Holy CRAP. We’re back to the clean-and-articulate thing again already?? What in the hell is it with these people?

Hat tip to Rick, who found this in just a few minutes last night.

I also must not be watching The Godfather right. I thought it was Carlo, the scumbag brother-in-law, who was garroted. I own it and watch it over and over, and I’m pretty sure.

Tessio, the smarter of the two Caporegimes, was dispatched offscreen in some unstated way (I figured it was gangland style with a bullet in the back of the head), for his treachery and betrayal. “The smart move will getcha killed”? I don’t recall that line. “Make him an offer he can’t refuse” was used a whole lot of times, always with a sinister undertone…maybe that’s the connection to the State of the Union Matthews was trying to make.

Chris Matthews: Rocking-chair-shirt-slobber-senile well before his time. A bigoted, rambling old man. What’s next, grandpa? Something about wearing a yellow onion from your belt because that was the style at the time?

Is this threesome we just saw, a window into the soul of the folks who are in charge right now?

God help us.

That’s a man, baby:

A man who identified himself as Winston Steward, 51, of Frazier Park, Calif., says he made up the name “Ellie Light” to protect himself from criticism and possible physical attacks, and used fake addresses across the country to get local newspapers to publish his letters.

“I am Winston Steward and have been sending the letters from Ellie Light,” he told The Plain Dealer in an e-mail late Tuesday, following a phone interview in which he said the same. “I hope this ends any confusion and sets the record straight.”

His e-mail address matched the address of the Ellie Light missives that were sent to newspapers to praise Obama and urged second-guessers to be patient as the president advances the Democratic agenda. The person identified as Ellie Light had been corresponding from that e-mail address to The Plain Dealer since last week, when the newspaper’s Web site, cleveland.com, disclosed that someone using the name Ellie Light was duping newspapers nationwide.

Many newspapers will not publish letters to the editor unless they are from local residents, so the correspondence from “Light” used addresses from newspapers’ own circulation areas. But news of Light’s tactics left multiple newspapers embarrassed, with some apologizing to their readers.
:
The story took several twists this week, as The Plain Dealer and “Ellie Light” spoke first through e-mail and later via phone. At one point Tuesday, the person who had been using the name acknowledged it was fake — but then said her real name was Barbara Brooks. The person spoke in a husky voice that could pass for either gender.

But public records, including those of marriages, property and professional licenses in California and Texas, and phone interviews eventually led to the identity of Steward. Those interviews included several with a woman in Texas who said she is the real Barbara Brooks — records appear to confirm this — and that she is married to Steward, who for now lives in their other home in California but plans to join her in their home near San Antonio.

The woman said her husband was using her name because he was afraid he might be attacked by “right-wing crazies up in Bakersfield,” about 40 miles from their home in a mountain community.

Late Tuesday, after several denials, the person who had been e-mailing under the name “Ellie Light” said he’d finally set the record straight. He said he was, in fact, Winston Steward. He repeated that in an e-mail, using the same account as he had when using the name “Ellie Light.”

He said, however, that he and Brooks are no longer married, a point Brooks disputed.

“He’s making up all kinds of garbage,” she said. “We’re not divorced. We’re not separated. He just doesn’t want anybody to trace him because he’s afraid of the right-wing crazies up in Bakersfield.”

Telling the rest of us who’s-who and what’s-what, as far as where our faith should be placed…on important and intimate staples, such as our health care…check.

Proving to be manifestly untrustworthy on such rudimentary matters as identity and place of residence…check.

Acting like his opinions are the opinions of zillions of others, when in fact it is not the case…check.

When caught, blaming it all on the right-wingers…check.

Yep. The guy’s a liberal alright.

Via Michelle.

Hat tip to blogger friend Rick.

If you’re not reading blogger friend Andy’s place, you’re missing a lot. Here at The Blog That Nobody Reads, we somewhat often get compliments to the effect of “That’s precisely what I was thinking, I just didn’t know how to say it.” If this is some kind of a food chain, Andy would be on the next link up, because we’ve been noticing this for awhile but we didn’t know how to say it:

The liberal response to pure entertainment, of the drama kind, when the good guys start acting like conservatives and the bad guys act like liberals — it is peculiar. It seems to go right over their heads. FrankJ once said (somewhere) something to the effect of “I’m confused, when they watch ’24’ do they root against Jack Bauer?”

Andy wonders if they like westerns:

Whether he is a crooked town sheriff or the leader of a pack of bandits, the villain of the Western is a fan of punishment by death, likes guns, is sometimes even clean-cut and well-dressed (because crime has been paying), physically bland or unattractive, and everything a liberal might look at and think “Oooh, evil conservative crook!”

Meanwhile, the hero is often a disheveled mess of a “bad boy” type, a little too good-looking to be realistic, coming off of a drug or booze bender, and expected by the town people to swoop on in and save the day all by his lonesome. Naturally, the liberal sees this and shouts “Hey, he’s one of us!”

But watch out, because the evil conservative villain actually terrorizes entire town populations by telling them how to run their saloons and feed stores, taking a cut of their profits, and dictating how much they are allowed to earn, all while be being followed around slavishly by a bunch of underlings who he has made sure are inferior to him in as many ways as possible. You don’t get much more left-wing than that.

And the hero? Just a guy tired of seeing people being tyrannized by a spineless bully. He has a pretty clear idea of how to get the town people back in charge of their own affairs, and he just wants to hang around long enough to set that in motion and be on his way. If making a fool of the bad guy is in the cards, too, then so be it. But the goal is always to restore control to the citizens, and once he has done that, he leaves them to prosper or fail of their own accord. Sure, sometimes he stays on and runs a business or becomes sheriff, but he minds his own pretty well. Sounds conservative to me.

Also up, is a delightful post about Hyperactive Presumptive Disorder Diagnosis Syndrome, which must be a first cousin to my own concoction of Obsessive Compulsive Bullshit Alphabet Soup Acronym Shopping and Behavioral Disability Invention Impulse (OCBASASBDII).

Cylarz put one up, and when I tried to research the origin of it, I realized there are many of them out there.

Let’s start first with the ones who are honestly trying to make it seem like a good idea. DailyKOS:

Dan Kurtzman, who keeps the political snark fires burning over at About.com, wrote a terrific piece for his recent book, How to Win a Fight with a Conservative. We present it here with the author’s kind permission:

Liberal Manifesto

Liberals believe in clean air, diplomacy, stem cells, living wages, body armor for our troops, government accountability, and that exercising the right to dissent is the highest form of patriotism.

