E!! The True Conservative Story™

Well, I guess we need to have another Tax Day TEA Party ASAP!  What part of “get out of our wallets” and “stop ‘helping’ us!” and “stop spending money that doesn’t need to be spent” and ”stop hiring government employees to do things we can do ourselves” does the government not understand…?   Good grief!!

This “plan” from the White House is so outrageous and hair-brained and so likely to have the opposite of the intended effect that it is hard to even believe (copied and pasted from The Corner to save time):

Remember when the Left snarked at Bush for the orchestration of various photo opps with the U.S. military? 

Apparently Obama’s PR people have decided to adopt the practice.  Including pre-screening and special-stamping military personnel based on who they voted for in November.

Here’s a great piece on it (on Hot Air).

I’ve shamelessly swiped that terrific header from Jonah @ NRO.

The linked-to piece – from ExurbanLeague - is here.  An excerpt (satire alert):

Obviously, this incident has raised many concerns among Americans. There have been calls for justice and even violence against the misguided perpetrators. But such an emotional reaction has led to the disparagement of entire groups with which we are unfamiliar. We have seen this throughout history.

For too long, America has been too dismissive of the proud culture and invaluable contributions of the Pirate Community. Whether it is their pioneering work with prosthetics, husbandry of tropical birds or fanciful fashion sense, America owes a deep debt to Pirates.

The past eight years have shown a failure to appreciate the historic role of these noble seafarers. Instead of celebrating their entreprenuerial spirit and seeking to partner with them to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive.

Some of us wonder if our current Overseas Contingency Operation would even be needed had the last administration not been so quick to label Pirates as “thieves,” “terrorists” and worse. Such swashbucklaphobia can lead to tragic results, as we have seen this week.

If we had a Special Olympics for people who can’t function without committing grave social gaffes at every turn, the Obamas would surely compete.  Examples:

Obama bows deeply to the Saudi king here.  American Thinker calls it “unbecoming” an American presisdent.  I would say so.  And would add that it’s more than a little creepy.

Although it is reported that the Queen of England was actually agreeable to receiving a hug from Michelle Obama, I wonder what Her Majesty thought of the iPod the Obamas gave her as a gift?  Granted:  it contained footage and photographs from her 2007 US visit, but so what?  Do the Obamas think no one in the Queen’s huge entourage – including the British press – was in possession of a camera during her trip?  Or that she cannot afford her own iPod?  (It’s been reported that she already owns one.)

After the British prime minister presented Obama with a pen holder crafted from the timbers of the 19th century British war ship HMS President (whose sister ship, HMS Resolute, provided the wood for the Oval Office’s desk) AND a first edition of the seven-volume biography of Winston Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert…Obama gave the British prime minister 25 DVDs of classic American movies.  The package could be purchased anywhere for about $200.  And the discs that were given don’t even work across the Atlantic (different formatting).

Is there no one on Obama’s staff with a clue about international diplomacy and etiquette?  Or, for that matter, with a lick of common sense?  I’m pretty sure my thirteen year old son could come up with better gift choices for world leaders.

Whatever your political leanings, you should give yourself the gift of a quick education and read this 12-page report from Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.  It is an excellent overview and contains many easy to understand charts, graphs, and summaries.

There is no denying that this budget contains enormous spending increases and will lead to unprecedented levels of national debt.  And Obama’s ”spending cuts” are nowhere to be found.  (Where is the promised scalpel, sir?!)  For example: 

– Obama proposes to move some items from the “discretionary” to “mandatory” spending category, but that is just re-arranging chairs.

– About half the total “savings” come from tax increases.

– Another large chunk of “savings” is really just money ($170 billion a year) that won’t be spent in Iraq after 2012.  But the Bush administration never planned to extend anything like the current levels of spending beyond 2012.  It’s not “saving” to not spend money that was NEVER going to be spent.

Fake savings and tax increases aside, this budget is scary because it is a permanent expansion of the federal government as a percent of GDP.  The simple chart on page 12 sums it up very nicely.  De Rugy, an expert in her field, predicts “slower growth rates, higher unemployment rates, lower standards of living, and higher levels of poverty.”

Change is definitely on the way, folks.  And you better hope your family is spared.

That’s a line from one of our favorite Adam Sandler movies, Waterboy. 

