JustOneMinute

Ratings Gold! Or Ice Cold...

The NY Times describes the four hour political re-education effort also known as The Academy Awards and even they seem to toy with the notion that it was a bit of a grim slog through a litany of lefty pieties.

Their coverage does not mention Sarah Silverman, who introduced the song from the James Bond film "Spectre" but announced she had not seen the film because James Bond is and always has been a sexist pig. Thanks for sharing.

I did tune in to watch the Blue-on-Blue (really, Black-on-Blue) action, which was endless. Did you know that there were no black nominees for the acting awards? Also no Asians or Hispanics, but that was not mentioned for two hours. Although to be fair, given their pop-culture footprint in sports and music, one might be more surprised by the black dearth in movies than the Asian absence.

The Times did not go anywhere near the ironies and absurdities here:

As the evening wore on, the causes began to stack up. Vice President Joseph R. Biden added yet another when he showed to introduce Lady Gaga’s performance of “Til It Happens to You,” from “The Hunting Ground,” a documentary about campus sexual assault. “I really mean this, take the pledge,” Mr. Biden urged, as he begged attention for that issue, as Mr. McCarthy, of “Spotlight,” and Mr. McKay, of “The Big Short,” had urged attention for theirs.

The Times probably should have mentioned that the pledge in question is opposed to sexual violence and is at the "Its On Us" website. Perhaps the editors chose wisely in not clarifying that point since if Roman Polanski had walked onstage he would have received a standing ovation. As would Bill Clinton or assault-enabler and future Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. Move On, indeed.

Bluff And Counterbluff

WTF is it now? From Ben Smith and Buzzfeed (I know...)

Donald Trump Secretly Told The New York Times What He Really Thinks About Immigration

The New York Times is sitting on an audio recording that some of its staff believes could deal a serious blow to Donald Trump who, in an off-the-record meeting with the newspaper, called into question whether he would stand by his own immigration views.

Trump visited the paper’s Manhattan headquarters on Tuesday, Jan. 5, part of a round of editorial board meetings that — as is traditional — the Democratic candidates for president and some of the Republicans attended. The meetings, conducted partly on the record and partly off the record in a 13th floor conference room, give candidates a chance to make their pitch for the paper’s endorsement.

...

imes editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal told me he would not comment “on what was off the record at our meeting with him.”

“If [Trump] wants to call up and ask us to release this transcript, he’s free to do that and then we can decide what we would do,” Rosenthal said.

Trump, whose spokeswoman didn’t respond immediately to an email, can resolve this mystery: He can ask the Times to release the tape. Will he?

Dueling transcripts! Will Hillary put out her Goldman tapes before the Trump tapes emerge?

So, is this an invented story, or are Times reporters sitting on HUGE news? Try a different question - does Dealmaker Trump seem like the sort of guy who would say different things to different audiences? If he does, can we trust the Times to sit on this through November? This is obviously nothing like the LA Times protecting Obama by sitting on his Palestinian tribute tape.

Or they don't have a tape but don't like Trump either - as a different lib noted in advocating Stop Trump Now crossover primary votes for Rubio:

Although it’s highly likely Trump would lose a general election, there are no guarantees. Hillary Clinton could be indicted. Terrorists could strike two days before Americans head out to vote. If nothing else, the course of the presidential race so far should instill a healthy modesty in anyone inclined to make blanket assertions about what will happen in six months.

But on yet another hand, I have a copy of Trump's 1999 book, "The America We Deserve". Back then he was pro-choice, favored the assault weapons ban, and advocated for a one-time "wealth tax" that is probably unconstitutional.

But his economic nationalism flag was flying then, and on immigration he wanted real border controls and spoke well of deportation. So on that one issue, he may not have waffled with the NY Times.

Lots more by AllahPundit at HotAir, who sniffs a nothingburger.

Sen. Ben Sasse Dumps Trump

Sen. Ben Sasse, who we remember from his San Bernardino speech, dumps Trump in an open letter on Facebook. Let me add that Sen. Sasse expanded on those themes on the Senate floor a few days later and denounced demagogues without naming Trump (but AllahP did!)

MORE: Here is the David Duke "non-endorsement" of Trump. David Duke now says the media is lying and what he said is not an endorsement.

Whatever - Jake Tapper of CNN had also asked about the KKK, which may have been unfair since Trump is not much of a speller, but it is hardly a trick question.

Oh, JK! Jake Tapper asked about the "Ku Klux Klan" but Trump now claims he didn't hear that either. Check out the chutzpah in The Hill:

February 29, 2016, 08:04 am

Trump blames ‘lousy earpiece’ for uproar over David Duke

By Mark Hensch

“I don’t mind disavowing anybody, and I disavowed David Duke.” Trump talks KKK controversy. https://t.co/8PRS2FoPWp

— TODAY (@TODAYshow) February 29, 2016

Donald Trump on Monday blamed a poor earpiece for sparking a misunderstanding over white nationalist David Duke’s support of the GOP presidential front-runner.

“I’m sitting in a house in Florida with a very bad earpiece they gave me,” he told hosts Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s “Today" show.

“I sit down and I have a lousy earpiece provided by them,” Trump continued. "You could hardly hear what [CNN anchor Jake Tapper] was saying.

“What I heard was 'various groups.' I have no problem disavowing groups, but I’d at least like to know who they are. It’d be very unfair disavowing a group if they shouldn’t be disavowed.”

Thirty seconds with the CNN tape shows Trump is lying since he clearly named David Duke in his response:

The Sunday uproar started when Trump was asked by Tapper whether he would disavow Duke and other white supremacist groups that are supporting his campaign.

"Just so you understand, I don't know anything about David Duke, OK?" Trump said.

Trump was pressed three times on whether he'd distance himself from the Ku Klux Klan -- but never mentioned the group in his answers.

"I don't know anything about what you're even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists," he said. "So I don't know. I don't know -- did he endorse me, or what's going on? Because I know nothing about David Duke; I know nothing about white supremacists."

Anyone who thinks the Mexican government will pay for Trump's wall will believe this. As noted, Trump has had no trouble repudiating Duke in the past. Here is Trump refusing a Duke endorsement last August, and the disavowal from last Friday is widely circulated. Yet on Sunday he doesn't know anything about him?

MORE: Rush and the ideologically disparate AllahP are on a similar page with Trump's failure to disavow Duke and the KKK under the bright lights of a Sunday morning show. Rush:

A Sunday show is serious, no fooling around. It's like "for the record," what you say on the Sunday show.  And it could well be that Trump thinks of it that way and just didn't want the quote, did not want any sound bite from the Sunday show one way or the other because maybe Trump's nervous.  Maybe he's nervous after that debate.  Maybe he's worried.  The polls don't indicate it.  Maybe he's worried that Cruz and Rubio are gaining on him, and he doesn't want to tick off anybody that might vote for him. 

Hey, my speculation's as good as anybody else's, because I can think of no reason that he would purposely dodge, when he's not dodged it before.  I think about it being on a Sunday show, and that having more weight, more stature, something about it being these Sunday shows are TV shows of record, as opposed to your average cable news show, which happens every day or every night. 

And AllahPundit, who had this earlier:

The weirdest thing about this clip, once you get past the baseline weirdness of the presumptive GOP nominee punting on condemning David Duke, is that he’s had this question before and issued the requisite condemnation when asked. Trump knows exactly who Duke is.

Well, that is a heck of a baseline, but yes - Trump knows damn well who David Duke and has repeatedly distanced himself.

But on theories:

Trump gave in amid the uproar and tweeted, “As I stated at the press conference on Friday regarding David Duke- I disavow,” along with a short clip from the presser. Which brings us to the question of the day: Why didn’t he say that to Tapper? Why pass on a gimme? Your answer, I think, depends on how charitable you want to be to Trump. Most charitable: He was tired and had a brain fart under pressure, knowing that Tapper was putting him on the spot. How hard is it, though, to field a question that boils down to “KKK, yes or no” even when you’re tired? A less charitable theory: Trump is so narcissistic that he can’t bring himself to harshly criticize someone who’s praised him, even if that someone is David Duke. In Trump’s world the moral fault line between good people and bad people seems to lie between whether they’re pro- or anti-Trump. (See also Putin, Vladimir.) The problem with that, though, is that Trump’s condemned Duke before, as noted. Maybe not “harshly” (at least not since 2000), but if all you want is to hear him say that he doesn’t want the support of a particular Trump fan, well, he’s said it already.

Which brings us to the least charitable possibility. Maybe he really is mindful of the racist minority among his supporters and didn’t want to say anything in a high-profile format like a Sunday news show that might piss them off before Super Tuesday. It’s one thing to perfunctorily disavow Duke in a brief exchange during a Q&A at a press conference that’s devoted to another matter. His alt-right fans have evidently convinced themselves that Trump saying he loves Israel and “the blacks” are just lies he’s telling the media to keep himself viable for the election. Viewed that way, Friday’s disavowal of Duke was just another opportunistic lie and therefore forgivable. The risk posed by this morning’s interview was that Tapper might have drilled down on the subject to try to get Trump to say he despises Duke, loathes the alt-right and so forth, which would have risked convincing some of those same supporters that he’s been lying to them, not the media, in pretending to worry about “Mexican rapists” and Muslim visitors from overseas, etc. So, pressed by Tapper, he played dumb with the cameras rolling and then did another perfunctory disavowal on Twitter later to try to clean up the mess for the benefit of media types. He’s triangulating, essentially. It’s just that, instead of triangulating between Republicans and Democrats, he’s triangulating between the mainstream right and David Duke.

As an alternative guess: I don't see how Trump could have planned this stunt, but maybe he has an animal's instinct for news management and (instantly, subconsciously) gambled that he could pass on Duke on Sunday morning, swoop all the oxygen out of the few remaining news cycles prior to Super Tuesday, and, with the previous disavowals out there on the record, clean up the mess later. Maybe. Find some cheerleaders to blame a 'gotcha' media, and it's all good.

To be candid, I was concerned Rush would walk the "gotcha media" road and depict Trump as a victim. Glad he didn't, at least in the excerpt he is choosing to highlight. And via the Gateway Pundit I learn that some Rush listeners are outraged. Now, if they could direct that outrage at Trump we'd be getting somewhere.

A guy who hopes to forge a national (rather than base-wide) consensus on illegal immigration reform but can't reflexively denounce the KKK is probably going about this the wrong way. Well, assuming the hope is to bring in moderates, rather than just whoop up the already-committed. Absent those moderates, President Trump can deliver table-pounding rhetoric but never gets to House or Senate majorities.

Hey, get their vote today, then later betray. What else is new?

Clean Hands Kasich

The NY Times covers the Kasich effort, briefly and as a continuation of their front page story:

On the Campaign Trail: G.O.P. Race Grows Cruder and More Aggressive

Only after splashing a lot of ink on Rubio's new "Your mother wears Army boots" attempt to catch some of Trump's free media does the Times segue to Kasich (although they do have a separate horse race story about him):

Kasich Pleads for Civility

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Governor Kasich is sick and tired of all the shouting.

Mr. Kasich, the Mr. Positive in the Republican field, does not expect to win any states on Tuesday. But he hopes to do well in at least a few of them, including Massachusetts.

And these days, he would just like everyone to be nicer.

He recalled Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill and the Rev. Billy Graham. They did not raise their voices, he said.

“The people in the media, they love the yelling and the screaming and the shouting and the insults, because it’s like being in Talladega,” he said at a town-hall-style forum here.

“We go to those races and we want to see something happen that ain’t great on Turn 3 at Talladega,” he said. “But when we go to the races, we don’t want to see a crackup every time they go around the track, and that’s what we’re getting today in American politics.”

“Frankly,” he added, “it’s disgraceful.”

The crowd applauded. Mr. Kasich said that the applause would never make it to television screens. “Because it’s nobody attacking anybody,” he said.

Hmmph. I'll accept Reagan, Churchill and Thatcher as aspirational but put Kasich in that list and one of these things is not like the other. Yet, anyway.

Reagan, Churchill and Thatcher were also not trying to feed the voracious 24/7 cabe news outlets either. But Reagan certainly had his moments, e.g. "I am paying for this microphone". and understood the importance of showmanship.

Churchill, although appropriately remembered for his wartime speeches, was entirely capable of giving better than he got in Parliamentary scuffles. My personal favorite, which Churchill was smart enough to steal: during a heated exchange in Parliament:

“If I Were Your Wife I’d Put Poison in Your Tea!”

“If I Were Your Husband I’d Drink It”

Well, back to reality, and Kasich. It's easy enough to blame the 24/7 media, but they are simply hunting (and hurting) for ratings. Trump has a proven ability to make headlines at any moment, out of anything - who knew that denouncing the KKK would turn out to be a tough question?

So blame the public? The establishment is collapsing, the media gatekeepers such as Cronkite are gone, there are no filters, and we all need to get used to it or get used by it.

I'll miss Kasich in the debates. No I won't - at this juncture Times spent not attacking Trump is wasted time.

Oscar Night!

OK, yawn. I want to see Stallone win for Best Supporting Actor (normally handed out early), hear the band play "Rocky", feel the disturbance in The Force, and flip the channel to anything interesting. I could use a break from the Trump/KKK/David Duke coverage and I don't think Chris Rock and the All White Oscars will provide it.

EPITAPH: Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies. Who was excellent, but not Rocky.

NY Times goes HUGE on Libya, Hillary

Hillary has crushed Bernie in South Carolina, the Republicans are shaking with Trump fever, so it is safe for the NY Times to take a hard look at TINA Clinton and the US role in Libya.

And do they look - in the dead tree edition this story, part 1 of 2, gets a quarter of the front page and three more sheets inside (with some large pictures.) And yes, I see a book project here:

The New York Times’s examination of the intervention offers a detailed accounting of how Mrs. Clinton’s deep belief in America’s power to do good in the world ran aground in a tribal country with no functioning government, rival factions and a staggering quantity of arms. The Times interviewed more than 50 American, Libyan and European officials, including many of the principal actors. Virtually all agreed to comment on the record. They expressed regret, frustration and in some cases bewilderment about what went wrong and what might have been done differently.

And so many questions:

Was the mistake the decision to intervene in the first place, or the mission creep from protecting civilians to ousting a dictator, or the failure to send a peacekeeping force in the aftermath?

