New Poll: All GOP Frontrunners Beat Obama

It's only one poll, but it begs the question:

If Hermann Cain can beat Obama, then what the hell do we need Mitt Romney for?

The New, Post-Racial America

When Democrats support a black Democrat for President, they are heroically redeeming America.

When Republicans support a black Republican for President, they are racists.

Because.

"Becoming President is a Narcissist's Dream...

...having to do the job is his nightmare."

Bank of America: When Unintended Consequences are Ear-Splittingly Obvious

Consider the principle known as "blowback": that if you attack someone, you should reasonably expect that they will hit back. Thus, Machiavelli's dictum that if you must do an enemy an injury, do him one from which he will not recover.

Now, click over to Ace and read about why Bank of America is gouging me $5 a month for using a debit card.

What proggies consider obvious with regard to Islamic terrorists they consider a bizarre mystery with regard to American businesses.

But behold the Genius that is Barack Obama:

‘You don't have some inherent right just to – you know, get a certain amount of profit.

You don't? When you run a business you don't have the right to defray costs by charging value for service? Does this statement even have that level of thought?

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.

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.

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.

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...

Thieves, Liars, Whores, Swine and Gilded Fools: A Four-Letter Dissertation on Politics

August is traditionally the time of vacation, down time, relaxing. I need such most greatly, for a variety of personal reasons. So this post may be considered my declaration of farewells, for the nonce. I've learned that for me, blogging is a cyclical activity.

But first, it is time to take stock of the inanity which has prevailed before us, of the Debt-to-GDP ratio hitting 1-to1, of the thousand manifold bottles of snake-oil that the New Class has sold us. Walter Russel Meade has a fine dissertation on "The Progressive Crisis" (h/t: Ace), which the usual suspects of the droit-osphere have linked approvingly to. He correctly points out what Ayn Rand pointed out 60 years ago: that there is an unspoken will-to-power in the Progressive Movement. Our Saviors are as corrupt and wicked as the rest of us, and the people know it.

Barack Obama is full of shit. Harry Reid is full of shit. Nancy Pelosi is so full of shit she could fertilize Death Valley. Now, as it happens, being full of shit goes with the territory of politics, because politics is shit. Hunter Thompson, who had a Ph.D in Being Full of Shit, nevertheless once wrote something in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas about the profession of journalism that I quote approvingly:

Agnew was right. The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits -- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo cage.

But a few shifts in nomenclature and metaphor would suffice to make this an utterly apt description of politics. Politics is a bunch of glad-handling buffoons, flannel-mouthed ward bosses, and dipshit crusaders. There's but a few of any rank anywhere in the City of Washington that the country would miss if they all spontaneously combusted tomorrow.

This is not a matter of replacing one group of swine with another. I still haven't decided whether John Boehner is full of shit yet (odds are, yes). The nature of the activity is inherently corruptive. To rule others, one can adopt one of two strategies: letting the traditions of your people guide your every action, or attacking every vested interest not on board with your self-aggrandizing agenda. The first is mere office-holding, the second is tyranny. Progressives of every stripe keep declaiming that they have found the Third Way, and more bodies have been littered in that fruitless Grail-Quest than frozen ships seeking the Northwest Passage. It is a fantasy: nothing more than tyranny in a velvet glove. Politics is shit. Inhale deeply.

And that is why I could never muster the anger at someone like Charlie Rangel or Robert Byrd. Rangel is a thief, and a racist thief at that. But I suspect that, in some deep-down, cameras-off world that neither you nor I will ever see, the son of a bitch knows he's a thief, and justifies his thievery on the same grounds that I have offered: he must swim in the same seas as everyone else. That he's a fat little fishy in a sea of shit does not change the odeur of the water one jot.

So sure, catch the fat little fishy if you wish, mount him to the wall. Send his ample ass to jail: why not? That oily bastard lives by our sufferance, which we the people, in our limited wisdom but unlimited sovereignty, can withdraw at any time we see fit. Just you remember: there are plenty of fish in the shitty sea.

No, I have no animus for the Rangles and Byrds of the world of politics. Thieves are thieves, and eventually they end up robbing themselves. I reserve my true hate for the ones who claim not to hunger for graft or power but for a Square Deal for all Americans, the ones who claim that it is time to put politics aside and do the People's Will. Proggies have been shilling that line for a century, and it's the biggest pile of dinosaur shit there is.