He yells it at a KFC colonel look-alike professor who is trying to convince him that contrary to what his back woods Mama Says – “alligators are angry because they have all them teeth and no toothbrush” - alligators are ornery because they have an enlarged medula oblangata.

“So you see, Bobby Bouche, your mama is just wrong.”

-

And on the subject of being wrong, Max Schultz claims Yucca Mountain is not dead.  Enough money to keep the project alive (see Obama’s budget) is all the proof we need.  No matter what Harry Reid says.

A blogger (or is blogging?) acquaintance, Patrick O’Hannigan of the Paragraph Farmer, has a good piece on the male vs. female wages myth and Obama’s new “White House Council on Women and Girls”  in The American Spectator.  Includes cameo appearances by Shakespeare, Foghorn Leghorn, J.R.R. Tolkien, Cinderella, and George Orwell.

Patrick also gets brownie points for pointing us to P.J. O’Rourke’s latest brilliance in the WS (and he, in turn, gives thanks to The Anchoress, from whence he got it).  P.J. – who is still hilarious even while battling cancer – shreds Obama on stem cells; you simply must read it.

this painting by Andy Thomas.  And it’s new caption.

Thanks to the Paragraph Farmer for posting.

…because I will now praise Nevada Congresswoman Dina Titus for statements she made today in a Budget Committee meeting on The Hill:

“…I remain concerned about President Obama’s proposal to reduce the itemized deduction rate for families with incomes over $250,000.  I am particularly concerned with the impact this provision could have on housing and charitable giving.
 
“The Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) is an important incentive that encourages Americans all over the country to buy homes.  Many consider the MID to be the single most important tax incentive facilitating home ownership in the United States.  I am concerned that reducing the value of this incentive would lead to the further deterioration of the housing market.  It has become evident over the past few years that the housing market is tied closely to the national economy as a whole.  With the economy in its current state, we simply cannot afford to make changes to the tax code that could lead to a further decline in home prices.  The housing market in Congressional District Three in Nevada – previously one of the fastest growing markets in the nation – is currently in shambles.  Today, nearly 58.2 percent of Las Vegas homes have negative equity.  We can’t afford to let prices drop any further by making it less attractive to buy a home.
 
“I am similarly concerned about the impact the proposal to reduce the itemized deduction rate could have on charitable giving.  The tax deduction for charitable giving encourages Americans to make contributions to philanthropic organizations, many of which have been hard hit by the economic crisis.  With so many people in need, the services many charities provide are in high demand.  I believe that it is the wrong time to make changes to the tax code that could make charitable contributions less attractive.”

Forthwith, let it not be said that I am unwilling to acknowledge sanity when it occasionally visits itself upon Congresswoman Titus.

One of my favorites over at The Corner, Victor Davis Hanson, explains:

When Obama said he would restore our image in the world, few were mature enough to realize that there were already sympathetic governments in Europe, India’s billion people liked us, and all of Africa was appreciative of what Bush had done. Fewer still accepted the fact that, given the sorry state of the world, the United States faces a awkward choice: It can either be largely disliked for taking a principled stance in support of constitutional government and open markets, or it can be liked for being unprincipled.

We seem to have forgotten that those who most hated the Bush-Cheney administration were Putin, Chávez, Assad, the Castro brothers, Kim Jong Il, Ahmadinejad, Hamas — and European intellectuals. So, yes, we can be liked in the age of Obama, and the way to do it is to give up Eastern Europe to Russian concerns, be praised by Chávez for our newfound socialism, drop sanctions against Cuba, talk to Iran and Syria without preconditions, ignore Korean missiles, rebuild Gaza (though I hope that does not include restoring the depleted rocket inventory), tack hard to the left of the salons and coffee houses of the EU, and drop all that bothersome talk about democracy and constitutional government.

In other words, the way to be liked is to become like those who don’t like us. Who knows — maybe the U.S. will now be asked to chair the U.N. Human Rights Council?

Here’s a little two minute ditty I think you’ll all enjoy.  My complements to singer and song writer Kathleen Stewart and lyricist Steve Jones.

LOL

Harry Reid said the following in a newsletter to his constituents yesterday:

“In his budget request for 2010, President Obama will announce plans to devise a new strategy to find another solution to deal with the nation’s nuclear waste that does not include storing it in Nevada.”

