Meet meet the real Arlen Specter, thanks to the NRSC.

You’re welcome, Tics.  You can have him.

Gary Gross notes that the polls are starting to relent a little for the GOP nationally. He quotes a Rasmussen Poll:

For just the second time in more than five years of daily or weekly tracking, Republicans now lead Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 41% would vote for their district’s Republican candidate while 38% would choose the Democrat. Thirty-one percent (31%) of conservative Democrats said they would vote for their district’s Republican candidate.

Gross:

I don’t doubt that that last sentence is giving Democratic strategists gray hair. Though there’s no doubt that we’ll see fluctuations between now and Election Day 2010, there’s also no doubt that the Democrats have misread the electorate. The Democrats’ misreading the election results has helped put the GOP in better shape than we’ve been in a long time.

Yes, but there’s an asterisk there.  We’ll come back to that.

I credit the change in the generic ballot to three things: President Obama’s radical agenda, President Obama’s arrogance and the House Republicans’ principled stand against Obama’s radical agenda. Obama’s radical agenda has given conservatives something to fight against while the House Republicans’ principled stance against that agenda is giving conservatives something to fight for.

Obama’s agenda is a factor.  Congress adds the arrogance and the agenda, one that I think is going to turn out to be a drag on Obama.  And the House GOP’s battle has been a blessing.

But so far all that gives us is something to campaign against.  Until the GOP has something to campaign for – a positive message – the good news cup is only half full.

On the positive side – it can’t be that hard to craft a positive message when the executive branch is so amateurish and naive (Obama’s tongue-kiss of Hugo Chavez did not play well in middle America) and Congress is so gigantistic and arrogant.

On the negative side: I don’t know that we have anything close to a standard-bearer for that message yet.

Only seventeen months ’til the next elections!

The Wall Street Journal wants you to rate the President’s first 100 days.

Go and do it (when I voted, it was an overwhelming “F”).  I gave him a “D”, just because all of that organizing deserves some credit.

Discuss amongst yourselves.  After  you vote.  Unlike the Minnesota Senate election, the counting standards in this poll are pretty clear.

…where our new ruling class (by acclamation!) stands:

Madeline Albright: “Islam is maybe the most democratic religion because there is nobody between you and God. So I do not think that is something that can be used as reason not to have Muslim democracies.

Albright – Jewish, as I recall, not that it matters – must have missed that whole “Protestant Reformation” bit.

At any rate – it seems Islam is  used for exactly that reason – there is exactly one stable Moslem democracy (Turkey), two deeply flawed democracies with huge numbers of Moslems (India and Indonesia), and a few more that show signs of promise (Senegal and, to an extent, Mali).

The return to prominence of Madeline Albright, who under Clinton (eww) was the worst Secretary of State since Warren Christopher, a woman who’s always treated American Exceptionalism as an inconvenient hurdle, is one of the great tragedies of Obama’s win.

When I was writing my “What the hell is wrong with the MNGOP?” series, a conundrum appeared.

A party – especially a party built around multiple principles, rather than getting swag for constituents – needs to embrace many different variations on the same message.

But…

That same party needs to have a coherent message.

My position: the party needs, on the one hand, to find the things that everyone agrees on.  And by “everyone”, I mean of course the overwhelming majority.  I suggested (at a Minnesota state party level) Security, Education and Prosperity; I can’t imagine a Republican who wouldn’t support these.  The idea would be that everyone – tax hawks, pro-lifers, even moderates – could bury their differences publicly for the greater good of the party.  Make no mistake – there is value to having more “R” votes than “D”, even if not all of them are purists for whatever ones’ pet cause is.  If you’re a pro-lifer, having a mushy-“choice” Republican is better than having a Dem in the Senate when it’s time to confirm Supreme Court justices, for example.  There is a time for being a purist; one of the things, problem or blessing depending on your point of view, with the two-party system is that purism is less important than numbers, even from the purist’s view.

If we lived in a parliamentary system – where everyone can strike out and start a party if they don’t feel their current party reflects their beliefs – it’d be different.  Sort of.  With enough votes in an area, almost anyone get a seat in a Parliament.  Of course, if you have one seat in Parliament, you have to join with other parties to actually affect policy, which means exactly the same compromises that one makes within one of the two major parties we have today.
The complement to “vast majority” is the “infinitesimal minority”.  And while I’m the kind of person who’d much rather win that minority over to the majority – especially when the message is something this state and nation need – at some point there will inevitably be some people who realize the party’s not for them.