Liberals believe in reading actual books, going to war as a last resort, separating church and hate, and doing what Jesus would actually do, instead of lobbying for upper-class tax cuts and fantasizing about the apocalypse.

Liberals believe in civil rights, the right to privacy, and that evolution and global warming aren’t just theories but incontrovertible scientific facts.

Liberals believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment that (1) prohibits another Bush from ever occupying the White House, and (2) prevents George W. Bush from ever becoming baseball commissioner before he does to our national pastime what he did for America.

Liberals believe in rescuing people from flooded streets and rooftops, even if they’re too poor to vote Republican.

Liberals believe that supporting our troops means treating our wounded vets like the heroes they are, and not leaving them to languish in rat-infested military hospitals under the outsourced management of incompetent cronies who think they’re running a Taco Bell franchise.

Liberals believe in pheromones, sex ed, solar panels, voting paper trails, the common good, and that, no matter how fascinating a story it may be, a president should never sit around in a state of total paralysis reading “My Pet Goat” while America is under attack.

And above all, liberals believe that it’s time to come together as a country and put a collective boot in the ass of shameless conservative fearmongers, hate merchants, and scapegoaters who are sucking the freedom out of all our souls.

Laced up! Ready to go!

A “Buzzflash Reader Contribution”:

I’m a Liberal.

That means that I believe we have a responsibility to those who cannot care for themselves,

I believe we should help the poor,

I believe old people deserve to be treated with respect & dignity,

I believe we should protect the environment,

I believe we should not invade other countries without the majority of the worlds democracies’ agreeing it is the last option,

I believe that the government is no more corrupt or inefficient than a huge multinational corporation (Enron),

I believe the government should be transparent and open to prevent corruption rather than always hiding behind “national security”,

I believe in the separation of church and state,

I believe it is more important to have high wages for your employees than high profits for your CEO,

I believe that we are innocent until proven guilty,

I believe the “patriot” act is unconstitutional,

I believe we create more terrorists by bombing other countries and randomly imprisoning suspected “terrorists”,

I believe racial profiling is just racism,

I believe that voting machines should provide a paper trail,

I believe election day should be a national holiday,

I believe that all persons should have equal rights such as the right to marry the one they love,

I believe we should spend more money educating our children than we do building prisons,

I believe multinational corporations do not always act in the best interests of America,

I believe that women should have every option available to them when it comes to their health,

I believe children should be taught science not mysticism,

I believe that taxes should be paid by those who can most afford to pay them,

I believe running huge government budget deficits will hurt our economy,

I believe that everyone is entitled to health care,

I believe that the government wastes more money on military spending than it does on welfare or aid to the needy,

I believe corporations are not people and should not have the same rights as persons,

I believe we should take affirmative action to correct the socio-economic imbalances created by racism and sexism,

and I believe that we are a nation of immigrants and we should welcome those with the drive, determination and ambition to come to America in search of a better life.

The American Prospect put one up in that contentious year of 2006.

We have all opposed the Iraq war as illegal, unwise, and destructive of America’s moral standing. This war fueled, and continues to fuel, jihadis whose commitment to horrific, unjustifiable violence was amply demonstrated by the September 11 attacks as well as the massacres in Spain, Indonesia, Tunisia, Great Britain, and elsewhere. Rather than making us safer, the Iraq war has endangered the common security of Americans and our allies.

We believe that the state of Israel has the fundamental right to exist, free of military assault, within secure borders close to those of 1967, and that the U.S. government has a special responsibility toward achieving a lasting Middle East peace. But the Bush administration has defaulted. It has failed to pursue a steady and constructive course. It has discouraged the prospects for an honorable Israeli-Palestinian settlement. It has encouraged Israel’s disproportionate attacks in Lebanon after the Hezbollah incursions, resulting in vast destruction of civilian life and property.

Make no mistake: We believe that the use of force can, at times, be justified. We supported the use of American force, together with our allies, in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. But war must remain a last resort. The Bush administration’s emphatic reliance on military intervention is illegitimate and counterproductive. It creates unnecessary enemies, degrades the national defense, distracts from actual dangers, and ignores the imperative necessity of building an international order that peacefully addresses the aspirations of rising powers in Asia and Latin America.

The misapplication of military power also imperils American freedom at home. The president claims authority, as commander in chief, to throw American citizens into military prison for years on end without any hearing, civil or military, that would allow them to confront the charges against them. He claims the power to wiretap Americans’ conversations without warrants, in direct violation of congressional commands. These usurpations presage what are likely to be even more drastic measures if another attack takes place on American soil.

—

At the same time, the president is unconstitutionally seizing power on other fronts. He seeks to liberate himself from the rule of law by issuing hundreds of “signing statements” asserting, with unprecedented sweep and aggressiveness, his right to ignore congressional control. Such contempt for the people’s representatives verges on monarchical pretension.

The administration’s politics of panic diverts attention from pressing questions of social justice and environmental survival. The president remorselessly seeks to undermine the principle of progressive taxation. Under cover of patriotism, he promotes vast tax cuts to the rich at the expense of policies that strengthen the common ties that bind us together as a community.

We reaffirm the great principle of liberalism: that every citizen is entitled by right to the elementary means to a good life. We believe passionately that societies should afford their citizens equal treatment under the law — regardless of accidents of birth, race, sex, property, religion, ethnic identification, or sexual disposition. We want to redirect debate to the central questions of concern to ordinary Americans — their rights to housing, affordable health care, equal opportunity for employment, and fair wages, as well as physical security and a sustainable environment for ourselves and future generations.

Instead of securing these principles, the president and his party view the suppression of votes indulgently and propose new requirements for voting that will make it still harder for the poor and the elderly to exercise their democratic rights.

The administration’s denial of reality reaches a delusional peak in its refusal to acknowledge basic science describing the massive climate change now under way. Against the advice of all serious experts, the government has grossly failed in its responsibility to our descendants. It has consistently sought to undermine the Kyoto treaty and refused to encourage energy conservation. We insist on a clean break with this shameful record. Our government should be taking the lead in reducing greenhouse gases, recognizing our responsibilities as the world’s leading polluter. We should be investing massively in energy sources that carry out a commitment to environmental stewardship and help restore our manufacturing base at the same time.

