JustOneMinute

The Eyes Of Texas Are Upon You

At the World Series in Arlington a lefty and a righty ride the golf cart to the mound.  And Nolan Ryan is catching?!?

With A Live Report From The Other Side Of The Shark...

Keith Olbermann opines that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert jumped the shark with their DC Mall rally.  Apparently Keith O is in a twist because he resents being lumped into the Fearosphere alongside Fox News.

 

The Dash To Dumb: A Double Entry From David Broder

David Broder writes the dumbest thing I have seen all week, then exceeds himself a few paragraphs later.  Here is his first entry in the Dash to Dumb:

OH, YES, I know that Democrats have fallen into a peck of trouble and may lose control of Congress. But even if they do, Obama can still storm back to win a second term in 2012. He is that much better than the competition.

In what respects is he enduringly superior? Let's start with the basics. He is much smarter than his challengers in either party, better able to read the evidence and come to the right conclusions.

Obama may very well be smarter than either Sarah Palin or Christine O'Donnell (the left's favorite chew-toy just now).  But is there any reason to think he is smarter than Mitt Romney or Tim Pawlenty?  Can anyone keep a straight face and insist that Obama is clearly smarter than Gen. Petraeus, who may yet emerge from the wilds of Afghanistan to rally Republicans (although I don't expect it)?

Or on his own merits and by way of example, how smart did Obama look when he announced thathe did not know the facts of the Skip Gates controversy, but he didn't need facts to conclude the police acted "stupidly"?  How smart did he look while dithering on Afghanistan, or the BP oil spill?  How smart did Obama sound when he urged Latino voters to "punish" their enemies?

Ahh!  After my blood pressure settled back into the high-normal range I pressed on, only to encounter this second entry in the Dash to Dumb sweepstakes:

But if Obama cannot spur that [economic] growth by 2012, he is unlikely to be reelected. The lingering effects of the recession that accompanied him to the White House will probably doom him.

Can Obama harness the forces that might spur new growth? This is the key question for the next two years.

What are those forces? Essentially, there are two. One is the power of the business cycle, the tidal force that throughout history has dictated when the economy expands and when it contracts.

And the other force?  Brace yourself:

What else might affect the economy? The answer is obvious, but its implications are frightening. War and peace influence the economy.

Look back at FDR and the Great Depression. What finally resolved that economic crisis? World War II.

Here is where Obama is likely to prevail. With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.

Oh, brother, its the old "Look at FDR and WWII" card.  How dumb is this?

 - A war with Iran would require nothing like the level of national mobilization required in WWII, so the stimulative effect would be much less.  (Blogging at FP, Blake Hounsell uses the word "crazy" to describe this, and notes that the resulting higher oil prices would impede global recovery.  Drill, baby drill!)

 - Why stop with looking at WWII?  Why didn't Korea get Harry Truman re-elected back in 1952?  Why didn't the escalation of Vietnam get Johnson re-elected in 1968?

 - Closer to home, does Broder think that Iraq, rather than low interest rates, bailed out the US economy in 2003?  Why didn't the surge help us out in 2007/2008?  And why did the genius Obama withdraw troops from Iraq during the weak economy of 2009 when he could have put more troops into both Iraq and Afghanistan?

 - Will the Republicans really play along with a phony war intended to re-elect Obama on a 'Rally round the flag' effect?  Is there no Republican anywhere who would feel chastened by the debacle in Iraq and skeptical of Obama's motives and commitment?  Why couldn't this play out like Kosovo in 1999, when the Republican House and Senate got very balky about following an anti-war President into battle.

 - Lest we forget, we are talking about Obama.  He is not opposed to all wars - in his famous 2002 speech about Iraq he boldly supported both the Civil War and WWII, although he waffled on Afghanistan and was mute on Korea, the Revolutionary War, and others.  But Obama leads an anti-war party, rose to that leadership by dint of his view on Iraq, and is risking that leadership by escalating in Afghanistan (although he promised to cut and run by next summer.)  He will not even begin to try and rally Democrats for a war with Iran.

 - Stimulate, baby, stimulate: WWII was a massive federal spending program with broad public support.  Hire people to do something popular that doesn't involve bullets, death and destruction and Obama can still revive the economy.  Of course, he would need to rally public support, but he is still a genius orator, yes?

I can quit anytime.  So which was dumber, the idea that Obama is clearly smarter than any Republican out there, or the idea that Hope and Change will morph into Blood and Guts?  Tough call!

Sunday Morning Open Thread

Tyler Cowen on immigration - you want them coming over that wall.

Frank Rich may be overestimating his influence with his target audience, but he hopes to drive a wedge between Tea Partiers and Republicans.  It is hard to square his months of fear-mongering about the Tea Party with this:

But whatever Tuesday’s results, this much is certain: The Tea Party’s hopes for actually affecting change in Washington will start being dashed the morning after. The ordinary Americans in this movement lack the numbers and financial clout to muscle their way into the back rooms of Republican power no matter how well their candidates perform.

And he just noticed?

Finally, some Times coverage of Jon Stewart.

Props To Josh Hamilton

The NY Times has a big Valentine to Josh Hamilton, recovering addict, batting champion, and likely MVP.  (If their goal was to ease the sting when Hamiltion wins the MVP over Yankee Cano, well, Mission Accompished.)

A point to ponder - A big chunk of Mr. Hamilton's is based on baseball's revenue from beer commercials.  He and his teammates would have to take a big paycut if all they could promote was pick-up trucks, Viagra and hair tints.  But he seems like the kind of guy who would be OK with that.

I have backed away from my prediction of Rangers in five, but I expect to see signs of life in Texas.

Everything I Write Is A Lie (Including This)

I can quit anytime, but once again Charles Blow, the Times race grievance-in-waiting heir apparent to Bob Herbert, has delivered a column so irksome I am taking his bait.

Here we go with his discovery of a "civility gap" in our private schools:

Private School Civility Gap

By CHARLES M. BLOW

Education reform is all the rage these days.

It’s no longer just the weighty obsession of parents with few options scrambling to get a child into a better school. It has also become the “it” topic of the cocktail crowd, including many parents with children who have never seen the inside of a public school. “Waiting for Superman” is the new “An Inconvenient Truth.”

This new discussion centers on the achievement gap in public schools. It’s an intractable issue and needs as much attention as it’s getting. But a study released on Tuesday highlights another subject that’s much less discussed: let’s call it the private school civility gap, particularly at religious private schools and particularly among boys.

This is a not-so-little, not-so-secret, dirty little secret among the upper crust.

Let's stop right there.  The study (press release, study) includes three categories - public schools, private religious schools, and private schools.  By way of example, the New York City Catholics schools would be counted as private religious schools, and I have no doubt many of them are excellent.  However, given their history and current mission I think it would be a bt of a stretch to describe these schools as oriented towards "the upper crust".

Mr. Blow plays this game throughout, conflating the religious and non-religious private schools and pretending that all private schools are either Andover or Exeter. 

Let's press on to Mr. Blow's Fun With Statistics portion of the program:

It is no wonder then that the study, which was conducted by the Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics of more than 43,000 high school students, found that:

• Boys who went to private religious schools were most likely to say that they had used racial slurs and insults in the past year as well as mistreated someone because he or she “belonged to a different group.”

The press release has the numbers - 26% of public school boys, 27% of private religious school boys, and 16% of private non-religious school boys said 'yes' to that.  What Mr. Blow describes as "most likely" is not actually outside the range of statistical error.

• Boys at religious private schools were the most likely to say that they had bullied, teased or taunted someone in the past year.

Indeed thay were; the figures were 55%, 60% and 55% for public, religious, and non-religious.  Are the private schools really re-enacting "Lord of the Flies" on a daily basis in a way that public schools are not? 

• While boys at public schools were the most likely to say that it was O.K. to hit or threaten a person who makes them very angry, boys at private religious schools were just as likely to say that they had actually done it.

And the numbers: 57%, 57%, 44% for public, religious, and non-religious.  Apparently there is a "civility gap" in private schools because the religious schools, many of which serve the same demographic base as the public schools, seem to show similar results on certain "boys will be boys" metrics.

Now let's include a statistic Mr. Blow failed to report - In response to "I feel very safe at school" 27% of public school boys disagreed; for both types of private school 7% disagreed.

Or how about "I took a weapon to school at least once in the last 12 months"?  15% of public school kids and 8/9% of private school kids said yes.

I should laud Mr. Blow'd imagination for discovering a "civility gap" in these numbers.  As a product of public schools myself I am far too civil to tell him what I really think of his theory, so let me conclude by thanking him for ending his column with the paradox that inspired this post's title:

(This all assumes that these children told the truth. As it turns out, private school students were also the most likely to lie. According to the study, they were the least likely to say that they had answered all the questions “with complete honesty.”)

If he doesn't understand the problem with that I am not going to explain it.  Not. Going. To. Explain.  NOT.

Keeping Fear Alive All Week!

Stephen Colbert, Barack Obama, and some on-message Yemini terrorists manage to get the "Keep Fear Alive!" rally weekend off to a great start.

The mid-week excitment about terror on the DC Metro has now been eclipsed by news of explosive devices mailed from Yemen to two Jewish centers in Chicago.

Two cheap shots to commence the weekend:

1.  Colbert and his fellow libs spent years decrying Bush's manipulation of the terror alerts and I would have guessed (if I am following the comic thread) that the "Keep Fear Alive" theme was meant as a joke.  Who's laughing now?

2.  The bombs were sent from Yemen, the same country that gave us the Underpants Bomber last Christmas.  Does this reinforce Obama's commitment to root Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan?

 

Modeling Politics

Jonathan Chait of TNR makes some good points about establishing the baseline for the upcoming Dem debacle:

It's certainly legitimate to question the policies or the tactics of the Obama administration. But in order to have that conversation, you need to begin with a baseline expectation. What sort of performance should we expect normally? Clearly, in the current environment, it's not rational to expect the majority party to escape any losses whatsoever. If you want to blame the Democrats' loss on bad messaging or wimpy policies or rampaging socialism, then you need to establish how you'd expect them to do given normal messaging and policies.

