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Today's must-read: Elizabeth Scalia on the Obama administration's contraceptive mandate:
Free is as affordable as it gets; for an accountability-spurning culture, it’s just the right price, indeed. Let us pay nothing in order to beget nothing and, says this government, let us force those interfering “churchy” institutions—who keep insisting that there is something worth contemplating beyond ourselves—to pick up the tab, for good measure.
There is an odd “we are nothing” philosophy behind this HHS decision and the Secretary who made it, and the President who supports it—a chilling promise of emptiness where tomorrow should be. Humanity, cajoled away from fertility and trained in sterility, is being weaned from those thoughts that travel beyond the present moment; we are self-interested beyond reason, and thus profoundly bored; condom-strangled, tube-snipped, and detached from the essential materials of reproduction either through artificial means or artificial equivalencies, our vision of the future is as limited as a pay-telescope’s viewer: tick, tick, tick and then a resolute click!, and it is gone.
Wow. Read the rest, in which the Anchoress makes the point that Obama's mad intrusion into religious freedom has achieved the impossible: he has united Catholics who have been "divided for decades on issues ranging from felt-banners to dress to dogma." Yes indeed; I am amazed to find myself on the same page as Cardinal Mahoney. May the bishops somehow, by the grace of God, hold the line. Three, so far, say they will defy the mandate. Oremus.
(For the record, I'm still opposed to those felt banners.)
But the National Park Service's threat to end "camping" (which doesn't include the removal of tents, because who ever connected tents with camping?) has inspired the non-campers to erect a huge "tent of dreams" over the General McPherson statue. So there's that.
Lachlan Markay reports on the non-event, in which some occupiers packed up their camping equipment and sent it off to storage generously donated by the AFL-CIO. Others continued to, well, camp in the park.
Park police and campers alike seemed pleased with the way things went:
Park police to reporter...we're not kicking anyone out...are you disappointed? Were you expecting fireworks?
Smiling NPS officer standing outside the park says "This is overtime man!"
So there's that, too.
Meanwhile, McPherson Square and Freedom Plaza have yet to be liberated from the squatters (and the rats) that prevent people from enjoying the formerly public spaces.
And Michelle Malkin was right: the "eviction" got more coverage from the Washington Post (pdf of front page here) than did the hundreds of thousands of pro-life marchers on Jan. 23rd, who, as usual, were buried in the Metro section, their numbers under-reported, and equal time given to the barely detectable handful of counter-protesters present. A letter from marcher Elizabeth Plumb:
The sun also rises, and The Post’s coverage of the March for Life is equally predictable. On Monday, I marched with my children, and we took in the usual sight of tens of thousands of people braving miserable weather to defend life.
There were a few differences from past years: calls for defunding Planned Parenthood and signs noting the pain suffered by men who regret the deaths of their children. I told my son what we would see in the paper Tuesday morning: one small photo showing a handful of those marching with us, and a second photo showing a similar number of counter-protesters, even though we had seen none that day.
The Post came through. Two small photos on page B1 showed one protester from each side, and page B6 included a larger picture of a pro-life marcher in front of a banner showing an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Presumably, this photo was chosen to illustrate the accompanying article’s false contention that the march is “hosted by the Archdiocese of Washington.”
So, I was right, but I would much rather be wrong.
Santorum opposed individual health care mandates — clearly and forcefully — as far back as his 1994 U.S. Senate run. He has launched the most cogent, forceful fusillade against both Romney and Gingrich for their muddied, pro-individual health care mandate waters.
Santorum is strong on border security, national security, and defense. Mitt the Flip-Flopper and Open Borders-Pandering Newt have been far less trustworthy on immigration enforcement.
Santorum is an eloquent spokesperson for the culture of life. He has been savaged and ridiculed by leftist elites for upholding traditional family values — not just in word, but in deed.
He won Iowa through hard work and competent campaign management. Santorum has improved in every GOP debate and gave his strongest performance last week in Florida, wherein he both dismantled Romneycare and popped the Newt bubble by directly challenging the front-runners’ character and candor without resorting to their petty tactics.
Even more telling: Despite much screaming from opponents, the Department of Health and Human Services has refused to broaden the religious exemption in the final rule — forcing religiously founded organizations to violate their parent church’s teachings, a frontal assault on the freedom of faiths to operate institutional outreach organizations consistent with their beliefs. If this rule stands, it won’t end there. If Catholic organizations can be compelled by federal diktat to violate their religious tenets, so can other religious organizations in different contexts.
The central purpose of Obamacare — and the reason it was and is so strenuously opposed by so many Americans — is to transfer all of the critical decisions about how American health care operates to the federal government. Despite what the president contends, it is a federal takeover. The federal bureaucracy is now in the driver’s seat.
And, with the federal government now calling all of the shots, it is a foregone conclusion that a decidedly secularist and utilitarian point of view will be pervasive in everything that is done. It is simply beyond the capacity of the modern federal government to even consider arguments questioning the wisdom of governmental policies promoting free and abundant contraception. Indeed, it is an article of faith in the modern bureaucratic context that pushing such “prevention” measures onto the American public is one more step on the long march to a more just and humane society.
