Mission Accomplished

Eight years after George Bush strutted onto an aircraft carrier, positioned for public relations efforts just outside of San Diego, the U.S. can finally, more truly claim "Mission Accomplished" with the death of Osama Bin Laden.

It is ironic that Bush celebrated the end of major combat operations in Iraq while President Obama marked the killing and capture of the person who actually attacked the United States. But then Sen. John Kerry had to remind Bush in a 2004 debate that it wasn't Saddam Hussein but Bin Laden that attacked the U.S.

George Bush left a host of problems, from economic to multiple wars, and it has taken time for President Obama to right the ship, but it appears that he is doing so.

You Can't Argue With Crazy

Considering the reaction by the birthers to the release by President Obama of his long-form birth certificate it is little wonder that the administration didn't release it earlier.

No matter what documentation President Obama releases it will never be enough. One only has to look at the reaction on "legimate" conservative websites to see that "You Can't Argue With Crazy."

For too many who didn't believe in the short form certificate of birth, the long form is no better for numerous reasons, such as it wasn't released soon enough.

Befitting the title of Grand of Party of Hypocrites (GOPHers), the New York Times pointed out that many Republicans have been demanding that before one can register to vote they produce a birth certificate. But what are the states going to provide? A short form that was unacceptable to birthers?

So a short form is basically its worthless to prove you are born in the U.S. to them, except its necessary to register to vote. Wrap your head around that double standard.

While conservatives may have lost this round, there's no doubt they will move on the next outrageous comment, one that will require more documentation, and no matter what documentation is provided it will never be enough.

Because you just can't argue with crazy.

Casino Economics and Protecing the Rich

In defending the richest Americans from possibly taking part in the shared sacrifice needed to right the United States, conservatives are banking on Casino Economics in hopes that they can convince a majority of Americans to protect a tiny minority who needs little protection.

In Casino Economics conservatives use the hope that most people share that one day that they too shall be rich, just as casinos use the belief that many people secretly share that they are going to be the lucky one that hits the jackpot.

But just as in the casino where the House wins most of the time and everyone else goes home with less money, conservatives are hoping that if they can convince people that they too might one day be part of the top 10 or 1 percent and so taxes need to be low when they get there. As a result people tend to squander their vote on candidates without their interest at heart.

There's nothing wrong with hope and with hard work people can work their way up the economic ladder, however in all likelyhood most people are voting to make themselves poorer rather than richer. Everyone has heard of someone who has "won" and think they are next. Unfortunately they probably are not.

Conservatives Feel They Are Victims Too

Following the massacre in Tucson it has become apparent to conservatives who the real victims are, the incendiary politicians and talk show hosts who have spent years working to enrage citizens against their government.

Their claim is that in this particular instance there is no evidence that their irresponsible speech had any role in the massacre, and on a limited basis they may be correct. However this continual campaign against the government over the years has encouraged a vendetta against our government and atmosphere where people think little of bringing assault weapons to Presidential events.

Sarah Palin argues that the individual is solely responsible for his actions; George Will called those who dare to question the legitimacy of conservatives actions charlatans; Charles Krauthammer claimed “Rarely in American political discourse has there been a charge so reckless, so scurrilous and so unsupported by evidence.”

Hmm, how about when Newt Gingrich tried to blame Democrats for Susan Smith killing her children when in reality there were allegations that her step-father, a local Republican politician had molested his step daughter for years. How was that the Democrats fault? According to Palin, shouldn't that be all Ms. Smith’s responsibility and her step-father is wrong to blame himself?

Conservatives have continually blamed Democrats for all sorts of problems, yet when it questioned about putting bull-eyes on candidates or suggesting that “second amendment remedies” are needed they get very defensive.

Perhaps some people were too eager to connect the dots between the overheated rhetoric of the town halls, Palin’s bulls-eye map, and Sharon Angles “second amendment remedies” with the massacre, but considering how conservatives continually rush to judgement is it surprising?

It's a Bad Day When 39% is a Great Win

A tale of two parties...Republicans are patting themselves on the pat for managing to get 39% of the vote in a special House election in Hawaii...and Democrats are trying to figure out how they lost a race even though they got approximately 60% of the votes.