Political scientist Douglass Hibbs has a model of the election. It takes account of three factors:

1. The presence of a midterm election, which generally results in losses for the president's party.

2. The incumbent party's "exposure" -- the more seats you hold, the deeper into hostile territory you're stretched, and the easier it is to lose seats.

3. Personal income growth, which heavily influences out-party behavior.

The model does not include presidential approval rating. Indeed, it doesn't include anything other than structural factors. That model predicts the Democrats will lose 45 seats in the House.

Sabato says 55; the most recent estimate from Nate Silver was that Reps would pick up 53 seats to bring their total to 232.

If those predictions pan out Obama and Team Progressive will have underperformed by only a few seats.  Now taking a step back, one might wonder whether there was really nothing the Dems could have done to improve the economy (which would have improved personal income growth).  Saying that the Democrats will lose seats because they will take the blame for a weak economy sidesteps the question of whether that blame is fairly placed.  No one thinks that the President has total control over the economy, but would Mr. Chait really argue that the current state of the economy is utterly divorced from anything Obama might have done about it?

But that is not what struck me about this modeling!  What struck me about the data fitted to years past (in the Hibbs paper), is that there was *no* Watergate effect in 1974 and *no* impeachment effect in 1998.

By way of contrast, Republicans did out-perform the model in 2002 and under-perform in 2006; both results could fairly be attributed to terror and Iraq (but see below).

Republicans also underperformed by about 20 seats in 1970, which I would attribute to Cambodia and Kent State.  In 1994, Republicans outperformed by (approximately) a dozen seats, which may be a useful guide to the likely direction and magnitude of mis-estimation this time around.

Still, I remain deeply suspicious of a model that is telling me that the resignation of a President in 1974, or the impeachment of one in 1998, had no impact on the subsequent midterm elections.

Oh well - Prof. Hibbs has been doing this for a long time.

SELF-QUIBBLE:  Matching under-performance and over-performance with non-economic news (as I did above for 1970, 2002 and 2006) makes a certain sense, since this model does not specifically incorporate other variables (Hibbs did make a Presidential "Bread and Peace" model).

On the other hand, every day the financial news includes some good news, some bad news, and the reported market movements.  Sometimes there is an obvious connection; other days, what is obvious is that the reporter simply said, hmm, the market went up so I guess the good news was the driver.  And maybe it was, or maybe the driver was something overlooked by reporters but not investors.

BONUS QUIBBLE:  Just to stick with Watergate, the 1974 data point was used to estimate the model parameters, so in effect, 1974 dragged the model towards itself.  Maybe the model result would be quite different and there would be an obvious 'Watergate effect' if 1974 had been held out of the data used to estimate the model.  Or maybe the weak economy in 1974 created an environment in which Nixon's opponents could force him to resign and in 1999 Clinton survived due to a strong economy bouying his popularity.

Krugman To Democrats - Stop Thinking Clearly

Paul Krugman fires up the base for Colbert's "Keep Fear Alive!" rally and  exhorts Democrats to give in to their amygdala:

So if the elections go as expected next week, here’s my advice: Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Troubling.  As the First Psychologist observed recently:

"...[W]e're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared”.

So post-election we can look forward to a lot of fuzzy thinking from Democrats.  I am not sure how we will be able to tell the difference, but in any case, Krugman leads the way with this panic-stricken confusion:

But we won’t get those [good progressive] policies if Republicans control the House. In fact, if they get their way, we’ll get the worst of both worlds: They’ll refuse to do anything to boost the economy now, claiming to be worried about the deficit, while simultaneously increasing long-run deficits with irresponsible tax cuts — cuts they have already announced won’t have to be offset with spending cuts.

Those Evil Republicans!  If only there was a Democratic-controlled Senate or a President with veto authority to hold them in check.  Instead, we're all going to die!  Or at least, have our taxes cut.

Let's cut to Krugman's policy prescription.  He has been calling for a bigger and better stimulus since Obama's inauguration, so try to stay awake through this:

Today’s situation is completely different. The economy, weighed down by the debt that households ran up during the Bush-era bubble, is in dire straits; deflation, not inflation, is the clear and present danger. And it’s not at all clear that the Fed has the tools to head off this danger. Right now we very much need active policies on the part of the federal government to get us out of our economic trap.

We need government to Do Something!  Sure, maybe.  Still, even some Dems have wondered whether Obama's agenda and tone have undermined business confidence; maybe having a recalcitrant House as a check on Obama's attempts to reform everything will help restore confidence.

Time will tell!  But as a supplemental data point, let's flash back to when Krugman was "terrified" back in March of 2003:

With war looming, it's time to be prepared. So last week I switched to a fixed-rate mortgage. It means higher monthly payments, but I'm terrified about what will happen to interest rates once financial markets wake up to the implications of skyrocketing budget deficits.

Conventional mortgages were at 5.61% and the ten year Treasury was at 3.65%; per the latest Fed release mortgages are currently at 4.21% and the ten year is 2.54%.

Well, that was 2003 and we've all passed a lot of water since then.  Still, I have no doubt that markets will react to all this red ink by driving up our interest rates any day now.  Or maybe Krugman was terrified and not thinking clearly.

OTHER GREAT BELLY-FLOPS:  Mark Hemingway goes Rambo and points out other moments of extreme Krugman fear and mental weakness.

A Picture's Worth A Thousand Words, But Why Choose?

Wow.  Five progressive bloggers were invited to the White House in a late attempt to rally the troops.  The White House photo of Team Progressive is, well, it is what it is.

But the transcript reveals that the questions were generally just as weak.  Here is the opening question:

Q Thanks for having us here, Mr. President. Just to start off, because the news of the day is obviously what just happened in Kentucky. What’s your feelings on the thought of a Rand Paul supporter actually stepping on the neck of a female MoveOn supporter?

For heaven's sake - one would hope that, in preparation for a meeting with the President, these people would attempt to distinguish between actual news and the latest partisan laundry to emerge from the spin cycle.

The gay marriage and DADT questions were better [Ann Althouse dissects here].  Nothing about the December review of Afghanistan, nothing about closing Gitmo, and here is a question that gives softballs a bad name:

Q Mine is an easy question. Will you rule out raising the retirement age to 70?

Well, Obama ruled out nothing, including raising the retirement age to 69 or 68.  Jiminy.

One last lamer:

Q I want to go back to the idea of working with Republicans. And given the comments from McConnell and — well, all of them — I think that what a lot of people find frustrating is that our side compromises and continues to compromise just to get that one Republican on. We’re going to get one of the Maine twins — whatever. And it doesn’t happen, and then by the time health care or whatever goes through we’ve compromised; we still don’t get any Republicans.

I don’t anticipate this changing in the next two years. I think it’s going to get worse. How are you going to get Democrats to understand that compromise means the other side has to give something sometimes, one day?

It's a bit late to look for a pre-emptive Republican surrender.

OH MAN:  Who knew that Iowahawk had access to the double-top secret White House tapes of the meeting?

Not That I Am A Poll Savant...

I am not a poll savant, but these Gallup numbers suggest that 2010 will make 1994 look like 2002.  Put another way, folks who think they've seen a wave haven't seen anything yet.

Now Its Obama Versus The NY Times

In the run-up to the President's trip to India the NY Times reported that Obama was skipping a visit to the Sikh Golden Temple in order to preserve appearances:

A Question of Appearances: Obama Will Bypass Sikh Temple on Visit to India

By LYDIA POLGREEN

NEW DELHI — The Golden Temple, a sprawling and serene complex of gleaming gold and polished marble that is the spiritual center of the Sikh religion, is one of India’s most popular tourist attractions. Revered by Indians of all faiths, it is a cherished emblem of India’s religious diversity. So it was no surprise when the gold-plated marvel was promoted as the likely third stop on President Obama’s visit to India, scheduled for early November.

But the United States has ruled out a Golden Temple visit, according to an American official involved in planning. Temple officials said that American advance teams had gone to Amritsar, the holy city that is the site of the temple, to discuss a possible visit. But the plan appears to have foundered on the thorny question of how Mr. Obama would cover his head, as Sikh tradition requires, while visiting the temple.

“To come to golden temple he needs to cover his head,” said Dalmegh Singh, secretary of the committee that runs the temple. “That is our tradition.”

Mr. Obama, a Christian, has struggled to fend off persistent rumors that he is a Muslim.

In a press gaggle the White House denied that and claimned that the President's schedule was simply too full.  That won a 'No Sale' from American Sikhs, and I am left at sea - is the Times really trying to encroach on Glenn Beck's turf by just making up nasty stuff about Obama?  Or could the White House be, hmm, misrepresenting the decision process?  Baffling.

Obama's View On Gay Marriage Evolving Devolving

Obama met with progressive bloggers and surprised no one with his admission that he will flip-flop on gay marriage eventually:

"I have been to this point unwilling to sign on to same-sex marriage primarily because of my understandings of the traditional definitions of marriage. But I also think you’re right that attitudes evolve, including mine," Obama said in response to a question from Joe Subday of Americablog.

"I think that it is an issue that I wrestle with and think about because I have a whole host of friends who are in gay partnerships. I have staff members who are in committed, monogamous relationships, who are raising children, who are wonderful parents.  And I care about them deeply," Obama continued. "And so while I’m not prepared to reverse myself here, sitting in the Roosevelt Room at 3:30 in the afternoon, I think it’s fair to say that it’s something that I think a lot about. That’s probably the best you’ll do out of me today."

Later, Obama seemed to suggest that legalization of gay marriage is inevitable. "The one thing I will say today is I think it’s pretty clear where the trendlines are going," he added.

The trendlines are as clear as Obama's lack of leadership.

Interestingly, Obama is poised to flip-flop back to the position he held in 1996, when he unambiguously supported gay marriage.  Evidently in the interim he acquired a more nuanced view of traditional definitions of marriage, or a more nuanced view of how to read polls.

When the Times covered Obama's eventual reversal back in 2009 I said this:

Somewhat more substantively, this [from the Times] is a laugher:

While Mr. Obama has said he is “open to the possibility” that his views on same-sex marriage are misguided, he has offered no signal that he intends to change his position.