Arlen Specter was a “60% Republican”.  He may have been part of the “infinitesimal minority”, but he was certainly a drag on the party as a whole.  And given the immense power his seniority gave him, his many “40%” moments over the years hurt the GOP badly.  He was a “Sturdevant Republican” of the lowest order; the only kind of Republican the mainstream media “like”, the one that votes like a Democrat.  I’d like to say that Specter is being intellectually honest with his switch…

…but of course it’s not true.  It’s naked careerism; the Pennsylvania GOP is moving to the right (moderates defected to Obama during the past election), and his prospects in the primary were bad enough even before that, having barely beaten Toomey in the ’04 primary.  Pennsylvania law won’t allow him to run as an Indy like Joe Lieberman did in Connecticut.  And so he bailed – to keep himself in office.

I’m not going to say “good riddance” to Specter; Republicans have to get better at finessing, rather than bashing, differences within the party, if we’re going to recover from this past two elections.

But it’s probably a good thing in the long run.  In the next four years, Obama is going to take a lot of the luster off the Democrat brand.  Of course, we’ll need the GOP to come around with a message to have the vacuum filled when the opportunity presents itself.

And it’s fairly clear that that message is going to have to be pushed up in the party.

Good.  That’s what we’re here for.

Adios, Specter.  I wont’ say “good riddance” – but you won’t be missed.

Specter’s flip is contemporaneous with another bit of news, says Mr. D @ TvM:

He’s already decided to give you a present: ALBUQUERQUE — In a dramatic move yesterday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) withdrew the air quality permit it issued last summer for the Desert Rock coal-fired power plant, which is slated to be built on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners region just southwest of Farmington, New Mexico.The action drew praise from critics of the plant and blistering commentary from its proponents.

So do you suppose that the EPA is going to be providing any support for new coal-fired plants? Or are they just picking on Native Americans? And if memory serves, don’t they mine a whole lot of coal in Pennsylvania? That should help the ol’ reelection campaign.

The whole thing is about Specter’s naked self-interest and political career.

Ever notice how you’re not seeing as much public opinion polling about the President these days?  Especially in the MSM?

There’s a reason for that: 

According to Gallup’s April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama’s current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises.

Given the traction of the tea party movement (and the gracelessness of the leftymedia’s response on the President’s behalf to the growing popular dissent), let’s remember what happened in 1994 (with a GOP that could focus on a message and sell it to people, naturally).

As the attached chart shows, five presidents rated higher than Mr. Obama after 100 days in office. Ronald Reagan topped the charts in April 1981 with 67 percent approval. Following the Gipper, in order of popularity, were: Jimmy Carter with 63 percent in 1977; George W. Bush with 62 percent in 2001; Richard Nixon with 61 percent in 1969; and George H.W. Bush with 58 percent in 1989.

Of course, you won’t see much about this in the MSM; they’ve got an investment to protect:

USA Today’s front page touted the April poll results as positive, with the headline: “Public thinks highly of Obama.” The current cover of Newsweek magazine ponders “The Secret of His [Mr. Obama’s] Success.”

The tail is flakking for the dog.

Sending jets over an apparently still-hinky-about-lowflying-airplanes Manhattan?

Tone deaf.

An administration official says a presidential Boeing 747 and a fighter jet flew low near ground zero in New York City Monday because the White House Military Office wanted to update its file photo of the president’s plane near the Statue of Liberty.

Sending the most expensive to build-and-run jet in the world (and a military escort plane,itself not cheap) out for what amounts to a flying Glamor Shot…:

This official said the White House Military Office told the Federal Aviation Administration that it periodically updates file photos of Air Force One near national landmarks, like the statute in New York harbor and the Grand Canyon.

…in the middle of an economic downturn?

Tone duh-f.

I mean, the Sorosphere has all sortsof Photoshop “geniuses”, right?

I’m not aware that any conservatives are howling at Rep. Keith Ellison for getting arrested yesterday.

I mean, sure – you’re one of the 500-odd most powerful elected people in the world; you’re in Washington in large part due to the efforts of a sychophantic mainstream media; you do  have some avenues to be heard on the issue.

