Right Wing Nut House

My latest at PJ Media is up and it talks about the danger for Republicans if Scott Brown, as expected, wins today.

A sample:

There were other problems with the health care issue for Democrats, including their arrogance about it, their obsessiveness with getting it passed at all costs, and their failure to address economic issues in lieu of health care reform. But the important thing to remember is that a majority of indies still want some kind of health care reform, and killing Obamacare is only half the equation.

Moderate and Blue Dog Democrats know this which is why they might be tempted to vote for a much more modest, realistic, and — dare I say — conservative version of health care reform. Meanwhile, the GOP base (many of whom see nothing wrong with our health care system at all), will settle for simply blocking the Democrats from accomplishing anything.

Is that a viable strategy for going into the 2010 mid-terms? I suppose it’s going to have to be since the chances of Boehner or McConnell lifting a finger to address any problem facing the country are just about nil. And that brings me to the danger posed by Brown’s victory raising expectations among independents nationwide.

On the one hand, there is the danger that if the GOP were actually to cooperate with Democrats on issues of mutual concern, they wouldn’t get any credit for their efforts from the voters. On the other hand, there is the real danger that the charge of “obstructionism” by Democrats may carry a little more weight given the circumstances of Brown’s victory.

Threading the needle on expectations is going to be an interesting problem for the Republican leadership, one made more complex by the activism of the tea party movement. Paralysis may be the only viable option when so many are so angry at so much of the inside the beltway elite. “Responsible” governance might require that the GOP work with the Democrats to at least, bring the economy out of its horrible doldrums. But anything proposed beyond tax cuts would probably be met by fierce resistance from those who see any government spending to stimulate the economy as worse than useless; an actual betrayal of conservative principles.

With the economy in such horrible shape, voters are demanding action. It may be good politics to block a second stimulus bill but with Brown in the picture, it may force the Democrats to be a little less grouchy about targeted, temporary tax cuts as a way to move the economy off the schniede.

Who would be blamed for failure on this and other issues? Do the Republicans want to find out?

My latest at Pajamas Media came out yesterday and it deals with the idea that many conservatives who have made Scott Brown their latest darling will drop him like a hot potato sooner rather than later.

A sample:

You can’t pigeonhole Scott Brown. He’s a conservative — but he’s not. He’s a squishy RINO — but he’s not. He’s pro-choice, pro-gun, pro-consumer protection, pro-free market, and pro-environment. He opposes gay marriage but supported a regional cap-and-trade scheme — a vote he now says was a mistake. He supported the Massachusetts health insurance plan promoted by Mitt Romney with its individual mandate, although he now says that they need to get costs under control.

The picture that emerges after examining this fellow’s record and his position on the issues is one of an independent thinker with conservative principles who doesn’t allow ideology to dominate his thinking or his politics. Prudent, pragmatic, reasonable, but not squishy about where he stands (see his fight to repeal the sales tax increase and his battle over gay marriage).

He appears to be thoughtful and nuanced. His abortion stance mixes classic libertarian thinking with the concerns of a parent with two daughters. He grants women the right to choose and opposes partial birth abortions, but he wants strict parental notification requirements as well.

[...]

So what will conservatives make of such a man? A hit with labor unions and environmental groups — sometimes. Strong anti-tax cred. Pro-choice, but not in-your-face about it. Beloved of teachers unions — sometimes. Proven fiscal hawk. A man’s man who loves triathlons, has served in the National Guard for 30 years, has a beautiful wife, and drives a GMC Canyon truck with nearly 200,000 miles on it.

Right now, he is the darling of the right, with endorsements from the tea party groups and online conservative activists. He is, after all, that coveted “41st vote” on health care reform. But beyond destroying Obama’s dream of a government takeover of health care, how “reliable” a vote will he be for Republicans in the Senate?

I should mention that I think the enthusiasm among tea partiers, evangelicals, and other true conservatives for this guy is amusing. In six months, they will be condemning Brown for being just another stinking RINO.

