Wall Street Abandons Obama; the GOP Will Shift Accordingly

If this is true:

JP Morgan honcho Jamie Dimon, once a “fat cat” ally of President Obama, seems to have strayed to Republican contender Mitt Romney.
Dimon, a lifelong Democrat who was rumored to be on Obama’s short list for treasury secretary before he settled on Tim Geithner, met privately with Romney on Tuesday morning before a fund-raiser at Brasserie 8¹/2 hosted by Highbridge Capital, a JPMorgan-owned hedge fund.

 ...then the tide of independents and centrists are going to benefit Romney. People tend to view him as the most moderate of the real contenders for the Republican nomination. Which is a problem, as most of us deep-red radical-right-wing teabagging bitterclinging RAAAAACISTS view Romney as an economic heretic at best or a RINO at worst.

So who does that benefit? Herman Cain, fresh of his upset in the Florida straw poll. If centrists and bankers flood to Romney, then the GOP establishment has its Candidate of Gravitas and Experience. Which means the winguts and libertarians are going to need someone of minted outsider status who's demonstrated the capacity to win something. We thought Rick Perry was going to be that guy; so far he's shot himself in the foot and then shoved that foot in his mouth. Bachmann blew herself up going after Perry. Gingrich seems to be running for a Cabinet job (which he'd be good at).

That leaves Hermann Cain. For a guy whose candidacy has been declared dead to jump ahead in the polls as he has means a significant shift. It also means that the Tea Party vote is not bound up and sold to Sarah Palin. It also means that this race has just begun.

BTW, Chris Christie isn't going to run for President unless Obama wins. He's nowhere near dumb enough to think that he's conservative enough to satisfy the nationwide GOP base. He might be amenable to be someone's running mate, but that's it.

Sarah Palin's not running either. How do I know? Because she's not running. Her hesitancy speaks volumes about her own assessment of her own chances. Deep down, I don't think she really wants to run.  The dust storm kicked up by 2008 has cast her family into chaos and her out of a job. And that was as a Vice-Presidential candidate. She knows the real thing would be worse.

Teacher's Unions: Jumping on the Department of Education's FAIL

The White House Censors Ford Ad

The Detroit Free News has the details: (h/t: Is This Blog On)

On the one hand, Ford is not anywhere near as squeaky clean as it like to present. From the article:

Ford did seek a line of credit from the feds, borrowed billions under a government program to "retool" its plants and effectively failed first. That's why it recruited a superstar CEO from Boeing Co. and gave him some $23 billion in borrowed money to save the Blue Oval from bankruptcy.
Or it would have taken the money, too.

So their reticence about taking the money was circumstantial, not principled. And to an extent, the White House feels like they made things easier for Ford, too.

On the other hand, screw the whole ugliness of this. The day a car company can't lash out against its competitors because the President doesn't like it is not a great day for liberty. Because after all, Ford still doesn't have GM's gubmint-gay-run-teed advantages:

There's no help from American taxpayers to help lighten its debt load, giving crosstown rivals comparatively better credit ratings and a financial edge Ford is working diligently to erase all on its own.
There's no clause barring a strike by hourly workers amid this fall's national contract talks with the United Auto Workers — a by-product of the taxpayer-financed bailout that General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC retain until 2015.

Hmmm....the government legally disbarring a union from striking, to benefit a major corporation, for the "common good" of the whole country. There's a word for this...anyone, anyone?

The Political Genius of Barack Obama

Remember when Joe Biden was the Gaffe-o-Matic? (h/t: Protein Wisdom)

Here is what the president actually said, catching himself almost in time but not quite:
"If asking a billionaire to pay the same tax rate as a Jew, uh, as a janitor makes me a warrior for the working class, I wear that with a badge of honor. I have no problem with that."
The president has been muffing lines all over the place recently. Last week, also peddling his jobs plan at a bridge that won't qualify, he hailed America's building of "the Intercontinental Railroad." You don't seem to hear much about these gaffes in the media for some reason.
Maybe in Saturday night's speech Obama was thinking about all those talks on Israel in New York.

Maybe. Or maybe Obama thinks that Jews are heavily represented in the sanitation industries. Or maybe as soon as the word "billionaire" is uttered, "Jews" pops immediately to his mind.

In any case, more than mere wingnuts were dissatisfied with the President's recent speechifying. Maxine Waters found it "curious": (h/t: Memeorandum)

She says Obama didn't address Hispanics in such a blunt manner and would never use that language in a speech to a gathering of gays or Jews.
...
In Saturday's fiery speech to the caucus, Obama told blacks to "put on your marching shoes" and "stop grumbling.'"

Never has an incumbent so masterfully gathered his forces for the campaign.

