The Beck Rally and What its Media Coverage Means

So, TV/radio talk show host Glenn Beck held a rally in Washington on Saturday at which well over half a million folks were in attendance, and the leftist nitwits in the news media and on the radical blogs don't know quite what to make of it. 

The New York Times dealt with the event by writing it off as a "Tea Party" rally, and tossing out a lowball estimate of 87,000 in attendance.  The use of an odd number like 87,000 was no doubt designed to promote the notion that the Gray Lady had somehow actually performed a real head count and come up with this exact number of attendees.  To understand what a bald-faced lie this number really is, all one has to do is view aerial photos of the event, which shows that the throng of people stretched all the way from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument.  Any of you who may have actually walked the length of the reflecting pool and onto the Washington Monument knows that is a long and tiring walk, especially in the heat of a Washington summer.  The reflecting pool itself spans 2,028 feet.  It is at minimum another 1,000 feet from the end of the pool to the Washington Monument.

By comparison, Darrell K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin easily holds 100,000 people.  From stem to stern, that stadium is about 600 feet in length.

The New York Times, as is its habit, lied to its diminishing base of readers.

The Times also bald-faced lied by characterizing the Beck event as a "Tea Party" rally.  The event itself in fact had nothing to do with any of the myriad Tea Party chapters around the country.  Nor was it organized by Fox News, as some lefties have claimed.  It was organized by Beck and contractors in his employ, and promoted by Beck on his television and radio programs.

And, whether the leftwing activists at the New York Times, MSNBC, the Huffington Post, CBS and ABC like it or not, more than half a million peaceful, respectful, well-behaved Americans showed up.  They came to praise America, to celebrate the members of the U.S. military who achieved victory (yes, victory, a word you will never hear President Obama use) in Iraq and are now returning home to their loved ones to resume their lives.  They came to talk about the need to return this nation to the traditional values that made it great, and the fiscal responsibility that made it the strongest economy the world has ever known.

Much to the dismay of the leftwing news media, no one carried any nasty signs – you know, the kind you invariably see at leftwing rallies that are habited by professional protesters and malcontents.  There was no talk of the Tea Party, little talk of politics of any sort, no one calling anyone else nasty names – in other words, none of the things the leftwingers who infest our national news media were hoping and praying to see.

Heck, these folks even cleaned up after themselves.  Unlike what invariably happens at leftist rallies of the sort held on Earth Day, National Abortion Rights Day, and the Obama Inaugural, this half-million throng of people left the national mall free of litter – one Park Service spokesman said it was almost as if there had been no rally at all.

Another big disappointment to the leftist radical editors at the NY Times.

All of which leads me to the following observation:  the Democrats running for office this year are by and large going to be slaughtered.  The polling data just keeps getting worse and worse for politicians with a (D) by their name, and there is little they can do to change that.

One of the main drivers of this anti-Democrat tidal wave is of course the rank unpopularity of the policies pursued by President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.  That is a given.

But an even bigger driver is the utter, outright contempt that Democrat leaders at the national level and their press agents in the national news media have shown and continue to show for ordinary everyday Americans like those who showed up at the Beck rally on Saturday.  It is as if these elitist thugs cannot believe that the average old Joe Schmoe from Beeville Texas has exactly the same number of votes – one – that they do.  The attitude of entitlement and contempt for anyone who disagrees with them literally oozes from their pores with every speech they make and report they file.

One leftist commentator on MSNBC stated last week that 'people who watch this show know what's going on because we are here to analyze it and tell them'.

That attitude, that hubris, that inability to understand that Americans in "flyover country" can figure out what is going on without being told by Washington elites is, more than any other factor, why the coming election will be a landslide in favor of the Republicans.

Life in the Liberal Zoo is becoming hazardous for liberals.

Reading the November Tea Leaves

When you get within 90 days of any national election, overarching voter attitudes and trends are pretty much set in stone, and there is little anyone can do to change them.

There will always be isolated exceptions to that, races in which a candidate who appears to be leading by a significant margin 90 days out will mess up and blow the lead.  The most vivid example of this in Texas politics in modern times came in 1990, when Republican gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams was 18 points ahead of Democrat Ann Richard in a Labor Day poll, then went on to make a series of major gaffes and lose the race to Miz Annie by a hair.

But Claytie's self destruction was the exception in Texas in that election year, a year in which Republicans otherwise made significant gains in state government.  Four years later, in 1994, the overall trend continued, with the Republicans winning every statewide elected office but one.  That one was the last time a Democrat won a statewide election in this state.

The trends don't look any better for the Democrats in Texas this year.  Despite the changing demographic makeup of the electorate and upwards of 1,000 people moving to Texas every day, this remains a firmly GOP state for the foreseeable future.  President Obama's fading public approval ratings, along with a sagging national economy are factors that only make the task of winning elections that much harder for Democrat candidates for legislative and statewide offices.

The most likely outcome based on current data appears to be that the Republicans will again win every statewide elected office, will maintain their current significant edge in the state Senate, and will pick up between 6 and 13 additional seats in the House, where they currently hold only a 76-74 margin.  If the President's public approval rating continues its long downward trend, the GOP gain in the House will trend to the upper end of that range.  Right now, I'll predict that is the most likely result, and the Republicans will increase their margin from 76-74 to 88-62.

You are no doubt hearing reports that the race for governor is competitive and Democrat Bill White has a real shot to win.  Don't bet the farm on that.  The reality is that he is extremely unlikely to receive more than 42-43% of the vote on Election Day, and lose to Governor Perry by about 7-8% of the vote, with the remaining 5-6% going to the libertarian candidate, whomever that may be.  Absent some major, Claytie-esque gaffe by Governor Perry – something he has managed not to commit in more than 25 years in elected office – there's just not much reason for voters in a Republican majority state to turn him out of office in favor of any Democrat.

Nationally, it is now almost a certainty that the Republican Party will regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Even very reticent prognosticators like the National Journal's Charlie Cook are now projecting Republican gains of 45-60 seats, with Cook now saying the upper end of that range seems the most likely outcome.  The GOP needs to gain 39 seats to be in the majority for the 2011-12 congressional term.  Frankly, I think 45-60 is pretty modest, and the possible range at this point is more like 55-70, with the upper end being far more likely than the lower.

In the Senate, the Republicans would have to pick up 10 seats to gain the majority.  That does not appear to be in the cards, mainly due to the race for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's seat in Nevada.  In that race, the GOP could have nominated a raccoon or a potted plant and defeated Mr. Reid, who is perhaps the supreme nitwit in the history of the U.S. Senate.  Instead, the Republicans nominated Sharon Angle, who appears to be almost as goofy as Reid, and fully capable of blowing that race.  If the Rs can't win Nevada, they cannot gain the necessary ten seats.  As discussed in an earlier column, GOP voters also nominated Rand Paul, the crazy son of the also-crazy Texas Representative Ron Paul, in the senate race in Kentucky.  Rand Paul, like Sharon Angle, also seems to be goofy enough to blow what would otherwise have been a certain Republican pick up.  My prediction is that either Angle or Paul – but not both – will lose their race, keeping Republican gains just below the necessary ten to gain the majority.

