the big city and pursue my dream: writing for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer!

Coffee, anyone?

AS PERFORMED BY THE NORMAN TABERNACLE TELEPROMPTER-BELAFONTE CHOIR

Daylight come and me wanna go on the Tonight Show. From beautiful downtown Burbank:

OBAMA: We need young people instead of the, you know, a smart kid coming out of school, instead of wanting to be an investment banker, we need them to decide they want to be an engineer, want to be a scientist, they want to be a doctor or a teacher, and if we're rewarding those kinds of things that actually contribute to making things and -- and making people's lives better, that's going to put our economy on solid footing, we won't have this bubble and bust economy that we've gotten so caught up in for the last several years.

I've said something similar--'tho for the exact opposite reason. I've said we should close down the law schools and turn them into medical schools, so we have doctors chasing ambulances instead of lawyers.

The president wants less investment bankers because he doesn't really like business, while I want less lawyers because I do like business. He seems to think the "golden eggs" of prosperity will still magically appear with or without "goose" of business. As Prime Minister Thatcher (who successfully revived an economy) said: "There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

"Making things"? Obama is a lawyer and a politician and his wife was in public relations. What essential products do they produce? Words? promises? deficits? high malpractice rates?

As for the "boom and bust economy", this bust was caused by liberal "free lunch" policies and government intervention. But the only way to end the ups and downs of the business cycle completely is to have it taken over by the dead hand of government, which is exactly Ogabe's plan.

Margaret Thatcher again: "Adam Smith's 'invisible hand' is not above sudden, disturbing, movements. Since its inception, capitalism has known slumps and recessions, bubble and froth; no one has yet dis-invented the business cycle, and probably no one will; and what Schumpeter famously called the 'gales of creative destruction' still roar mightily from time to time. To lament these things is ultimately to lament the bracing blast of freedom itself."

There would never be any boom...because there would never again be any growth. As in Europe, no more innovation, no more dynamism, just permanent double-digit unemployment with a social safety hammock--or more aptly, a social safety couch in le basement of your parents' villa.

Europe was only able to do this because America functioned as the World's Grown-Up. But no one knows what will happen when America has a mid-life crisis, trades in its plodding old values and responsibilities for a trophy wife and a T-Bird with the bumpersticker: "We're spending our kids' inheritance! And our kids' kids. And our kids' kids' kids. And our..."

Via Ace of Spades, comes Emperor Telepromptus on 60 Minutes:

"It's going to take a little bit more time than we would like to make sure that we get this plan just right. Of course, then we'd still be subject to criticism," he tells Kroft. "'What's taken so long? You've been in office a whole 40 days and you haven't solved the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression!'" Obama said with a laugh.

Ha ha ha. It's been 60 days, not 40. And he still doesn't have a plan. And what ever happened to "Ready from Day One!", anyway?

Even this guy's expiration dates come with an expiration date.

Obama fires back at former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge that his plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and end the torture of terrorism suspects has made the U.S. less safe:

Yes--if by "torture", we mean "the most humane POW camp in the entire history of the world"--and for people who don't even merit the term "POW"!

"How many terrorists have actually been brought to justice under the philosophy that is being promoted by Vice President Cheney? It hasn't made us safer.

How many? Since locking up terrorists IS justice, all of them have been "brought to justice". 100 percent.

Gitmo exists to keep terrorists from killing, not as a Full Employment Act for Eric Holder's law firm. When we locked up Germans in POW camps, we weren't trying to give them speedy court dates or even rehabilitate them. We were trying to keep them from killing our sons and neighbors.

Obama is so steeped in Leftist dogma, he cannot grasp even this basic point: Gitmo does not exist for the benefit of the terrorists; it exists for the benefit of Americans.

What it has been is a great advertisement for anti-American sentiment."

You mean like a Rev. Wright sermon? Liberals only buy into that great product advertisment because they long ago bought stock in the company, "Blame America Industries".

Pressed by Kroft that some of the released prisoners have returned to terrorist groups, the president said, "There is no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals … to make sure [they] are not a threat to us," he says.

That statement is so self-contradicting and retarded that it deserves its own White House bowling lane--the one with bumpers.

President "Kingpin" says we've released "truly dangerous individuals" who are a "threat"--but locking them up "hasn't made us safer"!

That's as stupid and moronic as decrying Bush's horrible, awful deficits--while multiplying them by twenty.

But he called the Bush administration's policy on detainees at Guantanamo -including long incarcerations with no trials - "unsustainable."

The only "unsustainable" policies are these bankrupting budgets, which will condemn generations not even born to indentured servitude. And defeat in this war.

Hey, Mr. Talley-Man, talley me absurdities, non sequiturs, liberal tropes, wishful thinking and dangerous assumptions. There's not a winner in the bunch.

In this fight for security and prosperity, his truce goes marching on.

THE REAL DEAL

"We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield."--Psalm 33:20

"And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."--Matthew 18:3

BUT NOT AS FUNNY

as Dennis Miller:

I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman where the Self Help section was. She said if she told me it would defeat the purpose.

That field goal attempt was so far to the left it nearly decapitated Lyndon LaRouche.