Mrs. Clinton declined to be interviewed. But in public, she has said it is “too soon to tell” how things will turn out in Libya and has called for a more interventionist approach in Syria.

"Too soon to tell". Grr - in 2011 Obama told the US public that Iraq was "sovereign, stable and self-reliant" so he brought our troops home. Guess it was too soon to tell there, too.

As to Hillary's influence on Obama's thinking, this is not news but:

Mrs. Clinton’s account of a unified European-Arab front powerfully influenced Mr. Obama. “Because the president would never have done this thing on our own,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser.

Mr. Gates, among others, thought Mrs. Clinton’s backing decisive. Mr. Obama later told him privately in the Oval Office, he said, that the Libya decision was “51-49.”

“I’ve always thought that Hillary’s support for the broader mission in Libya put the president on the 51 side of the line for a more aggressive approach,” Mr. Gates said. Had the secretaries of state and defense both opposed the war, he and others said, the president’s decision might have been politically impossible.

What had she learned from Iraq? Apparently that others can be duped by their own beliefs and enthusiasms, but not her:

President Obama was deeply wary of another military venture in a Muslim country. Most of his senior advisers were telling him to stay out. Still, he dispatched Mrs. Clinton to sound out Mr. Jibril, a leader of the Libyan opposition. Their late-night meeting on March 14, 2011, would be the first chance for a top American official to get a sense of whom, exactly, the United States was being asked to support.

In her suite at the Westin, she and Mr. Jibril, a political scientist with a doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh, spoke at length about the fast-moving military situation in Libya. But Mrs. Clinton was clearly also thinking about Iraq, and its hard lessons for American intervention.

Did the opposition’s Transitional National Council really represent the whole of a deeply divided country, or just one region? What if Colonel Qaddafi quit, fled or was killed — did they have a plan for what came next?

“She was asking every question you could imagine,” Mr. Jibril recalled.

Mrs. Clinton was won over. Opposition leaders “said all the right things about supporting democracy and inclusivity and building Libyan institutions, providing some hope that we might be able to pull this off,” said Philip H. Gordon, one of her assistant secretaries. “They gave us what we wanted to hear. And you do want to believe.”

Those defiant dissidents. Cue the X-Files. Also, Back to the Future.

MORE: Excellent table-pounding from Reason, where Jacob Sullum brings the fire I seem to lack:

Hillary Clinton Is an Unrepentant Warmonger

 

Go, Go With Rubio

[Sunday AM: Commenting challenge overcome, back to normal challenges]

[As of Saturday afternoon the commenting software is not working here at Typepad. One hopes they will have prompt success in remediation.]

Erick Erickson recaps the Dem reaction to the MarcoBot 3.0 Attack Mode! performance.

To those worried that the campaign has fallen into the gutter, let me try for some uplift: Don't think of such Rubio taunts as "Trump likes to sue people. He should sue whoever did that to his face." as beneath the dignity of a Presidential campaign. Think of it as performance art, with Trump the direct target and the media the subtextual object of derision:

While Rubio attacked Trump, national cable networks played his speech live — a favor granted constantly to Trump, rarely to anyone else. When Rubio switched tacks to deliver his positive stump speech, the networks cut away.

Trump has been getting unmatched free time for months exactly because he is outrageous. Rubio is mocking our media, which knows damn well that an extended Sunday morning chat with John Kasich about health care reform would be ratings death, not to mention the literal death of innocent viewers trapped in front of a television with no remote control at hand.

Or Rubio is having a blast unleashing his inner middle schooler. Rubio for the young and young at heart! We are all fourteen again, at least for a weekend, and my deep thoughts about Apple and encryption can wait.

And for those Trumpeters out there - my mother wears Army boots, and she'll kick your ass harder than she kicks mine! Yeah!

OK, it's been a while, there might be some rust...

OH, YEAH: My prediction is that we will see a calm, restrained Rubio as a talk show darling Sunday morning. One or two zingers for the highlight reel, then thoughtful (read, disappointing) discourse on actual issues. Bring a cup of coffee.

BURIED LEDE: This essay by Ace on his support for the Trump immigration message but his no confidence vote in the man is a must-read.

Stray Thought

For the "Better Late Than Never" files - if the Jersey Fat Boy Chris Christie is signed up as Trump's attack dog does that mean Kasich will end his extended VP audition, drop the gloves and enter the "Don't Let America TRiUMPh" donnybrook?

OK, sure, would anyone notice if he did? But if he runs out the clock at the next debate the way he did at the last one... bah. There is no tomorrow!

YEAH, I NEED HELP HERE: The grim realization that you can't spell "Triumph" without T-R-U-M-P has me casting about for a way to turn that around. "TRiUMPh of the Will" risks a Godwin's law violation; any ideas? Something like "Don't Let Fear TRiUMPh!", but a lot less lame. A LOT less.

SECOND STRAY THOUGHT: Eight years in Presidential exile has been great for the Republican Party, which has reclaimed the House and Senate and picked up many Governorships. I doubt the GOPe fears four more years under Hillarity! the way they fear the disaster of being saddled with Trump. Just for example, the Presidents party routinely loses seats in the midterms - how would that be helpful?

Now if Scalia were still alive this would be less painful, but known, declared foe Hillary is better for the conservative cause than center-left opportunist Trump. On the other hand, Trump is better for smashing the GOPe. Yike.

More Mockery From Rubio

OK, this is not Lincoln-Douglas 1858 but that train left a long time ago.

Rubio jokes that Trump may have wet his pants during debate

Well, next time Trump should wear the brown pants.

 

More Fight Night Post Game

Some more thoughts on last night's donnybrook:

Where's the Beef? When Trump was debating on a crowded stage of ten or whatever his bluster and insults made fun soundbites. With the stage down to five, his lack of follow-up substance was exposed repeatedly and successfully by Rubio and Cruz. That said, "Moderator" Wolf Blitzer did a great job of giving Trump standing eight-counts by cutting to Kasich whenever things got interesting.

There may not be time left to derail the Trump Express. But in 1984 Walter Mondale rode the wings of a Wendy's commercial to highlight the inexperience of fresh-faced newcomer Gary Hart (before losing 49 states to Reagan - oops.) Rubio and Cruz need to craft ten second soundbites highlighting Trump's superficiality, and they don't have a commercial to ride.

Still, if it can be done the Miami Soundbite Machine can do it (Catching Trump repeating his attacks was Level Ten stuff) [And here it is! See Confidence Game below]. And Cruz is hardly one to toss flower petals either. Trump can't handle either guy one on one, but he does benefit from the "look at these young politicians who never done anything ganging up on me" dynamic. Tricky!

And be careful - Trump did have the beef! Once available through Sharper Image, and I love this review:

Does “greasy and tasteless” remind you of anyone?

Get Kasich and Carson Out of There. If I ever have a sparky dinner party conversation and find myself in dire need of a cold bucket of water and a wet blanket I know who to call. Anyone who likes booth reviews during NFL games had to love Kasich and Carson last night.

Kasich did advance his objective, which was to let Rubio and Cruz do the knife work against Trump and then hope voters flock to the guy with the cleanest suit. Or, secure an interview as a Trump VP pick. Either way. But if he wants to pretend to be a serious candidate for the Presidency, Kasich needs to nut up or shut up.

And Carson is a great guy and a great American but if wants to serve his country and his cause he should get off the stage and give what little time he gets to Trump and his critics. More exposure will not be Trump's friend.

Trump on Taxes: Trump's tax returns are now a Big Deal and his various explanations were patent BS. My favorite - he was audited (beginning under Bush?!?) because he was a good Christian. "Newsman" Chris Cuomo needed more and better botox when he heard that.

But on the subject of Trump being a good Christian, Buzzfeed has spent hours listening to Trump bantering with Howard Stern so we don't have to. Nor would I, ever, but do check it out. This is from the late 90's and 2000, so yes, Presidential aspirations (or a good show) were in the air. A whiff:

In the interviews, Stern and his co-hosts often introduced the most vulgar elements into the conversation, but Trump was almost always willing to go along. Talking about Pamela Anderson’s hepatitis C diagnosis in 2000, Stern asked Trump, “Would you do her, still?”

Trump replies, “No, I’m sorry.”

Robin Quivers, Stern’s sidekick, then asked Trump whether he would choose to sleep with Anderson or Whoopi Goldberg.

“You know, right now, I have to go with Whoopi,” replied Trump. “Look, it’s a terrible thing. It’s a sad thing. You know, it’s a terrible thing.”

Trump also discussed his involvement with beauty pageants. After purchasing the Miss USA pageant in 1997, Trump said he would make the “bathing suits to be smaller and the heels to be higher.” In 2005, when promoting the pageant on Stern’s show, Trump said, “If you’re looking for a rocket scientist, don’t tune in tonight, but if you’re looking for a really beautiful woman, you should watch.”

This may not cost him much of the "Regular guy you might enjoy a beer with" vote and I have zero doubt that Bill Clinton was far worse in private, but... I also have no doubt that George Bush and Barack Obama are far better. This isn't Presidential. But what about Trump is?

And do let's remember the Trump University debacle - as noted, Trump is likely to be a witness in a fraud suit this summer. Without even looking I assume Trump licensed his name and didn't oversee the grim results, but that hardly is an excuse. Then again, having both Presidential nominees in a courtroom next summer would be... OK, dreadful, but about par for this election year.

Defrauding people looking for some education (in real estate, natch) may not pin down the youth vote.

I'VE BEEN SCREAMING AT MY TELEVISION AND SOMEBODY HEARD ME! For weeks I have been screaming at Jeb! that when Trump interrupts him, Jeb can't simply put on his hangdog "Can you believe this a**hole" face and let Trump speak. That may be good manners but the alpha dog keeps barking! Dammit, can anybody on that stage find their inner Jersey Boy?

Yes He Can! Evidently someone turned off the MiamiNice module in my MarcoBot:

The calls for Rubio to get tough [with Trump] grew louder Tuesday when Trump tauntingly highlighted their apparent detente in a speech to supporters in Nevada. “I’ve been very nice to Rubio, because he hasn’t hit me,” Trump said. “When he does, you will see what happens.”

On Thursday night, millions of debate-watchers did get to see — and it wasn’t pretty for The Donald.

Indeed, the first half of the debate was dominated by Rubio’s tussles with Trump, as the senator energetically recited what seemed like an entire opposition research file and the billionaire responded with his trademark tough-guy rejoinders. Neither candidate emerged un-bruised from these skirmishes, but Rubio employed a tactic that few of Trump’s adversaries have used until now. Rather than allowing space for Trump’s comebacks to land and draw laughter or applause, the senator routinely stepped on his opponent’s punchlines.

This, combined with Trump’s penchant for interruptions, resulted in an awful lot of inaudible crosstalk.

This screencap is an instant classic:

One last time for emphasis - my favorability rating for both Cruz and Rubio is dialed up to 11 right now. We have spent too long watching the contenders scuffle with each other in hopes of earning a shot at the champ. There is no second, there is no tomorrow, to be the man you have to beat the man, die on your feet but don't live on your knees - cliches can't express my desire to see some Republicans actually try to claim the Republican nomination for a Republican.

FWIW: Real Clear Politics has way-too-early polling on different head-to-head match ups for the general election.

Right now Hillarity! beats Trump but loses to Cruz, Kasich or Rubio.

Sanders, OTOH, beats Trump and Cruz but draws with Rubio and Kasich.

I still don't see Kasich's path to the nomination but I suppose we can't rule out a Trump meltdown, and the numbers show plenty of room for a cheerful moderate in the general election. Older, optimistic, two-time governor of a big-time state - has anyone in the Kasich camp used the word "Reaganesque"? I'm laughing. I'm crying, but I'm laughing.

GO, MARCOBOT! I love this coverage:

Marco Rubio came out swinging at Trump, and one punch really landed: Trump University

Between 8:45 p.m.and 9:45 p.m. Thursday night, Marco Rubio learned how to box.

In the first few minutes, after Wolf Blitzer rang the bell to start the fight at the GOP debate in Houston, Rubio threw punch after punch after punch at Donald Trump, barely letting one land before he moved on to the next one. Campaigns put together portfolios of attacks that plan to use, called "oppo books." Marco Rubio pulled every sheet out of that book and then tossed the empty cover at Trump, too, for good measure.

That was nerves. Less than an hour later, Rubio was landing strategic, gleeful blows, and Trump was flustered. Rubio's best line was the one about how if Trump hadn't gotten an inheritance, he'd be selling watches. But the one that grated on Trump the most was when he noted Trump's habit of repeating himself. Over that hour, it was like Rubio leveled up.

Rubio was smiling and laughing, he was mocking Trump, he was talking over, or at least with him - good times!

The Weekly Standard has more:

Rubio Finally Swings at Trump

Hard.

 

...

The attacks kept coming. "If he builds the wall the way he built Trump Tower, he'll be using illegal immigrant labor to do it," Rubio said. "Such a cute sound bite," Trump snapped back, but Rubio wasn't done. "About the trade war, I don't understand, because your ties and the clothes you make are made in Mexico and in China," Rubio said.

"All right, you know what?" Trump said, looking more and more agitated.

"Why don't you make them in America?" Rubio shot back. "Because they devalue their currency," Trump said, repeatedly, as he pointed out that Rubio didn't "know a thing about business."

"Well, I don't know anything about bankrupting four companies," Rubio said.

After that, things got even crazier. You have to see the transcript to believe:

RUBIO: I don't know anything about...

TRUMP: You know why?

RUBIO: ... starting a university, and that was a fake university.

BLITZER: One at a time.

TRUMP: First of all...

BLITZER: One at a time.

TRUMP: ... first of all, that's called a...

RUBIO: There are people who borrowed $36,000...

BLITZER: Hold on. One at a time, Mr. Trump.

RUBIO: ... to go to Trump University, and they're suing now -- $36,000 to go to a university...

TRUMP: And by the way -- and by the way...

RUBIO: ... that's a fake school.

TRUMP: ... and by the way...

RUBIO: And you know what they got? They got to take a picture with a cardboard cutout of Donald Trump...

TRUMP: ... I've won most of the lawsuits.

RUBIO: That's what they got for $36,000.

BLITZER: All right, I want to move on.

It was a complete airing of the opposition research book on Trump, and Trump didn't seem to have seen it coming.

In all that noise, let me note that if Trump has "won most of the lawsuits", he has lost some, or at least, they are still pending. Mostly dead is partly alive, so see ya in court.