But here's the thing to remember about the Senate:  in the 2012 and 2014 elections, 43 Democrats will have to defend their seats, while only 23 Republican seats will be up for grabs.  So while the GOP will not likely gain control in that body this coming November, they almost certainly will do so in 2012, with their margin growing larger in 2014.

That's what the trends say, and they're not likely to change in any significant way before November.  Bank it.

Game Time in the Liberal Zoo

Let's play a game today, folks.  It's called "Liberals/Leftists/Progressives/Socialists Think You are a Racist/Bigot/Ignorant/Hateful if You…".

Why shouldn't we play this game?  After all, it's the game the Obama Administration and its mindless supporters on the radical left of American politics and their propaganda ministers in the mainstream news media have been playing all summer with anyone who opposes the President's position on any subject.  Having no rational, logical, fact-based means of defending the President's bizarre and unnecessary forays into every controversial subject available to him, his defenders are invariably left with lashing out at his opposition, playing the race or hate card at every conceivable opportunity.

So here we go!

Liberals/Leftists/Progressives/Socialists Think you are a Racist if You…:  Believe the State of Arizona has a right to instruct its law enforcement officers to enforce the federal immigration laws that are on the books today, and that the federal government refuses to enforce.  That's what the infamous Arizona immigration law does, period.  Immediately upon Arizona Governor Jan Brewer's signing of the law, President Obama jumped in with both belligerent feet, cynically seizing upon what he and his Chicago thug advisors believed would be a golden opportunity to increase turnout among Hispanic voters in the November elections.  The President's mindless supporters on the radical left and propaganda ministers in the mainstream national news media immediately began branding anyone who disagreed with Mr. Obama as a racist.

The latest polls on the issue show that Arizona's right to enforce this law is supported by around 65% of the American people.  That's a whole lotta racists.

Liberals/Leftists/Progressives/Socialists Think You are a Bigot if You…:   Oppose the siting of a radical Muslim Mosque run by a radical Muslim Imam within 2 blocks of 9/11 Ground Zero in New York City.  That's what the Mosque would be, that's who the Imam is, and that is where he proposes to place it.  Much to the chagrin of Democrats running for political office around the country, President Obama leapt into this issue unprompted with both belligerent feet Friday before last, and then tried to walk his leap back the following Saturday  morning.  The President clearly endorsed the building of this Mosque by this Imam at this site that Friday evening, and then waffled on Saturday by saying he was merely pointing out that Muslims enjoy the religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment, not endorsing the wisdom of siting this particular mosque at this particular place at this particular time.  The President's mindless supporters on the radical left and propaganda ministers in the mainstream national news media immediately began branding anyone who disagreed with Mr. Obama – whichever position one assumes the President actually supports - as a bigot.

The latest polls on the issue show that Americans oppose the siting of this particular Mosque at this particular location at this particular time by a 2 to 1 margin.  At the same time, a similar majority of Americans fully recognize that Muslims enjoy the same religious freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment as anyone else.  

That's a whole lotta First Amendment – believing bigots.

Liberals/Leftists/Progressives/Socialists/neo-Fascists Think You are an Ignorant Hateful Racist Bigot if You…:  Are a participant in the "Tea Party".  No matter who you are, what you have accomplished in your life, how you raise your children, what grades you made in school, which charities you support, what you do for a living, how you deal with your fellow man, or how you conduct yourself at Tea Party gatherings, those on the radical left in this country label you as an Ignorant Hateful Racist Bigot.  The old guilt by association deal that liberals used to claim to detest.  Those were the good old days, huh?

President Obama, though occupying an office whose previous occupants have been careful to avoid getting involved in such defamation of large groups of Americans, has on several occasions let his disdain for the millions of Tea Party participants be know, as have Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and pretty much every other national leader of the Democrat Party.  Given that the Tea Parties now count their members in 8 figure numbers, and have nominated and elected several candidates for office already, one might think the President and his party would leave the slandering of a huge voting bloc to their agents in the national news media.  One would be wrong in entertaining that thought.

Even a radical leftist nitwit like former Democrat National Committee Chairman Howard Dean sees the folly of this kind of behavior.  Dean is one of the few liberals to express his opinion that the 9/11 Mosque sends a bad signal and should be built at another site, and stated in an interview on Sunday that President Obama and his administration are "out of touch" with most of the rest of America on that and other issues of the day.

Gee, ya think so, Howard?

Life in the liberal zoo is consistently entertaining, if nothing else.

The Nadler Definition of "Equity"

"The basic costs of life in the New York region are much steeper than in most parts the country.  The reality is that a dollar in New York isn't worth nearly as much as a dollar in Spokane or Knoxville or Topeka. It's time for our tax code to take reality into account when assessing someone's tax liability."  - Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Leftist Democrat from New York

In its ongoing war against the middle 3/4ths of the North American continent, i.e., "flyover country", the national Democrat Party now presents to you Jerrold Nadler, leftist Democrat congressman from Manhattan.  Mr. Nadler, along with an impressive array of fellow leftist nutjob Democrats in the congress, announced on Monday the introduction of what he and his cohorts shamefully call the Tax "Equity" Act, a bill that would require the Internal Revenue Service to adjust individual federal income tax rates based on the average cost of living in each state.

Thus, people living in states where leftist Democrats have reigned supreme for decades and taxed the bejeebers out of the public – creating the high costs of living endured by residents of traditional Democrat states like New York, California, Michigan, etc. – would see their federal income tax rates adjusted downwards as a reward for so stupidly voting for leftist Democrats for all those years.  Meanwhile, residents of states like Texas, who have chosen to elect more prudent stewards of the state coffers and tax rates over those same decades, resulting in a much lower cost of living, would see their federal income tax rates raised as a punishment for having the good sense to keep leftist nitwits out of statewide offices and their legislatures.

No, I'm not kidding here.  This is real.  This concept is typical of what Democrats in Washington these days refer to as "social justice", a philosophy wherein the federal government is used to punish Americans for sensible and prudent behavior, i.e., not voting for leftist Democrats.

In addition to his whining about "the basic costs of life in the New York region" being higher than much of the rest of the country, Mr. Nadler went on to express dismay over the fact that, in addition to having one of the highest state income taxes in the nation – New York City residents also must pay a City income tax on top of that – New York state also sports some of the highest property tax rates in the country.