The easiest job in the world has to be coroner. Surgery on dead people. What's the worst thing that could happen? If everything went wrong, maybe you'd get a pulse.

That punt was higher than Marion Berry on a fact-finding tour of Cartagena.

Sure, maybe capital punishment makes the government a State-sanctioned murderer. But then, life imprisonment makes the government a State-sanctioned gay dungeon master.

If you're saying you didn't know smoking was bad for you, then you're lying through the hole in your trachea.

Kurt Warner had more hands in his face than an OB-GYN delivering Vishnu's triplets!

You've got bad eating habits if you use a grocery cart in 7-Eleven, okay?

Listen, we got to take care of ourselves now. I mean who going to protect us? I'm not saying we have to be trigger happy, but let's not be trigger sad either. Who are we going to bank on? You going to rely on the Germans? With the Germans you never know if they're not signing on because they don't believe in it or it's just not on a grand enough scale, you know. The Belgians? You knew they'd waffle. That brings us to... well, you know where that brings us, to the French. The French, you might as well gas up the dinghy and go fishing with Fredo because you are dead to me, okay. You know something? These pricks are now putting — they're putting swastikas on our flag in France. You've got all those boys buried in Normandy. And after we had the good taste to chisel the armpit hair off the Statue of Liberty you gave us...

Bill Gates is just a white Persian cat and a monocle away from being a villain in a Bond movie.

Elected office holds more perks than Elvis' nightstand.

The current tax code is harder to understand than Bob Dylan reading Finnegans Wake in a wind tunnel.

You know there is a problem with the education system when you realize that out of the 3 R's only one begins with an R.

He lasted about as long as the dessert tray at Rosie O'Donnell's house.

The White House looked into a plan that would allow illegal immigrants to stay in the United States. The plan called for a million Mexicans to marry a million of our ugliest citizens.

The biggest conspiracy has always been the fact that there is no conspiracy. Nobody's out to get you. Nobody gives a shit whether you live or die. There, you feel better now?

Anyone who ever said a dog was man's best friend never had a pet chimpanzee.

It's ironic that in our culture everyone's biggest complaint is about not having enough time; yet nothing terrifies us more than the thought of eternity.

Washington, DC is to lying what Wisconsin is to cheese.

There's a lot of differing data, but as far as I can gather, over the last hundred years the temperature on this planet has gone up 1.8 degrees. Am I the only one who finds that amazingly stable? I could go back to my hotel room tonight and futz with the thermostat for three to four hours. I could not detect that difference. Then people ask me if I'm worried about the effects of global warming on my kids. Well, obviously I love my kids and I want them to live to be a 100. So that's another 1.8 degrees. My kids’ kids? Three point six. I'll just tell them we moved to Phoenix.

Simply put, I can't worry about the earth right now because I'm too worried about the world. Why can't I take terrorism as seriously as Al Gore takes global warming? There are times that you think that liberals only fear car bombs if they have leaky exhaust systems. And why am I constantly beaten over the head with 'the delicate balance of nature'? Am I the only one who watches Animal Planet? Every time I turn it on, I see some demented harp seal chucking peguins down his gullet like they were maitre d' Tic-Tacs. To me, nature always appears more unbalanced than Gary Busey with a clogged eustachian tube. Relax, we'll replace oil when we need to. American ingenuity will kick in and the next great fortune will be made. It's not pretty, but it is historically accurate. We need to run out of oil first. That's why I drive an SUV: so we run out of it more quickly. I consider myself at the vanguard of the environmental movement and I think the individuals who insist on driving hybrids are just prolonging our dillemma and I think that's just selfish.

I'm sorry, those pictures from the Abu Ghraib. At first, they, like infuriated me, I was sad. Then like, a couple days later, after they cut the guy's head off, they didn't seem like much. And now, I like to trade them with my friends.

MAKING AMENDS

If our Civil Rights Superheroes in Congress want to amend the Constitution over $165 million, they need a Super-Majority and a proper amendment process.

German-basher Charles Krauthammer :

A $14 trillion economy hangs by a thread composed of a comically cynical, pitchfork-wielding Congress... The common law is pretty clear about the impermissibility of ex post facto legislation and bills of attainder. They also happen to be specifically prohibited by the Constitution. We're going to overturn that for $165 million?

You see, Civil Rights consist of more than some judge letting urine-soaked hobos squat in public libraries until they become unusable for decent citizens. Or in college administrators making campus Vagina Day celebrations mandatory...while even jokingly suggesting a corresponding 'Penis Day' earns that student an expulsion.

The Constitution's prohibitions on ex post facto laws and bills of attainder ARE Civil Rights. They protect ordinary citizens from runaway mobs of criminal politicians.

Every lawmaker in Congress fancies themself a Civil Rights champion. But they are trampling true civil rights with this self-serving diktat. Not only are they violating the ex post facto and attainder bans, and discarding the proper amendment process, they are bumping up against Due Process, Impartial Juries and the Takings Clauses, too.

If we really believe those contracts were ill-gotten, the answer is not these Patriot Games--the last refuge of a scoundrel and all that, remember? The answer is to take them to court. That's what courts are for--not for freeing terrorists, paying them reparations and giving them lifetime jobs at Homeland Security.

