FRIDAY,  JANUARY 22,  2010

THE SMOKING GUNS – AT 8:54 P.M. ET:  The great Newsbusters site has examined how John Edwards's revelation that he is the father of his mistress's daughter was played by the major print media.  Please remember that Edwards was a U.S. senator, a vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket who came within one state of being "one heartbeat away," and a serious contender for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.  He also has nice hair.

That story couldn't so much as garner a single front-page story from any of the nation's top five major newspapers - USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times or The Washington Post. And only The Wall Street Journal, found the story worthy to print on its second page, not to mention the fact that it is a business journal.

Edwards admitted in a statement on Jan 21 that he was indeed the father of Frances Quinn Hunter, saying, "It was wrong for me to ever deny she was my daughter." The story of his affair with campaign staffer and videographer Rielle Hunter broke last summer when the National Enquirer busted Edwards in a Los Angeles hotel for cheating on his cancer-stricken wife.

So where was this prominent story placed in the nation's most respected and circulated newspapers? With exception of the Journal, it was buried deep in the A-section of the aforementioned papers, with the exception of the Post, which didn't even find it newsworthy enough to put in its first section:

USA Today - 4A
The Wall Street Journal - A2 (teased on front page)
The New York Times - A12 (teased on bottom of front page)
Los Angeles Times - A13
The Washington Post - C2 (teased on bottom of front page)

The New York Times clearly thought that an international story about the politicization of the sport cricket was more newsworthy than a scandalous admission by a former vice presidential candidate. Yes, "Cricket Team Snub Reeks of Politics to Pakistanis" made it onto page A-6, while "Edwards Admits He Fathered Girl With Mistress" appeared way back on page A-12.

COMMENT:  Yet, when the Pulitzers are given out, you may be sure that it will be the establishment papers that will grab the lion's share (or the lioness's share, depending on how you view the gender issue). 

The question is:  What else aren't we being told?  I'm afraid the list may be much longer than many Americans think, starting with the real military situation that prevailed in Vietnam in 1968, when many "leading" journalists told us that our cause was hopeless, when history shows we were doing quite well.

We need a free press.  It's critical.  But our free press needs reform.

January 22, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA DEFIANT – AT 7:17 P.M. ET:  The question of the week, which we've reported here, is whether President Obama will choose to be Jack Kennedy or Jimmah Carter.  Will he recognize his errors and try, as Kennedy tried, to correct them.  Or will he go holy, holy, holy, as Jimmah did, pushing his purity all the way to defeat by Ronald Reagan. 

We look for signs.  So far, Jimmah seems to be winning.  The New York Times reports:

ELYRIA, Ohio — President Obama, striking a no-retreat, no-surrender posture in the wake of his party’s humiliating defeat in the Massachusetts Senate race this week, vowed Friday to press on with his expansive domestic agenda — including a health care overhaul and tough new restrictions on banks — even if it meant he had to “take my lumps” from political critics.

No, my friend, it isn't political critics from whom you're taking your lumps, it's the American people.  But Obama cannot fathom that "the masses" would turn against him. 

The president used the word “fight,” or some version of it, more than 20 times.

Churchill used it, too, as in, "We shall fight on the beaches..."  The difference is, Churchill meant it.

Mr. Obama vowed to “never stop fighting for policies that will help restore home values.” He promised that he was “not going to stop fighting to give our kids the best education possible.” He pledged he would not “stop fighting to give every American a fair shake,” to continue fighting for a new Consumer Protection Agency and for openness in government. And of course, Mr. Obama pledged to fight for jobs.

“So long as I have some breath in me, so long as I have the privilege of serving as your president, I will not stop fighting for you,” Mr. Obama said. “I will take my lumps. But I won’t stop fighting to bring back jobs here.”

Say what?  He's fighting for openness in government?  Like the way they put together health care "reform"?  He's fighting for education, the way he's caved in to the education unions?  He's fighting for jobs?  What jobs, other than those in government?

Mr. Obama’s new bellicose rhetoric comes as his advisers have concluded he must strike a more populist tone, to tap into the anger many Americans feel about bailouts on Wall Street while Main Street is suffering. At the same time, the White House is trying to frame the midterm elections on terms that will be favorable to Mr. Obama, by casting him as someone who will stand with the little guy — even if all those fighting words contrast with his image as a politician who cares about bringing people together.

That's the problem.  The president is always running for something, posturing, winning debate points.  It's the governing part he doesn't care for.

While here, Mr. Obama made a plea for the health care bill, which is in disarray now that Scott Brown, the Republican, has been elected senator in Massachusetts, depriving Democrats of the 60th vote they need to pass a sweeping overhaul.