Well, who is responsible for that?  The unarguable truth of the matter is that the Democrat Party has utterly dominated the political life of New York in modern times.  Oh, the Republicans will occasionally elect a governor and gain control of one house of the legislature every now and then, but over the long haul, there is simply no question that the state suffers the effects of decades of leftwing Democrat governance.  The same is true of other high-tax, high-cost-of-living states like California, Massachusetts, Washington, Minnesota, New Mexico and on, and on. 

The cost of living is higher in traditional Democrat states due to favorable treatment of unions that artificially raise the price of every good or service, liberal social regimes that must be paid for with steadily rising taxes, and a refusal to ever consider cutting spending when budget deficits inevitably occur.  California today finds itself on the verge of insolvency – the state has in reality been insolvent for several years now, avoiding the final fate only due to massive borrowing and federal bailouts – as the direct result of irresponsible governance by the Democrat Party and liberal Republicans like its current governator.  New York, Michigan and other traditionally liberal states are well on their way.

Meanwhile, New Jersey finds itself getting back on track towards solvency and economic recovery thanks to the determined efforts to control state government spending and taxing and force concessions from government unions by Republican Governor Chris Christie.  If Christie succeeds in bending the Democrat legislature and unions to his will, the long-term result of his fiscal restraint will inevitably a lower cost of living for the people of his state.  This is the kind of behavior by public officials that should be applauded.

Instead, Nadler and his fellow leftist nitwits seek to reward the irresponsible state and local officials in New York and other high tax, heavily-unionized states, as well as the irresponsible voters who put them into office.

If residents in New York and California suffer from high taxes and a high cost of living, they should be encouraged by federal officials to take a step back, examine what it is about their own selfish behavior that has led to that situation, and work to change that behavior.  The simple truth of the matter is that consistent voting for leftist nitwits to state and local offices leads inevitably to high taxes and higher costs of living. 

Rewarding voters for such stupid, self-destructive behavior will only make their situation worse, but then, such self-destructive behavior is the life's blood of the perpetuation of the Liberal Zoo that America has become.

Some Hopefully Final Thoughts on the BP Disaster/Moratorium

Just wanted to add a few more thoughts on the whole BP/Moratorium deal before it completely fades from the media/public’s collective mind now that BP has the well under control:

• The best call I’ve had in many weeks came yesterday from a friend intimately involved with the National Oceans Policy Commission.  He confirmed preliminary media reports that the Obama Administration is now likely to lift the moratorium in very short order – likely during the August congressional recess when the action will receive minimal media coverage.  Political pressure coming from officials in the Gulf Coast region, as well as a changing tone of media coverage has finally put enough pressure on our hard-hearted President to start dealing with this tragic situation in a realistic manner.  Better late than never.
  
• As I drove from Shreveport to Houston early Wednesday morning, I flipped the XM radio back and forth between the early shows onMSNBCandCNN.  The obvious panic among the liberal hosts of these shows over the fact that cleanup crews in the Gulf can no longer find any oil to clean up was as predictable as it was hilarious.  The BP disaster has become a crutch for these folks, an easy way to bash the hated oil and gas industry as well as an ever-present time filler for their shows when other news sources slow down.  So there they were, live on the air, in a literal tizzy of confusion about what they’re going to do to make up for the loss of their crutch.  Most telling, I heard not a single expression of relief for the lives and well-being of those who live along the Gulf Coast now that the oil is no longer flowing or soiling beaches and marshes.  Just another example that these East- and West-coast liberals could not care less about those of us who live in flyover country.
  
• On my new favorite leftwinger guilty pleasure, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, the hosts went on and on about the evils of BP’s having used “over a million gallons” of chemical dispersants to help break up the oil and better enable it to evaporate and be absorbed into ocean around it.  There was not a person among them with the intelligence to understand that a million gallons of anything in the context of the enormity of the Gulf of Mexico is not even a drop in the proverbial bucket.  In fact, it’s not even 1/10th of 1/1000th of 1 percent of a drop in the proverbial bucket.  But of course, these are the very same media dimwits who actually believe that the 13/100ths of 1 percent of so-called “greenhouse gas” emissions represented by mankind’s production of carbon dioxide is somehow responsible for any weather-related malady that ever occurs, not to mention earthquakes, tidal waves and fires and mudslides in California.  Hell, these same people also believe Al Gore is not a crazed sex poodle, but that’s another topic for another time.

As I write this, BP has begun the process of pouring cement down the hole to permanently plug it off.  This likely saves the Republic from the nitwittery of the “oil spill” bill shelved this week by noted nitwit Harry Reid because he did not have enough votes from even liberal Democrats to have a hope of passing the atrocity into law.  Reid promises to bring the bill back up in September, but this is more bravado than anything else, given the fact that by the time congress comes back after Labor Day, this story will have been out of the media for a month and faded from the public’s short attention span.

All of which is good news for America, despite the wails you hear emanating from the morning show hosts on CNN and MSNBC.

Have a great day.

The Criminal Moratorium

You may have seen or heard news reports regarding the Rally for Economic Survival event that was held in LaFayette, LA last Wednesday at that city's Cajun Dome basketball arena.  Fully 12,000 mostly ticked-off Louisianans – including Governor Bobby Jindal, Lt. Governor Scott Angele, and other elected officials - were in attendance to protest the ongoing efforts by our fascist President, Barack Obama, and his evil minions at the Department of Interior (DOI) to destroy the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

I felt fortunate to be there.  It was a wonderful, compelling and emotional event.  Too bad no one at the White House or at DOI was listening.

The imposition by Dear Leader Obama of a six month moratorium on drilling in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico on the pretense of allowing DOI to review safety processes in that arena in the wake of the BP disaster seems innocuous enough to the average man on the street who doesn't understand how the oil and gas industry works.  But to anyone who does have an understanding of the industry, and who has been paying attention to the collateral actions the Obama Regime has taken in the context of this moratorium, it is a de facto permanent shutdown of the enormously productive and historically safe deep water region, and a massive scaling back of oil and gas exploration activities in the shallower waters along the Outer Continental Shelf.

Here's why:  the daily rig rate – the rate just to reserve the rig for usage by a given operator – of these deep water drilling rigs and ships can run to $150,000 per day and even more.  Anyone who thinks the owners of these rigs are going to allow them to sit idle for 180 days and longer is living in a fantasy world.  Two such rigs have already been removed, one to Egypt and the other to the Congo.  The operator who is moving its rig to the Congo announced the decision was made to move the rig to a nation that had a more stable political climate than the United States of America.

Think about that for a second:  It is the judgment of the executives of that company, in making a decision that runs into the tens of millions of dollars, that the Congo has a more stable political climate than the USA.  Is that the kind of "hope" and "change" those of you who voted for Mr. Obama had in mind?