This is the environment in which we live. The hard truth is that the federal government cannot be trusted today with these kinds of decisions, and there’s no prospect of that changing anytime soon. That’s a big reason why Obamacare should never have been allowed to pass in the first place. Just the sight of Catholic leaders’ being forced to go begging before federal officials ought to be enough to convince most Americans that handing over so much power over such sensitive matters to the federal government was a terrible, terrible mistake. [. . .]
It is possible that the Obama administration will pull a political stunt later this year and broaden the exemption to curry favor with some gullible voters just before the election. But even if that were to happen, the real lesson of this episode should not be lost on anyone. Obamacare has handed over immense power to a federal government that is essentially hostile to religious sentiments. That’s a very dangerous state of affairs. Job number one must be to reverse course and replace Obamacare with a program more consistent with our Constitution and values.
Read the whole thing. And if you're so inclined, pray that the bishops remain strong and refuse to be placated by a weak "broadening" if and when that happens.
(CNN) - Rick Santorum's three-year-old daughter Isabella, who suffers from a chromosomal condition called Trisomy 18, was admitted to a Philadelphia hospital Saturday.
In a statement, Santorum spokesman Hogan Gidley said the GOP presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania senator would cancel campaign events on Sunday morning.
"Rick and his wife Karen are admitting their daughter Bella to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia this evening," Gidley said. "The campaign will cancel Rick's upcoming Sunday morning Florida campaign schedule. However, Rick intends to return to Florida and resume the campaign schedule as soon as is possible."
Santorum had been slated to appear on NBC's "Meet the Press," as well as make a stop at King Jesus International Ministry in Miami. Santorum has been campaigning in Florida ahead of the state's primary on Tuesday.
She's a punkin:
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The Obama administration has earned its totalitarian cred anew with its outrageous contraceptives mandate. Fr. George Rutler:
Undeterred, and menacingly on the cusp of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued an “interim final rule” which requires all private health plans, including those of Catholic hospitals and schools, to include coverage of prescription contraceptives, female sterilization procedures, and abortion counseling.
For a while, various Catholic leaders had hoped that they might reach an understanding with the Administration, and some even felt more at peace with the president’s assurances. But “peace for our time” only lasts until Poland is invaded. Cardinal Mahony, whom no one would fault for intransigence, now says, “I cannot imagine a more direct and frontal attack on the freedom of conscience than this ruling today. This decision must be fought against with all the energies the Catholic Community can muster.” Our own archbishop [Dolan] said, “In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.”
At the time of the last presidential election, some may have thought that I overstated things in finding parallels with the dystopian world described in Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World, in which Julian Felsenburgh makes eugenics “a sacred duty.”
Since our Lord did not humiliate the frightened apostles by saying “I told you so” when he rose from the dead, I shall not say “I told you so” to any who underestimated the plottings of social engineers whose audacity is only an audacity of despair.
“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience,” said Dolan. “This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.”
“We will have a situation where our faith-based hospitals will be on fire sale because they cannot participate,” said Smith. “They know that the Catholic Church and other churches are not going to capitulate. So they expect them to say, ‘Well, we’re out. We’re going to have to sell the hospitals.’ The threat is very, very real.”
“There’s a coerciveness about this administration unlike any I’ve seen before,” he added.
Lipinski said that immediate action must be taken against the mandate, and that the media’s deafening silence over the order was very troubling.
“I hope this doesn’t just become a rallying cry for the next election,” said Lipinski. “We need to immediately move on this. It did not receive enough attention whatsoever.”
“This is the first time I see a situation where we really are in danger of forcing people, essentially, to participate in a significant way in what they see as taking a life.”
Remember that many contraceptives are actually abortifacients.
And I can't imagine a scenario in which either man can make himself look any better. Their flaws are real. The demonization of one by the other (or by surrogates) can only make matters worse.
I'll cling bitterly to Rick Santorum until that option falls away. Then I'll take up gardening again. Or something.
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“First of all, it's not worth getting angry about.” Breathtaking. In a just world, this would finish Mitt's candidacy.
Watch the whole clip if you missed it. It's clear that Romney really doesn't have a problem with a government takeover of health care. He's a technocrat who believes government is the solution, not the problem. That's why its expansion into health care isn't "worth getting angry about." In one little sentence, he revealed himself as a patronizing, tone-deaf, establishment RINO devoid of core conservative values. He's everything the Tea Party opposes. Peter Robinson:
Liberty--liberty--"not worth getting angry about." That would have come as news to certain residents of Massachusetts, including John Hancock, John Adams, and, come to think of it, all those who participated in the very first tea party.
Rick Santorum gets it and can articulate it. He is angry about it. Too bad Blitz cut the argument off and sent in the clown. If Michele Bachmann had been there, she would have torn Romney apart for that remark.
Romney continues to appear as a more handsome and taller GOP version of Michael Dukakis -- the bloodless and visionless technocrat who, as Newt suggests, just wants to "manage the decay" in Washington, D.C. [. . .]
The Republican establishment has been working overtime to hoodwink GOP voters into overlooking the ideological differences between Romney and Newt, trotting out Big Tenters with zero expertise on conservatism to claim that Newt is not "conservative." Against an immutable standard of conservatism, he is not, but next to Romney he looks like Edmund Burke.