The Department of Education: Unsurpassed in their Achievement of FAIL

Throughout the 1980's every proggie worth his No Nukes T-Shirt used to sniff urbanely at the level of education spending versus the level of defense spending. "If we can spend this much on the military," went the refrain, or "for the cost of a B-1 bomber..." implying that if only the magic money spigot could be turned on, American education would return to the world's forefront.

The meme, repeated often enough, lodged itself in the collective unconscious, and behold: Federal defense spending now stands at 190% of what it was in 1970. The result?

Bupkis. (h/t: Protein Wisdom)

That's zip, nada, nothing. We've increased education spending by an order of magnitude and test scores remain as flat as a pancake pressed in a panini machine by a 2-dimensional hyperintelligent shade of the color red.

And when Reagan made large cuts to ed. spending in the early 80's? Nothing happened. When the GOP Congress made slight cuts in the mid-90's? Yet more nothing happened. 

So if the Department of Education vanished overnight, does anyone pretend that our educational output would change to any appreciable degree?

David Brooks Snaps Out of It; Says the First Worthwhile Thing In Years

He issues a series of mea culpas, for which most of the wingnut-osphere will return nothing but snarky contempt. Which is fine, as he's deserved it, but that's not what I'm interested in.

This is:

This wasn’t a speech to get something done. This was the sort of speech that sounded better when Ted Kennedy was delivering it. The result is that we will get neither short-term stimulus nor long-term debt reduction anytime soon, and I’m a sap for thinking it was possible.

I have long been of the opinion that Democrats are going to regret putting Obama in the Presidency when he had exactly the right credentials to be the rightful heir to Ted Kennedy's mantle. He could have had as many terms as he wanted as the liberal "conscience of the Senate." Instead, he's flailing around because real life keeps not following the shooting scripts for The American President or Dave, where one honest, heartfelt liberal speech changes everything.

But he has no alternative to than to run as a fighting liberal, because he ran as a transformative President. Initially the transformation was to come from Obama himself, from his gloriously first-class temperament, his telegenically orotund orations, his finely creased pants. But somehow the Obama magic failed to set everything to right. Somehow political waves ignored his regal presence. So when the Mask slips, he reverts to type. Maybe he'll win re-election, maybe he won't. But it'll be the best shot Ted Kennedy could give.

Flat-Out Moronic: The Intellectual Pretensions of the Sub-Literati

Galileo was not brought before the Inquisition for saying that the earth goes around the sun. I'm going to repeat that in large font:

Galileo was not brought before the Inquisition for saying that the Earth goes around the Sun.


The Church punished Galileo for an error of theology: for stating that the observations of the eye were superior to the Revelations of Scripture. Also, for claiming that heliocentrism had been proven true when it had not, and mocking others who argued the contrary (including the Pope of the time) in print. His offense was relatively minor and possibly unintentional, so his punishment was light. But you cannot claim to be historically literate on the subject if you insist on repeating the old farcical lie.

And if you do so while mocking others for essentially, knowing more than you do, then you're claim of literacy is driven down to Kindergarten levels reserved for people who thought that the Boston Tea Party was in 1776.

Well When You Put it That Way, It Sounds Obvious

Glen Reynolds, riffing off the Chicago Tribune Solyndra Editorial:

“A nickel’s worth of business sense and a dime’s worth of caution might have saved Uncle Sam millions — and the Obama administration a heap of trouble.” Where are you going to find a nickel’s worth of business sense in an administration where there’s no private-sector experience?

It's Like the Guy's Unqualified or Something...

Had Enough Therapy?:

Yesterday Democrat Barry Sternlicht, CEO of Starwood Capital declared: “We elected a community organizer that’s acting like a community organizer.”

Who knew?

This gem sticks out of a a post that turns the Dem's Loss in NY-9 as a referendum on Obama's Israel policy. Which it may be. But the impression that I got was that the voters there were simply fed up with Obama's non-performance. As Ace put it, there's only so many times you can spin a bad situation as "not that bad" before people start demanding something that looks like progress. Especially when you sell yourself as the solution to all problems, as Obama has.

So Democrats are becoming as deflated and frustrated as Republicans were in '06 and '08. This anger at Obama will not translate into a primary challenge, because I think Hillary Clinton is smart enough to know that she'll be much better off running in '16 regardless of who wins this time, and no one else has the credibility to take on Obama's machine (which remains formidable).

But it's starting to dawn on Democrats that they got sold a Golden Dancer three years ago. I don't know how many of them are eager to buy more of the same.

It becomes more true every time I post it...

"When You Put Your Head in the Sand, Your Ass Becomes a Target"

Ladd Ehlinger reminds the California GOP that politics is a full-contact sport, and should be played accordingly:

Does your opponent live outside of the district and can't even vote for him or herself? Does your opponent have problems with a previous divorce? Does your opponent have a problem with coddling gangmembers?
Pound them with it! Pound them!
SCREW this meme that says "we should have positive campaigning only." You know who wants to have a positive campaign at all costs? Losers -- and YOUR OPPONENT!
There is no such thing as a positive winning campaign - because, unfortunately, it's "negative" to point out your opponent's many flaws. It's especially upsetting to your opponent. But highlight these flaws you must! Otherwise, no one will know that your opponent got rapists and murderers out of jail to rape and kill again!

