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.