The establishment never fails to choose the more liberal of two leading candidates. The boys from the yacht club have once again decided to lose with a semi-reformed RINO.
I don't much care whether Newt supported or attacked Reagan in the 80's, or what Bob Dole thinks of him. By now, Newt is a known quantity, and even his promise of a moon colony by 2020, or his admission that he made up that self-righteous claim of offering the testimony of friends to ABC to refute the "open marriage" charges, doesn't tell us anything new about him. He can act and talk like a conservative when he wants to, or he can do the opposite. He's full of himself and his multi-step "solutions." And in the debates, he alternates between the poles of the statesman who's above it all and the attack dog going for the jugular. It may be fun to watch for a while. But the drama can also be draining. How long before Newt fatigue sets in?
As a follow-up to the news that the NEA endorses raising the high school "dropout age" to 21 (h/t to David Freddoso and The Future of Capitalism), thereby holding their failures hostage and keeping them from full-time employment or job training programs for three years beyond the current maximum sentence, I thought I'd post this letter from the advice columns:
Our son came back to live with us three years ago after completing his PhD. He has living quarters on the lower level of our home. He is 30 years old and we feel he should have some privacy, so he can come and go as he pleases.
He helps his father out around the house when asked, but he does not contribute to the house fund. However, he does buy food every now and then.
We do not need his money so we are comfortable with the way things are financially. The only thing we have asked of him is that when a friend comes over we would like him to introduce the friend to us out of respect.
One solution: Go back to arranging playdates for junior. No doubt the doting parents can scare up a couple of thirty-something MAs or EdDs from the neighbors' basements. Amy's answer, in part:
Your son may tell dates that the older couple shouting, “Yoo hoo,” from the upper window of his bachelor pad are the caretakers on his modest estate. And you are, in a way.
He might be embarrassed to reveal that he is living with Mom and Dad.
I doubt it. Anyway, what I take away from that vignette is that the "kids" and the nanny state aren't the only ones to blame for gen-whatever's loss of interest in adulthood.
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It's a good thing Obama alternates between red and blue ties from year to year. Otherwise it would be almost impossible to distinguish one SOTU from another:
He always presents a laundry list of destructive government programs we have no money to pay for and that have little or no chance of coming to fruition; they're designed for the campaign trail. This year was no different. But new this time, I think, is a typically statist scheme for, er, improving public education:
We also know that when students aren’t allowed to walk away from their education, more of them walk the stage to get their diploma. So tonight, I call on every State to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn eighteen.
Problem solved! But isn't there an easier way? Why not skip the compulsory attendance, which we all know isn't the answer and would most likely be counter-productive, and simply issue an edict declaring all 18 year-olds officially "educated"?
Or, as I summarized it, “A law requiring belligerent, stupid 17-year-olds to stay in school and ruin it for everybody.” My guess is that the policy, if enacted, would have little impact on educating the segment of the population that would otherwise drop out. And I fear it will both lead to real distraction from the students motivated to be there and lead to yet more lowering of standards to ensure people “graduate.”
The desire to somehow force (through parental fines, perhaps?) unwilling teens to stay in school so that more of them will get their hands stamped is perfectly consistent with the statist push to lengthen the school day and the school year and to make state-run preschool the norm for all children. Now they're just going after the other end.
I've seen enough illiterate and near-illiterate 18 year-olds to know that thirteen years of school attendance doesn't guarantee an educated person in the end. If only it were that simple. Kids can't be forced to learn. But that's too nuanced a concept for the statist mind, which is always inclined to use force to achieve its goals.
Here's the transcript of Mitch Daniels' Republican response (video here), which is getting rave reviews from conservative pundits. For the record, Daniels does reiterate his infamous "truce" on social issues with this: "Any other disagreements we have can wait."
Back to the drop-out issue. David Freddoso wondered why Obama would push a federal truancy law and found an answer:
More importantly, why did this come up in a State of the Union speech? As with many political proposals, Ockham's razor applies here. A crucial Obama political ally has something to gain from it. Ira Stoll notes:
Wikipedia, in an entry on "raising of school leaving age (often shortened to ROSLA)" reports that 15 states and the District of Columbia have already raised their dropout age to 18. And it has the kicker that helps explain what may be a factor motivating Mr. Obama on this one: "The National Education Association, the main teachers' union in the United States, advocates requiring students to earn a high school diploma or stay in school until age 21."
I read that sentence in Wikipedia and thought to myself, "oh, that explains it." A Bloomberg article has details, including the news that the teachers themselves estimate that the compulsory education until 21 plan would cost an additional $1 billion a year, much of which would naturally be spent on unionized teachers paying dues to unions that reliably support Democratic candidates.
21. Unreal.
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Not since his minions handed out lab coats at a White House Obamacare rally has Barack Obama committed such a lame or electorate-insulting act of political theater. But it's just part of the class war he must wage if he's to get re-elected. Code word: fairness. Politico:
Billionaire Warren Buffett's longtime secretary will be joining first lady Michelle Obama in her box at tonight's State of the Union, White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer announced on Twitter.