Once these rigs leave, they are not coming back for a long, long time, if ever.  They will be locked up into multi-year deals by other operators in other parts of the world – that is the reality.  The President and his minions fully understand this, and they do not care.  They are focused on placating the radical anti-development groups that fund their political campaigns to the exclusion of all other considerations.

A memo written by Interior Secretary Salazar and leaked to the media last week clearly showed that the Administration understands the true impacts of this action, and that, as Salazar stated, issues like loss of jobs and devastation of the Gulf Coast economy do not matter to this bunch of thugs.  They do not matter.  The memo further demonstrates the Administration's intent to prolong this moratorium long past their stated six month time frame, and to slow-play issuing any new permits in the shallow water as well.

To understand the impact of all of this to South Louisiana, all one needs to know is that roughly 80% of all operations in the deep water of the Gulf of Mexico are staged out of Port Fourchon at the very southern tip of the State.  A large portion of shallow water operations are also staged out of this port.  The men and women who work at that port and on those rigs are by and large Louisiana citizens, although a high number of Texas and Mississippi jobs are at stake as well.  In all, tens of thousands of direct, well-paying, secure jobs are threatened by the callous indifference of the Obama Regime.

Then you have all the indirect jobs created by all of this economic activity:  the cafes, hotels, motels, clothing stores, filling stations, movie theatres, fitness shops, furniture stores and every other kind of small business you can imagine that depend enormously on the health of two industries impacted by recent events:  the fishing industry that has been decimated by the BP disaster, and the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry that the Obama Regime is attempting to destroy.

We should all be concerned about the tragic effect the BP disaster has had on the Gulf Coast region.  But you won't bring back the Louisiana fishing industry by destroying the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas industry, and the thousands upon thousands of jobs that are dependent on it.

In a sane society, the people responsible for this moratorium would be brought up on criminal charges.  But in the liberal zoo, they just go on about destroying people's lives with impunity.

The Sham That is Elena Kagan

So I was watching "Morning Joe" on MSNBC Tuesday morning.  I've gotten to where I actually like "Morning Joe" in a sadistic sort of way – spending an hour listening to the opinions of the collection of plagiarists, freaks and nitwits that appear daily on that show tells me all I really need to know about why our country is in such a sorry state today.

Anyway, on this particular morning, the show's hosts – Joe ("Morning Joe" – get it?) Scarborough and Minka Breszinski were interviewing Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island.  When asked to describe his view on the judicial philosophy that would be employed by leftist Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, Sen. Whitehouse was only able to use the words "pragmatist" and "consensus builder" over and over again:  "I think it would be one of a pragmatist and consensus builder," the Senator said, "She has been a pragmatist and consensus builder her entire career.  She was a pragmatist and consensus builder at Harvard, and was certainly a pragmatist and consensus builder as Solicitor General.  So I think you'll see a philosophy of pragmatism and consensus building when she is on the court."

Ummmm...ok.  Can somebody please let the good Senator know that "pragmatism" and "consensus building" do not a judicial philosophy make?  Not to criticize them, of course – "pragmatism" is a perfectly honorable personal trait, one in fact that we all should aspire to achieve in our own lives.  And "consensus building" is a fine pursuit to employ in life.  Why, if every one of us was a "consensus builder", we'd all end up agreeing about every damn thing, and wouldn't that be wonderful?

But somebody really ought to let Senator Whitehouse and, presumably, Ms. Kagan know that "pragmatism" and "consensus building" are not essential elements of the judicial philosophy of a justice on the United States Supreme Court.  See, the job of being a Court Justice involves a) hearing arguments from both sides in a case before the court, and b) deciding which side wins the case in the context of the text of the United States Constitution.  This is not supposed to be a bargaining process between the justices that involves "pragmatism" and "consensus building".  The Constitution says what it says, and the justices are charged with deciding which side of each given case is constitutional.  Period.

Yet, Sen. Whitehouse wants us to believe that character traits that would be admirable in any member of, say, congress or the Texas legislature, are the essential elements of what makes a fine Supreme Court justice.  This is sheer and utter nonsense.

Of course, in fairness to Sen. Whitehouse, this nonsense regarding Ms. Kagan was put into the public domain by the White House on the day she was nominated.  The President's initial statement used those same words to describe her, and those words were broadly parroted by the propaganda arm of the National Democrat Party, i.e., the establishment news media, for days afterwards.  They were obviously words that had been carefully tested in focus groups in advance of the nomination.

Leftists have to use such touchy-feely nonsense to describe their judicial nominees, because they know they cannot dare discuss the truth about their true judicial philosophy.  Poll after poll shows conclusively that an overwhelming majority of Americans utterly reject the leftwing philosophy of ignoring what the Constitution actually says in order to legislate social policies from the federal bench that Democrats could never hope to achieve through the legitimate legislative process set up by the Constitution.

Leftwingers must obfuscate and outright lie about their nominees, because the truth about Ms. Kagan is that she is a radical leftist who likely has never read the Constitution of the United States and has no intention of ever doing so.  She is a radical who hates the military and wants to destroy American society as we know it.  I mean, who else would Barack Obama nominate to the Supreme Court?  It's not like this is rocket science here.  So, neither she nor her supporters can ever honestly and directly discuss her actual judicial philosophy, because the truth about her judicial philosophy is that the Constitution is wholly irrelevant to any decisions she will issue from the Court.

Thus, to a person, they all fall back on nonsensical irrelevancies like "pragmatism" and "consensus building" when asked to describe Ms. Kagan's philosophy.

In this, as with everything else they do, the radical leftists who run the National Democrat Party believe we  are all too stupid and ignorant to figure out the truth before they get their damage done.  In 2008, they turned out to be right.

But the nation will survive the rule of Elena Kagan on the Supreme Court, because the great pendulum of 

American politics is swinging back towards traditional values and conservatism, as it always does when confronted by the ugly face of leftism.  This too shall pass, because nonsensical talking points only fool the public for so long before reality slaps us all back to our senses.

The True Meaning of "Futbol"

Ok, it's official:  I have finally, at long last, after a lifetime spent hating the sport with a passion bordering on lunacy, discovered value in the game of soccer – or, as a young lady at work told me the other day, "futbol, as they call it in all the rest of the world" (Really?  Do the Russians, Dutch, Brits, French, not to mention the entire continents of Asia and Africa, use a Spanish word to describe the game?) – and now am officially a fan.

No, really, I'm serious here.  During the 72 month run of the FIFA World Cup "Futbol" Championships (ok, it was really only maybe 2 months, but it sure seemed like 72), there were three Saturdays and one Sunday when I desperately needed to take a nap, but because I was in pain from one ailment or another, I had a heck of a time falling asleep.  Each time this happened, I forced myself to flip the TV in my bedroom over to one of the 85 channels televising a "futbol" game (presumably, roughly 8 Americans were tuned into each channel at any given time), and I kid you not, each time I was sound asleep within five short minutes.