CONFIDENCE GAME: Rubio has settled on an attack soundbite:

"A con artist is about to take over the conservative movement and the Republican Party and we have to put a stop to it."

A magician is less impressive when you point out how his tricks work. Just keep saying that Trump is unprepared to be President, hasn't done the homework, has fleeced rubes for decades, and responds to questions with insults not substance.

 

More Static From the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Another partisan, Rove-inspired attack on Hillary, such as she (and we!) have endured for twenty-five years:

Mrs. Clinton, Show Voters Those Transcripts

Not "Madame Secretary"? I deplore this sexist condescension!

“Everybody does it,” is an excuse expected from a mischievous child, not a presidential candidate. But that is Hillary Clinton’s latest defense for making closed-door, richly paid speeches to big banks, which many middle-class Americans still blame for their economic pain, and then refusing to release the transcripts.

A televised town hall on Tuesday was at least the fourth candidate forum in which Mrs. Clinton was asked about those speeches. Again, she gave a terrible answer, saying that she would release transcripts “if everybody does it, and that includes the Republicans.”

Yeah, that makes sense because Kasich or Trump may wander over and seek the Democratic nomination, or something.

On Tuesday, Mrs. Clinton further complained, “Why is there one standard for me, and not for everybody else?”

The only different standard here is the one Mrs. Clinton set for herself, by personally earning $11 million in 2014 and the first quarter of 2015 for 51 speeches to banks and other groups and industries.

Voters have every right to know what Mrs. Clinton told these groups. In July, her spokesman Nick Merrill said that though most speeches were private, the Clinton operation “always opened speeches when asked to.” Transcripts of speeches that have been leaked have been pretty innocuous. By refusing to release them all, especially the bank speeches, Mrs. Clinton fuels speculation about why she’s stonewalling.

This latest partisan smear came from the NY Times editors, FWIW. That means some combination of (a) there must still be a candle or two flickering for Bernie; (b) we can look forward to non-stop clamoring for Trump's tax returns, or (c) the Times "journalists" never actually sold their souls to the Clinton Machine; it was a twenty-five year sale/leaseback, their time is up, and the Times wants to pretend to be journalists again.

I don't really believe (c) either. They will give her a four year extension with a four year option once the Democratic nomination is settled.

And do let me add: there is an old saying that if you owe the bank $1,000 you have a problem, but if you owe them $1,000,000 they have a problem.

There must be a political equivalent to that insight. Hillary is now holding the entire Democratic apparatus, obviously including the NY Times, hostage; this Mel Brooks classic moment can't be aired today but my Political Re-Eductors have not yet erased it from my memory [Trigger warning. Also, the rest of the gun, and anachronistic language].

Obama can't let Loretta Lynch indict Hillary because There Is No Alternative candidate. The NY Times can whine about her Goldman Sachs speeches or the Clinton Foundation or any other damn thing but they have already endorsed her and There Is No Alternative.

Except Bernie, who polls better than Hillary in meaningless hypothetical match-ups against different Republicans. That little crack in the window allows a ray of sun to shine through but it will be closed soon enough.

Let me close with their punchline:

Most important, she is damaging her credibility among Democrats who are begging her to show them that she’d run an accountable and transparent White House.

Neither of those Democrats seriously expect that; have the last twenty-five years taught them nothing?

THIS TOO SHALL PASS: In April of 2015 the Times editors were fulminating about the Clinton Foundation and its foreign donor problem:

Candidate Clinton and the Foundation

...

These half steps show that candidate Clinton is aware of the complications she and Bill Clinton have created for themselves. She needs to do a lot more, because this problem is not going away.

The problem is not going away? But when I search the Times website for coverage of "Clinton Foundation Disclosure" the coverage basically stopped with this editorial; a month later they did note disclosure of speeches made on behalf of the foundation.

Well, they can pretend they tried. Any chance they will try harder when it is a Republican under the microscope?

Remember The Alamo!

Roll out the Miami Soundbite Machine and the rest of the 'Don't Be Mean To Me, Donald' gang.

ADDED SUSPENSE: This is a CNN / Telemundo event. Will the Telemundo "moderator" ask a question in Spanish to embarrass Trump? And everyone else on the stage except Rubio, not to mention Bernie, Hillary and Obama, but whatever - Trump is the hater tonight.

WOW: The Miami Soundbite Machine became the Miami Hitman! And Cruz was banging away on Trump too. "Moderator" Wolf Blitzer did give Trump a standing eight-count by tossing to Kasich anytime Trump got in trouble, but is this all too little too late?

More on the Trump University fraud situation here and here.

PROBABLY AFFIRMATION RATHER THAN INFORMATION BUT... Trump drifts down about 2% in the Election Betting during the debate; Rubio rises the same.

Why Can't Trump Win? (Spoiler Alert)

A new poll has Trump trouncing Rubio in Florida, so screw the beta-testing, my MarcoBot really, REALLY needs to activate the Trump Attack Module in tonight's debate. NO, not the Cruz Attack Module!!! At this point there is no second.

As to Trump sweeping the Republican field and then trouncing Hillarity! in the general, well, why not? Given the groundswells for Trump and Sanders, doesn't this look like a Change versus More of the Same election? And who, with the possible exception of Jeb!, screams "More of the Same" more shrilly than Hillary?

For the quantitatively inclined, what are the right track/wrong track polls suggesting? Or here is a political scientist who models election based on this, that and the other saying this is will be a yuuge Republican year. Ray Fair, who has been doing this for years, also modeled this as a Republican year (Nate Silver, who did not just fall off the turnip truck, had his doubts about all this even before the Fair 'margin of error' miss in 2012.)

Finally, think politics. Imagine Obama decides to secure his legacy with a queen sacrifice - he lets Loretta Lynch indict Hillary Clinton and then nominates her as the first black woman to the Supreme Court (I am stealing a blogger's idea I can't track down right now; assistance welcome).

That gives Obama three Supreme Court judges, tying Reagan, and secures a liberal five judge bloc for a while. OK, it also snarls up his party, since with Hillarity! in handcuffs the Dems will have to nominate Bernie, scramble to cram Joe down their party's throat, or dust off the scarcely-vetted St. Elizabeth.

But given the loss of ever-so-many governorships, Senate seats, House seats, and state legislatures since his ascendance, one might infer Obama has his eye only on his personal scoreboard. Three judges! Legacy!

Now, might Senate Republicans play ball? Kind of tough for Obama to throw Hillary overboard and get nothing back, so presumably he would talk this over with McConnell first.

As to what McConnell might do, who can say? I suspect Hillary looks more inevitable to the Acela beltway insiders than to the great unwashed in the hinterlands, so knocking her out may be over-valued amongst Republican Senators. of course, that may leave them with a Trump Presidency, and McConnell might not mind sticking around in opposition to President Hillary instead. First woman President, first husband/wife President (in this country), first woman/spouse/President to be impeached... good times! (Since the Senate and House resume their duties two weeks before the Jan 20 inauguration, could the House manage an impeachment over the email cover-up to arrive during the swearing-in? THAT would be must-see TV.)

Time will surely tell. But at this point I think a pundit or two might want to break out of the pack and take a stab at misoverestimating Trump's potential.

HA HA HA: Loretta Lynch tries her hand at stand-up. While sitting down.

Hillary's Speeches

Ron Fournier of the National Journal thinks Hillary is being less than candid about her Goldman Sachs speeches.

My guess is that she did not have those speeches on her personal server or Putin would have leaked them by now.

Or maybe he is bidin' his time...

Trump Express Rolls On: Who'll Stop The Reign?

Trump blows through Nevada and roars into Super Tuesday with a full head of steam. He moves from about 50% to 66% in the election betting markets.

So what next?

Rush delivered a passionate rant about taking back the country yesterday. Let me single out this:

And now we've closed the circle.  And now we're back at why Donald Trump is in the race and why Donald Trump is running away with it.  You can get as deep or as shallow in the analysis as you want.  But it's about a last chance, a last-gasp effort at preserving the culture that developed after the founding of this country.  It's no more complicated than that, folks.  The country's under siege from all quarters, and recently the Democrat Party has joined those who have put the country under siege. 

Well, is there any question that the Democrats are aligned with feminists, ethnics and the LGBT community to tear down the hated white patriarchy? And if the result is working class white guys (and the women who used to marry them) overboard, well, let the chips fall.

Rush continues with his ongoing theme that the Democratic push on comprehensive immigration reform is simply a voter registration drive:

"I'm gonna deport 'em.  They gotta go."  Donald Trump.  "They gotta go.  I'm gonna build a wall.  Who's gonna pay for the wall?  Mexico."  Right.  They're not taking the time to ask if he really means it.  They've already decided that he does.  It's that important to a lot of people.  It's about preserving a distinct American culture which is under assault, which is under siege.  And it's being brought to us by the Democrat Party, which is trying to register all kinds of new voters all the time 'cause they need a permanent underclass of people incapable of taking care of themselves, incapable of providing for themselves who will always be counted on to vote Democrat to be taken care of. 

But elsewhere Rush mentions he has not endorsed a candidate:

You don't know, it's not your problem, Pam, but I'm being beat up these past two weeks like you can't imagine. For every one of you, there's 10 Cruz people calling and there's 15 Trump people calling, and then there's four Kasich people calling. I can't win. This is what happens, and if I'd endorsed one of them, it'd be even worse.

So, my questions - does Rush believe Trump is a true conservative who has simply been keeping quiet all these years as the various battles have unfolded in the public square? Or might he side with Matt Walsh, who documents all sorts of, well, flexibility and evolution in The Donald's views. People who thought Romney and McCain were not true conservatives are OK with Trump? Really?

Well - if Rush thinks The Donald is fundamentally a squish, how does he feel about seeing the Republicans nominate a generic left-of-center New Yorker who is currently pounding the table on immigration after years of silence and, as a businessman, is naturally sympathetic to less taxes and regulation?

And the Big Question - could Rush derail the Trump Express if he made the effort? Is he that powerful? Or is he afraid to find out? Hard to imagine it is a money thing with Rush, yet playing his best card and finding it is only a nine might be a bit of a blow to the old ego.

Well - if we get The Donald versus Hillarity! it will certainly be presented as Change versus More of the Same. Fortunately for my conscience, my vote in My Blue Heaven will only diminish Hillary's state-wide victory margin, thereby reducing her false confidence.

But for you swing staters whose vote might count - I feel your pain.

MORE: Stephen Green turns me green:

Otherwise, Trump remains a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in a policy paper he never read.

And Mark Steyn thinks the Republicans need to get their "L" or they're going to hell. Ahh, it makes sense if you read it.

Michael Brendan Dougherty of The Week writes about how the Republican Party has lost touch with the working class. How Trump is the guy to repair that breach and not my MarcoBot, who has a great rags-to-riches story and a fabulous Human Emulation Module when Christie is not around, remains a mystery.

Wow. Matt Walsh Calls It Like He Sees It; Do His Readers Survive?

Matt Walsh lets us know what he thinks about Trump and the supporters who admire his "straight talk". This is in the warm-up:

Over the course of this campaign season I’ve said many harsh words about you and your leader, all of which I stand by, but you’ve never respected my harsh words, or the harsh words of any Trump critic. Indeed, you insist that our tough criticism of you only vindicates your support of Trump, while Trump’s vulgar and dishonest criticism of everyone else also vindicates your support of Trump. You’re tired of people being critical, but you love Trump because he’s critical. You say you like Trump for his style, but you hate his style when it’s directed at him or you.

That was merely a ranging shot. Here we go:

You say you’re angry about the corruption in Washington, but you support a slimy swindler and fraudster who boasts of his bribery schemes and makes no apologies for shamelessly exploiting political corruption for personal gain.

You say you’re angry about illegal immigration, but you rally around a guy who supported amnesty as recently as 2013, employed illegal immigrants, and donated millions of dollars to open borders politicians like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and Hillary Clinton.

You say you’re angry about the establishment, but you worship a candidate who said only a few weeks ago that “you got to be a little establishment” in order to get things done, and who admits he “was the establishment” right until he ran for president.

You say you’re angry that Republicans won’t fight, but you hail as a warrior the same guy who says he’ll happily “work with the Democrats,” which probably explains why Sen. Harry Reid praised him and Jimmy Carter called him “malleable.” It is not uncommon for me to hear from Trump fans that they’re angry at “GOPe” Republicans for “cutting deals” and “compromising” in one breath, and in the very next that they want Trump because he’s really good at cutting deals and compromising.

Right down the list, you are blithely embracing every single thing you say you’re so angry about. Trump is the very embodiment of corruption, deception, cowardice, and elitism. He is precisely the sort of man you supposedly detest. Trump is exploiting America’s frustration with men like Trump. Trump is running against Trump. You are voting for Trump because you hate Trump. You are angry at politicians because they act like Trump and make deals like Trump and go to cocktail parties with men like Trump and look down on the little guy like Trump and possess the integrity of Trump, and so you’re solution is to elect Trump. Your anger at Trump leads you to Trump. Perhaps this explains why you’re so worried about politicians who are “controlled by donors,” but you aren’t at all concerned about a politicians who is the very donor you didn’t want controlling the political process. “I’m sick of these donors influencing the government! I have an idea: let’s make one president!” 

I'll put him down as "Undecided". And his Big Finish:

Unless, like I said, you’re stupid. But you aren’t stupid, and a non-stupid person, a serious person, who truly, deeply, intensely loathes the current state of affairs, who genuinely desires that his country be revived for the sake of his children, would not be turning to a blustery, boorish reality TV character with a catchphrase and a fake tan for answers.

I’m just telling it like it is here, friend. I’m telling you what’s on my mind. I’m being completely and painfully honest with you. I don’t believe your anger.  I think you want a spectacle, not a solution. A celebrity, not a statesman. A circus performer, not a leader. I think you want to be entertained. I think you’re not taking this seriously enough. I think you’re intellectually lazy so you’ve accepted authoritarianism as a stand-in for strength. I think you’re following the trend of the day. I think you’re wrapped up in media hype.

In other words, I think your anger, if it exists, is misplaced. You should be angry at yourself, because if this country falls finally and irrevocably into despotism, it’ll be your fault. You’ll have chosen it. You’ll have elected it and applauded it. That, my friend, is what makes me angry.

And that’s just how it is.