On the other, it’s his First Amendment right, and I don’t disagree with him on the proximate issue.  The resolution is worth a little discussion (and that discussion needs to include Ellison’s coreligionists in Sudan, who are carrying out the genocide in the first place), but again, I don’t disagree with the motivation.

It was an apparently unprecedented act by a member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation and somewhat out of character for Ellison, a Democrat who has generally avoided controversy since he arrived in Congress, attracting international attention as its first Muslim member.Minnesota Republican Party officials, while saying they respect Ellison’s advocacy against genocide in Darfur, criticized his decision to get arrested as a “publicity stunt unbecoming of the office he holds.”

Also, any time that Ellison spends in jail is time that he’s not in the Capitol.

Perhaps we need to start this as a fad in Congress.

Governor Pawlenty, from his new Twitter account:

hockey, teacher said she is being laid-off. Union in her district turned down more money to avoid performance-based pay. Go figure!!!

Paying good teachers extra? All hell would break loose!

…as soon as I get back to the office…and find them…and appoint them…oh, and once they’re confirmed.

The Obama administration declared a “public health emergency” Sunday to confront the swine flu — but is heading into its first medical outbreak without a secretary of Health and Human Services or appointees in any of the department’s 19 key posts.

President Barack Obama has not yet chosen a surgeon general or the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Meanwhile, how’s the golf game, Barack?

 I’m codifying this as Berg’s Eighth Law:

Democrats will only profess respect for a Republican when it serves their direct interest.

The examples are legion; John McCain was every Dem’s favorite Republican – until he became a threat.  And mark my words – if Chuck Hagel had a consertive epiphany tomorrow, he’s be demonized as well.  In Minnesota, it’s the same thing; to the likes of Lori Sturdevant (who is as perfect a totem as exists for the Twin Cities’ media’s attitude on politics) the only Republicans that count are the ones like Ron Erhard, the ones that are indistinguishable from DFLers.

I found this bit from John Nichols’ exceedingly dim hit piece in The Nation just after I published my last one; I add emphasis:

Famously, Maine Senator Collins, the supposedly moderate Republican who demanded cuts in health care spending in exchange for her support of a watered-down version of the stimulus, fumed about the pandemic funding: “Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not.”

Even now, Collins continues to use her official website to highlight the fact that she led the fight to strip the pandemic preparedness money out of the Senate’s version of the stimulus measure.

I suspect Sue Collins, having offended her Democrat masters, won’t be doing lunch in DC for a while.

And in conclusion, a line almost too stupid even for Grace Kelly: 

Did Rove, Collins and their compatriots want a pandemic?

I said “almost”.

The Nation is sort of like the Minnesota Progressive Project for people who graduated from college; higher-sounding rhetoric, same ol’ Kool-aid-sotted invincible ignorance wrapped around centrally-mandated spin masquerading-as-commentary.

John Nichols  follows the Rahm Emanuel commandment and doesn’t let a crisis go to waste; he’s writing about Republican opposition to vaguely-healthcare-related pork spending proposals in reference to the incoming Swine Flu pandemic:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

And with good reason:  none of that $900M would have generated a Swine Flu vaccine from the clear blue sky.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But to be fair to the Republicans involved, everything in the Porkulus was supposed to be about “renewing” the economy, from “healthcare” spending to building new bike paths.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans — led by Maine Senator Susan Collins — aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

Now, as the World Health Organization says a deadly swine flu outbreak that apparently began in Mexico but has spread to the United States has the potential to develop into a pandemic, Obey’s attempt to secure the money seems eerily prescient.

No, it makes John Nichols look like a weasel, trying to turn a porkalanche proposal into phony clairvoyance…

…without, let the record show, showing how any of the $900 million dollars would have addressed this possible pandemic. 

As Don Surber notes (via Malkin), this is a head-fake to cover the fact that the Administration hasn’t done anything to staff the key policy positions in the Surgeon General’s office, including those directly dealing with pandemics. 

“President Barack Obama has not yet chosen a surgeon general or the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. His choice to run the Food and Drug Administration awaits confirmation,” Politico reported.