The People don't have One Will; that Rousseauist fantasy builds nothing but guillotines. The People are a multiverse of conflicting dreams, desires, and ideology. They have no Main Line from which silken-voiced princes with first-rate temperaments can eternally suckle. 40% of them hate Democrats, 40% hate Republicans, and the rest would rather everyone just play nice. You cannot claim a Mandate to do whatever the hell you please on the basis of winning 51% of such an electorate. It is a house built on quicksand.

The People's Will is a fantasy, and I hope that Obama knows it. Bill Clinton did. That man was as gifted a liar as politics has seen in a while, but he was a better whore. And whores know that it doesn't matter what the john wants if you get extra for the service. So if the john wanted to hear that The Era of Big Government was Over, then Billi would make that sound pretty coming out of his mouth. He knew the tricks; he knew the game; the People (or 60% of them) loved him.

Right now, 50% of the People are fucking sick of Obama, of his fecklessness, his emptiness, his inability to handle one thing with anything approaching success. What the Sam Hell are we doing in Libya? Who the hell knows? Who's in charge? What the hominy fuck happened with ObamaCare? Did Obama even read an executive summary of it? And precisely what about trillion-dollar deficits does this simple bastard love so much?

The worst of all politicians, worse than Thieves, Liars, Whores, or other Associated Swine, are the Gilded Fools: the Bobble-heads, the ra-ra true-believing priests of the Progressive Leviathan. Fools there are aplenty in Washington, and every state house and city hall for that matter. Dennis Kucinich is one such, as is John Edwards (Sarah Palin might be, as well). But these are more or less harmless, as they quickly up-jump their place and show their true motely colors. But sometimes, press or party takes a Fool and Gilds him, makes him shine brighter than the Sunne in Splendour, and the 20% that just wants everyone to play nice will swoon like a 12-year-old at a Justin Bieber concert (In Edwards' case, the gilding did not work, perhaps because a gelding was more in need). By such precise means did a junior senator with no executive experience and a middling legislative experience parlay a MLK-timbered voice into the highest office in the land. The story was too good. We just had to believe that he knew what the hell he was doing.



And now we sit, with a government broke and broken, about to fundamentally disprove Hamilton's postulate that a national debt could be a national treasure (or for those who know the context of that remark, fundamentally prove it). And we are shocked, shocked I say, that the warring tribes cannot negotiate with one another. We can't believe that there's actually a dimes worth of difference between the two.

Well, there is. The GOP has no shortage of Thieves, Liars, Whores, and Swine. Duke Cunningham was a Thief; Gingrich was a Liar, and the Maine Sisters (Snowe and Dukakis) consistently sell their virtue to whatever trawler comes by. But the GOP doesn't get to Gild many Fools, because the gang of fuckoffs and misfits don't usually let them. The rest may or may not actually mean what they say about shrinking the size of government.

Yet even Swine can find a truffle, and the gang of elephants has stumbled upon the reality that eludes the current Gilded Fool: We cannot afford the size of the government we currently have. Not even if we expropriate the wealth of the nation can we afford it. You can only loot Microsoft once. It won't be there to feed the current services baseline next year.

Robert Stacy McCain has a succinct phase for this reality: The State is not God. Get over it. The State can't do everything or satisfy everything. It has limits intrinsic to its nature, which are thievery, force, and lies. You can accomplish much with thievery, force, and lies. But you cannot uplift the human spirit with them. They do not nurture the true and good. They will not succor the middle class, or any other class. They will work only until there is nothing left to steal, no force left untried, and no lie still believed.

And on that note, I take my leave. I will leave Revolutionary Nonsense fallow for a few weeks, but will return by Labor Day at the latest. Enjoy the the Dog-Days.

Alexis McGill Johnson Doesn't Know What Words Mean

Legal Insurrection: (h/t Protein Wisdom)

During a Great American Panel on Hannity tonight John Fund and Hannity were hammering the point that Obama doesn’t know how to negotiate in good faith. One of them mentioned Donald Trump’s criticism that Obama doesn’t know what he’s doing because Obama’s never done a “big deal.”