This is a shame if so.  The Yucca Mountain project currently employs hundreds of people and stands to employ thousands more, not to mention the nearly $100 billion it would bring into the hurting state economy.

The operation of nuclear energy plants and the transportation, recycling, and storage of spent nuclear fuel can be done quite safely these days - in fact is done safely all over Europe - but apparently Harry Reid is not going to let the facts get in the way of politics-per-usual and a Wednesday press release.  (More on the latest with Yucca here.)

This is the second time in less than three weeks an Obama agenda item has dealt a heavy blow to Nevada’s economy.  What was the first, you ask?  This offhand comment recently made at a townhall meeting:

“You are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you’ve paid taxpayers back, you can’t get corporate jets, you can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers dime.”

Rich Becker wrote an excellent piece on the fallout of that comment, which summed up is this:

Companies are now scrambling to avoid the “stigma” of holding company functions in Las Vegas and millions of dollars have been lost due to cancelled rooms and convention events.  (These organizations aren’t really cancelling the events; they’re just relocating them.  To sunny California, mostly.)  And the tremendous loss of room revenue, convention business, enertainment dollars, and gaming revenue is going to lead to even more layoffs than Nevada’s already seen.

So where are Harry Reid (and Dina Titus) with their outrage and big press releases when Nevada’s economy really needs them?  Busy rubbing elbows with a president who clearly doesn’t give a damn about the what’s best for the Silver State.

I guess Nevada is now “blue” in more ways than one.

But don’t just stand there and cry, good citizens.  You can do something:

http://dumpreid.com/

Everyone at NR is on fire today.  Rich Lowry adds fuel.

Like this:

Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill:  I won.

That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy.

As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power—provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in October to double federal domestic discretionary spending in a matter of weeks—including increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by a third, spending hundreds of millions more on federal buildings and throwing tens of billions on every traditional liberal priority from job training to Pell Grants—he’d have been hard-pressed to win at all.

The president should read the transcript of the third presidential debate. He claimed his program represented “a net spending cut.” He called himself “a strong proponent of pay-as-you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” He added, “We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don’t work.”

 And this:

Obama writes that the bill “is more than a prescription for short-term spending—it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity.” Fine. A long-term strategy deserves long-term deliberation, the committee hearings and other processes meant to exercise a check on the heedlessness of hasty legislating in a panic.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will have a stimulative effect in the short term but a negative one in the long term, although it stipulates that “large fiscal stimulus is rarely attempted” and its effects “are very uncertain.” The stimulus bill is basically a $1 trillion bet on an utterly unproven theory—that scattershot government spending is a magic elixir for an economy in the grips of a financial crisis.

When Barack Obama ran last year, he didn’t say he’d engage in faith-based economic policy on a grand scale. He didn’t say he’d toss aside the normal processes of governing. He didn’t say he’d quickly act to add waste to the federal budget. And he didn’t say he’d try to brush away criticism with the mere assertion of his victory. On the stimulus, when Obama says “I won,” he’s out of better arguments.

Jonah is especially funny today.  What can I say, I’m a sucker for Star Trek references:

Moreover, many actually believed Obama’s own hype. This was the moment for this, that and the other thing. This was the time when we, as Americans, were going to have our cake and eat it too. Future generations were going to look back and remember how Republicans and Democrats, cats and dogs, Klingons and Romulans came together and marched to the sunny uplands of history, where shopping carts have no wobbly wheels; airplane food is free, delicious, and filling; and we get all of our energy from 100 percent renewable Loch Ness Monster poop.

So says Charles Krauthammer today in his not-to-be-missed WaPo column. 

(I love Charles.  He has a real knack for making me laugh as he delivers scores of sad-but-truisms.)

If you missed it, here’s the transcript from Obama’s speech from last night. 

What you won’t get from reading it (that was obvious when watching) is how angry he was:  dark eyes, tense jaw, stiff neck, and a light mist of sweat ‘cross his furrowed brow.  At times he all but fumed as he turned from left teleprompter to right.

I must admit, I took some pleasure in watching Obama rail against the forces that would impede his mighty (and wrong-headed) will.

What a proud and foolish man he seems.

He always seemed so, to me – but I tried to believe it was the ecstacy of adoring crowds and the headyness of the historical import of his impending victory.  I hoped the smug and self-congratulatory air would leave him a few days, or a few weeks, into office.