Debbie Bosanek, who has worked for Buffett for nearly two decades, has become a symbol in the White House's fight over the tax code and economic fairness. Obama is expected to renew his push for the so-called "Buffett rule" that would bring investment taxation levels into line with income taxation levels — and ensure that upper income earners pay rates as high as middle-class Americans.
"Warren Buffett's secretary shouldn't pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett," President Obama said in September, when he unveiled his American Jobs Act proposal. It's a trope that Buffett himself has repeated, as he has campaigned for higher taxes on investment income.
It's common practice for presidents to invite guests to sit next to the first spouse that fit with the theme of their address — and Bosanek's presence is a big hint that the address will tilt heavily towards economic issues of fairness.
And who will not benefit? Hard-working Americans. Listen to or read what this truck driver and former Obama supporter had to say yesterday on the Rush Limbaugh show:
The tipping point for me was Newt Gingrich, what he said a few days ago, something I would have really been very angry with and almost insulted by. He said that Obama's decision regarding this pipeline was stunningly stupid. And I could not disagree with that, because this pipeline, in addition to the fact that it's automatically gonna bring a lot of jobs, without a doubt help the economy, it's gonna have an immediate impact on the price of things. Impact on the price of gas, which in my industry is enormous. People don't understand how the price of fuel affects everything that they pay for, from food to any good that they get. But the bottom line is that this man, because of what I can clearly see as politics to support these environmental people, he is willing to destroy this country, destroy the economy, it's a no-brainer in terms of getting away from dependence on the foreigners, foreign oil. And I just cannot in good conscience continue to hurt my family in the amount that I'm paying for fuel, groceries, and everything else. I cannot in good conscience support this man when this is obviously political because it would have helped this country and the economy. So I want to say that I'm finally seeing the light and I'm done with him.
I find it almost physically impossible to watch the demagogue in action so I'll stick with Netflix reruns tonight. (Things are really heating up between Andy and Helen Crump -- how will it end?)
I didn't watch it. 9:00 pm is too late a start for this early bird. (Brian Williams would have sent me to dreamland within the first five minutes, anyway.) I gather it wasn't the battle of the titans so many had hoped for. But I think Romney scored a palpable hit here:
Santorum's moment here. Of course he's right. Does it matter?
But if you want real entertainment, watch Sarah Palin cut Chris Christie off at the knees, mom-style:
Poor Chris!
(The Right Scoop has the entire Palin interview here.)
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Update: I just read some of the transcript of the Palin interview. She was quite serious about that "rookie mistake":
I think if Chris were asked about some of his past actions, taking a state helicopter to his kid’s baseball game, some people may say, well, that sort of embarrassed your party, Chris. And he would then be on the receiving end of a comment that maybe he wished that somebody kept as an inside thought and not blasting that to the rest of the nation. He’s been in office a year or two is all, and he’ll learn that the media goad you. They want you to say things like that in order to boost ratings and make it more of a reality show-type scenario that we’re watching in the GOP primary. And a comment like that just kind of played right on into that narrative.”
He just produced an ad for the Democrats.
She goes on to defend Newt's record, back in the day, of conservative action. At least he's got something to point to, which is more than you can say for Romney.
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See comments on whether Newt has actually embarrassed the Republican party, assuming it's capable of being embarrassed.
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Barack Obama on the glorious anniversary of Roe v Wade:
And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.
In Obama’s world, our daughter’s happiness depends upon having these options at their disposal, literally and figuratively. Because love, and the sneaky way it has of showing up whenever a baby is born and then complicating everything, (because it is meaningful and real) is an insufficient vehicle for the fulfillment of women, and their self-actualization.
Arise, daughters of America, and build your dreams upon the slaughter of your progeny; some say the fullness of our humanity was built upon the flesh and blood of one woman who said “yes” to a daunting and difficult proposal, but I say your fulfillment, your dreams and your future are better built upon the garbage heaps of “no” we’ve encouraged you to form out of your own flesh-and-blood in the empty landfills of government compassion, hope and change.
Because “yes we can,” is all about the hope and change that’s built on our emphatic “noes”. No, to life. No, to conscience. No, to compassion that is not mandated. No, to assistance given by any but government. No, to any power greater than ourselves and our glorious government.
My husband and two three of the kids (forgot about my oldest who's there with friends) are at the March for Life on this cold, rainy day. If they brought the camera, and if they took pictures, and if they got any good ones, I'll post them here.
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Over the next few weeks, or months, Gingrich will argue that Romney isn't conservative and isn't as electable as the establishment will have you believe, while Romney will argue that Gingrich isn't electable and isn't as conservative as he'd have you believe. And they'll both be right.
Rick Santorum, the newly-minted Iowa victor will try to find a seam between the two of them by arguing that he is the choice for consistent conservatism. But he'll run into problems making that argument.
Of course, President Obama is looming in the background in all of this. If he wins, he won't repeal Obamacare or sign real entitlement reform to rein in our debt. He'll raise taxes, expand regulations on businesses, appoint a new wave of liberal judges to the bench and union-friendly appointees to key posts.