Confused? The race in Hawaii Congressional seat was a three way contest with two Democrats and one Republican. The Democrats split 60% of the vote but that allowed a Republican to win with only 39% of the vote as neither of the Democrats would withdraw to help the other. The two Democrats will now face off to see who will face the Republican in the fall.

While the Republicans gloat about winning a seat where President Obama got 70% of the vote in 2008, what they don't say is that in 2006 the Republicans running for the House seats received 34% and 40% of the vote in the general election.

So, if according to the pundits, Kentucky should elect a Republican Senator in the fall despite getting outvoted in the primary, then Hawaiian voters, in a two-way race, will win the Hawaiian seat.

Why Rand Paul Could Lose in November

Despite being the media darling of the day and the Kentucky Senate race being the be all and end all race of the day, only 352,000 Republicans voted in the primary.

While the GOP turnout was higher than the last non-presidential primary it still shows Paul has a long way to go to win. In 2007 more than 202,000 voted in the Republican primary and 348,000 voted in the Democratic primary.

More than 520,000 people turned out on Tuesday for the Democratic primary and looking at previous turnout for non-presidential general elections, at best Kentucky is looking at a turnout of 1.3 million in November.

• 1998 – 1.145 million
• 1999 – 0.580
• 2002 – 1,131
• 2003 – 1,083
• 2006 – 1,253
• 2007 – 1,055
• 2010- ?

With an expected turnout of 1.2 to 1.3 million in November that means the winner will need to get 600,000 to 650,000 votes to win in a two way race. With a base of 520,000 voters showing up for their primary, it will be a lot easier for the Democrats to get 80,000 to 130,000 additional votes, while the GOP faces the challenge of getting 300,000 to 350,000 votes.

While there may be some Democratic primary voters who vote for Paul in the fall, it is more likely that it will be offset by Trey Grayson voters defecting from the GOP. The GOP's hope, perhaps, is that turnout will be closer to the 1.8 million that showed up for the 2008 election and where 953,000 voted for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to win with 53% of the vote.

The GOP will also claim that more Kentuckians are registered as Democrats but vote as Republican in general elections. However, in a year where the GOP electorate is supposedly "energized" it is difficult to see how they they can easily triple their primary turnout.

So while Republicans may be excited about the fall’s prospects Super Tuesday may have been the beginning of the end for the GOP to make advances this year.

Beware of the Rand Paul Hype

Rand Paul's victory in the GOP Senate primary in Kentucky will be the lead story in all the media on Wednesday, implying that Democrats, and incumbents are in trouble. While the second part may be true, if you look a little closer at Paul's support and enthusiam for the GOP, it may well be a mile wide and an inch thick.

While it may be tricky to compare primary voter turnout numbers to project them to a fall election, but it is interesting to note that Paul and Trey Grayson got 95% of the vote in the Kentucky GOP primary, or approximately 330,000 votes. By comparison the top two Democrats got 87% of the Democratic vote, or 440,000 votes.

Overall the difference was much worse as approximately 500,000 people voted in the Democratic primary and around 350,000 in the GOP primary.

Will the 150,000 majority hold for the Democrats, who knows but if I was a Republican in Kentucky and know that, in effect, a national party primary took place in my state and the other party turned out 150,000 more voters for a less well known contest would have me concerned.

But it's doubtful the media will bother to look this closely at the numbers, as it doesn't fit the narrative of the people rising up in the election. Maybe the readers will bug them enough they will have to notice it.

Criticizing the Usual Suspects

In what must be a groundbreaking story, Howard Kurtz, media critic of the Washington Post, jumped on the Republican bandwagon and criticized President Obama's complaints about the "cozy relationship between oil companies and the federal agency that permits them to drill."

Gee Howie, why didn't Obama go after off-shore drilling with more gusto? Could it be that the “Drill, Baby, Drill” crowd was dominating discussion and that with every single vote needed to get health care passed it didn't make sense to piss off the anti-regulation crowd?

I'm sure it would have played well earlier this year for Obama to come out and say we need tighter regulation of the oil industry. All the oil people, from Palin to Cheney, would have come out and said Obama was trying to make the U.S. less secure by limiting oil exploration.

