IOKIYAR, Memorial Day Edition.

What a bunch of idiots.

"You screwed up, Barry. You trusted us!"

I'm still puzzling over this comment.

Where I was wrong was in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.

It's only a matter of time before Bill Clinton campaigns for John McCain.

Typical.

Former President Bill Clinton returned to his home state Friday to help a beleaguered ally and delivered a broadside against some of the most powerful interests in the Democratic Party.

Using unusually vivid language to describe the threat against Sen. Blanche Lincoln, Clinton urged the voters who nurtured his career to resist outside forces bent on making an example out of the two-term Democratic incumbent.

He pounded the podium with Lincoln at his side, warning that national liberal and labor groups wanted to make her a “poster child” in the June 8 Senate run-off to send a message about what happens to Democrats who don’t toe the party line.

“This is about using you and manipulating your votes to terrify members of Congress and members of the Senate,” Clinton said in the gym of a small historically black college here.

No, Bill. It's about holding a corporatist, corrupt Democrat who threatened to veto health care reform and killed the public option accountable.

All for naught, though. Halter's going to win.

Memeorandum Makes a Funny.

I Got Nothin'.

How Terribly Convenient.

This is rich.

DAVID HARSANYI: The Rand Paul Distraction.

Hey, Putz? Maybe a guy responsible for a couple of dozen Obama teleprompter posts ought to avoid suggesting that a politician's thoughts on separate-but-equal water fountains is a distraction?

Maybe?

Anyway, the Reasonoid in question doesn't think Rand Paul's Goldwaterite position on the 1964 Civil Rights Act is relevant.

Isn't it time we started querying our political candidates on issues that really matter?

...asks the straight married white guy.

Electric Slide, Maybe.

Putz:

POLLS: Obama’s slide continues.

This is only true if you squint really hard, and lie.





I'm so old I remember when Putz would proudly tout a Gallup poll titled “Congress Approval Down to 29%; Bush Approval Steady at 33%.”

Der Krauthammer on Immigration and the Integrity of John "Amur'ca First" McCain

To think, he was a mere hundred-plus electoral votes from winning:

McCain had an argument with Obama in the meeting [between Obama and Senate Republicans]. It was described as rather testy. Interestingly, McCain, who was on the Obama side of the argument three years ago, is now (because of a [primary] challenge in his own state) on the other – on the correct side today, in which he said to the president ’close the damn border.’ . . .

And the president of course objected. The only answer here, and it is a simple answer — I say it again and again, because there is no objection that makes sense: Complete the fence. Don't send the Guard down there. They are going to go, they’re going to come back — [it] won't make any difference. A fence remains. A fence works. . . .

I have an objection that makes sense: high-tech anti-fence technology recently developed by Mexican engineers:

Yay Tea Parties!!!!

Oh dear.

Politico reports that in Virginia's 5th Congressional District Tea Party activist Jeffrey Clark will run as an independent if moderate Republican Robert Hurt wins his party's nomination to take on Tom Perriello.

How serious would a Clark candidacy be? When we polled the district in early February we found that a generic Tea Party candidate would pull 19%. Perriello received 44% and Hurt 27% in such a scenario. ...

Do I really think Clark would pull 19%? No. But Perriello has held up pretty well so far given the political climate and the nature of his district, and even if 48% is the best he can get to in an off year election that would still put him over the top if Clark got just 5% from Hurt's disaffected supporters. Republicans are doing a good job of getting on the same page after the primary in most races this year but this is certainly one where the failure to do so could give Democrats a victory they might not otherwise get.

It's sort of convenient that tea parties are about principles and not politicians, given that teabaggers don't have a single candidate within a country mile of elected office.

One Day Putz Will Be Right About Something.

Today is not that day:

WHILE AMERICAN’S 401(K) PLANS SHRINK, Congress wants to bail out unions’ overgenerous and underfunded pension plans.

Reality:

BOSTON (Reuters) – Fidelity Investments said average U.S. retirement-account balances continued to rise in the first quarter as stock markets recovered and more savers resumed contributions to their savings accounts. ...

The average account balance in the 401(k) plans surveyed by Fidelity stood at $66,900 at the end of the first quarter, up 41 percent from the same point a year ago.

Shoot Me.

Palin: Only a moron would make the prediction I just made a few nights ago.

I shudder to think what Roger Ailes is paying this half-smart bumpkin scam artist* per week.



*$1 to Jane.

Make it Stop.

The kids Rumproast, masochists all of 'em, try to ruin my day by making me read Peter Daou:

In the movies, pretend heroes like Bruce Willis and Will Smith save the planet while the whole world watches with breath and belief suspended. In real life, a global catastrophe is treated like a mere annoyance, mismanaged by a rapacious oil company, while drill-baby-drillers double down on their folly and the White House puts out defensive fact sheets about how they were on it from "day one."

First of all, Bruce Willis and Will Smith are not heroes, pretend or otherwise. Credit for planet-saving should be given to Harry Stamper and Captain Steven Hiller, respectively. Willis and Smith are, you know, actors? Second, maybe Peter forgets, but D.C., New York, L.A., "and several other major cities around the world" were destroyed in one movie and Paris, Shanghai and New York (again!) are obliterated in the other. So, you know, it's an odd definition of success.