And a word to union goons--stop targeting AIG employees. They are conducting bus tours to point out the homes of AIG employees to busloads of malcontents with bullhorns. That's how it will be for you, too, if Card Check ever passes. If we targeted abortionists that way, it would be a federal Civil Rights case, domestic terrorism even. And if you think AIG screwed up the housing market, abortionists just killed 50 million of our best customers.

I suddenly feel like Gregory Peck in 'Twelve Angry Men'. Also Hank Fonda. Once again the wisdom of our Founders is borne out.

But this--and the last election-- are the kinds of things that make me wonder if we're still related to those giants who got off boats, carved a civilization out of the wilderness, took on the World's Only Super-Power, wrote a Charter for the Ages and went on to tame a continent, vanquish tyrannies, spread prosperity and produce a Paris Hilton. And other new, lighter-than-air teleprompters.

Get your grubby hands off my Constitution, you selfish, stinking Jacobins.

And for those Republicans who foolishly voted with the Democrat herd, sober up.

TELEPROMPTER WARNED YOU NOT TO GO ON STAGE WITHOUT HIM!

What do you want? An apology ?

This is a guy who voted repeatedly to sweep unwanted premature babies into the hospital broom closet to shiver and die alone among the laundry bags and dirty mops. He then denied the Christ Hospital votes.

This is the guy who says his greatest regret is that he didn't vote to have Terri Schiavo starved to death even sooner.

We'll be lucky if he doesn't propose to make the handicapped pay for their wheelchair ramps like he proposed making soldiers pay for their wounds. After all, that $925 million he's sending to Hamas is not going to print itself!

But it's good to see him back in campaign form, basking in the applause and adoration of the crowd. Because, if he should win this election, we're going to need a president someday.

"You have had willful judges from the beginning and will have them until the end of time. But until the acceptance of this new orthodoxy of ‘the living Constitution', in order to distort the Constitution you had to do it the old-fashioned way. You had to lie about it. You do not have to lie anymore."--Justice Antonin Scalia

"COVER YOUR ASS"

Not only is the AIG Bonus Clawback an illegal Bill of Attainder (a law decreeing guilt and confiscating penalties), it is an illegal ex post facto illegal Bill of Attainder.

It is a law written not for the nation's benefit, but a law written solely for the pr needs of lawmakers.

The CYA Democrats wrote one horrible, stupid law, and now they must write an even more horrible and stupid law to protect themselves from the first horrible stupid law.

Republicans should let Democrats vote for this stinking piece of crap since they caused the problem in the first place. This law has the whiff of the guillotine about it--Madame Barney's guillotine; let them eat clawback.

A CORRECTION: Earlier, I wrote: "THE AIG BONUSES: DODD WROTE IT, OBAMA SIGNED IT."

In fact, Obama's Treasury wrote the AIG bonus guarantee--they just used Dodd to insert it in the Stinkulus. Therefore, the headline should have read:

"THE AIG BONUSES; OBAMA WROTE IT, OBAMA SIGNED IT."

Scrappleface:

(2009-03-17) — As the furor over AIG executive bonuses threatened to bring the current economic recovery to a halt, President Barack Obama and Sen. Chris Dodd today threw fuel on the fire, announcing their “fierce outrage” upon hearing that the insurance giant had given each of their campaigns more than $100,000 last year.

“While AIG was collapsing, and her executives crawling to DC with hat in hand,” said Sen. Dodd, D-CT, “my campaign, and then-Senator Obama’s were getting what can only be termed influence bonuses from the same firm. Naturally, I knew nothing about this, and I’m now seething with anger at the injustice.”

OBAMA WON'T BILL SOLDIERS FOR THEIR WOUNDS

Thanks to the courageous leaders of the American Legion, president Barack Obama was scared off of his plan to squeeze money out of wounded veterans by the bad publicity.

Could he possibly not understand that insurance companies will pass these costs on to soldiers? This is a Blood Tax, an additional fee for serving one's country. If this government won't keep faith with those who bled for it, it certainly won't keep faith with you or me.

It's so malign, bone-headed and counter-productive, you almost have to wonder if it is meant to discourage military volunteers. If it isn't, it might as well be.

Yesterday:

"It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan,” said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. “He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it.”

Today:

“President Obama listened to the genuine concerns expressed by the veteran service organizations regarding the option of billing service-connected injuries to veterans’ insurance companies,” said Pelosi. “Based on the respect President Obama has for veterans and the principle concerns of our veteran leaders, the president made the decision that combat wounds should not be billed through their insurance policies.”

president Obama didn't listen. He polled. And his polling revealed that this polled off the charts negative. That's because the first lady was wrong:

"I think I was like most Americans--pretty oblivious to the life of military families. Sort of taking it for granted.”

"Most Americans" are NOT oblivious to military families--they ARE military families, or know one. Perhaps the Americans in the Obamas circle take soldiers for granted--but not "most" Americans.

Congratulations again to the Legion, who did the job this American administration won't do unless absolutely forced--defending the Defenders.

"It's a wonderful life, and art used to imitate it. Why doesn't it anymore? At bottom, the fault lies in the nature of modern intellectualism, which has at its core the adolescent notion that conventional lives of conventional values are somehow wrong: that they are not merely politically improper, but are, worse, uncool-not worth living, or at least not worth examining."--Michael Kelly, 'Things Worth Fighting For'

YET AGAIN!

