Video: Obama shows annoyance at summit

I'm a little surprised CNN aired this. Obama's annoyed, dismissive demeanor toward his esteemed colleagues on the right is distinctly unpresidential:



Christopher Buckley couldn't have been more wrong. Not only does our president have a third-class temperament and a mediocre intellect; he's not the sharpest politician in the room. And he's not very likable. Click over to NewsBusters for some choice observations from Noel Sheppard.

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Gore goes full-bore

Following his recent embarrassment at the Apple shareholders meeting, Al Gore has emerged from the murky depths to spout 1900 words of nonsense defending his imaginary but none the less lucrative raison d'être:

It would be an enormous relief if the recent attacks on the science of global warming actually indicated that we do not face an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it.

Wesley Smith is doubtful:

I don’t think he would be relieved at all. He’s a true believer, who is also making a bundle off of this whole thing. And get the language: It would be “criminal” not to do what Gore wants done, despite the entirely reasonable doubts about the validity of the existence and/or extent of the warming problem.

See Smith for some inconvenient fact-checking.

Roger Kimball along the same lines: does Gore actually believe this stuff?

True, Al Gore has positively cleaned up by exploiting the business opportunities that have come his way from the Chruch of Gaia, I’m Green-than-thou, Inc. The London Telegraph describes him as our “first carbon billionaire.” “There’s gold in them there faked studies, pardner!” Gore’s successful gaming of the system argues for a certain cunning and eye for the main chance. The guy has hauled in an impressive pile of pelf these last few years. [. . .]

A nice question: does Al Gore actually believe the rubbish he spouts? Or is it merely opportunism on the march? I don’t know, but if I were a betting man, I’d say that he has successfully melded credulity and opportunism in to one bloviating whole.

Click here for the complete post.


Nice Deb goes for the obvious explanation:

If you were hoping for him to tone the alarmism down a notch in the wake of Climategate, you’ll be sorely disappointed. This my friends, is what we call “doubling down on teh stupid”

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Downward trajectory

Rasmussen:

. . . just two-thirds of the interviews for today’s update were collected following the President’s health-care summit. Tomorrow morning (Sunday) will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the summit.

Yesterday it was -20.
Socialism is hard.

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If Obamacare passes

Listen to what our "representatives" are saying. Pelosi on reconciliation:

“What you call a complicated process is called a simple majority,” Ms. Pelosi said. “And that’s what we’re asking the Senate to act upon.”

Democratic leaders said Republican intransigence could help them round up the votes of wavering centrists in their own caucus. Republicans adamantly oppose the health care bill, as well as the use of any parliamentary shortcuts.

Chris Dodd on the irrelevance of the process:

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and an architect of the Senate health bill, said he was “not a great fan” of using the budget reconciliation procedure.

“But,” Mr. Dodd said, “the issue trumps the process. Would you drop doing health care altogether because you do not like the process? I don’t think so.”

Got it. The end justifies the means.

Dodd on starting from scratch:

“That may be an appropriate answer for a narrow constituency,” he said. “But it just does not make sense for most people, who have watched their rates go up in the last year.”

A narrow constituency? Really?

Steny Hoyer:

Use of the procedure is “in the Republican tradition,” Mr. Hoyer said. In any event, he said, Senate rules requiring a 60-vote majority to cut off a filibuster “are impeding the work of the American people.”

Again, really? They're clearly, deliberately flouting the will of the people. But their words don't matter. Andy McCarthy explains it all for you:

I hear Republicans getting giddy over the fact that "reconciliation," if it comes to that, is a huge political loser. That's the wrong way to look at it. The Democratic leadership has already internalized the inevitablility of taking its political lumps. That makes reconciliation truly scary. Since the Dems know they will have to ram this monstrosity through, they figure it might as well be as monstrous as they can get wavering Democrats to go along with. Clipping the leadership's statist ambitions in order to peel off a few Republicans is not going to work. I'm glad Republicans have held firm, but let's not be under any illusions about what that means. In the Democrat leadership, we are not dealing with conventional politicians for whom the goal of being reelected is paramount and will rein in their radicalism. They want socialized medicine and all it entails about government control even more than they want to win elections. After all, if the party of government transforms the relationship between the citizen and the state, its power over our lives will be vast even in those cycles when it is not in the majority. This is about power, and there is more to power than winning elections, especially if you've calculated that your opposition does not have the gumption to dismantle your ballooning welfare state. [. . .]

They will put their heads down and go for as much transformation as they can get, figuring that once they get it, it will never be rolled back. [. . .]

For Republicans, it won't be enough to fight this thing, then deride it if Democrats pull it off, and finally coast to a very likely electoral victory in November. The question is: What are you going to do to roll this back? What is your plan to undo this?

Read the whole thing. Disturbing and dead on.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Coming to a grimy clinic near you

(If Barry, Harry, and Nancy have their way.)

From the UK, an ugly preview of government healthcare in all its bloody glory, courtesy of Cassie Fiano:

It found that hospital [sic] were so preoccupied with saving money and pursuit of elite foundation trust status that they 'lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safe care'.

And "not a single official has been disciplined." (Sounds familiar, no?)

Gory details:

• Up to 1,200 patients died unnecessarily because of appalling care

• Patients were left unwashed in their own filth for up to a month as nurses ignored their requests to use the toilet or change their sheets;

• Four members of one family. including a new-born baby girl. died within 18 months after of blunders at the hospital;

• Medics discharged patients hastily out of fear they risked being sacked for delaying;

• Wards were left filthy with blood, discarded needles and used dressings while bullying managers made whistleblowers too frightened to come forward.

Much more from Cassie in the Green Room. (See the fourth comment for more horror stories.)

So some of us will die in our own excrement. No one said fairness and compassion were free. Oh, wait a sec. Yes, they did say exactly that. But in truth government-run "healthcare" is the worst of both worlds -- fiscally unsustainable and deplorably poor in quality.

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Children last

Mark Steyn on the deforming power of big government as exemplified by China's one-child policy:

When state-of-the-art totalitarianism meets primitive village culture, the result is industrial-scale depravity.

Mark quotes the following from Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother:

Mother love is supposed to be such a great thing, but so many babies are abandoned, and it’s their mothers who do it. They’re ignorant. They feel differently about emotions from the way you do. Where I come from, people talk about smothering a baby girl or just throwing it[!]into a stream … to be eaten by dogs, as if it were a joke. How much do you think these women loved their babies?

Says Mark, "The idea that there are peoples who 'feel differently' is anathema to the multicultural mind." Read the rest.

More depravity, this time from Iraq:

Three mass graves were discovered in the sub district of Dubiz in Kirkuk. Announced the Kurdish daily news paper ASO on Sunday, Feb.21st. These graves are to be excavated by the Ministry of Anfaled and Martyrs of Kurdistan regional government in a near future.