And if you think I've got the slightest idea what sentence #1 has to do with sentence #2, well, you would be wrong.

The Stuff of Nightmares.

This is why Allbritton pays Mike Allen the big bucks:

Katie Levinson married top fund manager David Burke at the Harvard Club in New York City. In attendance were friends and family, including politicos (none of whom actually went to Harvard, as far as we can tell) Steve Schmidt, Matt McDonald, Joe Scarborough, Larry Kudlow, Taylor Griffin, Todd Harris, Adam Levine, Ed Skyler, Jennifer Yuille, Tim Burger, Nina Bradley Clarke, Melinda Arons, Matt David and Rich Lowry, last seen dancing to Lady Gaga.

Nothing to see here.

A few of my fellow pinko liberal modern political scientist colleagues have written an interesting editorial on the midterm elections. Sabato tends to lean to the right, for the record. It echoes a point we at Instaputz have been making for a while now: the data simply don't support the claims about an impending GOP revolution in November. The numbers being cited to fuel those predictions (discontent with the direction of the country, disapproval of Congress, etc.) are essentially par for the course in American politics.

How the Gravy Train Works.

Step 1, Putz links to Dr. Mrs:

$750 MILLION for blackmail?

Step 2, Dr. Mrs., in turn, links to Putz:

Over at Instapundit, Guestblogger Ann Althouse asks the question: Should Elin Nordegren settle with Tiger Woods for $750 million if it includes “a lifetime ‘confidentiality clause’ that would prevent her from writing a book or doing any interviews about the split”?

You've gotta sort of admire the brazen shamelessness of the racket.

Does anyone think Sarah Palin or Jim DeMint or Michele Bachmann disagree with Rand Paul?

I don't.

I'm afraid Frank Rich is right.

Ugh.

But the enthusiasm gap remains real. Tea Partiers will turn up at the polls, and not just in Kentucky. Democrats are less energized in part because even now the president has not fully persuaded many liberal populists in his own party that he is on their side. The suspicion lingers that a Wall Street recovery, not job creation, was his highest economic priority upon arriving at a White House staffed with Goldman alumni. No matter how hard the administration tries to sell health care reform and financial reform as part of the nation’s economic recovery, these signal achievements remain thin gruel for those out of work.

If Rand Paul can't face David Gregory, how can he stand up to Al Qaeda?

What a cowardly little bitch.

Notes LGF:

The Paul camp is in full tilt damage control mode. Only two other guests have ever bailed out of Meet The Press at the last minute: Louis Farrakhan and Saudi Prince Bandar.

Not ready for prime time.

Memorable, But Horseshit.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Rand Paul, Whiner.

I can't believe he actually said this:

Rand Paul, the Tea Party's rising star from Kentucky who won the state's Senate primary this week, says criticism of his views on the Civil Rights Act and other pieces of anti-discrimination legislation are "red herrings" and Democrats' attempt to "trash" his campaign.

"When does my honeymoon period start? I had a big victory," Paul told George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America" today.

Also, Dr. Paul would appreciate if you kids would stop taking his lunch money.

In which I'm in agreement with Dan Riehl.

Me:

But in any case, “Rand Paul isn’t a racist” is a straw man. Paul’s position, that government shouldn’t have the authority to regulate private businesses, is, to put it mildly, fucking crazy. And that’s why Paul’s in trouble.

Does Paul think Philip Morris should be able to pay children a nickel an hour to make cigarettes twelve hours a day? Does he think BP should be able to drill however and wherever they want? Does he think grocery stores should be able to sell tainted food? Does he think drug companies should be able to sell unsafe medicines? Does he think Wall Street should be able to sell whatever subprime crap they want — and then bet against it? [...]

I mean hey, if your kid dies from taking bad cough syrup — you just won’t buy that brand any more — and the manufacturer will go out of business. The market works! Problem solved.

Riehl:

And if you think Weigle is helping here, think, again, because Paul's logic is politically indefensible on a very grand scale.

Paul believes, as many conservatives believe, that the government should ban bias in all of its institutions but cannot intervene in the policies of private businesses.

Hey, you want to import lead-painted toys from China? Go for it. Your bad, because you'll go bankrupt after enough children get sick, mentally ill, or die. Great. Ghetto kids can now go back to eating lead-based paint chips, it's Independence Day!!

Should government be regulating food? Why bother. Once people figure out your burgers are horse meat, or contain harmful bacteria, they'll go to Burger King, instead.

Redstate and others repeatedly lied in saying that Paul is a Conservative, when at best he might be considered a throw back paleo-con. But actually he's a Libertarian, an ideology that has never formed a working formula for governing a contemporary society.

Scary.

It Burns.

Pantload confesses, "I haven't been following the Rand Paul debate too closely." Still, "I agree entirely with Rich's post."

Of course he does.