The administration’s contempt for science is of a piece with its general disdain for reason — a prejudice that any modern society ought to have left behind. Whether confronting scientific research, evolution, birth control, foreign policy, drug pricing, or the manner in which it makes decisions, the Bush administration has defied evidence and logic, sabotaging its own professional civil servants. It refuses serious consultation with experts and critics. It acts secretly, in defiance of the powers of Congress. It refuses to identify those whose advice it solicits, even concealing the names of the vice president’s staff. It stifles civil servants attempting to do their jobs. It appoints cronies whose political loyalty cannot compensate for their incompetence. When challenged, it responds with lies and distortions.

—

Reason is indispensable to democratic self-government. This self-evident truth was a fundamental commitment of our Founding Fathers, who believed it was entirely compatible with every American’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. When debating policy in the public square, our government should base its laws on grounds that can be accepted by people regardless of their religious beliefs. Public commitment to reason and evidence is the bedrock of a pluralist democracy. Nevertheless, it has been eroded by the present administration in an ongoing campaign to pander to its hard right wing.

This government’s failures to respect the process of public reason have generated predictable consequences — none of them good. The Bush administration has failed to protect its citizens from disaster — from foreign enemies on September 11, 2001, and from the hurricane and flood that afflicted the Gulf Coast in 2005. It has driven the war in Iraq to an impasse. It is incapable of presenting a plausible strategy to bring our military intervention to a tenable conclusion.

We insist that America be defended vigorously against its real enemies — the radical Islamists who organize to attack us. But security does not require torture or the rejection of basic guarantees of due process. To the contrary, this administration’s lawless conduct and its violations of the Geneva Conventions only damage our moral standing and our ability to combat the appeals of violent ideologues. By defending torture, the Bush administration engages in precisely the kind of ethical relativism that it purports to condemn. Meanwhile, it refuses to confront its responsibility for the human-rights violations at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and elsewhere. Having failed to plan for obvious contingencies, it has scapegoated low-level military personnel when it should be identifying and punishing broader command failures.

We refuse to confine our criticisms to personalities. We believe that the abuses of power that have been commonplace under Bush’s rule must be laid not only at his door — and the vice president’s — but at the doors of a conservative movement that has, for decades, undermined government’s ability to act reasonably and effectively for the common good.

—

We love this country. But true patriotism does not consist of bravado or calumny. It resides in faithfulness to our great constitutional ideals. We are a republic, not a monarchy. We believe in the rule of law, not secret prisons. We insist on justice for all, not privilege for the few. In repudiating these American ideals, the Bush administration disgraces America and damages our claim to democratic leadership in the larger world.

It will take hard work to undo this damage. It will take more than defeating the hard-line right at the polls. We must engage in large acts of political imagination and inspire a new generation to take up liberal principles and adapt them inventively in a new century.

It’s interesting that in 2006, someone thought it entirely unnecessary to state any liberal ideals that existed independently of the administration. To offer a litany of what it was doing, and what you didn’t like about it, was quite sufficient. Someday, this is going to be an unavoidable fact of history in the “How Obama Came To Be” chapter of the textbooks; liberals didn’t know what they wanted, they just knew what they didn’t want.

Rick Moran handily fisked this one.

And then there is the one read in by Cylarz, from over here, which is perhaps the most honest.

I am a proud liberal. I want to be safe and happy. Even though America is a mean and terrible country, I want to live here and nowhere else. I will never support national defense or the military. I do, however, want someone else to defend me and make sure I am safe, but I will not tolerate it if they hurt or scare anyone while doing it. I also want everyone else to be equal and happy. But I don’t want to pay for that. Others should pay for that so I don’t have to. I don’t believe in personal responsibility and self reliance either. I believe that only government should be responsible and we should all rely on the government for benefits and programs. There will never be enough government benefits and programs. I like being a liberal because only liberals want equality and a clean environment. I believe in equality because I think many persons are too stupid or lazy to make it on their own. I believe that if incomes drop, tax rates must be increased to make up for the deficit, because if anyone has any income left they should share it. I know that the Founding Fathers were just a group of dead greedy white men whose views should not be believed or respected. I don’t believe in reading or learning about history either because it is all based on capitalist lies. I believe that marriage must be open to all persons or groups of persons who wants to be married. It is just the fair thing to do. But I’m not certain yet which person is the husband or if there is a wife at all. Finally, I believe in group thinking and community action. I believe these facts because I learned them in High School and University, both of which I attended with government support. The teachers there are very smart. They taught me what to think and I answered their test questions just the way they wanted me to. Then they even gave me a degree to prove that I now know more than anybody. All this is true and none of it is open for discussion. Now you know why I am a proud liberal.

And then there’s this…

1. We believe that notions of good and evil are outdated and should never be used unless we are talking about George Bush, other Republicans, or Right Wing, Born Again Christians who are clearly responsible historically for most of the evils of the world.

2. We are strong advocates of choice, unless people want to choose their own schools, radio shows, cars, cigars, unhealthy food, health care providers, amount of energy to use in the home, salaries to pay employees, location for religious assembly, location for religious symbols, and the amount of money to leave their children in a will as opposed to giving half to the government. We do continue to celebrate “a woman’s right to choose an abortion” but we also like the laws in China that limit how many children one can have, because too many people in the world contribute to Global Warming, so the one remaining choice is only a temporary one.

3. We believe that having women on the Supreme Court offers necessary balance, as women will always bring a perspective men cannot offer with important decisions that guide our country. On the other hand, when it comes to guiding children in a family atmosphere, we do not believe gender to be of any importance whatsoever. Indeed, a child with two fathers is going to be every bit as healthy as a child with a father and a mother and in such a case, female influence is nonessential to development and health.

4. We believe in standing up for the rights of the weak and the disenfranchised, (unless we are talking about an unborn baby.)

5. We believe in tolerance and those who are unwilling to tolerate the same lifestyles we tolerate should no longer be tolerated. Thus, we strongly advocate laws forbidding Hate Speech and if those guilty of Hate Speech do not see their speech as hateful, it only means they are especially hateful and that their intolerance should be especially NOT tolerated.

6. We believe that as regards gay marriage, church and state should be completely separated. Christians have no right to pass laws about who can or cannot be married out in the secular world. Marriage in the church can be defined any way they want, so long as they do not impose that belief on the rest of us. However, we strongly support those who sue churches for refusing to marry gay couples because, after all, this is a Civil Rights issue and not a religious issue. Therefore, religious people should not be exempted.

7. As a specific example of our inclusive philosophy, we believe that when Conservatives oppose President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, their only possible motives must clearly be racism. It couldn’t possibly be for concerns about a judge who would legislate from the bench. However, when Democrats opposed Clarence Thomas and Alberto Gonzalez, race had nothing to do with it.

