Truer words...

... written in a funny article about how all the big shot conservative pundits had no use for Rick Santorum. Until, of course, he nearly beat Mitt Romney in Iowa. But one of them actually saw it coming:

The American Spectator’s Quin Hillyer, for one, was into Santorum before being into Santorum was cool. In early November, when Santorum was still pulling single digits in national polls, Hillyer wrote that Santorum could be “the sharpest, most accomplished, most campaign-savvy “It’s a good thing for Rick Santorum that conventional wisdom, especially in politics, is usually preternaturally stupid,”, and most full-spectrum conservative in a quarter-century of presidential contests . . . working harder than anybody, making at least as much intellectual sense as anybody, never blowing a debate, and never failing to stand on principle.”

Even earlier in July 2010 the same guy wrote these words that should be remembered every time you listen to a political pundit:

“It’s a good thing for Rick Santorum that conventional wisdom, especially in politics, is usually preternaturally stupid.”

So there.

coming soon: the empire strikes back ... and Santorum tanks. Or not.

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Truth or Consequences, political edition

The Washington Post fact checks Republican candidates.

Of course, one Republican pol is on record as admitting that one of his statements was "not intended as a factual statement." Maybe they meant the same.

And for what it's worth, to be a politician is to be dishonest. It's a Darwinian process.

By that measure Romney turns out to be the most-nearly- getting warm- might-one-day- be -honest of the candidates. The Post gives him a Pinocchio almost reflexively for "some shading of the facts."

but there are no consequences anymore. Welcome to the post-modern world where what you want to believe is exactly the same as what you have to believe.

But I exaggerate, I believe.

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Another Republican speaks

I like reading David Frum, thought sometimes he comes across as a (slightly) more mature and much smarter version of that guy in high school that though Ayn Rand was a brilliant writer. He is a Republican having served in the Bush administration and a true conservative. Here he is unloading on the economic idiocy of the current crop of Republicans and faux conservative:

On the most urgent economic issue of the day – recovery from the Great Recession – the Republican consensus is seriously wrong.

It is wrong in its call for monetary tightening.

It is wrong to demand immediate debt reduction rather than wait until after the economy recovers.

It is wrong to deny that “we have a revenue problem.”

It is wrong in worrying too much about (non-existent) inflation and disregarding the (very real) threat of a second slump into recession and deflation.

It is wrong to blame government regulation and (as yet unimposed) tax increases for the severity of the recession.

It is wrong to oppose job-creating infrastructure programs.

It is wrong to hesitate to provide unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other forms of income maintenance to the unemployed.

It is wrong to fetishize the exchange value of the dollar against other currencies.

It is wrong to believe that cuts in marginal tax rates will suffice to generate job growth in today’s circumstance.

It is wrong to blame minor and marginal government policies like the Community Reinvestment Act for the financial crisis while ignoring the much more important role of government inaction to police overall levels of leverage within the financial system.

It is wrong to dismiss the Euro crisis as something remote from American concerns.

It is wrong to resist US cooperation with European authorities in organizing a work-out of the debt problems of the Eurozone countries.

It is wrong above all in its dangerous combination of apocalyptic pessimism about the long-term future of the country with aloof indifference to unemployment.

Did he leave anything out?

of course, his conclusion is that Mitt Romney is the best thing they've got.

The ineffable lightness of Newt

This just in from the Gingrich front in the Republican bid for regaining the White House:

Newt Gingrich fired up the crowd in this blue state with the promise that President Obama is so bad that he's made it possible for the Republicans to win over the African American vote in 2012.

This was right after he told reporters "that his campaign was still going strong."

Where do we find people like this?

Jon Stewart must have the easiest job in the world.

Is he running for President?

This is an actual headline from the e-version of the Washington Post today:

Flickr Designer Publicly Criticizes Flickr’s Design

Must be a Republican.

from Georgia.

What we thought then

'We' would be me and Joey Sobrino. 'Then' would be March of 2007. The 'what' would be what we thought about the presidential race which was already heating up enough to make me complain.

I know. Some people claim it doesn't take much to make me complain.

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The "Real America"

The North Carolina county that Sarah Palin claimed was part of "real America" went for Obama by more than 18 percentage points.

Just thought I'd point that out. And we got rid of Liddy Dole, too.

Avery Co voting and the Wall Street Journal

Here is what the Wall Street Journal has reported about the situation in Avery Co that I reported on yesterday. From the accounts I have heard the election officials were no where near as co-operative nor as gracious as the account portrays. The quote from Cannupp, chairman of the county board of elections, however, in which he threatens to have the person reporting the "mix up" arrested pretty much tells the story.