He is "open to the possibility" that when the poll numbers in support of gay marriage improve he will abandon his current position of political convenience in favor of a new position of political convenience.  Call it "fierce" advocacy!  

Oh, that is so unfair, and what am I saying - Obama will admit that his thinking has evolved and he will be hailed for his open-mindedness and personal growth.

Maybe Hitch will have time for a new book - No One Left To Pander To.  Watching Obama pretend to be something other than an utterly predictable lib is getting embarrassing for everyone.

Traditional Fall Classic Open Thread

Does anybody, even in Texas, care whether the Rangers win the World Series? I am in a jam here - I always root against California teams and almost always root against Texas teams.  However I always prefer San Antonio over LA (on those rare ocassions when I notice the NBA), so I guess I can root for Josh Hamilton and his Texas Strangers.

Afghanistan - We're Winning We're Losing

A few days back we noted a spate of stories telling us of military progress in Afghanistan as jockeying commences for Obama's December review.  Now the pushback has arrived:

U.S. military campaign to topple resilient Taliban hasn't succeeded

By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 27, 2010; 12:47 AM

An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.

...

The blunt intelligence assessments are consistent across the main spy agencies responsible for analyzing the conflict, including the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, and come at a critical juncture. Officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

And lest you wonder about the timing:

The Obama administration's plan to conduct a strategic review of the war in December has touched off maneuvering between U.S. military leaders seeking support for extending the American troop buildup and skeptics looking for arguments to wind down the nation's role.

 

Circling In

If you don't like Michelle Obama you'll like this.

On a related note, if you don't like the "N-word" (even in the context of a rap song), you'll have about a hundred reasons to not like "Head of the State" featuring "Baracka-Flacka-Flames" [YouTube link].  However, the Michelle look-alike is either a cool video-shop trick or a person who could casue problems for the Secret Service (or at least make a career in comedy or passing bad checks.)

OOPS, MY BAD - THESE NEXT BITS HAVE BEEN OVERTAKEN BY REALITY (See below):  {Finally, on the mental health beat we are taken aback by Obama's claim that he considered suicide as a "young adult".  Is that in 'Dreams From My Father'?  I feel like it would have gotten a bit more attention.

Oh, well - Obama also claimed to have considered enlisting in the military and I am sure that is utter BS.  Oh, well - if his current story can save a kids life, more power to him.}

MY BAD:  It was not Obama that claimed to have considered suicide as a young adult, it was White House blogger Brian Bond.  Proving that confusion loves company, I see that Emi Kolawole of the WaPo made the same mistake.

They Told Glenn Reynolds... (Ongoing)

They told Glenn Reynolds that if he voted for McCain our system would become more corrupt.  And they were right!

(Reuters) - The United States has dropped out of the "top 20" in a global league table of least corrupt nations, tarnished by financial scandals and the influence of money in politics, Transparency International said on Tuesday.

Somalia was judged the most corrupt country, followed by Myanmar and Afghanistan at joint second-worst and then by Iraq, in the Berlin-based watchdog TI's annual corruption perceptions index (CPI).

The United States fell to 22nd from 19th last year, with its CPI score dropping to 7.1 from 7.5 in the 178-nation index, which is based on independent surveys on corruption.

This was the lowest score awarded to the United States in the index's 15-year history and also the first time it had fallen out of the top 20.

In the Americas, this put the United States behind Canada in sixth place, Barbados at 17th and Chile in 21st place.

So what dragged us down?

Nancy Boswell, president of TI in the United States, said lending practices in the subprime crisis, the disclosure of Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme and rows over political funding had all rattled public faith about prevailing ethics in America.

"We're not talking about corruption in the sense of breaking the law," she said. "We're talking about a sense that the system is corrupted by these practices. There's an integrity deficit."

Huh?  No mention of the bank bailout or the UAW bailout?  Geez, wait 'til they hear about those!

Al Franken, (Dwindling) Majority Leader

David Brooks has an amusing column in which he describes the Stuart Smalley Democrats:

When times get tough, it’s really important to believe in yourself. This is something the Democrats have done splendidly this year. The polls have been terrible, and the party may be heading for a historic defeat, but Democrats have done a magnificent job of maintaining their own self-esteem. This is vital, because even if the public doesn’t approve of you, it is important to approve of yourself.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that Democrats have become role models. They have offered us lessons on how we, too, may continue to love ourselves, even in trying circumstances.

Lesson one. Think happy thoughts. Never allow yourself to dwell on downer, depressing ones.

Over the past year, many Democrats have resolutely paid attention to those things that make them feel good, and they have carefully filtered out those negative things that make them feel sad.

For example, Democrats and their media enablers have paid lavish attention to Christine O’Donnell and Carl Paladino, even though these two Republican candidates have almost no chance of winning. That’s because it feels so delicious to feel superior to opponents you consider to be feeble-minded wackos.

On the other hand, Democrats and their enablers have paid no attention to Republicans like Rob Portman, Dan Coats, John Boozman and Roy Blunt, who are likely to actually get elected. It doesn’t feel good when your opponents are experienced people who simply have different points of view. The existence of these impressive opponents introduces tension into the chi of your self-esteem.

Similarly, the Democrats and their enablers have paid lavish attention to the Tea Party this year. It’s nice to feel more sophisticated than those hordes of Middle Americans, who say silly things like “Get government off my Medicare.”

On the other hand, Democrats have paid little attention to the crucial group in this election — the independent moderates who supported President Obama in 2008 but flocked away during the health care summer of 2009 and now support the GOP by landslide proportions.

Losing friends makes you sad. It is better to not think about why these things happen.

And he goes on. 

As long as the Dems have someone to sneer at when the election is over all will be well in their world.  However, Mr. Brooks is not sanguine:

In short, it’s hard not to be impressed by the spirit of self-approval that Democrats have managed to maintain this election. I say that knowing it may end as soon as next Wednesday, when, as is their wont, Democrats will flip from complete self-worship to complete self-laceration in the blink of an eye.

 

Driving Miss Sarah

Obama wants to play chaffeur? Republicans need to sit at the back of the bus, err, car?  It looks as of the TOTUS Metaphor Masher has driven into that ditch Obama is always going on about; here is an abbreviated account of Obama at yet another fundraiser:

He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

Dave Poff at RedState deplores the racialy divisive imagery, and I certainly agree that if any Republican ever suggested Dems need to sit in the back of anything all we would be hearing about is Rosa Parks and unreconstructed racist redneck Republicans.

However, let's give our speech-impaired President the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure he is tired after focusing all year month week lunchbreak on jobs, jobs jobs.  And let's not fall into the trap that has ensnared him by thinking that everything is always about race - sometimes a dumb metaphor is just a dumb metaphor.

And FWIW, he has used the "driving into a ditch" routine many times, and even put the Republicans in the back seat on October 10.

AND WHAT I SHOULD HAVE NOTICED... Stuart Taylor at OTB notes a grievous problem with the Poff headline, which is "And Even STILL I Am Not Allowed To Make A Racial Slur About Our President? After THIS? AYFKM!?!?!?"

Taylor's point:

The thing, however, that is remarkably striking is the headline and the sentiment it conveys: “And Even STILL I am not Allowed to Make a Racial Slur About Our President?”  The suggestion seems to be that a)  Poff really, really has wanted to use racial slurs in the past, but simply hasn’t been “allowed” to deploy such, and b) that it is possible for a racial slur to be an appropriate response if, in fact, the President says something that really upsets Poff.

Well, yes, I wish I had noticed and commented on that.  I read the headline in the context of the stale lefty meme that sm that all of Obama's critics are motivated by racism and everything they say is racist, but of course, Taylor is right and that is not what the Poff headline says.

AND A BACK-HANDED DEFENSE:  Dan Riehl thinks Poff is on the "wrong track" but delivers a kinda-sorta defense:

Obama was talking cars, not buses - I don't think there's anything racial in it at all. However, it causes me even greater concern than if he had been. He's a Democrat and he was in New England. We all know what happens to people who ride in the backseat with those bastards. I have no intention of being in the back when this idiot Obama drives Democrats off the bridge on Nov 2nd.

 

An October Surprise For Harry Reid

If Eric Holder's DoJ had pulled this stunt on a Republican it would be outrageous.  However, since some truthseekers (and Bush deadenders?!?) in Oklahoma City leaked confidential files to Fox News to whack Harry Reid, my outrage is diminished a bit.  Their lead:

An aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid repeatedly lied to federal immigration and FBI agents and submitted false federal documents to the Department of Homeland Security to cover up her illegal seven-year marriage to a Lebanese national who was the subject of an Oklahoma City Joint Terror Task Force investigation, FoxNews.com has learned.

Yike!  She was not charged; Fox provides plausible speculation:

"I don’t honestly know the reason why they chose to prosecute [faux-husband] Bassam and not her,” said Jeffrey Byers, Tarhini’s criminal attorney.

“I don’t think they could’ve prosecuted the case without one of the two of them saying something, but I suspect they chose to work with the American citizen other than Bassam.”

It could certainly be that simple - the Feds wanted to button down the case against Tarhini so they cut a deal with the "wife".

For a comic take, check out the AP "coverage" - in their telling a Reid aide has left, but there is no FBI involvement and no terrorism investigation.  And let's have a "to be fair" moment - the AP cites a criminal complaint, but Fox cites both that and other interviews.  Maybe the FBI involvement was kept out of the complaint; if not (IF NOT), then the AP is covering for Harry, and you can only imagine my surprise.  From the AP:

A federal criminal complaint filed against Tarhini in Oklahoma in July 2009 says Tejada and Tarhini were married in September 2003, while they were both students at Oklahoma City College. The complaint said Tarhini, a Lebanese citizen from Beirut, entered the United States in 2000 on a student visa to attend the school.

Two months after getting married, Tarhini registered to become a lawful permanent resident of the United States, the complaint said.

The complaint said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official interviewed Tejada in November 2008, and she withdrew a visa petition for Tarhini.