Those of you who have insomnia and currently take Ambien or some other medication to help with rest, I am here to tell you that you too can live a drug-free life.  Just run down to the local Barnes & Noble and purchase DVDs of any "futbol" contests that might be on the clearance rack, slap 'em into your player, and you will now be able to enjoy hour upon hour of sound, uninterrupted sleep.

I used to believe that the best thing to have on TV when trying to take a nap was golf.  But compared to socc…er, "futbol", golf is positively stimulating.  I mean, there is actual scoring in the game of golf.  On every hole, there is scoring. 

In most sports, you see, scoring is the point of the game.  But not "futbol".

No, in "futbol", the point of the game is to bore the fans in the stadium to such a high degree of frustration that they engage in riots both inside the stadium and outside.  The other object is to frustrate the leaders of the countries represented by the teams to the point that they declare war on one another, as Paraguay did with Argentina back in the '60s.  There is also a growing body of evidence that Hitler invaded Poland in 1939 not to put a buffer between his country and the Russians, but out of the incredible frustration he felt after the German and Polish national teams played to their 5^th consecutive scoreless tie in "futbol".  (And yes, that's how Hitler pronounced it, too.)

I have learned that this true objective of the game of "futbol" is the reason for the senseless rule that denies the players the use of their hands.  Think about it:  If "futbol" players were allowed to use all of their God-given limbs, there would most likely be actual scoring in most of the games.  So, the prevention of scoring becomes the only reasonable explanation for why "futbol" officials would place such an idiotic restriction on those who play the game.

This also explains why the official "futbol" field of play is roughly the same size as Manhattan Island.  I mean, if the game were played on a reasonably-sized field, one that could be adequately covered on high-definition, wide-screen television, then again, there would be scoring going on, and that would greatly lessen the level of frustration felt by viewing fans and national leaders before, during and after the games.  And honestly, where would be the fun in that?

No, golf is a far more exciting game than "futbol", and thus not nearly as frustrating for the viewer or for national leaders.  I mean, you've never seen an American President declare war on Europe over losing the Ryder Cup, have you?  No, although I personally think President Bush could have made a really good case back in 2006.  But I digress.

Luckily, I didn't need to take a nap on Sunday.  So, rather than flip the TV over to the final FIFA "futbol" frustration fest, I put it on NBC and watched Paula Creamer's masterful taming of Oakmont Country Club to win the LPGA U.S. Open Championship.  Her score?  Three under par 281.  My God, there haven't been 281 goals scored in the entire history of competitive "futbol".  Yes, friends, even the LPGA is more exciting than "futbol".  No way I could have slept through that.

At any rate, I am thrilled to death that I have finally discovered the true meaning and usefulness of the game of "futbol".  Because for those of us who simply don't care about the ultimate outcome of any given "futbol" game, it is the greatest sleeping aid ever invented by the human race.

Gosh, after writing this, I think I need a nap.

Michael Steele Was Right! And Wrong.

So we have this dustup going now over the remark made last week by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele that Afghanistan is now "Obama's war", and that the President should have known "you can't win a land war in Afghanistan".  Leftists in the national news media, desperate for a story, any story, that might help stem  the growing anti-Obama tide coming this November, immediately pounced on Steele's comment and have treated it as if it were the smoking gun in the Kennedy Assassination.  Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol and other conservative hawks have called on Steele to resign, and some senate Republicans – most notably John McCain and Lindsey Graham – have been extremely critical of the RNC Chairman.

There are several observations to make about this episode in the ongoing American political soap opera.

First, Steele should not have made such comments in a public setting – his critics are right that it is inappropriate for national leaders of either party to make such discouraging comments about a war while congress continues to fund a war that puts thousands of brave American soldiers in harm's way.  Steele's remarks are on a par with statements from the likes of Democrats Harry Reid and then-Senator Barack Obama that the Iraq war was "unwinnable" and "already lost", which were made just a few months before the beginning of the Surge strategy that won the war.  Steele should know better than to cast doubt on the ability of the U.S. armed forces to accomplish any goal they set out to accomplish.

Second, the rank hypocrisy of leftists in the Democrat Party and the national news media on this matter is so thick you could cut it with a knife.  If not "Obama's War", Afghanistan is without any valid argument the

Democrat Party's war.  How many thousands of times did we hear from Democrat politicians and liberal pundits in 2002 through 2008 that President George W. Bush had "fought the wrong war" by choosing to go into Iraq?

According to the national vast leftwing media/political complex, Afghanistan was the noble war, the place where the U.S. should be focusing its efforts to kill Al Qaeda, even as Al Qaeda massed its forces in Iraq and was demolished by the American military.  Not content with making grossly irresponsible statements on a daily basis about whether or not the Iraq War was "winnable", the Democrat leadership in the congress went to great lengths to actively undermine the effort for crass political purposes.  This is an inarguable truth of American history that we must never forget.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden based much of their campaign strategy in 2008 on the promise to massively escalate the Afghan War, a promise that they have kept in a big way since assuming office.  Not only have they escalated in Afghanistan – much as Lyndon Johnson escalated in Vietnam in the wake of the Kennedy Assassination – they have also ramped up U.S. incursions into Pakistan in a very big way.

For the leftwing media/political complex to now suddenly recoil at the idea that Afghanistan is "Obama's War" is absurd on its face, and a revelation of the truth about their deceitful motives for promoting its escalation since 2002:  They were doing that purely for political reasons, to damage Bush and undermine the effort in Iraq, and are even today not serious about actually "winning" the conflict there. 

Third, Vice President Biden, in his trip to Baghdad over the weekend, noted that the U.S. phased withdrawal from Iraq would begin on schedule in August, and claimed that his and Obama's strategy there has been a great success.  Huh?  Beg Pardon?  Say What?

The most hilarious aspect of this current Administration for my purposes of ridiculing the cocky, snotty leftwingers responsible for putting this collection of incompetent thugs into office is that the Obama Administration has not changed a single thing about the Bush strategy in Iraq.  A phased withdrawal once a viable Iraqi government had been established was always the Bush strategy.  The Guantanamo Bay holding facility for terrorists remains open and undisturbed despite the Obama campaign promise to close it.  

Warrantless surveillance policies enacted during the Bush years remain intact and functional.  Terrorists continue to be tried in military tribunals to this day.  Hell, Obama has even adopted the Bush "Surge" strategy for the Afghanistan War, and hired Bush's favorite general to conduct it.