Yet none of this was mentioned. Why should it? It would only mess up the article with, you know, background information and perspective. And without that kind of information the ill informed can continue their rampage on government.

It’s going to take a long time to get regulatory agencies to actually regulate again and probably will take more accidents to shut up the naysayers and allow regulation to take effect.

It's a lot easier to take pot shots at the government for not regulating enough in an anti-regulation environment than to put the pieces together and ask is it time to stop questioning regulation and allow them to regulate?

Lack of Experience

One of the conservatives and GOP's major talking points about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kegan is her supposed lack of experience. After all she is the first non-judge to be appointed since William Rehnquist.

Hmmm...maybe they have a point. Just point to Rehnquist's judicial record, i.e. Bush v. Gore. Obviously he didn't know what he was doing. But then Rehnquist had a track record, writing a memorandum arguing against federal-court-ordered school desegregation while the court was considering Brown v. Board of Education and complaints about Rehnquist's attempts to discourage minority voters in Arizona elections when he served as a pollwatcher in the early 1960s.

It's doubtful that a Kagan-Rehnquist comparison will be brought up by the right, and it's also doubtful conservatives, who decry her lack of judicial experience, will bring up the fact that she was appoint to the Court of Appeals in June 1999 but Republicans denied her a vote to serve on the court.

That seat later went to John Roberts who compiled all of two years experience as a judge before being named CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT. So if two years was enough experience to serve as Chief Justice, would one year's worth of experience be okay for a regular justice? How about a year as Solicitor General, the nation's lawyer before the Supreme Court.

And just look at past Solicitor Generals who also had no courtroom experience - Robert Bork, Ken Starr...hmmm...Rehnquist, Bork, Starr, not exactly a ringing endorsement.

Tea Party Exposed

The recent "growth" of the Tea Party has attracted a lot of attention and interest in determining who the party represents and believes. While the media has been consumed by whether the Tea Party has a racist tinge, in reality they should be more concerned to see if there is any logic to their arguments.

On Wednesday, Judson Phillips the founder of the Tea Party Nation, was on Q&A chat on the Washington Post and the answers were, um, enlightening. Among the gems were:

• "I have problem with democrats and liberals being in control of the government. IT's sort of like leaving a convicted sex offender alone with children."
• "you folks on the left, as a general rule are not patriotic. You do not love this country."
• "The clinton balanced budget came mostly after the GOP took over the house in 2004 and he could not spend all the money he wanted to." 2004?
• "First, cut taxes to increase economic growth. That works everytime." Tell that to conservative economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who said "You are not going to get tax cuts to pay for themselves."
• Responding to questions asking if he would admit taxes have gone down under Obama he said "No" and in a later question said evidence that taxes HAD gone up was that Obama allowed the bush tax cuts to expire. While they may expire, they haven't yet.
• When told by a questioner that Tea Party supporters they knew protest taxes but are willing to take support from the government he didn't believe those people existed, saying "And I know liberals who believe in the tooth fairy."
• When asked about the rallying cry of the group (wanting their country back) all he could respond with was "And as soon as we vote out the obama/pelosi/reid axis of fiscal evil, we will get out country back"

Based on the answers one wondered if either: A.) he was unprepared, B.) the Tea Party Party has nothing to support its beliefs, or C.) the Post was punked and an impostor was answering questions to make the Tea Party look bad.

I vote for B.

Tyranny of the Minority

One of the conservatives talking points against health care reform is that the public is against the the reform bill, but a deeper look at the numbers show that only an overwhelmingly solid support by conservatives against the bill have managed to skew the overall numbers.

In a recent review of the polling numbers on fivethirtyeight.com it was pointed out that nearly 90% of liberals support health care reform bill and more than 55% of moderates support the bill. Seeing those numbers the only way the public would be against the bill would be for less than 10% of conservatives to support health care reform, which apparently is the case.

So conservatives, who were routed at the ballot box in 2008, are thwarting the will of people through distortions of the health care bill. While it may seem like a good strategy now, Democrats and Obama were never going to get much support from conservatives so the fact that they oppose his policies is pretty meaningless, unless they can overwhelm the will of liberals and moderates.

If the bill is passed, the economy continues to improve, and the military continues to take out members of the Taliban, the Republican Party is going to face a tough election with only limited supporters.