One of the miracles of America's founding was that so many great men emerged at once and complemented each other with unique skills. But now, in a time of great crisis, we're stuck with painfully bad choices.
Yup. But it's impossible to compare the process of electing a president now to what it was two centuries ago, or even to fifty years ago when television changed everything. Huge piles of money are now crucial to success, and media scrutiny is so intense that not many persons, even great ones, are willing to subject themselves or their families to its pitiless glare.
Now for a bit of dead-horse-beating. As for the might-have-runs who chose not to offer themselves as candidates this time around, none of them had the complete Rick Perry package: genuine conservative principles, a long record of successful leadership, and a temperament suited to the office. And none of them was without his own negatives. To name a few: Mitch Daniels: "truce," bald, family problems; Bobby Jindal: dull; Chris Christie: too fat, RINO-esque, arrogant; even Paul Ryan: inexperienced. And who knows how the fickle at-home viewers would have rated their debate performances? Perry's notorious oops (and the resultant disproportionate, magnifying spin) was the biggest factor in his failure to attract support. Amid all the attention, little serious discussion was given to what kind of president he was likely to have been, based on his extensive record. His flop was an enormous win for Obama.
Now we're looking at a couple of guys with towering negatives, some of which may constitute deal-breakers for some conservative voters. Come November and beyond, when this American Idol-esque nomination process has borne its strange fruit, Perry's "oops" may look very tiny in comparison to the one uttered by the rest of us.
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I was pleased to see Santorum finish ahead of Ron Paul. And it's nice to see voters reject the RINO default option. But beyond that, we are still in deep, deep trouble. Newt Gingrich's temperament is as ill-suited to the presidency as is Obama's. To put it in Newtonian terms, it is extraordinarily, profoundly, deeply, and yes, fundamentally ill-suited.
America has mixed feelings about Newt. He puts on a great show at the debates, taking it to the media with gusto. The South Carolinians enjoyed it so much they voted overwhelmingly to keep him on the show. But behold his unfavorables:
Think trainwreck.
I'm out of time. Explore the reams of analysis in the links on the right and enjoy your Sunday.
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Make that awkward and defensive. Mitt under fire isn't as smooth as advertized. So if you bought into that narrative it's time to update.
For the record, I believe Mitt is still the favorite to win the nomination. (Not my favorite, the favorite.) Which is not to say he'll be a strong candidate against Obama. I think Michael Walsh nailed it a few weeks ago:
The Dems have already telegraphed a good deal of their playbook — they’ll paint him as a nervous, grinning, stuttering, heartless capitalist who’s also a “weird” social-issues nut — and hope to scare the hell out of the electorate, which by now has grown used to the dull pain of the Obama administration.
The polls are saying that Mitt is likely to lose, and maybe lose big, to Gingrich in SC. If so, he'll also lose his "winner" veneer, which was never based on much besides speculation and wishful thinking.
Would be a real shame if Tea Party traitor Nikki Haley can't deliver her own state to Mitt. Oops!
With Perry gone, Dan's for Newt. I'm not. I've transferred my allegiance from one hopeless candidate to another who's almost hopeless. Not that it matters much; even if it's not over by March 6, date of the Virginia primary, the only guys on my ballot will be Willard M. Romney and Ron Paul. So I'll be choosing between staying home or spoiling my ballot with an invalid write-in.
I was hoping Mark Steyn would comment on the Costa Concordia disaster and so he has in his weekend column, No More 'Women and Children First.' Go read it and then come back here.
Okay. This part:
Whenever I write about these subjects, I receive a lot of mail from men along the lines of this correspondent:
"The feminists wanted a gender-neutral society. Now they've got it. So what are you complaining about?"
And so the manly virtues (if you'll forgive a quaint phrase) shrivel away to the so-called "man caves," those sad little redoubts of beer and premium cable sports networks.
We are beyond social norms these days. A woman can be a soldier. A man can be a woman. A 7-year-old cross-dressing boy can join the Girl Scouts in Colorado because he "identifies" as a girl. It all adds to life's rich tapestry, no doubt. But I can't help wondering, when the ship hits the fan, how many of us will still be willing to identify as a man.
That goes into my "best of Steyn" file, as does the part about "finishing in style" from Kipling's "Soldier an' Sailor Too":
We're most of us liars, we're 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest of us rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style (which I 'ope it won't 'appen to me).
According to reports, Capt. Schettino had a different concept of finishing in style, allegedly ordering dinner for himself and a young female companion after the ship ran aground.
Jonah Goldberg on Newt's big offensive against the media last night:
Newt’s opening answer was very strong and will be replayed a lot. But I thought it was overstated and, as he kept going, it became clear he was trying to squelch the issue rather than express his true rage. When he was all lovey-dovey with John King after the debate, it underscored that it was as much performance as anything else.
Newt denied the "open marriage" allegation and tried to shift the opprobrium to the liberal media, which isn't very hard. The SC crowd positively eats up Gingrich's defiant attitude.
But here's a heads-up for Newt: We don't have to choose between you and them; we can dislike you both. For the record, I'm finding very little to like in this weird nomination process, including:
I'm disappointed in the Tea Party movement's failure to rally behind a genuine conservative candidate, but I'm hoping it will be more effective in influencing state and local elections. That will need to be the focus.
