Music break: They Say It's Spring

This is a sweet song from the fifties that you might not know:



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No, Romney's not a "foul-mouthed oaf"

Nor is he particularly "big-headed," that I've noticed. (Query: Is it possible to be "big-headed" and "pea-brained" at the same time? Or maybe it was supposed to read "pig-headed" and got lost in translation.)

If I'm going to have to spend the next six or seven months defending Mitt Romney I might as well start with something easy. From the fine folks at Pravda:

Electing Mitt Romney as the next President of the United States of America would be like appointing a serial paedophile as a kindergarten teacher, a rapist as a janitor at a girls' dormitory or a psychopath with a fixation on knives as a kitchen hand. His comments on Russia are a puerile attempt at making the grand stage and boy, did he blow it...

Somewhat like Condoleezza Rice did before the Bush regime was er..."elected" ..., Mitt Romney takes the chance to mouth off about Russia, calling her "our number one geopolitical foe" which fights "every cause for the world's worst actors". Unfortunately, such vapid stupidity has become commonplace among senior US politicians, providing the rest of the world with a telling insight as to the real nature of the political class in that country - out of touch, out of date and dangerously jingoistic. In short, overgrown self-opinionated schoolboys with super-egos but nothing whatsoever to back it up with.

True, it feels great to slag off another country's cuisine and say, for example, that "Mexican food is crap! American food is far better!" Adolescent-type comments such as these generally provoke a session of back-patting, and a ra-ra-ra raucous explosion of national pride which after a few drinks degenerates into "My God is better than your God" and then "My President could smack the crap out of yours".

Fine for grade school playgrounds. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where this upstart nonentity Mitt Romney belongs, certainly not to the intricate and complex wheels and cogs of world policy and nowhere near a red button. Imagine this guy as President!

Exactly at a time when Russia and the USA are finding that they have far more in common than differences, exactly when they see that they are much more friends than foes, when they see that there is so much to be gained through collaboration, a foul-mouthed, big-headed oaf like Romney with more money than sense makes a comment that reveals who he really is to the world: a pea-brained, pith-headed simpleton with too much testosterone and too little common sense, with zero tact, no diplomacy and a paramount grasp on the intricacies of world politics. A prize, good-for-nothing ignoramus

At a time when Russia and the United States of America are working together in space, at a time when the scientific communities and Universities are ever more intricately linked, when the security networks share information more freely on terrorists, on crime, combating drugs trafficking, at a time when the two countries are working together on trade and commerce and forging common links on intellectual property rights, up comes stick-in-the-mud wannabe Presidential candidate Mitt Romney blurting out outdated Cold War drivel like some redneck nearing an alcoholic coma.

With as much credibility. In fact, one has seen more intelligent things scrawled in excrement on the walls of public latrines.

So nobody needs to remind Mitt Romney, now we are speaking about geopolitical foes, which nation carried out an act of atomic terrorism, not once but twice, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians with a callous and cold-blooded disregard for the lives of women and children; we do not need to remind Mitt Romney, now we are speaking about geopolitical foes, who deployed agent orange in Nam and committed massacres and mass rape there.

And now we are speaking about geopolitical foes, we do not need to remind Mitt Romney about who was supporting terrorists in Afghanistan to undermine the only progressive government the country has had, terrorists which morphed into the Taliban, we do not need to remind Mitt Romney about the outrageous act of slaughter in Iraq, about the illegal detention of civilians and the shocking and barbaric treatment meted out to them by the likes of his probable heroine Lynndie England, we do not need to remind Mitt Romney about concentration camps and human rights abuses managed and masterminded by personnel from the good old US of A.

So perhaps Mitt Romney agrees with US policy? Maybe he agrees with Guantanamo Bay concentration camp, maybe he applauded what went on in Abu Ghraib - the urinating in food, the torture, the setting dogs on people, the rape, the sodomy of male detainees. Aren't Mormons supposed to be against these things? Wow... Mitt Romney probably backed the USA's policy of arming and supporting terrorists in Libya to destroy the Jamahiriya just because Gaddafi's African projects were costing its institutions and lobbies too much money and for sure Mitt Romney is also backing the terrorists, (sorry "activists" because they buy NATO weaponry) in Syria.

So talking about geopolitical foes...next time Mitt Romney had better back off, butt out and mind his manners, so as not to appear like a foul-mouthed guttersnipe whose utter ignorance and pig-headed arrogance is only too clear for all to see. See how he walked straight into this one, ladies and gentlemen? Imagine THAT as your President...

"Much more friends than foes?" Really?

One thing the generic-insult-o-matic generator failed to spew out: Romney's not nearly as flexible as Comrade Obama.

 Mark Steyn on that:

Well, I think if you wanted just a single reason to vote this guy out in November, this is pretty much it. It’s part of a pattern. He regretted, a couple of years ago, that he didn’t have the freedom of maneuver that the politburo does in China. And we know that in China, it’s a dictatorship. In Russia, Vladimir Putin rigs the elections. Here, there’s 300 million people who have got all kinds of whimsical ideas about this and that, and they’re getting in his way. And for him to actually be sitting there next to the president of a hostile power, and say oh, believe me, I so envy you, you wouldn’t believe the trouble I have with this crazy democracy business back home, I can’t wait until that’s all behind me, and then I can just do what I want, that alone ought to be a disqualifier for office.

Exactly right. See also: Don Wade and Roma's 10 minute audio interview with Steyn.

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Ryan & Romney, et cetera

Rep. Paul Ryan has endorsed Mitt Romney. Though I haven't worked all the way through to the acceptance stage yet, I think the addition of Ryan to the GOP ticket would take a little of the edge off the pain of a Romney nomination, a la McCain with his choice of Palin. Would you be in favor of Ryan as VP, or do you think he's more useful where he is? Along those lines, Jim Pethokoukis instructs on the amazing difference Paul Ryan has already made.

In other news, lefty loons say the darnedest things:

Gov. Jerry Brown on how to become a millionaire:

Anybody who makes $250,000 becomes a millionaire very quickly if you save it. You just need four years. 

VP Joe Biden cracks a "joke" that is nothing but a bald statement of fact:

I never had an interest in being a mayor 'cause that's a real job.  You have to produce.  That's why I was able to be a senator for 36 years.

And from the Who Cares? department, Peggy Noonan starts to wake up and smell the rancid coffee brewing in the Obama administration. She uses words such as "devious" and "creepy." Welcome to reality, Peggy.

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Variations on a theme

Proposed: Liberals are vastly more insulated from diverse points of view than are conservatives, and have had to exempt themselves from real intellectual rigor to preserve their worldview. Cases in point:

David Bernstein: SG Verrilli Relies on the Constitution’s Preamble

This strikes me as part of a pattern I detect throughout this litigation and especially in the SG’s oral argument: the government’s lawyers seem to have no idea how conservative jurists typically think about  the Constitution.  Instead, they make arguments that would get almost unanimous nods of approval in the Harvard (or Columbia, the SG’s alma mater) Law School faculty lounge, but are not remotely persuasive to the other side.

Jeffrey Anderson: Breyer's Missteps

Breyer’s first example cites a power that, so far as I know, Congress has never claimed. [. . .]