Something wasn’t right with Spanish-language voting instructions posted in voting booths in Avery County, N.C., a solidly Republican area in the Appalachian mountains that was the focus of a recent Wall Street Journal article.

A Spanish-language instructor at a local college noticed that the voting instructions in Spanish were different from the ones in English. The Spanish version told voters to mark an “X” next to the selected candidate. The English-language version asked voters to fill out entirely the oval next to the chosen candidate, and says an “X” will not record a vote, said Rachel Chrane, the Spanish instructor at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, N.C.

Chrane said she contacted the North Carolina Board of Elections, which confirmed these weren’t the instructions provided by the state. She then filed a formal complaint with the Avery County board of elections, she said.

“It was an old piece of signage,” said Sheila Ollis, director of the Avery County board of elections. “The professor took it upon herself to file a complaint, and we corrected it immediately.” Ollis said the voting system would acknowledge an “X” on the ballot. Chrane said instructions in English said this was not the case.

Chrane said she then checked with several polling stations around the county to see if the changes had been made, and found one voting booth where the old sign remained. Ollis said workers made the changes as quickly as possible.

That might not be the end. Johnny Canupp, chairman of the county board of elections, accused Chrane of breaking the law by tampering with the signage in the booth. He said he warned her in a phone message that if she did it again, a warrant would be issued for her arrest.

Carmen looked at the Spanish version and said it was a terrible translation in any case.

Palin and I agree!!!

About one thing. At least. Public figures should never discuss who they have voted for as a matter of policy.

Palin was asked during the press conference whether she voted for Sen. Ted Stevens. “I am also exercising my right to privacy and I don’t have to tell anyone who I voted for, nobody does, and that’s really cool about America, also,” she said.

Not sure why I feel that way. And I could be wrong.

Dirty Tricks (or simple fraud) in Avery County?

One of the more hardcore of the western mountain counties in North Carolina is Avery Co. As red as red can get. Except for a large number of Hispanics, some of whom are citizens and can vote. I don't know the details of the following allegation, nor if it will hold up to scrutiny, but the source that e-mailed it to me is pretty reliable. FWIW, here it is, the instructions on the presidential ballot in Avery Co., North Carolina:

The Spanish instructions for how to vote are completely wrong. In Spanish it says "Para votar un candidate marque con una equis en el cuadro a la izquierda del nombre del candidate." Translation: "To vote for a candidate mark with an X in the square to the left of the name of the candidate.” This is the opposite of the English instructions. In English it clearly says that a vote will only be counted if the oval is filled in completely. An "X" will not be counted.

UPDATE: Seems that a complaint has been filed, embarrassing statements were made by the election officials concerned, and now the Wall Street Journal may be investigating.

Always willing to do my bit to embarrass public officials who screw up. Only a few more hours now.

Demos in charge

Might not be as much fun as some of us expect. David Frum (whose blog on NRO remains a forlorn corner of honest rational thought) has this warning in today's Washington Post.

... with the financial meltdown, the federal government is now acquiring a huge ownership stake in the nation's financial system. It will be immensely tempting to officeholders in Washington to use that stake for political ends -- to reward friends and punish enemies. One-party government, of course, will intensify those temptations. And as the federal government succumbs, officeholders will become more and more comfortable holding that stake. The current urgency to liquidate the government's position will subside.

Convincing enough. His next point isn't, but here it is:

Second, the political culture of the Democratic Party has changed over the past decade. There's a fierce new anger among many liberal Democrats, a more militant style and an angry intolerance of dissent and criticism.

After the red-meat Repubs?! How bad can they be. Frum is upset about this because he realizes that to put some kind of check on these trends we will need good Repubs in the Senate and House ... and in his view we are not going to get them because of the way the McCain campaign is imploding. But he has lot of advice for the McCain campaign to correct it!

memo to self: get upset about this ... next month.

Mosby the Cat can't take the campaign anymore

The Department that didn't bark

Something has been missing in this years presidential campaign, something that I didn't even notice until I read this article by David Berman in Salon.com this morning: the Department of Homeland Security. Berman explains why this is a little odd:

The establishment of DHS, the most important civilian agency for ensuring the nation's security, represented the largest reorganization of the federal government since Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Within DHS are the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Transportation Security Administration, the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, the Secret Service and 12 other components in charge of critical government functions including immigration and nuclear detection. The secretary of the Department of Homeland Security oversees all of this and is the public face for raising and lowering the National Threat Advisory (currently, yellow), making this appointment one of the most important facing the president. Eighty-six congressional committees have oversight of DHS.

When the presidential candidates talk about big government, it doesn't get any bigger than the Department of Homeland Security. So why then are John McCain and Barack Obama silent on DHS?