Conceding that the plan had “hit a little bit of a buzz saw this week,” Mr. Obama acknowledged that the process “has been less than pretty” and that the measure was so big and unwieldy it looked like “a monstrosity,” creating fear and anxiety among ordinary Americans. But he made the case that passing the measure is an imperative.

“This is our best chance to do it,” the president said. “We can’t keep on putting this off.”

In the immortal words of the philosopher George Gobel, "Wait a gosh-darned minute."  Didn't Nancy Pelosi just say she didn't have the votes to pass the thing?  Didn't Chris Dodd recommend that the Dems take a timeout on health care?  And if the current bill is "creating fear and anxiety among ordinary Americans," why not revise it?  Who writes these speeches?

Mr. Obama, naturally, attacked Washington, the standard practice for politicians in trouble:

With all the problems he faces in the capital, he sounded especially happy to be let loose for a few hours.

“It’s just nice being out of Washington,” he said, adding, “I mean there are some nice people in Washington but it can drive you crazy.”

Guy, you asked for the job.  Don't blame Washington.

COMMENT:  Some of this reminded me of Jimmah Carter's "national malaise" speech, in which he attributed his woes to a great national malaise. 

The president is certainly not wrong on everything, any more than Carter was.  But, like Carter, he isn't very good at governing.  You can't just have a good cause.  Health-care reform, as Scott Brown said just yesterday, is a perfectly good cause.  You have to know how to execute it, and present it to the American people.  Until the president realizes his mistakes, he'll never correct them.  He will be Carter, not Kennedy.

January 22, 2010   Permalink

THIS IS HILARIOUS – AT 5:48 P.M. ET:  Yeah, I can just see it – the editor of the National Enquirer stepping up to the podium at Columbia University to receive the Pulitzer Prize.  But, you know, the guy might deserve it.  From the Washington Post:

The executive editor of the National Enquirer says he plans to enter his paper's work on the John Edwards scandal for a Pulitzer Prize.

Don't laugh.

"It's clear we should be a contender for this," Barry Levine said by phone Thursday, hours after the former presidential candidate admitted what the paper had been reporting all along: that he is the father of Rielle Hunter's baby. "The National Enquirer, a supermarket tabloid, was able to publish this reporting."

While the staff never doubted its reports that Edwards had fathered a daughter with his former campaign videographer, Levine said, "there is vindication, finally. Mr. Edwards kept the story alive much longer than it needed to be kept alive with his denials. He has only himself to blame."

While the Enquirer stories may or may not be prize-winning material -- the paper's most significant disclosures came in 2007 and 2008, and this year's Pulitzers will honor material published in 2009 -- there is no question that the tabloid scooped the rest of the media world.

When the Enquirer first reported in 2007 that Edwards had had an affair with Hunter, the former North Carolina senator dismissed the account as tabloid trash. The rest of the media, having no independent proof, steered clear of the story, even as Edwards, aided by his cancer-stricken wife Elizabeth, was mounting an aggressive campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination.

COMMENT:  The rest of the media had no independent proof because it wasn't interested in the story.  Edwards was posing as a populist liberal, and he got a pass.  It wasn't the first time, and it won't be the last.

The Enquirer won't get a Pulitzer, but the incident is instructive:  Sometimes the best journalism is done by the least likely people.  Often the the most mediocre, the laziest, the most conventional journalism is done by "respectable" journalists who go to tea in Georgetown and never dig beneath the surface, especially when favored people are involved.

You know, maybe Columbia could do us all a favor by awarding a special Pulitzer to the Enquirer, just to put a scare into the usual suspects.  Like chicken soup, it can't hurt.

January 22, 2010   Permalink

BRITAIN RAISES TERROR ALERT – AT 5:16 P.M. ET:  The cousins across the pond assure us that they don't see anything imminent, but they do see something coming.  (Try figuring that out.)  From The Times of London:

Britain's terrorist threat level was raised tonight from “substantial” to “severe” - meaning that counter-terrorism agencies believe an attack is “highly likely."

The measure was approved at a meeting of the Government’s Cobra emergency committee and announced by Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary.

The Times understands that the decision to raise the threat level is connected to the conference on Afghanistan taking place at Lancaster Gate, London, next Thursday.

Sources said there had been intensive discussions throughout the day relating to intelligence suggesting a possible attempted “spectacular” by an al-Qaeda affiliated group.

But the shift was also described by one source as “precautionary” rather than rooted in any firm information that an identified terror cell was plotting an attack.

COMMENT:  Britain has a split personality on terror.  On the one hand, some of its security services are first class, and internal security has, for the most part, been taken seriously.  On the other hand, political correctness in Britain is a high art, and Arabist circles still wield great power.