So while Obama dithers, and fails to take care of those parts of his job that directly impinge on dealing with pandemics, and sends his Homeland Security director (in charge of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which would have a role in dealing with a truly major epidemic, serving as the arms and legs and muscle of the Centers for Disease Control) on politically-motivated witchhunts against political opposition, the Administration is responding by sending it’s trained alt-media monkeys on rhetorical purges against Karl Rove, and – I love this – answering questions from the press:

Notably, the second question at the White House press conference on the emergency had to do with the potential impact on the economic recovery.

On Monday, the question began to be answered, as Associated

Yeah, John Nichols; that’s pretty “notable”; as per usual with the Obama administration, soothing words for the press and slime-attacks against dissenters are supposed to substitute for doing the job.

Nichols even has to resort to “the dog ate my homework”:

The Republicans essentially succeeded. The Senate version of the stimulus plan included no money whatsoever for pandemic preparedness.

It’s a misleading, inflammatory lie; porkulus included no new money, but there was already money in the budget, and now that there is an actual emergency there will no doubt be plenty more found. 

But notice, if you will, the underlying message; even though the Dems have complete, unfettered control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, they couldn’t pass it, and are scurrying for cover by blaming Republicans; more later.

Not only is it an inflammatory lie, it’s a stupid one:

In the conference committee that reconciled the House and Senate plans, Obey and his allies succeeded in securing $50 million for improving information systems at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

As if long lead-time items like “Improved Information Systems” would have made a difference in the weeks that have passed.

You’re doing a fine job, there, Janet-y. 

The Bad News:  Eric Cantor  ais making “Sturdevant Republican”-style noises:

Early last week, Cantor talked like a man ready to make amends for the unanimous Republican “no” votes on President Barack Obama’s budget and economic stimulus plan.

“As we near the end of the first 100 days of this administration,” Cantor told reporters, “I think we can also reflect back and see that the era of bipartisanship we’d hoped for could probably be improved upon, and I believe that’s how we’ve come back from the Easter recess, to say to the president that we do want to work together, that we can actually unite.”

The good news:  Maybe it only looks like he’s drinking Capitol Hill Koolaid.  Maybe he’s really spitting it into the flower pots when nobody’s looking:

But headed for a meeting with the president at the White House Thursday, Cantor and other House Republican leaders couldn’t resist picking at the scab. They sent Obama a letter praising him for his “common-sense idea” that “Washington can work together for the American people instead of for political parties” — but also claiming that Democratic leaders in Congress had “ignored your call for a new era of bipartisanship in Washington.”

Remember, Rep. Cantor:  when Democrats are out of power, “Bipartisanship” means “reaching across the aisle and cooperating”.  When they are in power, it means the same thing it means to a Marine recruit at Parris Island.

Glen Beck and Joe Scarborough have taken an inventory of Barack Obama’s first 100 Days:

100 DAYS, 100 MISTAKES

Jeepers guys, give the man a break – what do you expect?

Barack Obama was elected to an office he was completely unprepared for, completely unqualified for, lacked any relevant experience, was elected on a platform of empty promises, many of which he has no intention or capacity to keep, and has had to go to the second or third choice in many cases in his selection of his cabinet because many prominent Democrats apparently want to keep their resume clear of any mention of The Obama Administration.

Not to mention the fact that working with Hilary can’t be that much fun – she’s not always out of the country you know, and Al Sharpton keeps getting Obama’s Blackberry address and the Secret Service can’t change the number fast enough.

Plus, I think I may have heard that the Obama’s recently got a new dog, and that can be quite disrupting to any American family.

Glen and Joe just need to set their sights a little lower.

“They” being the Obamanistas running our nation. Government doesn’t grow like grass growing on a peaceful prairie; more like a brain tumor.

Would-be Obama Administration Commerce Secretary Judd Gregg speaks out on why he turned around and walked back out the door, embarrassing the President yet gain with another failed or controversial cabinet appointment (I’ll bet he pays his taxes) and even more so with his postmortem.

[Obama] may be “a charismatic person” with “a very strong understanding of who he is and what he wants to do,” but when it comes to the substance of what Mr. Obama seeks to accomplish, Mr. Gregg is less charitable. “They have a goal,” the senator says, “and he’s very open about it. They are going to grow this government.”

Why? Because that’s what liberals do. Why? Because they got nothin’ else in their quiver. Big government is to be made bigger for its own sake. How does that bode for the future?