“The graves are holding remnants of children from both Chamchamal and Garmyan areas”. Sayd Fazil Amin the head of KRG martyrs office in Kirkuk told ASO, these kids were taken into captivity during 1988 Anfal campaign against the Kurds.

Anfal genocide was a campaign against the Kurds in 1980s. It was aimed at the elimination of the Kurds in Iraq, by destroying and burning Kurdish villages down. Killing and burying alive the people of these villages. It costed over 200,000 lives of innocent Kurds. [. . .]

“We were jailed in a prison in Dubiz for a while. The only thing we knew then was that of, our crime was being a Kurd. In Dubiz they separated us into men, women and children” Bafraw, an Anfal survivor told Hawler Tribune, “Amanj, my 7 year old son, before taken away was very sick, I asked if I could go with him. They [soldiers] told me, do not worry we will put an end to his sickness, I know how they did it”

272 bodies have been found, including a pregnant woman. Michael Rubin:

It's news like this which should remind us that, regardless of recriminations in the U.S. political debate about how Saddam's ouster was managed, the righteousness of the cause is a far different matter.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)
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For their next act . . .

Earlier today John Podhoretz listed the Democrats' options on healthcare reform and found them all bad (for the Dems). He finds this situation unique:

I don’t think there’s ever been a situation like this in American political history. Every way you look at it, Democrats are boxed in, forced to choose between extraordinarily unattractive options. What makes it especially noteworthy is that this was a calamity they summoned entirely upon themselves.

Jennifer Rubin takes it from there:

Obama and the Democrats are giving themselves four weeks — another inexplicable move. What will occur in that time? Why Republicans, Tea Party activists, and other anti-ObamaCare forces will work themselves into a fevered pitch, and the Reid-Pelosi-Obama brain trust will twist in the wind. It is yet another nearly unimaginable move in a series of calamitous political decisions. If Obama and the Democrats had tried, they couldn’t have come up with an approach better designed to invigorate their opponents and dispirit their own base.

So what's at the root of this bungling? Pelosi and Reid are merely power-drunk on their majorities. It will take another election to sober them up. Obama is suffering under the delusion that the ephemeral personal magic of '08 was real and that it persists even now, in the face of his poor job performance. I don't know what kind of intervention would break that spell.

Update from CBS News:

President Obama will make an announcement sometime next week on what he "believes is the best way forward" on health care reform, the White House said Friday.

"We've had many weeks to contemplate where we are," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

The president will consider areas of common agreement discussed yesterday at the White House health care summit and work with his team to possibly incorporate them into the health care proposal he has put forward, Gibbs said. Some of those ideas could include Republican Sen. Tom Coburn (Okla.)'s suggestions on cutting fraud and abuse from Medicare.

Huh? Everyone knows we don't need legislation for that.


Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Video: Beck's babies petition Mr. President

Allahpundit says "this captures 90 percent of the Democrats’ argument." Swallow beverage before watching:




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Too much Obama

That's what was wrong with Obama's summit:

According to Senate Republicans, President Obama spoke for 119 minutes, other Democrats for 114 minutes, and Congressional Republicans for 110 minutes.

He talks too much. And he has an exaggerated sense of his rhetorical effectiveness.
Yuval Levin observes:

But he doesn’t seem like the President of the United States—more like a slightly cranky committee chairman or a patronizing professor who thinks that saying something is “a legitimate argument” is a way to avoid having an argument. He is diminished by the circumstances, he’s cranky and prickly when challenged, and he’s got no one to help him. The other Democrats around the table have been worse than unimpressive.

But he did offer an important reminder at the end, though the center and right of the electorate are not likely to forget it come November:

"That’s what elections are for."

Another thing that was wrong with the summit: too much of the eew factor. (There's more to the RS McCain piece than the title might suggest.)

But what was really, really wrong with Obama's setup/summit was that the facts are not on his side. That's why the Dems, one after another, including the Moderator in Chief, continually, irritatingly resorted to anecdote. They must treat substance as something that "bogs down" an argument. They're unable to participate in an honest discussion of the content of their bills. Stephen Spruiell:

‘We have some strong disagreements on the numbers,” President Obama said after Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) concluded his devastating critique of the Democrats’ budget claims, “but I don’t want to get too bogged down.” In the ensuing debate, what became clear is that the Democrats just don’t have an answer to Ryan’s arguments. They ducked, dodged, and changed the subject repeatedly, because Ryan’s numbers themselves are unimpeachable.

The Democrats came armed with sob stories (some of them, I hope, spurious), and the GOP came armed with facts. Just watch this six-minute tour de force by Rep. Paul Ryan and you'll know who's got a handle on the issues.

And by the way, what's this about? It looks like Obama once purchased auto insurance with a high deductible and still holds a grudge against the company. Grow up and take some responsibility for your own bad decisions.

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Obama threatening reconciliation?

That's what it sounded like to me. At the end of his concluding lecture, he said (very roughly):

Republicans need to do some soul searching. If they can’t go along with this bill, Pelosi-Reid-Boehner-McConnell will be having a lot of arguments over procedure.

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Summit: Substance vs. anecdote

The summit is ongoing. But as of 3:45 pm the GOP has been effective. And even some members of the liberal media have acknowledged it.

From Hot Air:

CNN’s WOLF BLITZER: “It looks like the Republicans certainly showed up ready to play.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

CNN’s GLORIA BORGER: “The Republicans have been very effective today. They really did come to play. They were very smart.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

• BORGER: “They took on the substance of a very complex issue. … But they really stuck to the substance of this issue and tried to get to the heart of it and I think did a very good job.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)
• BORGER: “They came in with a plan. They mapped it out.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

CNN’s DAVID GERGEN: “The folks in the White House just must be kicking themselves right now. They thought that coming out of Baltimore when the President went in and was mesmerizing and commanding in front of the House Republicans that he could do that again here today. That would revive health care and would change the public opinion about their health care bill and they can go on to victory. Just the opposite has happened.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

• GERGEN: “He doesn’t have a strong Democratic team behind him.” (CNN’s “Live,” 2/25/10)

THE HILL’S A.B. STODDARD: “I think we need to start out by acknowledging Republicans brought their ‘A Team.’ They had doctors knowledgeable about the system, they brought substance to the table, and they, I thought, expressed interest in the reform. I thought in the lecture from Senator John McCain and on the issue of transparency, I thought today the Democrats were pretty much on their knees.” (Fox News’ “Live,” 2/25/10)

It isn't just that Obama's team is weak. The Dems' ideas are weak and difficult to defend.

I've heard only a portion of the sound bites broadcast by Rush. But what I heard was consistent with the analyses above. The Dems rely heavily on emotional anecdotes, the GOP on substance, clearly expressed. Sen. John Barrasso is speaking right now with authority and clarity. Obama follows up with stammering, anecdotes.