8. In that same vein, we accept Judge Sotomayor’s right to claim that a Latino woman will give better rulings than a white male judge. Such a statement cannot be construed as racist because people of color do not have the power even though this woman, as a judge, has kind of, sort of, had a lot of power for years. Meanwhile, should a white judge ever claim that a white man can rule better than a Latino woman, we will expose him as the sexist, racist, bigoted vermin whom he truly is.

9. We believe that all rich people are evil, with the exception of rich Democrat politicians, George Soros, Michael Moore or any Left-Wing Hollywood activist.

10. We believe religion should be left out of any political discussion unless some Democratic politician wants to say that Jesus would have accepted illegal immigration or some gay, Episcopal priest wants to talk about how the Bible teaches that God is loving and tolerant. In such cases, religion is a very appropriate ingredient to bring into the mix.

11. We believe Intelligent Design does not belong in the class room due to church and state legalities and should not be put forth, even as a theory, to be discussed. We also believe that if an instructor wants to talk about how stupid it is to believe in God, he should be allowed. Separation between church and state does not apply in such a situation.

12. When a professor, such as Ward Churchill, compares the victims of 9/11to Nazis, his speech (outrageous as it is) must be protected under the First Amendment. On the other hand, when the President of Harvard suggests that men and women tend to score differently on math tests, such talk should never be allowed because (First Amendment put aside) the college campus must hold its staff to a higher standard. Besides, we know that men and women are not different at all about anything, (even though, once again, women do bring a unique perspective to the Supreme Court.)

13. We believe it is wrong for a mother to spank her child. That is child abuse. But if she wants to kill this child in the womb, that is her fundamental right.

14. We are very concerned about Global Warming and those who would ask us to prove it scientifically should just get with the program and stop being so dog darned argumentative. However, we will ask Christians to prove their belief in God scientifically and if they can’t, they have no place in our public dialogue. Indeed, they pollute our public dialogue. Oh yes, and if Christians claim they can prove God scientifically, they should be especially banned from public dialogue. Never mind that we asked them to prove God. We only asked because we were sure they couldn’t do it.

15. We believe that almost anything you can imagine (and a lot of stuff you never would have imagined in a million years) contributes to Global Warming, including Christmas lights and even cow dung. But the private jets that Democrats fly around in to give lectures on Global Warming are not a problem. While we are on the subject of private jets, when Wall Street CEO’s fly on such jets, they are EVIL!.. That is, they would be evil if such a thing existed and in the cases of people we don’t like, it does exist. (See Point One)

16. We believe that smaller cars will keep our atmosphere safer even if accidents in such cars will kill a whole lot more people than big cars. People come and go, but the planet is most important.

17. Finally, we believe Right-Wing ideas are too stupid to even debate. That is why we do not debate them. We call Right-Wingers names instead, because they deserve to be called names. (Hitler is always a good one). Would you debate with a Nazi or with the Ku Klux Klan? Of course not! Can we prove that all Right Wing people are like the Nazis or the Klan? Well, no. To do that, we would have to have a debate and we are not going to debate. Haven’t you been paying attention?

In the name of tolerance, free thought, open discussion, personal choice and sound reason, we the undersigned do proudly uphold this Liberal Manifesto.

Most folks on the innerwebs seem to share a rather well-defined vision of what exactly the term “troll” is supposed to describe. It’s some person participating in the content of a group discussion, without really participating in its subject. He just says stuff to get folks riled up, slimes, slanders, drifts away, doesn’t truly engage the topic or any dialogue around it. Wikipedia says it’s “someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community…with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response.” The Urban Dictionary says it’s a “member of an internet forum who continually harangues and harasses others.”

Just about everyone seems to agree, more-or-less, on what a troll is.

The really hardcore lefty people, though, have a different definition. Before we define that, let’s define them. “Of course Obama doesn’t have everything fixed yet, it’ll take Him a very long time with the damage that’s been done to this country for the last eight years.” I think that’s a good definition. No standards to be imposed on Holy One, but pretend things are the exact opposite, that Holy One is raising the standards, while failing to fulfill any. And anything & everything can be satisfactorily answered with one more zinger at Bush. That’s what I call hardcore left. Works for me.

Their definition seems to be…if you offer an argument, and I can’t respond to it logically, or even look like I’m responding to it logically…in other words, if you have me backed into a corner. That makes you a “troll.”

They are really marching to the beat of their own drummer on this one, on the usage of that particular word.

Have you noticed there is no large-scale protest in the wake of a poll, or for that matter an election, in which the liberal viewpoint prevails? You’re not imagining it. It’s a time-honored tactic practiced by the hard left to always, always, always make sure you have the last word in everything. And it’s worked well for them so why should they stop?

And so when they win, it’s “The People Have Spoken.” No ifs, ands or buts. When they lose, Diebold must have been up to some shenanigans. If it’s something close to a tie, it’s time for a whole slew of “recounts”…at the end of which, they win. Try to think of some exceptions to this. You can’t. Ann Coulter once said somewhere, we might as well have a rule that you’ve got to give an election to democrats if they lose by less than a thousand votes. And from the history I can recall, she’s right.

Latest target: Scott Rasmussen. Get out the torches and pitchforks, and for Gaea’s sake make sure the cameras are rolling!

The pointed attacks reflect a hardening conventional wisdom among prominent liberal bloggers and many Democrats that Rasmussen Reports polls are, at best, the result of a flawed polling model and, at worst, designed to undermine Democratic politicians and the party’s national agenda.

On progressive-oriented websites, anti-Rasmussen sentiment is an article of faith. “Rasmussen Caught With Their Thumb on the Scale,” blared the Daily Kos this summer. “Rasmussen Reports, You Decide,” the blog Swing State Project recently headlined in a play on the Fox News motto.

I suppose, if you’re pre-disposed to think a certain thing just because there is a large number of other people already thinking it, you’d be statistically likely to vote democrat — especially right about now — and you’d be an important part of that constituency. They wouldn’t want to give you up without a fight.

It just seems to me a funny thing to try to attack…this notion that the Obama experiment has been given a fair shake, and found to be something less than a genuine success. If that’s the hill they wanna die on, 2010 will bring a whole lot more fighting that will have to be done. Oh well. That’s the choice they’ve made, so keep an eye out.