In a way, Britain hasn't changed since before World War II.  Then there were those, like Churchill, who pushed for full mobilization to confront Nazism.  There were others who were openly sympathetic to Hitler.  The BBC in the thirties, by the way, was led by a man who despised Churchill and what he stood for.  Nothing has changed.

January 22, 2010   Permalink

DEMOCRATS FRIED, SAYS COOK – AT 9:43 A.M. ET:  Veteran political analyst Charlie Cook, writing in National Journal, has no good news for the Democrats:

Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown's victory in Tuesday's special election for the Senate should serve as an air-raid siren for the Democratic Party. Warnings began sounding last summer, and by now it seems impossible for Democrats to deny that something has gone terribly wrong for their party. In the year since President Obama's inauguration, their celebration has turned into a nightmare.

Joy to the world.

For Democrats, the first step toward recovery is admitting they have a problem: Over the past 12 months, they have badly damaged their brand.

Is there a Liberals Anonymous?  Do you get up and say, "I'm Martha, I'm a liberal, and I want to stop"?

On recent GOP victories:

These successful Republican candidates were able to take advantage of the vise grip in which Obama and his party are caught. A large group of Americans are upset that the president and congressional Democrats have focused so much on health care and climate change, seemingly at the expense of the economy and jobs. Another group is furious about the expansion in the size, scope, and reach of the federal government and the explosive growth of federal spending over the last year, albeit on top of an orgy of deficit spending under President Bush and the GOP majority. These two forces are squeezing Obama and his fellow Democrats from opposite directions, doing grave damage to him and his party.

And national defense is a factor as well.  Any Democrats interested?

To the extent that they show up, Democratic voters can generally be counted upon to support their party's candidates this year, just as Republican voters can be expected to toe the line for GOP candidates, assuming that "tea party" supporters don't nominate some unelectable ones.

But independent voters are the largest voting bloc in Massachusetts, as they are nationally. And independents showed on Tuesday that they have little patience left for Democrats. Of course, Democrats' woes are not limited to the Bay State. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, conducted January 10-14, shows the two parties running even at 41 percent each in the generic congressional ballot test, a bad result for Democrats because the gauge tends to tilt about 3 points in their favor. Even more worrisome for them is that among voters with the highest interest, those most likely to turn out, Republicans hold a huge 15-point lead, 50 percent to 35 percent.

Finally...

Any Democrat with a pulse ought to be extremely alarmed by now: The same wave of independent voters that swept away the GOP's majorities in the House and Senate in 2006 could do the same to Democrats, at least in the House, this November 2nd.

COMMENT:  Harry Reid's pulse has always been a question mark.

One problem facing the Dems is that the party's intellectual leaders have contempt for the very people they claim to champion.  It's been a problem since the Eugene McCarthy movement of 1968.  Unless that changes, the party can look forward to a hostile army of voters, most of them labeled "independent."

January 22, 2010   Permalink

THE PRESIDENT AND THE MONEY MEN – AT 9:22 A.M. ET:  Very, very revealing.  Mr. Obama is doing the populist dance right now, claiming he represents the common American in a death duel with the vultures of Wall Street. 

Well, there are certainly vultures on Wall Street.  Some of them have been my neighbors.  But, as the Washington Examiner points out, they don't exactly see this president, or his party, as enemies, and we have to wonder why:

"If these folks want a fight," President Obama said Thursday, tossing a rhetorical barb at Wall Street, "it's a fight I'm ready to have."

But what if they don't want a fight?

They don't seem to have their dukes up.

For his presidential campaign in which Wall Street regulation was a mantra, Obama's top source of funds was investment bank giant Goldman Sachs, whose employees, partners, and executives gave him $995,000 -- that's the most any politician has raised from any one company in a single election since the age of "soft money" ended..

...The "securities and investment" industry has favored Democrats by more than a two-to-one margin so far this cycle. The top eight recipients of Wall Street PAC money this election are all Democrats.

Hmm.  Does the Progressive Caucus in the House know about this sinning?

And 10 days ago, once it was clear Martha Coakley's campaign was in trouble, Citigroup's PAC cut a $2,400 check, while many lobbyists representing Goldman, Citi, and Morgan Stanley shelled out for her Capitol Hill wine-bar fundraiser.

They should ask for their money back, with interest.

Obama's record as a bailout booster also makes it tough to buy his current schtick as anti-Wall Street crusader.

Remember, Obama, as the presidential nominee and head of the party controlling Congress, could have blocked Bush's bailout in late 2008. Instead, he rallied behind it, and rewarded its architects -- Timothy Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke -- by promoting Geithner and renominating Bernanke.