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Many thanks to Mark Steyn for linking this at the Corner. See his post as well as this one and this one.
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A pox upon me for a clumsy lout. The title should have said "plague," not "pox." I've changed it.
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I heard ABC's Brian Ross say that the big revelation in the Marianne Gingrich interview to be aired tonight is that Newt asked her for an "open marriage." (Audio here.) Can't he spin that as an extraordinarily bold solution to a fundamentally difficult problem? He was just thinking outside the box.
Seriously, Gingrich supporters already knew that his second and third marriages overlapped a bit awkwardly with his first and second, right? This "open marriage" detail can't be confirmed, either. I agree with Newt: it's "simply wrong" to air it.
And [ahem] Marianne knew that Newt was married when she became involved with him, right? I'm curious to see whether that will come up in the interview.
I'm a little surprised the media didn't hold off on this a bit longer, but they're the best judges of how and when to create the most damage to their enemies. They've had so much practice.
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Via Legal Insurrection, Gov. Rick Perry will announce at 11:00 this morning that he'll drop out of the race and endorse Newt. It's also been announced that one hundred tea party leaders will also go for Newt.
Isn’t it time for Reince Priebus to get out of his chair and, while clapping his hands, say “All right everybody, great dry run. Special thanks to the understudies and body doubles for helping with the lighting and blocking. Now we’re going to start the Republican primaries for real. Jindal! Ryan! Christie! Daniels! Put down the cards and get up here. Rehearsal’s over!
But I don't think Daniels would have gone anywhere, or even Jindal, for that matter. Christie, for all his virtues, would have made a flawed candidate, too. As for Paul Ryan -- no executive experience. That should matter. Though I'd vote for him in a second.
I'd also include Mike Pence on the list of should-have-runs. But maybe he'd have been a total flop, too. This is not a rational process.
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Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.
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My links widget is still broken so here are a few items I would have put there if I could. Today's theme, so far, seems to be civilizational breakdown. Enjoy!
Last week, a judge in St. Louis released seven middle school students after the key witness failed to show up for a hearing. The juveniles were accused of beating a local man almost to death. What had the poor man done to deserve such a thrashing? Not a thing. He was simply walking home from the grocery store. The attack, it turned out, was part of a popular craze our local youth call the knockout game, though it is anything but a game. One elderly man has already died from a similar assault.
After the dismissal, the teens celebrated outside the courtroom, high-fiving one another.
Police had arrested the young thugs after they bragged about the beatings on a Facebook page. Evidently, the teens believed society could do nothing to them, even if they crowed publicly about their exploits. It turns out they were right.
Hoffman bluntly acknowledged that abortion involves killing an unborn child: "In the beginning [pro-lifers] were calling it a baby. We were saying it was only blood and tissue. Let's agree this is a life form, a potential life; you're terminating it. You don't have to argue that abortion stops a beating heart. It does." Nor does she insist that abortion is a minor medical procedure: "I can't say it's just like an appendectomy. It isn't. It's a very powerful and loaded decision."
Like Alexander Sanger, Hoffman sees abortion as a laudable act of self-defense against the encroaching unborn child. Referring to her own abortion, Hoffman writes in a soon-to-be-released memoir, Intimate Wars: "With my choice I was fighting for the right of all women to define abortion as an act of love: love for the family one already has, and just as important, love for oneself. I was fighting to reclaim abortion as a mother's act. It was an act of solidarity as significant as any other I had committed."
Love. I don't think that word means what she thinks it means.
“There are too many holes in the certified totals from the Iowa caucuses to know for certain who won, but Rick Santorum wound up with a 34-vote advantage. Results from eight precincts are missing — any of which could hold an advantage for Mitt Romney — and will never be recovered and certified, Republican Party of Iowa officials told The Des Moines Register on Wednesday."
A murder mystery is now unraveling on a stretch of North Reservation Road in Tucson, Ariz. County workers found a headless man lying on the side of the road Jan. 6. The man’s hands and feet were reportedly missing, too.
“It would lead me to believe the message wanted to be sent. This is one of the ways they do it in Mexico, Colombia and other places,” says Jordan.
Jordan says the cartels are getting bolder in carrying out their beheadings across the border. He says we only used to see these crimes in Mexico.
So what are the Girl Scouts of America up to now? I mean besides last year's GS of Colorado's declaration on what constitutes a "girl": “If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.” And besides the GSA's promotion of Media Matters as a reliable source of information. And besides the Girl Scouts' intolerance of pro-life views.
Ten years ago, Girl Scouts media relations officer Joshua Ackley was frontman for the “homopunk” band the Dead Betties. In publicity shots, he’s dressed in women’s clothing, and in music videos, he appears to be naked and feigning masturbation. The video for “Hellevator” portrays a woman being strangled in an elevator shaft while Mr. Ackley flashes a menacing grin.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if someone like Mr. Ackley was behind the Girl Scouts’ recent scandal: a guidebook that tells girls to check with the leftist, George Soros-funded Media Matters before believing what they read in the news.