That’s if Brown wins. Many things are pointing to a Brown win on Tuesday - polls, enthusiasm, self destructing Democrat - but the electoral apparatus is in the hands of one party in that state and the stakes are enormously high.

Of course there will be cheating and stealing votes. The trick is not in carrying it off, the trick is in not getting caught. A study done a couple of decades ago showed that anywhere from 1-3% of all votes in a national election are the result of some kind of chicanery. In a state like Massachusetts where one party has been entrenched in power so long and the infrastructure for cheating has been in place forever, that number is probably slightly larger. My estimation is that Brown will have to win by 3% or more to have a chance to make it to the senate. Anything less, and the Democrats will “find” enough Coakley votes and “lose” enough Brown votes to flip the election.

Then there’s the outside chance that enough Democrats will hold their nose and go to the polls and vote for Coakley anyway - especially after being inspired to do so by President Obama’s visit today. With a 3-1 Democratic advantage in registration, that scenario is not out of the realm of the impossible.

The point being, the giddy celebrations going on at Republican haunts on the web today are a little premature. By all rights, Brown should win. But the only poll that counts happens on Tuesday. And what happens in the dead of night at the precinct level following the vote could spell the difference for Brown’s chances.

My latest column is up at PJ Media - a tongue in cheek Welcome Wagon for Gitmo detainees who may be calling Illinois home soon.

A sample:

“Land of Lincoln”

That’s our state motto. No, Honest Abe was not born here (he was born in Kentucky). He didn’t grow up here either (he spent several years in Indiana). But since both Kentucky and Indiana were a little slow in claiming him as one of their own, he got to be ours by default.

You might also be interested to know that our state amphibian is the Eastern tiger salamander, our state insect is the monarch butterfly, and our state reptile is the painted turtle. And when the state legislature gets around to naming an official jihadist martyr, we’ll let you know.

A word about the weather; it gets cold in Illinois. Real cold. The other day while you were basking in 80 degree temperatures in Cuba, we were freezing our butts off at 7 below. And if you’ve never spent a summer along the Mississippi River, I suggest you bring a lot of mosquito repellent and a fan. You have no idea what hell is like until you experience 95 degree days and 80% relative humidity.

So there’s that to look forward to also.

Thomson, IL: Things to do

From the official village website:

We have some of the finest watermelons and produce in the country.

Thomson is at the intersection of Illinois Route 84 and Argo Fay Road nestled along the mighty Mississippi River, where Potter’s Marsh (U.S. Corps of Engineers - Thomson Causeway Public Use Area) offers some of the finest camping in Northwestern Illinois. Thomson is also known for some of the finest duck hunting, deer hunting and turkey hunting in the state of Illinois. Fishing is great!! We have a wide variety of fish on the mighty Mississippi River, Huge Catfish, Walleye, Bass, Northern Pike, Bluegills and the list goes on and on.

If you are planning on a quiet vacation or want to do some camping, come and see what Thomson has to offer. Thomson is also the site of the Illinois Department of Corrections newest maximum security prison - a $145 million facility which remains unopened.

Now, doesn’t that sound inviting? Love watermelons, and I’m sure you will too. In fact, our town nickname is “Melon Capitol of the World.” They are especially valuable for hollowing out and hiding guns, bombs, and knives. They are also an excellent way to hide messages to your friends, relatives, and fellow terrorists overseas.

In truth, this is just a god-awful move - a waste of money, and only necessary in a  political sense. The president promised his liberal base he would close Guantanamo, but found the problems in doing so a little more tangled than he realized on the campaign trail (and probably his second day in office as well when he signed the executive order to close Gitmo by year’s end).

It’s not like the president hasn’t broken other promises he made during the campaign. Why keep this one? I think the president is playing more to his foreign admirers than he is any domestic constituency. In that respect, one might legitimately ask does the European left now have a say in our national security?