Breyer’s second example, however, isn’t accurate. Congress did not require the farmer in Wickard v. Filburn to buy wheat. It limited the amount of wheat he could grow.  He may have decided to buy wheat in response, or sell less of his allotment and keep more of it for his own use, or take other courses of action, but he was not required to purchase wheat under penalty of law — a fundamental distinction.  [. . .]

Breyer’s third example is, indeed, of an actual congressional power, but its relevance to the case at hand seems mysterious.

Tamara Shayne Kagel: I've Never Dated Anyone Without Dating Their Politics, Too

As a lifelong Democrat, I never thought I would be in this place. I never thought I would have to confront this dreaded unforeseen fear -- the terror that is, for me, dating a Republican. I don't even know very many Republicans. [. . .] I grew up knowing very few Republicans and the rare ones I did know got made fun behind their backs, be it children or adults. [. . .]

Naturally, he doesn't think it's a big deal. He keeps saying we can always find common ground. But I find myself angry with him for things that I expect to take for granted. He admitted to me that the word "liberal" for him had a bad connotation and that the word "conservative" did not. It's hard to blame him when this is a common phenomena in our country now so that only 20% of the population identifies as liberal while 40% is willing to identify as conservative. I tell him this is a direct result of the vitriol that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have injected into our discourse and he shouldn't buy into their demonizing of the left. But for my boyfriend, "liberal" means big government inefficiency. I'm normally a calm person, but when he said this, I was close to flipping out. How could he buy into all that? He's a smart person, he reads reputable news sources. And yet, I continually find myself mad at him for buying into conservative propaganda.

Charles C. W. Cooke, outnumbered but not outsmarted:



(I remember Danny Schecter as WBCN's "news dissector" in Boston in 19--. Haven't thought of him in x number of decades.)

Thanks to Carl Scott of Postmodern Conservative for linking.
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Obamacare: TLDNR [updated]

That's "too long did not read." And that's a problem. How do you even begin to sort the wheat from the chaff in a law that's 2700 pages long? With great difficulty:

JUSTICE SCALIA: — don't you think it's unrealistic to say leave it to Congress, as though you are sending it back to Congress for Congress to consider it dispassionately on balance, should we have this provision or should we not have provision? That's not what it's going to be. It's going to be, these provisions are in effect; even though you — a lot of you never wanted them to be in effect, and you only voted for them because you wanted to get the heart of the — the Act, which has now been cut out; but nonetheless these provisions are the law, and you have to get the votes to overturn them. That's an enormously different question from whether you get the votes initially to put them into the law.

What — there, there is no way that this Court's decision is not going to distort the congressional process. Whether we strike it all down or leave some of it in place, the congressional process will never be the same. One way or another, Congress is going to have to reconsider this, and why isn't it better to have them reconsider it — what — what should I say — in toto, rather than having some things already in the law which you have to eliminate before you can move on to consider everything on balance?

MR. KNEEDLER: We think as a matter of judicial restraint, limits on equitable remedial power limit this Court to addressing the provision that has been challenged as unconstitutional and anything else that the plaintiff seeks as relief. Here the only -

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But in restraint -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Kneedler would you please -

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Justice Kennedy?

JUSTICE KENNEDY: When you say judicial restraint, you are echoing the earlier premise that it increases the judicial power if the judiciary strikes down other provisions of the Act. I suggest to you it might be quite the opposite. We would be exercising the judicial power if one Act was — one provision was stricken and the others remained to impose a risk on insurance companies that Congress had never intended. By reason of this Court, we would have a new regime that Congress did not provide for, did not consider. That, it seems to me can be argued at least to be a more extreme exercise of judicial power than to strike -­than striking the whole.

MR. KNEEDLER: I — I — I think not -

JUSTICE KENNEDY: I just don't accept the premise.

MR. KNEEDLER: I think not, Justice Kennedy and then I — I will move on.

But this is exactly the situation in Printz. The Court identified the severability questions that were — that were briefed before the Court as important ones, but said that they affect people who are — rights and obligations of people who are not before the Court.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Mr. Kneedler, move away from the issue of whether it's a standing question or not.

MR. KNEEDLER: Right.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Make the assumption that's an — that this is an issue of the Court's exercise of discretion. Because the last two questions had to do with what's wise for the Court to do, not whether it has power to do it or not.

MR. KNEEDLER: Right. That -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: So let's move beyond the power issue, which your answers have centered on, and give me a sort of — policy. And I know that's a, that's a bugaboo word sometimes, but what should guide the Court's discretion?

MR. KNEEDLER: Well, we think that matters of justiciability do blend into -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: Would you please — I've asked you three times to move around that.

MR. KNEEDLER: — blend into, blend into discretion, and in turn blend into the merits of the severability question. And as to that, just to answer a question that, that several Justices have asked, we think that severability is a matter of statutory interpretation. It should be resolved by looking at the structure and the text of the Act, and the Court may look at legislative history to figure out what the text and structure mean with respect to severability. We don't -

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Kneedler, what happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages?

(Laughter.)

JUSTICE SCALIA: And do you really expect the Court to do that? Or do you expect us to — to give this function to our law clerks?

Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?

MR. KNEEDLER: Well -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: I thought the answer was you don't have to because -

MR. KNEEDLER: Well, that is, that is the -

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: — what we have to look at is what Congress said was essential, correct?

MR. KNEEDLER: That is correct, and I'd also like to — going — I just want to finish the thought I had about this being a matter of statutory interpretation. The Court's task, we submit, is not to look at the legislative process to see whether the bill would been — would have passed or not based on the political situation at the time, which would basically convert the Court into a function such as a whip count. That is not the Court's -

JUSTICE KAGAN: And Mr. Kneedler, that would be a revolution -

MR. KNEEDLER: Yes.

JUSTICE KAGAN: — in our severability law, wouldn't it?

MR. KNEEDLER: It would.

JUSTICE KAGAN: I mean, we have never suggested that we were going to say, look, this legislation was a brokered compromise and we are going to try to figure out exactly what would have happened in the complex parliamentary shenanigans that go on across the street and figure out whether they would have made a difference.

Instead, we look at the text that's actually given us. For some people, we look only at the text. It should be easy for Justice Scalia's clerks.

(Laughter.)

MR. KNEEDLER: I — I think — I think that -

JUSTICE SCALIA: I don't care whether it's easy for my clerks. I care whether it's easy for me.

(Laughter.)

MR. KNEEDLER: I think that — I think that's exactly right. As I said, it is a question of statutory interpretation.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, how is that -

what's exactly right? It's a question of statutory interpretation; that means you have to go through every line of the statute. I haven't heard your answer to Justice Scalia's question yet.

MR. KNEEDLER: Well, I — I think in this case there is an easy answer, and that is, Justice Kagan pointed out that, that the Act itself creates a sharp dividing line between the minimum coverage provision -­the package of — of reforms: The minimum coverage provision along with the guaranteed-issue and community rating. That is one package that Congress deemed essential.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: How do you know that? Where is this line? I looked through the whole Act, I didn't read — well -

MR. KNEEDLER: It is in -

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Where is the sharp line?

It seems the extreme length of this catch-all law may have rendered it unsalvageable. More:

MR. KNEEDLER: Well, we don't think it's in the Court's place to look at the, at the budgetary implications, and we also -

JUSTICE KENNEDY: But isn't that — isn't that the point then, why we should just assume that it is not severable?

