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.

The Consequence of Incompetence

The continuing utter ineptitude of the current presidential administration has never been more starkly displayed than over the last week, in relation to the disastrous BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the attempted Islamo-fascist bombing in Times Square.

The Bombing

For those of you who haven't been keeping count, Friday night's attempted bombing in Times Square constitutes the fourth significant terrorist attack by Islamo-fascists on U.S. soil since President Obama took office.  That compares to zero significant terrorist attacks by Islamo-fascists on U.S. soil during the Bush Administration post-9/11.  So do the math:  that's 4 in 16 months compared to zero in 87 months.

If you think this is somehow mere coincidence, think again.  This is a matter of focus, or lack thereof by this current President and his Chicago thug minions on the real threat this nation faces.  President George W. Bush, for all of his touchy-feely political correctness when it came to airport security and constantly referring to Islam as a "religion of peace", also consistently and clearly identified and targeted the real terrorist threat to America in modern times, which invariably comes from male followers of radical Islamic factions between the ages of 18 and 35.  That is the demographic the Bush Justice Department and intelligence agencies focused on, and that focus kept this nation safe from terrorist attack for the final 87 months of the Bush presidency.

By contrast, the Obama Administration can't even bring itself to use the word 'terrorist' until absolutely forced to do so when reality slaps it in its collective face, as happened on Tuesday morning, and it is incapable of using any iteration of 'Islam' in describing individual terrorists or the terrorist threat in any event whatsoever.  

To make matters worse, the Justice Department under feckless Attorney General Eric Holder has made it clear that its focus will be on domestic, 'right-wing' paramilitary groups, the likes of which have not staged any sort of attack in this country in the 15 years since Tim McVeigh attacked the FBI building in Oklahoma City.

It should surprise no one that this refusal by U.S. law enforcement officials to focus on the real threat at hand has emboldened Islamo-fascists around the world and led inevitably to frequent deadly attacks on American soil.  Islamo-fascists are like vicious dogs – if you don't take the threat they present seriously, they will bite you in the butt until you do.  Until the Obama Administration begins to take the vicious dog in the neighborhood seriously, the dog will continue to bite.

The BP Spill

First, let's be crystal clear here:  This disaster is the fault of BP and its contractors, and they will and should pay dearly for it.  That said, the response to this terrible event by the Obama Administration has been shamefully inept, and the parallels to the Bush Administration response to Hurricane Katrina are too obvious to let pass.

President Bush was pilloried by the national leftist news media for being two days late in responding to Katrina – which was undeniably true.  They were late, they were inept when they finally did respond, and the President's advisors gave the appearance of being uncaring.  No question about any of that.  But they were also dealing with an utterly incompetent Mayor of New Orleans, and an utterly incompetent Governor of Louisiana who waited two days to cede her own jurisdiction over disaster response to the federal government.  This lack of clarity of jurisdiction was at least partially responsible for the mass confusion that existed after the hurricane's devastation of New Orleans.

By contrast, there is no lack of clarity whatsoever in who has jurisdiction in response to major oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico.  That jurisdiction goes to the U.S. Department of the Interior.  Period.  It is an undeniable fact that the Obama Administration waited nine full days following the initial massive explosion before mounting any sort of meaningful response to this event.

You will note that there is no similar outcry in the nation's Obama lapdog news media regarding this Administration's failure to respond in a timely and effective manner.  Oh, the New York Times published a half-hearted editorial on Sunday that mildly criticized the Administration, and Bill Maher belched out a typically obscene comment on his HBO show on Friday night, but those and few other isolated criticisms are pretty much the extent of the non-outrage displayed by the supposed protectors of the public interest towards this Administration's incompetent response to what could become the worst ecological disaster in the nation's history.

But don't worry:  the President finally, at long last made it to Louisiana on Monday, 13 days following the explosion, to announce that his Administration would not rest until the disaster has been contained.  He was so serious about this commitment that he even made his announcement without the aid of his ever-present TelePrompter.