I might mention that Obama’s decision also bails out Illinois Democrats who were at a loss with what to do about this turkey of a prison. Blagojevich announced the closing of Pontiac prison (about 15 miles from where I live)  apparently without realizing that Thomson wasn’t ready to take that many criminals.

(Note: Pontiac is an old facility - one of those prisons that looks exactly like a prison in old movies: forbidding, dark, gothic.)

I also take a shot in that piece at those who are overly concerned about security and the possibility of a jihadi breakout. But I save most of my ammunition for the Democrats.

Read the whole thing.

My latest at PJ Media column is up and its about the New York Times and the queerly (archaic form) fascinating section in their holiday gift guide headlined “Of Color” and featuring gift ideas for minorities.

How 1950’s of them.

Indeed, my original title was “The New York Times Gift Guide for All Your Negro Friends” but that was scrubbed for reasons unknown. I thought that the use of the archaic form to describe African Americans was apropos considering the subject matter:

Do you have a a Negro friend and are you having trouble finding just the right gift to get him dancing and singing on Christmas Day?

Well, the New York Times has come up with one of the great ideas of the 1950s: a holiday gift guide for the colored folk.

You’ve probably struggled with what to give your doorman, or valet, or housemaid as an appropriate present. You want something not too expensive but something they can really use. This colored folk gift guide takes the worry out of your holiday shopping for servants and others who are complexion-challenged.

Don’t let the fact that this is the year 2009 fool you. The Times is just a little late, that’s all. A good idea is a good idea no matter what decade — or century — it is conceived. And when you think about it, the idea of giving our many-hued minorities their very own catalog of special gifts chosen with them in mind is probably long past due. After all, it’s been a few years since Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in baseball, and many lunch counters actually don’t mind serving non-whites.

Thank God we have the New York Times to help us measure racial progress in this country.

What is interesting about the guide is that it features gift ideas for many different shades of off-white. Not only Negroes will benefit from this ultra-modern idea, but the Latins, the Wogs, and even our friends from the inscrutable Orient can be inspired by these exotic and race-specific selections. It’s like taking a trip through an international bazaar — or getting in a time machine and traveling back to the good old days when everyone knew their place and Macy’s didn’t feature Kwanza displays.

As Ed Driscoll, points out on his blog, we have basically come full circle as far as racia attitudes in America is concerned:

Why be amazed? Elite colleges, with faculties that skew far to the left have been promoting the functional equivalent of “Separate But Equal” graduations and dorms for years - we first wrote about the latter topic (linking to a piece by Joanne Jacobs, former San Jose Mecury columnist turned author and pioneering edu-blogger) during the first year of our blog, back in 2002. Boston talk radio host Michael Graham wrote Redneck Nation, which looked at similar trends in 2001.  As he said:

“In 1948, Strom Thurmond was a politician obsessed with race. The modern American liberal is obsessed with race. Strom Thurmond thought schools and courts should treat citizens differently based on their skin color. Liberal supporters of, among other things, race-based admissions policies and hate-crime laws agree. Strom promoted the “multicultural” view that institutions like Jim Crow and segregation might appear irrational or unjust to outside agitators, but they were a perfect fit with southern culture.”

As is the current multicultural mania a perfect fit for modern liberal America. Not quite “separate but equal,” however. There is a current of thought that “authentic” racially-based constructs are superior to white society because past oppression has granted minorities an elevated moral position. The Times “Of Color” section in their gift guide is perfectly logical when seen in this light; separate, superior, and deserving.

Believing this nonsense allows for scathing personal attacks on minorities who don’t toe the line when it comes to their own cocooned racial group’s agenda. The fact that a lot of this criticism is blatantly racist in character is not surprising. Those white liberals who believe they occupy the same moral high ground as their oppressed minority brethren due to their “enlightened” views on race feel enabled to charge racial apostates with a form of treason in the most vitriolic ways.