MR. KNEEDLER: No.

JUSTICE KENNEDY: If we — if we lack the competence to even assess whether there is a risk, then isn't this an awesome exercise of judicial power?

MR. KNEEDLER: No, I don't -

JUSTICE KENNEDY: To say we are doing something and we are not telling you what the consequences might be?

MR. KNEEDLER: No, I don't think so, because when you — when you are talking about monetary consequences, you are looking through the Act, you are looking behind the Act, rather than — the Court's function is to look at the text and structure of the Act and what the substantive provisions of the Act themselves mean. And if I could go past -

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Kneedler, can I — can you give us a prior case in — that — that resembles this one in which we — we are asked to strike down what the other side says is the heart of the Act and yet leave in — as — as you request, leave, in effect, the rest of it? Have we ever — most of our severability cases, you know, involve one little aspect of the Act. The question is whether the rest. When have we ever really struck down what was the main purpose of the Act, and left the rest in effect?

MR. KNEEDLER: I think Booker is the best example of that. In — in Booker the mandatory sentencing provisions were central to the act, but the Court said Congress would have preferred a statute without the mandatory provision in the Act, and the Court struck that but the rest of the sentencing guidelines remained.

JUSTICE SCALIA: I think the reason — the reason the majority said that was they didn't think that what was essential to the Act was what had been stricken down, and that is the — the ability of the judge to say on his own what — what — what the punishment would be. I don't think that's a case where we struck — where we excised the heart of the statute.

You have another one?

MR. KNEEDLER: There is no example -

JUSTICE SCALIA: There is no example. This is really -

MR. KNEEDLER: — to our — to our — that we have found that suggests the contrary.

JUSTICE SCALIA: This is really a case of first impression. I don't know another case where we have been confronted with this — with this decision.

Can you take out the heart of the Act and leave everything else in place?

MR. KNEEDLER: I would like to go to the heart of the Act point in a moment. But what I'd like to say is this is a huge Act with many provisions that are completely unrelated to market reforms and operate in different ways. And we think it would be extraordinary in this extraordinary Act to strike all of that down because there are many provisions and it would be too hard to do it.

And so on. It's fascinating and even heartening to listen to the smart guys pick through this godawful mess. But then I remember that the lefty justices' minds are mostly closed and that the whole thing is more or less a crapshoot.

The RNC has taken a bit of yesterday's testimony and produced a brutal ad:



Ouch. In the man's defense, he didn't have a lot to work with.

Exit Question: Is SG Verrilli the Bill Buckner of Obamacare?

***

Another bit from Justice Scalia:

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Farr, let's — let's consider how — how your approach, severing as little as possible there — thereby increases the deference that we're showing to — to Congress. It seems to me it puts Congress in — in this position: This Act is still in full effect. There is going to be this deficit that used to be made up by the mandatory coverage provision. All that money has to come from somewhere.

You can't repeal the rest of the Act because you're not going to get 60 votes in the Senate to repeal the rest. It's not a matter of enacting a new act. You've got to get 60 votes to repeal it. So the rest of the Act is going to be the law.

So you're just put to the choice of I guess bankrupting insurance companies and the whole system comes tumbling down, or else enacting a Federal subsidy program to the insurance companies, which is what the insurance companies would like, I'm sure.

Do you really think that that is somehow showing deference to Congress and — and respecting the democratic process?

It seems to me it's a gross distortion of it.

MR. FARR: Well, Your Honor, the — the difficulty is that it seems to me the other possibility is for the Court to make choices, particularly based on what it expects the difficulties of Congress altering the legislation after a Court ruling would be.

I'm not aware of any severability decision that is -

JUSTICE SCALIA: No, I — that wouldn't be my approach. My approach would say if you take the heart out of the statute, the statute's gone. That enables Congress to — to do what it wants in — in the usual fashion. And it doesn't inject us into the process of saying, "this is good, this is bad, this is good, this is bad."

It seems to me it reduces our options the most and increases Congress's the most.

***

Updated 3/30/12 -- About the length of the bill, Byron York: Obamacare's 2,700 pages are too much for justices:

On the one hand, some of the justices appear hesitant to strike down the entire law, even if they kill the mandate, because there are lots of other things in the law that would not be directly affected by losing the mandate. But other justices worry that if they strike down the mandate and leave the rest standing, it would leave an unworkable mess.

When a lawyer urged the court to use "judicial restraint," Justice Anthony Kennedy wondered whether leaving some of the law standing might be more radical than knocking down the whole thing. Kennedy suggested the court might be overstepping its power if "one provision was stricken and the others remained to impose a risk on insurance companies that Congress had never intended. By reason of this court, we would have a new regime that Congress did not provide for, did not consider. That, it seems to me, can be argued at least to be a more extreme exercise of judicial power than ... striking the whole."

Talk like that -- Kennedy is, after all, widely thought to be the swing vote who could save Obamacare -- left the law's supporters absolutely freaked out as they watched and read reports suggesting Obamacare is doomed.

RTR.

Mark Steyn to Hugh Hewitt:

MS: No, but this is what’s fascinating to me, because John Conyers, Congressman Conyers, when he was asked whether he’d read the bill, he said there’s no point in me reading the bill, because I’d have to spend six days with lawyers to tell me what it all meant. Well now, we have the greatest jurists in the land saying that they don’t want to read the bill. So…and there’s a serious point here that when a law is 2,700 pages long, it’s not a law. It’s a hierarchy of privilege. It’s about determining where you come in the particular rankings of privilege that the massive 2,700 pages of regulations are going to bury you under. And that’s why no sane…the minute a law is 2,700 pages, you should vote it down automatically. And by the way, if this Supreme Court had its marbles about it, they would take that view, because all the stuff that got the revolutionaries all riled up, say what you like about the Tea Act, but it was a couple of pages long, and it was about tea, and that’s all. And that’s the way real laws are.

HH: And it does give the lie to the idea anybody has any idea what it does. Nobody has any idea what it does. We know little parts of it.

MS: Well, what it does is it empowers Kommissar Sebelius.

HH: Yes.

MS: The secretary shall determine this, the secretary may determine that, the secretary may, shall and determine anything she wants off the top of her pretty little head. Where do you go to vote out the kommissar of health and human services? The fact of the matter is this is not a law in the sense of a clearly defined law being passed by elected citizen representatives in a legislature. And that is the great problem with the hyper-regulatory state, by the way, that the old line about ignorance of the law being no excuse no longer applies, because you and I, and everybody else that’s walking around, in breach of a bazillion little regulations that some guy cooked up in the back office that we’re not even aware of.

RTR.

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Honoring Trayvon's memory

In a touching tribute to the slain Florida teen, Miami high schoolers looted their local Walgreens, because nothing says "rest in peace" or "you will be missed" like a swiped bag of chips:



In another moving memorial, Fr. Michael Pfleger used the young man's death as fuel for his decades-long ego trip at the expense of the Catholic Church and his own parishioners. The Daily Caller has the disturbing video, complete with a hooded dummy of Trayvon set up near the altar.

Spike Lee showed his respects with an ineffectual attempt to incite harassment, or worse, of George Zimmerman. He tweeted what he thought was Zimmerman's address. Turns out it wasn't Zimmerman's house at all, but rather the home of an elderly couple entirely unrelated to the "white hispanic." Oh well -- it's the thought that counts!