As boys send in their orders for Brownie beanies and tights, the Girl Scouts have declared 2012 to be “The Year of the Girl,” announcing that they will be “working to break down societal barriers that prevent girls from leading in their own lives.” What barriers? What does “leading in their own lives” even mean? Forgive me for thinking it has something to do with sex or abortion.
Surprise, surprise: Feminist Amanda Marcotte has a conniption over the "Christian right's" oppressive agenda to raise girls as girls and boys as boys. Stacy McCain:
The genuinely troubling thing about this is not merely that, to the liberal intelligentsia, transgendered 7-year-olds are entirely acceptable and praiseworthy, a phenomenon about which no one dare raise a skeptical eyebrow, lest they be accused of “hate.” No, what is truly disturbing is the intelligentsia’s belief that there is something wrong with parents who think that Girl Scouts should be for, y’know, girls.
Attitudes that are altogether common and understandable — such as parents’ desire to provide their children a normal, wholesome childhood environment — are re-imagined by the liberal intelligentsia as hateful bigotry, which must be explained by reference to some sort of reactionary political impulse. And thus the majority of Americans are cast as hopelessly prejudiced, prone to manipulation by shadowy right-wingers, and therefore in need of enlightenment by their moral and intellectual superiors because … Progress!
I took a peek at Marcotte's piece and didn't know whether to laugh or cry at her description of the poor little boy; it's an attempt to validate his confusion as innate and inevitable: "a 7-year-old who was born with male genitalia but has identified as female since age 2."
There are alternatives to the Girls Scouts. But an even better choice, in my mind, is to spend some time with your kids in your own kitchen, baking up some cookies. Thin Mint substitutes here (not exactly the same but delicious), Samoas here (via PJM).
Thanks to AS for sending me the WT story.
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I missed the first hour of the Myrtle Beach debate but I gather from the commentary that Gingrich was on his game, Romney was not, Santorum was okay but kind of annoying, Ron Paul was very annoying, and Rick Perry's performance fell somewhere between his best and god-awful. A sampling of the analysis:
With conservatives finally moving in his direction, Mitt Romney picked Monday night to turn in a terrible performance. If somebody told him he just had to stand there and not make a gaffe, they were wrong. [. . .]
Newt Gingrich, by contrast, was on fire. A viewer who (unlike this one) could overlook his disgraceful recent behavior might have been moved to cheer. Gingrich repeatedly stated the conservative position better than anybody on the stage.
When panelist Juan Williams asked Gingrich something silly about whether his plan to put poor kids to work as janitors (gasp!) is condescending to minorities, Gingrich magisterially sighed: “No.” Only elites look down on earning money, Gingrich said. He made Juan look snobbish. [See clip below.]
Even the irrelevant but likeable Rick Perry turned in a better performance than Romney. Perry’s best moment came when Williams asked him about the Obama administration’s war on voter-ID requirements. Perry came out swinging and it was good.
Yes, unless God drops a miracle on him, Perry is irrelevant. Nevertheless, watch that moment here. More from Ms. Hays:
Ron Paul was fine until the discussion moved to foreign policy and he went nutsy. We should have phoned Pakistan before going after Bin Laden? Oh, and what’s wrong with capturing him and having a trial?
That's when Rick Perry rightly called for the gong. Ms. Hays has some good advice for Romney:
He also needs to drop the smile. Nothing wrong in looking serious in serious times.
Yes, please.
As for Newt, his best moment of the evening is worth embedding:
And the crowd roared.
The talking heads' post-debate analysis I saw spent a lot of time on how well Gingrich did; how, er, enthusiastic are the Paulbots (no news there), who made a joke of the silly Twitter gimmick; and almost zero time on Rick Perry. Since I still like Perry and this is my blog, here's Bryan Preston's analysis:
A few scattered takeaways from the debate: Romney agrees with Perry more often than any other candidate on policy. I counted four times Romney used some variation of “I agree with Gov. Perry” versus one “Rick is right” nod to Santorum. Santorum opposes privatizing Social Security in any way and had to answer for past policy misjudgments. Gingrich is extremely intelligent but has a tendency to wander off into the weeds on policy discussions. He spent less time attacking the moderators of this debate than previous ones. Perry had his best debate so far, despite having little time at his disposal. He was deft on economic and foreign policy, strong on his defense of our troops and on border security. Ron Paul’s foreign policy consists of irresponsible attempts to create moral equivalence where it does not exist, and to blame America where it is not justified. Super PACs have done what seemed impossible, and made our politics less honest while giving politicians more incentives to lie to the voters.
Rick Perry was at his strongest and most presidential tonight. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich performed well at times but both reverted to their sour pre-Iowa personas more often than they will find helpful. Ron Paul will probably pick up more support from disaffected former Obama supporters, further distorting the Republican primary race. But in returning to the beginning of this article, Mitt Romney weathered the fire well and did not fumble the ball, but the pressure to release his tax returns will grow.
Least-substantive post-debate commentary I've come across is this bit from Lisa Schiffren:
Watching Rick Perry jump in with his male-model looks and posture, and aggressive, canned, superficial argument, is kind of old. Time for Governor Perry to pack it in.
That's the equivalent of "I don't like his face." I don't like some of their faces all that much, either, but that's not much of an argument, though it is certainly superficial.