“We’re headed on an unsustainable path. The simple fact is these [budget] numbers don’t work and the practical implications of them are staggering for the nation and the next generation.”

And as a result of all that spending, “You see the size of government growing from 21% [of gross domestic product] to 22%, to 23%, 24%, 25% . . . toward 30%.”

For the sake of credibility let me remind you liberals, this is the guy that Obama picked for his cabinet.

We post on torture and war and our liberal readers go ape. We post on Tea Parties and liberals argue semantics rather than addressing the fiscal crisis behind them. Why aren’t both sides freaking out about what liberal politicians, both Democrat (mostly) and Republican (sadly) are doing to our country financially?

I suppose liberals aren’t enraged because they’ve been sold on all these Hopey Changey concepts like wind-powered scooters and affordable health care for everyone without weighing the costs – costs beyond what we can afford as a nation – unless we borrow. Costs that without any market forces keeping them in check will make the current health care “crisis” look like the panacea liberals are looking for. But liberals in both parties have no aversion to borrowing and spending other-people’s money so long as the cause is “noble” enough – so for them, problem solved!

For Mr. Gregg, this is like living a nightmare. He has been a hard-nosed advocate for government spending restraint since his days as a Congressman (1981-87) and governor of New Hampshire (1987-93). At times, his commitment to fiscal responsibility led him to oppose tax cuts when they weren’t matched by spending restraint. Those stances incurred the ire of his Republican colleagues, but he always stuck to his fiscal-responsibility guns. Now he’s staring down a spending explosion that makes those battles look picayune.

What hope have we that prefer our nation not become completely insolvent?

…the runaway spending and growing pile of debt, could yet set the stage for a Republican comeback, and sooner than most pundits would predict. Mr. Gregg will not run for re-election when his current term ends next year. Republicans, he says, “became very clouded as to what we stood for under the Bush presidency.” But now they’re getting their “definition” back.

Once again, liberals will have screwed up our nation’s finances so badly that conservatives will be called back in to restore confidence. When will America learn?

President Obama, in his weekly address Saturday, said the country cannot “settle for a future of rising deficits and debts that our children cannot pay.”

…and the members of OPEC would like you to conserve fossil fuels. Oh and – hee hee – Jim Cramer has a stock tip for you. Uhhh, and Dan Rather has invited you to an “Ethics in Journalism” seminar. Oooo – Madonna and Alec Baldwin are co-authoring a book on parenting.

Meanwhile Brack O’Bomba is spending your Billions.

The audacity indeed.

Hugh Hewitt on Obama’s urge to conduct a purge:

There is no serious prosecutor who would bring a charge against any of these Bush Adminstration officials. No one not from the far left side of the political spectrum can even frame the indictment or explain how the tactics less coercive than water-boarding could be considered criminal when Congress, offered the opportunity to declare water boarding a crime, refused to do so. When the left turns up a former United States Attorney or even senior prosecutor not named Ramsey Clark willing to lay out his theory of prosecution, that will be an argument worth responding to. This is a witch hunt, a political prosecution, one that should be a central issue in the campaigns of 2010.

I almost hope Obama goes ahead with it. It’d make the McCarthy years look like traffic court.

Via Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring, GOP State Rep Steve Gottwalt  blows the whistle on some gratuitous DFL overreach:

ST. PAUL – State Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, said he is shocked by the number of anti-business bills being pushed by the [DFL] House majority this session. With Minnesota facing a $6.4 billion budget deficit, Gottwalt said the best thing the Legislature could do this session is help more residents find work.

“Besides solving our budget deficit, the most important task lawmakers have this session is to approve policies that help retain and create jobs,” Gottwalt said. “Instead, Minnesota House Democrats are repeatedly proposing job killing tax increases.”

Gross follows up with a question for the DFL – especially DFL rep. Tom Bakk, who’s been leading the “tax ’em til they drop” faction of the DFL: 

I just posted a criticism of the Senate DFL’s job-killing tax increases. At the heart of that post is this question for Tom Bakk: If people are willing to travel across the Minnesota-Wisconsin border to save $20 in liquor taxes, why does Sen. Bakk think that a small business wouldn’t move across the Minnesota-South Dakota border to save $50,000 a year in in come taxes?

Short of building a wall with minefields and dogs to prevent escape, y’mean?