I'm still rooting for my Marcobot, but if push comes to shove I used to say I'd vote for Trump over Hillarity! without hesitation. Now I suspect I'll hesitate until I am sure Matt Walsh is nowhere around. But I'll still never vote for another Clinton.

This Is a Big 'Effin Deal

Joe Biden in 1992 wanted Bush 41 to hold off on a hypothetical Supreme Court nomination until after the election.

Once Upon A Time He Wrote So Fine

Keep on rockin' in the free world with the Supreme Court.

Time To Face Reality

I'm bracing to face reality, as soon as I can figure out what it is.

Drudge has this as "developing": [see UPDATE: The McClatchyDC story is now up.]

Trump holds lead in 8 upcoming primary states... Developing...

 

On the one hand, what else is new? With Bush out and fewer alternatives, one might think the non-Trump survivors would pick up votes. But then, one might have thought that a candidate who defended Planned Parenthood and the ObamaCare mandate, said Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq and got in a scuffle with the Pope might not be a Republican front-runner.

I continue to believe Trump is a symptom of a far deeper problem, and I have no doubt that strategists in the Cruzio (Ruz?) camps see the primaries ending like this. But when?

And if these apparent gaffes simply reinforce his self-styled image as a "Call 'em like I see 'em" straight shooter, well...

FWIW, election bettors for the Republican nomination marked down Cruz (from 9.4% to 3.4%) and Bush (3.4% to 0.1%) and placed their money on Trump (47.6%, up 2.8%) and Rubio (44.4%, up 6.8%) as the eventual nominee.

From exit polls I infer that Cruz is not finding sufficient traction with evangelicals but Rubio has plenty of opportunity with moderates.

UPDATE: From McClatchyDC via Matt Drudge:

CHARLESTON, S.C. Things sure look good for Donald Trump.

The Republican presidential race expanded across the country Sunday, and polls show the real estate mogul ahead in eight of the dozen states voting in the next nine days.

Trump has now won primaries in two very different states, center-right New Hampshire and evangelical-dominated South Carolina. And the Republican Party system of choosing a presidential nominee favors candidates who continue to win early primaries and caucuses.

Good news for those who can't endure more suspense, or pain - the end is nigh, or at least, the beginning of the end:

Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus deliberately crafted a process designed to produce a nominee quickly. By March 15, about 60 percent of Republican delegates will have been chosen.

Rules favor winners. In some states, candidates must get at least 20 percent of the vote to win delegates. In theory, if someone won 35 percent, and no one else got 20 percent, that candidate would win all the state’s delegates.

On March 15, the system changes again to promote an early nominee. States then can award all their delegates to the winner, period, no matter what the margin. That means someone could squeak through in Florida, which has a March 15 primary, and get all its 99 delegates.

Priebus is eager for a quick result. “I can’t control everyone’s mouth,” he said on the “Politinerds” radio show, “but I can control how long we have to kill each other.”

Great - we can stop killing each other and start killing ourselves. Call me old fashioned but I am bitterly clinging to the notion that the Republican Party ought to nominate a Republican.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article61652557.html#storylink=cpy

Sweating In South Carolina

The polls close at 7 PM so we may get exit polls and projections on the Republican side somewhat promptly.

And yeah, we are hoping what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

UPDATE: 7:15PM

Polls have closed in the South Carolina Republican primary, where Donald Trump is locked in a surprisingly close race with Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

The race is too close to call. According to Fox News exit polls, though, they will be the top three finishers Saturday night. 

"Too close to call" means a bad night for Trump, who had a big lead in the polls.

JEB OUT?

From the Fox Live Blog:

In his speech announcing the suspension of his campaign, Jeb Bush says "ideas matter, policy matters."

Bush says the presidency is bigger than anyone person and any one candidate, and says America deserves a president who is a president for everyone.

He thanks his family and especially Lindsey Graham, who he calls a friend for life.

He also congratulates the other candidates who have performed well, but doesn't mention Donald Trump by name.

Timeless Advice From Russia, With Disdain

I know politics ought to stop at the water's edge and I ought to be defending the office regardless of my feelings for the man but... this Russian no-smoking poster is pretty funny:

 

And the text, translated:

“Smoking kills more people than Obama, although he kills lots and lots of people.

Don’t smoke, don’t be like Obama.”

 

"Don’t smoke, don’t be like Obama.” Words to live by.

 

I bet Putin didn't look like a bored kid when he saw this. After Putin finished laughing he probably said something like "I won't see anything funnier until I get a look at Kerry's face when he finds out our Syrian "cease fire" is a sham".

 

Well. I guess I went past the water's edge there. But in my defense, that was surely as spirited a defense of Obama as our friends on the left would have offered of Bush back in the day.

Those Ever-So-Clever Progressive Apologists

Those walls around the Vatican City aren't really walls, don'tcha know?

If the Times employed this sort of sophistry in defense of the Pope's anti-abortion stand their readers would burn the place down but since this nonsense is part of a Trump-basher it will be Hosannas all around.

I will cull this as the most offensive bit:

Today, the public can freely enter some parts of Vatican City, including St. Peter’s Basilica, St. Peter’s Square and the Vatican Museum (which charges for the price of a ticket). Those areas receive millions of visitors each year who are able to enter and exit the tiny city-state as they wish.

Areas of the Vatican that are involved in the day-to-day governance of the church or that house officials, like the pope himself, are more difficult to gain access to, said Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, also a Catholic studies professor at Georgetown.

“That’s the same as any government structure in the world,” she said. “You can’t just walk into the White House.”

"Any government structure in the world"? Wait'll she learns about these things called "Post Offices" or "Department of Motor Vehicles". Or "courthouses", subject to a metal detector check.

You can't just walk into the White House because it is against the law and the law is enforced, effectively or otherwise.

It is also against the law to enter the southwestern US from Mexico without passing through a border control checkpoint, but if one of our undocumented friends from the South wants to break that law, well, Obama sees an undocumented Democrat (the Chamber of Commerce Republicans see cheap labor) so hey, hey, whatever.

No coverage here about the number of migrant camps in Vatican City. Because there aren't any.

SC Primary Open Thread

Pins and needles time - I am looking for a way to sleep through to Saturday night that does not involve heavy drinking on Friday night. Of course, I totally get anyone who is weighing the heavy drinking strategy...

Trumpocalypse Soon...

One paragraph tells us this is not your grandfather's election:

In a string of final events and media appearances, [Republican frontrunner] Mr. Trump continued to try to tamp down two of his latest controversies: suggesting President George W. Bush’s administration had “lied” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and his feud with Pope Francis over his faith.

The leading Republican is battling a Pope and an ex-President? Who's next? Maybe for the SEC primaries Trump can denounce Bear Bryant or Nick Saban.

A Few Good Men... Would Be Outnumbered By This Guy

The "Cajun John Wayne" lights up InstaPundit and the Free Beacon.

How is he not in Hollywood? In an authenticity showdown between Captain Clay Higgins and the immortal R. Lee Ermey, the drill sergeant turned drill sergeant from "Full Metal Jacket", well, I would be terrified to serve as referee.

Here is the Captain's biggest hit so far (Stelly's Restaurant) (which got him Jimmy Fallon's vote!) but I think he trumped it today.

More on Capt. Higgins in this WaPo profile. But has the Stelly perp been found?

NY Times Has No Moderation In Pursuit Of Republicans

From the "wasted time" files: This article on exercise, rats and brain growth was sorta kinda interesting, although one takeaway is that, for rats at least, voluntary and natural exercise trumps unnatural exercise done under stress and duress.

I often scroll through the "moderated" comments of those articles since the Times has plenty of well-educated, older readers - my demographic, we might say.

However, you can only imagine my complete lack of surprise at coming across the following exchange, edited for brevity and with a screenshot for posterity:

JDS  Southampton, MA 18 hours ago

When are we going to stop using animals in the laboratories.? Couldn't they have had humans do these different forms of exercise and scanned their brains? In the article there was no explicit mention of the fact that after they used the rats in their experiment, they killed them. Disgusting.

...

Robert E. Kilgore Ithaca 7 hours ago

Good point. Republicans share so many characteristics with rats, they'd be a natural substitute. And, their behavior inhibits empathy.

Since you ask, the NY Times comments are held until approved by moderators; their guidelines include this, my emphasis:

• 1. What kind of comments are you looking for?

  We are interested in articulate, well-informed remarks that are relevant to the article. We welcome your advice, your criticism and your unique insights into the issues of the day.

  Our standards for taste are reflected in the articles we publish in the newspaper and on NYTimes.com; we expect your comments to follow that example. A few things we won't tolerate: personal attacks, obscenity, vulgarity, profanity (including expletives and letters followed by dashes), commercial promotion, impersonations, incoherence and SHOUTING.

• 2. Why do you moderate readers' comments?

  Our goal is to provide substantive commentary for a general readership. By screening submissions, we have created a space where readers can exchange intelligent and informed commentary that enhances the quality of our news and information.

  While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderating decisions are subjective. We will make them as carefully and consistently as we can. Because of the volume of reader comments, we cannot review individual moderation decisions with readers and generally cannot alter a comment once it is posted.

I am not sure how a joke about killing Republicans is either on-topic or non-abusive, but then, I am just a Republican reader who is too stupid to cancel my subscription. Until my exercise program kicks in, anyway.

I am pretty sure no one will see my reply in the Times:

We Have Conquered Fear In The Stock Market.

Greed triumphs over fear in the stock market, today anyway. Iran made some murmurs of cooperation with Saudi Arabia on an oil out freeze. Elsewhere, lions are laying down with lambs while cats and dogs are sleeping together.

If you are anywhere near relaxing, check the latest election betting markets: Hillarity! is still even money to win the whole thing.

Heck of a Presser

Obama just spoke an hour or so ago. I lack a transcript and can't believe what I just heard, but have at it.

That said, my vivid recollection is that Obama spent a long time blasting Republican obstructionism on court appointments, both the lower courts and now the threatened Supreme Court blockade.

The first question was about his filibuster of Alito. Obama admitted that, well, he wasn't saying that Senate dysfunction was new and only one party was to blame. Except of course he had been.

And his conclusion - hey, failed filibuster notwithstanding Alito is on the bench - hardly explained his underlying principles. But it surely sounded better than "OK, I'm a partisan loser". Or "Love that donor kabuki - ka-ching!". Or even "Polled well for Blue State Senators like Hillary and me but we gave the others a pass".

Whatever - the next question was on Aleppo and Syria; Obama said something like "Assad missed several chances to negotiate his surrender but he will have to eventually". Unless he wins, as now seems likely.

Obama only took flight when he reframed a question about his responsibility for voter anger into a question about just how stupid and irresponsible the Republicans are [link]. He is not even pretending to be President of all the people at this point.

BITTER? MOI? In two Bush pressers from December 2007 he declined to get drawn into the upcoming primaries.

From Dec 4, 2007:

Q A question on the upcoming elections that doesn't --

THE PRESIDENT: Which ones would those be?

Q The ones that begin in January -- that does not require you to take any -- to take sides. What is your feeling right now about the tone of the campaign and, in particular, on the Republican side, some of the talk on immigration?

THE PRESIDENT: Wolf, the next three months you and your august colleagues are trying to get me to be Pundit-in-Chief and I unfortunately practiced some punditry in the past -- I'm not going to any further. I know, I know --

Q Little analysis, maybe?

THE PRESIDENT: You can ask another question. I really am going to -- look, we got -- it's hard to believe, like a month away from the Iowa caucuses, and it's going to get intense. And elections are intense. They are intense experiences, and they're intense on both sides. This is the first time in a long time that both parties haven't had -- kind of a clear nominee, and it's going to be interesting to watch.

He continued with a nostalgic stroll down memory lane - apparently Candy Crowley went viral in 2000 - but wouldn't tip his cards.

He was a bit more forthcoming a few weeks later; this is Dec 20, 2007:

Bush Chats a Little About the 2008 Race

By Steven Lee Myers  December 20, 2007 2:10 pm

President Bush adamantly refuses to be drawn into the primary election campaigns, declining to be “opiner-in-chief,” as he put it at a White House press conference on Thursday. When pressed, though, he edged a bit closer.

He offered his main criteria for the next president – a candidate’s principles and the people that will advise him in the Oval Office – and he made a bold predication: The Republican candidate would hold the White House and the party would gain seats in the House and Senate.

OK, that didn't work. He had some thoughts about the Democrats as well:

He reverted to form when he refused to comment about Mike Huckabee’s recent comments about the administration’s foreign policy, which the candidate said suffered from an “arrogant bunker mentality,” signaling the potential awkwardness Mr. Bush is expected to face when the primaries are done and the 2008 race becomes a referendum of sorts on his presidency.

“O.K. Try to get me in the race,” Mr. Bush said.

“No, sir,” the reporter replied.

“He’s trying – he’s trying to drag me in the race. What’s your advice? Don’t go there?”

“Do it,” another reporter intervened. “Do it. Go for it.”

Mr. Bush wouldn’t, but did weigh in later, indirectly, against unnamed Democratic candidates. “You know, this other thing that’s interesting, and you hear these people in the campaigns – even though I’m not going to opine about the primary, but they do talk about taxing the rich.”

Evidently, he could not resist.

“And when you say you’re going to tax the rich,” he said, “you’re taxing a lot of people that are hardworking people, and you’re taxing small businesses.”

Pretty blistering.

Stay classy, Barack.

Away We Go

I'm sure some outrage has struck me dumb. Mute, that is. And numbed my fingers...

All Change

The Daily Caller reminds us of a time when there was a possibility that the next Presidential nominee to the Supreme Court could tilt the balance in a way that alarmed the opposition party. From their link to what is now ancient history at Politico, here is Amy Schumer's cousin in 2007:

Schumer to fight new Bush high court picks

By Carrie Budoff Brown  07/27/07 05:33 PM EDT

 

New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, a powerful member of the Democratic leadership, said Friday the Senate should not confirm another U.S. Supreme Court nominee under President Bush “except in extraordinary circumstances.”

 

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation,” Schumer told the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. “The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

 

And some words of wisdom from wily old Chuck that will also be expunged:

Schumer said there were four lessons to be learned from Alito and Roberts: Confirmation hearings are meaningless, a nominee’s record should be weighed more heavily than rhetoric, “ideology matters” and “take the president at his word.”

“When a president says he wants to nominate justices in the mold of [Antonin] Scalia and [Clarence] Thomas,” Schumer said, “believe him.