So when Obama, touting his bank tax, says "we want our money back," recall that it was Obama who helped the banks take your money -- without asking you. It's as if a mugger took your wallet and gave it to Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein, and then posed as your champion by promising to raise Blankfein's taxes.

Ouch.

Finally...

But everyone who opposes the bank tax -- which, of course, the banks will just pass it through to customers -- will be tarred by the Democratic machine as siding with Wall Street over Main Street. Same with Obama's proposed financial regulations, even though they would institutionalize bailouts by dubbing Goldman Sachs and its ilk "Tier One Financial Institutions."

The press will follow Obama's rhetoric over the coming months, and paint him as the scourge of Wall Street. It's more illuminating, though, to follow the legislation -- and follow the money.

COMMENT:  That is good reporting.  I haven't seen an equivalent exposé in the respectable media.

January 22, 2010   Permalink

GOP AIMS FOR OBAMA'S SENATE SEAT – AT 8:48 P.M. ET:  After Massachusetts, the seat most coveted by Republicans is the one vacated by President Obama in Illinois, and now held by machine hack Roland Burris, who isn't running because he knows he'd get three votes, five on the outside.  The GOP has a shot, as reported by the Chicago Tribune:

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois race for an open Senate seat may be the biggest political battle of 2010, at least when it comes to bragging rights.

This is the seat held by Barack Obama before he moved to the White House. It would be a major victory for Republicans to take the president's old seat out of the Democratic column in a state that, on paper, is strongly Democratic.

To pull off that coup, Republican leaders are backing Mark Kirk, a commander in the Naval Reserve and five-term congressman with moderate views on issues like gun control and abortion.

Kirk faces some quiet rumbling in his own party, but it hasn't dented him:

Kirk outrages some conservative activists, who consider him a traitor to fundamental Republican principles, but that hasn't translated into significant support for any of his rivals in the primary. One group recently canceled a debate because it couldn't find evidence that any of Kirk's opponents reached even 5 percent in opinion polls.

The Dems have a bit of a talent shortage:

There's more competition in the Democratic primary race, and more vulnerabilities.

State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is the apparent front-runner based on name recognition and fundraising. He also oversaw an investment program that lost $150 million that Illinois families had set aside to pay for college. It doesn't help that his only other job was with his family's troubled bank.

Make him secretary of the treasury.

David Hoffman, former prosecutor and inspector general for the city of Chicago, may be Giannoulias' most aggressive challenger, but he hasn't had the money to reach most voters.

Cheryle Jackson, head of the Chicago Urban League, has a natural political base as the only black candidate in the field. She also was a high-ranking aide to disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, something that opens her to questions about ethics and judgment.

Yeah, I'd say so.  That's a safe statement.

Attorney Jacob Meister has presented himself as an outsider, someone who is more in touch with business owners than with politicians. He, too, lacks the money for a major campaign.

And the gorilla in the room:

Complicating things even further, this particular Senate seat is entangled in the Blagojevich scandal.

The former governor is accused of, essentially, trying to sell the seat and name the buyer as Obama's replacement. Even after his arrest, Blagojevich went ahead and appointed Roland Burris to the seat. Burris gave conflicting, incomplete answers about how he came to get that appointment, which triggered an ethics investigation and made Burris so unpopular that he decided not to run for a full term.

COMMENT:  Kirk may not suit all Republican tastes, but this is a time for practicality.  He's a solid guy, respectably conservative, with a fine record and a strong record, especially on national defense. 

The last GOP senator from Illinois was Peter Fitzgerald, who didn't run for reelection.  The last significant Republican senator from the state was the unspeakable Charles Percy, who was a Republican in name only, and a man who yearned to be accepted by the Eastern establishment.  His daughter, Sharon Percy, is married to Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia.  To Percy, it's the Rockefeller thing that counts.

We're backing Kirk.

January 22, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA LOSES TO ANYONE BUT REAL LIVE PEOPLE – AT 8:35 A.M. ET:  Huh?  What, you ask, does that headline mean? 

It turns out that Fox News has a new poll pitting President Obama in a hypothetical matchup against...well, here it is:

A new Fox News poll has President Obama losing in 2012 to a generic Republican candidate -- but mostly stomping a few big-name Republicans. Which leads one to wonder -- who is this generic Republican who could beat him?

According to the poll, Obama beats Mitt Romney, 47 percent to 35 percent, defeats Sarah Palin, 55 percent to 31 percent, and makes a quick business of Newt Gingrich, 53 percent to 29 percent. What, no Santorum?

Generically, Obama loses to an unnamed Republican, 43 percent to 47 percent.