"I would like to thank me very much for this wonderful party."--"President" Barack Obama

Rush:

CNN: "There has been a big dustup in recent days in part stoked by the White House about Rush Limbaugh making some comments. David Frum, conservative who worked in your administration, says that Limbaugh's kryptonite as he drives away the voters the Republicans need to build a road to discovery. Is Rush Limbaugh kryptonite?"

CHENEY: "No, Rush is a good friend. I love him. I think he does great work and has for years. He's now offered to debate President Obama on his radio show. Hell, I'd pay to see that, would be interesting to have developed. I think Rush is a good man and serves a very important purpose."

RUSH: Thank you, Mr. Vice President, Dick Cheney. One correction. I'm offering to debate Obama's teleprompter.

ITEM:

"Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen was just a few paragraphs into an address in Washington when he realised it all sounded a bit too familiar.
It was. He was repeating the speech President Barack Obama had just read from the same teleprompter.
Mr Cowen stopped, turned to the president and said: "That's your speech."
A laughing Mr Obama returned to the podium to take over but it seems the script had finally been switched and the US president ended up thanking himself..."

This is another blatant power grab by Teleprompter. The Constitution clearly gives Teleprompter control over most aspects of policy, but Foreign Affairs are the undisputed Constitutional responsibility of Reset Button.

As the first to call for this drastic measure, it brings me no joy to say it. But our duty is clear:

Impeach Teleprompter Now!

FOR ST. PADDY'S

by a certain Irishman Ron R.:

Two Irish ladies were at the wake for their dear friend. "Poor Mollie," said the first woman, looking down at the body, "she had such a hard life. First she married Mike, who gave her five crying children in six years. He beat her and never worked a day in his life. Then Mike up and died, and she married Johnny, who was even worse, giving her seven more children and not a penny of support. He was drunk all the time until he died, too. And now Mollie is gone, worked to death taking care of those 12 kids."

"Well, at least they are together at last," replied the second woman.

"You mean together in Heaven?" asked the first woman. "But is Mollie together with Mike or with Johnny?"

"I was referring to her legs."

ITEM: "Fossil remains of a huge and fearsome marine predator, dubbed "Predator X", have been discovered in Svalbard, a remote Arctic archipelago.

About 15 metres long and weighing 45 tonnes, the creature is a new species of pliosaur, and ruled the Jurassic seas some 147 million years ago.

Predator X had a head twice the size of Tyrannosaurus rex and its bite had four times the force, at around 15,000 kilograms (33,000 pounds). Its teeth were each around 30 centimetres (1 foot) long. ...

"Its anatomy, physiology and hunting strategy all point to it being the ultimate predator – the most dangerous creature to patrol the Earth's oceans," according to the museum."...........

Psalm 74:14--It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan
and gave him as food to the creatures of the desert.

Steyn-san:

"Senator Grassley, on the other hand, thinks these guys should be falling on their swords — or, to bring it closer to home, retiring to their studies with a tumbler of Scotch and a loaded revolver. Sorry, hari-kiri only works in cultures with a sense of honor or shame....

Grassley, entirely by accident, gets to the heart of this: You can't expect moral codes to operate in a society without moral hazard. Now we're being told the federal government has to pick up the tab not just for Henrietta Hughes's house and GM's unsustainable benefits and California's runaway budget but also for "older investors" seduced by Madoff's promises of soaraway returns. Why should AIG bonuses be exempt from a federal cash-cow predicated on rewarding failure? As long as there's one last feedstore clerk somewhere in Idaho putting in an honest day's work we can all stick it to, who cares?

If Senator Grassley expects moral behavior in the present environment, he's a fool. But that's the point: No matter how many gazillions of dollars you pump in as you frantically try to re-inflate a burst bubble, until moral consequences are restored, the market will not correct."...........

(btw, Sen. Grassley is a good guy who was just telling a joke, not legislating one.)

Doc Hanson:

...California managed to achieve all at once the nation's highest sales and income tax rates — and yet also the largest annual state deficit. So far under Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's tenure, state spending grew 34.9 percent, well beyond inflation and population that increased only 21.5 percent. And yet the governor often prevented the state Legislature from spending even more it didn't have. ...

Perhaps because have-it-all Californians live in such a rich natural landscape and inherited so much from their ancestors, they have convinced themselves that perpetual bounty is now their birthright — not something that can be lost in a generation of complacency.

Californians count on the wealth of farming but would prefer their rivers to remain wild rather than tapped. They like tasteful redwood decks but demand someone else fell their trees for the wood. Californians drive imported SUVs but would rather that you drill for oil off your shores than they off theirs. They pride themselves on their liberal welfare programs, but drive out with confiscatory taxes the few left to pay for them.

Californians expect cheap imported labor to tend their lawns and clean their houses, but are incensed at sky-high welfare and entitlement costs that accompany illegal immigration. Lock 'em up, they say — but the state is bankrupted by new prisons, constant inmate lawsuits and unionized employees.