And, of course, whites who disagree with them on everything from affirmative action to issues involving the confederate flag are racists. Any discussion of race with many on the left must begin by accepting their definitions, their notions of history, their ideas of what constitutes “racism.” Otherwise, the conversation is cut short rather rudely by those liberals accusing anyone who questions their moral authority to judge these matters as racist.

Is it any wonder there is little productive conversation about race in America?

No doubt many on the left would disagree with this analysis. Such is to be expected from those whose self-awareness on this issue is totally lacking. It’s hard to come down from the mountain, difficult to stop waving the bloody shirt on the battlements when genuine debate might reveal fatal flaws in one’s views on race.

And the biggest flaw is the arrogant notion that falsely identifying with the oppressed gives one the singular moral right to determine the legitimacy of another’s views.

My latest at PJ Media is up - a midday special guaranteed to win me lots of friends and get me a lot of lovin’ from all you Palinbots out there.

I write, of course, about Palin’s most spectacular stupidity to date; mainstreaming paranoids:

I didn’t want to write about Sarah Palin anymore.

Really, I didn’t want to. God, I didn’t want to. But every time I think I’m out, she pulls me back in.

Face it, my friends. If Sarah Palin’s nugatory understanding of everything from foreign affairs to economic matters doesn’t cause you concern, if her predilection to expand, exaggerate, or fudge the truth about herself and her past statements hasn’t yet convinced you that she is a lightweight prevaricator and doesn’t deserve your support, then this exchange with conservative talker Rusty Humphries should change your mind:

[...]

Those who live on the fringes of American politics usually don’t realize how wacky they truly are. For the last time: The state of Hawaii issued a statement confirming that Obama was born there, thus making him a U.S. citizen. Why is that so hard to accept? There are no “questions” left to answer except in the minds of simpletons and paranoid conspiracy freaks.

No, it is not a “fair question.” It is a silly, stupid, ignorant question. No, “the public” is not making this an issue — only looney tune numbskulls are pursuing it. No, there aren’t “enough (whatever that means) members of the electorate who still want answers.” Only a small subset of the entire electorate cares.

And her whining declaration that she didn’t go after Obama hard enough on his radical associations fails to mention that the reason McCain dropped it was because nearly 2/3 of voters couldn’t have cared less. It was a losing strategy, period.

No - she didn’t say that she believes the birthers or that she wants to see Obama’s birth certificate.

All she did was say that those who questioned the president’s legitimacy were themselves, legitimate.

Read what she said and come back here and tell me that she wasn’t legitimizing the Birthers. Convince me of it and I will write an apology.

Otherwise, run away. Run far away from Sarah Palin.

UPDATE

More than 100 comments over at PJM - I’d say it’s 20 to 1 against me. Better than I expected.

Allow me to add something; Does opposing a conservative make me less of a conservative? For some, the answer is yes.

In which case, I would say they are cultists rather than conservatives. If you think opposing a personality determines one’s adherence to conservative principles, might I suggest you get ready because the Mother Ship is close now and you don’t have much time.

It is pure idiocy to judge the depth of one’s belief in anything in the first place. But to include one’s devotion to an individual as a litmus test of orthodoxy? Those who think this way may want to re-examine their assumptions.

It’s a shame for history’s sake that Germans didn’t follow that advice 75 years ago.

You’ve probably read it all here before but I decided to continue my quest to commit professional suicide and seek a larger audience for my Palin bashing.

From my latest column from PJ Media:

Reagan had a nimble mind and enjoyed jousting with the press, rarely complaining about the unfair treatment he received and, in fact, turning the tables on his adversaries by using self-deprecating humor to make them appear small and petty. Palin, while certainly having cause for complaint, nevertheless acts more like an aggrieved, whiny child who rails against the unfairness of it all.

I have written before of the self-defeating impulse of conservatives to try and anoint some personality as the “next Reagan” — or worse, to try and graft his ideas from 1980 onto solutions that would address our problems today.