But whatever Obama says will be fine.

As We Stagger Through The Foothills Towards Peak Crazy

If you wondering about the next electoral thunderbolt, consider this: the death of Scalia and the possibility of progressives locking down a reliable five seat voting bloc on the Supreme Court have raised the stakes dramatically for the Presidential election.

Which means that however improbable it was yesterday that the Democratic Attorney General would approve an indictment of Hillary Clinton, it is even more improbable today. Presumably that means the likelihood of an FBI protest, resignations and allegations of cover-up following the Hillary non-indictment have gone up.

And a bonus question - Democrats, obviously including Obama, Clinton and Sanders, are eager to overturn the 5-4 Citizens United decision, and there is no reason to think a judge they appoint will disappoint them.

So do the big money men (and women!) of the Republican establishment open their checkbooks even wider to stave off the end of their influence peddling and purchasing? And whom do they back - the last man standing, even if that is Cruz or Trump?!?

Ted Cruz At The Debate

Let's have at a few loosed ends involving Ted Cruz from the debate (transcript).

First, Hablo Espanol? Here was a crazy scene where Rubio said Cruz doesn't speak Spanish:

CRUZ: You know, the lines are very, very clear. Marco right now supports citizenship for 12 million people here illegally. I oppose citizenship. Marco stood on the debate stage and said that.

But I would note not only that — Marco has a long record when it comes to amnesty. In the state of Florida, as speaker of the house, he supported in-state tuition for illegal immigrants. In addition to that, Marco went on Univision in Spanish and said he would not rescind President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty on his first day in office.

I have promised to rescind every single illegal executive action, including that one.

(MIX OF APPLAUSE AND BOOING)

CRUZ: And on the question...

(CROSSTALK)

RUBIO: Well, first of all, I don’t know how he knows what I said on Univision, because he doesn’t speak Spanish. And second of all, the other point that I would make...

So what did Ted say and how did he say it? Over to The Blaze:

Translation: "Dude/man if you want to tell them now, tell them now in Spanish, if you want." – @pychavez https://t.co/hiiTdszrs2

The Associated Press characterized Cruz’s response as “halting and heavily accented” and “hard to understand — even for bilingual listeners.”

Rubio speaks fluent Spanish while Cruz has for years freely admitted that his Spanish is “lousy.”

And from Fusion, which ranks Rubio and Bush as excellent Spanish speakers:

A second Cuban-American in the Republican race, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, is unlikely to venture into Spanish. Back in 2012 he told Fox News he’s uncomfortable with what he described as his “lousy” Spanish. He says he never fully learned the language of his Cuban-born father.

As to the substance, per the NY Times Cruz was being lawerly:

Carefully worded this time.

Senator Ted Cruz is referring to an interview with Senator Marco Rubio on Univision in April.

In that interview, Mr. Rubio said in Spanish that he would not immediately undo President Obama’s program that gives deportation protection to young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children. (The program is not an amnesty; it does not provide any lasting immigration status.)

Mr. Rubio did say, however, that the program “will have to end at some point” and “can't be the permanent policy of the United States.”

This is not the first time Mr. Cruz has brought up what Mr. Rubio said on Univision.

We looked into Mr. Rubio’s comments when Mr. Cruz cited them while campaigning in Iowa shortly before the caucuses there. In that case, Mr. Cruz’s claim was not quite right, because he said Mr. Rubio had pledged that he “wouldn’t rescind amnesty."

This time, he spoke more precisely, referring to Mr. Rubio’s first day in office.

[TO BE FAIR: Same transcript, opposite conclusion - Breitbart says

Interview Transcript Proves Rubio Promised Hispanics en Español He’d Keep Executive Amnesty in Place

But this is what they excerpt from the transcript:

According to the Univision transcript, Rubio said in Spanish:

Well, DACA is going to have to end at some point. I wouldn’t undo it immediately. The reason is that there are already people who have that permission, who are working, who are studying, and I don’t think it would be fair to cancel it suddenly. But I do think it is going to have to end. And, God willing, it’s going to end because immigration reform is going to pass.

Which is what the Times said. Rubio will keep it in place until he ends it because DACA "is going to have to end at some point" and we need an orderly transition. Unless by "at some point" he means the end of the United States or the final expansion and collapse of our sun.]

Cruz also got into a dustup with Trump about Chief Justice Roberts, and was lawerly again (uncut for full flavor):

TRUMP: Ted Cruz told your brother that he wanted John Roberts to be on the United States Supreme Court. They both pushed him, he twice approved Obamacare.

DICKERSON: All right, gentlemen.

BUSH: My name was mentioned twice.

DICKERSON: Well, hold on. We’re going to — gentlemen, we’re in danger of driving this into the dirt.

DICKERSON: Senator Rubio, I’d like you to jump in here...

BUSH: He called me a liar.

DICKERSON: I understand, you’re on deck, governor.

BUSH: Also, he talked about one of my heroes, Ronald Reagan.

Ronald Reagan was a liberal maybe in the 1950s. He was a conservative reformed governor for eight years before he became president, and no one should suggest he made an evolution for political purposes. He was a conservative, and he didn’t tear down people like Donald Trump is. He tore down the Berlin Wall.

TRUMP: O.K., governor.

BUSH: He was a great guy.

(APPLAUSE)

DICKERSON: Senator Cruz, 30 seconds on this one.

CRUZ: I did not nominate John Roberts. I would not have nominated John Roberts.

TRUMP: You pushed him. You pushed him.

CRUZ: I supported...

TRUMP: You worked with him and you pushed him. Why do you lie?

CRUZ: You need to learn to not interrupt people.

TRUMP: Why do you lie?

CRUZ: Donald, adults learn...

TRUMP: You pushed him.

CRUZ: Adults learn not to interrupt people.

TRUMP: Yeah, yeah, I know, you’re an adult.

CRUZ: I did not nominate him. I would not have nominated him. I would’ve nominated my former boss Liberman, who was Justice Scalia’s first law clerk. And you know how I know that Donald’s Supreme Court justices will be liberals? Because his entire life, he support liberals from Jimmy Carter, to Hillary Clinton, to John Kerry.

In 2004, he contributed to John Kerry. Nobody who cares about judges would contribute to John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid.

 Of course Cruz did not nominate Roberts; he was not President. But this 2005 NRO column was very supportive.

What has bothered me about Cruz is that he thinks, probably correctly, that he is smarter than me, and flaunts that. But the fact that he could win a debate arguing in favor of "A" and then win again arguing against "A" does not make me trust him or think he has conviction and thoughtful answers. And these word games - "I did not nominate Roberts", or "Rubio won't repeal it on his first day" are what I expect from Bill and Hill, not my guy.

Then again, he at least didn't talk about carpet bombing ISIS in Syria last night, so he had that going for him. Regardless, if Cruz gets the nomination I will be all-in foursquare behind him. Even if, as now seems possible, the Democrats bail out Hillary by nominating Trump.

THE DIVERSITY PARTY: from the Fusion piece linked above:

Among the Democratic candidates, it will be sólo inglés. Senator Bernie Sanders reportedly doesn’t speak a word of Spanish. And neither does Hillary Clinton...

How hard could it be for them to learn the Spanish for "The Republicans are racist haters"? Or "I'm for more free stuff"?

The Upcoming Supreme Court Nominee

With the passing of Scalia a political superstorm is developing. Let me push off from the Times framing:

The opening of a seat on the Supreme Court was sure to roil the presidential campaign. Both sides will use the vacancy to rouse the most fervent members of their political bases by demonstrating the stakes in the election. Republicans will likely talk about the need to stop Mr. Obama from using the court to advance his liberal agenda while Democrats will warn their supporters about the dangers of a Republican president making the selection.

The unexpected timing of the vacancy will force Mr. Obama to make a choice about how far he is willing to go to confront Republicans and inject social issues like abortion into the fall campaign. Will he opt for a relative moderate in hopes of winning over enough Republicans to actually seat a replacement despite Mr. McConnell’s warning? Or will he choose a more liberal candidate at the risk of being blocked on the theory that it might galvanize Democratic voters?

Well, the danger of a Republican President making the appointment is that the Court remains on its current trajectory. To be fair, a Republican President, Republican Congress and four conservatives plus Kennedy on the Supreme Court must look daunting to Dems.

However, the Times seems to think Obama can either seek political advantage for the Democratic Presidential candidate by nominating an aspirational but not confirmable progressive darling, or put himself in the history books as a President who names three Justices. A tug of war between Obama's partisanship and his egomania? Tough call!

But I reject these false choices. Obama can name a seemingly sensible slightly left of center candidate and let the power of Washington DC take over. Has any justice in recent memory drifted to the right with the passage of years? A 'moderate liberal' today will surely "grow" and "evolve" in office into a reliable member of a five person progressive voting bloc that will approve any idea backed by Obama/Hillary/Bernie.

I am on the same page with Paul Mirengoff, who writes:

If so, Obama will select the person whose rejection will provide Democrats with the most political ammunition.

Most likely, this means Obama will select an African-American female. That way, when the Senate refuses even to bring the nomination to a vote, the Democratic presidential nominee and Democrats running for Congress can rally African-American voters while also complaining that the GOP is waging war on women.

Political calculation also militates in favor of nominating someone whose leftism isn’t obvious. That way, Republicans won’t easily be able to answer charges of racism and sexism by pointing out that the nominee is “outside the mainstream.”

One way for Obama to accomplish the second objective is to select someone whom the Senate recently confirmed with some Republican support. That way, the Democrats can refute claims that the nominee is deficient.

Well, a black woman would be fine - Paul suggests Loretta Lynch, confirmed with Republican support as AG, but of course that is a political, non-lifetime appointment. But a black man will be just as useful for political purposes - Cory Booker's name has floated by. When the Republicans squash the nominee Democrats can whine about racist, hate-filled Republicans. The usual stuff, but they need to turn out black votes without a black candidate, so this should help them.

And what about the Senate Republicans? The Times is wide of the mark here:

The situation also could prove complicated for Mr. McConnell, who since winning the majority in 2014 has labored to shed the obstructionist label and prove that his caucus can govern responsibly.

Approving an Obama nominee could provoke a backlash from conservatives, but a prolonged battle would put Senate Republicans in the middle of a campaign where Mr. McConnell had hoped not to be.

A backlash from conservatives? "Backlash" is putting it mildly - since a five judge progressive bloc will, just as a warm-up, promptly overturn the 5-4 Heller decision on gun rights and strike down any abortion restriction anywhere, conservatives correctly believe they are looking down the barrel of a gun. Metaphorically, I hope.

Then again, is there any chance that Republican Senators will look at an ostensible moderate nominee from Obama, study the polls, and conclude that a moderate lefty now is a better play than the nominee they would get from President Clinton or Sanders? Will they prefer the devil they know, as it were, and consider it safer to take the moderate liberal now than to hold out for a Cruz/Rubio/Kasich victory or a Trump crapshoot?

I think that even Republican Senators can estimate the same leftward drift Obama can rely on - no moderate lefty will remain moderate for long. Confirming one will dispirit the base to the point that the November election will be a formality, and a rout.

The Senate has to sit tight and the Republicans simply have to win in November.

EXIT QUESTIONS: There have been a lot of "Let it burn" conservatives fed up with the GOPe (i.e., the Rep establishment) on the immigration issue who have said that they will walk away this November if the party manages to nominate yet another immigration squish like Rubio/Kasich/Bush.

With the stakes now raised by Scalia's death do they still feel that way? Is the prospect of a Democratic President and a fifth liberal on the Supreme Court terrifying enough to get the Ace of Spades ringing doorbells for Rubio?

And with a hello from the other side, Mickey can not figure out why the GOPe won't bond with the base by surrendering on amnesty. Does the prospect of a tectonic Supreme Court shift prompt a re-think on their part? How will big donors fare after the Sanders Court strikes down the 5-4 Citizens United decision?

 

 

The Next Supreme Court Nominee

Let me put down a few thoughts about two circulating talking points on the possible treatment of a nominee to replace Scalia. Here is the Times framing the use of the filibuster:

Filibusters of Supreme Court nominations are rare, but the Senate blocked the confirmation of Abe Fortas to chief justice in 1968, leaving the seat to be filled by his successor, President Richard M. Nixon.

When Democrats were last in the majority and rewrote Senate rules to bar filibusters for lower court judges, they deliberately left it possible to filibuster nominations to the Supreme Court. As a senator, Mr. Obama supported a filibuster against Justice Samuel Alito, who was nonetheless confirmed in 2006.

Yes, Obama was in the minority when the cloture motion to end debate failed by 72-25. Joining him on the short end were Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and John Kerry (Sanders joined the Senate in January 2007). We can expect a lot of phony posturing from these folks about how the President's choice deserves an up or down vote. Eventually 14 Senators who voted to end debate switched sides and voted against Alito, who was confirmed with 58 votes.

And the second point regards confirmations in a Presidential election year. Back to the Times:

Critics of Mr. Obama’s said the timing of the vacancy, coming in the middle of a hotly contested presidential election, should change the calculus. “It has been 80 years since an election-year vacancy has been filled and the politics of the court has changed drastically since those days,” said Shannen W. Coffin, who was counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney.

But Democrats noted that a Democratic Senate confirmed Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in February 1988, an election year, although the vacancy had come up the year before. Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice, said the Supreme Court should “not become a casualty of the politics of destruction, denial and obstruction.”

That leaves out a lot, and Twitter was fierce on this last night. The gist - Kennedy was nominated as a third choice. First there was a brutal Bork battle, then Ginsburg withdrew over marijuana use. Kennedy was nominated on Nov 11, 1987 for a seat that had opened up when Powell had retired at the end of the June 1987 term.

Beyond that, Kennedy was viewed as a Regan surrender nominated to be what he has become - a moderate, consensus pick and likely swing vote. Here is Linda Greenhouse of the Times from Nov 1987:

With the Kennedy Nomination, The Center Holds

By LINDA GREENHOUSE Published: November 15, 1987

...

The Federal appeals court judge from California, the runner-up only two weeks earlier to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, had become the all-but-official choice in the four days since revelations about marijuana use forced Judge Ginsburg's withdrawal. With Congress and the rest of official Washington shut for Veterans Day, Mr. Reagan's deliberately low-key presentation of his third nominee for the Court vacancy had the appearance of an anticlimax.