Related: Paul Ryan video

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In a nutshell, from Rep. Paul Ryan

h/t: Hot Air

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Thursday morning reads

Gateway Pundit: Unreal. Safe School’s Czar Given $410 Million To Promote Radical Sexual Agenda in US Schools

In other words Jennings will be using millions of taxpayer dollars to promote “inclusive schools” where LGBT themes are fully integrated across a variety of subject areas and grade levels. This may appear innocent enough until you take a closer look at the radical GLSEN agenda.

Read on.

Jennifer Rubin on the proposed billion-dollar crystal-cube-surrounded-by-a-moat embassy in London: Is That With or Without the Swans?

Now this is just, yes, just a billion dollars in a federal budget of more than a trillion. But it does suggest that the era of frugality and fiscal sobriety is not yet upon us.

(Previously discussed here.)

See Michelle Malkin for Mike Pence's brief, common-sense appraisal of the summit and a photo-shop from a reader that captures the spirit of today's event.

John Kass on Obamacare the Chicago Way:

Obama will be in his element, talking and lecturing, the law professor framing the debate. He'll spend hours being seen as reasonable. The Republicans will balk and the president will shrug. He'll sigh and say he tried to reason with them but they refused.

Then once the cameras are turned off, he'll take out the baseball bat and explain how things get done The Chicago Way.

It's all about muscle. As an acolyte of the Chicago Democratic machine, he's seen muscle at work in Daleyland. Now he's in the White House, and he's going to use muscle too.

Read the rest.

An interesting analogy from Weasel Zippers on just how much Americans are pining for Obamacare.

MKH brings us another innocuous pro-life ad that certain people find intolerable:

The promotion for the group, Focus on the Family, features a smiling father holding his young son, next to the words "Celebrate Family. Celebrate Life." Beneath the photo appears the message: "All I want for my son is for him to grow up knowing how to do the right thing."

Really? That's the message folks want to go on-record as opposing? A happy father, holding a baby, wishing to make a positive impact on the child's life. That's not a controversy; that's a dream.

Those who object to this are making themselves look ridiculous.

Cross-posted at Potluck.

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Obama's drama or a comedy of errors?

Obama will be playing two conflicting roles in today's drama:

Republican strategist and former Bush White House spokesman Tony Fratto said the Democrats don't have a great spokesman other than Obama, which puts the president in a "weird position" going into the health care summit, serving as both advocate and arbitrator.

"He's got his own bill, he's the leader of the party, he supports the Democrat proposals that came out of Congress -- but yet the way they've structured the meeting, he is theoretically an arbitrator," Fratto said. "The president isn't sitting down as an impartial actor here. He's got a very clear position that he's been advocating for some time."

His position as arbiter is a false one.

Politico sees potential for comedy, tragedy, or history:

It could be one of the biggest PR flops since Geraldo Rivera opened Al Capone’s vault.

Or it could be a genuinely clarifying moment in the Obama presidency, six hours that could decide the outcome of the push for health care reform and, even failing that, be decisive in framing the politics of the 2010 midterms.

Thursday’s made-for-TV health reform summit is shaping up to be more like a presidential debate (without the podiums) than a backroom negotiation in which horses are traded and deals get done.

But that doesn’t mean it won’t be illuminating, with Democrats and Republicans debating their differences in living color, not just on health care but on the role of government in American life. Here is what to watch for Thursday:

1) Will either side give any ground?

I can answer that one. Nope. Another question: Does anyone outside the Beltway care? Not when there's curling to watch:

“Most people in the country are tired of the bickering, and both parties need to recognize that,” said Rep. Jim Matheson, a Utah Democrat who voted against the first House bill.

Asked if he expects anyone back home to watch, Utah Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz said, “Not really. The Olympics are still on. Even curling looks more enticing than this.”

Complete story here.

Even before the curtain is raised, the White House is already floating a fall-back plan:

President Barack Obama will use a bipartisan summit Thursday to push for sweeping health-care legislation, but if that fails to generate enough support the White House has prepared the outlines of a more modest plan.

His leading alternate approach would provide health insurance to perhaps 15 million Americans, about half what the comprehensive bill would cover, according to two people familiar with the planning.

It would do that by requiring insurance companies to allow people up to 26 years old to stay on their parents' health plans, and by modestly expanding two federal-state health programs, Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, one person said. The cost to the federal government would be about one-fourth the price tag for the broader effort, which the White House has said would cost about $950 billion over 10 years.

Officials cautioned that no final decisions had been made but said the smaller plan's outlines are in place in case the larger plan fails.

Maybe this was the real goal all along. It will look positively benign when compared with the behemoths that came before.

*Update: The Democrats' plan is to shame and embarrass the GOP:

And a central element of the Democratic strategy – hashed out on a conference call with President Barack Obama himself Wednesday — will involve pointing that out at every turn, to essentially shame the GOP to get on board. . . .

While Republicans huddled among themselves, Obama dialed into a meeting of top Democrats in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office to map out a strategy. Democrats view the summit as a confidence-building exercise – it will be a success if Obama shows up the Republicans and, in turn, gives Democrats the political will to take the next step of reconciliation, a senior congressional aide said.

Carrie Budoff Brown's complete piece here.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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An (almost) Obama-free post

Miscellaneous

Lives saved by a courageous teacher:

"He had a bolt-action rifle and he was trying to rack another round, and I knew he couldn't get another round in before I got to him and so I grabbed him," Benke said.

It's a good thing he knew something about firearms.

Horrifying: SeaWorld Orlando trainer killed in whale attack

Dreadful: "I'm live-tweeting my abortion"

Unable to resist the call of celebrity: Bristol Palin, 'thrilled' to be going Hollywood

Scott Brown's pink leather shorts: "Oh, the humanity!"

Uncanny: The new Missile Defense Agency logo looks a little familiar.

Poll: Happy summit eve: 73% say Congress should stop work or start over on ObamaCare


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This is leadership?

Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the NYT spins Obama's ineffectiveness as a virtue. He uses "gentle persuasion" rather than arm-twisting, is intellectual instead of physical, etc. But this anecdote was revealing:

Tempers were fraying in the White House Cabinet Room as night turned into morning on Jan. 15. President Obama had been cloistered nearly all day with House and Senate Democrats, playing “marriage counselor,” an aide said, as he coaxed, cajoled and prodded them on a health care overhaul.

As the clock neared 1 a.m., the two sides were at an impasse. Mr. Obama stood up.

“ ‘See what you guys can figure out,’ ” one participant remembers him saying, adding that the failed effort left the president mad. Another Democrat who was there, Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, said Mr. Obama left “frustrated that while he was putting out ways to bridge the problem, we hadn’t reached a conclusion.”

When the seas don't part before him he leaves in a huff. This isn't what most of us think of as leadership. Rather more like a spoiled child who doesn't get his way.

Jennifer Rubin comments:

Everything is so hard, it seems, for Obama. The Middle East is hard. Health-care reform is hard. None of it just “happens,” as he might have imagined would happen when he appeared on the scene.