Reagan is gone, and what we have is his legacy — a complicated mix of good and bad for which historians will be arguing over for decades to come. Palin and many of her supporters are stuck in this past, unable or unwilling to comprehend the basic reality that the world, America, and time itself have moved on, making whatever Reagan wanted or believed in the 1980s virtually irrelevant to where we are today and, more importantly, where we are headed in the future.

Palin is the anti-Reagan in this and many other respects. Where the Gipper had one eye on the past while trying to look over the next hill into the future, Palin and many of her supporters hold on to the past for dear life as the future rolls up to meet us. I believe this to be her basic attraction to so many conservatives. She offers a comfortable place for those who are so inclined to ignore the verity of the present and who, quite rightly, fear the future. The soothing yet empty bromides, the hackneyed and cliched talking points, and the familiar responses to America’s problems are indicative of a mind incapable of expanding to meet new challenges and new opportunities.

I note the comments are running pretty much as expected. Good thing tar and feathering has gone out of style, huh?

Seriously, there are several commenters who make the ridiculous assertion that my Palin bashing is a ploy to get on TV or something, or win points with the “elites” all the better to further my career. If it wasn’t questioning my integrity, I’d laugh. Not only am I not good enough to get a second look from any of the mainstream media or even the “elite” conservative press, but the fact that my audience for this site continues to dwindle - dropping more than 30% in the last year while traffic at other sites have skyrocketed. That should disprove any such outrageous accusation.

I write what I write because I feel like writing it. My opinions are my own and not disseminated to curry favor with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Disagreeing with conservatives, making a case for a more thoughtful approach to the issues, taking those conservatives to task who deserve it in my opinion - if I were doing this to win friends and advance my career, I am doing a piss poor job of it.

But the charge is indicative of the real problem with most of my detractors; they don’t think. Perhaps they can’t think. For all the Palin bashing I’ve done, all the criticism of conservatism, of Republicans, of the base, of everything else I see as wrong with the right - if that were to garner me attention from those who could advance my career, you would think I’d be making a gazillion dolllars. Instead, I am ensconced in this internet backwater where those precious few readers who discern a morsel or two of common sense from my writings come to visit.

The road to internet fame and riches is to agree with Palin, with the base, with big shot bloggers who get 10 times the traffic I do. So before questioning my integrity, you better have a damn sight more evidence than your idiotic, horse’s ass opinion.

And you know who you are.

My latest wildly popular, huzzah-eliciting article at Pajamas Media has to do with the idea that maybe if we want to solve some extremely serious problems like the deficit or Medicare reform, it will be necessary to work with the Democrats and vice versa.

A sample:

The radical idea that 500,000 citizens in a congressional district send a representative to Washington to do something other than scream his head off that the opposition are a bunch of traitorous, America-destroying philistines trying to undermine democracy because they want to declare tomorrow “National Blue-Haired Ladies Day” just hasn’t caught on yet on either side.

Of course, the Democrats actually have to do something about governing the country because they are in power and have to take evidence back home to hold up as an example of how busy they have been the last two or six years. This is sort of like a kid who proudly holds up his homework to the teacher, showing her how hard he labored over the assignment even though he waited until the last minute to work on it.

But that hasn’t prevented the Democrats from acting in a beastly manner toward Republicans, which is only payback for when the GOP was in the majority and acted in a beastly manner toward the Dems, which they only did because previous to that when the Democrats were in power, they acted in a really beastly manner toward GOP lawmakers.

Politics sure is a serious business, isn’t it?

No, it is impossible to expect the GOP to have worked with the Democrats on health care, or cap and trade, or even card check. These things are an anathema to Republican principles - as it would be if the GOP asked Democrats to help on a tax cutting bill for business, or some other issue that would be a bridge too far to cross for liberals.

But on the great challenges facing the country, the people have a right to expect that they shouldn’t have to pay for the consequences of this childish nonsense that passes for political discourse today. And the consequences of not reforming Medicare or making serious efforts to bring down the deficit are too horrible to contemplate.

Read the whole thing.