The couple has been forced to leave their home and stay in a hotel:

When William Zimmerman pleaded with the man who tweeted the address, the man responded, “Black power all day. No justice, no peace” along with an obscenity.

Efforts to commodify and exploit Trayvon's death and whatever meaning his brief life may have had proceed apace. His mother is trying to trademark her son's name and the Obama campaign store is pushing the hoodies. 

Not to be outdone, Rep. John Conyers and associates hosted Trayvon's parents on Capitol Hill for an extended grandstanding session.

The Daily Caller has published Trayvon's last month of tweets. They're abysmally sad. I'm hoping his life wasn't as ugly and degraded as his tweets make it appear.

The DC also reports that there were six witnesses to the struggle between Martin and Zimmerman:

The report, filed by Sanford police officer Ricardo Ayala and published online Tuesday by the Chicago Tribune, indicates that there were at least six witnesses — three men and three women — who saw or heard some part of the events that led to Martin’s death. 

Six witnesses. Will that make a dent in the narrative? Not so you'd notice. It's Tom Wolfe's world; we're just living in it. (Click on that second link for an extra-special tribute to Trayvon, courtesy of Bentley's Lingerie Lounge in Greensboro, NC. Rod Dreher: "If you find yourself in Greensboro, NC, on Wednesday night and feeling a little randy, you are invited to visit a local [-----] bar to show your respect and love for Trayvon, and to proclaim your demand for justice. Just FYI.")

No one's paying much attention to this detail:

“Zimmerman was placed in the rear of my police vehicle and was given first aid. … I overheard him state ‘I was yelling for someone to help me, but no one would help me.’

Meanwhile, Rush is still asking, Why are Obama and Holder silent over New Black Panther’s bounty to capture Zimmerman?

***
Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.
Many thanks, too, to MARK STEYN for linking this at the Corner. 
Thanks also to Meredith Jessup of The Blaze for her link.
The same to Donald Douglas at American Power.

***

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Brace for a hard left turn

Charles Krauthammer:

I think that the key word here in that exchange was Obama saying to the Russians, 'this is my last election.' It's not just that 'I have another election and I'll be occupied with other issues, let's talk about this. It's a complicated want in December.'

'This is my last election.' That's his way of saying with a nod and a wink, 'Look, you guys have a free hand because you run a dictatorship, your elections are rigged. Well, ours aren't rigged, but once I get passed my last election, I'm unleashed. I can do anything I want.

And what he's saying is, 'you know that reset I began three years ago where I completely undermined our allies in Eastern Europe. I cancelled the missile defense system and I began a process in which our supremacy in missile defenses is now negotiable, which the Republicans have never allowed to be negotiable.'

'Well, after election day, I can't speak about it now of course because it's my last election and Americans won't actually like that -- after election day, I'll be open.'

This is a huge gaffe. If Etch-A-Sketch is a problem for Romney, this is the President himself saying, 'I'll be unleashed. I can govern hard left. I can do all this reset stuff in the future unmolested.' That's his way of telling people, 'you may have no idea what my agenda in the second term is going to be, but let me tell you, the Russians, it's going to be pretty hard left.'

No doubt about that is possible. Video at link.

Politicaljunkie Mom wouldn't call it a gaffe:

Selling out our national security and that of our allies isn’t a gaffe. The fallout from this should reverberate until the election. A President who tells an enemy–yes, Virginia, the Russians are not our friends–just hold on a bit, and I’ll keep the favors flowing needs not be President for that reason alone. As if there aren’t myriad others to ditch the O.

She refers us to Bryan Preston's ‘Smart’ Diplomacy: Obama’s Hot Mic Comment Rattles Poland. Also see Heritage's Mike Gonzalez: Obama Whispers Away America’s Security:

The exchange with Mr. Medvedev, lastly, only deepens and validates two already extant and related narratives about our President: one is that he harbors views that are inimical to the American people and only come out in unguarded moments. An example of that is when he said in San Francisco four years ago that Americans cling to their religion and guns bitterly when they’re afraid of the future. The other narrative is that the President will be unshackled once (and if) he is re-elected, and will put in place a plan far more radical than he is letting on in public at the moment.

Obama is not your comrade, America. Jimmie Bise has a suggestion: Let Us Transmit this Information to the Voting Booths.

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No, No, Babette

Oh brave new world, that has such people in it!

Pennsylvania state rep. Babette Josephs on what makes a woman a real woman (hint -- you must love, above all else, something that starts with 'a' and ends with 'bortion'):

During her remarks, she blasted women lawmakers who co-sponsored the ultrasound bill, asking rhetorically, “What are they? Women, or are they men with breasts?” according to supporters of the bill who watched the rally.

Josephs stood by her words after the rally, arguing that the women lawmakers on the bill – sponsored by Rep. Kathy Rapp of Warren County — are acting like women only in the sense “that they will do what the men tell them.”

“They must believe that they are not capable of making their own health care choices, but they are capable of voting on bills that control all of our behavior,” Josephs continued. “I don’t understand it …

“I don’t believe they’re really women. … I believe they’re men with breasts.”

Sheesh. There are a lot of things I could say here but what would be the point?

***

It would be unkind to repeat #2 son's pithy observations on Rep. Josephs. She probably can't help it.

***

Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking.
Thanks also to Pew Sitter for the top-of-the-page link.
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Obama: Just wait for my second term, comrade

From ABC News' Jake Tapper by way of James Pethokoukis, here are Obama's remarks to Dmitri Medvedev, which were not meant for public consumption. It's nothing we didn't already know but it's a bit chilling to hear the president say the following:

President Obama: On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.

President Medvedev: Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you…

President Obama: This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.

President Medvedev: I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.

Yes, comrades, he really said that:

 

Ari Fleischer responds on Twitter:

O tells Congress give me space. I'll have more flexibility to raise everyone's taxes after the election.

O tells gay groups give me space. I'll have more flexibility to be for gay marriage after the election.

O tells liberals give me space. I'll have more flexibility to redistribute even more income after the election.

O tells Palestinians give me space. I'll have more flexibility to pressue Israel after the election.

Fill in the blanks. O tells _____ give me space. I'll have more flexibility to ____ after the election.

***
Husband Pundit's comment: Wow. In a sane world that would be the end of his career (at least in America).

***
Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking.

***

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Is it wrong to be angry about Obamacare?

The establishment continues to tut-tut at Rick Santorum and his "wild, extremist" statements. This time they're frowning and shaking their heads at his characterization of Mitt Romney as "the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama."

Isn't there some truth in that? It's hardly a new or original thought, but rather an argument that's been made by many since Obamacare was rammed down our throats two years ago. Among Romney's various weaknesses, Romneycare is probably his most, er, severe. The issue of Obamacare, notes Charles Krauthammer, dipped below the surface for a while, but now Leviathan is back:

If Obamacare is upheld, it fundamentally changes the nature of the American social contract. It means the effective end of a government of enumerated powers — i.e., finite, delineated powers beyond which the government may not go, beyond which lies the free realm of the people and their voluntary institutions. The new post-Obamacare dispensation is a central government of unlimited power from which citizen and civil society struggle to carve out and maintain spheres of autonomy.