The Times tries to put it gently, suggesting that “Mr. Obama has not been the sort to bludgeon his party into following his lead or to intimidate reluctant legislators.” Maybe “it is not clear whether his gentle, consensus-building style will be enough.” He is just too darn “lofty” and also doggone devoted to “appeals to conscience and history that were his hallmark on the campaign trail.” Hmm. Could it be none of that is really the problem – and rather that he’s just not very effective when it comes to getting things done?

A little reality slips in via one lawmaker, who says Obama needs more “toughness” and doesn’t, come to think of it, really dominate the room. What?! The President of the United States doesn’t dominate the room? What’s he there for, then?

Read the rest.

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More on Obamacare [sigh]

Sorry to keep harping on Obamacare. You all must be as tired of this subject as I am. But it seems that we're in the homestretch, so we'll keep slogging on. William Jacobson reminds us that now is not the time for weakness. Updates and commentary:

Charles Krauthammer on Obama's god-awful healthcare plan:

What the president has done here is he tries to reconcile House and Senate. But he does it by throwing money at every difference. For example, the Nebraska kickback, which is federal giveaway on Medicaid that was only for Nebraska — every state now has it.

The union cutout, which was the unions being exempt from the tax on the Cadillac plans until 2018, everybody has it.

Higher subsidies for those who are forced into purchasing health insurance — all of this is going to cost. ...

The estimate in the White House is it is going to cost $200 billion. That is a vast underestimate. And it's added on to a Senate bill which is $850 billion which in and of itself is a huge underestimate — it only counts the second half of this decade. It's twice that.

In effect, what you have here is a $2 trillion expenditure at a time when the president is hypocritically calling for deficit reduction.

In other words, par for the course in this Age of Obama.

Mr. Krauthammer on the sham summit:

Look, Obama became president of the United States with a theatrical campaign in 2008. Charisma, rhetoric, that's what he does best. He then tried a year of governing. He didn't succeed very well. So he is returning to theater Thursday.

And I think it's going to help him. I think he's likely to come out ahead as he did when he met with the House Republicans in Baltimore.

His idea is you pivot off that with a bump you get, the confidence, the morale it infuses in your troops in the Senate and the House, and you go and you attempt reconciliation.

And now that the Democrats are reduced to seriously contemplating the nuclear option, they're spinning it as a perfectly acceptable practice for passing this life-changing legislation. They were not always so favorably disposed.

Perhaps the most frightening words ever written on reconciliation and healthcare reform are these: Biden Could Force Reconciliation Through the Senate. (Some background on reconciliation here.)

The president's behavior throughout this hard push for "reform" has caused Michael Gerson to question his judgment:

And the proposed form of this insistence -- enacting health reform through the quick, dirty shove of the reconciliation process -- would add coercion to arrogance.

Ruth Marcus calls it "audaciousness." And it makes her feel queasy.

But the House would have to pass the bill, too. Victor Davis Hanson sees it as a possibility. But by some accounts, the votes are not there. See Hot Air for Rep. Eric Cantor's head count and Rep. Bart Stupak's statement on the unresolved abortion problem.

John McCormack reports that Rep. Paul Ryan, not originally invited to the shmummit, will be attending:

The Democrats are probably salivating at the chance to contrast their plan with Ryan's plan, which they say would abolish Medicare. To which Republicans should say: bring it on.

Ryan can ably explain the differences between his plan and Obama's plan. Unlike Obamacare, Ryan's plan actually wouldn't cut benefits for anyone over the age of 55.

I agree, Ryan's presence can only be a positive. We'll see what happens tomorrow at Obama's party.


Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Obama's 2012 campaign underway

Get the styrofoam columns out of storage. Politico reports that Obama's team is already working on Campaign 2010:

President Barack Obama’s top advisers are quietly laying the groundwork for the 2012 reelection campaign, which is likely to be run out of Chicago and managed by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, according to Democrats familiar with the discussions.

The planning for now consists entirely of private conversations, with Obama aides at all levels indulging occasionally in closed-door 2012 discussions while focusing ferociously on the midterm elections and health-care reform, the Democratic sources said. “The gathering storm is the 2010 elections,” one top official said.

But the sources said Obama has given every sign of planning to run again, and wants the next campaign to resemble the highly successful 2008 effort.

The usual suspects, including Mao fan-girls and experts on the tea party mentality, will be on board. The DNC smear machine is revving its engine:

The DNC sees Republican challengers ramping up earlier than ever and has decided to begin defining potential opponents early. Operatives are already assembling research and drafting unflattering narratives to push about the leading possible 2012 candidates.

No doubt dumpster-divers will be strategically placed across the country, ready to engage at the first sign of another Joe the Plumber.

I guess no one expects Hope 'n' Change to fly this time:

The themes for Obama’s campaign are not yet chosen, but a top adviser said not to expect a radical surprise: “He knows who he is."

And that's the trouble. This time around, Americans know, too. He'll have a record to defend. That might be tricky.

I guess he'll stick with Biden? The court jester thing seems to be working well enough,

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Various & sundry

Won't we be happy when we don't have Harry Reid to kick around anymore? Harry's latest pronouncements: "They should stop crying about reconciliation as if it's never been done before." Also, we need to pass a jobs bill so unemployed men will stop beating their women.

Jennifer Rubin writes on the status of Obamacare. Steny Hoyer expresses his doubts and Rep. Jason Altmire reads the writing on the wall:

“Is she [Pelosi] going to be able to hold everybody that was for it before?” Altmire asked. “What about the marginal members in the middle who got hammered over this vote and would love a second chance to perhaps go against it?”

Jen-Ru concludes:

Well, let’s see if a health-care summit will magically change the hearts and minds of voters and House Democrats. If not, Obama will learn the hard way that it matters what you are proposing, not how many times you propose it.

You can hardly blame him. Magic is what got him elected in the first place. But the sham summit, or shmummit, is perhaps more about face-saving than it is about passing a bill.

Byron York counts the votes in the House and doesn't find enough for passage, but "nobody knows" how many votes Pelosi will manage to extract.

Peter Wehner doubts that it will pass, but sees it as bad news for the Dems either way:

No one is arguing that not passing Obama’s signature domestic initiative would reflect well on the president. A failure of this magnitude will undoubtedly damage him. But in this instance, with the White House having acted so ineptly, failing to pass ObamaCare is the best of bad options. Obstinacy on behalf of a bad and unpopular idea is a road to political ruin.

In redoubling his efforts to pass health-care legislation, Obama will be rejected — not simply by Republicans and the public but also, I suspect, by members of his own party. This in turn will further weaken his political standing. He will have looked obsessively out of touch, selfish, and narcissistic. But in the highly unlikely event that Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Majority Leader Harry Reid succeed in passing health-care legislation through the reconciliation process — if Democrats in the House are foolish enough to hitch their hopes to this liberal troika — there will be an even more fearsome political price to pay.