The Load's ignorance, often fused with a willingness to pontificate, ain't limited to whacked-out libertarians. A perusal of his back pages reveals a shocking range of stupidity. The list not as long as you'd think, but lengthy enough to place below the fold...

Authoritarian Tendencies.

John Aravosis's reaction to April's failed shoebomber:

They should have shot him on the spot.

Aravosis today, upon learning that the pathologically irritating Salahis tried to crash another state dinner:

They think national security is a game, fine - send them away to Gitmo for a while and see how funny they find repeated attempts to violate the White House perimeter...

To repeat: What's the point of being a progressive if you only selectively give a fuck about due process?

This What Conservative Feminism Looks Like.

From Hugh Hewitt's interview of Laura Bush:

HH: Did it ever, did you ever come close to speaking your mind to people?

LB: No, I really didn’t.

HH: Good for you.

 A real role model, this lady!

The Wingnut Founding Fathers Fetish is TIRESOME.

David Brooks to Hugh Hewitt:

I’m more of an Alexander Hamilton type, and I think maybe you and others are more Thomas Jefferson. You can correct me if I’m wrong about that.

Yes, you're fucking wrong! How these guys manage to avoid choking on their own hubris is beyond me...

Oh Dear.

Hugh Hewitt says the Dems fooling themselves for predicting anything short of a massacre in November. "This is an almost exact reversal of the summer of 2006 when Republicans were whistling past all the bad news headed their way," he writes. Hilariously, Hewitt cites Karl Rove's column for the "real story" on Tuesday's elections.

Here's why that's particularly funny. Let's go back to election eve, November 6, 2006:

HH: Karl, you’ve been an optimist. What sort of data do you have? And what’s it telling you to justify that optimism?

KR: Well, for the past six weeks or so, I’ve been looking at as many as 68 polls every week, for as many as 68 races for the House, the Senate and governorships. And so I see the national polls, like everybody else does, but I get a chance to look at the data all across the country, and I see in these individual races that candidates have been able to create it as a choice between them and their opponent. Not just on local issues, but on big national issues as well. And as a result, it gives me a sense of optimism that we’ll have a Republican Senate and a Republican House.

Ha ha.

QOTD.

 Ann Althouse:

I appreciate libertarians up to a point, but the extreme ones are missing something that is needed if you are to be trusted with power.

Well said.

Wanna see a magic trick?

Watch Glenn Beck make 1/3 of his audience...disappear!

Paid millions to be wrong about everything.

Heh:

PALIN: I think Burns will pull this off tonight.

The wingnut shuffle

Pammy Atlas - who remains no more than a duffel bag full of psych meds and a lot of Photoshop away from pageant circuit success herself - reacts to the Muslim Miss America. As if she would pass up the opportunity:

Excelsior! Here is an icon for the advent of modernizing the Muslim world. She embodies everything sharia and the Islamic world deplore -- free women. Burn those burkas, baby, and come on in. The water is just fine. I wonder if the ink is dry on the fatwa...Fakih has been deftly profiled in the Detroit Free Press in a piece that chronicles her unique journey. The daughter of Lebanese immigrants, Fakih's parents proudly supported her despite grumblings from certain elements of their community.

What? Muslim Miss USA is a good thing? Who are you and what have you done with Pam "Pickin' Peanuts Out of My Own Shit" Geller?

UPDATE: Further, of course (Miss) Oklahoma (ed: who is white) should have gotten it. Hellooooooooooooooo. The dhimmi judges thought they were being Islamophiliac. But their utter stupidity has made for Shakespearean irony. Rima is an affront to Islam, a pox on their house. The judges know not what they've done.

"Since my readers are flipping out that I said something about a Muslim other than that she should be gassed and incinerated, let me remind you all that I still believe this is racial tokenism. The honor was clearly stolen from the deserving white woman."

Remain calm, Atlas readers: the Uncle Tom is still here to validate your racial resentment theories. Dance, Pammy, dance!

They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Love...

Slate reports on the Russian navy's unorthodox method for dealing with Somali pirates:

...they were "set free" in a tiny inflatable raft, with no navigation equipment, 350 miles off the coast of Yemen. The raft has since disappeared. In the 21st century, this is how pirates walk the plank.

Rod Dreher, to his credit, is uncomfortable with this quasi state-sanctioned murder. Just kidding!

Good for them. Off you go, lads! Enjoy the sailing! Read on in Applebaum's column, and you see why it's a terrible mess, trying to figure out how to try those criminals. I'd say they've bloody well earned their holiday on the waves, however it turns out.

Ever get the sense that Dreher could take or leave The Gospel of Matthew?

TNR, A Little Self-Awareness Please?

Funny story, a guy named Adam Wheeler was admitted to Harvard by allegedly faking his way in. This hasn't escaped the notice of the Post, New York Times, ABC News, etc.

The most hilarious take of the day goes to the New Republic staff, bragging that they'd recently rejected Wheeler's application for an internship:

We here at The New Republic are not so easily duped.

The line has been excised. A subscriber in TNR's comments notes that "for the New Republic to boast of its scam-busting acumen makes as much sense as, oh, Mark Souder preening himself on his devotion to family values... in an interview with his mistress."

MUSLIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Debbie Schlussel and Daniel Pipes decide to have a stupid-off to see who can sound like a bigger idiot regarding a Lebanese Muslim being chosen as Miss America.

Costco Coulter (the post has been removed from her blog):

"It’s a sad day in America but a very predictable one, given the politically correct, Islamo-pandering climate in which we’re mired. The Hezbollah-supporting Shi’ite Muslim, Miss Michigan Rima Fakih–whose bid for the pageant was financed by an Islamic terrorist and immigration fraud perpetrator–won the Miss USA contest. I was on top of this story before anyone, telling you about who Fakih is and her extremist and deadly ties."

Daniel Pipes expresses skepticism about the number of Muslim women winning beauty contests - he catalogs four examples from well-known contests like "Mlle. Picardie 2009" and "Miss Nottingham 2005" - before closing with a heroic display of ironclad logic:

They are all attractive, but this surprising frequency of Muslims winning beauty pageants makes me suspect an odd form of affirmative action. My suspicion is borne out by the selection of Anisah Rasheed as Miss A&T at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.

Only one thing can confirm anecdotal evidence: more anecdotal evidence, preferably from a pageant at an obscure university where any such award has more to do with academic performance than appearance.

Sad=Funny!!!

K-Lo on Mark Souder, the latest fundie flame-out:

It's sad. It always is. It also makes me think of all the congressman who don't cheat on their spouses.

Not much to add, expect to say that K-Lo's head must be an empty, lonely, weird place.

Least Surprising Sentence of the Day.

Sally Quinn:

I didn't know much about religion when I began moderating "On Faith" three-and-a-half years ago.

Quinn's admission is meant to be charming, but it's just irritating. She was famously hired by The Post despite having no clips (a fact that ought to make the dwindling number of j-school grads want to kill themselves) and now, years later, nothing has changed.

Maybe the doyenne of the dilettantes will edit the Sports section next.

TEAPARTEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!111!!!

Maybe Megan McCardle got tired of being called "the dumb one" at The Atlantic?

Hey, there's gotta must be some explanation for this.

GOP's Minority Outreach, Take 3.

Via G., here's your Republican party:

Half-serious question: Is there anyone left for the GOP to alienate?

"Do you smell sulfur?"

K-Lo asks a very good question:

If you happened to have the opportunity to sit and chat with Norman Podhoretz and Midge Decter for two hours, what might you ask?

Also: "How do you sleep at night?"

The proper name for this demographic is...

..."militiamen." "Future abortion clinic bombers" is also acceptable.

(Senate candidate Rand) Paul also has a huge lead among Kentuckians who think the GOP is too liberal (71–21).

Remember, this is the state that sends Mitch McConnell and Jim "Sometimes I pick the corn out of my shit and make salsa from it" Bunning to the Senate.

Gasbag, Heal Thyself. (updated)

There's something mildly amusing about Michael Wolff calling Jonathan Alter -- or anyone, really -- "the most pompous man in American journalism."

...Reached via email, Alter tells me, "Not sure what his deal is except that he knows I think he's a tool."

How to Say "STFU, You Dumbass" Nicely.

Putz piggybacks Megan McArdle's contention that "the CBO just came out and said that the health care reform was slated to cost $115 billion more than they said it would."

Ezra Klein's response, a miracle of restraint, is hilarious. It must've been taxing to write it without the aide of such words as stupid, wrong, wanker, etc.

Megan McArdle has a post up saying that health-care reform is "already at least a hundred billion dollars in the hole." That's really not right[.]

 Pretty sure our side of the blogosphere would be wise to heed the advice of a Klein commenter:

"Megan McArdle has a post up saying "_________." That's really not right."

That right there is about as close to a universal truth as one can get. It doesn't matter what fills in the blank.

QOTD.

From a Post chat:

Just want to say that as a Canadian, I find that speculating about the sexual orientation of a public figure is kind of quaint and almost charming. It reminds me of a bygone era when people argued the respective merits of cassettes versus eight-tracks.

That Word, "Breaking"...

Shorter RedState:

BREAKING! We got ahold of Elena Kagan's thesis -- a year after the Weekly Standard!

Journalism FAIL.

Also, Cancer is Awesome Because You Lose Weight.

The myopia is staggering.

Older the Jesus.

A very special happy birthday to the proprietor of Rumproast, who we're told turns 73 today.

FOX: Illegal Immigration Good for the Economy!

Don't tell the Minutemen:

Arizona’s recently-passed immigration law has drawn heated debate on both sides of the immigration issue, but there has been little focus on what economic impact illegal immigration has on border states – a phenomenon that’s likely larger than many people realize. Putting the law and morality of illegal entry aside, several studies have shown the illegal immigrant population is more of an economic contributor to state and local economies than politicians like to tell an angry electorate. The numbers can be broken down into the fiscal cost (or gain) of illegal immigrants to states, along with the economic contribution of the population.

The most thorough study on the fiscal and economic impact of immigration was done by the non-partisan Texas Comptrollers’ Office in 2006, which showed Texas earned more in taxes and economic output from illegal immigrants than governments spent to provide services.