Panelist Alexis McGill Johnson of the American Values Institute responded:

"He got bin Laden."

Leaving aside the rhetorical effectiveness of Obama's manful crowing about "getting" bin Laden, Johnson seems to have been unaware that Trump meant "big deal" in its literal sense: large-scale financial negotiations. Sending Seal Team Six to whack bin Laden has nothing whatever to do with finance or with negotiation, so far as anyone knows.

So either Alexis McGill Johnson lacks the contextual awareness to pick up on the ordinary plain meaning of words, or she's playing a desperate game of distraction on behalf of Emperor Golden Dancer.

Up to you.

I Can't Quit John Boehner ....

Every time I decide he's gonna sell us down the river, he gives us one of these: (h/t: Drudge)

“As I read the Constitution, the Congress writes the laws and you get to decide what you want to sign,” Boehner said, recounting what he told the president, according to two sources.

That sounds like a man who's sick of negotiating.

Is there a Debt-Limit Deal?

No.

There isn't a deal until there's a deal.

Until the President and the Speaker say "We Have a Deal" (Reid and McConnell will do as they're told), we do not have a deal.

And since we do not have one until it exists, its pointless speculating about what's in it. We will not know until we can see for  ourselves who has stood, and who is screwed.

Hey, Rubes!: Republicans for Obama Edition

A bunch of "Republicans" who chose Obama over McCain, because of that dirty Palin woman, are upset that he didn't turn out as he promised.

Pundette invites them all to get stuffed: (h/t Insty)

Cry me a river. They looked at Obama's Harvard law degree and that sharp pant crease and thought he was one of them, or at least more so than that uncredentialed piece of Wasilla trash, with all her vulgar "you betchas" and excessive children, including that embarrassing baby she doted on. And these snobs, instead of apologizing for contributing to the downfall of America, have the nerve to complain about "class warfare."

One has to wonder why these people bother to register as Republicans. Isn't being able to decipher MSM smears and fixes a prerequisite?

The Gang of Six Plan is a Joke

Which is why it will probably pass. It does one or two useful things, one or two not useful things, and dicks around with the most needful thing, which is cutting spending and reforming entitlements.

Dan Mitchell has the details. (h/t: Protein Wisdom)

"Forget lifeboats. We need to rearrange these chairs!"

UPDATE: Ezra Klein tries to spin the thing, and it remains as stationary as a Soviet monument: (h/t: Memeorandum)

Then the Budget Committee is charged with drawing up legislation to extend the caps on discretionary spending — which cover both defense and non-defense, and, if I understand this right, cut more than $1 trillion from projected spending — until 2021, and to draw up an enforcement mechanism that will kick in if deficit reduction isn't on track come 2015. Come 2020, federal health spending is put on a global budget, with growth not to exceed GDP plus 1 percent. Finally, once all that's passed, the Finance Committee is asked to produce legislation making Social Security solvent for the next 75 years, and their product is assured certain procedural advantages. There's very little in the way of specifics here, but there's an odd line suggesting that if this effort fails, then the vote on the whole deficit-reduction plan is invalidated.

In other words, most of the big savings come from telling the Senate Finance Committee to find said savings later on, and pinky-swearing that they'll make it easy for them to do so. The $500 billion up-front savings come mostly from some accounting tricks, including a reduction in Social Security's COLA adjustment.


And how is that markedly different from the House GOP's "Cut, Cap, and Balance" plan? A few ways:

1. Raising the Debt Ceiling is contingent on a Balanced-Budget Amendment. The BBA outlaws deficit spending and requires a two-thirds vote for tax increases.
2. The Up-Front Savings come mostly from non-defense discretionary spending. Such spending is reduced to FY2008. The actual number of savings is less, $111 billion to $500 billion, but the savings are more real.
3. This is acknowledged as the beginning of fiscal sanity, not the end of it. Obama has been touting a "big plan" so he can say that he "made hard choices" during next year's campaign. He wants to pretend that our nation's fiscal health can be tied up in a pretty package with the word "DONE" on the label.

In other words, CCB requires making actual spending cuts, while GO6 requires pretending that we have already made them.