*Updating to add this from Cato's Michael Cannon: ObamaCare 3.0: Higher Implicit Taxes, Quicker Death Spiral

In addition, by requiring insurers to cover all applicants without regard to illness, each of these health plans would remove any penalty on waiting until you are sick to purchase coverage. Therefore — even after accounting for all relevant taxes, subsidies, and penalties — these plans would create large financial incentives for healthy people to drop out of the market, which would cause premiums to rise for those who remain. That would in turn encourage more healthy people to drop out, which would cause premiums to rise further, and so on. Those perverse incentives are much worse under the Obama plan than under the House or Senate bills. Here are the maximum financial incentives to drop coverage that each plan would create for families of four:

• Senate bill: $8,000
• House bill: $7,800
• Obama plan: $9,900
  

By increasing the financial incentives to drop coverage, the Obama plan would cause private insurance markets to unravel even faster than the House and Senate bills would.

Read the rest.


Read Mark Steyn on the deadly serious consequences of mass, multi-generational diversity brainwashing:

For 30 years we have watched as politically correct fatuities swallowed the entire educational system, while we deluded ourselves that it was just a phase, something kids had to put up with as the price for getting a better job a couple years down the road. The idea that two generations could be soaked in this corrosive bilge and it would have no broader impact was always absurd. When the chief of staff of the United States Army has got the disease, you're in big (and probably terminal) trouble.

Read the whole thing.

A glossary of political terms from Victor Davis Hanson:

partisan bickering—a period when conservatives are unexpectedly gaining the upper hand.

gridlock—a time when liberal legislation polls less than 50% among the American people.

bipartisanship—triangulating Republican legislators who join liberals on key legislation.

filibuster—a sometimes necessary Senate remedy to thwart reactionary excess—in its perverted form, unnaturally turned on progressives.

centrist—a Republican who votes for Democratic-sponsored legislation; to be distinguished from an opportunist, who, as a Democrat, votes for Republican-sponsored legislation.

Lastly, John Kass may not be afraid of those Chicago wiseguys but he's not as tough as he seems. (Related post here.)

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Unfit mother?

Amanda Marcotte on Mechelle Hall, the woman who held a knife to the throat of an abortion protester and later thanked her for saving her baby:

http://bit.ly/aryAd0 Convincing unstable, violent women to have children, one crazy incident at a time. Good work, antis!

Well, now. Who convinced Mechelle Hall to "have children"? She was already having one. She credits Leah Winandy with preventing her from committing the violence of ending her child's life, which was already under way, beating heart and all. Pardon all the italics, but there's an important distinction here that Ms. Marcotte has missed.

You wouldn't think feminists would be in favor of labeling certain women as unfit to reproduce. But hey, let's get Big Brother, or Sister, on that. It's right up this Congress's alley.

The link in the tweet is to a Salon article by Tracy Clark-Flory who questions the "myth" of pro-life conversion stories, and Abby Johnson's in particular, without offering anything to back up that skepticism.

More on all of this from Big Blue Wave, who notes the ever-present double-standard:

Had Mechelle Hall chosen abortion, [Marcotte] would have been uber-supportive. But she chose life, so now she's some potential child abuser. Way to be supportive of "choice", Amanda!

Aren't we supposed to "Trust Women"? Oh right, women are infallible except when they make decisions we disagree with.

Cassy Fiano's take on it here. Hat tip to Dan Collins. Related post here. Cross-posted at Potluck.

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Palate cleanser: Steyn's Song of the Week

It's a good one: You Make Me Feel So Young

Read all about it, then come back and listen:



Here's the duet with Nancy, and here's the one with Charles Aznavour.

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Obamacare: Unsustainable and unscorable

And almost certainly unpassable. But the Democrats persevere, Ahab style, in pursuit. Updates:

From the CBO: no dice on scoring Obama's plan before the show-summit on Thursday:

Moreover, preparing a cost estimate requires very detailed specifications of numerous provisions, and the materials that were released this morning do not provide sufficient detail on all of the provisions.

That's convenient. More from Hot Air.

William Jacobson predicts:

This is a balloon which must burst, and it will several years down the road.

See Philip Klein for detailed analysis. The bottom line: Obama HC Proposal Has More Spending, Higher Taxes Than Senate Bill.

Another little problem: Obama's plan includes taxpayer-funded abortion, a huge stumbling block to passage.

But let's forge ahead with the sham summit and share our absolutely incompatible ideas. If only President Obama had access to the GOP proposals!

At his briefing today, Robert Gibbs said: “We are tremendously hopeful, which is why the president posted ideas of his on the White House website today. We hope Republicans will post their ideas, either on their website or we'd be happy to post them on ours, so that the American people could come to one location and find out the parameters of what will largely be discussed on Thursday.”

A Boehner spokesman replies: “Mr. Gibbs needs to talk with his boss. Our health-care alternative — the full text of the legislation — has been available at healthcare.gop.gov for months, which President Obama knows, since he discussed it with us in Baltimore a few weeks ago.”

Pleeze. Lots of people watched Obama lecture the GOP in Baltimore. It was televised at his request. The GOP House members gave him hard copies of their plans. He promised to read them, not that it matters.

Another Dem fantasy: Rep. Clyburn says Obamacare will pass in the House with a wider margin than before.

Who believes that? Not Jennifer Rubin:

What we don’t know is why anyone who opposed the last version(s) of ObamaCare would accept this one. It is still a mammoth tax-and-spend bill and still seeks to federalize health care. If Nancy Pelosi has 218 votes for this, I’d be surprised. If Senate Democrats want to walk the plank for a retread of the bill that voters in Massachusetts sent Scott Brown to the Senate to oppose, I’d be surprised. But I suppose we’ll find out.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy).

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Happy Birthday George et cetera

It's Washington's birthday. Power Line remembers the Indispensable Man.

In other news:

At this late date, Obama has come out with his own healthcare reform plan. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet but you'll find a plethora of analysis here and here. I suspect it bears little resemblance to Paul Ryan's Roadmap. James Capretta tells you everything you need to know about that:

Forget one-off ideas for trimming this or that. What is needed is a continuous, long-term, dynamic process that will lead those who deliver services to want to provide better care at less cost. What can bring that about? Ryan’s emphatic answer is that a functioning marketplace can, and an essential feature of such a marketplace is cost-conscious consumers.

Read the rest.

In his Saturday address, the president tried to fool us on an important health insurance issue:

The most interesting part of this address was when the President said that he considers Republican proposals to “allow Americans to purchase insurance from a company in another state to give people more choices and bring down costs” a “good idea.” Certainly, that sounds like bipartisanship and like the President is open to using reform to encourage real competition.

Yet don’t be fooled: in the very next sentence he stipulates that we should “pursue them in a way that protects benefits, protects patients, and protects the American people.” Sure, President Obama and Congressional leaders may consider allowing inter-state purchase of health insurance, but they are also going to so heavily regulate the insurance industry–dictating exactly what each policy can and cannot contain and at what price–that it really won’t matter who you buy your insurance from anyway, since they’ll all be selling the same government created product.