Not really a surprise. Given that undocumented immigrants are also excellent mortgages risks, why should anyone be surprised that they positively impact the economy?

Methinks the nativist wing of the GOP is in real trouble if they don't have FOX in their corner.

If There's a Gay/Authoritarian/Bad Haircut Angle Here, I'm Not Seeing It.

Drudge:

A Lady Gaga reference, maybe?

Further Adventures of Compassionate Conservatism.

Putz:

JUDGING FROM THE PICTURE, SHE’S LUCKY TO GET ANY AT ALL: Wife Stabs Husband Over Bad Sex.

Ha ha, so funny! Here's what the good professor left out of his item:

Ms Thomas alleges her partner was drunk, threw her onto the bed and began choking her.

The paper reported that "police found no injuries on Ms Thomas," but, as the Times recently noted,

choking very often leaves few or no visible signs. In a study of 100 cases of strangulation, the San Diego District Attorney’s office found that in 62 of them, police officers reported no visible injuries, and in 22 others, signs like redness or scratch marks on the neck were too minor to photograph. The study also found that when a victim’s injuries were not visible or consisted of faint redness, the police treated the attacks as trivial.

But Putz says the lady was ugly, so who cares!

QOTD.

From a Playboy interview with Michael Savage:

PLAYBOY: But what is your responsibility? How responsible was it to say we should kill 100 million Muslims, as you did in 2006?

SAVAGE: Oh, come on! That was in the context of a whole longer conversation.

I'm sure!

Anyway, this is funny:

SAVAGE: Glenn Beck is a laughingstock. The mark of the uneducated man? He has a blackboard; he plays professor half the time. What’s with the chalk? He didn’t go to college so he’s making up for it by playing professor on television?

PLAYBOY: What’s your biggest complaint about him?

SAVAGE: That he’s fucking stupid. That’s all. Other than that, nothing.

Ouch.

What $15 Million Worth of Reporting Looks Like.

It's probably for the best that Cronkite did not live to see this.

Kagan commits a mortal sin

Brent Bozell brings us the right-wing talking point to trump all other right-wing talking points: she didn't like Ronald Reagan.

As with Sotomayor & Co., media liberals greeted Kagan's record as a great mystery, and because of that, no one should "pigeonhole" this woman as a liberal. But there it was in black and white in a sympathetic New York Times profile. She spent the summer of 1980 working to elect a left-wing Democrat, Elizabeth Holtzman, to the Senate. "On Election Night, she drowned her sorrow in vodka and tonic as Ronald Reagan took the White House and Ms. Holtzman lost to 'an ultraconservative machine politician,' she wrote, named Alfonse D'Amato."

Might as well have taken a shit on the Bible, Elena. You're finished.

Your New GOP Talking Point.

Over the course of two seperate interviews, with Howard Fineman and Jonathan Chait, Hugh Hewitt gives a preview of what conservative view is Elena Kagan's Achilles' heel.

From the Fineman interview:

HF: Yes, she was, and I think her role in the Clinton White House in those times was to supply the excellent and very detailed legal analyses that they would need to allow Bill Clinton to maneuver around to try to get himself reelected. She was very smart, but also very political, very politically astute, and I think always looking for ways to implement, to use Constitutional arguments to get Bill Clinton and his political advisors where they wanted to go.

HH: Now Howard, I’m trying to remember the issues which may come up, because of course none of this has been released yet. One would be obviously welfare reform and the Constitutionality of cutting in-place benefits. Another would be the Defense Of Marriage Act. ....

HF: And in an effort to get himself reelected after the Democrats were unseated in the House by Newt Gingrich in ’94. From ’94 to ’96, you remember, there were 100,000 cops and welfare reform, and all kinds of other things…

HH: And DOMA, Defense Of Marriage Act is there. ...

HH: Let’s imagine for a moment that there is, when I was in the White House Counsel’s Office, every piece of legislation that the president had to sign had to go through the Counsel’s Office first to have an analysis prepared, and perhaps a signing statement drafted for the president, and that’s in the Reagan years. I assume they did the same thing in the Clinton years.

HF: Yup, yup.

HH: So there may be a memo running around on, say, the Defense Of Marriage Act, which is just a horrible thing in the eyes of the left that her name may be on. Do you think we’ll ever see those memos, Howard Fineman? ...

HH: Yeah, I’m on the faculty of a law school for fifteen years, and I know what deans do, and that she has received glowing accolades from Charles Fried, solicitor general under Ronald Reagan, and other conservatives tell me that she’s going to have a fine time in front of the Committee, absent something coming out in the hidden paper trail. There’s a large paper trail here that causes controversy on the left, like a DOMA, like a Kosovo bombing thing.

And from the Chait interview:

HH: ... But I do want to ask you about the left, Jonathan Chait…

JC: Yeah.

HH: …because I suspect, from my time in the White House Counsel’s Office, when it was past practice that the Counsel’s Office reviewed every piece of legislation, and prepared a memo on it for the president, that there are a lot of memos in the Clinton White House files by Elena Kagan on things like the Defense Of Marriage Act… ...