In short, after Californians sue, restrict, mandate, obstruct and lecture, they also get angry that there is suddenly not enough food, fuel, water and money to act like the gods that they think they have become.

"Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."--Ronald Reagan

AND DON"T FORGET "TELEPROMPTULUS"!

Michael G. Frank:

Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 17: "It will always be far more easy for the State governments to encroach upon the national authorities than for the national government to encroach upon the state authorities…Upon the same principle that a man is more attached to his family than to his neighborhood, to his neighborhood than to the community at large, the people of each State would be apt to feel a stronger bias towards the local governments than toward the government of the Union."

It’s easy to see that those days are long gone. A week doesn’t go by without planeloads of state and local officials flying to Washington and pleading on bended knee for federal subsidies for activities that once were unambiguously their responsibility.

Frank goes on to note how towns are swapping their "Made in Washington" Stimulus projects because they have no flexibility otherwise. Remember "Unfunded Mandates"? Well, these mandates are funded, at least for a while.

The Feds have finally leveraged the biggest difference between them and the states; states have balanced budget laws and can't print money. Feds can spend and print money night and day, day and night.

Our system is so messed up and upside down that we have town councils that want to impeach the president and aldermen with their own foreign policy, while Congress wants to write barking dog ordinances and state labor laws. They want to run the world through the UN and run your homeowners association through the Stimulus.

Veronique de Rugy:

Remember that the stimulus bill included a clause saying that if a governor refuses to accept stimulus funds allocated to his or her state, the state legislature can override the governor's decision by passing a concurrent resolution. It means that governors, such as Sanford, who have said that they would not accept the money, could be overridden by their state legislative bodies. The clause targeted at Governor Sanford and was crafted by Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 Democrat in the House of Representatives.

Finally, starting this week the National Democrats have been running ads in South Carolina accusing Republican Governor Sanford of putting politics ahead of jobs and schools.

Would those who supported the stimulus like to explain to taxpayers who will pay for the stimulus? Do they also want to explain who will have to continue paying for these new programs when the stimulus money runs out? I didn’t think so.

This is an outrageous power grab by Congress, the president and his Teleprompter. They know that it's unconstitutional to meddle in the balance of power within a state, but they've abandoned their oaths long ago. Our Founders took exceptional care to balance interests and check powers...but these baling-wire bail-out queens think they're smarter than our Framers.

Why is a Democrat NATIONAL Committee running agitprop commercials aimed at a STATE governor?

Did Obama run as Governor-in-Chief? Does he want to be South Carolina's Labor Commissioner? Then he should resign, move to South Carolina and run for that office since he knows exactly what South Carolina's unemployment policies should be.

Has Congress has done such a great job in Washington, that they should run the state governments, too? They can't even run their own power plant or cafeteria correctly. They are corrupting state governments with this Control Freak Power Grab. And stealing from the citizens of each state their precious right, the right to tell Washington to "Go to hell."

Those fifty stars still mean something, even if this Congress, this President and this Teleprompter have forgotten what that is.

UPDATE: Via Volokh:

If state law does not give the state legislature the right to bypass the governor, how can Congress just change that law? Where does Congress get the power to change a state constitution? ...Congress is not telling a state, "You must change your state constitution before we will give you a dime." Instead, Congress is simply telling the state, "We have changed your state constitution so that we give more power to the state legislature, without any pesky interference from the governor."

THE AIG BONUSES-DODD WROTE IT, OBAMA SIGNED IT

No wonder they didn't want anyone to read it.

Barack Obama and Chris Dodd want you to know they're against the outrageous bonuses being paid to AIG wheeler-dealers.

But one month ago, Chris Dodd inserted into the Stimulus the provision that ensures they get their bonuses... and Barack Obama signed it:

‘‘(iii) The prohibition required under clause (i) shall
not be construed to prohibit any bonus payment required
to be paid pursuant to a written employment contract
executed on or before February 11, 2009, as such valid
employment contracts are determined by the Secretary or
the designee of the Secretary."

This is an improvement! At last Obama isn't complaining about what he inherited from the Bush administration:

"I inherited these laws from the February Obama administration, but this is a brand new month!"

Chris Dodd is the largest '08 recipient of AIG campaign cash at $103,100...although Charlie Rangel has him beat overall. Rangel solicited AIG for a million-dollar charitable contribution on his Ways & Means Chairman's letterhead--a clear violation of House rules. He said he just couldn't keep track of all those pesky regulations.

When you AIG Bonus Army-men are spending all that bonus money, be sure to send a big thank-you card to those made it all possible; Barack Obama and Chris Dodd.

ps; big party at the White house tonight...you're all invited! The president's Teleprompter requests that you wear green in honor of AIG.

...MIGHT EVEN BE TRUE."

After his early Yellow Journalism, William Randolph Hearst had calmed down enough to issue these rules for his papers:

... *The most popular paper is generally the least partisan.
*Keep editorial opinion out of the news articles.
*Keep editorial opinions out of the headlines.
*The editorial page is the place for editorial opinion--and even there do not be too partisan.
...William Randolph Hearst, San Simeon, Cal. Oct. 26, 1938

Driven to distraction by Hearst's support for party animal Calvin Coolidge, H. L. Mencken opined “The American daily press, with Hearst leading it in a devil’s dance, was loud, vulgar, inordinate and preposterous – but it was not slimy and it was not dull. Today it is both.”