My latest is up at Pajamas Media about the conservative insurgency in NY23 that appears about ready to succeed in handing Doug Hoffman an unexpected victory.

A sample:

What has happened in NY-23 is that the newly empowered conservative base decided the national party had gone a candidate too far in choosing liberal Republican Scozzafava to represent them and decided on their own to adopt third-party candidate Doug Hoffman, while telling the GOP establishment to take a hike.

Why the national party believed this colorless career politician who supports gay marriage and would have voted for the stimulus bill represented Republican principles, much less conservative ones, will remain a mystery. Dan Riehl has uncovered some information that former GOP Congressman Tom Reynolds may have played a large role in choosing Scozzafava, but that only muddies the waters even further. Didn’t those numbskulls at the RNC and the NRCC even bother to check this woman’s credentials before giving her stacks of cash donated by good conservatives?

It may be understandable that they would choose a pro-choice woman to run in New York state, although the man the special election is replacing who served eight terms representing that district, John McHugh, was pro-life down the line. But pro-gay marriage? Where did that come from? And it should go without saying that Scozzafava’s support for the stimulus bill would have made her a pariah in the House Republican caucus since no other GOP congressman supported it.

All of this was known to the national party before they shepherded her choice through the selection process (rammed it through might be a better way to describe what happened). Also known to the GOP elites was the wave of discontent building beyond the beltway via the tea parties and the spectacular success of Glenn Beck, who has ridden the wave to fame and fortune.

And yet, still believing they were in total control, they proceeded as if the protests at health care town halls, the 9/12 phenomenon, and the tremendous grassroots energy those events unleashed didn’t matter. Or perhaps they believed they would be able to co-opt and use all that enthusiasm for their own purposes so they could continue with business as usual. Whatever they were thinking, they blindly allowed an old crony (Reynolds used to run the NRCC), to have his way in choosing a candidate that even Nelson Rockefeller might have had to swallow hard to support.

Hoffman, by the way, is not much more conservative than Scozzafava if you examine their positions on the issues. Dede’s problem was that she served 10 years in the Assembly and had a string of votes that she could be attacked for. But Hoffman is no wild eyed “Stalinist” as Frank Rich seems to think:

The battle for upstate New York confirms just how swiftly the right has devolved into a wacky, paranoid cult that is as eager to eat its own as it is to destroy Obama. The movement’s undisputed leaders, Palin and Beck, neither of whom has what Palin once called the “actual responsibilities” of public office, would gladly see the Republican Party die on the cross of right-wing ideological purity. Over the short term, at least, their wish could come true.

The New York fracas was ignited by the routine decision of 11 local Republican county chairmen to anoint an assemblywoman, Dede Scozzafava, as their party’s nominee for the vacant seat. The 23rd is in safe Republican territory that hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in decades. And Scozzafava is a mainstream conservative by New York standards; one statistical measure found her voting record slightly to the right of her fellow Republicans in the Assembly. But she has occasionally strayed from orthodoxy on social issues (abortion, same-sex marriage) and endorsed the Obama stimulus package. To the right’s Jacobins, that’s cause to send her to the guillotine.

Speaking as one who has been sent to the guillotine myself by those same Jacobians, Rich is full of it. Scozzafava was foisted on the district by NY state GOP leaders and especially former Rep. Tom Reynolds (former head of the NRCC as well) who decided one of his proteges should be the nominee. And while there is certainly a lot of anger that the establishment wanted to cram a pro-gay marriage candidate down their throat (a position not even mainstream in the Democratic party), the real rebellion in NY23 centers on the perception that despite the previous month’s activism, the party and the establishment wasn’t listening or “getting it.”

And Dede’s endorsement of Porkulus when not one single GOP congressman voted for it says volumes as well. In short, this cram down by party elites at a time when tea party activists had singlehandedly delayed Obamacare and became the only true organized resistance to the president’s agenda, smacked of disrespect by the GOP leadership who were benefiting from their activism.