Not so.

Vanity, thy name is now President.

Yesterday 18 free market and limited government leaders released a letter urging the Senate to reject “the Bill.” 

And Rasumussen reported that more Americans oppose the $1.2 trillion (including intest) bill than support it.   Here are some blurbs:

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 37% favor the legislation, 43% are opposed, and 20% are not sure.

Two weeks ago, 45% supported the plan. Last week, 42% supported it.

Opposition has grown from 34% two weeks ago to 39% last week and 43% today.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Democrats still support the plan. That figure is down from 74% a week ago. Just 13% of Republicans and 27% of those not affiliated with either major party agree.

Seventy-two percent (72%) of Republicans oppose the plan along with 50% of unaffiliated voters and 16% of Democrats.

Meanwhile Congressional Republicans doubt whether the bill will save or create the 3 to 4 million jobs Obama and the Dems claim.

The bill is full of pork and nonsense and needs to be scrapped.

Quite a few readers have asked me if I read “the CATO ad/letter.” 

I did - and now you can, too.  (Can someone count the signatures, please…?)

Remember in the Bible in Genesis 18 when God informs Abraham that he plans to destroy Sodom because of its really wicked wickedness? 

And Abraham pleads with God not to rain down fire and brimstone if 50 good people can be found in the city? 

And God says “ok,” and then Abraham lowers the quota to 40, then 30, then 20, and finally, to just 10 goodly folks?

And God still says “ok” but then the angels can only find FOUR decent people living in Sodom so the city is destroyed?

Do you think Obama can find even 10 good people…to help fill his 15 cabinet positions…?

Update:  This just gets better and better.  Now the WSJ is reporting there are problems with Panetta, too.

.

A loyal reader sent this interesting little story tidbit along.  She searched it out because her “eagle eye” husband spotted Beau Biden in some camera shots of THE Obama-Biden Express (train ride) the other day.

No two ways about it, this is pretty special treatment.

The aforementioned reader writes:

“The only person I know who’s gotten to come home early from a deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan is a friend from church:  his wife (also Air Force) was diagnosed with breast cancer a month or so before he was due to come back and they brought him home early.

Soldiers are missing the birth of their kids and Beau Biden gets to come home for a “special assignment” at the Pentagon?”

An astute reader wonders why no one (not Obama, not the poet) flipped a few words around and used “seven score and four years ago” in today’s rhetoric – especially as Obama did other things that mimicked Lincoln’s inauguration. 

It’s been 144 years since Lincoln was assassinated and the south surrendered.

(If you didn’t know it, a score is 20 years.)

I agree with every word of this post called “Why I Hate Inaugurations” by the always thoughtful Joe Carter. Here’s most of it:

I cannot bear to watch the religious fervor, the tears and chants and beaming visages, for the promotion of a man or woman to a secular office. We do not live in a monarchy; we do not crown queens and kings in American.

Lest we forget, the President of the United States is the servant of the American people. (Despite what actors like Ashton Kutcher think, we do not serve him.) There is something unseemly, and dare I say, almost un-American, about making such a spectacle about a public servant taking office.

Transition ceremonies should be dignified, graceful, and modest – the exact opposite of all that Inauguration ceremonies have become. For this one, President Bush even declared a state of emergency for the entire city of DC so that taxpayer money could be diverted from the FEMA budget for this spectacle. This disgraceful action by our outgoing President barely raised a shrug from the populace. We no longer question our kings.

Many of our fellow citizens have lost all sense of decorum and perspective about this event. The transition of Presidential power from one man to another does not mark a significant transition in the culture of America. Our worries, fears, and concerns do not abate because there is a different man in the White House. Our dreams, hopes, and happiness do not increase because of who occupies the Oval Office. This change in government does not portend a change in human nature or the hearts of our fellow citizens. America — all that is good and bad about us — remains the same.

Fortunately, the unseemly pageantry of the Inauguration will be over by tomorrow, allowing us to move on to what truly matters in our country. Perhaps then all of us, even those of us in DC, can move beyond the deification of the political to focus once again on what truly matters.

I’m trying not to be grouchy and just let ObamaNation have their fun today, but that’s one hell of a price tag for today’s Festivities. Seems to me we could have had a very nice Inauguration for a lot less.