But this was a truly startling event, one that beyond its obvious significance for the Supreme Court was painfully revealing of the status of Ronald Reagan and of the conservative revolution he came to Washington to lead.

Almost seven years to the day after Mr. Reagan first won the Presidency, running on a platform that included reversing the direction of the Supreme Court, he was forced by political reality to turn to a nominee whose judicial career offers not a hint of revolutionary fervor.

Mr. Reagan has appointed 324 judges to the Federal district and appeals courts, including both Judge Ginsburg and Judge Robert H. Bork, his first choice. It was telling that when he finally realized he needed a consensus nominee, he looked beyond his own appointees to a man who was named to the appeals court by Gerald R. Ford, a President who never made the Court an issue and whose one Supreme Court nominee, John Paul Stevens, is a moderate who has perhaps the least predictable voting record of all the current Justices.

...

While conservatives have been complaining for some time about the inexorable drift toward compromise, the Supreme Court battle crystalized their anger as no other loss has done. Early in the week, as word spread that Judge Kennedy's nomination was inevitable, many remained almost disbelieving. For them, Mr. Reagan's announcement, along with his concession that ''the experience of the last several months has made us all a little bit wiser,'' signified a world turned upside down. The sense of fruition many conservatives felt with the Bork nomination in the early days of summer turned to bitterness as they watched the third and presumably final chapter unfold in a freak near-blizzard on Veterans Day.

''It's just amazing to contemplate,'' said Michael P. McDonald, an official of the Washington Legal Foundation, a nerve center for conservative Washington lawyers. ''We were so close to locking in a conservative majority on the Court into the next century.'' Now, he said, given the likelihood the next President will have a number of vacancies to fill, a Democratic President could be in a position to accomplish the opposite.

I don't think that after the Obama nomination we will be reading similar coverage of the end of the Obama revolution.

And lest you doubt, here are the Times editors:

The Third Time, With Charm

Published: November 12, 1987

President Reagan's choice of Anthony Kennedy for the Supreme Court, formally announced yesterday with pride but in an appropriately lowered voice, marks a victory for an orderly nomination and confirmation process. Mr. Reagan at last showed appreciation that, given the Constitution and political reality, he has the first word - and that the Senate has the last.

Given the Senate's resounding rejection of Robert Bork and the awkward withdrawal of Douglas Ginsburg, the President had reason to say, and he said it persuasively, that recent experience ''has made all of us a bit wiser.''

Only the angry right will regard as signs of weakness the President's chastened tone and willingness to propose an apparently non-dogmatic candidate. The true weakness was painfully apparent in the Administration's prior partisanship, bravado and reckless haste.

Again, is this likely to be mirrored in the Obama coverage? Will we be reading:

"Only the angry left will regard as signs of weakness the President's chastened tone and willingness to propose an apparently non-dogmatic candidate"?  Ha ha ha ha ha...

AN UNEXPECTED ERROR: Ted Cruz fluffed his dates during the debate:

DICKERSON: So, Senator Cruz, the Constitution says the president “shall appoint with advice and consent from the Senate,” just to clear that up. So he has the constitutional power. But you don’t think he should.

Where do you set that date if you’re president? Does it begin in election year, in December, November, September? And once you set the date, when you’re president, will you abide by that date?

CRUZ: Well, we have 80 years of precedent of not confirming Supreme Court justices in an election year. And let me say, Justice Scalia...

DICKERSON: Just can I — I’m sorry to interrupt, were any appointed in an election year, or is that just there were 80 years...

(CROSSTALK)

CRUZ: Eighty years of not confirming. For example, L.B.J. nominated Abe Fortas. Fortas did not get confirmed. He was defeated.

DICKERSON: But Kennedy was confirmed in ’88.

CRUZ: No, Kennedy was confirmed in ’87...

DICKERSON: He was appointed in ’87.

CRUZ: He was appointed in...

DICKERSON: ... confirmed in ’88. That’s the question, is it appointing or confirming, what’s the difference?

CRUZ: In this case it’s both. But if I could answer the question...

Odd that Cruz was wrong about that.

Trump: Bush Lied, People Died

If the Republican Party is prepared to nominate a 9/11 Truther Trump nailed this down in the debate Saturday night.

Time will tell. Scientists have confirmed the existence of gravity waves but political scientists have yet to confirm that Trump is subject to the laws of political gravity.

ROLL THE TAPE: From the transcript, edited:

DICKERSON: ... On Monday, George W. Bush will campaign in South Carolina for his brother. As you’ve said tonight, and you’ve often said, the Iraq war and your opposition to it was a sign of your good judgment.

In 2008, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, talking about President George W. Bush’s conduct of the war, you said you were surprised that Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t try to impeach him.

You said, quote: “Which, personally, I think would have been a wonderful thing.” When you were asked what you meant by that and you said: “For the war, for the war, he lied, he got us into the war with lies.” Do you still believe President Bush should have been impeached?

...

TRUMP: So let me just tell you, I get along with everybody, which is my obligation to my company, to myself, et cetera.

Obviously, the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake. All right? Now, you can take it any way you want, and it took — it took Jeb Bush, if you remember at the beginning of his announcement, when he announced for president, it took him five days.

He went back, it was a mistake, it wasn’t a mistake. It took him five days before his people told him what to say, and he ultimately said, “It was a mistake.” The war in Iraq, we spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, we don’t even have it. Iran has taken over Iraq, with the second-largest oil reserves in the world.

Obviously, it was a mistake.

DICKERSON: So...

TRUMP: George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East.

DICKERSON: But so I’m going to — so you still think he should be impeached?

BUSH: I think it’s my turn, isn’t it? [Lucky for Bush, Trump kept going. -TM]

TRUMP: You do whatever you want. You call it whatever you want. I want to tell you. They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.

(BOOING)

DICKERSON: All right. O.K. All right.

OK, a full Truther would declare that Bush plotted the destruction of the Twin Towers, but still, this is DKos/Al Gore territory, not what people expected at a Republican debate. The Ace thinks this has to hurt Trump, but plenty of other thrice bitten, fourth time shy commentators aren't sure what if anything can hurt Trump.

As another example, did we expect to see a Republican defending Planned Parenthood? Back to Trump, this time scuffling with Ted Cruz:

CRUZ: I will say, it is fairly remarkable to see Donald defending Ben after he called, “pathological,” and compared him to a child molester. Both of which were offensive and wrong.

But let me say this — you notice Donald didn’t disagree with the substance that he supports taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. And Donald has this weird pattern, when you point to his own record, he screams, “Liar, liar, liar.” You want to go...

TRUMP: Where did I support it? Where did I...

CRUZ: You want to go...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Again, where did I support it?

CRUZ: If you want to watch the video, go to our website at Tedcruz.org.

TRUMP: Hey Ted, where I support it?

CRUZ: You can see it out of Donald’s own mouth.

TRUMP: Where did I support?

CRUZ: You supported it when we were battling over defunding Planned Parenthood. You went on...

TRUMP: That’s a lot of lies.

CRUZ: You said, “Planned Parenthood does wonderful things and we should not defund it.”

TRUMP: It does do wonderful things, but not as it relates to abortion.

CRUZ: So I’ll tell you what...

TRUMP: Excuse me. Excuse me, there are wonderful things having to do with women’s health.

CRUZ: You see, you and I...

TRUMP: But not when it comes to abortion.

The Times tried to sort this out:

In one of the testiest exchanges in a debate full of them, Senator Ted Cruz accused Donald J. Trump of not wanting to defund Planned Parenthood, as Mr. Cruz has wanted to do.

Well, Mr. Trump?

It all depends on when he was asked.

In an interview with CNN last summer, Mr. Trump equivocated, saying he would need to take a closer look at the services provided by Planned Parenthood before eliminating funding. He said he was sure the organization does "some things properly and good and that are good for women."

In an interview with Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in September, Mr. Trump sounded a more definitive note: "I would be totally opposed to funding."

— Jonathan Mahler

Well. In the debate transcript Trump says Planned Parenthood "does do wonderful things" and certainly does not call for it to be defunded.

MORE; The morning after walk-back of shame:

Trump walks back attack on George Bush

Donald Trump sought Sunday to walk back his statements during Saturday night's Republican debate that former President George W. Bush bore responsibility for the Sept. 11 terror attack.

"I am not blaming him," Trump said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday.

Trump continued to imply Bush erred, however. "The CIA said there was a lot of information that something like that was going to happen," he said. The attacks killed just under 3,000 Americans.

Groan. He has to be referring to the infamous Aug 6 2001 Presidential Daily Brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike In US". Maybe like his fellow Democrats Trump relied on ludicrously misleading media reports which suggested strikes on buildings but the key passage involving hijacked planes was this:

We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a ... (redacted portion) ... service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.

Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

That sounds like a conventional hijacking-for-prisoners attack, not the actual WTC/Pentagon strike. That said, I too was critical of Ms. Rice for letting the system percolate instead of shaking it a bit more vigorously. Yup, I too am en ex post genius.

Scalia Dead

Scalia died, apparently of natural causes, at age 79.

Senate Majority Leader McConnell says he will hold off on a confirmation until the next President can present a nominee.

Reuters had more on that:

The U.S. president will face a stiff battle to win confirmation of a nominee to replace the dead jurist, with Republicans likely to delay in the hope that one of their own wins the November election.

"The American people‎ should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican who currently controls if and when the Senate would vote on a nominee.

But Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, said Obama should send the Senate a nominee "right away."

Obama could tilt the balance of the nation's highest court, which now consists of four conservatives and four liberals, if he tries to and is successful in pushing his nominee through the Senate confirmation process. Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy sometimes joins with the liberals on high profile issues, including gay rights and the death penalty.

Hillary or Bernie as President with five locked down liberals plus Kennedy as a swing sixth vote? If that does not energize the Republican base they (we?) are suicidal. How long until Heller, and its extensions, which recognized a private right to gun ownership by a 5-4 vote, are overturned? Will any restriction at all on abortion be upheld in the next couple of decades?

And Bernie will get money out of politics all right - Citizens United was a 5-4 vote, so with a fifth liberal the Democrats will get any campaign finance restrictions they can sneak past Congress or impose by executive action and the FEC.

The political revolution Sanders is calling for just might be possible if the Supreme Court removes the remaining Constitutional checks on the Democrats.

However high one thought the stakes were for the nominations and elections, they just got a lot higher.

MORE: The Federalist surveys the history and notes this:

Several pending cases were expected to be 5-4 decisions. Crucially, the immigration (DAPA) case, United States v. Texas et al., and the mandatory union dues case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, and the Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged v. Burwell cases on the contraception mandate accommodation.

Decisions that are tied with a 4-4 vote have no binding precedent and the decision of the lower court is upheld. This would be good in United States v. Texas et al., because the lower court’s decision was that states have standing to sue against an Obama policy that muzzles states from enforcing immigration laws.

But this would bad in the Friedrichs case as the lower court ruled that teachers must pay union dues, even if those dues fund political causes that violate a union members beliefs. Likewise, if the lower court’s decision in the Little Sisters of the Poor case were to be upheld, it would force the nonprofit organization to fund contraception, even though that violates their religious beliefs.

So Team Obama has two 4-4 victories in the bag.

A No-Fly Zone Over Parts Of Syria?

First, the good news - with the new deferred limited cessation of some hostilities deal reached in Munich, critics of the appeasement of dictators can still say "No More Munichs" without having to specify either 1938 or 2016.

I think it is obvious that Putin has taken Obama's measure and concluded that he does not have the stomach (or other anatomy further south) for a confrontation in Syria. We aren't going to have boots on the ground occupying restive Sunni areas, and we will have only limited Special Ops sneakers on the ground.

However, since Hillary and leading Republicans (in, per Obama, a mix of half-baked mumbo jumbo and political posturing) have called for a no-fly zone over parts of Syria and the situation there is deteriorating rapidly, it is dimly possible that Obama may decide to try something other than talk. And we have, hands down, the finest air force in the world.

So, is a no-fly zone a good idea? Ted Galen Carpenter at the Cato Institute (as well as former Presidential aspirant Rand Paul) say no.

OTOH the Institute for the Study of War, a Kimberly Kagan think-tank that talked up the surge in Iraq, thinks a no-fly zone is eminently doable and the conflicts with Russia not inevitable. The good news:

Given the overwhelming technical and numerical superiority of U.S. forces and the ability to surge additional forces on short notice, it is unlikely that Russia would decide to engage in intentionally escalatory actions against a U.S. No-Fly Zone.

Of course, some of that is a matter of political will, which is in short supply on our side.

Christopher Harmer also identifies some disturbing potential plot twists. For example:

In an attempt to fracture NATO, Russia could instigate some type of minor offensive action by Syria against Turkey. If Turkey invoked Article Five of the North Atlantic Treaty, calling on all members of NATO to react to an attack against Turkey, individual NATO members could claim that Turkish participation in a No-Fly Zone not specifically authorized by the UN was responsible for the reaction by Syria, and therefore Article Five does not apply.

This potential effort to fracture NATO in this context would represent a continuation of the anti NATO, anti EU policies that President Putin has pursued throughout his time in power.

Hmm. But back to good news - the new Russian ground-to-air defense systems have been deployed near their own Syrian airbase and don't really have the range to overlap with the proposed no-fly zone areas. However, the Syrian air defenses, which might have Russian trainers or techies, might still be an issue.

Here is their conclusion:

It is possible to establish a No-Fly Zone over a small band of northern Syria and southern Syria that excludes airspace currently being used by Russian aircraft for basing and operations. It could result in humanitarian relief for the beleaguered Syrian civilian population and has the potential change the framework of negotiations in favor of U.S. objectives.

Since we have a retired Marine aviator as a frequent and valued commenter I think we would all be eager to hear his thoughts. I am especially curious as to whether this would be a Navy or Air Force venture, and whether that leadership would be gung ho to match up against the Russians or would, sort of like the Army brass in the 2002 run-up in Iraq, propose incredibly cautious force requirements.

Meanwhile, Back In Syria...

If you're not waking up in a cold sweat at three AM as often as you'd like, this CNN coverage of the Syrian unraveling may help:

Turkey's Syria strategy lies in ruins as rebel-held Aleppo teeters

(CNN)Turkey's nightmare is coming true.

Not only is the battle for Aleppo sending tens of thousands of desperate people fleeing toward Turkey, but the fall of the rebel-held city would deliver a major blow to Ankara's Syria policy.