Ironically, the New York Times was once thought to be the "objective" answer to Hearst. Many Americans think they've never seen "Yellow Journalism"--but that's exactly what it was when the Times put Abu Gharib on the front page for weeks on end.

Speaking of newspapers, in her own bid to retain the title of "the conservative-who-bashes-conservatives", Kathleen "Strange New Respect" Parker has suffered another regrettable public episode:

The biggest challenge facing America's struggling newspaper industry may not be the high cost of newsprint or lost ad revenue, but ignorance stoked by drive-by punditry.

Yes, Dittoheads, you heard it right.

As an Ditto-headed, ignorance-stoking, drive-by pundit, let me say that I am proud to be the biggest challenge facing America's struggling newspaper industry. My only regret is that it is me, and not a grand jury, indicting treasonous editors for leaking highly-classified secrets during wartime.

Drive-by pundits, to spin off of Rush Limbaugh's "drive-by media," are non-journalists who have been demonizing the media for the past 20 years or so and who blame the current news crisis on bias.

Another word for "non-journalists" is, of course, "customers". Or more precisely, "non-customers". Or even more precisely, "ex-customers".

I wish it were just the bias. Sadly, we've internalized a lot of that abuse. Much of it is simply because their business model was written by town criers. But if it's all my fault as Ms. Parker says, obviously there is no more room for media criticism.

There is surely room for media criticism, and a few bad actors in recent years have badly frayed public trust. And, yes, some newspapers are more liberal than their readership and do a lousy job of concealing it.

"A few bad actors", Mz. Parker? What about Sean Penn? Tom Cruise? Steven Segal?!!
IS THERE SOME GREATER TRUTH I'M MISSING HERE?

But the greater truth is that newspaper reporters, editors and institutions are responsible for the boots-on-the-ground grub work that produces the news stories and performs the government watchdog role so crucial to a democratic republic.

You mean the "watchdog role so crucial to the Democrat Party". In the last election, your beloved reporters functioned largely as an unpaid Ministry of Truth for Democrats and particularly Barack Obama. They savaged his opponents while failing to ask him anything he didn't want to be asked. Result: we've got an Affirmative Action president who is in way over his head, has never been challenged or vetted and thinks electronic medical records will solve an international credit crisis.

Foghorn Leghorn faced tougher watchdogs than that.

Unfortunately, the chorus of media bashing from certain quarters has succeeded in convincing many Americans that they don't need newspapers.

It's not the chorus of media-bashers. It's the symphony of phonies, the glee club of gliberals, a choir of David Gregorian chanters. The press has been bashing half of its audience--they themselves have convinced many Americans that NEWSPAPERS DON'T NEED THEM AS READERS!

How does the newspaper industry survive in a climate in which the public doesn't know what it doesn't know? Or what it needs?

Well, there are known knowns. And known unknowns. Myself, I haven't eaten in days--there was no professional journalist around to tell me I needed to!

Look, lady; it scares me too when Jay Leno does his "Jay-Walking" man-on-the-street interviews. People are asked "What are the three branches of government?" and they reply "The welfare office, the unemployment office and the Free Clinic." But if newspapers are as important as you say, maybe they should keep their hands where we can see them, put down the bullhorn and step away from the pom-poms.

Constant criticism of the "elite media" is comical to most reporters, whose paychecks wouldn't cover Limbaugh's annual dry cleaning bill. The truly elite media are the people most Americans have never heard of -- the daily-grind reporters who turn out for city council and school board meetings. Or the investigative teams who chase leads for months to expose abuse or corruption.

Is you sayin' the local skool board reporter does his job but he doesn't make a fortune like them big city anchors and PBS executives? Why, we had no ideer, Mizz Parker! Now if'n you'll just 'scuse me while I fire up my ole' John Deere Hay Baler, I'll take care of all them straw men for ya!

These are the champions of the industry, not the food-fighters on TV or the grenade throwers on radio. Or the bloggers (with a few exceptions), who may be excellent critics and fact-checkers, but who rely on newspapers to provide their material.

Or those grenade-throwing colunmnists, who call people like me "ignorance-stoking, drive-by pundits". And ESPECIALLY when so much reporting nowadays is actually designed to subtract from the sum of human knowledge...and leave the reader knowing less than when he began!

Millions of people are already living in computerized parallel universes through games such as "The Sims" and "World of Warcraft" (WoW). We may have to toss the newspaper on those stoops -- in the virtual world of fake life.

More brandy, please.

To this uncredentialed, Ditto-eared ignoramus, that sounds an awful lot like an admission you've been drinking on the job, Ms. Parker.

Seriously, the bloggers I read are informed and well-read. And we may be conservatives, but we aren't pretending otherwise. And yes, we rely on newspapers. I've always liked newspapers--even worked for them. But liberal media bias is real, persistent and pervasive. And anyone who blithely dismisses it is either singularly unobservant, dishonest or motivated by personal ambition.

We're over it. We're done. We're not playing by their rules anymore, Kath. There's one party we refuse to attend--a One-Party Media. So don't pick us up at 8:00 if you can't shoot us straight, papergirl.

“Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”--Acts 4:10,12

STEALING CONSENT

"If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation..."--George Washington

THE COMMANDER OF COMEDY CENTRAL

Camille Paglia asks...:

"[F]ree the president from his flacks, fixers and goons -- his posse of smirky smart alecks and provincial rubes, who were shrewd enough to beat the slow, pompous Clintons in the mano-a-mano primaries but who seem like dazed lost lambs in the brave new world of federal legislation and global statesmanship. ...

Case in point: The orchestrated attack on radio host Rush Limbaugh, which has made the White House look like an oafish bunch of drunken frat boys. ... Has the administration gone mad? This entire fracas was set off by the president himself, who lowered his office by targeting a private citizen by name. Limbaugh had every right to counterattack, which he did with gusto. Why have so many Democrats abandoned the hallowed principle of free speech?...Every penny Rush has earned was the result of his rapport with a vast audience who felt shut out and silenced by the liberal monopoly of major media.

President Obama should yank the reins and get his staff's noses out of slash-and-burn petty politics. His own dignity and prestige are on the line. If he wants a second term, he needs to project a calmer perspective about the eternal reality of vociferous opposition, which is built into our democratic system. Right now, the White House is starting to look like Raphael's scathing portrait of a pampered, passive Pope Leo X and his materialistic cardinals -- one of the first examples of an artist sending a secret, sardonic message to posterity. Do those shifty, beady-eyed guys needing a shave remind you of anyone? Yes, it's bare-knuckles Chicago pugilism, transplanted to Washington.

and Rush answers:

When Barack Obama stands up there says, "The days of taking a corporate jet to Las Vegas, thoooooooose are ovah." Where is the benefit of the doubt on this? They know exactly what they're doing! This is class envy. This is showing the little guy -- who's going to get nothing -- that the people they have been told to hate at the top of the ladder are gonna get creamed. So the little guys who are going to get nothing but 13 bucks a week are supposed to be satisfied that Joe Rich CEO can't fly his jet to Vegas anymore. ...

This is what bugs me. We've got so many people -- big business people, supposed titans of industry -- scared of people like Barney Frank! That tells me Barney Frank's got way too much power and John Kerry's got way too much power, that these people are wielding their power to intimidate citizens. This is not how the Constitution was set up; this is not how the Framers envisioned this country. Citizens were not supposed to write letters, sheepish letters begging -- begging! -- relief from the paymasters in Washington. This is not how we're supposed to exist here.

"When's Obama going to realize the policies are hurting the travel business? When's Obama going to realize that he's hurting the investor class? When's Obama going to realize that he's choking off an economic recovery by raising taxes? When's Obama going to realize...?" People need to come to grips with the fact that long before Barack Obama announced his run for the presidency he had formulated plans to do exactly what the hell he is doing right now. ...

I think a lot of Obama's voters have made an emotional investment, not an intellectually based investment, and they have no clue when to dump him. You are giving whoever you are emotionally investing with part of yourself, and it's hard to break up. Plus, the guy's the president, it's access to power. 'The guy's destroying the economy, but has a great-looking family, oh, he's a guy who looks so good and has an occasional cigarette, but still, oh, he sounds so smart. He's wrecking the economy, but I can't let go because I love the guy.' So they have to tiptoe around it, write these little pieces, "Gee, I hope the president realizes that, ahem, I hope the president can realize that we need to end this chaos. Gee, I hope some of the president's advisors…" So whatever their charts are telling them, their personal wealth charts, their own portfolios, whatever their head's telling them, their heart is saying, "I can't let go of the guy. He's the president. I supported him. I had high hopes. Gee, maybe he'll change."

He's not going to change, Camille. You're in denial. You've got O'Battered Voter Syndrome. It's not his staff, either, honey--it's him.

She's kidding herself if she thinks the DNC's anti-Rush billboard (heh heh) wasn't approved by the president himself, just like he sent his little mini-me Jon Stewart out after Jim Cramer. (The Obama-supporter Cramer noticed that Barack A. Feller was destroying wealth with his policies--or lack thereof--and said so!)

This is the Comedy Central presidency. We've got an ad executive, not a chief executive.

The Human Teleprompter's human teleprompter:

"The president and I talked earlier in the day yesterday about watching it. I forgot to e-mail him to remind him it was on, so I don't know if he's seen it. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Despite, even as Mr. Stewart said, it may have been uncomfortable to conduct and uncomfortable to watch - I thought it was, I thought somebody asked a lot of tough questions and I am not surprised that the video of Mr. Cramer's appearance doesn't appear on CNBC's Web site today."

Obama hasn't been asked one tough question since he became president--but we're going to grill Jim Cramer? whatever. When Stewart charged Cramer with being "disingenuous at best and criminal at worst", Stewart was conveying Eric Holder's personal greetings. I'm sure Cramer got the message; "Don't ever step off the reservation again, pal."

You only wish they gave the same level of attention to their jobs as they do attacking critics. You get the unmistakable feeling that one day there will be an international crisis, but the president will be in his bunker scrawling an angry rebuttal to a letter to the editor he saw in the Beaver Valley Gazette. Obama reminds me of a Zampolit, the Soviet officer watching over everyone to enforce political compliance. Except the Soviets were at least grown-ups. This president would rather keep campaigning to BE president rather than grow up and act like one.