It’s funny, isn’t it? Toward the end of George W. Bush’s second term, as his approval rate dipped downward into the mid-thirties, it became a conservative talking point to deny he was a genuine conservative. With Obama, the insistence that He is more moderate than liberal stretches backward, clear back to Day One, and with the undertone that this is a good thing. Whereas with Bush and the conservatives, the conservatives were arguing that the President was not giving their ideology a fair shake, that he should have been injured with this lack of good credential. And that this was happening.

The data seem to back this up. Bush pursued conservative policies, his approval rating went up; he pursued liberal policies, reached “across the aisle,” went-all-wobbly, his approval rating went down.

The alternative, euphemistic adjective for liberal is “progressive”; there is none defined or required, so far as I know, for the conservative counterpart.

USA Today did a poll on who’s the most-admired American:

President Obama is the man Americans admired most in 2009, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, while Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin are virtually tied as the most-admired woman.

The close finish by Clinton, named by 16% in the open-ended survey, and Palin, named by 15%, reflects the nation’s partisan divide. Clinton was cited by nearly 3 in 10 Democrats but only 6% of Republicans, Palin by a third of Republicans but less than 1% of Democrats.

Hmmm…for an alternative headline, how about “Republicans think six times more independently than democrats.” There’s something rather one-celled and Borg-like about your party when there’s that thick of a prohibition against thinking well of The Enemy.

I think, in fact, that this is the bigger story. Let’s see…maybe it’s a Patton/Rommel thing? You might be open and receptive to admiring the positive attributes, the “magnificent-bastard”-ness of your enemy, if-and-only-if you’re shouldering the responsibility of getting something done? And democrats are far less likely to do this. The “elect someone charismatic and wonderful to put gas in my tank” mindset inspires a tendency to engage in a rhetorical style of “you’re just a big ol’ poopy head.” The poll results suggest this is what’s going on…you read some right-wing blogs, and then some left-wing blogs…that further suggests this is what’s going on.

In fact you know what poll I’d like to see? I’d like to see a poll among registered democrats, in which they pick out one single statement from a series of multiple-choice options. Just one, to describe Sarah Palin. Let’s say four positive statements, two negative. A thousand participants. And make sure all four are indisputably true. The two negative, obviously, would be something like “not qualified to be President or Vice-President” and “completely irrelevant, people should stop talking about her.”

Ninety-nine-plus-percent would pick one of those two, over one of the four? Even if all four are fact-based, non-subjective, verifiably true?

If it really comes out that way, that’s a sad, sad thing. It doesn’t say anything about or against Palin herself, it says something about the people who run things right now. They aren’t grown-ups. They argue like six-year-olds. Participating in an argument between two others about what it is that should be done, they quickly abandon the discussion of what should be done, and start reciting pre-canned encyclopedias of negative attributes about the participants, letting ad hom carry the day. You’re unsophisticated. You’re hysterical. You’re stupid. You’re uneducated. You’re a closet homosexual. You’re insecure. You’re a creationist. You’re a hyyyyyppoooooccccrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiittteeee…………..

The realization that persons possessing negative attributes, can occasionally be right about something, is enough to logically devastate everything these people have to say. And most of us come to that realization in our teenage years, or in late adulthood, perhaps in late-late-adulthood — but after we’ve cut our teeth on being truly responsible for something. To think things out in ad hom, is a luxury enjoyed by people who haven’t gotten to this point just yet. Or who have built up a successful career by sifting through credit and blame like wheat from chaff, taking all the credit for themselves and blaming others.

Sent to my two oh-so-trendy aging-hippy lib-fem Senators…

I try to observe a higher level of decorum writing to elected representatives; they are deserving of a certain level of respect. (Boxer, in particular, will insist on it.) The toughest part is capitalizing the word “democrat.” Over here, we always spell it with a small-d even in post titles. After all, they don’t seem to think anyone else is worthy of an individual-level distinction that commands respect. So why in the heck should they have one?

Anyway. Hope I was sufficiently courteous and respectful. But why do I sweat this stuff. I might as well have typed in the writing on the back of the last can of soup I bought, and hit “Submit” for all the change it’s gonna have on anything. I always feel like showering after I write to these two. The whole “hearing from my constituents” thing, it’s such an insulting sham. They’re both so dedicated to the idea that they should be telling me what to think, rather than the other way ’round.

Dear Sens. Boxer and Feinstein,

“Any problem that comes along, we’ll see to it no one profits from finding a solution.”

Is that the slogan of President Obama and the 111th Congress? It seems to be. That it is far better to allow a problem to stay as it is, or even fester and get worse, than allow capitalism to solve it. Of course, politicians and their friends can still make money; good to see at least someone can.

Yesterday, winter officially arrived, and on the very same day my Senate gave us another winter in the ObamaCare bill, which I guess we could call the “Declaration of Dependence.” One of those winters will continue until some groundhog gives me some ballpark estimate of the spring thaw. The other one, though, is permanent. It’s so bad, it doesn’t even matter what’s in the legislation — all the red flags are there. Experienced doctors leaving their professions. America, unbelievably, tailoring her medical system to resemble that of the other countries who so regularly send their sick here to be treated! Bribes. Threats, Intimidation, Graft. Special treatment for Nebraska.

I miss the lies about “47 million uninsured” who lack “access to healthcare.” I notice it’s been a few months since any of you have bothered to display this phony concern. For the last half year or so, it’s all “Get It Passed Now, Help Obama.”

You think we don’t notice that? This isn’t about health care; it’s about control. We, your constituents, understand this.

You’d be treating us far better if you were trying to hurt us. What you did yesterday is indifference. It’s all about the legislative victory, and “do it now” means do it before too many people catch on to how bad it really is — so Obama can declare some kind of achievement in Year One. Taxes are collected in the new year before us, but the wonderful health care benefits don’t kick in for years after that? But it’s about sick people getting access to health care. You can’t possibly think we’re that stupid. You must therefore think we’re irrelevant.

The nation has one and only one chance now: During the reconciliation process, some Democrats are going to have to wake up. Maybe it’s one of you two; hopefully it’s both of you.

Sen. Boxer, earlier this year you replied to my concerns about the Stimulus Bill telling me you had to vote for it because nothing-was-not-an-option. What a boondoggle that was! I hope you feel enough shame over that to try something else, if you choose to respond to my concerns here. I notice your speech seemed to be built around that point, which met with such a damning disgrace on that other issue throughout the events of this year. You packed it full with statistics about how tough we have it, what percentage of bankruptcies are linked to health care crises, et cetera. Let me tell you: Our biggest crisis by far is crazy liberal laws. Like my suggested slogan for your Congress implies, we simply aren’t allowed to make any significant amounts of money. We aren’t allowed to profit — not really — which means we aren’t allowed to breathe. If anybody ever does make a profit, there’s always a liberal politician like you second-guessing ’em.