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air power, have cut off the last major supply route to rebels in Aleppo. The route, known as the Azaz corridor, links rebel-held eastern Aleppo with Turkey.

If the corridor falls, the rebels could lose Aleppo -- and the entire Turkey-Syria border could fall under the control of forces that Ankara hates: the forces of President Bashar al-Assad's Russian-backed regime, and the Kurds.

Russian involvement has altered the course of the Syrian civil war for Turkey. Just a few months before Russia entered the war, Turkey and the United States had agreed on the outlines of a de facto "safe zone" along the Turkey-Syria border.

The deal was expected to significantly increase the scope of the U.S.-led air war against ISIS in northern Syria. (Summer dreams...)

Just don't call what Putin is doing leadership. Remember, there is no military solution in Syria. Unless there is.

Both the Russians and the US are supplying the Kurds, furthering confounding Turkey. But does Turkey have a military option?

Turkey's worst-case scenario might unfold if the Kurds seize the opportunity to carve themselves an autonomous region stretching from the Iraqi border to Afrin in the west.

Some have suggested that such a scenario would spur a Turkish military intervention in Syria.

Tempting as it may be for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently hinted at the idea, a unilateral or a joint Saudi-Turkish military action in Syria is highly unlikely.

It is politically and militarily too risky.

The Turkish military is fiercely opposed to intervention without international legitimacy and U.S. backing.

U.S. backing? LOL.

Turkey's best bet could be stepping up its support for the opposition and pushing for a no-fly-zone inside Syria.

Turkey has been hedging its bet on the European Union by playing to Europe's fear of a new wave of Syrian refugees.

Ankara recently renewed its bid for a no-fly zone, arguing that such a zone would be the most effective way to stem the flow of refugees.

The EU, and most notably German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who bears much of the burden with increasing numbers of refugees, may support the idea. But Ankara's demand is likely to fall on deaf ears in a risk-averse Washington.

Turkey has so far refused to recalibrate its Syria policy, but the facts on the ground might soon leave Turkey without any other options. The Aleppo offensive signals that scenario might not be too far off.

As to what the fall of Aleppo might mean, more grim thoughts in The Atlantic.

Does the US media and public have the bandwidth to process this on top of The Donald's outrage du jour (I don't know what it is but he has one every day) and the Hillary/Bernie drama? Don't ask.

SHOUTING IN THE WIND: The WaPo editors have been pounding the table on this but so what?

Feb 9: Mr. Obama stands by silently as Russia continues its onslaught in Syria

Feb 12: After the bad Munich deal, it’s unlikely Syria’s situation will improve

That is the Munich deal of 2016, not 1938, but it hardly complicates the "No More Munichs" plea.

And by way of contrast, here are the NY Times editors with an answer to a question no one is asking - can the editors simultaneously celebrate and wring their hands while keeping their heads in the sand? Yes They Can!

A Chance to Halt the Brutality in Syria

After five months of suffering and destruction under unrelenting attacks by Russian aircraft, the Syrian people have at last received some good news: an agreement announced early Friday morning in Munich between the United States and Russia to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to besieged Syrian cities, followed by at least a temporary cessation of hostilities.

As Secretary of State John Kerry noted, “The real test is whether all parties honor those commitments.” Given the brutality and dictatorial ambitions of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, and the duplicitous behavior of his chief ally, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, that is a huge if. But for the moment it is worth celebrating a step toward what could be the first sustained halt in the fighting in Syria since the civil war began in 2011.

They believe it is peace for our time. After a long litany of Putin's duplicity and brutality they close with a secular prayer:

Whatever his reasons, [Putin] now appears to be showing some sympathy for the terrible plight of ordinary Syrians, many without food, shelter and medical supplies. The resumption of aid and a temporary halt in the fighting could well turn out to be the first step on a longer road to peace. But this will require a real transformation by Mr. Putin and the continued application of diplomatic pressure by the United States and its partners.

Putin's reason for agreeing to a pretend cease-fire is that he is winning. And if the Times continues to believe that diplomatic pressure alone will solve this, well, so does the President.

So let me speculate on tomorrow's news today - is there any chance that SecState Kerry will pound the table for a more robust military intervention and resign if it is not forthcoming?

Hard to see that in an election year but... this is from last November's Times:

For Mr. Kerry, the Syria effort has become an obsession, much like his failed bid to strike an Israeli-Palestinian accord in 2013 and his so-far successful effort on the Iran nuclear deal this year. On a trip through Central Asia last week, he used every spare moment to make telephone calls from his plane or hotel to keep the diplomatic effort on track.

The Syria situation “may or may not be ripe” for solution, Mr. Kerry told students at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard before he left on the trip. “But it’s imperative. It’s a human catastrophe, a disaster that screams at all of us in public life to exercise responsibility in trying to find a solution.”

At White House meetings, administration officials say, Mr. Kerry has argued that without applying both military and diplomatic pressure, the Russian intervention that began in late September would shore up Mr. Assad “and actually wind up destroying Syria.”

And David Sanger of the Times on Feb 10:

Mr. Kerry enters the negotiations with very little leverage: The Russians have cut off many of the pathways the C.I.A. has been using for a not-very-secret effort to arm rebel groups, according to several current and former officials. Mr. Kerry’s supporters inside the administration say he has been increasingly frustrated by the low level of American military activity, which he views as essential to bolstering his negotiation effort.

Publicly, Mr. Kerry is circumspect about his dilemma. “We are all very, very aware of how critical this moment is,” he said on Tuesday.

His colleagues in the administration, however, fear that a three-month-long effort to begin the political process is near collapse. If it fails, it will force Mr. Kerry and President Obama, once again, to consider their Plan B: a far larger military effort, directed at Mr. Assad. But that is exactly the kind of conflict that Mr. Obama has spent five years trying to avoid, especially when any ground campaign would rely on forces led by a fractious group of opposition leaders that he distrusts.

And let me close with a detail from the Feb 9 WaPo piece:

In the face of this onslaught, which promises to destroy any chance of an acceptable end to the Syrian civil war, the Obama administration has been a study in passivity and moral confusion. President Obama is silent. Secretary of State John F. Kerry has been reduced to reading the text of Resolution 2254 aloud, as if that would somehow compel a change in Russian behavior.

I don't consider Johnny Waffles a moral titan but maybe even he has a limit. Of course, he stuck around after making an unbelievably small contribution to the red line debacle, so who knows?

 

 

Feeling The Bern, And Why

Jonah Goldberg tumbles to the secret of Bernie's youth appeal:

Bernie Sanders is the most typecast presidential candidate of my lifetime. What I mean is that I can’t remember another presidential candidate who I could more easily imagine in a different setting. For instance, there’s a Starbucks near me in D.C. where old Reds take time off from yelling at clouds to get together and tsk-tsk the newspapers and talk about how much they hate Fox News. I wrote a big chunk of Liberal Fascism there (if they only knew!). I’d eavesdrop as they’d rail about Israel, billionaires, and their sciatica. Bernie Sanders could join them tomorrow in dirty Bermuda shorts, black socks, and tennis shoes, and seem perfectly at home there as they kept bringing up the overthrow of Allende as if it had happened last week.

The overthrow of Allende? OMG - Bernie Sanders is Peter Pan, who never grew up. Well, internally - that tired husk disguises an eternally youthful heart. Anyone who saw Bernie denouncing Henry Kissinger during the debate Thursday night felt like Bernie was right back on some late 60's campus denouncing the war. Strike up "Ohio" by CSN&Y and join right in, Mr. Sanders.

OK, so what was Bernie doing during the Nixon/Kent State days?

After finishing college in 1964, Sanders lived on a kibbutz in Israel before settling in Vermont. He worked a number of jobs, including filmmaker and freelance writer, while his interest in politics grew.

In the 1970s, Sanders made several unsuccessful bids for public office as a member of the anti-war Liberty Union Party, which he was a member of until 1979.

The anti-war party candidate? Fortunately I was sitting down when I read that.

Don't Know Much About History (But I've Balanced My Checkbook...)

A great moment from the Dem debate last night. This is Bernie going off one part of his programmatic triad (Free health care, free college, break up the banks. OK, and reform our campaign finance laws - call it programmatic quadrophenia):

SANDERS: Here is where we are with public education. A 100, 150 years ago incredibly brave Americans said, you know what, working class kids, low income kids should not have to work in factories or on the farms. Like rich kids, they deserve to get a free education.

Rich kids get a free education???!? In what country?

If he means that, like rich kids, working class kids deserve to leave college unencumbered by tiresome debts, well, that is a fine aspiration. But I think that between taxes and tuition checks very few wealthy parent would describe the tuition of their offspring as "free".

Not to say Bernie lost my vote, of course. If it helps derail the Hillarity! Juggernaut this is the best-sounding policy insight I have heard today!

AND SPEAKING OF HILLARITY!

I love her "He has a dream. As if" response to Bernie's pie-in-the-sky fantasies:

In Democratic Debate, Hillary Clinton Paints Bernie Sanders’s Plans as Unrealistic

In 2008 Hillary lost to "Yes We Can!". Now she is going to win with "No We Can't"?

#GoodLuckWithThat   #Don'tLetTheDoorHitThatUnmissableTargetOnTheWayOut

 I really have to credit Charles Blow for passing along a similar point, so you know it must be a cold day outside, or somewhere:

But possibly the most damaging of Clinton’s attributes is, ironically, her practicality. As one person commented to me on social media: Clinton is running an I-Have-Half-A-Dream campaign. That simply doesn’t inspire young people brimming with the biggest of dreams. Clinton’s message says: Aim lower, think smaller, move slower. It says, I have more modest ambitions, but they are more realistic.

We are going to take Hillary back to her youth with this perfect theme song for her "Keep Hope Tamped Down" campaign. Take it away, artist formerly known as Cat Stevens:

It's not time to make a change,
Just relax, take it easy.
You're still young, that's your fault,
There's so much you have to know.
Find a girl, settle down,
If you want you can marry.
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy.

I was once like you are now, and I know that it's not easy,
To be calm when you've found something going on.
But take your time, think a lot,
Why, think of everything you've got.
For you will still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not.

 

 

 

 

Metaphor Madness, Markets Edition

I have no insight into the oil market but I love this:

Prices pared losses slightly on a report some OPEC countries are trying to achieve a consensus among the group and key non-members for an oil production "freeze." Sources familiar with the discussions say the freeze is an attempt to tackle the global glut without cutting supply.

Top exporter Saudi Arabia might be warming to the idea...

"Top exporter Saudi Arabia thinks a freeze is a cool idea" would be better.

In other news I am warming to the idea of a record cold wave this weekend. No I'm not.

 

Back In Syria...

David Sanger of the Times delivers a blast:

Russian Intervention in Syrian War Has Sharply Reduced U.S. Options

By DAVID E. SANGER  FEB. 10, 2016

MUNICH — For months now the United States has insisted there can be no military solution to the Syrian civil war, only a political accord between President Bashar al-Assad and the fractured, divided opposition groups that have been trying to topple him.

But after days of intense bombing that could soon put the critical city of Aleppo back into the hands of Mr. Assad’s forces, the Russians may be proving the United States wrong. There may be a military solution, one senior American official conceded Wednesday, “just not our solution,” but that of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

That is what Secretary of State John Kerry faces as he enters a critical negotiation over a cease-fire and the creation of a “humanitarian corridor” to relieve starving Syrians besieged in more than a dozen cities, most by Mr. Assad’s forces. The Russian military action has changed the shape of a conflict that had effectively been stalemated for years. Suddenly, Mr. Assad and his allies have momentum, and the United States-backed rebels are on the run. If a cease-fire is negotiated here, it will probably come at a moment when Mr. Assad holds more territory, and more sway, than since the outbreak of the uprisings in 2011.

Mr. Kerry enters the negotiations with very little leverage: The Russians have cut off many of the pathways the C.I.A. has been using for a not-very-secret effort to arm rebel groups, according to several current and former officials. Mr. Kerry’s supporters inside the administration say he has been increasingly frustrated by the low level of American military activity, which he views as essential to bolstering his negotiation effort.

Is that dateline a grim joke? No, evidently some bright light thought that was the best venue to sell what's left of the Syrian rebels down the river.

To be fair, the venues have been changing, but Munich?

COULDA SHOULDA WOULDA: In my rearview mirror I see, with 20/20 hindsight, that a NATO no-fly zone imposed before the Russians arrived with their air force could have prevented this. I can't picture Putin sending his pilots to challenge it - we've all seen Top Gun, and Putin isn't starting fights he has no chance of winning.

I also see that a NATO no-fly zone imposed after the Russians arrived would have been far too risky for our current C-in-C. My guess - We would have shot down a Russian jet, but we wouldn't have had to shoot down another. Worked for Turkey, a NATO member.

BONUS TRUMP BASHING: This is a bit from his New Hampshire victory speech:

Forgetting about security, forgetting about ISIS, which by the way, we're going to knock the hell out of ISIS.

(CHEERS)

We're going to knock the hell out of them. And it's going to be done the right way.

I infer that he means Obama has been forgetting about security and the JV.

But "we" are "going to knock the hell out of ISIS"? I don't think there is any real point to pretending we are riding a logical train of thought here, but last September The Donald said this on 60 Minutes:

"Now let me just say this: ISIS in Syria, (Syrian President Bashar el) Assad in Syria, Assad and ISIS are mortal enemies. We go in to fight ISIS. Why aren't we letting ISIS go and fight Assad and then we pick up the remnants?" Trump said in a "60 Minutes" interview that aired Sunday on CBS.

Alternatively, the GOP front-runner said the U.S. should let Russia take the lead in battling ISIS in Syria, where the Russian government is allied with the Assad regime.

"Russia wants to get rid of ISIS. We want to get rid of ISIS. Maybe let Russia do it. Let them get rid of ISIS. What the hell do we care?" Trump said.

A few days later, more of something similar:

Trump stressed that he has nothing against the Russian anti-terrorist operation in Syria.

“I like that Putin is bombing the hell out of ISIS,” Trump said, adding that he believes that the target of the airstrikes is indeed “going to be ISIS.”

I'll tell you why. Putin has to get rid of ISIS 'cause Putin does not want ISIS coming into Russia,” Trump said. However, he explained that he hopes the operation will eventually weaken Russia and that Russian President Putin “will be begging to get out.”