Read the Whole Thing. I should mail a copy to the Maryland GOP.

Queen's Court of Alberta Legalizes Infanticide

Or something. (h/t Ace and NRO)

"Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant's death, especially at the hands of the infant's mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother."

Do they? I don't. Please lay out who put a gun to this woman's head and made her give birth to her newborn son, strangle him, and then toss him over the fence into the neighbor's yard.

Her lawyer, Peter Royal, asked the court to do away with the penalty or allow her to serve the time on weekends. It was "unjust" and "almost mean to incarcerate her" at this point, he argued.

Right. And we sure wouldn't want to be mean to someone who murdered an infant. That would be horrible.

But don't worry, the court isn't about to get all licentious on this subject:

In her judgment, the judge rejected arguments from the Crown that the single father and the grandparent also face "the same stresses of the mind" as a mother who kills her own baby.

Silly daddy, infanticide is for moms!

Paul Krugman Has Just Become Worthy of My Attention

I hope you noticed that I didn't write anything this morning that was critical of anybody on either side of the aisle. 9/11, in my opinion, ought not be a partisan affair. There is an obligation to avoid the usual push-pull of politics to mark the occasion. Yesterday, Barak Obama was not the figure of ridiculue I usually reduce him to; he was the President of the United States. That means something.

But Paul Krugman can't play by those games.

I normally ignore this clown, because he's, well, a clown. However smart he may be on the subject of economics, in politics he's a banal bridge-burning pile of paint-by numbers un-reflective leftism. And I can't say I find his prose worth the aggravation.

But since this jumped-up numbers nerd, this theory-slut, this galloping dunderhead who can barely contain his heartsick crush on totalitarianism, cannot keep his powder dry for a day, I'm coming after him. None of the fiskings I let fall on that pimple E.J. Dionne will be half of the slapping-around I intend to throw down on this ass. The time has come.

Year Ten at Ground Zero

The general theme of yesterday's memorials, one of grief remembered but honorably laid to rest, is one I willingly bow. Watching the MSNBC stock footage of 9/11 as it happened, I was struck by the strangeness of the tone; the confusion amid the birth-cries of a world we now know well. That was a different country, and I am a different man. When I wrote the following in 2003, I was newly discovering a truth I have since come to live with:

One year ago, we took stock in our classroom, and a teacher showed slides, and played some bit of ethereal melancholia in the background. I'd thought myself inured to the whole affair. The Taliban had crumbled and we were getting ready to put the move on Saddam; the situation had improved. But I found myself looking into the eyes of students who responded to the images with tears, and then I responded similarly. My voice choked, and all the sadness I never permitted myself to feel was upon me. I got through it, but at the end of the school day was in chapel, stifling sobs, asking God if this was what it felt like.

And at that moment I wasn't referring to 9-11 but every last 9-11 that had ever streaked its red trail across the earth. I thought of every last battle, every last raid, every invasion of the brutal onto the peaceful. Every bomber run. Every Rape of Nanking. Every Klansman riding out of the night.

Many people have bandied about the phrase "New Normal" in the years since. But the only normal thing about the New Normal is that it is always new. History, red in tooth and claw, came upon us again on 9/11/01, and it has been having its way with us ever since. We have launched wars, endured recessions, shouted in the streets, played spot-the-fascist, and come to question all the rules we thought were writ in stone. Bin Laden, then a fearsome, shadowy Nemesis, today molders in his watery grave, which all agree does nothing to end the war he began. Ten years ago, our politics consisted of already-tired grumbling that George Bush had been "selected, not elected" to the  Presidency. Today, its which side will bear the blame when (not if) our public finances collapse. Today, a black man of the Left governs from the Oval Office, as the Right parties like it's 1773. The Sudan has split; the Euro is eroding. The New Normal is No Normal.

So, with the shattered Towers transformed into watered gravestones for those eternally interred by them, we can at last put our grief and rage from memory into history. We have remembered, and we have moved on, through the light and shadow of a world born in fire. We make the best of that world to the extent that we feel that those who suffered at last have peace. Time will bury all wounds, but as the centuries pass, men and women will walk through Lower Manhattan and see the names of those martyred for being American.