More backtracking from the warming alarmists: Does this mean my house will never be waterfront?

But no backtracking from Rajendra Pachauri. In The Island of Dr. Pachauri Daniel Foster provides an in-depth look at that "barbate and bespoke-suited" "able dabbler" who is taking the decline of global warmism personally:

“Having found a phenomenal increase in awareness on the subject around the world, they have decided to target me in my position as chairman of the IPCC and have sunk extremely low in trying to attack me personally with lies and falsehoods,” Pachauri told an Australian newspaper.

This defensiveness may arise from the fact that "Pachauri’s green gospel has proven quite lucrative." Try to contain your surprise and read the rest.

Good news from the other side of the aisle:

Democrats are waking up to just how economically destructive the Obami’s gambit on CO2 is: “Eight Democratic Senators from coal states are mounting a serious challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s landmark ruling that CO₂ is a pollutant and demanding a delay in enforcing anti-global warming regulations against polluters.” Hey, they could introduce a bill, get lots of GOP support, and put an end to this.

The title says it all: Schools should not force girls to wear skirts - it discriminates against transsexuals, warns watchdog


Lastly, from Washington's Rules of Civility, some advice to Americans:

Speak not in your yawning.
Talk not with meat in your mouth.
Do not laugh too loud or too much at any Public Spectacle.
Play not the Peacock.
Show Nothing to your Friend that may affright him.
Let your recreations be manful not sinful.
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

Dining room at Mount Vernon

From Foundations Magazine:

Today many, if not all of these rules, sound a little fussy if not downright silly. It would be easy to dismiss them as outdated and appropriate to a time of powdered wigs and quills, but they reflect a focus that is increasingly difficult to find. They all have in common a focus on other people rather than the narrow focus of our own self-interests that we find so prevalent today. Fussy or not, they represent more than just manners. They are the small sacrifices that we should all be willing to make for the good of all and the sake of living together.

These rules proclaim our respect for others and in turn give us the gift of self-respect and heightened self-esteem.

More of this from last year's GW birthday post, here.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Arnold dismisses voter anger as California sinks

Doug Ross reports on what the teachers' unions have done to the California school system:

Nearly 10,000 California state retirees pull down more than $100,000 a year, thanks to public sector unions and the Democrat politicians who support them. For just this tiny group of retirees, the expense represents almost $1.5 billion a year for California's taxpayers.

Of this total, 3,090 retired educators in California receive more than $100,000 a year.

Nice work if you can get it. But not so nice for the health of California's schools:

The Capistrano Unified School District (CUSD) is but one example of the dysfunction. The district is nearing complete insolvency thanks to the teachers' unions. 85% of CUSD’s budget already goes to salaries, pensions and benefits; but that's apparently not enough for the unions.

Much more here from the thorough Mr. Ross.

In a related story, Gov. Arnold Schwarzennegger is in denial about the tea party movement:

The Tea Party is not going to go anywhere. I think the Tea Party is all about just an expression of anger and dissatisfaction and I see it in California when people come up to me and says, you know I'm angry that you guys don't get along in Sacramento.

Way to dismiss the grave concerns of Californians, many of whom must be way beyond angry at their state government.

He goes on to explain that the whole world is angry because the global economy is down. Apparently the governor bears no responsibility for what's happening in his state.

Cross-posted at Potluck. Follow up from Carol here.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Bennett on Beck

Some interesting commentary from Bill Bennett on Glenn Beck's CPAC speech:

Does Glenn truly believe there is no difference between a Tom Coburn, for example, and a Harry Reid or a Charles Schumer or a Barbara Boxer? Between a Paul Ryan or Michele Bachmann and a Nancy Pelosi or Barney Frank? . . .

I don’t think they would describe their [tea party] rallies and resistance as a bilious purging but, rather, as a very positive democratic reaction aimed at correcting the wrongs of the current political leadership. The mainstream media may describe their reactions as an unhealthy expurgation. I do not.

I'm with Bennett here. Glenn Beck is an exceptional guy with exceptional talents. And most of the time I find it easy to believe he's sincere. But his theme that the two parties are equally bad has always struck me as adolescently cynical.

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Ibama condensed

Obama's speech in Elyria, Ohio, a while back was so full-to-bursting with the I word that we couldn't resist having a little fun with it. Now Americans for Prosperity have had even more fun and put together an I-video, all from this single speech. Enjoy:



Hat tip to Hot Air, where you may cast your vote for this as the Obamateurism of the Week.

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Video: Beck's CPAC speech

Mark Tapscott:

That was one heck of a stem-winder of a keynote address delivered tonight by Fox News' Glenn Beck at the Conservative Political Action Conference, so powerful that somebody out there right now is probably trying to figure out a way to get a grassroots presidential draft movement organized.

In the age of instant celebrity, it could happen, much as former Arkansas Gov. Sarah Palin's meteoric rise during her failed campaign with Sen. John McCain in the 2008 presidential race. Palin's continuing celebrityhood has been driven in no small part by the obsessive hate on the Left for her. They just can't stop talking about how terrible they think she is.

In any case, Beck's address certainly confirmed him as a front-rank figure in the conservative movement. But I think it will help define Beck as one of the narrative setters for the movement, not as a candidate. But of course, politics is the most unpredictable of endeavours, so who knows.

There's no denying it -- the man has a gift:

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Obamacare madness continues

No one really knows what's going on in the minds of Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. But it's time to start paying close attention again. Harry Reid has announced that he will pass something, via reconciliation, in two months:

The majority leader said that while Democrats have a number of options, they would likely use the budget reconciliation process to pass a series of fixes to the first healthcare bill passed by the Senate in November. These changes are needed to secure votes for passage of that original Senate bill in the House.

"We'll do a relatively small bill to take care of what we've already done," Reid said, affirming that Democrats would use the reconciliation process. "We're going to have that done in the next 60 days."

The move would allow Democrats to essentially go it alone on health reform, especially after losing their filibuter-proof majority in the Senate after Sen. Scott Brown's (R) special election victory in Massachusetts.

Maybe the seemingly obsessed Dems ought to read this interview with Charlie Cook, who explains the how and why of Obamafail:

And then when unemployment numbers started proving to be much, much tougher and it started becoming more clear that the stimulus package hadn't worked properly, they just kept plowing ahead on health care. And this isn't a communications problem. This is a reality problem. And I think they just made some grave miscalculations and as it became more clear that they had screwed up, they just kept doubling down their bet.

And so I think, no, this is one of the biggest miscalculations that we've seen in modern political history. [Read the rest.]

And yet they continue on their quest. Captain Ahab would be proud. Dan Perrin thinks Sen. Reid is serious, and seriously nuts to persist:

What is really going on? Are the Dems that crazy to think that their attempt at using reconciliation will help them politically? Or are they just delusional, and cannot accept it is over for ObamaCare, and do not have the discipline to turn to something the public actually wants, like deficit reduction?