The greatest irony for the dishonest lefties who put this bunch into office in 2008 is that Obama has continued the Bush policies because they were the right policies, and is now applying the Bush strategies to Afghanistan because they were the right strategies.  There is simply no other honest interpretation of the actions Obama has taken since assuming office.

But back to Michael Steele:  Should he resign?  Yes.  He was right in saying Afghanistan is "Obama's War", but wrong to doubt it is winnable.  It is winnable, thanks to Obama's decision to stick with Bush's policies, employ Bush's strategies, and hire Bush's favorite general.

Our Disgraceful National Fourth Estate

In the wake of last week's firing of General Stanley McChrystal and hiring of President George W. Bush's favorite general – David Petraeus – to run the War in Afghanistan, the snotty leftwingers who run MoveOn.org quietly removed their famous "General Betray-us" ad from their goofball website.  That characterization of General Petraeus was fine when he was working for the hated Bush and preparing to testify before a Democrat congress skeptical about his "surge" strategy in Iraq, but not so good for snotty leftwingers now that he's working for their hope 'n change savior, President Barack Obama.

The great irony of the McChrystal firing (an entirely justifiable act by President Obama) and hiring of Petraeus was the glowing praise Petraeus received from media blowhards and congressional Democrats who took great pleasure in ridiculing and slandering him while he was employed by President Bush.  This group of Democrats includes President Obama himself, who, as a Senator, strongly opposed Petraeus' surge, which of course became the hugely successful winning strategy in Iraq, and which Mr. Obama ultimately adopted in Afghanistan.  Of course, a consistency of thought and honesty of reportage long ago became lost concepts to the leftist news media in America, which is why they find themselves in a long, irreversible death spiral.

It was kind of a bad week for the leftwing media in general.  In addition to the utterly hypocritical reaction to the hiring of Gen. Petraeus, it was revealed about midweek that the Portland Oregonian and other admirers of Al Gore in the leftist news media had sat for four years on allegations in a police report that he groped a masseuse in a Portland hotel room in 2006.  So what media entity finally made this complaint public?  Why, the National Enquirer, of course – the same media entity that issued the original reporting on liberal hero John Edwards' affair and fathering of an illegitimate child with a former campaign staffer.

One would think that, sooner or later, the snotty leftists who run the New York Times would tire of being scooped by the Enquirer, but one would be wrong in that thought, at least when it comes to reporting on the foibles of leftwing folk heroes.

Then, of course, there is the announcement by CNN that it is pinning its prime time ratings hopes on a new talk show featuring disgraced former New York Governor Elliott Spitzer, who was forced to resign the office a few years back when it was revealed that he had been hiring high-priced call girls on the state's dime.  Can there be any doubt that CNN is out trying to bring in Gore as the show's weatherman, Bill Clinton as a political correspondent, and Tiger Woods as its sports anchor?  Now, that would be a lineup lefties could be proud of.

You really can't make stuff like this up.

The final failure of the lapdog leftist media I want to discuss here is its abject refusal to do any real reporting on the criminal negligence of the Obama Administration when it comes to the BP oil spill.  Were this a Republican Administration, the media would be making every effort to hound the president from office, as it did to President Bush following Hurricane Katrina.  We all know that is true – even the most hopeless snotty leftwinger knows that is true.

Take the refusal by President Obama to suspend the Jones Act for this national emergency.  For those unfamiliar with it, the Jones Act protects labor unions by requiring all vessels performing oil and gas-related operations in U.S. waters to be U.S. flagged, and operated by U.S. citizens, i.e., members of U.S. labor unions.  Were the President to suspend this disgusting law, there would shortly be dozens if not hundreds more vessels in the Gulf, skimming up this oil.  But he refuses to do so strictly due to the fact that labor unions in this country are tools of the Democrat Party.  And the news media sit idly by and allow him to get away with this kind of criminal negligence with impunity.  It's disgusting and disgraceful.

Seriously, after a week like the last one, you have to wonder if anyone at the New York Times, the Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS or any of the other reliably leftwing mainstream media outlets around the country ever stops, takes a step back, and ponders the reality that the only news organs actually performing any investigative journalism in America are a scandal rag and a magazine staffed by stoners.  Of course, this would assume that those who run these leftist media outlets were remotely capable of the slightest bit of introspection, which they obviously aren't.

That is your fourth estate these days – nothing more than a lapdog propaganda organ for the national Democrat Party and this feckless, incompetent, criminally negligent Administration.

Last Monday Morning in the Oval Office...

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:  'mornin', Mr. President.

President Barack Obama:  Hello, Bob, what can I do for you?

Gibbs:  Well, uh, I kind of need to talk to you about whole BP situation and the, uh, golf game you had this weekend.

Obama:  Yeah, it was great, man!  Shot a 78!  Can you believe that?  Of course, that was with 7 mulligans, and those great secret service guys kept kicking my ball out of the rough when they thought I wasn't looking, but still, best round of golf I've had since the whole BP thing started.  I'm finally getting that slice with my driver worked out, and…why are you looking at me like that, Bob?

Gibbs:  Well, you know, Mr. President, we're starting to take a little heat from all these golfing trips you've been having here recently.  I mean, you know that was the seventh round you've gotten in since this well blew out and…

Obama:  Yeah, this job's great!  I mean, if I'd known a President of the United States could just go out and have an entire golf course to himself and his foursome any old time he wanted to, I'd have run sooner.

Gibbs:  But sir, the impression all of this golfing and vacationing creates with the public is that you're more worried about your handicap than you are about all the people getting put out of jobs down there in hick country, er, Louisiana and Mississippi and Alabama.

Obama:  Well, what could give anyone that idea?  I mean, I've already flown down there and given three speeches, walked around on those crummy beaches and met with all those losers who voted for McCain in '08 – I mean, c'mon, Bob, there's a real limit to how much compassion I can show to anyone south of the Mason Dixon line.

Gibbs:  Sir, don't forget, you won Florida…

Obama:  Oh, sure, Florida, throw that one in my face.  Besides, the beaches getting hit by the tar balls are up there in the Panhandle part of the state, and that's just South Alabama as far as I'm concerned.

Gibbs:  Ok, I'll give you that one, but still, sir, we have to think about appearances.

Obama:  'Appearances'???  Hell, BP's not worried about appearances – that Hayward guy spent Saturday at a yacht race!

Gibbs:  Well, yessir, I'll give you that one, too, but still…

Obama:  Still what?  There is no 'still' here – look, Bob, he's at a yacht race, I'm playing golf.  Every slob in flyover country plays golf, or at least that's what I'm told, but how many of 'em do you think get to go out and ride on a yacht?  I mean, if you put it in the right context, I'm the really common man here, doing what the common man does.

Gibbs:  Wow, you are good.