Neither Fox nor anyone I can find has posted the criminal complaint online; Fox offered the wedding license, from which we learn that the case number is

Case: 5:08-cv-01074R  Filed 10/07/08

What kind of world are we living in when rabid bloggers can't even dredge up a Federal filing?  My PACER account and skills have lapsed, regrettably.

Andlet me just tweak the invaluable Andrew Malcom of the LA Times, who wrote this:

Court documents show that Tejada, who has worked for Reid for the past two years, knowingly filed false documents with Homeland Security, lied on multiple occasions to FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and submitted false marriage and immigration documents.

Is that what the court document show?  Fox didn't say precisely that, and the AP took a different line.

As to an FBI involvement, Fox includes details such as this:

In 2008, sources with knowledge of the case told FoxNews.com, the FBI — working with the Oklahoma City Joint Terrorism Task Force — sent what’s called a collateral request to ICE, asking them to track down Tejada to interview her about Tarhini.

At this point, Tarhini was a subject of interest in an Oklahoma JTTF investigation, sources said.  

In May or June 2008, a source told FoxNews.com, Tejada was interviewed by ICE and FBI agents in Washington, and she maintained that her marriage was legitimate.

In October 2008, Tejada began working for Reid.

On Nov 3, 2008, ICE and FBI agents re-interviewed Tejada in Washington, according to documents and interviews.  This time, sources said, agents presented a slew of evidence against her and Tarhini, and Tejada broke down and confessed that her marriage was a lie, carried out to get Tarhini U.S. residency.

According to court records, she also told authorities that she and Tarhini had never dated nor consummated their marriage.

Fox cites documents, interviews, and court records, so the public record may not include the FBI link.  Or it might.

Tarhini's lawyer seems to confirm some FBI involvement:

Following Tarhini’s arrest in 2009, he was interviewed by FBI agents who sources say asked about his ties to extremists groups.

Some sources said they determined he did not have ties to any terror group, but other sources close to the case said that could not be ruled out.

“Not all of my cases involve the FBI,” said Tarhini’s immigration attorney, Timothy Lee Cook. “Certainly, there was something out there that caught their attention.”

When asked what that might be, Cook said:  “FBI’s not going to tell anybody that. And believe me, I asked.

As to what did Harry know and when did he know it, he is currenty going with the 'I'm clueless and out of control' defense.  Is that plausible?  Hmm:

The highest level of management inside the Department of Homeland Security was aware that she worked for Reid, multiple sources confirmed, and following protocol, the majority leader should have been informed of the investigation through those channels, as well.

One would think the word would have been passed.

AND ELSEWHERE:  MSNBC leans backward for Harry Reid with a story attributed to staff and wire services:

The Fox News report said the 28-year-old Tejada lied to authorities to cover up her marriage to 37-year-old Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini. But the report said Tejada was never charged with a crime.

Lied to "authorities"?  Fox News said she lied to ICE and the FBI; in many people's minds, lying to the FBI is a bigger deal than lying to the immigration people. Maybe we can get Patrick Fitzgerald and Scooter Libby to opine. (Sorry, thinking of PACER is causing flashbacks...)

 

 

There He Goes Again

Are you better off now than you were three decades ago?  Jimmy Carter says no:

America hasn't improved much over past 3 decades, Jimmy Carter says

America is no better off now than it was in the late 1970s and early 1980s, says former President Jimmy Carter. From national politics to relationships with other nations, there is a lot of room for improvement.

"We had almost complete harmony with every nation on Earth," the Nobel Peace Prize winner said of his administration. "We not only preserved peace for our country, we never went to war. We never dropped a bomb. We never fired a missile."

Never fired a missile? Fortunately not, I guess - we stood by while the Russkies invaded Afghanistan, herocially resisting them by boycotting the 1980 Olympics.  And let's not ask about Iran - why shoot missiles when you can crash helicopters?

Then again, if Mr. Peanut wants to argue that the quality of Presidential leadership has not improved thirty years later, well, who can refute him?

Tom Friedman - Failed Metaphors And Self-Refuting Analysis

Tom Friedman irks me twice in his latest column on how to restore American prosperity.  First, he delivers the failed metaphor:

How we got into this rut is no secret. We compensated for years of stagnating middle-class wages the easy way. Just as baseball players in the ’90s injected themselves with steroids to artificially build muscle to hit more home runs — instead of doing real bodybuilding — our two parties injected steroids, cheap credit, into Wall Street so it could go gambling and into Main Street so it could go home-buying. They both started hitting home runs, artificially — until the steroids ran dry. Now we have to rebuild America’s muscles the old-fashioned way.

Grrr!  Taking steroids is not a substitute for "real bodybuilding"; steroids promote quicker recovery and a greater training response so an athlete can do more bodybuilding with more results.  People don't just take steroids and sit on the sofa watching their mucles bulge.

By way of contrast with a different performance enhancing drug, amphetamines are often used by athletes (not to mention doctors, lawyers, students, and truckdrivers) as a substitute for getting eight hours of sleep.  That may reflect a lack of discipline, or it may reflect the reality of the job (as with an Air Force bomber pilot on a long mission.)

But enough of problematic drug metaphors; I'll take Friedman's point to be that the motives behind the house-building boom were not "real" in some sense because the low interest rates fueling demand were not "real".  Viewpoints vary and other savants spoke of a global savings glut that needed to be recycled, but with hindsight it is obvious that we had a housing bubble.  Let's move on to Friedman's self-refuting analysis:

How [do we rebuild America's muscle]? In the short run, we’ll probably need more stimulus to get the economy moving again so people have the confidence to buy and invest. Ultimately, though, good jobs at scale come only when we create more products and services that make people’s lives more healthy, more productive, more secure, more comfortable or more entertained — and then sell them to more people around the world.

Let me rephrase Friedman's argument as I understand it: America has long term structural problems we have ignored for at least a decade while relying on a housing boom to fuel phony growth.   These problems remain ignored by the current political "leadership" and there is no consensus as to how to solve them.

However, a quick bout of spending that is widely advertised as temporary will restore confidence so that consumers will go out and spend, and businessmen will go out and hire and invest.

My queston is, why would a temporary stimuus have that effect - because consumers are dumb and businessmen are dumber?  If we can all see that our long term structural problems have not been addressed and won't be any time soon, why will a blip in spending restore anyone's long term confidence? 

Let me try for my own failed metaphor - Friedman is sugesting that we tell a person who knows they have a broken leg to take some morphine and walk it off. Only someone doped up enough to think that morphine heals broken bones instantly will feel good about that advice.

Now, a point I will concede - the stimulus should be able to keep some businesses afloat temporarily.  For example, if a construction crew comes into town to rebuild a bridge, that may keep a local deli in business selling sandwiches to the crew.  But that is a far cry from encouraging that deli owner to expand the shop and hire more help in anticipation of a boom in business for years to come.

In Friedman-world the stimulus will keep this hypothetical deli afloat until the cavalry ride over the hill with real reform and real prosperity.  Yet Friedman doesn't seem to believe the cavalry is anywhere near the horizon.  And who does?

Maybe Friedman believes that we need to get the patient off of the steroids of cheap credit and onto the steroids of stimulus spending.

Tough Choices In Connecticut

The NY Times outlines the dilemma facing voters in Connecticut's Fourth District - do you go with the Harvard BA (and Rhodes Scholar!) turned Goldman Sachs banker, or the Harvard MBA turned McKinsey consultant?

Goldman Sachs is keeping hope alive:

Polls show the race as virtually dead even, but Mr. Debicella [R, McKinsey] raised far more money in the last reporting period, and there are plenty of reasons for Mr. Himes  [D, Goldman Sachs] to be worried. He won in 2008 as Barack Obama swept the state, mostly because of a startling turnout in Bridgeport, in which Mr. Shays got only 19 percent of the vote. Mr. Obama is expected to campaign in Bridgeport on Saturday, followed by Bill Clinton on Sunday, signs of how hard the Democrats are trying to stimulate turnout in the city.

Barack and Wild Bill campaigning for Goldman Sachs in Bridgeport - don't tell Frank Rich.

Others See The Glass One-Third Full...

Matt Drudge:

CLINTON PLAYS TO HIGH SCHOOL GYM: TWO-THIRDS EMPTY

From the report:

While the crowd hoisted signs that stated “Virg Surge,” the turnout at the rally was anemic. More than 500 people came to the rally, but the gym at Renaissance High School was only about one-third full, even though Clinton used to command full houses wherever he went, especially in Detroit.

The Big Dog ought to be barking at whatever scheduler embarrassed him with that time-waster.

Sunday Giants-Rangers Open Thread

OK, this is the World Series matchup football fans have been wiating for - the San Fran Giants versus the Texas Rangers.

Fortunatley there is one bit of trivia that piques our interest (for about a nanosecond) - Texas catcher Bengie Molina had been the Giants catcher until he was traded in July 1 to open the spot for Buster Posey.  Consequently, he can get himself sized for another World Series ring right now.

 

OK, Then, Let's Not Move

Wow.  The NY Times has an article about middle-aged male triathletes, the gist of which is they are rich, self-indulgent white Peter Pan wanna-bes.

I don't know  - one might have thought that middle aged guys trying to stay in shape could be lauded, and heaven knows, the NY Times splashes a lot of ink promoting the NYC Marathon. But this time, psycho-analyzing the Times is beyond me.   

Whatever.  If these guys woud just go away and join a golf club the Times would ignore them and their outrageous club fees.

 

A Pep Talk From Petraeus

In the run up to Obama's December dithering strategy review about Afghanistan we are being treated to leaks and stories telling us things are going well.

Carlotta Gall of the NY Times had this on Thursday:

Coalition Forces Routing Taliban in Key Afghan Region

By CARLOTTA GALL

ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — American and Afghan forces have been routing the Taliban in much of Kandahar Province in recent weeks, forcing many hardened fighters, faced with the buildup of American forces, to flee strongholds they have held for years, NATO commanders, local Afghan officials and residents of the region said.

A series of civilian and military operations around the strategic southern province, made possible after a force of 12,000 American and NATO troops reached full strength here in the late summer, has persuaded Afghan and Western officials that the Taliban will have a hard time returning to areas they had controlled in the province that was their base.