I have written extensively about the dangers of this populist wave, and how it could easily become, if not as radical as Rich believes in his overactive imagination, then certainly a detriment to conservatism and GOP hopes in 2010. But the race in NY23 shows that there’s nothing for it now, the base has been empowered and the wave is on the move. My fear is that all this enthusiasm and resentment, and fear will be channeled into unproductive avenues and result in a lost opportunity in 2010.

Andrew Sullivan:

No one knows what might happen now. For the insurgents, it means a scalp they will surely use to purge the GOP of any further dissidence. But the insurgents were also backed by the establishment, including Tim Pawlenty, who’s supposed to be the reasonable center.

What we’re seeing, I suspect, is an almost classic example of a political party becoming more ideological after its defeat at the polls. in order for that ideology to win, they will also have to portray the Obama administration as so far to the left that voters have no choice but to back the Poujadists waiting in the wings. And that, of course, is what they’re doing. There is a method to the Ailes-Drudge-Cheney-Rove denialism. They create reality, remember?

From the mindset of an ideologically purist base - where a moderate Republican in New York state is a “radical leftist” - this makes sense. But for all those outside the 20 percent self-identified Republican base, it looks like a mix of a purge and a clusterfuck. If Hoffman wins, and is then embraced by the GOP establishment, you have a recipe for a real nutroots take-over. This blood in the water will bring on more and more and deadlier and deadlier sharks.

Scozzafava was no “radical leftist” as I point out here. No one who gets the endorsement of the NRA can, by any stretch of the imagination, be termed a “radical leftist.” And someone who opposes cap and trade, Obamacare, and much of the Obama agenda cannot be considered much of a leftist. Her support of card check is a natural given the number of union voters in the district which speaks more of her bowing to practical political realities rather than any deep, leftist ideological commitment.

And the danger, as I have constantly harped upon, is that the calcification of views by the base on issues will become so excessively driven by ideology and partisanship, that unless a candidate is marching in nearly 100% lockstep with them, they will be branded “Marxists” by Beck and “liberals” or “radical leftists” by everyone else.

But as I point out in my PJM piece, Andrew is wrong to conclude that this presages some kind of mass takeover by the far right. The circumstances in NY23 created a perfect storm for the bast that is very unlikely to be repeated in other congressional districts. If the base puts up primary challengers to those they consider insufficiently pure, the normal equilibrium of politics will take over and incumbency, money, and name recognition will overwhelm just about any challenge to the supremacy of the party establishment. In other words, if the conservative base thinks that NY23 is some kind of harbinger for the future, they will be royally disappointed.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t cheer them on in NY23. An establishment that gets too comfortable is no good to anyone. And the message I like being sent from this race is that putting up good, reasonable conservatives like Hoffman for office is usually better than the alternative.

My latest at Pajamas Media is up, and its about the “doc fix” that failed in the senate.

A sample:

There are times when politics approaches the sublime level of art, where the sheer audaciousness and breathtaking arrogance of the players, along with the elegance of their schemes, achieves the same effect that one gets while gazing on the Pietà or watching Pulp Fiction. The shortening of breath, the quickening of the heartbeat — responses to the joy in recognizing the awesome majesty in the clever ways the greatest politicians can separate the taxpayer from his hard earned coin or simply pull the wool over his eyes while he is being fleeced.

Is this a great country, or what?

That’s the feeling I got while observing Harry Reid and the Democrats as they attempted the most brazen and shameless legislative switcheroo in quite some time.

Yes, it’s the “doc fix” or, more prosaically, the “big ugly bribe” that the American Medical Association eagerly grasped with both gloved hands and sold their principles for a little more cash when treating Medicare patients.

The story, as it broke in The Hill, is that a secret meeting took place last week between Reid, Max Baucus, Chris Dodd, a couple of White House aides (including Rahm Emanuel), and representatives of the AMA and other doctors groups. At the meeting, the majority leader offered to restore cuts in Medicare payments to doctors that were mandated by a 1997 law that was supposed to reform Medicare. Never mind that Medicare is going to go broke and that those cuts were designed to help forestall that unhappy happenstance.