“You watch, he’ll get bogged down there. He’ll spend a fortune,” Trump forecast. “Everybody that's gone to the Middle East has had nothing but problems.”

So when Trump says "We" will knock the hell out of ISIS", one might well ask, waddya mean "we"?

 

Limitless

If my only two settings were "Genius" and "Beyond Genius", I don't know what I'd do with myself, but I'd be the Ace of Spades.

The Bloomberg Anesthetic

I love the whispers that if Bernie Sanders routs Hillarity! it won't be so bad because that will prompt Mike Bloomberg to enter the race, either as a third party candidate or the savior of the Democratic party.

Uh huh. Because in the current anti-establishment environment the nation is ready to turn to a liberal New Yorker who made $20 billion on Wall Street. And wants to take away all our guns.

Bloomberg probably could not get elected governor of New York. He has zero chance of carrying Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Colorado, or any of a number of other gun-friendly must-win states for the Democrats. But the idea that his entry would be a good thing may reassure establishment Dems thinking of fleeing the burning Castle Hillary, and that is all good.

As for our esteemed legacy media, they are all dying for a chance to pretend they are twenty-five again instead of some middle-aged schlub with a spouse, two kids, a mortgage and limited professional prospects. Well, except for the ones who are twenty-five. Not backing the candidate the kids adore is killing them, but so far they have been taking one for the team. With the Bloomberg Reassurance that is not necessary.

As a bonus, Bernie and Bloomberg give them a chance to pretend they are Woodward or Bernstein (Woodward was the handsome one, right? Be Woodward!) unraveling the Administration's lies about Hillary's email server. Or the influence peddling at the Clinton "philanthropies" [Speak of the devil and she shall appear]. Whatever - they can actually pretend to do some investigative journalism even though there is no Republican in the White House! How cool might that be?!?

As ardent conservatives we want Bloomberg on that fence. We NEED him on that fence. So that the Dems think they have a few good candidates when the wheels fall off Her Inevitability.

LIKE HE SAID: Doug Mataconis delves into the non-support for a Bloomberg candidacy outside the wealthy, well-connected NY-Washington area. My people, in other words (aspirationally, anyway), and when we gather at the country club to plot our continued oppression of the masses they are always annoyed when I burst their Bloomberg bubble.

Occupy South Carolina!

Bernie and Hillary take their contest to South Carolina, which is supposed to be friendlier to Hillary because the electorate is not nearly as lily-white as New Hampshire.

We will see soon enough. Is it really the case that Bernie's message of a rigged political system and a rigged economy controlled by wealthy Wall Streeters will fail to resonate with black voters? What, they think the system is working just fine for them?

Here is a possible clue: when Al Sharpton's National Action Network had their annual convention in 2015 the kickoff speech was given by... Bernie Sanders. And his message? Waddya think?

Vermont Senator Bernard Sanders delivered a fiery yet statistics-laden speech on income inequality to the convention of Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network today, and laid out an aggressive left-wing national agenda—but neglected to mention the speculation he’ll run for the White House in 2016.

Despite his introduction from Mr. Sharpton as “the face of progressive politics in America” and a potential candidate for the presidency, the self-identified socialist—first elected to the House of Representatives in 1991—boasted to the audience at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel about being the longest-serving federal legislator not affiliated with either major party in American history. The Brooklyn-born New England politician then lambasted what he described as the “ugly and obscene” state of America’s affairs.

“Let me be blunt with you today. You ready to hear some blunt talk? Our country today faces more serious problems than in any time since the Great Depression,” he said. “One of the things we do not do as a nation, and it may be the most serious crisis of all, is discuss the serious crises. So let me lay it on the line for you.”

After noting that 11 percent of the population is either underemployed or unemployed, that black youth unemployment is the highest in America and that one third of black men born today are expected to at some point enter the criminal justice system, he lashed out at one of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s favorite foes: income inequality.

“As serious as all those issues are, let me be very blunt with you and tell you what not a whole lot of people will tell you: there is one issue even more serious than all of the issues that I’ve mentioned, and that impacts all of the issues that I have mentioned. And that is income, wealth inequality in America, which has reached grotesque levels,” he said, noting that 45 million Americans and 18 percent of children live below the poverty line. “In America today, not far from here, we have a financial system dominated by a handful of Wall Street firms who drove this country into the worst recession in the modern history in America. And these Wall Street firms have shown themselves to be motivated by greed and by recklessness, and illegal behavior, and enough is enough.”

This just in - the Obama "recovery" has not been working for black people. Sort of like the way it has not been working for working class whites, but more so.

On the cultural front, Ta Nehisi Coates, currently the coolest kid on the black intelligentsia block, announced that he will be voting for Bernie. That makes it acceptably non-racist for other media types to let their freak flag fly, pretend they are twenty-five again, and back the New Story rather than yesterday, and yesterday, and all our yesterdays stretching back to 1992's news.

SPEAKING OF AL: Bernie and Al had breakfast today, prompting this quip:

Prediction: Breakfast lasts 6 hrs cuz neither of them will make a move for the check.

That would be the taxpayer. Free breakfast for all! Lunch, sadly, not so much.

Pope Francis, Tear Down These Walls...

From the WSJ:

Pope Francis Will Stand With Migrants at U.S. Border

Six-Day trip to Mexico will include Mass in border city of Ciudad Juárez and prayers at fortified frontier

The fortified frontier in question is the US border with Mexico. The story is NOT referring to the walls around Vatican City, which continues to not harbor an immigrant camp.

 

The Revenant

We're feeling that Jebmentum. No we're not. My Marcobot sure took it on the chin but this is far from over!

As to Christie and his 7.5% non-solution, as predicted his attacks on Rubio took votes from Rubio but they drifted to others, not the, well, Fat B Executioner. Then again, I said Christie would be out on Wednesday morning yet here he is, heading to New Jersey to consider his plans and he is on the bubble for the next debate this Saturday night. I still have 90 minutes for vindication!

UPDATE: Missed it by five hours, but CNN reports Christie is suspending his campaign. Carly Fiorina is out as well.

Meanwhile, Back In Syria: Looking For The Towel

The Times reports on the collapse of the Syrian rebels:

Syrian Opposition Groups Sense U.S. Support Fading

By ANNE BARNARD  FEB. 9, 2016

GAZIANTEP, Turkey — The United States and its allies have spent many millions of dollars backing Syrian opposition fighters they deem relatively moderate and secular, and civilian groups whose work on small businesses and local councils they billed as the cornerstone of Syria’s future.

But the very Syrians who benefited — and risked their lives in the process — now say that investment is in danger of going down the drain, and they see little urgency from Washington, diplomatic or military, to save it.

“What are you going to do, other than statements?” Zakaria Malahifji, the political chief of one of the largest rebel groups given weapons and salaries by the C.I.A. and its counterparts in several European and Arab states, demanded in a recent message to contacts at the French Embassy.

You mean statements aren't enough?

In nearly five years of war and insurrection, many Syrians have been repeatedly disillusioned by what they saw as a mismatch between tough American rhetoric against the Syrian government and comparatively modest efforts to aid some of its opponents. President Obama said President Bashar al-Assad must go, and drew a red line over the use of chemical weapons, but backed off on both, diminishing anti-government Syrians’ trust.

But the confusion and despair has reached a new level over the last week, as forces backing Mr. Assad have pushed farther north into Aleppo Province, sending tens of thousands of new refugees to the Turkish border. With insurgent groups losing troops and territory, their villages shattered by Russian warplanes, civilians and fighters have in recent days used phrases like “no hope,” “it’s finished” and “it’s over.”

...

American-backed insurgents have long been used to the American stance in recent years, that the United States did not want them to actually win the war — lest a sudden toppling of Mr. Assad lead to Islamist rule — but wanted to prevent them from losing for long enough to pressure the government to negotiate for a political solution.

Now they fear that the United States and its allies may actually let them lose. Many of the rebel leaders who have received Western support were headed Tuesday night to meet with American officials and others in Istanbul and Ankara, but they were not hopeful for game-changing developments.

Roger Cohen of the Times pounds the table:

America’s Syrian Shame

WASHINGTON — The Putin policy in Syria is clear enough as the encirclement of rebel-held Aleppo proceeds and tens of thousands more Syrians flee toward the Turkish border. It is to entrench the brutal government of Bashar al-Assad by controlling the useful part of Syrian territory, bomb the moderate opposition into submission, block any possibility of Western-instigated regime change, use diplomatic blah-blah in Geneva as cover for changing the facts on the ground and, maybe fifth or sixth down the list, strengthen the Syrian Army to the point it may one day confront the murderous jihadist stronghold of the Islamic State.

The troubling thing is that the Putin policy on Syria has become hard to distinguish from the Obama policy.

Sure, the Obama administration still pays lip service to the notion that Assad is part of the problem and not the solution, and that if the Syrian leader survives through some political transition period he cannot remain beyond that. But these are words. It is President Vladimir Putin and Russia who are “making the weather” in Syria absent any corresponding commitment or articulable policy from President Obama.

Then he lets loose. Snippets:

Aleppo may prove to be the Sarajevo of Syria. It is already the Munich.

By which I mean that the city’s plight today — its exposure to Putin’s whims and a revived Assad’s pitiless designs — is a result of the fecklessness and purposelessness over almost five years of the Obama administration.

...

“The Syrian crisis is now a European crisis,” a senior European diplomat told me. “But the president is not interested in Europe.” That is a fair assessment of the first postwar American leader for whom the core trans-Atlantic alliance was something to be dutifully upheld rather than emotionally embraced.

...

Putin policy is American policy because the United States has offered no serious alternative. As T.S. Eliot wrote after Munich in 1938, “We could not match conviction with conviction, we had no ideas with which we could either meet or oppose the ideas opposed to us.” Syria has been the bloody graveyard of American conviction.

It is too late, as well as pure illusion, to expect significant change in Obama’s Syria policy. Aleppo’s agony will be drawn out.

But the president should at least do everything in his power, as suggested in a report prepared by Michael Ignatieff at the Harvard Kennedy School, to “surge” the number of Syrian refugees taken in this year to 65,000 from his proposed 10,000. As the report notes, “If we allow fear to dictate policy, terrorists win.”

Putin already has.

Fear won't be dictating policies; polls will. Obama's natural indifference will almost surely be reinforced by polls showing that Dem primary voters don't want a bigger US role in Syria, which means that to prop up the more hawkish Hillary (who has in the past called for a no-fly zone) Obama has to let Syria slide.

Syria too can Feel the Bern. Their hard luck.

GOOD POINT: If we are throwing in the towel in Syria maybe Hillary can include a flag or two as well.

Muddying The Waters In New Hampshire

On the Dem side Hillary seems to have failed to meet the low expectations set for her in a state she won in 2008 (RCP average had Bernie winning by 13%), leaving the Dem establishment to ponder just how unappealing a candidate they are trying to jam down their base.

And the Republicans have Trump as a clear winner, meeting or slightly exceeding the RCP average. That suggests that concerns that his supporters will talk to pollsters but won't actually vote may be overblown.

And who's on second? I don't know (Third base!). Kasich will take second but is not viewed as a candidate who can do well down South. And the hoped-for winnowing of Bush, Christie and Kasich may be delayed since it seems that Bush will finish ahead of Rubio; Cruz, Bush and Rubio will all cluster around 11%. Will Christie, at about 8%, take a hint?

Mark Steyn Is a Genius, But...

I am taking umbrage with his umbrage:

Be that as it may, there's now a proposal to make the young ladies register for selective service, too. And naturally the Republican candidates were falling all over each other to say how hot they were for the idea. For my own part, I'd like to go back to the days - barely within living memory now - when America won wars, rather than figure out ways to lose them more diversely.

As Jeb patiently explained to ABC moderator Martha Raddatz, WE DON"T HAVE A DRAFT! So "signing up for it" is really just an exercise in completing one more Federal data base. If and when we bring back the draft (i.e., never) then some future Congress can legislate just who will be drafted for what. And since there are many, many jobs in the military for which women are utterly competent, why not make them eligible for the draft as well?

Let's roll the tape:

RADDATZ: Thank you, Senator Rubio. Governor Bush, do you believe that young women...

BUSH: ... Say it again?

RADDATZ: Do you believe young women should sign up for Selective Service, be required to sign up...

BUSH: ... I do, and I do think that we should not impose any kind of political agenda on the military. There should be -- if women can meet the requirements, the minimum requirements for combat service they ought to have the right to do it. For sure. It ought to be focused on the morale as well. We got to make sure that we have readiness much higher than we do today. We need to eliminate the sequester which is devastating our military.

We can't be focusing on the political side of this, we need to realize that our military force is how we project our word in the world. When we're weak militarily it doesn't matter what we say. We can talk about red lines, and ISIS being the J.V. team, and reset buttons and all this. If we don't have a strong military than no one fears us, and they take actions that are against our national interest.

RADDATZ: Tell me what you'd say to American people out there...

(APPLAUSE)

RADDATZ: ... Who are sitting at home, who have daughters, who might worry about those answers, and might worry...

BUSH: ... Why would they worry about it...

RADDATZ: ... if the Draft is reinstituted?

BUSH: ... Well, the Draft's not going to be reinstituted, but why -- if women are accessing...

RADDATZ: ... Are you saying you'd do away with it?

BUSH: No. I didn't say that. You -- you asked a question not about the draft, you asked about registering. And if women are going to be...

RADDATZ: You register for the draft.

BUSH: If -- but...

RADDATZ: If it's reinstituted.

BUSH: ... we don't have a draft. I'm not suggesting we have a draft. What I'm suggesting is that we ought to have readiness being the first priority of our military, and secondly, that we make sure that the morale is high. And right now, neither one of those are acceptable because we've been gutting the military budget.

We also need to reform our procurement process. We need to make sure there are more men and women in uniform than people -- than civilians in our Defense Department. There's a lot of things that we need to reform to bring our defense capabilities into the 21st century and I'm the guy that could do that. That's why I have the support of generals, of admirals, of 12 Medal of Honor recipients and many other people that know that I would be a steady commander-in-chief and rebuild our military.

This must be the biggest Non-Gotcha in the history of that genre.

AT YOUR NEXT TRIVIA NIGHT:

"The U.S. came close to drafting women during World War II, when there was a shortage of military nurses. However, there was a surge of volunteerism and a draft of women nurses was not needed."