But Republicans have little to offer other than tax cuts and less regulation (and we all know how well that turned out) so the only option they have is to attempt to impose their minority views on the majority.

Apparently Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts didn't care for President Obama's criticism of the recent decision on campaign finance uttered during the State of the Union address.

Roberts wondered why court members attend the annual speech as it has turned into a pep rally. Conservatives jumped on his views as the Outrage of the Day. How dare Obama criticize the court and how dare he do it in front of them! In addition, Justice Alito was praised for his mouthing of "not true" during Obama's criticism.

Unfortunately this is just another in a series of contrived events dredged up by conservatives so they have something to complain about, rather than focusing on how their policies messed up the country during the past decade.

Seriously, think about it. Once a year the President makes an address to Congress and the public (including the court) outlining the vision for the administration. Many times that agenda can include legislative fixes to court decisions. What was Obama supposed to do? Stop and ask the Justices to leave the room so he can talk about his agenda without hurting any one's feelings?

Now if this was a conservative making the speech it would have been full of condescension (see any of Ann Coulter's books) and the very same people criticizing Obama would have been approving of the message. Instead it's just another chance for conservatives to complain about Obama, with the hope of hurting his popularity.

And tomorrow's story is - Obama sure is getting criticized a lot. See the self fulfilling prophecy?

Grand Old Party's Retreat

The GOP's continued reliance in the fantasy of their views was on display over the weekend as they tried to spin that the smack-down President Obama laid upon them during the GOP retreat in Baltimore "made Republicans look good."

The only way the event made the GOP look good is that they didn't appear to end up shell shocked. Their questions were questionable and many were inaccurate, allowing Obama to swat them away like a pro facing a weekend player.

The biggest proof that the retreat went badly, very badly, for the Republicans was that FOX switched off their coverage of the event. This just a few days after Bill O'Reilly complained how FOX covered all of Scott Brown victory speech yet other networks only covered some of the speech. So a political victory speech is worth covering from start to finish yet the first of its kind televised discussion isn't worth covering completely? Pure fantasy.

The only other problem for Obama was that he was too kind and didn't personally call out the GOP members for showing up at ribbon cuttings that they voted against, but then there is a reason the GOP is also known as the Grand Old Party of Hypocrites or GOPHers.

The media elites tried to spin the decision by the GOP to agree to the White House's request to televise the event as that it would have made the GOP look bad if they turned down the request. In reality the GOP let their fantasy view that Obama can only speak with a telepromter cloud their decision making process. In reality it was the Republicans who were tied to prewritten statements and could not discuss issues without them.

If the GOP operated in the real work they would have known better than to challenge Obama. Instead, in the end Obama's performance left the GOP in retreat at their retreat.

Democrats Win National Races, Lose State Races

Of all the supposed lessons from Tuesday's mid-mid-term elections the best lesson may be that the Democrats won the national (congressional) elections and lost the state (governor) races.

Oh sure, there are other lessons, i.e. don't have a former Wall Street executive as your candidate for Governor as the public is still a wee bit upset about how the Bush administration let Wall Street go wild and nearly destroy the economy. A second lesson may be that if the President won your state less than a year ago you may not want to run away from him.

While those are the obvious lessons, the media has adopted the GOPHers talking point that the statehouse elections were a repudiation of President Obama and the national elections don't matter. But to accept that as accurate you have to believe the following, and that is no easy feat.

Basically the conservamedia says Democratic candidates lost the statehouse races because President Obama wasn't on the ballot and so a lot of Democrats weren't energized to vote. Okay so far, but here is the weird part - as a result of Obama not being on the ballot and fewer Democrats came out to vote then that means the lower turnout was a vote against Obama. What the f..?

So basically if Obama was on the ballot then more voters would have gone to the polls and Democrats might have won the statehouse races. Isn't that a confirmation of Obama?

And what about the races the Democrats won? Why all of a sudden are the not worth talking about? It only days ago "Fox News" was breathlessly running articles talking about how the California House election could go Republican. When it didn't, and then when the Democrats broke a more than 120 year lock the GOPHers had on the upper New York state congressional race, everyone went quiet, implying the races didn't mater.

Apparently races are only important if Republicans win, otherwise it's not worth noting.