It has become a MEDICAL emergency. Our private sector is in the intensive care ward, and it doesn’t even know how to pay for the bed!

Our big problem is that nobody is really solvent — not to the point they can reasonably entertain ideas about expanding their businesses, and hiring people. This year’s new policies seem to all have it in common that they’re founded on a desire to stop that from changing, and this law is no different. You say “Help is on the way.” Make that the help we really need. We don’t want to merely survive, we want to prosper. Is that so un-American? In fact, wasn’t that the whole point of the American experiment, at the beginning? In the days of the Declaration of Independence…not the Declaration of Dependence that met with your approval yesterday?

Wall Street Journal:

The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that “reform” has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.

And then beneath this paragraph, are some of the details regarding how this ramming is being done. It’s not pretty; it won’t reinforce whatever vestigial belief you may have that we elected an open, honest and transparent government; but there is enough information there that classic good-liberal questions from friends and relatives like “HAVE YOU READ THE BILL?” become rather absurd, silly and off-topic.

Blogsister Daphne asked me in an offline to check out the GOOOH (Get Out of Our House) movement. I’m going to continue to look into it; anything that offers a chance to thwart what’s being done right now, deserves a second, third, fourth & fifth look. But I wasn’t too receptive, mostly because of the history of such things, H. Ross Perot’s name looming large in the past events that have stoked my cynicism about the cynics. My reception was, therefore, cool. Generally, to deserve my support, such movements need to offer their positions, rather than their indignation, right up top in the opening paragraphs. I offered this example:

Charity begins at home, nobody should WANT to serve in Congress for more than one term, if terrorists want to meet Allah then let’s accommodate them, no one on public assistance should have a teevee set bigger than the average taxpayer’s, there’s nothing wrong with having “In God We Trust” on our money, kids in school should learn reading/writing/rithmetic first, we’re not listening to any lecturing about carbon emissions from anyone who flies around on a jet, save the U.S. economy by making liberalism our chief export, Gen. Pershing had the right idea shooting Islamic terrorists and burying them in pig guts, like Dennis Prager I prefer clarity to agreement, peace through strength, if there’s gotta be a blood bath then let’s get it over with, replace the income tax with a consumption tax, let’s breed the feminists out it’s what they want anyway, if hurting an evil man will save innocent lives then only a sociopath would object, if Obama is what smart means today I’ll stick with dumb-&-thick thankyewverymuch. If you want any kind of socialism there’s 130 other countries where you can go. I’ll help you pack.

Now, THAT — would be change I can trust. But that is too much change. We’ll need to move the way the enemy has been moving, in baby steps. That is how they made the mainstream look like kook-fringe stuff, and made their kook-fringe stuff look mainstream. Sanity will have to be restored in smaller increments as well.

After this health care debacle, the one thing that looks to me like a complete shoe-in, is term limits. I’m thinking one term in each chamber, six years in Senate and two years in House. By & large, since Congress would have to pass such a thing, term limit bills have never had much of a chance. But in the wake of this turkey, it is perhaps a greater possibility now than ever. I say if Senator Reid can dream big, we can dream too.

The same way a mama duck can count her ducklings one…two…and many; to a hardcore Obama zealot like Chris Matthews, there are people who join in the holy worship, and then there’s nobody else. If you aren’t bowing in the right direction five times a day, you don’t exist.

These are the very people who, one year ago, were helping him to “Be A Part Of This Thing.” Needless to say, they weren’t sitting in the back seat of Matthews’ mind, bitching away, back then. No, they were an important part of what’s going on. They were finally being heard, taking their country back, insert as many of the favorite bromides here the list could go on and on and on…

And it was people like me who didn’t exist. We were the ones who had to be marginalized this way. Now it’s the other guys. But the song & dance is the same — my targets have no influence on anything, and if they do, they shouldn’t, so don’t listen to ’em.

This is what an “extremist” really is, folks. You’re looking right at it in Chris Matthews. Not the dedicated ally of populism, or the perpetual opponent. The fair-weather friend. If Obama’s popularity sinks down to one percent, ninety-nine percent of us will become non-existent phantoms, and at that point Matthews will be ninety-nine percent insane.

How many people are just like him? They have to be part of the majority, all of the time; once they’re locked into a point of view, and then that point of view loses majority support, they start defining other people out of existence into this phantom zone — so they can pretend, today, to be in a majority that, yesterday, really existed. They release reality by shrinking their own personal universes as a matter of convenience. They tend to be high-drama types. You see they have all these friends now, and you have no idea who will still be their friends tomorrow. Know anyone like that?

Ethel C. Fenig, writing in American Thinker:

Democrats more likely to believe in ghosts

Writing in the Washington Examiner about the results of a poll by the Pew Center on Religion and Public Life, Byron York may have stumbled upon why more Democrats than Republicans agree to programs that will leave our great-great grandchildren a massive public debt, believe in voodoo economics, predict a rosy future for programs that have no solid basis in facts, and other bizarre behavior.

New study: More Democrats than Republicans believe in ghosts, talking with the dead, fortunetellers

(snip)

. . .Democrats are far more likely to believe in supernatural phenomenon than Republicans.

“Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and consulting fortunetellers or psychics,” the Pew study says. For example, 21 percent of Republicans report that they have been in touch with someone who is dead, while 36 percent of Democrats say they have done so. Eleven percent of Republicans say they have seen a ghost, while 21 percent of Democrats say so. And nine percent of Republicans say they have consulted a fortuneteller, while 22 percent of Democrats have.

There’s more. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in reincarnation, while 30 percent of Democrats do. Fourteen percent of Republicans say they believe in astrology, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they view yoga as a spiritual practice, while 31 percent of Democrats do. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they believe in spiritual energy, while 30 percent of Democrats do.

I think it might have something to do with worldview.

For awhile I’ve been noticing that conservatives and liberals both see themselves as insignificant in relationship to the universe overall, but in different ways. The conservative mindset sees life as a gift, and the span of that life as a fleeting opportunity to show oneself worthy of it. The liberal viewpoint is similar; one is saddled with an obligation to demonstrate himself to be worthy. But the conservative is readying for adjudication by some unseen Higher Power, whereas the liberal, being more secular, is continually laboring to impress peers. I’m a good person; I have pure thoughts; I’m an “intellectual.”