Some of the gains seem to have come from a new mobile rocket that has pinpoint accuracy — like a small cruise missile — and has been used against the hideouts of insurgent commanders around Kandahar. That has forced many of them to retreat across the border into Pakistan. Disruption of their supply lines has made it harder for them to stage retaliatory strikes or suicide bombings, at least for the moment, officials and residents said.

NATO commanders are careful not to overstate their successes — they acknowledge they made that mistake earlier in the year when they undertook a high-profile operation against Marja that did not produce lasting gains. But they say they are making “deliberate progress” and have seized the initiative from the insurgents.

Fred Kaplan had more on the high tech mobile rocket.

Gen. Petraues gave an interview to the WaPo reinforcing the Times theme:

KABUL - Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said allied forces are in the "final stages" of a large operation to clear insurgent fighters from key regions just west of Kandahar, the country's second-largest city and principal focus of the coalition's military campaign against the Taliban.

Petraeus, speaking in an interview at NATO headquarters in Kabul, said the operation in the Zhari and Panjwai districts, which began a month ago and involves thousands of U.S., Afghan and Canadian troops, is proceeding "more rapidly than was anticipated." Military officials and Afghan leaders have reported increasing stability in large swaths of the area that had been firmly in the grip of insurgents a few weeks ago, although they acknowledge that they remain contested by pockets of Taliban holdouts.

The progress in Kandahar City's western fringe is shaping up to be an important part of the case Petraeus plans to make, during crucial assessments of the mission this fall by NATO and the White House, that international and Afghan forces have regained the momentum after years of losing ground to the Taliban.

The WaPo interview alludes to another controversy as well:

In his first interviews upon assuming command here in July, Petraeus drew attention to an increase in the number of Special Operations forces missions to kill and capture insurgent leaders and field commanders, an effort that senior military officials think has spurred a handful of senior Taliban leaders to hold preliminary talks with Afghan government officials aimed at a possible negotiated end to the nine-year-long conflict. His statements about the increase in raids led some analysts to question whether the mission here was shifting away from a focus on protecting the population from the Taliban.

But in a wide-ranging, hour-long interview Friday, Petraeus emphasized that kill-and-capture operations are part of his counterinsurgency strategy. He said the ramp-up in Special Operations forces activity has been matched with increasing effort in all parts of the overall mission, from training Afghan security forces to rebuilding the country's infrastructure.

"We have increased, and we are increasing, every component of a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign," he said.

Lots more on that over at Thomas Ricks' Foreign Policy blog in a guest contribution by an author with a relevant background:

Here is a comment from Paula Broadwell, who is just your typical Army Reserve officer who is doing a PhD and writing a biography of General Petraeus on the side.

Cool charts included.

So what does it mean?  It looks as if the military will be pressuring Obama to stay the course in Afghanistan.  If Obama is afraid of Rush Limbaugh he ought to be terrified by Gen. Petraeus, so I think we can assume the military will get what they want.

As to whether that is the correct strategy, well, Petraeus is a great American and a great general, so we hope he knows what he is doing.  You go to war with the President you have, and this is the leadership we elected, so full speed ahead.

FROM THE ARCHIVES:  Thomas Ricks had deep thoughts about Afghanistan last June when Petraeus took over, and I stand by my own advice:

Since Petraeus wants to win this war, he needs to get the top civilian leadership on board.  I suggest a re-imagining of the Army Field Manual on counter-insurgency.  Rewrite it in language that will appeal to our Community Organizer-in-Chief.  Instead of “Army/Marine Corps Field Manual 3-24”, a possible title would be "Alinsky's Rules For Third World Radicals, or, What Would Che Do".

 

How 'Bout Them Yankees?

Here is the traditional Saturday morning thread, with a Yankee twist.

My earlier prediction that the Yankees would be finished with Texas in six has stood up nicely.  I think fans enjoyed the auditions of Yankees-in-waiting Cliff Lee and (a few years down the road) Elvis Andrus. And now, like Obama, Nancy and Harry we are saying 'Bring on Next Year!'.

The Minuteman Gets Results!

My goodness - from my lips to Obama's ears, possibly filtered through an advisor or two.  Or possibly not!

A few days ago, I belabored Obama (who had been speaking at a fundraiser) for lauding the race of an admirable young woman he met at the Whte House Science Fair.  Maybe, just maybe we could keep the focus on her achievement? Or even praise some kids from less fortunate backgrounds who happen to be white?

Well, Obama told the story of that young woman at yet another fundraiser, but now it is race free!

Here we go, old and new:

I’ll close just by telling a quick story about the highlight not just of my day but probably of my week, maybe of my month.

      We hosted a science fair today at the White House.  This is the first time that we’d ever hosted a science fair at the White House.  (Applause.)  And the reason we did it was because I kept on having over these championship basketball teams and football teams.  We had the Alabama Crimson Tide.  We had the New Orleans Saints.  We had the Los Angeles Lakers.  And it’s a lot of fun having these great sports teams come by.  And I said, but how about all these kids who are involved in science and math and engineering?  Why aren’t we celebrating them?

 

      So we hosted this science fair.  And they actually set up exhibits in the State Dining Room.  And this was just a sampling of some of the young people that we’d invited.  And you walk through, and at each booth you met the most amazing young people you would ever care to -- ever care to meet.

 

 ...

 

      And then there was this -- the last person I spoke to was a young woman, looked like she was of Chinese heritage; lived in Dallas; 16 years old.  When she was a freshman in high school, she studied biology and became interested in life sciences and became interested in cancer research.  So she decided during the summer to teach herself chemistry -- (laughter) -- taught herself chemistry, and designed as a science project exploration of the development of a new cancer drug, based on some experimental cancer drugs that are currently being put together that involve injecting the drug and then it’s activated by light.  And it allows a more localized treatment that isolates the cancer cells -- kills the cancer cells but leaves the healthy cells untouched.

 

...

      So I’m talking to her, pretending like I understand everything that she’s saying.  (Laughter.)  And I’m thinking to myself, think about what this means.  You’ve got the portrait of Lincoln in the State Dining Room looking down over us.  You’ve got an African American President named Barack Obama.  You’ve got a young Chinese American girl, 16 years old, who is designing cancer drugs, having taught herself chemistry in high school.  That idea of America is alive and well.  But we have to nurture it, and we have to sustain it.

Oh, brother - we still have a black President, and Obama still can't get over it.  Anyway, here is the revised version he told last night:

This has been a terrific conversation.  I want to close just by telling you something that happened this week that was I think the highlight of my week.
 
      I had a -- we hosted the first White House Science Fair at the White House because we realized when the Lakers win the NBA championship, we have them over to the White House.  And when the Alabama Crimson Tide wins the national championship, we have them over to the White House.  And when these incredible young people are winning international science competitions, or participating in these national competitions, nobody is acknowledging them.  And that’s sending the wrong message about what’s going to be the most important thing to allow us to compete into the future.

...

      And then the last person I met -- and there were others who were doing unbelievable stuff -- but the last young woman I met, she was 16 years old.  In her freshman year, she had taken biology, had gotten interested in the life sciences.  Was particularly interested in cancer treatment.  So she decided, between her freshman and sophomore year, to teach herself chemistry in the summer, because she was so anxious to get started on learning more about cancer treatments.
 
      And she decided as a science project to try to invent a new cancer drug -- (laughter) -- because right now there are clinical trials and experimental treatments where you inject the drug into the cancer, and then it’s activated by light, and it potentially will just kill the cancer cells without killing the healthy cells, unlike chemotherapy or radiation treatments.
 
      And so -- but apparently the ones that are being tested right now by all the big laboratories, they only can be used for skin cancer or places where the light can penetrate fairly close to the surface.
 
      So she literally designed a new drug, won the international science competition, and now is being contacted by all these laboratories around the world who are working on this -- these types of drugs.  She’s very smart.  (Laughter.)  She’s 16 years old.  She hasn’t graduated from high school yet.

Hmm, Abe Lincoln is gone, as is the marvel of having a black President.  And the girl is now EveryGirl, not an Asian.

Wow.  I will try to use my new-found power wisely. 

AND TO BE FAIR:  Mikayla Nelson, the young white lady I had mentioned in the earlier post, did get a shout-out from Obama in his Science Fair remarks at the White House.

Nothing To Fear But Rush Himself (And Glenn Beck... And Sarah And The Mean Girls...)

Ken Maguire of the Times (no relation, probably) tells us about the First Tolerator's problem with visiting a Sikh temple in India:

WASHINGTON — Sikhs in the United States expressed their frustration Thursday that President Obama would skip a tentatively planned visit to their holiest site in India, while advocacy groups called on the White House to reconsider.

Mr. Obama was expected to visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, next month, but there were questions about how he would cover his head. Sikh tradition requires that men tie a piece of cloth on their heads before entering the spiritual center. The president, who is Christian, has fought the perception that he is Muslim. Sikhs are regularly mistaken for Muslims.

“There’s a xenophobic trend in this country, where some people are calling him Muslim,” said Jasjit Singh, associate director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, a Washington-based civil rights group. “If he gives in to this trend then effectively he’s emboldening them.”

Wow.  For the benefit of the few, the proud, the remaining Obama supporters, let's flash back to that glorious summer of 2008:

When Mr. Wenner [for a Rolling Stone interview] asked how Mr. Obama might respond to harsh attacks from Republicans, suggesting that Democrats have “cowered” in the past, Mr. Obama replied, “Yeah, I don’t do cowering.”

Well, he's cowering now.  My suggestion - Obama ought to cover his head by fashioning a hat out of his birth certificate.

The temple looks spectacular, by the way.  The television people must be gnashing their teeth over the lost visuals.

SOONER AND BETTER: Tunku Varadarajan of the Daily Beast was excellent yesterday:

Above all, what does this decision to avoid Amritsar tell us about how this White House feels about Americans? Does it feel that ordinary Americans will pillory their president for having associated himself with "ragheads" in Amritsar? Is this a variant of that elite condescension for ordinary folks who are "bitter," and who "cling to guns and religion"?