What if George W. Bush had done that?

One of the complaints conservatives have made recently is that if George W. Bush had done what President Obama had done the media would have gone crazy.

The latest in the craziness is an article, "What if George W. Bush had done that?" in Politico by Josh Gerstein, implying conservatives say, with a hint of jealousy: How does Obama get away with it?

Yes, how does Obama get away with, especially after the media was so tough on George W. Bush. Can you imagine the press writing a piece entitled "Mr. Bush Catches A Washington Break"?

Oh, wait that WAS an actual article, but it was from 2001, just a few months after Bush took office. Not like today. Anyway how could anyone one expect Mr. Gerstein to find that article or even less likely talk to the person who wrote the article. I mean how could he find the article's author, John Harris?

Wait, John Harris? Isn't he the Editor-in-Chief of Politico? Politico, the same place Mr. Gerstein works? Oh. But still Mr. Gerstein would have picked up the intercom or walked across the office and asked Mr. Harris "What if George W. Bush had done that?"

What would he found out? Well, Mr. Harris, as he said in his article, might have pointed out that "The truth is, this new president has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton. Take it from someone who made a living writing about those uproars."

But that wasn't his most important point, which was "Above all, however, there is one big reason for Bush's easy ride: There is no well-coordinated corps of aggrieved and methodical people who start each day looking for ways to expose and undermine a new president."

Instead Obama is facing an organized effort, in many cases led by Fox "News", to fight him at every step of the way. Bush, on the other hand, found the media, well as Rahm Emanuel pointed out "The Washington press corps has become like little puppy dogs," he said. "You scratch them on the tummy and they roll right over."

And they did roll over for several years. Today, apparently to conservatives, the problem is that the media isn't in full attack mode like Fox is.

Why Attack Fox?

Many journalists have wondered over the past few weeks why the Obama Administration was attacking Fox "News." Conservatives, like Tucker Carlson, darkly intoned that the the Administration was trying to "silence" Fox "News."

Hardly. Anyone who thinks they could silence a major network is crazy. (Then again the White House attack on Dan Rather and CBS pretty much ended any reporting into George Bush's National Guard duty.)

Instead perhaps the White House is just looking to shame Fox "News" into acting like a real network, you know, not calling a fist bump a terrorist fist bump, not turning a Newsweek article that calls Fox's action "Un-American" into a claim that the Administration is "Un-American," and having polls with more than pro-Fox answers.

Now no one is expecting Fox to provide the fawning coverage the Bush Administration received in features like "Fighting to the Finish." No, that type of "Dear Leader" propaganda is probably reserved for the next Republican President.

And no one expects Fox to move from its "Hunting of the President" mode to "On Bended Knee," but perhaps when the Fox soldiers fight on against Obama they might try and actually use facts rather than fiction.

One can dream, can't they?

Why is FOX "News" Still Dishonest?

Fox "News" tries to present it self as an honest news outlet, with its slogan - "We Report. You Decide." Yet anyone visiting their site today comes away thinking their true slogan is "We Distort, You're Deceived."

On the site was their poll saying "The White House is still attacking Fox "News", 10 days after its original comments. Why?" Now few people put much value in an internet poll, especially one on the Fox "News" site. The keys to a poll's accuracy are solid questions and a random audience. Granted Fox can't control who answers the questions, but they can control the questions.

So what are the questions?

• They want to shoot the messenger
• They don't have a good case to make
• They confuse News and Opinion
• I don't know

Hmm, how about "Fox "News" IS biased? Nope, not single option to offer anything other the Fox "News" party line. And conservatives complain about Obama supporters not willing to stomach any dissent. Sounds like the conservatives are those people in reality.

Unfortunately all of this is uncomfortable for the media and the drum beat of the people asking them to investigate the so-called news practices of Fox "News" are growing louder. Media "critics" like the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz say "When Fox does something that I find questionable, such as Sean Hannity unfairly truncating an Obama sound bite or a Fox producer whipping up a protest crowd to get a better live shot, I'm critical," yet stuff like this happens on a daily, or possibly hourly basis. How often does Kurtz really bother to investigate Fox? (But then who could stomach it?)