Camille Paglia and many others are still in denial about what we already know. We've had an empty suit foisted off on us by a One-Party Media.

Barack Obama is a miserable failure. The only question is how much damage he will do before he's fired.

IS THERE ANYTHING THEY DON'T KNOW?

Mr. Lileks fisks a college bull session-manifesto:

I suspect that “human flourishing” to this fellow is not “progress,” at least as I understand it. I see progress in the scientific as well as cultural and political sense: better medicine, cooler media, faster information-distribution systems, more freedom, more prosperity, the spread of individual and property rights across the globe. I think he means “human flourishing” to mean everyone agrees to wear the same itchy hemp robe and chant the Happy Planet Song while we tote buckets of night soil to the communal plot.

He closes with a thought that occured to me also; if the Camps are ever reopened, liberals will make sure the smokestacks comply with all applicable federal, state and local emission standards.

Because, you know, Pollution Kills!

CASH COWS

Get a job, sonny! Maybe two or three.

Old Man Steyn:

I had the pleasure of talking to the students of Hillsdale College last week, and I endeavored to explain what it is they're being lined up for in a 21st century America of more government, more regulation, less opportunity and less prosperity: When you come to take your seat at the American table (to use another phrase politicians are fond of), you'll find the geezers, boomers and X-ers have all gone to the men's room, and you're the only one sitting there when the waiter presents the check. That's you: Generation Checks. ...

General Motors has 96,000 employees but provides health benefits to over a million people. They can never sell enough cars to make that math add up. In fact, selling cars doesn't help, as they lose money on each model. GM is a welfare project masquerading as economic activity. And, after the Obama transformation, America will be, too. The young need to recognize that this is their fight. They need to stop chanting along with the hopeychangey dirges and do something more effective, like form the anti-AARP: The association of Americans who'll never be able to retire.

All your paycheck are belong to us!

AND SO DO HIS PET BLOGGERS

"I once thought liberty was divisible, that you could have very great personal liberty within a framework of substantial state control of the economy, but I don't mind saying I was quite wrong. The thing that finally convinced me was the issue of compulsory unionism." ..."Labour today is so deeply anti-creative, so organically and instinctually lacking in any positive impulses, that it actually likes banning things or people, for its own sake. It's motto is: accentuate the negative. To ban, to boycott, to embargo, to exclude, blacklist, close down, shut up, silence, censure - these are the things which now come naturally to it, perhaps the only things it really knows how to do."--Paul Johnson

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it--unless my associates, Tony and Guido here, should tell me you need to get your mind right."--Jimmy "Sparks" Voltaire

So this gal goes to work one day at her analyst gig at Citibank. She reads the papers. She watches the news. And she can count money and she can count votes. So she reasons that the Employees Coerced Union Act has a good chance of passing. She further reasons that this could cost Wal-Mart money. So she bumps Wal-Mart down a peg to her clients--after all, it's her job to make them money.

Hilarity ensues.

Suddenly, bloggers and Noted Free Speech Champions Hamsher, Klein and Yglesias are screaming that this analyst be silenced. Why? Because Citigroup took TARP money.

Funny how ACORN, Planned Parenthood, universities and every leftist interest group out there can take gobs of government money--and MUST NEVER be censored! But not business.

They called the analyst's advice "reckless", when it is, in fact, quite thoughtful and reckoned. They call it "political interference", when it is, in fact, apolitical. If she honestly thought unionism would profit Wal-mart, she would tell her clients to buy. They call it "market interference", when, in fact, this IS the market.

And what they insist on calling "interference" is better known to you and me as "free speech".

If there is anyone practicing political intereference with the markets, it is these bloggers and their union pals, trying to silence honest business judgements they simply don't want heard:

We wrote on February 13 about the letter from the labor consortium Change to Win to the Financial Services Roundtable, demanding that banks receiving Troubled Asset Relief Program money keep quiet about union “card check.” To its credit, the banking lobby hasn’t backed down. Now Big Labor is escalating, demanding in a February 23 letter to Secretary Timothy Geithner that Treasury muzzle the companies if they won’t muzzle themselves.
“Firms receiving significant TARP assistance continue to lobby against the interests of hard working taxpayers,” says the letter from Change to Win Chair Anna Burger. “For example, these firms continue to oppose legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgage loan terms, establish a Credit Cardholder’s Bill of Rights and protect consumers from corporations that bury mandatory arbitration clauses in fine print.”
Imagine that: Banks are daring to fight legislation that would reduce their profitability — and at a time when our public officials say they are desperate for banks to earn themselves out of trouble.

More Civics by Hoffa: "Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?"

That's exactly the same thing what another famous Democrat once said; Public Safety Commisioner Bull Connor, when he was "assisting" Alabama's Negroes in exercising their franchise. He even gave them Seeing-Eye German Shephards to help them find their way to the polls. And fire hoses to cool them off from the sweltering heat. Sometimes, you just need a helping hand to “vote right”.

Democrats are just thoughtful that way, Gosh Darn it.

But bloggers should know better.