That Obama can't find a way to explain the symbolism of a little square of cloth on his head—placed there by enthusiastic, welcoming Indian hosts who wish him and America well—suggests that he has lost confidence in his own intellect, his own charisma, his own eloquence. A man once celebrated for his promise of change now allows a state visit to be shaped by his fear of the blogosphere—and by his fear of abuse that might come at him from an ignorant subset of the American population. Let's just call it the pygmification of a president, and lament the gutlessness of this White House.

I object.  In fact, I strenuously object.  It is not that Obama is gripped by fear; it is that we are too gripped by fear to appreciate his genius.

Obama needs to sack up and Sikh up. 

LOWER THE BAR: Could Obama look this bad?  No way!

They Failed To Dazzle Us With Science

The NY Times science people irk me with this Q&A:

Q. I’ve heard that if a penny is dropped from the Empire State Building it could kill someone. But what about hail? It’s often much larger and falls from much higher, so why do I never hear about any deaths caused by it?

A. Hail can cause human fatalities, but does not usually do so, according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

And they go on, leaving me at the starting gate - can a sky-high penny really kill someone like that?  I doubt it.  As does ABC News, which commissioned some zany scientist to catch pennies dropped from a weather balloon (Galileo would have approved).

For more, the Straight Dope does the (simplified) math and comes away a skeptic.  (We all remember 32 feet per second squared from high school, yes?  Or for the youngsters, 9.8 meters per second squared.)

Why is the NY Times Science Section promoting a climate of fear and alarming us with improbable scenarios of domestic terror?  Beats me.

GOING TO THE DOGS:  It is unrelated and I am not sure how I got to it, but this post on the evolution of dogs is fascinating.  And folks who make it to the comments will read about some improbable terrier/Great Dane action.

Articles Of Faith Just Ain't What They Used To Be

The NY Times gives us a laugh with a world in which secular writers employ religious metaphors:

Climate Change Doubt Is Tea Party Article of Faith

And in the article we find the support for that claim:

Skepticism and outright denial of global warming are among the articles of faith of the Tea Party movement, here in Indiana and across the country.

...

Those who support the Tea Party movement are considerably more dubious about the existence and effects of global warming than the American public at large, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll conducted this month. The survey found that only 14 percent of Tea Party supporters said that global warming is an environmental problem that is having an effect now, while 49 percent of the rest of the public believes that it is. More than half of Tea Party supporters said that global warming would have no serious effect at any time in the future, while only 15 percent of other Americans share that view, the poll found.

So (if my math and semantics are correct), somewhat less than half of Tea Partiers believe that global warming will have a serious effect at some point in the future.  Yet that qualifies the belief as an "article of faith"?  I am pretty sure that if a survey showed that only about half of Catholics believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, we would have a hard time inferring that belief in Jesus was still an article of faith among Catholics.

Oh, well - other surveys show that a majority of likely voters think the media has become more partisan.  I guess stories like this reinforce that article of faith.

As a workaround, this story explains how promoting national security, job creation and the opportunity to save money can motivate even climate change skeptics.

Now They Tell Us! (ObamaCare, Ongoing...)

Philip Bredesen, Democratic Governor of Tenessee tells us that the ObamaCare subsidies make it very attractive for employers (such as the State of Tennessee) to drop their health care plans and dump their employees onto the federally subsidized exchanges.  That will be a budget-buster and a bit of a blow to those who actually believed Obama when he said people could keep your insurance if they liked it.

This is only news to lefties, of course, since righties had offered this criticism of ObamaCare before it was passed (some lefties came out of hiding after the bill was safely passed).  And since this appears in the WSJ it is written for the choir.

Still, the choir may need something to sing for another twelve days.

Keeping Hope Alive In YankeeLand

The Yankees take the ALCS back to Texas.  The Times presents their problem:

But if you are the Yankees, heading to the heart of Texas for what most people believe will be a hoedown of pennant-clinching proportions, there is a counter thought to the widespread belief that no matter what they do in Game 6, Cliff Lee is guaranteed to turn them into a bunch of pinstriped bobblehead dolls in Game 7.

First, the Yankees have to win Friday at Rangers Ballpark, where they again are scheduled to trot out Phil Hughes against the immortal Colby Lewis. Far from a sure thing, given the outcome of Game 2, but not exactly the scaling of Everest, either. And if they can win Game 6, then the grand finale becomes something quite different than what had been advertised this week as the Rangers bullied the Yankees to the brink of extinction.

Game 7 becomes as much about Lee’s head as his splendid left arm and Zen-like control. It becomes about his ability to carry a team that had never won a playoff series before this month across the threshold to the World Series. It becomes about him winning the game most people have decided he can’t lose.

Yeah, and it becomes about the fact that it doesn't get easier the second time around.  Here is a misleading stat about Lee versus the Yanks:

We know that Lee has never lost a postseason game in seven decisions. We know that when you combine his numbers against the Yankees with the Phillies in the World Series last year and with the Rangers in this series, what you get is 3-0, 24 innings, 15 hits and 5 earned runs allowed.

Uh huh.  But all of those earned runs ocurred in his second start against the Yankees in the World Series last year.  In Game 1 he pitched nine innings and gave up an unearned run in the ninth; in Game 5 he was the winning pitcher despite being charged with 5 earned runs (he left after facing three batters in the 8th without recording an out, but the Phillies won 8-6.)

OK, that's your Game 7 preview.  Now we just need to get Game 6 out of the way...

 

OK, A Retraction From Rachel Maddow

Rachel Maddow spends two minutes retracting her misstatement from Monday about retired Congressman Steve Stockam and his notice of the Oklahoma City bombing.

I've sat through it (and the 30 second commercial!) so you don't have to.  I rarely watch Ms. Maddow but I always marvel that a big-time television host can hold a gig with a face locked in a permanent sneer.  Still, no one can accuse her of talking out of both sides of her mouth.  And her target audience is lefties, so I guess it works for them.

Anita Hill In The News Twice?

I can go years or decades without thinking about Anita Hill, but she is back in the news twice in as many days.

First was the odd phone call from Ginni Thomas to Ms. Hill.

And next, there is an Anita Hill backstory to the Juan Williams firing - the ancient history was noted in the WaPo coverage of the Williams story:

Williams is a former staff writer for The Washington Post who still writes occasionally for the newspaper's opinion sections. In 1991, he was disciplined by the newspaper for making inappropriate comments to female staffers about their dating and sex lives. Those allegations, and the Post's internal investigation, were made public after Williams wrote in an opinion column that Anita Hill had "no credible evidence" for her allegations of sexual harassment by then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

On the Juan Williams debacle, I love this rhetorical question from CAIR (my emphasis):

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, however, said Williams's ouster was no different than radio shock jock Don Imus being fired for his "nappy-headed hos" comment, or the calls for Helen Thomas to lose her job after making anti-Israel remarks last June (Thomas, then 89 years old, abruptly retired).

"If you pay a professional price for those kinds of comments about other groups, it's only reasonable that you should do so when speaking about Muslims or Islam," Hooper said. He added, "How would [Williams] react if someone said the same thing about African Americans or another minority?"

Great question!  And since Jesse Jackson famously said pretty much just that about young black men, it is entirely likely that a reaction from Juan Williams is a matter of public record.  Loose the Lexs!

ERRATA:  Jackson from Wikiquote:

"There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.... After all we have been through. Just to think we can't walk down our own streets, how humiliating."

OR, SAUCE FOR THE GOOSE:  OK, via BING I am finding the elusive Juan Williams/Jesse Jackson connection, but it is somewhat the opposite of what I wanted - Larry Elder was defending Bill Bennet from a 2005 media pile-on that included Juan Williams by citing Jesse Jackson.  Well, then, Juan overboard! (A terrible metaphor since he may not be much of a swimmer.)

IT WOULD BE A SHAME TO OVERLOOK THE FIRST STEREOTYPER-IN-CHIEF:  OK, in the aftermath of his Jeremiah Wright speech (the first speech when Obama couldn't disown him, not the eventual presser when he did) Obama explained that "typical" white people, just like his grandmother, get all jittery in the presence of minorities on the street.  When will NPR denounce this bigotry? 

GOOD QUESTION: So when does Sirius Radio move NPR to their comedy channel?

Are You Ready For The Baseball?

With the Yankees trailing Texas 3-1 in this series, its CC Sabathia or see, see ya later.

The first pitch is slated for 4:07 Eastern; I imagine the first Texas stolen base and first run will occur shortly thereafter.

My baseball wisdom?  The Yankees need to get Mariano in the game - he can't be worse than the stiffs coming out of the bullpen lately.  I look for Mo's first eight-inning save.  OK, maybe seven.

The American Dream And The Content Of Their Character

Barack Obama told us again about the American dream, and again he omitted any of that God talk that so vexes the left.

But I found another reason to be vexed.  Here he goes again, speaking at a fundraiser.  Briefly, the White House hosted a science fair.  Obama chose to focus on the race of a young Chinese woman and lauded her success.  Over at the Department of Energy, Steven Chu's team highlighted a young white woman from Montana.

People who focus on race will understand Obama's choice.  But dare we look deeper?  The Asian has two parents who are computer engineers, so I believe we can describe her as solidly middle class.  The white girl lives in a mobile home with her mom, who is on disability, and is working at a hobby shop to earn tuition for the local private Catholic school. 

This gets tricky for the class warriors!  Obama backed the middle class ethnic over the working class white, a choice that will not surprise the working class Hillary backers who are abandoning him.  Then again, for Obama to laud a girl who left the public school system (for a Christian school, even a good one) may give him other problems with his dwindling base.

The Extended Play version follows, starting with Obama:

I’ll close just by telling a quick story about the highlight not just of my day but probably of my week, maybe of my month.

      We hosted a science fair today at the White House.  This is the first time that we’d ever hosted a science fair at the White House.  (Applause.)  And the reason we did it was because I kept on having over these championship basketball teams and football teams.  We had the Alabama Crimson Tide.  We had the New Orleans Saints.  We had the Los Angeles Lakers.  And it’s a lot of fun having these great sports teams come by.  And I said, but how about all these kids who are involved in science and math and engineering?  Why aren’t we celebrating them?