Obama:  You bet your butt I am, that's why I'm President and McCain's out there in Arizona having to fight with everything he's got to beat an ex-radio DJ who's been in more tanning booths than George Hamilton just to get his own party's nomination.  Meanwhile, I am somehow surviving with a walking gaffe machine as a vice president and have my main rival rendered completely irrelevant as my own secretary of state.  I am really, really good.

Gibbs:  Ok, well, having conceded you're really, really good, sir, I am going to ask you one more time to really, really consider lightening up on your golf game while this well is still out of control.

Obama:  Look, Bob, I already cut my vacation short by a full day to go make a speech down there – how much more sacrifice must I make here?  I mean, if I can't play golf, what can I do?

Gibbs:  Well, there's a bowling alley down in the basement…

Obama:  That was Nixon's deal – not for me.  Besides, you saw me bowl during the campaign – that probably cost me 40,000 votes in Akron, Ohio alone.

Gibbs:  Sir, all I'm asking you here is to focus more on governing and less on recreating while this thing is going on.  Maybe, you know, have some cabinet meetings about Afghanistan and Iran and stuff like that.

Obama:   Dude, you are one serious buzz kill, you know that?  Have you spent any time with my Cabinet?

Gibbs:  Well, not all that much, no…

Obama:  Well, you go spend two hours in a room with Janet Napolitano and tell me how you feel.   Gimme another idea here.

Gibbs:  Ok, how about I get you a pool table installed in the East Wing?

Obama:  All right, that's a start.  Pretty sure I can take Biden at billiards.  And if I can't, I can always get Rahm to break one of his thumbs.  Hey, this actually sounds like fun!

Gibbs:  So do we have a deal?

Obama:  Done!  But call that nitwit BP CEO and tell him he needs to hurry up and get that damn well plugged, because I really need work on my long irons.

Gibbs:  Consider it done.

Barack Obama: President of ... What?

The biggest problem with President Obama is that he so often seems not to have a grasp on just exactly what it is that he is president of.  There appears to be no recognition in this White House that, once the election campaign is over, the winner becomes the president of all 50 United States, along with every person who resides within them.

We have never had a president who so openly demonizes huge swaths of American society on such a regular basis as we have seen this President repeatedly do with Tea Partiers (even resorting to the obscene "tea bagger" reference), opponents of socialized healthcare, anyone making more than $100,000 per year, and the entire state of Arizona, to name just a few of his chosen rhetorical targets.  Then there are those segments of our society to whom this President and his gang of Chicago thugs offer nothing more than benign neglect:  The people of Nashville, who just weeks ago suffered through flooding comparable to what Katrina did to New Orleans with barely a mention from this President, millions of Americans living along the border with Mexico who suffer with the drug trafficking and violence that are a facet of daily life in the region while this Administration steadfastly refuses to do anything about enforcing the laws on the federal books, and the people of the Gulf Coast, who had to wait 37 days before this President summoned the interest to deign to hold a press conference about the ongoing tragedy of the BP oil spill.

To that growing daily list, we can add the families of America's fallen veterans, insulted on Monday by this President's choice to vacation in Chicago rather than take part in the traditional Memorial Day presidential ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.  The breaking of this tradition is just the latest in a long line of insults to the military offered by Mr. Obama and his Administration over the last year and a half.

Given these and many more divisive acts taken by this President, it is increasingly obvious that Mr. Obama considers himself the "president" only of those who voted for him and support his radical leftist political agenda.  Can there be any real question, for instance, that had it been a very blue-state Boston that suffered through massive spring flooding rather than deep-in-the-heart-of-a-red-state Nashville, this Administration would have staged a massive federal response to the disaster?

If the BP oil spill threatened the coastlines of blue-state California, Oregon and Washington rather than red-state Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Texas, does anyone really believe that this President and his minions would have sat benignly by for a full month doing little other than deflecting blame before finally and begrudgingly beginning the process of treating the event as a disaster of national proportions?  If you do believe that, well, you'd be much better off reading Alice in Wonderland than this column.

Whatever else one thinks about George W. Bush, as President – and as Texas Governor before that – he was studiously careful not to use derogatory rhetoric about any segment of our society.  Where Obama derides Tea Party activists at seemingly every given opportunity, Bush never lowered himself or the office he occupied to criticize those who participated in the thousands of obscene and often violent anti-war protests that became a staple of American life after the invasion of Iraq.

Bill Clinton was also very careful to avoid the use of divisive rhetoric against any segment of the American public, and clearly understood the necessity of any president staying above the fray.  In reality, until the elevation of Mr. Obama to the office, one would be at great pains to find an example of any sitting president since Woodrow Wilson who openly and frequently demonized large segments of the U.S. population for political gain.

Clearly, President Obama feels no similar need for restraint, and in fact obviously believes that dividing the nation is in his own self-interest.  As long as that political calculation holds at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, we can anticipate two and a half more years of a nation becoming increasingly and more bitterly divided.

And there is no reason to believe the political calculation will change.  This strategy is in keeping with the Obama Administration's adherence to the demonize-and-conquer strategies taught by late Chicago radical Saul Alinsky, whose teachings have guided this President throughout his adult lifetime.  This is who Mr. Obama is, and who he will remain.

This reality will bring joy to the hate-filled cretins who inhabit leftwing websites, but it won't do much for the rest of a population yearning for a President who actually gives a damn when a tragedy such as the BP oil spill devastates an entire region of the country, regardless of how that region voted in the 2008 presidential election.  For that, they will have to wait until January 20, 2013.

Welcome to yet another thrilling edition of the only newspaper column in America that hasn't lied about serving in Vietnam, Hobnobbing With Dave!

Item:  So this is why libertarians never win elections…

Well, Sarah Palin can celebrate now:  the leftwing news media has discovered a new boogeyman to hound, and his name is Rand Paul, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky.  Though nominally a Republican, Mr. Paul is in fact a libertarian, as is his father, Texas Congressman Ron Paul.  While libertarian views tend to be technically correct about what the Constitution actually says, those GOP voters in Kentucky who nominated Mr. Paul for this senate seat are about to find out exactly why it is that the Libertarian Party seldom fields candidates who can actually win elections.

Libertarianism is all about telling people what the government cannot do for them.  Like it or not, the truth about America is that most voters want to know what the government can do for them, and base their voting decisions accordingly.  In a poll released just after last Tuesday's primary vote, Mr. Paul led his Democrat opponent by more than 20%.  You can bet that the leftist news media will make sure that gap closes quickly – helped along by the foot-in-mouth disease that Mr. Paul inherited from his father – and that what ought to be an easy Republican win in November will instead become a nail-biter at best, and possibly even a Democrat win.

Item:  Blumenthal is the left's latest gold medalist.