Translated:  The Republican Party may need a fresh face because the worn ones aren't playing very well.  Romney does best, but Romney was a weak primary candidate and even he loses by 12 to Obama, although keeping Obama under 50%.

The fact is that the president retains a great deal of good will.  He has a strong minority base, and a number of other Americans – I hear it all the time – don't want the first black president to fail. 

Still, his electoral strength is eroding:

Moreover, the number saying they would "definitely" vote to re-elect Obama has declined -- going from 37 percent in April to 26 percent in October to 23 percent in the new poll.

It's very early, but the Republicans must start to present new faces.  They will begin that process after the State of the Union message next week, when the GOP reply will be delivered by newly sworn Governor Bob McDonnell of Virginia.  Good choice.

January 22, 2010   Permalink

OBAMA'S FUTURE – AT 8:07 A.M. ET:  As the pundit class contemplates President Obama's future, the Gallup organization examines the past, and what Mr. Obama might have to face in his second year in office:

PRINCETON, NJ -- Most of the last eight elected U.S. presidents, starting with Dwight Eisenhower, saw their approval rating drop in the second year of their presidency -- on average by five percentage points. According to Gallup historical data, only George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush avoided a second-year drop; Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan experienced the greatest declines in public approval from year one to year two.

And...

Barack Obama begins the second year of his presidency Wednesday after averaging 57% job approval during his first year in office. But his recent approval ratings have generally hovered around the 50% mark, with his fourth quarter average (spanning Oct. 20 through Jan. 19) at 51%.

This decline in Obama's approval rating over the first year of his presidency is not an auspicious sign for his second year, based on historical patterns in Gallup's data. The presidents who experienced the greatest declines in support from their first to second year in office had already shown clear signs of decay over the course of their first years in office (based on a comparison of their first and last quarterly approval averages of their first year in office).

And...

Thus, it appears that if significant momentum in either direction is established over the course of a president's first year in office, that momentum has carried over into the second year. However, two of the presidents who had difficult second years -- namely, Truman and Reagan -- were able reverse that momentum in time to win re-election.

The bottom line for this year:

The obvious political peril for Obama -- as was the case for Truman, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton -- is that his second year coincides with midterm congressional elections. When presidents' approval ratings have been below 50% in a midterm election year, their party has tended to suffer heavier seat losses.

COMMENT:  One key question not discussed by Gallup is whether the president can control his own party.  A good chunk of that party apparently expected Obama to lead a chant of "Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your internal combustion engines."  He hasn't quite gotten to that, and there is as much disenchantment on the left as there is with the nation's moderates, although for different reasons.  The California kamikazes – who provide a great case for interning some Americans in wartime – are already urging Obama to lurch further left and charge into the minefields.

So, going into midterms, an increasingly unpopular president is leading an increasingly dissatisfied party whose base tends to show up only when it is emotionally and spiritually moved.  If Republicans play it right – and that's a big if – 2010 can be a year when Scott Brown of Massachusetts led one of the greatest political comebacks in modern history. 

January 22,  2010   Permalink

THURSDAY,  JANUARY 21,  2010

MAJOR HIGHLY CLASSIFIED NATIONAL-DEFENSE BULLETIN - AT 10:40 P.M. ET:  From Fox News.  Please don't spread this around: 

The United States apparently possesses an "earthquake weapon" that set off the catastrophic quake in Haiti and killed 200,000 innocents. Don't believe it's true? Just ask Hugo Chavez.

Citing an alleged report from Russia's Northern Fleet, the Venezuelan strongman's state mouthpiece ViVe TV shot out a press release saying the 7.0 magnitude Haiti quake was caused by a U.S. test of an experimental shockwave system that can also create "weather anomalies to cause floods, droughts and hurricanes."

The station's Web site added that the U.S. government's HAARP program, an atmospheric research facility in Alaska (and frequent subject of conspiracy theories), was also to blame for a Jan. 9 quake in Eureka, Calif., and may have been behind the 7.8-magnitude quake in China that killed nearly 90,000 people in 2008.

What's more, the site says, the cataclysmic ruin in Haiti was only a test run for much bigger game: the coming showdown with Iran.

The ultimate goal of the test attack in Haiti, the report reads, is the United States' "planned destruction of Iran through a series of earthquakes designed to topple the current Islamic regime."

COMMENT:  My Lord, we're good.  What technology.  What vision.  They must be shivering in Tehran tonight.

Oh, the Venezuelans took the story down later, but didn't retract it. 

Thank goodness for Venezuelan investigative reporters.