While Fox may be loving this so-called War on Fox, in reality it is a War on Obama and Fox "News" is leading the charge and the media are bystanders, letting the profession they work in be tarnished by Fox. Do they not care or do they not want to care?

The Need for a Truth Commission

While it will never happen, as it would uncover too many rocks the press would prefer to not have uncovered, it would be nice for the Washington Post and the New York Times to institute a "Truth Commission" to examine what happened with their reporting of the Whitewater "scandal" in the 1990s.

Recently Thomas Friedman of the New York Times pointed out that "The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal"" and in a review in the Washington Post (shocking!) admitted that "the New York Times and The Washington Post, along with the networks and news magazines...were part of a giant scandal machine that dominated official Washington in the first few years after the Cold War."

Yet while the Washington Post lead the investigation into the accuracy of Jayson Blair's articles and CBS had an outside investigator looking into sourcing of a story on George Bush "war" record, there is little interest in looking back at Whitewater. Sure, way back in 1996 or so Gene Lyons wrote Fool For Scandal which showed how lacking the media reports were on Whitewater. Unfortunately the mainstream media wasn't interested. Later they admitted that just possibly they overreacted but oh well.

Today Dan Rather's credibility is severely challenged by a "review" of his 60 Minutes story on George W. Bush. Yet the Post and Times reporter continue with only those few educated on the issue knowing that their biased reporting eventually helped convince enough people in Florida (whose votes were actually counted) to "elect" George W. Bush. This led to the possibly worst presidency in American history.

Perhaps the reporters are very pleased with the work they have done and that very few people will every know.

Cheat To Win

If George W. Bush is still looking for a title to his memoirs "Cheat to Win" would be an excellent title and based on recent news would be appropriate

The Washington Post is reporting that former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, the first director of the Department of Homeland Security, says that he was pressured by other agency heads to raise the national security-threat level on the eve of the 2004 presidential election -- a move he rejected as having political undertones

To supporters of Sen. John Kerry this revelation comes as no surprise, nor should it come as a surprise to those who watch MSNBC. In June 2007 Olberman pointed out in a story the Nexus of Politics and Terror the potential correlation between raising of the terror level as a way to limit positive response to Sen. Kerry. While there was no proof that there was a connection that every time Kerry was starting to get positive traction the terror level changed, one now has to wonder if there was a connection.

For example, in August of 2004 conservatives made light of Sen. John Kerry receiving a limited bounce following the Democratic Convention and the Bushies, perhaps in on the joke said at the time that " Kerry's failure to gain more significant ground from his national convention puts him at a serious disadvantage for the fall. Do you think they were able to keep a straight face when telling the Washington Post that gem?

Apparently to cement the election the Bushies felt raising the level to the highest level right before the election would solidify their "win." Now they claim the reason that there was a discussion about raising the terror level was that Osama Bin Laden released a tape just days before the election, threatening further retaliation against the U.S.

Yet only one week after the election the terror level dropped down to yellow so in effect the terror level dropped two levels a week after Kerry conceded the 2004 election.

Bin Laden's tape ended up as another terroristic feature of the campaign and CIA analysis of the video later led them to the consensus view that the tape was designed strategically to help President Bush win "Cheat to Win."

Right Wring Hypocrites

As past readers of this blog have noted we have suggested that the Grand Old Party change its name to Grand Old Party of Hypocrites, or GOPHers. Anyone watching Republicans lately would have to agree with that characterizations.

While some may say not all conservatives are Republicans, the number can't be very large and one doubts that many vote for Democrats.

So what have the GOPHers done lately? First they criticize Prof. Henry Louis Gates Jr. for being disrespectful to the government representatives (police) in his own home (while being vastly outnumbered) yet complain about how the media is criticizing them for being disrespectful to government officials (members of congress) in a town hall situation.

Second at recent town hall situations several people brought along guns and semi-automatic machine guns as it was their constitutional right. Yet when anti-Bush protesters wore homemade T-shirts they were arrested.

In both cases causing public fear is okay because it is conservatives causing that fear. However people on the left standing up for their rights must be punished and outcast.

Anyone who is willing to look fairly at these examples can come to no other conclusion than than Republicans/conservatives are hypocrites, and therefor should change the name of their party to GOPHers.