The Dems cannot accept the defeat of ObamaCare and will try reconciliation because Majority Leader Reid is desperate for liberal support for his failing re-election effort; Speaker Pelosi is genuinely irrational about ObamaCare, and the President believes that the entire Dem Congress should politically self-destruct to save his bill.

He predicts failure:

So, let the Dems try to pass ObamaCare via reconciliation.

They will find themselves in another three or four month political valley of death. And they will still not pass the bill.

The country is not in danger of ObamaCare passing via reconciliation.

The country is, however, in danger from politically desperate and irrational leaders who are intent on the political equivalent of self-immolation.

Herein is the drama from no-drama-Obama. [RTR]

William Jacobson takes the reconciliation revival seriously, too, and calls it a declaration of legislative war:

Using the reconciliation process for such sweeping, non-budgetary, legislation will take what now is a highly fractured political landscape and shake the ground like an earthquake.

The reconciliation process was not intended to be used for social engineering, and the result will be the de facto elimination of the filibuster without an actual change in Senate Rules. [RTR]

See, also, James C. Capretta and Yuval Levin on The Summit of Folly:

One way or another, this ill-advised legislative process is nearing its end. It will either conclude with the Democrats putting their blinkered and misguided proposal aside, at last to pursue genuine, incremental, modest, and practical health care reforms addressed to the actual problems our system confronts, or it will end with the passage of a ruinous bill rejected by the public and likely to exacerbate both the collapse of our public finances and the explosion of health insurance costs.

They call for a return to sanity and a scrapping of the bill.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

Most recent posts here.

Surprise ending to story of assault of abortion protester

The truth is powerful. Read this remarkable story from theblogprof:

Here's a story that has received a total unwavering media blackout. A woman was going in to have an abortion at a local butcher shop in Duluth, and was confronted by two pro-life protesters that urged her not to kill her baby. The woman was so angry that she brandished a knife and held it to one of the pro-life protester's throat. She was of course arrested for aggravated assault. That much the MSM may tell you, but it is the epilogue that caused an raised eyebrow. In court, the woman plead guilty to assault, but also, with tears streaming down her face, thanks the pro-life protester for saving her baby's life! From the Duluth News Tribune: Woman who threatened protester cancels abortion:

Mechelle Hall dabbed tears from her eyes Tuesday as she pleaded guilty to second-degree assault for brandishing a knife and threatening a woman who urged her not to get an abortion.

Yet, she revealed later, she never got it.

And she's very grateful. Much more at theblogprof.

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Skinny unto death

La Hyacinth has taken up her mighty pen and pounded Karl Lagerfeld into a jelly:

But what do I know? I’m just a fat, uneducated cow–and a breeder nonetheless–and he’s the dandy queen with the perpetually puckered puss. I mean, he wears women’s jeans–he’s obviously my superior, even though I also wear women’s jeans… but it’s best not to think too deeply on such matters.

Ladies, why are we letting queens in skinny jeans tell us that we aren’t good enough?

She's just warming up. Click here for the unexpurgated version.

What he said:

Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has accused critics of thin models of being 'fat mummies who sit with bags of potato chips'.

Stirring up controversy is a "fat" model who is speaking out against the pressure from some designers for skeletal models. Coco Rocha is refreshingly unwilling to starve herself to death:

'You know what, I stopped caring,' she said.

'If I want a hamburger, I'm going to have one. No 21-year-old should be worrying about whether she fits a sample size.

'Girls are told they are not skinny enough, or they hear "She's old, she's boring, we've had her. she's not tiny anymore."

'A lot of people don't take into account the vulnerability of these young girls.'

And vulnerable they are. From the same article:

Luisel, 22,suffered a fatal heart attack during a fashion week in Uruguay in 2006.

She had lived on a diet of green leaves and diet coke for three months in a bid to be ready for a the catwalk show.

Her model sister Eliana,18, died from malnutrition six months later in 2007

Related: Hiding the decline on the childhood obesity rate


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Mike Pence at CPAC

Watch his speech. What a confident man he is. And very upbeat. Pence in 2012??

h/t: just a conservative girl, Backyard Conservative

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Obama in Vegas, campaigning for Reid on our dime

ABC reports:

Although President Barack Obama’s town hall in Henderson, NV was billed as a White House event, it sounded a lot more like a campaign rally for Senator Harry Reid (D-NV). [. . . ]

Obama also held a fundraiser for the incumbent last night and has appeared several times to stump for the Senator. But at those events, the Democratic National Committee foots the bill. At today’s event, the taxpayers paid the price.

Does it really matter, at this point, which particular rathole the government throws our money down?

Though the President did not explicitly call for Reid’s reelection, Obama touted Senator Reid more than a dozen times in his opening remarks and several more times during the question and answer session. At one point he even handed the microphone to Reid, who was sitting on the stage right behind the President, so that Reid could take one of the questions from the audience about building tourism in Nevada.

While the president was there, he tried with great subtlety to make amends with Nevada's tourism industry:

Earlier this month Obama said: “When times are tough, you tighten your belts. You don’t go buying a boat when you can barely pay your mortgage. You don’t blow a bunch of cash on Vegas when you’re trying to save for college.”

Today, Obama asked one audience member, who was visiting from out of town, if he was spending money in Las Vegas. “Yes sir,” the man replied. “That’s good!” Obama replied. “That’s what we like to hear. .. Everyone comes to Vegas! That’s what I’m talking about!” the President said to applause.

Lolz!

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Tiger and Elton speak, but we don't have to listen

I'm not all that interested in what some people say or do. But Mark Steyn makes a good point:

Jesus was gay, reveals Elton John.

Any thoughts on Mohammed, Elt?

And so does Jake Tapper. Check out this exchange, via Twitter:

Katie Couric: Getting ready to cover tiger's statement. Being at the epicenter of such humiliation, and judgement must be very painful.

Jake Tapper: i assume you're talking about the pain his wife and children feel, not him.

Touché.

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Friday various & sundry

Michelle Malkin takes on the predictable but reprehensible attempt of certain liberals to connect the Austin, Texas plane-crasher to the tea party movement:

Remember “Not Me?” He was the famous invisible cartoon gremlin in the newspaper cartoon strip “Family Circus.” Whenever toys were left on the floor or other school-age disasters struck, the kids in the cartoon pointed their fingers at “Not Me.” Today, “Tea Party” is the juvenile Left’s new “Not Me” – an all-purpose scapegoat for every crime and disaster.

You might think they'd tire of this. But no. Read the rest.

Charles Krauthammer takes on the "America is ungovernable" meme. It is, perhaps, ungovernable by those who don't know how to govern:

The rage at the machine has produced the usual litany of systemic explanations. Special interests are too powerful. The Senate filibuster stymies social progress. A burdensome constitutional order prevents innovation. If only we could be more like China, pines Tom Friedman, waxing poetic about the efficiency of the Chinese authoritarian model and complaining that America can only flail about under its “two parties . . . with their duel-to-the-death paralysis.” The better thinkers, bewildered and furious that their president has not gotten his way, have developed a sudden disdain for our inherently incremental constitutional system. [. . .]