The conservative sees his deeds and works as potentially significant. His feelings about things are not. With the liberal, it is the reverse — feelings reign supreme, but we’re not really put here by anything or anybody, therefore we don’t carry a burden to get much of anything done unless we happen to be “serving” in politics.

So if you’re a conservative, if you have some friends or relatives who’ve passed on and you’d dearly like to see them again, you’re probably inclined to figure it isn’t going to happen. Not that your love is unrequited; it’s just that the deceased have better things to do.

The liberal view of the universe is inextricably intertwined with me, me, me. All who doubt, look no further than the next Barack Obama press conference or teevee appearance for the next piece of evidence you need to explain-away — and you never have too long to wait for that! So it stands to reason that in the liberal mind it is “inevitable” you’ll see Aunt Sally again someday…it must be. When am I going to see my parents. When am I going to see that friend of mine. When are they going to be visible to me.

Naturally, whoever thinks it is just a matter of time before he sees a ghost…that guy is probably gonna see one.

Michelle Malkin:

It was the GOP that fought slavery and the Democrat Party that battled to preserve it.

It’s the Democrat Party, not the GOP, that boasts an ex-Klansman among its senior leaders.

But don’t confuse Harry Reid with history while he invokes slavery to lambaste the GOP for opposing the government-run health care takeover.

Details? Bah!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid took his GOP-blasting rhetoric to a new level Monday, comparing Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago.

The Nevada Democrat, in a sweeping set of accusations on the Senate floor, also compared health care foes to those who opposed women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement — even though it was Sen. Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat, who unsuccessfully tried to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and it was Republicans who led the charge against slavery.

Senate Republicans on Monday called Reid’s comments “offensive” and “unbelievable.”

Not unbelievable, of course. The Left has been playing the race card on Demcare from the start. Jesse Jackson. Jimmy Carter. Harry Reid.

I’m confused. Which party is supposed to be an obstructionist party, trying to derail the debate, all out of ideas? Come again?

Time for a refresher course from Blogger Friend Phil regarding which party has a racist legacy…Michelle also has something to say about it, above.

Gagdad Bob:

So, if Bolton is correct, then extremes meet in the monistic Darwinians and Deepakians, who are monstrous reflections of one another, being that both exclude God and replace him with the idol of human consciousness.
:
Perhaps this idea of the “worship of intelligence” is new to you, but it is the blue thread that runs through the modern left extending over the past century or so. Although it is primarily a narcissistic exercise in self-flattery, those who are not members of the cult are not just considered wrong, but dismissed as morons. But one of the bases of wisdom — which transcends the mere intellectualism of the tenured — is to know the limits of intelligence. And the left repeatedly fails in this regard, again, because of the replacement of God with human (small r) reason.

Nearly every leftist policy failure falls into this trap, and yet, the prescription is always more of the same…
:
[E]ven despite the revelations of weathergate, these pinheads persist in their insane project of destroying the world’s economy — its wealth-producing mechanism — to “solve” a problem that doesn’t exist…For these radicals, the death of one child due to malaria is a tragedy, but the death of 50 million is a smashing success. [emphasis mine]

The irony, to me, is whenever I meet these folks they are always obsessed with humility. They may have a different name for it; but it is a constant that they consider the primary cause of all the world’s problems to be human arrogance, or something immediately connected to it.

Their error is caused by a dearth of precisely that agent they say they want to make more abundant in our world.

And yet when their programs fail…or simply demonstrate they could stand some improvement, but usually it’s a total fail…their own arrogance puts everyone else’s to shame. Let’s do it again. We did the right thing, just not enough of it.

We saw it this year, several times. Swindle-us. Cash for clunkers. Bailouts for S&L, auto companies, looks like media is next.

George Bush was expected to express all kinds of regret over Iraq, weapons of mass destruction, invasion of a sovereign country, angst over saying “bring it on”…none of this contrition ever did a damn thing to redeem him in the eyes of a single soul, but it was demanded of him anyway. But liberals can keep right on keepin’-on.

They make the mistake of comparing their own intentions, with the achievement of others. Their gonna-dooz against others’ have-dunz.

Watched a re-run of that skit on Saturday Night Live in which President Obama transforms into The Rock Obama. It’s stupid but it makes me chuckle…in a sad kind of way. It’s also a useful insight into the soul of the Manhattan blue-blood liberal; I guess they’re still pretty happy with The Man, but they wish He’d get a little bit angrier.

The skit is all about the health care reform bill. And yet not a single word is said about the 30 million or 35 million or 40 million or 43 million or 47 million or hundred gazillion indigents who are so abso-tively screwed unless this thing passes. Not a peep about that. Pretending to try to help the downtrodden is soooo 2008.

Remember: For the skit to be aired, there has to be some critical mass of folks who will relate to it. For the skit to be written and acted-out, there has to be at least a feeling that the critical mass is out there. So what’s the point? Now that we have all these perfect people in charge of everything, and the knuckle-dragging conservatives have been relegated to the margins, things still aren’t quite right because the fellow at the top of the org chart doesn’t get angry enough. The health care bill has to pass…just because. Not for anybody’s benefit, just to win-win-win. An election victory is not enough. There has to be blood. Blood and rage. Yeah, that’s what we need for our perfect society — today. That is the one thing that is missing from our happiness — today.

These people are absolutely out of control. Words cannot express how much.

Robin of Berkeley’s piece at American Thinker made my stack, and was going to naturally migrate into this scroll. Over the turkey-day, all sorts of others found it and gave it the attention due. So if you are one of those or if you read one of those, this doesn’t come as news to you.

And of course if you’ve been paying attention to what’s going on, Robin is merely giving words to the obvious.

Like for most feminists, it was a no-brainer for me to become a Democrat. Liberal men, not conservatives, were the ones devoted to women’s issues. They marched at my side in support of abortion rights. They were enthusiastic about women succeeding in the workplace.

As time went on, I had many experiences that should have made me rethink my certainty. But I remained nestled in cognitive dissonance — therapy jargon for not wanting to see what I didn’t want to see.
:
[W]hile liberal men did indeed hold up those picket signs, they didn’t do anything else to protect me. In fact, their social programs enabled bad behavior and bred chaos in urban America. And when I was accosted by thugs, those leftist men were missing in action.