Problem: Those cuts were already figured in to the health care reform bills moving their way through Congress with the lightening speed of a three-toed sloth making its way to the ground for breakfast only to alight around dinner time. The cuts were counted as “savings” in order to fulfill the president’s pledge not to add “one dime” to the deficit when passing health care reform.

No worries, says Fast Harry. And he proceeded to make an offer to the docs that they simply couldn’t refuse.

Read the whole thing.

I rushed a piece up at PJ Media after hearing the news about Chicago not getting the 2016 summer games.

A sample:

He placed the prestige of his presidency directly on the line and failed. That’s the bottom line. He gambled with the one thing no president should ever gamble with unless the stakes are much higher than his hometown getting the Olympic games.

What stakes would have justified such a gamble? Jimmy Carter gambled that he could bring Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin to Camp David and hash out a peace deal. The odds were against it. It was a huge gamble and Carter, to his credit, worked tirelessly, shuffling back and forth between the two antagonists’ cabins (they refused to meet in the same room), never letting up until he had a deal.

Ronald Reagan’s gamble in Reykjavik, Iceland, where he sought to make huge cuts in nuclear weapons while meeting with Gorbachev, did not turn out as well. When Gorbachev rejected the plan because Reagan would not give up SDI, the Gipper was rightly criticized for it.

Presidential visits are staged down to the last detail. If a treaty is to be signed, experts work for weeks prior to the president’s trip to make sure there are no last-minute hitches. Nothing is left to chance.

With Obama’s visit to Copenhagen, everything was left to chance. We didn’t know that at the time he announced it, however. There were many observers who believed the president wouldn’t make the trip unless he had been given private assurances that his presence would put Chicago over the top.

I point this out later:

There is no doubt that the criticism for this serious mistake in judgment will eventually die down. But the effect is cumulative. The president’s inability to bring health care reform to some kind of a denouement was already dragging his presidency down, along with his popularity and that of his party. The unemployment numbers out today are horrible, with jobs still being sloughed off by companies much faster than the total being created. One of the president’s biggest supporters, former Treasury Secretary Robert Reich, reminds us that for every job lost, another unemployed worker gives up looking.

The president took all of 25 minutes to meet with Afghanistan commander, General McChrystal, to discuss a situation that is deteriorating by the week. This is incomprehensible given the seriousness of the situation and McChrystal’s dissatisfaction with the administration’s dithering over how to prosecute the war.

Partisanship aside, I think it’s time to start worrying about this fellow. It’s hard to coldly analyze a president that you see as an opponent but I am also something of a student of history. This man was unprepared for the presidency - moreso than anyone before him. He had also failed to demonstrate any leadership skills prior to being elected. Perhaps then, it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise that he either doesn’t know how to lead or is incapable of doing so. His own party is wondering about him. We’ve got very little coming from the White House in terms of substance - it’s all glitz and glitter with Obama campaigning for his agenda rather than doing the hard, slogging scut work of actually getting in the trenches and leading the troops toward the goals he sets.

I agree it is a hard thing to gauge how well a president is leading. But even his biggest boosters have to admit not much is getting accomplished. This despite a huge advantage in numbers in Congress. If you can judge a president’s effectiveness by what he is accomplishing, so far - and it is still relatively early in his presidency - Obama is failing to measure up.

I am not one that hopes Obama suffers a failed presidency. I do not wish him well in passing much of his agenda but that should not be taken to mean I want him broken. The world is too dangerous to wish for something like that and Obama must have at least a minimum of credibility or the credibility of America suffers too.

He can probably turn it around with a victory on health care reform - something I am not rooting for unless substantial changes are made to whatever bill is finally written. But a defeat there would really make it hard for the president to regain any momentum. And the likelihood of a GOP comeback would grow substantially.