He failed because the utter implausibility of its central promise — expanded coverage at lower cost — led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes, and more debt. More broadly, the Democrats failed because, thinking the economic emergency would give them a political mandate and a legislative window, they tried to impose a left-wing agenda on a center-right country. The people said no, expressing themselves first in spontaneous demonstrations, then in public-opinion polls, then in elections — Virginia, New Jersey, and, most emphatically, Massachusetts.

That’s not a structural defect. That’s a textbook demonstration of popular will expressing itself — despite the special interests — through the existing structures. In other words, the system worked.

Or, as American Thinker writer Christopher Chantrill recently stated,

So when liberal wring their hands because the U.S. seems to be ungovernable, we conservatives chuckle. That's not a bug, liberals; that's a feature.

The people can still say no. Hallelujah. (h/t: Fuzzy)

Jonah Goldberg on all those Dem excuses for the great ObamaFail:

Well, that’s not entirely right. The Obama administration admits one mistake — and one mistake only. It didn’t explain itself better. In both his State of the Union address and interviews, Obama insisted he got all the policies right. It’s just that the reportedly greatest orator in the history of the republic couldn’t quite make himself clear enough.

The good news is that he recognizes his mistakes and is going to try again. White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told the Washington Post this week that “in 2010, the president will constantly be doing high-profile things to be the person driving the narrative.”

The multiple trips to Copenhagen, the five-Sunday-shows-in-one-day marathon, the three joint-session addresses to Congress in one year, the prime-time news conferences, the state dinner, the speech in Cairo: These don’t add up to “constantly” doing “high-profile things”? I can’t wait to hear what “high-profile” means. Explain health-care reform while parting the waters of the Potomac?

Read the rest.

Comic relief courtesy of Julie Mason and Barack Obama, who is -- bet you can guess -- on the campaign trail for a failing Dem senator:

Obama: "When I get out and talk to workers in factories...nobody is asking who is up, who is down, what is the latest poll number. No one is asking, 'Hey, who won the media cycle today?'"

It's hilarious when politicians who work so hard and spend millions of dollars in other people's money getting to Washington suddenly seize up in horror at the insiderishness and dealmaking in Washington. The insular, self-dealing excesses of Washington. The lobbyists and cable television! And yes, we're also looking at you, Mitt Romney. They all do it.

How do you run against Washington when you basically run Washington and you're a creature of Washington? That's the challenge for incumbents this year in both parties.

Obama has two events today in Denver for Bennet and then we head to Vegas.

Whoa. I thought we were supposed to stay away from there. But Obama's efforts on behalf of Harry Reid involve little risk, since Reid's candidacy is by all accounts already a lost cause. But it does get Obama out of that confining White House that he finds so stifling.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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Real hope and change at CPAC

The CPAC crowds may scream when their rock stars make surprise visits, and cheer for a great, perhaps even Reaganesque, keynote address. But they won't swoon and they won't lose their heads. Though both hope and change are critical to the conservative agenda, foggy rhetoric and a promise of salvation will be rejected if offered. There's too much at stake. Marco Rubio gets it:

"The tea party is about the anger over Washington's excesses that began under a Republican administration and Congress. Republicans have been guilty of expanding government," Mr. Rubio told The Washington Times in an interview. "But in the last 12 months, government has expanded at an even more alarming pace."

"And that expansion is what propels the massive pushback, which has become known as the tea party movement," said Mr. Rubio. [. . .]

" 'Tea party' is basically a catchall phrase for what's going on in America," Mr. Rubio said. "The tea party is not some formal organization, although some have tried to organize it."

That's exactly right. It's the definition of a grassroots movement. And that's why "the tea party" as such is not co-optable.

You'll find the full text of Rubio's keynote speech here. A few highlights:

They think that we need a guardian class in American government to protect us from ourselves. They think that the free-enterprise system is unfair, that a few people make a lot of money, and the rest of us get left behind. They believe that the only way business can make its money is by exploiting its workers and its customers. And they think that America's enemies exist because of something America did to earn their enmity.

Now, the problem is that in 2008 leaders with this worldview won elections. And now they know that the American people will never support their vision of America. So, instead, over the last 12 months they have used a severe economic downturn, a severe recession as an excuse to implement the statist policies that they have longed for all this time. In essence, they are using this downturn as cover not to fix America, but to try to change America to fundamentally redefine the role of government in our lives and the role of America in the world. [. . .]

From tea parties to the election in Massachusetts, we are witnessing the single greatest political pushback in American history. Now, the political class tries to make sense of all of this, but they can't, because never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today. You see, 2010 is not just a choice between Republicans and Democrats. It's not just a choice between liberals and conservatives. 2010 is a referendum on the very identity of our nation. [. . .]

And the reason is simple because people get it, because they understand that if we get this wrong, there may be no turning back for America. That's why the second thing leaders want -- the second thing that people want are leaders that will come here to Washington, D.C. and stand up to this big government agenda, not be co-opted by it. [. . .]

The final verdict on our generation will be written by Americans who haven't even been born yet. Let us make sure they write that we made the right choice, that in the early years of this century, faced with troubling and uncertain times, there were those who believed that the great American story had run its course. But we did not agree. Fear did not lead us to abandon our liberty. Uncertainty did not lead us to abandon the entrepreneurial spirit. We fought for and held on to those things that made us exceptional. And because we did, there was still one place in the world where the individual was more important than the state. Because we did, there was still at least one place in the world where who you come from does not determine where you get to go.

If you can spare 26 minutes, watch the entire speech. It may inspire real hope for change. But electing Rubio to the US Senate won't be enough. Our current elected representatives need to get it, too. Rep. John Boehner, in his speech to CPAC yesterday, talks the talk:

Ladies and gentlemen, if you help elect a Republican Congress this November, and I'm fortunate enough to be elected Speaker of the House, I pledge to you right here and now: we're going to run the House differently.

And I don't just mean differently than the way Democrats are running it now. I mean differently than it's been run in the past under Democrats OR Republicans. . . .

If I'm the Speaker next year, we're going to get the reform movement started again.

One of my first orders of business will be to post every bill online for at least three days before a vote.

We will require our committees to quickly post all bills and votes online, and will outlaw "phantom amendments."

We will put cameras in the Rules Committee hearing room so Americans can see how decisions are made about what bills come to a vote.

We'll ban the practice of "airdropping" earmarks into bills at the last possible minute to dodge public scrutiny.

We'll outlaw "monuments to me," where legislators use your tax money to build projects named after themselves.

Sounds lovely. But we've heard much of that before. This time they'd better be serious. Too many Americans are paying attention now.

Visit some of these CPAC bloggers:
Hot Air
Atlas
McCain and Other
Fausta
Obi's Sister
DaTechGuy
Little Miss Attila

Cross-posted in the Green Room.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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