January 21,  2010   Permalink

HEALTH PLAN ESSENTIALLY DEAD – AT 6:12 P.M. ET:  The shot heard 'round the world, fired from Massachusetts on Tuesday, scored a direct hit on the Dems' health "reform" bill.  Nancy Pelosi sounded a San Francisco retreat:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she lacks the votes to quickly move the Senate's sweeping health overhaul bill through the House, a potentially devastating blow to President Barack Obama's signature issue.

Pelosi, D-Calif., made the comment to reporters after House Democrats held a closed-door meeting at which participants vented frustration with the Senate's massive version of the legislation.

Her concession meant there was little hope for a White House-backed plan to quickly push the Senate-approved health bill through the House, followed by a separate measure making changes sought by House members, such as easing the Senate's tax on higher-cost health plans. Such an approach would be "problematic," she said.

"In its present form without any changes I don't think it's possible to pass the Senate bill in the House," Pelosi said, adding, "I don't see the votes for it at this time."

Pelosi's remarks signaled that advancing health legislation through Congress will likely be a lengthy process—despite Democrats' desire for a quick election-year pivot to address jobs and the economy, which polls show are the public's top concern.

COMMENT:  Look for newly elected Senator Scott Brown (R-Mass., yay) to be a leader in fashioning some compromise plan that has bipartisan support. 

Of course, the Dem left is now furious...at its own party.  They're saying that the Dems are losing because they're not left-wing enough.   Some of them swear to take their ten voters and go somewhere else.  Maybe Hamas will take them.

January 21, 2010   Permalink

GENERAL LEE'S MUD – AT 5:47 P.M. ET:  A little broadcasting note, from The New York Times:

Air America, the progressive talk radio network, said Thursday that it would cease broadcasting immediately, bowing to what it called a “very difficult economic environment.”

“It is with the greatest regret, on behalf of our Board, that we must announce that Air America Media is ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon, and that the Company will file soon under Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code to carry out an orderly winding-down of the business,” the chair of Air America Media, Charlie Kireker, said in a memorandum.

And a bit of history:

Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, hosted an Air America show from 2004 to 2007 before running for office.

Ah yes, another career highlight.

I'm reminded of the story of the officer who complained to General Grant, during the Civil War, that a particular maneuver was difficult because there was a lot of mud in the area.  Grant is reported to have replied tersely, "General Lee has the same mud."

And, yes, the economic environment was difficult for Air America, but Fox News works in that same environment.  The difference is the message.  There just weren't enough people available who were interested in the weirdness and anger put out by Air America.  Professionalism shows.

January 21, 2010   Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 4:16 P.M. ET:  By Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian who stood up to militant Islam in the Netherlands, and is now on trial there for daring to speak his mind.  From Hudson New York:

Mister Speaker, judges of the court,

I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes. Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.

I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.

I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.

I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims. I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.

COMMENT: Wilders is controversial, but free speech is about controversy and debate.  He has the courage to fight our fight.

Meanwhile, a new US Army report on the Fort Hood massacre failed to mention, even once, the ideological motivation of the shooter.  In the Netherlands, court is in session.  In the U.S., political correctness is in session.

January 21, 2010    Permalink 

THE GRAND CONTRADICTION – AT 3:52 P.M. ET:  It might be wise for President Obama to contemplate the virtues of silence. 

In trying to explain away the Massachusetts massacre, the president, in one interview, conceded that he'd lost the connection with the American people because "we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people..."

Yeah.  Problem is, that contradicts what Obama said in another interview.  It wasn't that he was so busy getting stuff done, it was that, well, he kinda misjudged how hard things would be, so stuff wasn't getting done:

Getting the Israelis and Palestinians to agree to negotiate, or even to agree to the framework in which negotiations will take place, "is just really hard," US President Barack Obama said in an interview with Time magazine published Thursday, as the president was completing his first year in office.

Gee, I didn't know.  I thought this would be easy.  I mean, a single word from The One...

Apparently, it goes beyond that conflict:

In the interview, which covered a vast range of topics from internal issues like health care to foreign policy regarding North Korea, Obama said that if he would have anticipated the issues early on, "we might not have raised expectations as high."

Yeah.  When you present yourself as a demigod, people expect things to happen. 

Instead of real progress, real accomplishment, this is what we're getting from Obama.  From the TIME interview:

On Iran, one of our trickiest foreign policy challenges, we have held the international community together, both in our engagement strategy, but also now as we move into a dual-track approach. Which is, If they don't accept the open hand, we've got to make sure they understand there are consequences for breaking international rules. It's going to be tough, but I think the relationship we've developed with Russia will be very helpful. The outreach we've done to our traditional NATO allies will be very helpful. The work that we've done with China — including the work we've done with China to enforce sanctions against North Korea — will help us in dealing more effectively with Iran.