So a Democrat politician is revealed to be a bald-faced liar, and liberals rally around him in support.  What else is new?  From Jimmy Carter to Bill Clinton to Al Gore to John Kerry to Barack Obama, American liberals have made it obvious for a long, long time that bald-faced liars have real political potential as far as they're concerned.

The latest winner of the liberal gold medal for creative prevarication is Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who has now been starkly revealed to have repeatedly lied throughout his political career about having served in Vietnam.  Were he a Republican, Mr. Blumenthal would not only be removed as the Party's nominee for higher office, he would be hounded from the AG's job by the leftwing news media.

But because he's a Democrat, the reaction from the news media has been a round of perfunctory reporting on the matter that will soon die away, and a statement from the Obama Administration that its support for Blumenthal has not changed.  Knowing this would be the case, Blumenthal last week responded to the revelation of his serial lying with a statement that he would not allow his record to be attacked.

His "record" is that of a bald-faced liar, which makes him the perfect liberal candidate for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut.

Item:  The Great Climate Fraud Morphs into the Great Species Fraud.

If you thought that the death of Global Warming as a viable driver of government policy means you can relax a little bit, think again.  As is always the case with the world socialist movement – the driver behind Al Gore's Great Climate Fraud - the death of one political fraud only gives birth to the next.  As of Friday, May 21, we know what that next fraud will be.

On Friday, the United Nations leaked excerpts from its soon-to-be-published fake study on endangered species, and in the process made it obvious that this will be the next great cause of world socialism.  For those who closely followed the political drivers of the Great Climate Fraud, it will come as no surprise that this Great Species Fraud will advocate that the UN report will advocate:

• "...a whole sale revolution in the way humans do business, consume, and think about their lives." And
• "…massive changes to the way the global economy is run."

In other words, like the Great Climate Fraud, the Great Species Fraud will be little more than a concerted attack on the free market industrial economies of Western Europe, and more importantly, the United States of America.  The devolution of market-based economies to the socialist model – with ever-increasing influence of the UN and other world government organizations – has been the singular focus of socialists around the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989.

The collapse of the Great Climate Fraud changes nothing in that regard, and the frightening fact of the matter is that this kind of thinking completely dominates the Democrat Party at the national level, and pervades the senior leadership of the Obama Administration.

So while we should all celebrate the death of fake climate "science" as a driver of government policy, we mustn't kid ourselves that the world socialist movement has died along with it.   These people are like zombies – they just keep coming back from the grave to try to strangle us.

The President Gets the Bad News

Recently in the Oval Office…

President Obama:  Rahm, I gotta talk to you about this memo we just got from our pollsters.

Rahm Emmanuel:  um, yeah, go ahead, but I'm in a hurry here – got some heads to bash on the whole Wall Street reform deal, and then I gotta go dig up some dirt on a couple of Blue Dogs who aren't toeing the party line on climate change.

Obama:  Says here that our pollsters are advising Democratic congressional candidates to avoid mentioning things like healthcare reform, immigration reform, and jobs in their re-election campaigns.

Rahm:  Yeah, so?

Obama:  Says that the very mention of these issues – issues, by the way, that have been the very centerpieces of my administration thus far – can ensure defeat for members of our party in November.

Rahm:  (glancing at watch) uh-huh, uh-huh, can we get to the point here?

Obama:  Well, uh, Rahm, reading this memo, you'd think our policies are unpopular with the people or something.

Rahm:  (nodding head rapidly while fidgeting in chair)  Ok, so what are you wondering about?

Obama:  …

Rahm:  Look, you're acting as if you're surprised here – haven't you been paying attention?

Obama:  Well, I've been kind of busy…

Rahm:  Mr. President, the people hate our policies.

Obama:  What?  But I'm fabulously popular!

Rahm:  Sir, don't you read those polling memos we place on your desk each morning?

Obama:  Not really.  I'm not good with paper. I'm more of a high-tech guy.  It'd be better if you'd give them to Betty over there and have her scroll them on the TelePrompter, like she does with the newspaper every day.  That as you know is my learning tool of choice.

Rahm:  (Sigh)  Sir, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you are not fabulously popular anymore.

Obama:  I'm not?

Rahm:  No, sir.  Now, you're not in Bush territory or anything like that, but your job approval rating has been down in the 40s for quite some time now.

Obama:  (gasp!)  But how can that be?  I mean, I'm The One and all…

Rahm:  um, well, sir, it turns out that country really didn't move to the left politically in 2008 like we initially thought.  Turns out the voters just had Bush fatigue, and voted for you just because you were less like Bush than McCain was.

Obama:  Wow.  You know, that's damn near impossible for me to believe.  I mean, my entire world view is now in jeopardy because of what you just said there, Rahm.  Are you certain about this?

Rahm:  Yessir, I can get you the polling data if you like.

Obama:  Ok, just get it to Betty over there so she can scroll it up on the TelePrompter.

Rahm:  And, uh, sir?  It really is worse than that.

Obama:  What do you mean?

Rahm:  Well, see, you are actually more personally popular than your policies are.

Obama:  (smiling broadly)  Well, that's good news, right?

Rahm:  Depends on your outlook, really.  I mean, I guess it's good news to you…

Obama:  Yes!  I knew it!

Rahm:  …but it's really not good news to Democrats running for re-election who voted for your healthcare nationalization bill, and who support your policies on other issues.

Obama:  But, but I've always thought that good news for Barack was good news for everybody.  I mean, that's how I've lived my entire life!

Rahm:  Yessir, I know that – it's pretty self-evident to everyone.  But the reality of the situation is that your healthcare bill makes about 60% of the population sick to its collective stomach, and public approval for your immigration policies is even lower than that.

Obama:  hmmm…that does present a bit of a problem, then.  But what about jobs?  I mean, wasn't the public listening last November when I announced from my TelePrompter that my administration would henceforth have a "laser-like focus" on job creation?

Rahm:  uh, well, yes they were, but you know, they were also watching as we moved on to healthcare nationalization immediately after you read that speech.  And then they watched as you moved to Wall Street reform immediately after that.  And they have watched over the last couple of weeks as you have spent your time bashing the State of Arizona over the immigration law they recently passed.  And they've also watched as the rate of unemployment has continued to hover at around 10% ever since you read that speech last November…

Obama:  Ok, ok, enough! Geez!  So tell me this:  If our candidates can't run on healthcare, immigration, or jobs, and Wall Street reform isn't doing us any good either, how in the world are they supposed to run?

Rahm:  Well, I'm suggesting they run away from you, sir.  Heh-heh.

Obama:  Ok, that was uncalled for.

Rahm:  I know, but I couldn't resist.  Now excuse me while I go bash some heads and blackmail some Blue Dogs.  After all, that's the way we really get things done around here.