HH: So what happens when a DOMA memo comes out and Elena Kagan’s on there saying you know, this is Constitutional. Does that fracture the left’s support of her? ...

HH: Well often, though, you’ll get dueling banjos in the Counsel’s Office. You’ll get one lawyer saying I don’t think DOMA’s Constitutional, or I don’t think welfare reform is Constitutional for the following reasons, and another one will say I disagree. ...

The National Review tosses in its two cents as well.

Hmmmm. I do not understand this line of attack. As a GOP party man and supporter of DOMA, Hewitt clearly salivates at the possibility that heretofore unseen memos might reveal Kagan's opposition to the Act.

I'm a little hazy on how this would hurt her chance at confirmation.

Sigh.

Not sure what I think of Elena Kagan, but I'm certain the coveted Putz Endorsement is a bad thing:

The nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to fill the Stevens seat on the Supreme Court is a wise pick[.]

Make it Stop.

Howard Kurtz plays dumb, I think:

Q: As a reader, why should I take claims that the Post does not have a political bias (outside of the editorial section) when they refuse to hre or establish conservative bloggers, but have no problem adding liberal ones?

KURTZ: The Post's op-ed page certainly has plenty of balance, with the likes of Michael Gerson, George Will and to a lesser extent Kathleen Parker offering different viewpoints than Gene Robinson and E.J. Dionne. But I think it's fair to ask why The Post's Web sites haven't hired a prominent conservative blogger, not just someone to cover the right, in the way that they have hired liberal bloggers.

Ha ha right.

Those of us not blessed with the memory of mayflies may recall the Post's grand experiment in wingnut blogging. It did not end well.

If the Post learned anything from the Domenech debacle, it was to keep professional fabulists such as Michael Gerson and Marc Thiessen -- both hired after the Red America flame-out -- away from the blogs and stick 'em in the print edition.

I don't know how those two war criminals can possibly stand such marginalization.

Uh....

I'm not often speechless. But I'm speechless.

Hannity: I've actually had an idea -- no one listens to little ol' Sean Hannity. But I'm like -- I think the Iraqis, with all their oil resources, need to pay us back for their liberation. Every single solitary penny. Because we really need --

Johnson: I really thought that from the beginning. I thought that that was kind of, part of the equation.

Hannity: It should have been part of the deal.

Johnson: Should have been part of the deal.

A Modest Proposal

The moral indignation over the use of the crude, offensive term "Teabaggers" has convinced me that it is time for a new label.

Henceforth they shall be known as "TeaTards." Please make a note of it.

Say Rick, Did He 'Lift Your Luggage'?

Zing!

Roger L. Simon:

Isn’t Newsweek a brand name?  Isn’t that what we’d be buying?  Well, yes, but what could be worse than the word “week” attached to news these days?

Kevin K.:

“Pajamas.”

We They Are All Orly Taitz Now.

This is what happens when you're raised on a diet of Lee Greenwood and Fred Barnes:

Broad majorities across party lines volunteer that Obama was born in the U.S., although substantial numbers in some groups say he wasn't. In addition to the 14 percent who volunteer that he was born in another country, another 6 percent say that's their best guess. Overall, about a third of Republicans and conservatives say Obama was born in another country, or call it their best guess.

It's a testament to the shittiness of the opposition that a third of the birthers "approve of how he's handling his job as president, hold favorable views of him personally and prefer him over congressional Republicans when it comes to dealing with issue No.1, the economy."

That Word...

Sarah Palin:

Carly [Fiorina] is the Commonsense Conservative that California needs and our country could sure use in these trying times. Most importantly, she’s running for the right reasons. She has an understanding that is sorely lacking in D.C. She’s not a career politician. She’s a businesswoman who has run a major corporation. She knows how to really incentivize job creation.

Uh right. Under Fiorina's watch, Hewlett-Packard axed 28,000 people and missed its numbers at least nine times on "either revenue, profit or both." Meanwhile, Fiorina grabbed a golden parachute worth $21 million.

That'll go over well in a state with a 12.6% unemployment rate....

Shut up, Bristol.

I mean, really.

Think teen-mom Bristol Palin has it easy as the daughter of a famous, wealthy politician? Think again.

"[My parents] are there for support when I need it emotionally, but I'm on my own financially. I work an 8-to-5 job, five days a week," Palin, 19, who's raising 16-month-old Tripp, told PEOPLE. "My parents help out, but they're not at my disposal. I think that's a huge misconception."

Bristol's mother, Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice-presidential candidate, has earned millions since leaving office last July. But not a lot of that money is apparently going to buy diapers for Tripp.

"I'm doing it by myself," Bristol said. "I live by myself, I'm working to provide for [my son]. It is difficult. Financially, it's very difficult."

Yeah, it's a tough life this kid has, palling around with Dr. Drew, dinner at Cipriani, appearing on The View. Oh, and $1750 a month from Levi and a rent-free apartment in her mom's new house.

Bristol Palin is the only teen mother in America for whom getting knocked up was a sound financial decision.