Nancy Pelosi is Incredibly Stupid

In other news, Generalissimo Francisco... you know the rest. (h/t: The Other McCain)



Just for the record, this is what Job suffered:

• Reduction to poverty
• Loss of his workers
• Death of his children
• Boils and Sores
• His wife's nagging

This is what Obama has suffered:

• Having to listen to people who disagree with him
• Having to take seriously the suggestions of people who disagree with him
• Having to meet with people who disagree with them and treat them respectfully

In other words, Barack Obama has had do do things that come with the job description of being President of the United States. What's next? Does Obama get compared to Elijah for taking trips on Air Force One?

Hopefully, it was a snack flight

Most of the Book of Job, in fact, is Job arguing with his three friends about God's justice and mercy. If St. Nancy of the Catholic Cafeteria had actually ever read it, she'd know that comparing someone required by dint of his office to listen to opposing viewpoints with Job is not merely an egregious exaggeration; it's spectacularly inapt.

Meghan McArdle Discovers That Spending Cuts Means Cutting Spending

Actually, she yells that the sky is falling, and blames the Republicans. For wanting to cut spending. (h/t: Memeorandum)

The GOP will have taken a chance at meaningful entitlement reform and a mostly-spending budget deal, and thrown it away for literally no gain.

What chance at meaningful entitlement reform was that? The one where Obama mocked Paul Ryan? The One where Obama offered a budget that the CBO said was ungradeable? The one where the Senate Democrats ignored the budget that the House passed?

Does that mean that I'm shilling for the Democrats and saying you can never cut spending?  Hardly.  But you cannot cut spending by 40% in the middle of a recession.

I'd take a 2% spending cut in real dollar terms. If Obama offered that, instead of magical next-year spending cuts that will never actually cut spending, there'd be no debt-ceiling argument. Eric Cantor suggested that, and Obama stormed out of the room like it was his party and he'd cry if he wanted to.

So yeah, Megan, that makes you a shill for the Democrats who never permits cutting spending. Because as soon as the possibility of actually cutting spending appears, you squeal like the angels are busting open the seals.

And then women will be forced to back-alley abortionists,
human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together...

It's Still 2008.

Over at the City Journal (h/t: Ace), Nicole Gelinas argues that the recession has been prolonged because the cause of it has not been dealth with. To wit: the mortgage-backed toxic assets that 2007's Super SIV (Structured Investment Vehicle) and 2008's TARP are still there, and they're ready to wreak havoc as soon as the Fed tries to do anything with them:
That’s what started to happen just a few weeks ago, when the

Fed gingerly tried to declare victory. Because the central bank figured that markets were returning to health, it decided to sell some of its AIG-related securities. After the Fed made its move, an index that tracks this type of securities plummeted, after having doubled in the previous two years. The Fed panicked and made an unusual announcement that it wouldn’t try for sales again any time soon. The index then rose by double-digit percentage points.
These are not signs of a healthy financial market. Those toxic assets are still there, and they’re spreading their poison into the rest of the economy. Private businesses have no idea what will happen when the Fed pulls away all its support—or what will happen if the Fed doesn’t pull away its support. So companies hoard cash rather than create jobs. People, too, hoard cash. Stuck with the bubble’s hangover of private debt, they have no idea how they’re going to pay for their kids’ education or their own retirements. Even employed people without much debt are terrified that they’ll lose their jobs and won’t get new ones—so they don’t spend money, further depressing consumer spending and killing more jobs.

Obama's trillion-dollar Stimulus is utterly beside the point: it was merely the Illusion of Action, miles away from the actual source of the problem. Which means that he not only doubled-down on Bush's initial mistake, he added a new one. When the market isn't allowed to do its job, the market becomes bloated and stagnant.
Read the whole thing.

The Economy is Hosed.

Just let Vodkapundit tell it:

• 30% — federal debt held by public as percentage of GDP, 2005.
• 60% — federal debt held by public as percentage of GDP, 2010.
• 180% — federal debt held by public as percentage of GDP, CBO estimate, 2035.
• 0% — odds of current path being sustainable.

That's just the last part, so Read the Whole Thing, and when you're done giving Stephen Green a high-five for the obscure-but-amazingly-apt Douglas Adams reference, please remember just which feckless blowhard it was who found our financial house burning down and proceeded to throw napalm on it.