Good question and Berman attempts to answer it, but more importantly he gives his idea of how to fix it, or at least improve it. At the moment it seems to be the beast too big to ride.

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Sua cuique voluptas

Or, everyone has their own pleasures. One of mine is the sound and look of Latin. Ergo, this morning when I saw this column entitled 'Tu Betchus!' by Maureen Dowd, a columnist I ordinarily shun sicut pestis, I had to take a look. Mirabile visu! Half of it is written in Latin! Here is a taste of it:

Gubernatrix (prope Russia) Palina, spectans candidaciam MMXII, post multam educationem cum Kissingro et post multam parodiam de Sabbatis Nocte Vivo atque de Tina Feia, ferociter vituperat Obamam, ut supralupocidit (aerial shooting of wolves) in Hyperborea.

Well, what can I say. Dowd makes more sense in a dead language than she does in modern English!


ah well, diem perdidi et dis aliter visum as they said in old Roma

Deja vu all over again

From a column by EJ Dionne in today's Washington Post about the campaign between Herbert Hoover and FDR:

Hoover stopped short of declaring Roosevelt a celebrity. But Donald A. Ritchie reports in his excellent 2007 book, "Electing FDR," that Hoover saw Roosevelt as "his weakest and most vulnerable" foe and "did not respect him as a political rival."

History is so much fun. .

Conservapedia again - and Obama

The conservative answer to the evil Wikipedia, Conservapedia, has an entry on Barack Obama that you should read. It shows you where much of the conservative mind set seems to be. Here's the first paragraph:

Barack Hussein Obama, II (allegedly born in Honolulu,^[1][2] August 4, 1961) is the 2008 nominee of the Democratic Party for president.^[3] Obama has served as a freshman Democratic Senator from Illinois since 2004. On August 23 he chose Senator Joseph Biden as his running mate. In 2007, Obama was rated the most liberal Senator by the National Journal, who had rated Senator John Kerry the most liberal senator during his presidential run as well.^[4] If elected, Obama may become the first Muslim President of the United States.

Not quite sure what to make of this. You really ought to read the whole thing.

Anti-Semites against Obama?

Sean Hannity, the scamp, has been enlisting support for his campaign against Obama. Seems one of them has an interesting agenda: "exterminate Jew power in America." Read about it here.

he's also proud to have first written an article claiming that Obama is a Muslim. Don't know how this cuts with his anti-Jew power campaign.

And you thought Tina Fey was funny

Try this liveblogging of the VP debates from Will Wilkinson, a Cato Institute research fellow and blogger. Here's how it starts:

Oh, what the hell.

8:16 - Biden: Barack Obama will never raise taxes on anyone ever. Almost. McCain is middle-class-hating shill for megawealthy.

8:18 - Palin: Higher taxes not patriotic, Biden. Government off our snow machines! I did a good job remembering talking points about McCain’s health care tax credit plan! Budget-neutral: I can say it!

8:19 - Biden: Scranton, reprezent. Redistribution isn’t if you don’t call it that. Fairness! Health care, blah blah Bridge to Nowhere.

Finally, I've discovered the king of liveblogging a political debate deserves. I'll have to read more of this guy's blog.

A viable third party candidate!

Don't know much about her, except doggone it, she's as purty as a dewdrop. Can't tell if she is leftish or rightish, but check out her campaign promises. Cute little wink too. And her opponent, Mr Nobody - doesn't he look a bit familiar?

Anyway, I am interpreting the last three seconds of this ad as a promise of free beer for everyone.

she's got my vote.

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The Man Formerly Known as The Designated Adult

Rich Lowry, editor of The National Review, formerly known as "the designated adult," actually wrote this after seeing the Biden/Palin debate:

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

After Lowry endured much mockery, the Boo Man came to his defense:

Everyone's mocking Lowry, but I at least partially agree with him. I described myself as stunned, which isn't that far from mesmerized. I had a tremendous amount of difficulty processing any meaning in what she was saying. Part of the reason for that was that she was speaking extraordinarily quickly and part of it was that she kept making unsignaled changes in direction. Part of it was because a lot of what she was saying was filler, and basically meaningless. But another big factor was that I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't believe that she was acting like a beauty contestant, and it stunned me almost insensate. I couldn't believe that John McCain had allowed this to happen. I still can't. So my sympathy goes out to Rich Lowry. He's now the butt of a joke. But, for me, those little starbursts in the living room were real. They came from my frying synapses.

Well. I think we have progressed well beyond the Stephen Colbert stage of American politics and are now in totally uncharted waters.

Sit up a little straighter.