Toss-up

Boy, Putz & Co. were right. Patty Murray is in deep trouble in the Washington Senate race. This is turning into a real barn-burner.

This Doesn't Even Begin to Make Sense.

There's funny, and then there's ha-ha funny

Epic pud-pulling over at Power Line, where the circus mirror in which the right sees itself is in full effect this morning:

Christopher Caldwell argues in the Weekly Standard that neither political party is serious about financial reform. And he wonders why. Caldwell appears to adopt the explanation offered by Simon Johnson and James Kwak, two men of the left, in their book 13 Bankers. Johnson and Kwak contend that the U.S. has become a kind of oligarchy, characterized by tight links between the business elite and the political elite. The business elite consists of the giants of the financial industry.

The next four paragraphs, which you can read for yourself if you dare, explain how the Democrats are the real oligarchy and the favored party of the financial services industry. Then he closes, like all good comedians, with a well-crafted punchline:

Even so, I think Caldwell is on to something - more than one thing, actually. And to the extent that he's right about the Republican party, we can be thankful that the Tea Party movement is in place to pressure it to resist any oligarchic impulses.

We sure can, Paul. We sure can.

God help me.

Thus Spake King Teabagger.

From a Q&A with Judson Phillips, Grand Wizard of Tea Party Nation:

Washington, D.C.: Judson -- Are you willing to admit that taxes have actually gone down for the vast majority of Americans under President Obama?

Judson Phillips: No.

Dude, even Fox admits taxes have gone down.

Meanwhile, a reader sensibly tells Phillips that "liberals are just as American as you are and you and your movement has no right to question people's patriotism or Americanness just because they disagree with you."

Phillips answers:

Yes we do. You folks in the left do far worse. Patriotism is not something that cannot be measured. It can be. And you folks on the left, as a general rule are not patriotic. You do not love this country. You are embarrassed by us.


I hate to tell you this, but those of us in fly over country are the real americans.

I'm loathe to agree with this asshole, but it's true: We are embarrassed by you.

Times plagiarizes Times?

The New York Times, May 4:

They sounded the alarm, and minutes later, with the jet still at the gate, its door was opened and agents came aboard and took Mr. Shahzad into custody, officials said.

Times Online, May 5:

They sounded the alarm, and minutes later, with the jet still at the gate, agents came on board and took Mr Shahzad into custody, officials said.

"Cliché."

Michael Isikoff and Hugh Hewitt had an interesting discussion on Faisal Shahzad, the American citizen apparently behind the Times Square bombing plot. Halfway through, Hewitt inadvertently gives what amounts to the conservative capsule view of due process:

MI: And he waived, and he waived his Miranda rights. Look, there probably will be a discussion of this. But all I’m saying is we are still a country of laws. You can’t just make it up as you go along.

HH: But that’s cliché.

MI: And you know, maybe…

HH: That’s just cliché. We’re a country of laws. I know that. I teach it.

Yes, a cliché authored by John Adams. Funny how the conservative reverence for the country's founding fathers so often stops just short of defending the principles these men stood for.

Hahahahaha.

Uh oh. Looks like it's a little early to break out the Teabagger Jesus for President  '12 buttons:

The Florida Senate race appears to be a whole new ballgame with Republican Governor Charlie Crist’s decision to run as an independent.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely Florida Voters finds Crist earning 38% support to Republican Marco Rubio’s 34% and Democrat Kendrick Meek’s 17%. Eleven percent (11%) are undecided.

K-Lo makes a stupid. Film at 11.

The Woman Who Ate Phyllis Schlafly squats over America and pinches off a loaf of pure brilliance wrapped in a cloud of phony indignation this morning (emphasis mine):

Right from the Top [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Amy Holmes e-mailed me in shock this morning when she read this quote from Jonathan Alter's new book, The Promise: President Obama, Year One, in Mike Allen's morning e-mail:

"Obama said that the unanimous House vote against the Recovery Act ‘set the tenor for the whole year’: ‘That helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.’ For Obama this was the greatest surprise of 2009. ‘[It wasn’t that] I thought that my political outreach and charm would immediately end partisan politics,’ the president said. ‘I just thought that there would be enough of a sense of urgency that at least for the first year there would be an interest in governing. And you just didn’t see that.’"

I realize the word has now been mainstreamed, but the etymology is what it is and the White House shouldn't be using it, never mind the president of the United States. Beyond that, President Obama alienates a whole lot of stirred up voters when he dismisses them as people of bad tenor whose supposed control of the Republican agenda is a bad thing for America.

He "alienates" the teabaggers? Yes, if not for this, they would like him. They were in fact just on the verge of supporting him until they heard that he called them teabaggers.

I understand that K-Lo is stupid, but can anyone actually be this stupid? Obama could give them all a check for a million dollars and they would hate him. He could reach out his hand and magically cure their ricketts and they would hate him. He could pass a law requiring TV networks to broadcast nothing but WWE, the Charles Bronson Death Wish series, and re-runs of Hee Haw and they would still hate him. Because nothing he says or does actually matters to them (nor do they even notice). He's blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. And a socialiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiist.