NYT: Sarah Palin May Not Be Crazy

h/t: Insty

Anand Giridharadas sayeth the unsayable, and discovers the real class warfare behind the Tea Party:

Ms. Palin may be hinting at a new political alignment that would pit a vigorous localism against a kind of national-global institutionalism.On one side would be those Americans who believe in the power of vast, well-developed institutions like Goldman Sachs, the Teamsters Union, General Electric, Google and the U.S. Department of Education to make the world better. On the other side would be people who believe that power, whether public or private, becomes corrupt and unresponsive the more remote and more anonymous it becomes; they would press to live in self-contained, self-governing enclaves that bear the burden of their own prosperity.

Unfortunately, he ascribes this to Palin in particular, and not the Tea Party in general. But hey, baby steps.

The Keynesian Stimulus Ain't That Keynesian, or Keynes Was not a Moron.

From Reason, (h/t Ace)

If the federal government had a strong track record of responsible spending, it would mean one thing if it went into hock for a short period of time to goose the economy (again, whether this would work is open to question). It means something totally different when a government that spent all of the 21st century piling on debt and new, long-term entitlement programs responds to an economic downturn first by creating yet another gargantuan entitlement (Obamacare) and taking on even more debt in the here-and-now. This cuts in a Milton Friedmanesque, monetarist direction too. If the Federal Reserve had not been keeping money artificially cheap for the past couple of decades and it worked to lower interest rates and increase the availability of money in a given moment, that would mean one thing. Promising to keep rates low for the next couple of years - after years of loose money and statements that all those bubbles weren't bubbles at all - doesn't mean the same thing.

Insanity = Repetition + Expectation. RTWT

"We had to Pass the Bill to See What Was In It. Well then, Asked and Answered."

Jeff Goldstein discovers the wit of despair.

It's almost as though merely passing a law to give everyone health insurance does not, of itself, create new health insurance.

Religion is Bad. When Republicans Do It.

Via Other McCain, Ian Stanley of the Telegraph lays down the persistent media double-standard:

Harry Reid, leader of the Senate Democrats, is a Mormon. Many readers probably won’t know that because the mainstream media oddly doesn’t talk about it. It’s okay to call Mitt Romney a polytheist with twelve wives, but Reid is untouchable because he’s a Democrat. And yet it’s reasonable to theorise that the leader of the Senate wears the magic underwear associated with Mormonism. Is his belief that Jesus walked on American soil, anti-science? Geographers and historians would probably object.
Democratic presidential candidates regularly visit black churches, Nancy Pelosi has invoked her Catholicism so many times you might think she was a nun, and Barack Obama was married by a pastor who actively hates America. Yet Krugman suggests that only the GOP uses and abuses religion every election. More sickening is the innuendo that there is a uniquely violent subtext to conservative faith, as if every Right-winger wants to shoot an abortionist. There is no comparison between fundamentalist Islam and Dominionism: one kills and the other doesn’t. The conflation of the two is ugly and deceitful.

It gets awfully damn tiresome to have to point these things out. And I don't mind Stacy McCain's "Welcome to the Party, Pal" response. But so long as there are people who refuse to admit that this is going on, it needs to be underscored. We need to say, as McCain does, that:

It would be great if we could have a reasoned, well-tempered discussion with the Left, but the typical Lefty cannot or will not engage in a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition. Conservatives have inadvertently arrived at Abuse, instead of the Argument Clinic.

Although, in all honesty, the Argument Clinic kind of sucks, too.

"Jon Huntsman is a Moby. That is All."

The title comes from the comments of another Protein Wisdom rant at the feckless GOP establishment:

Tax reform. That’s the extent of Huntsman’s plan.
And that’s about all that establishment Republicans care about. Entitlement reform? Huntsman doesn’t deal with that.
Big government, ruling-class “compromises,” and lower taxes.
That’s what the GOP ruling class is. That’s all it is

Can't really argue with that.

Meanwhile, the Slapfight Over Evolution Continues

Carthago Delenda Est linked this amusing insistence that the Grand and Complex Theory of Evolution can be reduced to the tautology "Survivors Survive." The knife-point:

Richard Dawkins asserts that Darwin's theory allows one to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. As an example of the deep scientific insight provided by Darwin's theory, Myers notes that more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate, and that birds that are better able to get food during famine are better able to survive.
Myers is an intellectually fulfilled atheist.

Atheism is a small cup.

I should mention that I don't really have a dog in this fight. I'm a Catholic, and the Catholic Church has for the most part wisely refrained from getting drawn into the weeds about evolution. The last Pope said the theory was "credible," and so long as the theory is not used as a springboard for atheism, the Church teaches it in its schools. So I don't really have anything to say on the ins and outs of evolutionary biology, and as long as the Grand Inquisitors of High Atheism leave it alone, so will I.

Why Democrats Can't Abide to Have Public Sector Unions Messed With

The image says it all...(h/t Ace)

So the next time someone loses their shit over hoe much the eeeevil Pentagon controls this country, just remember that labor unions dwarf defense contractors by an order of magnitude. In fact, shouldn't we be wondering where Jimmy Hoffa was when JFK was shot?