Figure becomes ground; ground becomes figure. The stakes could not be higher. [. . .]

Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality, and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness.

The Romney campaign has called Santorum "desperate and angry and unhinged." If only more Americans were so ticked off about Obamacare, or at the distortions they're daily fed by the liberal media. Santorum, in a campaign email, isn't apologizing for his anger:

Like so many in our country, I'm very upset about Obamacare! And I can assure you that I will passionately fight everyday until it is repealed.

With its big government mandates, Obamacare is nothing short of a direct assault on our Constitution, and an insult to every freedom loving American. And if it is not repealed, it will have fundamentally changed our country forever, and will lead to even more erosion of the basic freedoms and rights we have cherished since the birth of our nation.

Romneycare Equals Obamacare.

Maybe the most tragic part of all is that a member of our own party, Mitt Romney, is considered the architect of Obamacare. As Romney's own advisors have admitted, Romneycare is the blueprint for Obamacare. And today Obama's political strategist went as far as to call Romney the "Godfather" of Obamacare.

In my book, that disqualifies Romney from being our nominee. Not only does it show Romney a proponent of the type of freedom killing legislation most in our party abhor, it completely takes off the table one of the most potent issues we have to defeat Obama.

I'm Ready to Take On the New York Times.

Earlier today, while campaigning in Wisconsin, I criticized Romney and Obama for their outrageous healthcare legislation. Predictably, I was aggressively attacked by a New York Times reporter all too ready to defend the two of them, and all too ready to distort my words. Let me assure you, I didn't back down, and I didn't let him bully me. I think it is high time that conservatives find the courage to expose the liberal press for what they are, a defender and enabler of Romney's and Obama's liberal agendas.

About that kerfuffle with the NYT reporter:

Santorum later tried to clarify that he was talking only about Romney's ability to campaign against the national health care law championed by Obama and the Democrats. But the candidate's temper flared when he was pushed by reporters.

"On the issue of health care. That's what I was talking about, and I was very clear about talking about that. OK?" Santorum told reporters who asked him about the scathing criticism. "Come on, guys, don't do this. I mean, you guys are incredible. I was talking about Obamacare, and he is the worst because he was the author of Romneycare."

Pressed by a reporter from The New York Times, Santorum said: "Quit distorting my words. It's bulls---."

Video here. Yes, he's angry. The guy on the radio this morning called Santorum's language "unpresidential." Maybe so; he'd have to kick it up a couple of notches to reach that level.

Summing up: Santorum aggressively goes after 1) Obamacare; 2) RINO Romney and Romneycare; and 3) the liberal media, who despise Santorum and conservatism as much as they salivate over Obama and his agenda. He's fighting the conservative fight with energy and sincerity. What is Mitt Romney passionate about?

***
Update: Santorum: If you haven’t cursed out a NYTimes reporter during campaign, you aren’t really a Republican

***

Many thanks to Pew Sitter for linking.
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Societal suicide watch

A must-read from Michael Walsh:

On the one hand — as NRO’s resident demography bore has been tirelessly pointing out — the Western world is facing an unparalleled demographic crisis brought on by a feminist-inspired modern twist on Lysistrata (showering sex but withholding children), while at the same time, the West’s vaunted “safety net” is collapsing because the system has been turned upside-down and a bevy of great-grandparents now coos over a single child.

Surely, this is the ultimate expression of the suicide cult that is the modern Left, a subset of libertine takers that so loathes itself that it will dragoon the makers into underwriting the chalices of tasty hemlock it’s so eager for everybody to quaff in order to put itself out of its misery. If, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody, it feels good, do it! Alas, it does hurt somebody — it hurts society, by robbing it of its future and burdening those lucky kids who make it through the contraceptive/abortifacient gauntlet with an unpayable debt to the very people who tried to get rid of them.

Read the rest, by which I mean every word. Then read your Steyn, which is not unrelated. From The Sun Also Sets:

There’s a famous exchange in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Someone asks Mike Campbell, “How did you go bankrupt?” “Two ways,” he replies. “Gradually, then suddenly.” We’ve been going through the gradual phase so long, we’re kinda used to it. But it’s coming to an end, and what happens next will be the second way: sudden, and very bad.

Uh, so . . . have a great weekend!

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Music break: Call Me Irresponsible

Written in 1962 by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, recorded in 1963 when Sinatra's voice was in the cello range.



From the Wikipedia entry:

Cahn is said to have had a particular satisfaction in the number of five-syllable words in the lyrics of "Call Me Irresponsible".

Understandably so.

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Etch A Sketch, continued; Update: Santorum's remark misinterpreted?

About what Michelle said about what Rick said:

I remain a Rick Santorum supporter, but I do not agree with the comments he reportedly made earlier tonight about Barack Obama being preferable to Mitt Romney.

No way.

Not when I think about the dire need to get rid of the corruptocrat Attorney General, job-destroying and fraud-perpetrating Interior Secretary, feckless DHS Secretary, Nanny State First Lady, apologizer-in-chief, and their entire Chicago-on-the-Potomac apparatus.

Yes. And let's not forget Obama henchwoman Kathleen Sebelius. Romney couldn't do worse than that, could he? Then again, he is the father of Romneycare.

Of great concern are the Supreme Court appointments that will arise in the next four years. We know Obama's will be terrible. With Romney there's at least a chance they'll be good. But it's by no means a sure thing. I'm not nearly as sanguine as, say, Allahpundit:

Even if his political instincts carry him towards the center, he knows he can’t stray too far from the base on big-ticket items like, oh, say, Supreme Court appointments. 

Really? Why not? Who's going to stop him? Unless the US Senate finds itself dominated by conservatives with backbones in 2013, I can't see it taking a hard line against a marginally acceptable Romney nominee. It would be just like Romney to nominate someone who wouldn't make too many waves on the left or the right. With the exception of a grossly unqualified nominee like Harriet Miers, would the Senate really reject any Romney choice?

Allahpundit's reasoning is a variation of the "having flipped he could not flop" argument put forth by Michael Gerson back in November:

Precisely because he has a history of ideological heresy, it would be difficult for him to abandon his current, more conservative iteration. He has committed himself on key conservative issues. Having flipped, he could not flop without risking a conservative revolt. As a result, conservatives would have considerable leverage over a Romney administration.

I don't think so. If (in this hypothetical scenario) conservatives had so much power, they would have elected a conservative, not a RINO. If Romney does manage to get elected, it will be a sort of vindication of his RINO-ness, and a justification, if ever there were one, to shake the Etch A Sketch and erase the images that are no long useful.

Santorum didn't help himself with that comment. If only he were wrong, though, when he asserted that Romney doesn't offer enough contrast to Obama. As a candidate, Romney is weak on many fronts. The left hasn't even begun to go after him yet.

***
Erick Erickson makes an important point:

I think it was clear from the context of his remarks that Santorum was not expressing his own thinking, but expressing the thinking of general election voters. And I think he is absolutely right, which is also why I think Romney makes such a bad nominee (not that I think Santorum would be any better).

I didn't read it that way the first time but I think Erick's read is probably correct. Go back and decide for yourself. Santorum's ability to speak extemporaneously is admirable, but it's also a gift that keeps on giving to his opponents.

***

In light of Santorum's remark, Ed Morrissey is rethinking his support for him in the MN caucuses.