Can you figure that out?  Can anyone explain what progress we've made with China on Iran?  The Chinese have been absolutely rigid.  Is the president just spinning, or is he delusional?

Remember the campaign, when McCain and Palin raised questions about Obama's experience, his knowledge, the fact that he'd never run anything larger than his office?  Too bad the country wasn't listening.

January 21, 2010   Permalink

GRIMNESS ON JOBS – AT 10:44 A.M. ET:  The key economic concern is jobs, and, despite claims from the Obama bunker that both the eastern and western fronts are holding, the picture is simply not improving:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of newly-laid off workers seeking jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, as the economy recovers at a slow and uneven pace.

Layoffs have slowed and the economy began to grow in last year's third quarter, but companies are reluctant to hire new workers. The unemployment rate is 10 percent and many economists expect it to increase in the coming months.

The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance rose by 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 482,000. Wall Street economists expected a small drop, according to Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose for the first time since August, to 448,250.

COMMENT:  If this continues during most of the year, the Washington D.C. real-estate market will come alive just from the sale of homes by departing Democratic congressmen.

January 21, 2010   Permalink

PROSPECTS FOR NOVEMBER – AT 10:01 A.M. ET:  Superlative political analyst Larry Sabato, of the University of Virginia, analyzes the Massachusetts vote and projects some of the other critical contests to be decided in November:

With Tuesday night’s upset by Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts, the GOP gained more than just a 41st vote to disrupt the Obama agenda. As attention turns to the midterm elections in November, the Republican Party has strong momentum...

...In fact, it is likely that the Republicans will gain at least 3 to 5 Senate seats in November. Even more startling, in the aftermath of the Massachusetts special election, Republicans would do even better IF the general election were being held today. The Crystal Ball projects that the Democratic majority in the Senate would be reduced to just 52 seats if November’s contests were somehow moved to January.

A word of caution:

Luckily for the Democrats, the election is not today. By November the economy may be in much better shape, and some of the current controversies may appear less significant. Contests that would tip to the GOP today could easily wobble back to the Democrats (such as Missouri and Pennsylvania). That is why we still classify them as toss-ups overall.

The endangered species:

Among the senators who could be endangered by a new wave of Republican entries are Evan Bayh (Indiana), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York), Patty Murray (Washington), and Russ Feingold (Wisconsin)...

...Post-Brown, the magic number for Republicans is 10 if the GOP is to take control of the Senate. (Vice President Joe Biden would cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of Democratic control should there be a 50-50 split.)

Finally...

A lot can happen in a short time, as Tuesday showed anew. Democrats have plenty of chances to ward off this “Nightmare on November Street” if the economy and Obama’s approval ratings rebound over the next nine and a half months. For the moment, though, the Democrats’ nightmare is the Republican dream scenario, as our Senate rankings suggest.

COMMENT:  A week is a lifetime in politics.  The Dems have large financial resources, and the political gimmickry of this White House should never be underestimated.  Add to that the continued loyalty of much of the Obamafied press, and the GOP still has a mountain to climb. 

January 21, 2010   Permalink

HANSON ON OBAMA – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  Victor Davis Hanson sums up the Obama dilemma, a year after The One's triumphant inauguration.  I find it fascinating to count how many warnings about Obama, ignored during the presidential campaign, have proved to be accurate:

In Plato's ideal society, philosopher kings and elite Guardians shepherded the rabble to force them to do the "right" thing.

To prevent the unwashed from doing anything stupid, the all-powerful, all-wise Guardians often had to tell a few "noble" lies. And, of course, these caretakers themselves were exempt from most rules they made for others.

We are now seeing such thinking in the Obama administration and among its supporters.

A technocracy - many Ivy-League-educated and without much experience outside academia and government - pushes legislation most people do not want but is nevertheless judged to be good for them.

These are people who'd put their College Board scores on their gravestones.

Hanson notes that a good part of the Obama agenda is actually unpopular with the very nation that elected him.

Why, then, does the Obama administration persist with such an apparently unpopular agenda?

Like Plato's all-knowing elite, Obama seems to feel that those he deems less informed will "suddenly" learn to appreciate his benevolent guidance once these laws are pushed through.

Liberal columnist Thomas Frank once promoted similar assumptions in his book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Frank argued that clueless American voters can't quite figure out what their own self-interests are.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, another Obama supporter, also reflected the philosopher-king thinking in a recent column praising China's "reasonably enlightened" dictatorship. Unlike the messiness of American democracy, he argued, a few smart strongmen in China can ram through the necessary policies "to move a society forward in the 21st century."