Check out this post on this report. 

Sum up:  The Institute for Liberty estimated the carbon emission stats for Inauguration Day.  And it would take the average American household about 60,000 years to match the carbon output of Obama’s supercalifrajilistic party.

I’ve been saying all week that in this age of high-def and live satellite feeds, it is ridiculous that between 1 and 2 million people will be going to D.C. to try to “witness” this event.  Most of them will not be able to get close access or even see Obama with their own eyes.  So what is the point?  It’s a collossal waste of time and energy for very little (if any) return.

Every American with a television or an internet connection can stay home and have a “front row seat” to the swearing-in, speeches, poem readings, parades, confetti showers and joyous weeping.

If they can even stand to watch it, which I doubt I can – knowing that at least $75 million in taxpayer funds will be spent on this one-day event.

Read it for yourself. 

Sum up:  This is a blank check from Bush for the inauguration.

The Conservative Muse amuses with a clever poem entitled “An Open Letter to Comrade Obama.”

Don’t miss this Washington Times piece by Gary Shapiro, CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (and thanks to Stephen Dreikorn @ The Pinkston Group for bringing it to my attention).

Shaprio rightly points out that the card check issue is even bigger than worker coercion and forced unionization through the deprivation of secret ballot votes in union elections.  Also at stake are the integrity of our labor laws, the balance of power in American labor-management relations, and possibly our entire economy.

Shapiro reminds us that unions once existed primarily to ensure worker safety, but protections for our labor force are now the law of the land.  Unions today have become more concerned with negotiating above-market wages and benefits for their members, lobbying to block free trade agreements at every turn, and protecting their own power.

When achieved, these three things make companies less competitive.  And companies that cannot compete will flounder or fail, hurting the shareholders and driving jobs overseas while dumping their newly unemployed into the American economy.

Shapiro reminds us that creative innovation is the American way and the best way out of the present situation.  He asks us to realize that the big union bullwhips and our mounting personal and national debt are driving us all into a deep pit that may soon become a mass grave.

Rather than burden companies with heavy tarrifs, big taxes, and too cumbersome regulatory and union restrictions, we should be doing our best to lighten their load so they can be faster and more flexible.  In a global economy that can often turn on a dime, getting around the corner quickly is the difference between keeping up with the pack or being left in the proverbial dust.

Andrea Mitchell/MSNBC, Pajamas Media and Media Blog on NRO are discussing the possibility of Hillary for Secretary of State. 

An SOS appointment is a political dead end; therefore, RHC will say no.  She still has ambition, and she’s just not that dumb.

(The fact that she’s not qualified may have little or no bearing on Obama trying to slide her in – and consequently get her out of his hair in the Senate.)

Ronald Kessler with Newsmax has a good piece on Obama and the courts – and how fast the changes could happen. An excerpt:

Because Democrats dragged their heels on President Bush’s judicial nominations, 14 seats are open on appeals courts or will be by the end of January. Democratic nominees now are a majority on only one of the 13 federal appeals courts, the ultra-liberal U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco. Within four years, Obama could name enough judges to give Democrats a majority on nine of the 13 appeals courts.

RTWT (Read the whole thing)

Far Right Democrat reminds us about George Orwell’s 1984ian government organization, the Ministry of Truth, and wonders how quickly KOS will do likewise in the way of rewriting history (i.e. change the official story) on mandated health care when Obama reverses himself and endorses it.

Of course, the modern day Ministry of Truth – the mainstream media – does this all the time.  As do nearly all politicians, especially during election cycles. 

Revisionist history:  it’s what’s for breakfast.

Unfreakinbelievable.

Brace yourself and then then read Larry Kudlow’s post on Paulson today, various bailout stuff, and the auto industry.

Setting aside the fact that Paulson has changed the whole bailout game, is Obama’s first policy decision really going to be a GM bailout? Maybe, because apparently a UAW rescue is favored by Pelosi and Reid.

Before you decide what you think, consider this amazing stat:

Total compensation per hour for the big-three carmakers is $73.20. That’s a 52 percent differential from Toyota’s (Detroit South) $48 compensation (wages + health and retirement benefits). In fact, the oversized UAW-driven pay package for Detroit is 132 percent higher than that of the entire manufacturing sector of the U.S., which comes in at $31.59.