***

Matt Lewis of the Daily Caller is convincing:

A few points…

His argument is (and you can disagree with it) is that voters just might make the calculus that, if you’re going to have to settle for Obama Lite any way, you might as well stick with Obama.

… If you’re going to have to settle for RomneyCare, why not stick with ObamaCare?

(Note: I know Santorum said “we,” but I’ve heard the shtick enough times to know what he meant. And what he meant was that “we” — the voters — want a clearer contrast.)

Santorum has been making this argument for months. This is a regular line of attack. But as I noted recently, gaffes ironically often come from comments (or variations of comments) that have become part of a candidate’s “stump” speech.

So why did this blow up? There are probably three reasons.

Read on. Bottom line from Mr. Lewis:

I’m not surprised the media outlet that broke this story attempted to generate some buzz with it, nor am I surprised the Romney campaign has attempted to blow this out of proportion. What does surprise me, however, is how many people have bought into it.

***

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.

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Free sterilizations for college-age women, but what about the men?

I'm trying to understand what could possibly justify the HHS's mandate for "free" sterilizations for college-age girls and women. Rep. Jane Schakowski argues weakly that, in some cases, sterilization of a young woman is medically necessary. Of course it is. And in those cases, a woman's health insurance would normally cover the surgery. But we're talking about elective sterilizations here. That's completely different.

And what about the men? My understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is that the mandate doesn't require insurance to offer free vasectomies. If not, why not? Isn't that discriminatory?

Could it be that a government so eager to facilitate the neutering of its male subjects would arouse too much testosterone-enhanced antagonism? Women are willing to scream, whine, and otherwise badger Big Brother (who is happy to comply) for "reproductive justice," even though it means tossing away a fundamental part of their identity as women. Men are, perhaps, more likely to view governmental involvement in their fertility with suspicion and even (I hope) hostility. (That's pure speculation on my part; I have no idea how modern men think.)

Thanks to Pew Sitter for the link.

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Tomorrow: Stand Up for Religious Freedom

Friday, March 23, mostly at noon local time. Locations and info here. (No rsvp necessary.)

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Just who is "aggressively and deliberately ignorant"?

It's desperation time at the White House. When you've got nothing constructive to offer (as in no plan), and little in the way of scruples or civility, this is what's left. Spokestool Jay Carney on Rep. Paul Ryan:

"You have to be aggressively and deliberately ignorant of the world economy not to know and understand that clean energy technologies are going to play a huge role in the 21st century," Carney said after decrying the clean energy spending cuts in Ryan's plan. "You have to have severely diminished capacity to understand what drives economic growth in industrialized countries in this century if you do not understand that education is the key that unlocks the door to prosperity," he added.  

I think what he means is that Ryan doesn't get it. But hang on a sec -- I think Carney has the wrong guy:

Energy was a particular obsession of the president-elect’s, and therefore a particular source of frustration. Week after week, [White House economic adviser Christina] Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investments in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. “I don’t get it,” he’d say. “We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?” But the numbers rarely budged.

See the rest of James Pethokoukis's piece and see who's in touch with economic reality.

Bonus: "Uncomfortable." 

Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the link.
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The Etch A Sketch candidate [updated]

It's the perfect analogy for Romney's political career, no? 

HOST: Is there a concern that Santorum and Gingrich might force the governor to tack so far to the right it would hurt him with moderate voters in the general election?

FEHRNSTROM: Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.

And this from Romney's own team. Apparently, even the Romney campaign doesn't expect us to take his feigned conservatism seriously. Not that we do. But it's nice to have it all laid out so clearly.

This just in from the as-if-anyone-cares department: Jeb Bush, who says he used to be a conservative, has endorsed the guy who can't even claim that. Jeb's decided it's high time we all fell into line behind Mr. Reset. Whatever.

***

Allahpundit: Newt, Santorum now taunting Romney with Etch-a-Sketches on the trail

Twitchy's compilation here. WSJ here. Liberal sites are loving it, too, of course:

I can't think of anything to say that won't seem like piling on.

***

Philip Klein:

If Romney's fiercest critics wanted to come up with a way to describe Romney's approach to politics, I don't think they could have come up with a better analogy than Etch A Sketch. The fact that it's coming from one of Romney's long-time aides is stunning. An even scarier thought for conservatives: if the Romney campaign is willing to take them for granted before even clinching the nomination, imagine how quickly Romney would abandon conservatives if he ever made it to the White House.

Therein lies the problem, no? Only a conservative will govern conservatively. It's not something a moderate, a technocrat, an opportunist, or someone who wants to be the president just because, would do by default. It's hard, and would require principles.

Ah, but Romney has cleared it all up with the following statement: "I'm running as a conservative Republican." Feel better about him now?

***

Thanks to PjM, Michelle Malkin, Pew Sitter, and American Power for linking.
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Romney's Illinois win

Romney won big in Illinois, as expected. It's no surprise that squishy Illinois Republicans chose him over Santorum; they love RINOs. The win gave Mitt a big delegate boost and pounded another nail or two or three into the not-Romney coffin.

Who knows? Maybe those Illinois voters will be happy with Romney's performance as the nominee against Obama. But Bill Kristol has concerns:

Watching Mitt Romney's victory speech in Illinois didn't reassure me about his chances against President Obama. (Watch it yourself to see if I'm being unfair.) Romney's remarks consisted basically of the claim that the business of America is business, that he's a businessman who understands business, and that we need "economic freedom" not for the sake of freedom but to allow business to fuel the economy. It's true that Romney will have plenty of time to improve for the general election, if, as seems likely (but still not inevitable!), he wins the nomination. But if he sticks with this core message, we'd better hope Republicans and independents are really determined to get rid of Barack Obama. 

Winning the nomination will not make Romney's weaknesses go away. They're still real and still significant.

Many thanks to Michelle Malkin for the Buzzworthy link.
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Defining "weird"

Perspective from Mark Steyn:

Let's take it as read that Rick Santorum is weird. After all, he believes in the sanctity of life, the primacy of the family, the traditional socio-religious understanding of a transcendent purpose to human existence. Once upon a time, back in the mists of, ooh, the mid–20th century, all these things were, if not entirely universal, sufficiently mainstream as to be barely worthy of discussion. Now they're not. Isn't the fact that conventional morality is now "weird" itself deeply weird? The instant weirdification of ideas taken for granted for millennia is surely mega-weird — unless you think that our generation is possessed of wisdom unique to human history. In which case, why are we broke?

Santorum takes heat from fearful members of his own party every time he opens his mouth on those dreaded social issues, whether he's praising the traditional family  as a positive societal force (there go the wimmin!), condemning pornography as a negative one (there go the ... never mind), or pushing back against the Obama agenda and its tyrannical mandates ("why won't he stop talking about contraceptives?"). It's clear that Mitch Daniels isn't the only conservative out there who wants a "truce."

But Mark Steyn nails it (as usual): "somebody has to talk about these things somewhere or other." Right! The alternative is to careen unreflectively down the slippery slope with neither a glance back at what we're throwing away or a look ahead at the grim reality we're rushing toward.

Read the whole thing.