It's the totalitarian temptation.  And there are many "leading intellectuals" who are prone to it, which explains, in part, why intellectuals often support the worst causes.

There is one other trait of this administration similar to those of utopian philosopher kings. Our elite must have the leeway to be exempt from their own rules.

Higher taxes must be levied on many of us. But the guardian of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, now and then can cheat a little. So can the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charles Rangel, who oversees the writing of tax law.

And, finally, why Plato was a lot smarter than Obama:

There is, however, one difference between Plato's thinking and the Obama administration's agenda. Plato at least assumed that philosopher kings were fantasy ideas and his utopia unachievable.

Our president and his modern-day Guardians in contrast haven't quite figured that out yet. Perhaps after this week's election in Massachusetts they will.

It's unlikely.  It's in their career interests not to.

Wise politicians know that they must never get too far ahead of the people.  I said "wise" politicians.  One problem with the Obamans is that they confuse education and wisdom, assuming the former guarantees the latter.  It does not, just as it does not guarantee morality or goodness. 

The midterms in November will be the most significant of our era.  One more Massachusetts message must be sent.

January 21, 2010   Permalink

ANOTHER MESS – AT 8:40 A.M. ET:  Truth eventually comes out.  From the Washington Post:

Former senator John Edwards on Thursday admitted paternity of a daughter with former mistress Rielle Hunter, despite his previous denials, in a statement given to the "Today" show.

Harrison Hickman, a trusted Edwards adviser, went on the show to discuss the statement from the former presidential candidate, who also served as the vice presidential nominee for the Democratic Party in 2004.

"I am Quinn's father," Edwards said in the statement. "I will do everything in my power to provide her with the love and support she deserves.... It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter."

He also apologized to his daughter, now nearly two, saying he hoped she could forgive him one day, and to the public. "To all those I have have disappointed and hurt, these words will never be enough. But I am truly sorry," he said.

"I know it's not possible," Edwards previously said over the question of whether Frances Quinn Hunter was his child.

Hickman said that Elizabeth Edwards, who is battling cancer, and John have separated and that she is supportive of him coming forward about the child. "Elizabeth thinks he should acknowledge this," Hickman said.

COMMENT:  This man was almost vice president of the United State – he was on Kerry's ticket in 2004 – and he could have gone higher than that.

Our anger should not only be directed at Edwards, a professional sleazeball, but at the press.  Edwards, who made millions in the very murky world of medical malpractice lawsuits, was never properly vetted by the lamestream media, which examines every word and action of leading conservatives.  He took the standard liberal positions, and thus got a pass.

Edwards won his most famous medical malpractice case using junk science.  That should be a warning to us that failure to examine the science used in political and judicial arguments – and that includes global warming – is one of the journalistic scandals of our time.

January 21, 2010   Permalink

Y'THINK?  – AT 8:24 A.M. ET:  The president of the United States has defined his political problem:

President Obama yesterday tried to explain the shocking election of a Republican senator in overwhelmingly Democratic Massachusetts, insisting he understands voters' anger -- even while admitting he lost touch with the American people.

"If there's one thing that I regret this year, it's that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us, that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values," said Obama.

Huh?  Read that again.  Did he say, "...speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are"? 

Mr. President, the American people know what their core values are.  We don't need any lectures.  The question is whether you know what our core values are.  You know, when you wait for days to cruise out to a microphone to say you support democracy fighters in Iran, when you wait three days to acknowledge the Christmas airline bombing, when you appoint radical Marxists to government jobs, when you produce a 2,000-page health-care bill that no one understands, when you grovel to every two-bit dictator in the world, while apologizing for the United States...people get annoyed. 

You got that?

How about this...

Later, he insisted, "What I haven't always been successful at doing is breaking through the noise and speaking directly to the American people in a way that during the campaign you could do."

But despite that sentiment, Obama didn't seem to be at a loss for communication in his first year in the White House.

According to CBS News, he held 42 news conferences, gave 158 interviews and made 411 speeches and remarks. That included 52 addresses or statements on health-care reform efforts alone. And the number of interviews was far more than any of his recent predecessors during the first year of their terms.

The man is speaking gibberish.  He just can't accept that the worship has stopped.

January 21, 2010   Permalink

BULLETIN – AT 8:10 A.M. ET:  Momentous news of the highest importance.  Really, world-changing:

LOS ANGELES - After days of tense negotiations, "The Tonight Show" host Conan O'Brien signed an agreement with NBC early Thursday to part ways with the network, NBC confirms.

Martha Coakley is quoted as saying that she's relieved that Johnny Carson is returning to the show.

(Okay, okay.  I apologize.  I couldn't resist it.)

January 21,  2010   Permalink