I know the people of Louisiana feel much better now that The One has spoken.

Three Positives From the BP Disaster

1)  In the last 20 years, the only thing our public school children have learned about the oil and gas industry has been the Exxon Valdez disaster.  From this point forward, the only thing future school children will learn about the oil and gas industry will be this BP disaster.  So Exxon will be able to feel better about its contribution - or lack thereof - to our system of education.

2)  If "climate" legislation wasn't already dead as a doornail before this happened, it certainly is now.  A big part of the compromise surrounding the Kerry/Graham/Lieberman (KGL) bill currently under senate consideration was the Obama Administration's recent announcement that its 5 year plan for the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf would include opening up new areas for exploration for oil and gas.  That has been key to getting the votes of Democrats like Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, Mark Pryor, Jeff Bingaman and a few others.  The BP disaster will destroy that compromise.  Good riddance.

3)  Over the last few days, we have been treated to the spectacle of our first openly fascist President, Barack Obama, and other high officials in his administration defending exploration for oil and gas in the offshore United States.  The only reason they are doing that is because they are desperate to hold together the votes to pass the KGL bill.  Had they not included expanded offshore access in their 5 year plan, they would without any question whatsoever have spent the last 10 days excoriating Republicans for their support of offshore drilling.  It has been hilarious to watch the rank hypocrisy in action.

If y'all can think of other positives from this horrible tragedy, let me know, because I'm keeping a list.

In all seriousness, our hearts should all go out to the people of Louisiana and elsewhere along the Gulf Coast whose environment and livelihoods will likely be impacted - and in some instances, devastated - by this broadening disaster.  It is now obvious that the oil from this spill will become an ecological and economic disaster along the Southern coast of Louisiana.  It is already moving into sensitive coastal wetland areas that were devastated just five years ago by Hurricane Katrina, and will almost certainly have severe impacts on the Louisiana fishing, shrimping and oyster bed industries that constitute such a vital part of the Louisiana economy.  It seems likely that the currents in the Gulf of Mexico will ultimately carry this oil to the shores of other states, ultimately even being carried around the Florida peninsula and impacting that state's Eastern shore.

All sorts of theories are beginning to float around about what might have caused the initial explosion that triggered this disaster, most of them centering around the failure of the blowout preventer to trigger and shut down the flow of oil through the well bore.  I have heard some of my colleagues talk about what "bad luck" BP has had in recent years, with several major disasters taking place at their U.S. facilities.  The truth is that such accidents at large facilities of this sort are almost always due to some form of human error - they are almost never the result of a "bad luck" mechanical failure. 

The reality is that BP has established an unfortunate safety record at its U.S. facilities in the last 5 years - both the explosion at its Texas City Refinery and its pipeline leak on the North Slope of Alaska were clear results of its personnel failing to follow safety procedures.  BP and the federal government will perform their investigations and ultimately identify a cause, and we can expect that cause to have very little to do with "bad luck", and much to do with human error.  Blowout preventers with triple-redundant triggering systems just don't fail on their own.

The sad part of this is that the oil and gas industry as a whole has over the last 20 years established an extraordinary record for safety in the Gulf of Mexico.  The federal government defines a "significant" oil spill as any spill over 1,000 barrels.  Not even the devastation wrought to oil and gas platforms in the Gulf by hurricanes Katrina and Rita triggered a single such spill.

That record will now be totally discounted in the U.S. liberal news media by this single incident, and the  nation will become far more dependent on foreign oil as a result.

That's very sad, but it's also an unavoidable outcome of this terrible tragedy.

We are also seeing questions beginning to arise, even in the Obama lapdog media, about the slowness of the federal government's response to this event, with some even beginning to speculate that this could become "Obama's Katrina".  Only time will tell if that ultimately becomes the case, but we must all realize that only the lapdog news media can make that happen, and given that they have richly earned their "lapdog" moniker in relation to this President, such an outcome seems very unlikely to ultimately take place.

After all, life in the liberal zoo bases its entire existence on a compliant and cooperative lapdog media.