Many thanks to Creative Minority Report for the link.
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Rep. Paul Ryan's AEI budget speech

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Paul Ryan leads; "Plan beats no plan"

Conn Carroll writes on Obama's epic failure to lead:

According to a new book by Mother Jones Washington Bureau Chief David Corn, President Obama has purposely failed to release a plan for reducing the deficit so he can “draw the GOP into a trap” on entitlement reform. The plan has not worked. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Obama’s latest budget would add $6.4 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years. The latest Bloomberg poll show that Americans overwhelming disapprove of Obama’s handling of the nation’s budget deficit by a 62 percent to 31 percent margin.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul D. Ryan, R-Wis., has chosen to lead where Obama has failed. Today, he will unveil his second Path to Prosperity budget plan. Where Obama increases taxes by $1.9 trillion, Ryan simplifies the tax code into just two brackets, lowers everybody’s tax rates, and eliminates special interest loopholes that distort the free market and encourage crony capitalism.

Read the rest.

***

Ryan's plan is online here. James Pethokoukis has analysis here. A bit of that:

Let me remind Team Obama of a favorite Geithner aphorism: “Plan beats no plan.”

Barack Obama doesn’t have a long-term, debt-reduction plan. Paul Ryan does. So under the Geithner formulation, Ryan wins by default.

But the latest version of Ryan’s Path to Prosperity, released today, does far more than defeat a rival who’s decided to forfeit the field. It presents a bold and sweeping solution to America’s twin problems: too much debt and too little economic growth.

– By 2022, under the Ryan Path, debt as a share of GDP would be 62.3% vs. a projected 73.2% in 2012. Under the Obama budget debt as a share of GDP would be 76.3% in 2022, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Over that period, the Ryan Path would spend $5.3 trillion less than the Obama budget by, in large part, axing Obamacare and block-granting welfare programs — including Medicaid — to the states.

– Longer term, the differences between the Ryan Path and the Obama budget are even starker. By 2030, debt-to-GDP would be 53% under Ryan, 128% under Obama. By 2040, debt-to-GDP would be 38% under Ryan, 194% under Obama. By 2050, debt-to-GDP would be 10% under Ryan, over 200% under Obama – assuming that under the Obama scenario, the economy hasn’t collapsed.

How does Ryan do it? Medicare reform is at the heart of the Path to Prosperity. Where Obamacare relies on unelected bureaucrats to keep costs down, the Ryan path uses competition. Under Ryan’s revised “premium support” plan – essentially the Wyden-Ryan proposal — seniors beginning in 2023 could use their Medicare dollars to choose from a menu of private plans, along with Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service system. Every year there would be a competitive bidding process among all plans to determine the dollar amount of the federal contribution that seniors would use to purchase coverage. (The benefits in the private plans would have to be as least as good as Medicare.) The second least-expensive approved plan or Medicare, whichever is least expensive, would establish the benchmark that determines the premium support amount.

Seniors who prefer pricier plans would have to pay the difference between the premium subsidy and the monthly premium. Seniors who choose a less expensive plan could pocket the difference. As a backup — and so CBO could score the  plan — per capita costs could not exceed nominal GDP growth plus 0.5%.

Read the rest.

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Comic relief from the usual source

David Freddoso presents the comedy stylings of Joe Biden, bringing his shtick to a pricey New Jersey fundraiser last night:

“I give you my word as a Biden I’m more optimistic about the United States chances in the world today than when I got elected 40 years ago as a 29-year-old kid.”

On the Republican candidates for president: “We should sponsor another 20 debates. Think of the things they say. Think of the things they say about women.

"I mean, it’s just absolutely staggering the things they say.  Between Gingrich and Romney and Santorum, I think if I told you -- if I just listed the things, the outrageous things -- well, from my perspective, outrageous things -- they’ve said, I think you would have thought I’m making it up."

And you'd be right! He's got a million of 'em, folks.

One more:

According to the pool report, Biden claimed that he spends four to six hours with President Obama every day. “I literally do get to be the last guy in the room,” he said. (Presumably, he didn't mean this "literally," although it's quite possible to imagine Obama wanting to get out of there first.)

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"Protection," Obamacare, and St. Joseph

The contraceptive culture laughs at dissenter Rick Santorum:



Sigh.

Sen. Brown and his audience remind me of uncomprehending children in the schoolyard who can only respond with mockery toward the kid who's different. Except they're grown men, and given the setting, most of them probably consider themselves to be Catholics. Even if they're not on board with that kuh-ray-zee unitive-and-procreative thing, you'd think they'd perhaps admire a man who takes his faith, and his vocation as a father, as seriously as does Santorum. Sen. Brown himself is all too familiar with unstable families and men who fail to rise to the occasion of fatherhood.

It just so happens that today is the feast day of St. Joseph, a man who rose so beautifully to that occasion. Here's my post from this day in 2010. It's interesting that we've come back around to the issue of whether Obamacare will force Americans to pay for elective abortions. Though it's getting very little attention, the latest finalized rules indicate that that is exactly what's going to happen. Details here and here.

The Supreme Court will begin the Obamacare hearings a week from today. See David Catron's Of Obamacare and Appeals to Supreme Beings for an in-depth preview.

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Wikiquote.org, for all your presidential speechwriting needs

President Obama is fairly desperate to deflect any trace of blame for the skyrocketing gas prices (now $4.03 at my local Shell station) that threaten his reelection. Given that, perhaps he should have put a little more time and effort into crafting the big energy speech he delivered to community college students in Largo, Maryland, the other day. It was a joke. But Mark Steyn gets the last laugh:

Considering that he is (in the words of historian Michael Beschloss) “the smartest guy ever to become president,” the entire passage sounded as if it was plucked straight from one of those “Top Twenty Useful Quotes for Forward-Looking Inspirational Speakers” websites. And whaddayaknow? Rutherford B. Hayes, the TV flash in the pan, the horse is here to stay — they’re all at the Wikiquote page on “Incorrect Predictions.” Fancy that! You can also find his selected examples at the web page “Some Really Really Bad Predictions About the Future” and a bazillion others.

Yup. It's right here. Bookmark it in case you ever need to slap a presidential speech together on short notice. Whether Obama's lazy writers cut-and-pasted it all together or the Greatest Orator Ever did it himself (because he's hip to Google, too, and it takes less time and thought than, say, filling in your brackets), he owns it. I don't suppose he's embarrassed, but he ought to be.

Steyn's piece is about more than the orator's stark nakedness:

So let’s see. The president sneers at the ignorance of 15th-century Spaniards, when in fact he is the one entirely ignorant of them. A man who has enjoyed a million dollars of elite education yet has never created a dime of wealth in his life sneers at a crippled farm boy with an eighth-grade schooling who establishes a successful business and introduces electrical distribution across Michigan all the way up to Sault Ste. Marie. A man who sneers at one of the pioneering women in broadcasting, a lady who brought the voices of T. S. Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, and others into the farthest-flung classrooms and would surely have rejected Obama’s own dismal speech as being too obviously reliant on “Half-a-Dozen Surefire Cheap Cracks for Lazy Public Speakers.” A man whose own budget officials predict the collapse of the entire U.S. economy by 2027 sneers at a solvent predecessor for being insufficiently “forward-looking.”

Read the whole thing. Not only is it brilliant, as usual, but Mark manages to work George and Ira Gershwin into it, which always works for me. Take it away, Frank.