What else should have tipped me off? Perhaps the fact that so many men in ultra-left Berkeley are sleazebags. Rarely a week goes by that I don’t hear stories from my young female clients about middle-aged men preying on them. With the rationale of moral relativism, these creeps feel they can do anything they please.
:
The Left’s behavior towards Palin is not politics as usual. By their laser-focus on her body and her sexuality, leftists are defiling her.

They are wilding her. And they do this with the full knowledge and complicity of the White House.

The Left has declared war on Palin because she threatens their existence. Liberals need women dependent and scared so that women, like blacks, will vote Democrat. A strong, self-sufficient woman, Palin eschews liberal protection…
:
[T]he Democratic Party is hardly an oasis for women. Now that it has been infiltrated by the hard Left, it’s a dangerous place for women, children, and other living things.

In the wilding of Sarah Palin, the Left shows its true colors. Rather than sheild the vulnerable, leftists will mow down any man, woman, or child who gets in their way. Instead of a movement of hope and change, it is a cauldron of hate.

Gerard, one of many who managed to beat me to the bunch, summarizes it most capably:

“A cauldron of hate” pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? It’s bubbling away everywhere you look in Democrat politics these days, and it is giving off a worse and worse stench as “friendly persuasion” gives way to bribery, corrupt ethics and morals, thuggery, buggery, and a rising and shrill insistence that all Americans simply give up their reservations and chow down on another heaping plate of Democrat bullshit.

Ad Hominem is their argument of choice because it is the only argument they have left. Obama Himself is a massive fail; the TARP bailout is a massive fail; the swindle-us is a massive fail; unemployment up, Obama approval down, other foreign heads-of-state think our guy is a sissy and a bowing buffoon. Iran’s going forward with their nuclear program and probably kicking themselves for the time wasted on diplomatic meetings with our empty talking-head. Approval rating for ObamaCare down to 30%, and doesn’t seem to have bottomed out yet. Climate change has been exposed as the trillion-dollar scam it always was.

Their plans just plain don’t work.

Usually, we get fooled by ’em anyway, because it takes a few years to realize their plans don’t work. In 2009 they don’t even have that working for ’em. All the fail takes place within the narrow window of short-term memory.

And so all the supporting arguments come down to calling the other guy a boob. Or a yokel. Or a dummy or a neanderthal or a tundra princess or a caribou barbie…or something that ends with -ist.

The realization that someone with deleterious attributes can be correct about something, and someone with many appealing tangential qualities can be wrong — easily substantiated through natural experience, within the lifetime and memory of all mature, observant adults — rends this argument asunder. But it’s all they have left, so when it doesn’t have the desired effect they just crank up the volume and the hatred another notch.

Every single other munition that ever lay in their stockpile, was spent some time ago.

Update: Hey, how’s this for a bumper sticker:

I treat women better when I’m oppressing them, than the average liberal does when he’s defending them.

I’m going to have to just toss in the entire article this time, lock stock & barrel. I see no way to excerpt a piece of it, it’s too good.

What Would Barack Obama’s Approval Rating Look Like Today If He Had Done This?

Imagine this scenario. Barack Obama is elected President and he actually decides to pursue a center-left agenda and work with Republicans.

 • He crafts a stimulus package, smaller than the one he has now, but with more tax cuts and all the spending front loaded to 2009. It passes with a significant number of Republican and Democratic votes in the House.

 • Obama shoots down the cash-for-clunkers deal. Says that he wants to spur car sales to, but that it’s not responsible for government to spend money like that in a recession.

 • Barack Obama wants to let other world leaders know he’s humble, but not servile. So, no there’s no bowing.

 • Stanley McChrystal asks for more troops for Afghanistan, a conflict Obama has called a “war of necessity.” Within a week, Obama notes that even though some people in his own party disagree, he’s not going to play politics with the decision — he’s going to give McChrystal his 40,000 troops.

 • Obama decides the TARP funds are doing little good, are being misused, and are costing too much. So, he decides not to spend any TARP money beyond holding back a bit of cash to be used to give low interest loans to Chrysler and General Motors after they are finished with bankruptcy court.

 • Obama decides Cap and Trade probably can’t pass the Senate and even if it could, it would make little sense to dramatically spike energy costs in the middle of a recession. So, rather than push for it, he says he’s going to wait until the economy is better to push the plan.

 • On health care, Obama says that given the budget situation, he can’t justify a huge new program. However, he does want to work with Republicans to set up an insurance pool to cover the roughly 8-10 million Americans who want health care insurance, but can’t afford it. He works with Republican moderates the whole time and passes the bill easily with bipartisan support.

After all that, you tell me, how much higher would Barack Obama’s approval rating be today? How much more popular would Democrats be? How much more fractured would the Republican party be today? Yet, the Democrats could have moved their agenda forward quite a bit. There’s an old saying that applies in situations like this: Pigs get fed, but hogs get slaughtered.

I started on this list and I thought John was going to be summarizing George W. Bush’s presidency from nine years ago. Remember that? Hurt feelings about Florida recount…gravitas…bipartisan this-and-that.

It’s funny how we put pressure on our leaders to be centrist — or not — depending on which side of the “center” they are. You can’t blame them, really, for looking at liberal politics as a convenient shelter from such pressure. Or a constantly flowing wellspring of redemption. Redemption from the guilt that comes from misusing White House interns…pulling our forces out of Southeast Asia so the Khmer Rouge can rip on through and start massacring people…sucking up babies out of their wombs…pouring our hard-earned money into bullshit stimulus and bailout programs…leaving young girls to drown in their sunken cars…making labor more expensive, making fuel more expensive, making energy more expensive, making our annual tax liabilities more expensive, et cetera.

Conservatives are constantly scrutinized to see if they can “get along.” “Reach across.” Forgive and forget. Invite Levi Johnston to Thanksgiving. The redemption that is supposed to come from such things, never comes. Nobody ever looks back again…for example, today’s Thanksgiving, and who knows if Levi Johnston is headed to the Palin household for a belly-full? Or is even trying to find out? I thought so many people were supposed to be curious about it!

They weren’t curious about it. It was just another way to smear.

That’s why the same scrutiny is not applied to liberals. They’ve already demonstrated their “goodness” with their cool, hip, fashionable social policies that don’t work. You might say they “gave at the office.”

But as Hawkins points out, President Obama has been in the position, all year long, to benefit from this much-lauded moderation-of-tone. But the pressure on His Holiness to take advantage of such a thing, was never there. That’s for the other guys. Obviously, He was never advised to do it, so He didn’t do it. It’s not like He knows any better.

Maybe this is why He’ll be a one-termer.