 

      So we hosted this science fair.  And they actually set up exhibits in the State Dining Room.  And this was just a sampling of some of the young people that we’d invited.  And you walk through, and at each booth you met the most amazing young people you would ever care to -- ever care to meet.

 

      There was a team from Tennessee that had designed a self-powered water filtration plant.  It had a water wheel on it and it ran the battery that then filtered the water.  And they explained that up in the Appalachian regions, a lot of homes still didn't have clean water and this was a cheap way to do it. For a thousand bucks, you could provide all the water that 60 or 70 families needed.  Just designed it -- high school kids.

 

      You had robots that were running around doing all kinds of things.  (Laughter.)  And there was a family -- young children who had emigrated from Turkey that were now in public schools here, and they had designed a whole town that would be more energy-efficient, and had created a whole model for how it could be done.

 

      And then there was this -- the last person I spoke to was a young woman, looked like she was of Chinese heritage; lived in Dallas; 16 years old.  When she was a freshman in high school, she studied biology and became interested in life sciences and became interested in cancer research.  So she decided during the summer to teach herself chemistry -- (laughter) -- taught herself chemistry, and designed as a science project exploration of the development of a new cancer drug, based on some experimental cancer drugs that are currently being put together that involve injecting the drug and then it’s activated by light.  And it allows a more localized treatment that isolates the cancer cells -- kills the cancer cells but leaves the healthy cells untouched.

 

...

      So I’m talking to her, pretending like I understand everything that she’s saying.  (Laughter.)  And I’m thinking to myself, think about what this means.  You’ve got the portrait of Lincoln in the State Dining Room looking down over us.  You’ve got an African American President named Barack Obama.  You’ve got a young Chinese American girl, 16 years old, who is designing cancer drugs, having taught herself chemistry in high school.  That idea of America is alive and well.  But we have to nurture it, and we have to sustain it.

Oh, boy - they're never too young to be taught the importance of the race and gender bean-counting game.  And what is with this "You’ve got an African American President named Barack Obama" bit?  Geez, cue the "That's The Wonder of Me" soundtrack - does Obama really walk around the White House saying, hey, I'm still black, how cool is this?

And really, would Abe Lincoln have been bored to look down and see John Kennedy greeting Steve Jobs at a science fair just because they were tedious white guys?  (OK, the time travel element would have been exciting because their ages don't align, but work with me).

This tirade is winding down, so let me make one last point related to Obama's utter tone deafness. 

First, the young lady he mentioned, Amy Chyao, is a marvel and a paragon.  She is becoming a bit of a regular at the White House, having been there as part of the National Spelling Bee a few years back, when she came in 8th and had to settle for an autographed photo and a handshake from Laura Bush.  She has been to Poland to meet with scientists there, she is studying at the University of Texas, and we wish her the best.  Let's also note that her parents are computer engineers from Beijing, so they too are participating in the American dream.

So what could my problem possibly be?  With Amy, nothing.  But there were other students at the White House Obama might also have mentioned.  One is Mikayla Nelson, a young lady who left the public school system and took a job at a local hobby shop so she could afford the tuition at local Catholic High School, which is apparently well regarded.  The tuition doesn't sound like much by New York/Washington DC standards, but her mother is on disability and can't work, and the two of them are living in a mobile home. 

So, Obama had a chance to give a shout-out to a young white Christian girl from a trailer park who is working her way through a private school, and he took a pass in favor of an Asian girl who (I infer) is solidly middle-class.  Personally, I would prefer Obama not drag in the racial angle at all, but since he insists on doing so, he and his advisors might want to ponder whether his race conscious approach is helpful to the country at large, or even helpful to his own political fortunes (maybe they could focus-group the working class Hillary backers who are drifting away). 

Both of these young women are great stories, either could be lauded for their character, and neither should be singled out just because of their race or gender.  But that seems to be all Obama sees (and imagines Abe Lincoln seeing).

Let me add that at the Department of Energy, the Chinese guy running the place was smart enough to feature the boring white Christian.

 

Not Shovel Ready, Not Winter-Ready...

You don't need a weatherization report to know which way the government money blows in Chicago - it goes right out the door.

Byron York reads through the Inspector General's report on Obama's expanded weatherization program and discovers waste and fraud in Chicago.

This will no doubt add to the surprise Obama experienced upon discovering a dearth of shovel ready projects.

Cain Was Able

Jiminy, the Phillies lose 3-0 and the best offense standing in the National League suddenly looks as lame as the best offense in baseball.

And kudos to Cody Ross, who showcased his versatility by hitting a single rather than a home run.

 

Well I'm Planning To Party Like Its 1994

Silly Sarah.

A Self-Refuting Metaphor

The Times reports on the challenge to ObamaCare in a Federla court in Virginia.  The judge was sympathetic to the notion that maybe the lack of severability language meant the whole thing should be tossed. 

But I like this self-refuting metaphor that came up in the discussion of the individual mandate.  The government lawyer tried to explain that Congress' right to regulate activity under the Commerce Clasue also gave them the right to regulate non-activity, i.e., the non-purchase of health insurance.  Here we go:

Virginia’s solicitor general, E. Duncan Getchell Jr., told Judge Hudson that in compelling citizens to purchase a commercial product like insurance, the government was exercising authority that is “unprecedented, unlimited, and unsupportable in any serious regime of delegated, enumerated powers.”

Ian H. Gershengorn, a deputy assistant United States attorney general, responded that the failure to obtain insurance was an active decision about when and how to pay for medical care, which everyone inevitably needs.

“You cannot opt out of the health care market,” Mr. Gershengorn said. “Nobody can tell if they’re the one that’s going to be hit by the bus.”

Well, hold on - I may not be able to predict with any particular confidence that I will be hit by a bus, struck by lightning, or otherwise snuffed so quickly that I won't need any significant health care coverage over the course of my life.  But in fact, there will be people who experience just such a fate.  If those people spent their walking around money on pleasurable pursuits rather than insurance, well, they may have had a better life before their untimely departure, and who are we to deny them their brief happiness?

Let's also note that if a person's hobbies include skydiving, drag racing, off-roading, and juggling chainsaws they might be very wise not to be worried about end-of-life care when he's old.

And finally, people whose best friend is Dr. Kevorkian might have the very rational belief that their insurance is wildly overpriced because their end-of-life care won't cost much more than a bottle of Scotch and a few pills (Not advocating, just identifying.)

Puzzling.  Obviously Congress can force people to save for their retirement by way of the Social Security tax, regardless of their own sense of an optimal lifetime saving strategy.  And if health care were a new universal entitlement funded by a new tax, there would not be any traction with the argument that people might want to opt out of both the insurance and the tax.

But if pigs had wings, jihadists would fly them into buildings.  The new insurance is not a tax and it is not being defended under Congress' taxing power.  And if the Constitution really grants Congress the power to regulate any activity or inactivity under the Commerce clause, well, what limits are left to their power?

JUST RUMINATING:  France spent decades promoting policies that would raise its birth rate to get its population on a par with its rival, Germany.  Closer to home, people in the US fret about the demographics of Social Security and Medicare and wonder where we can get the influx of young workers to pay for the elderly.

Since the decision to not have a baby clearly impacts both national defense and the health of our economy, it is obvious that under the Commerce Clause Congress can regulate abortion, and ban it.  Right?

And don't even get me started on sexual practices.  Comnsidering what this country spends on HIV and AIDS research, surely the Commerce Clause grants Congress vast power to regulate sexual habits.  Or it ought to, right?  A decision to not use a condom impacts all of us, and clearly could be criminalized, or at least taxed.

I just know libs will line up behind these prudent expansions of government power.

Great Moments In Political Strategizing

Matt Yglesias, unlike me, may be smart enough to be a progressive poitical strategist.  And here he is on the China-bashing that has become a part of this fall's campaign (I emboldened the boldest bit):

At any rate, what I find most striking about the Conway-related outrage is the lack of outrage over the torrent of xenophobic China-bashing ads we’ve seen from candidates of both parties throughout this campaign season. Accusing one’s opponent of transferring economic opportunities from the United States to China (sometimes India) is a major feature of a huge number of 2010 campaigns. These attacks tend to be factually misleading, and also promote the widespread by definitely wrong misconception that the US and China are engaged in a zero-sum contest for prosperity. What’s more, even granting the factual and analytic premises of these ads their ethics is clearly mistaken. If it was the case that the US and China face zero-sum competition for economic resources, transferring resources from rich America to poor China would be morally praiseworthy.

I grasp that argument (and the false hypothetical - trade is not zero sum), but I don't think many politicians would be elected on that "morally praiseworthy" message.  Not until "citizen of the world" becomes an elective office, anyway.  As to the morality, dare we wonder whether transferring resources from richer but freer America to poorer but more dictatorial China is morally unambiguous?  Or is it as simple as, they're poorer so they are the good guys, one child and the rest notwithstanding?

It's interesting (OK, and terrifying!) to wonder just how mainstream a view this is in the progressive circles traveled by Yglesias (and of course, at a higher altitude, Obama).  It is certainly of a piece with the progressive immigration view that we ought to wave in a bunch of unskilled future Democrtic voters from abroad regardless of the impact on the American working class. 

Oh, well - the racist xenophobes of the right in alliance with the racist xenophobes of organized labor will probably block any progressive policy initiatives based on this verse of Kumbaya.  As to  China specifically, Krugmam, the Dean of the Left, has become a hate-filed xenophobe, too, so progressives are not monolithic in their brain-lock on this.

Geez, Who Spilled The Bong Water?

The One fires up the base:

"I know there are times when probably it's hard to recapture that sense of possibility," the president said at the reception. "It's hard sometimes to say, 'Yes we can.' You sit thinking, 'You know, maybe. I don't know.' It's not as inspiring a slogan."

Yes we might!

TRANS-SNARK:

Obama has proved to be weak in a crisis, as Juan Williams candidly observed in June. He’s wasn’t up to the BP oil spill or terrorist attacks. And he’s not very good at managing his own political crisis. I suppose teaching law school, perpetually running for higher office, and writing semi-fictional books about himself weren’t the best preparation for the presidency.