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Woo hoo! HHS extends free contraceptives mandate to college students

Confident in its supreme unaccountability, the power-drunk Obama administration intensified its assault on religious liberty. Oh, wait; I mean it "respects religious liberty" and blah blah blah:

Administration officials also released a final rule governing student health plans. Under the final rule, students will gain the same consumer protections other people with individual market insurance have, like a prohibition on lifetime limits and coverage of preventive services without cost sharing. In the same way that religious colleges and universities will not have to pay, arrange or refer for contraceptive coverage for their employees, they will not have to do so for their students who will get such coverage directly and separately from their insurer.

“The President’s policy respects religious liberty and makes free preventive services available to women,” said Secretary Sebelius. “Today’s announcement is the next step toward fulfilling that commitment.”

What excellent news for our nation's young scholars! Free of "health" worries, they'll now be able to focus even more on cultivating the life of the mind.

Three cheers for reproductive justice! Sandra Fluke must be pleased. But not as pleased as Planned Parenthood. Steve Ertelt notes:

The decision means college students — who already get abortions at the highest rate compared with women in other age categories, will be able to get free birth control pills, Plan B pills and the ella drug that causes early-term abortions days after conception.

The nation’s biggest abortion business is already applauding the decision, as it means insurance companies will pay for drugs Planned Parenthood dispenses, providing a taxpayer-funded windfall for the abortion giant.

Meanwhile, the administration's defense of the mandate is about what you'd expect: shifty, based on an unbinding "promise," and free of reference to that ever-fading scrap of parchment, the US Constitution:

This was its first opportunity to explain to the court and the country why the mandate is not illegal and unconstitutional. The Obama administration did not defend the constitutionality of the mandate, but said the lawsuit should be thrown out because the administration plans to revise the mandate to make it on insurance companies to pay for coverage rather than employers, who will still have to make referrals.

“Plaintiff’s challenge to the preventive services coverage regulations is not fit for judicial review because defendants [Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius] have indicated that they will propose and finalize changes to the regulations that are intended to accommodate plaintiff’s religious objections to providing contraception coverage,” the Department of Justice (DOJ) wrote in its brief to the Washington, D.C. District Court.

Obama officials claim the mandate does not put forth any “immediate injury” to religious groups.

Luke Goodrich, Deputy General Counsel of the Becket Fund, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic university, says he thinks the Obama administrations argument will not stand up in court.

“It doesn’t argue that the mandate is legal; it doesn’t argue that the mandate is constitutional,” Goodrich said. “Instead, it begs the court to ignore the lawsuit because the government plans to change the mandate at some unspecified date in the future.”

“Apparently, the administration has decided that the mandate, as written and finalized, is constitutionally indefensible,” said Hannah Smith, senior counsel at The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty “Its only hope is to ask the court to look the other way based on an empty promise to possibly change the rules in the future.”

Any predictions on how this will all play out?

***

Also see James C. Capretta: The Latest Mandate Announcement: ‘We Need a Process to Get Past November!’

Thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking. Likewise to Pew Sitter for the big front page link.

***

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The real war on women

Via Jihad Watch, a horror story from Morocco:



The child consumed rat poison to escape her hell. Read about it here.

Meanwhile, in Pakistan: To settle a loan, stepfather sells 12-year-old girl to old man for forced marriage:

The complainant, who said she was 12 years old, told police that her marriage with Sher Muhammad took place two months ago to settle a Rs110,000 loan her step-father had taken from him.

She said Sher Muhammad mostly kept her locked in a room at his house and beat her up whenever she requested him to free her. “Whenever I protested against the marriage and asked to be freed, he told me I was his property as he has purchased me from my father,” she added. She alleged that Muhammad’s younger brother sexually harassed her whenever Muhammad was away. She said she escaped on Sunday as Muhammad was away.

One more: Egyptian army acquits army doctor over "virginity tests" on female protesters

The "tests" were nothing but state-sponsored sexual assaults to terrorize and blackmail protesters, to make an example of them and frighten other women into staying home. The "results" could be used as another way to write off the army's female opponents as women of ill repute, and set them up for suspicion, ostracism, and potentially even honor killings.

On the other hand, we have poor, oppressed Sandra Fluke, who has achieved martyr status on the left because she complains that she has to pay for her own birth control.

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Tired of talking about contraceptives? Let's have a chat about porn.

For the record, it's not extreme to be opposed to pornography.

From his campaign website, here's Rick Santorum's suddenly controversial position paper (emphasis mine):

Enforcing laws against illegal pornography

America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography. A wealth of research is now available demonstrating that pornography causes profound brain changes in both children and adults, resulting in widespread negative consequences. Addiction to pornography is now common for adults and even for some children. The average age of first exposure to hard-core, Internet pornography is now 11. Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships. It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking.

Every family must now be concerned about the harm from pornography. As a parent, I am concerned about the widespread distribution of illegal obscene pornography and its profound effects on our culture.

For many decades, the American public has actively petitioned the United States Congress for laws prohibiting distribution of hard-core adult pornography.

Congress has responded. Current federal “obscenity” laws prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier. Rick Santorum believes that federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforced. “If elected President, I will appoint an Attorney General who will do so.”

The Obama Administration has turned a blind eye to those who wish to preserve our culture from the scourge of pornography and has refused to enforce obscenity laws. While the Obama Department of Justice seems to favor pornographers over children and families, that will change under a Santorum Administration.

I proudly support the efforts of the War on Illegal Pornography Coalition that has tirelessly fought to get federal obscenity laws enforced. That coalition is composed of 120 national, state, and local groups, including Morality in Media, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, American Family Association, Cornerstone Family Council of New Hampshire, Pennsylvania Family Institute, Concerned Women for America, The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, and a host of other groups. Together we will prevail.

It's a reasonable, mainstream position. But, as has so often been the case throughout this campaign, Rick Santorum didn't raise the issue on the stump or in an interview. The Daily Caller, followed up by Drudge, did. Stacy McCain on the how and why:

THAT STATEMENT HAS BEEN ON SANTORUM’S WEB SITE FOR SEVERAL WEEKS, PERHAPS FOR MONTHS.

If you didn’t realize that when you read the Daily Caller article — if you mistakenly believed that Santorum had suddenly decided to raise this subject during his campaign — ask yourself why you didn’t realize it.

Do you feel you have been misled?

Exactly why the Daily Caller saw fit to assign its associate editor to write a 700-word “news” article, soliciting opinions from Eugene Volokh and Jonathan Turley, I don’t know. Why this cheap political “gotcha” hit-job deserved headline treatment at the Drudge Report, I don’t know.

But for intelligent people who call themselves “conservative” to fall for such a dishonest media stunt as this is ridiculous.

Read the rest.

The w***kers of the world are not likely to unite over this. People who are addicted to hardcore porn are generally too busy to vote. And Santorum wouldn't be their candidate, no matter what. This spin isn't aimed at them. It's aimed at the credulous folk (of left, center, and right) who, through prejudice and/or ignorance, buy the media caricatures of social conservatives and fear (or pretend to fear) what a President Santorum might do. Traditional morality has been demonized and mocked by the left for a long time. Now we're moving beyond that.

Related: Porn is bad

Linked by Michelle Malkin. Thanks!
Thanks also to Pew Sitter.
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