As for the state of the race, #2 son, who will be voting in his first presidential election, looked at these ABCNews/WaPo poll results and commented, "So nobody likes Romney but everybody thinks he's going to win." Yes, call it the lemming effect.
Men refused to prioritise women, expectant mothers and children as they pushed themselves forward to escape. Crew ignored their passengers – leaving ‘chefs and waiters’ to help out. [. . .]
‘I was standing by the lifeboats and men, big men, were banging into me and knocking the girls. It was awful. There was a total lack of organisation. There was no one telling people where to go.
‘And when we finally got into a lifeboat, people, grown men, were trying to jump into the boat. I thought, if they land in here we are going to capsize.
That woman had some very old-school expectations of "grown men," it seems. And special treatment for pregnant women? Based on what?
Frenchwoman Isabelle Mougin, 38, who is five months pregnant, wept as she described her battle to get off the sinking ship with her husband. Interviewed in hospital, she said the captain refused to let them leave the vessel, even though she pleaded that she was a priority case because of her pregnancy.
‘We were stuck. He told us we couldn’t get off. I thought my baby was going to die – I thought we were all going to die. The captain just went, he just left the boat, left us there, I just cannot believe it.
Duty, honor, and self-sacrifice are so last-century. But the captain is under arrest. So there's that.
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Update: It's reported that there's an audio recording of the Coast Guard ordering the captain back on board the ship. Transcript here.
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Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.
Most recent posts here. Twitter feed here. Amazon store here.
Gov. Rick Perry was asked by Candy Crowley to comment on the Marine urination scandal. I liked his response:
"Well, obviously, 18, 19-year-old kids make stupid mistakes all too often, and that's what's occurred here." Perry said, reminding viewers that General Patton did "basically the same thing" at the Rhein [sic] river and that Churchhill [sic] did the same thing on the Siegfried Line.
"What's really disturbing to me is this kind of over the top rhetoric from this administration and their disdain for the military, it appears." Perry said, "Whether its the Secretary of State or the Secretary of Defense.
"These kids made a mistake. There's not any doubt about it, they shouldn't have done it it. It's bad." Perry said, arguing that people upload all types of videos online. "But to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top."
Video here. More video here from last night's "Huckabee Forum." Perry starts taking questions at the 58 minute mark. His limited-government message, with his impressive record as Texas governor to back it up, should appeal to conservatives who understand the terrible mess we're in.
Too bad Perry's been branded by the pundit-sphere as a dummy/loser and therefore "unelectable":
Perry's campaign suffered yet another setback on Saturday when a group of leading social conservative activists announced their endorsement of his rival, former Sen. Rick Santorum (Pa.).
Perry admitted that he would have liked to have won the group's endorsement, but said voters will ultimately decide the nomination.
He argued that he, not Santorum, is "the most consistent social and fiscal conservative in the race."
Crowley noted that Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council and a spokesman for the social conservative group, said that questions about Perry's electability were why the group chose not to back him.
"That's what they said about Ronald Reagan in 1980," Perry responded.
Sussing out the ephemeral "electability factor" is a fool's errand. Take Mitt Romney. Please. Like Obama's purported "first-class temperament," Romney's chief asset, his electability, is based on very slim evidence indeed:
Aside from winning the governorship against extremely weak opposition in a three-way race where he failed to get an actual majority of the vote, in a state that despite its liberalism had become accustomed to electing Republican governors (for 12 straight years), Romney still has never won an electorally significant victory that wasn't in his native state (Michigan) or in a state that is his backyard and site of his vacation home (New Hampshire). Even in Iowa, his mere eight-vote win after five years of work there amounted to six (yes, count them, exactly six) fewer votes than he earned four years earlier in the same caucus system.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg of Romney's weaknesses. Read the rest.
Back to that endorsement, it's interesting that the group determined that Rick S. is more "electable" than Rick P. Maybe they're right. But it's certainly not obvious.
But, you say, Gov. Rick Perry's so stupid he called on a mannequin at the "Squat-N-Gobble" (!) eatery. Oh, wait. He only joked about calling on the restaurant's mascot, who stands in the back with her arm perpetually raised. But it was reported and reflexively repeated as another Perry "oops." (Hey Buzzfeed, I love the way you "retracted" your stories on this. I guess it fits the Perry-is-so-dumb narrative too well for you to make a fuss about it being false.)
And just when you thought this whole thing couldn't get any weirder, we have the story of Romney handing out cash to a woman with a tale of woe on the campaign trail in SC. The kicker for me: She was undecided until Romney's act of charity won her over -- "I was caught between him [Mitt] and Perry." (2:40 into the video.) Now she's working for the Romney campaign. If Perry slips her $100 will she change her mind? (And if Romney gets elected, will he go around the country granting wishes to his impoverished subjects?)
The Regressives want us to think there’s a “war on women” going on, but the fact is, there’s a war on children — which means there’s a war on the future, and the future is losing. What World War II could not accomplish — the complete eradication of whole populations — western-style feminism just might. You’ve come a long way, baby. Michael Walsh
The central fact of our age is the unprecedented, voluntary self-extinction of the developed world. Mark Steyn