 

Krugman Gets Results! (But Is Too Modest To Say So)

Paul Krugman bends minds with today's column.  We learn that Stupid Bush and Evil Cheney were opposed to corporate welfare for the mining industry, weak on national security, unreasonably Green, and too cozy with China.  Who knew?

The topic is rare earths and China's virtual monopoly on mining and refining:

Some background: The rare earths are elements whose unique properties play a crucial role in applications ranging from hybrid motors to fiber optics. Until the mid-1980s the United States dominated production, but then China moved in.

“There is oil in the Middle East; there is rare earth in China,” declared Deng Xiaoping, the architect of China’s economic transformation, in 1992. Indeed, China has about a third of the world’s rare earth deposits. This relative abundance, combined with low extraction and processing costs — reflecting both low wages and weak environmental standards — allowed China’s producers to undercut the U.S. industry.

You really have to wonder why nobody raised an alarm while this was happening, if only on national security grounds. But policy makers simply stood by as the U.S. rare earth industry shut down. In at least one case, in 2003 — a time when, if you believed the Bush administration, considerations of national security governed every aspect of U.S. policy — the Chinese literally packed up all the equipment in a U.S. production facility and shipped it to China.

The result was a monopoly position exceeding the wildest dreams of Middle Eastern oil-fueled tyrants.

Hmm - with oil at $80 per barrel the Saudi's daily production is worth about $800 million, or roughly $280 billion per year.  The Times tells us that annual sales of rare earths are about $1.4 billion.  Still important, but maybe not quite the monopoly about which oil-fueled tyrants dream. 

And a bit more on that 2003 closing here; Magnequench took on Chinese investors under Clinton and exited the business in question under Bush, so two Presidents had a chance to intervene.  Nostalgia buffs will enjoy this 2008 Clinton-basher at DKos.  Newsbusters, too.

But let's press on.  Surely Krugman calls for an enraged public to demand government action, right?  Not exactly:

So what are the lessons of the rare earth fracas?

First, and most obviously, the world needs to develop non-Chinese sources of these materials. There are extensive rare earth deposits in the United States and elsewhere. However, developing these deposits and the facilities to process the raw materials will take both time and financial support. So will a prominent alternative: “urban mining,” a k a recycling of rare earths and other materials from used electronic devices.

What's this - Krugman is willing to let market forces sort this out?  OK, that might work - Australia and Canada have projects in development and I think we can be sure of Japanese support.  But Krugman is a progressive and progressives demand government action.

So let's have a Congressional study - hey, Krugman gets results!

And let's have a law exhorting the Department of Defense to rethink this - hey, Krugman has already moved a bill through the House and Senate action is considered likely.

That is a great job by a powerful NY Times columnist.  So why so coy?  Possibly he does not want to flaunt his vast power.  Or maybe the fact that the House and Senate bills were sponsored by Republicans bothers him a bit.

Or maybe the idea of providing corporate welfare to high-polluting mining companies strikes him as something other than the fulfillment of the progressive vision.  Can we have a picture of the mine slated to be reopened in California?  Yes we can:

Hard to believe Cheney opposed that.  Stiil, it's great seeing Krugman on the national security beat.  Over at Heritage folks are worrying but not panicking.

He's Gonna Hit About A Two Iron I Think

The Times explains the latest Democratic fantasy strategy: rally black voters with the idea that a vote for their local Dem congressman is a vote for Barack without reminding white voters that a vote for their local Dem congressman is a vote for Barack.

It's a great shot if they make it. And anything's possible, since we are talking about Real Men of Political Genius...

Maureen Dowd Inanity Watch

Maureen Dowd gets toasty in Vegas and files some autobiographical fluff about her high school days:

We are in the era of Republican Mean Girls, grown-up versions of those teenage tormentors who would steal your boyfriend, spray-paint your locker and, just for good measure, spread rumors that you were pregnant.

Geez, poor MoDo.  And it's not as if her adult life has been much better. 

Oh, well, it's all good is she succeeds in redirecting the conversation to something more important, such as herself.

So let's talk about Maureen - I have a great gift idea for her if anyone could tell me her birthday:

 

Or it could be a great Halloween gift for her - soooo scary!

 

Be Afraid, Be Very... Never Mind, You Already Are

Bitterly clinging to his pop psychology, First Sociologist Barack Obama regales a Democratic fundraising event with his latest insight into the minds of the Great Unwashed:

WEST NEWTON, Mass. - President Barack Obama said Americans' "fear and frustration" is to blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda.

"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country's scared.”

Obama told the several dozen donors that he was offering them his “view from the Oval Office.” He faulted the economic downturn for Americans’ inability to “think clearly” and said the burden is on Democrats “to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling.”

Uh huh. As an example, Obama explained that Only a person gripped by fear and unable to think clearly could have believed in "shovel-ready" projects.  Or he could have.

I have no doubt the electorate is more disciplined on his home planet Vulcan.  Still, I wonder whether telling us we are a nation of cowards for worrying about our jobs will be a winning message.  But let's not overlook the real progress here- now Obama's critics are scared rather than racist or stupid.  There's hope for us! And change!

Speaking of which, left unanswered (and probably unasked) - are people hard-wired to think clearly while euphoric about the possibility of hope and change?  I'd hate to think Obama ran an emotionally manipulative campaign what seems like two eons ago.

And is there some reason to think that people were not scared back in the fall of 2008 when Fannie and Freddie were being nationalized, Lehman and AIG were failing, and TARP was being whooped through Congress?

Whatev.  America's many - the scared, the timorous - will give Obama something to think clearly about on November 2.  I am sure the prospect does not scare the few, the fearless, the clear thinking Democrats.

LOW BLOW: Only a person gripped by fear and unable to think clearly could have believed in "shovel-ready" projects.  Or that Obamacare would bend the healthcare cost curve, or that we could keep our insurance if we liked it, or... oh, gotta go flee in terror, I heard a door squeak and a window bang...

WE HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR BUT... Forget it - we have a lot to fear while Obama is driving the Washington Clown Car.

I MEANT TO SAY JUST THAT:  "The trauma is Obama!".  Or maybe, the trauma is no-drama Obama. 

KEYWORDS:  Obama, smug, condescending.

Now The Times Is As Dumb As I Am

The NY Times cautiously fact-checks Obama's current attack speech and admits that he tells a few stretchers.  However, they also include this:

Mr. Obama also chides Republicans for wanting to “borrow $700 billion from the Chinese or from the Saudis or somebody” to pay for that part of the tax reduction over the next 10 years. He does not mention the cost of the tax reduction for the other 98 percent of taxpayers — more than $3 trillion — which would also require borrowing as long as the budget remains in deficit.

Hmm.  I had mocked that argument for a different reason - the standard lib objection to tax cuts for "the rich" is that they are saved rather than spent, and consequently provide no stimulus [cf Krugman].  But of course, if net national savings scarcely changes then net debt to foreigners won't change much either.  That said, in Obama's formulation above "Chinese.. or Saudis.. or somebody" could refer to American taxpayers, so Obama may have skated back to thicker ice.

But that is not what caught my eye!  I had cited Obama's amnesia about the $3 trillion in middle class tax cuts, and a reader revolt persuaded me that the correct figure was closer to $2 trillion.

Yet now Peter Baker of the Times is peddling the same insight (or experiencing the same brain lock.)  What sinister force is seizing our brains?!?

The Times summary of the Bush tax cuts includes this:

The revenue stakes are huge. Ending the tax cuts for the rich would bring additional revenues to the government of more than $678 billion through 2020, the administration has projected. Keeping in place the tax cuts for everyone else would mean forgoing more than $2 trillion in revenues during that time.

Baffling.  If $3 trillion was wrong when I wrote it, it is probably still wrong.  Still, for the Times to go overboard in criticizing Obama is a shocker.

 

Still Looking For An Exit Strategy In The War On Drugs

Attorney General Eric Holder put his vast personal credibility on the line in opposition to California's Prop 19 which would legalize marijuana:

LOS ANGELES — The Department of Justice says it intends to prosecute marijuana laws in California aggressively even if state voters approve an initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot to legalize the drug.

The announcement by Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general, was the latest reminder of how much of the establishment has lined up against the popular initiative: dozens of editorial boards, candidates for office, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other public officials.

Still, despite this opposition — or perhaps, to some extent, because of it — the measure, Proposition 19, appears to have at least a decent chance of winning, so far drawing considerable support in polls from a coalition of Democrats, independents, younger voters and men as Election Day nears. Should that happen, it could cement a cultural shift in California, where medical marijuana has been legal since 1996 and where the drug has been celebrated in popular culture at least since the 1960s.

But it could also plunge the nation’s most populous state into a murky and unsettling conflict with the federal government that opponents of the proposition said should make California voters wary of supporting it.

I din't realize Californians had grown so timid and deferential.  In fact, I would have thought that ignoring Washington and the East Cost was a feature rather than a bug.

We do find the ligher side in this metaphor gone awry:

But Roger Salazar, a political consultant who has been directing the effort to defeat the proposal, said that Mr. Holder’s statement should reinforce deep concerns about the initiative, including the way it was drafted and what he called inflated claims by its backers of what legalization might do.

“This is sort of a shot across the bow from the federal government: They’re saying that, ‘If this thing moves the way we think it is, we’re going to come after you guys,’ ” he said. “That gives California voters one more reason to take a deep breath.”

Take a deep breath and hold it.  Oh, boy. 

State Republicans are having fun too:

The presence of the initiative on the ballot has encouraged Democrats, who argue it will lead to increased turnout among younger voters.

Notably, none of the major statewide candidates have endorsed the measure. But perhaps just as notably, none have made the proposition a campaign issue.

The state Republican Party has officially come out against Proposition 19 and plans to urge people to vote no, said Ron Nehring, the party chairman. He called repeal a “big mistake” and mocked the notion that placing the proposition on the ballot would help Democrats.

“We call that their Hail Mary Jane strategy,” he said.

Oh, I think you would have to be stoked up to vote for Pelosi, Boxer or Brown.