Oops.  I should erase that last bit. I  know DFLers who read this blog…

Gottwalt lists some examples of, er, gross DFL overreach:

Gottwalt listed several House proposals that could significantly hamper the way employers conduct business:

● HF 2031, which prohibits Minnesota from purchasing products from the Willmar-based Jennie-O Turkey Store at the request of unions. Gottwalt said if Democrats succeed in blacklisting this Minnesota business, there would be nothing stopping them from going after any business at the request of unions or other special interests.

While I’m not anti-union by any means – unlike most DFLers, I’ve been in a union – this is the kind of thing that needs to be jumped on with heavy boots.  When unions start using the power of government to get their payback, society is screwed.  This is the sort of thing that dragged the British economy into the toilet in the ’60s and ’70s. 

● HF 644, which sets mandates on companies with city contracts, regulating who they must hire, but exempting union labor contracts.

Ditto.

Gross:

Gottwalt added that the real job killer is the $4.4 billion tax increase proposed by House Democrats. That includes a new income tax bracket. The new 9-percent bracket would place Minnesota among the nation’s highest income taxes.

“Keep in mind 92 percent of small businesses in Minnesota pay taxes through personal income taxes, meaning that any income tax increase will directly hurt our small employers and economic recovery,” Gottwalt said.

So what we have here is the DFL paying back its markers to the unions, serving as a thuggish enforcer for their wishes.

(And wouldn’t a law that singles out a specific company for non-criminal reasons take a big steaming dump on the Fourteenth Amendment?)

Keep it going, DFL.  You’re making this whole “opposition pundit” thing easier and easier. 

I’m a fundamentally charitable person.

I’m personally inclined to give people the benefit of a doubt. Especially someone who’s new at a job; good Lord, I have had teething pains on jobs.  I am not one to cast the first stone, generally.

But as Canada’s National Post notes, our DNS Secretary, Janet “There’s A Conservative Terrorist Under My Bed” Napolitano, is – words fail – really, really stupid:

Can someone please tell us how U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano got her job? She appears to be about as knowledgeable about border issues as a late-night radio call-in yahoo.

In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC, Ms. Napolitano attempted to justify her call for stricter border security on the premise that “suspected or known terrorists” have entered the U. S. across the Canadian border, including the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack.

Well, by all means, let’s clamp down on that border…

…presuming that she’s right:

All the 9/11 terrorists, of course, entered the United States directly from overseas. The notion that some arrived via Canada is a myth that briefly popped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and was then quickly debunked.

Good Lord.  We have Grace Kelly running DHS.

Informed of her error, Ms. Napolitano blustered: “I can’t talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here’s the future. The future is we have borders.”

Just what does that mean, exactly?

It means “Don’t question me.  I am associated with hope and change!  You wanna end up on a watchlist, bub?”

Just a few weeks ago, Ms. Napolitano equated Canada’s border to Mexico’s, suggesting they deserved the same treatment.

That, of course, is PC – Par for the Course – on the left; suggesting that maybe we should fence off the Mexican border brings a knowing pursing of the lips and a devastating riposte; “so what about the Canadian border?  Or aren’t we worried about white illegal immigrants?”

Right.  Because we have gangs of Quebecois shooting Afro-Americans over drug turf in Los Angeles.

Mexico is engulfed in a drug war that left more than 5,000 dead last year, and which is spawning a spillover kidnapping epidemic in Arizona. So many Mexicans enter the United States illegally that a multi-billion-dollar barrier has been built from Texas to California to keep them out.

In Canada, on the other hand, the main problem is congestion resulting from cross-border trade. Not quite the same thing, is it?

It’s called a “Nuance”, I believe.

The CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed over 250 times.

As former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey pointed out last week, half of the U.S. government’s knowledge of al-Qaida’s structure and activities is the fruit of enhanced interrogation.

…which is to say torture – let’s not mince words

That information let the U.S. and other governments foil numerous 9/11-style operations, saving hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives.

The torture of terrorists, not babies, not harp seals, not your neighbors, not your friends…saved innocent lives.

We understand that people have legitimate concerns about the U.S. being involved in torture. But enhanced interrogation — a reasonable (but now rescinded) response to the deadliest of threats to our homeland — should be seen for what it is: a tough, but effective, way to save lives.