At $73 per hour, GM ain’t gonna be competitive no matter what is done. Let them cut their wages to industry norms.

King George of the Let Them Eat Cake blog has noted that Obama’s change.gov site invites his beloved citizens to contact him and “share their vision” with his administration. George snarkily suggests how O might process and manage the millions of bright ideas coming in.  You can click thru for his thoughts (which are very amusing) and my cake-inspired sample letter just below his post.

Nicky Cheese clicked around and noted that change.gov also invites people to fill out an O admin job application online.  Nic is super excited about working for the new Obamastration and has already applied and begun apartment hunting in D.C.  This afternoon he forwarded me the touchingly personal note he received from Obama:

“Thank you for your interest in joining the Obama-Biden Administration. Within a few days, you will receive an email with a link to the more complete on-line application. Please be patient, as we are trying to respond promptly to the large number of people who are interested in working in the Administration.”

I am so inspired that I am also going to apply.  Suggest you do the same before all the good jobs are gone.

(Nic ~ can you convince the powers that be to throw up a Blogivists discussion board on this so we can all compare notes?  I suspect we can have some fun with this.)

Obama has created a website laying out his big plans:  http://change.gov/

He might want to have his writers/editors proofread their copy before they post pages to the site, though.  This page:  http://change.gov/agenda/economy/ duplicates paragraphs 3/4 in paragraphs 5/6.

I’m available for hire if none of his staffers have the time or ability.

The dialogue has begun.  Mahmoud informs Obama that the world expects a major “overhaul.”

Like many Americans last week, I tuned in for the 30-minute Barack-o-mercial. 

In between the anecdotal close-ups of struggling American families – a widow working two jobs and raising two kids; a husband and father worried about his job at the Ford plant – I noted that Obama’s megacommercial failed to present hard data on the cost of his proposed programs and said nothing about our huge federal deficit and the corresponding budget pressures he will face once in office. 

Obam’s description of his health care plan – which “includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions, and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year” – sounds very nice, but there has been no independent economic analysis confirming that costs will really be reduced by that (or any) amount.

Obama simply Hopes that spending $50 billion on his proposed Changes over the next five years will save the system money.  But even if his optimistic estimates prove out, Obama’s plan does not stipulate that the net savings by insurance and health care providers will result in lower premiums for consumers.

And then we have Obama’s promises to “cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year…  Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee they hire…  Eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas…  Help homeowners by freezing foreclosures for 90 days… Provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open…”

Independent analysts have estimated that combined with our current budget shortfalls, these and other of Obama’s proposals will likely result in a $1 trillion deficit next year.  That being unthinkable, some purging will be necessary.  But which of his programs will Obama cut, and why has he been promising all of them if he knows at least some must go?

Though much of his infomercial focused on the “hard realities” of life for select American families, Obama seems unwilling or unable to face reality himself.  It seems he could stand to learn something from that widowed mother of two who has to settle for half instead of whole gallons of milk when the money runs short – and doesn’t promise her family otherwise on the way to the store.

This post is very well done.

Hat Tip:  Conor Friedersdorf @ Culture11

Don’t miss Joe Carter’s post on Culture11. And (most of) the comments are worth reading, too. It is interesting how people see these things – and to note the corresponding assumptions they make about what “everyone” else thinks or believes.

I’m grateful to blog for an online magazine that encourages these kinds of discussions. Thanks, Joe!

Forgot to mention that Rove’s electoral map prediction was the closest of any I found in my internet and blogosphere travels.  He called it perfectly with the exception of giving Indiana to McCain (so had called it 338 – 200).  Impressive.

(If you know of a site, blog or map that had it 100% right, please let me know.)

In light of his promises to be a new kind of president running a new kind of White House, Obama’s choice of Rahm Emanuel for White House chief of staff is surprising.

It is said by those who have worked with him, or know people who have, that although Emanuel is a brilliant mind he is also viciously partisan, aggressive, and impatient. Why, then, would Obama choose him for a job which primarily entails managing people and facilitating decision processes?

Obama needs staffers who can and will help him be decisive, and Emanuel can do that – but at what cost? If Emanuel is as expert at alienating and offending as is reported, he will be helping in one way but hurting in another.

Surely there were better choices?