Dept. of Google Ads Fail.

A couple of days ago, Jesse Taylor wrote an excellent post on the disingenuous nature of the conversation on black/white intelligence.

Here's the Google ad current at the bottom of the post:

Not as Bad as Bill Donohue, But Still.

With allies like this, who needs enemies?

To the Editor:

As a Catholic, I am appalled at the now-daily assaults by the liberal media against the church.

There is no question that certain Catholic clergymen abused children and that certain members of the church’s hierarchy failed to deal with those abuses properly. That failure was based primarily on the mistaken belief that pedophiles can be cured. At the time, that mistaken belief was supported in large measure by the psychiatric community. It has since been rejected.

For the last decade, the Archdiocese of New York and dioceses across New York State have been working assiduously to accept guilt when warranted, atone for those mistakes and, most important, to take corrective action to ensure that they do not happen again.

Over the last few months, several cases have cropped up that took place decades ago and long before the church’s all-out effort to acknowledge, make amends for and rectify its past failures. Some have seized upon those cases to attack the church anew and with frightening vigor. Those attacks are unwarranted and unfair.

Such cases, which will continue to arise, do not meant [sic] that the church’s healing crusade has been discontinued but rather are cases that took place during an unfortunate time in the church’s history that is now over.

To simply reject out of hand the church’s extensive and intense program to heal and correct suggests the possibility of an anti-Catholic agenda more concerned with Catholic teachings than with child abuse.

Alfonse M. D’Amato
New York, April 29, 2010

The writer, a former United States senator from New York, is a member of the board of the Friends of the Catholic Church, an informal group created to assist the Catholic Church when it comes under attack.

Not sure how much attention Senator Pothole got beyond the five boroughs, but he really was a piece of work.

Conor Friedersdorf makes a funny.

Conor's pretty good when he takes on the wingnuts, and here, he skewers Bill Burck and Dana Perino -- who think NYC is the most dangerous city evah.

It is certainly true that New York City is a terrorist target, but what can these National Review writers be thinking when they assert that it is the number one terrorist target in the world? In the last decade, there has been one successful NYC terrorist attack, the horrific September 11, 2001 massacre. Here are estimates of suicide bombings in Iraq during this decade: 25 suicide bombings in 2003, 140 suicide bombings in 2004, 478 suicide bombings in 2005, 297 suicide bombings in 2006, 442 suicide bombings in 2007, 257 suicide bombings in 2008, and 76 suicide bombings in 2009.

I am guessing that Mr. Burck and Ms. Perino feel safer from terrorists in Manhattan than they would if they were instead forced to walk the streets of Baghdad, or Israel for that matter, so it’s hard for me to believe that even they take their assertion seriously if they’ve thought about it for more than a moment, but I’ve grown used to absurd assertions like this whenever the subject of terrorism is broached.

Heh.

Later in the same post, the duo writes, “For all of its flaws, our justice system and Constitution remain the envy of the world — at least the part of the world that believes in freedom and individual rights.” Again, this is the kind of thing that you expect to see at The Corner, but that makes no sense if you stop to think about it for more than a second. Is Denmark a part of the world where people believe in freedom and individual rights? And how many Danes envy the American justice system? How many Germans, Australians, and Spaniards would say, if interviewed, “Why yes, I am very jealous of the way that the United States handles its criminal defendants, especially the ones accused in the War on Terrorism”?

Indeed.

Leadership is Dead...over here.

Remember that bygone era in American politics, the one in which our political leaders had sufficient nuts to do something other than pander and promise people that our lifestyle (and foreign policy) would never require the American people to make any sacrifices?

(The Greek emergency budget proposal) includes cuts in the salaries of public-sector workers, including lawmakers, higher taxes on cigarettes, fuel, gambling and luxuries, an increase in the value-added tax consumers pay on purchases, and an increase in the retirement age for women in the public sector, (Minister) Papaconstantinou said.

Prime Minister George Papandreou earlier Sunday tried to rally the country behind the government.

"I know that our compatriots are being asked to make big sacrifices, but the alternative way would be disastrous and painful for us," he said in a televised Cabinet meeting. "It's not a pleasant decision for me, for any of us, but we are here to make the right decisions for our country," he insisted.

Can we get this guy an American citizenship?

I'm sure they'll be destroyed in the next elections, but that simply proves the point. More making difficult choices (real ones, not the fake right-wing American "tough choices") and less worrying about the consequences for one's own political career, please.

OMG TALIBAN CLAIM RESPONSIBILITY FOR FAILED BOMB ATTACK!!11!!

Guess it's time to invade another country.

More like this, please.

Obama:

"What troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad," Obama said after receiving an honorary doctor of laws degree. "When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us."

Government, he said, is the roads we drive on and the speed limits that keep us safe. It's the men and women in the military, the inspectors in our mines, the pioneering researchers in public universities.

The financial meltdown dramatically showed the dangers of too little government, he said, "when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly led to the collapse of our entire economy."

He's got to do a lot more of this, but it's a start.