War on Terror Scorecard: Obama 0, Terrorists 1

That is the percentage Obama is proposing to cut from the budget to reduce the deficit.

A senior administration officials says President Barack Obama is ready to ask federal department and agency chiefs to find $100 million to cut from the budget when he holds his first formal Cabinet meeting.

Now before you jump to the conclusion that this is some sort of PR stunt on the part of Jimmy Carter II, consider this:

If you were applying the same reduction to the purchase of a $50,000 car, it would amount to $1.41. If you were applying the same reduction to a family’s monthly budget of $4000 per month, it would amount to 11 cents per month. (!!!)

OK – go ahead and jump to the aforementioned conclusions now.

As for me, I can’t wait to get home tonight and tell my kids that our government is mortgaging their future a wee bit less than we thought!

What?  You’re trying to tell me that “The Daily Show” and Jon Stewart lies via misleading editing, especially in re the Tea Parties?

Pfft.  Next you’ll be saying that Colbert isn’t a real smug clueless blowhard conservative pundit.

…like the corners of my mind.  Faded bits of  wishful thinking, of the way…Harry was.

It’s been exactly two years since Harry Reid’s Baghdad-Bob-In-Reverse moment.
How’s that foreign-policy mojo working for you, Harry?

Don’t we call that “defeatbagging”, these days?

Yesterday President Obama released Bush administration memos on terrorist interrogation techniques in the interest of transparency and with a blatant disregard for national security.

Clearly, as unsavory as some of these techniques must be (I don’t want to know how sausage is made either) we have been kept safe here at home for some time since 9/11 and there have been several foiled attempts at savagery on the part of terrorists in Western nations – without a doubt in part due to our more aggressive attempts to gather, intercept intelligence and connect the dots to protect our interests – and save lives.

White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama spent about a month pondering whether to release Bush-era memos about CIA interrogation techniques, and considered it “a weighty decision.”

Whatever happened to when in doubt, keep your mouth shut – or in this case, keep the file cabinet locked. Whatta ya say Obammy that we err on the side of maintaining national security, not eroding it? Is that too much to ask?

What possible purpose could be served by advertising our most top-secret techniques for gleaning information that has probably saved lives?

A former top official in the administration of President George W. Bush called the publication of the memos “unbelievable.”

“It’s damaging because these are techniques that work, and by Obama’s action today, we are telling the terrorists what they are,” the official said. “We have laid it all out for our enemies. This is totally unnecessary. … Publicizing the techniques does grave damage to our national security by ensuring they can never be used again — even in a ticking-time- bomb scenario where thousands or even millions of American lives are at stake.”

“I don’t believe Obama would intentionally endanger the nation, so it must be that he thinks either 1. the previous administration, including the CIA professionals who have defended this program, is lying about its importance and effectiveness, or 2. he believes we are no longer really at war and no longer face the kind of grave threat to our national security this program has protected against.”

This should come as no surprise to those of us who warned you that a man that “served” in public office for less than two years is not a suitable choice to lead this nation. But disregard the Incompetence Theory^™ for now. Is it possible that Barack Obama holds his liberal agenda above all else, without regard for the consequences to our nation or it’s people?

Preposterous you say? Case in point: an $800 Billion stimulus package that will only raise our nation’s already untenable debt, devalue our dollar, and with no hope or precedent to show that such a plan has any hope of stimulating anything – save half our nation’s Hopey Changey dreams of a world without pain – or gain.

Not to mention the fact that our economy is showing signs of stabilization – and without any assistance from the not-yet-implemented “stimulus.”

And why release this now – are all other issues solved? Does Obama know that we are now somehow immune from attack?

Obama did not act on an arbitrary timeline. There was a deadline in a court case with the ACLU on Thursday. It had been extended, but the ACLU was not going to agree to another.

Ah, the ACLU. Well at least now we know who’s in charge.

Or, is this Barack Obtumor’s way of relieving the non-existent guilt of a nation not-sorry for having the audacity to protect it’s law-abiding citizens from being deep-fried in jet fuel in his or her 88th-floor office?

No, it’s a sophomoric President force-feeding an ever-angering nation a far-far-left (we warned you) agenda that flies in the face of his promise of Change^®.

…and leaves us a little less safe than we were on Wednesday.