Bloodthirsty Liberal

I wish the dumb sumbitch had won the election, but even at 5-7, he towers above his colleagues:

“It was thorough, and it was complete, and I am so proud that Sarah Palin agreed to be my running mate,” he said in response to a question about the vetting. “And the facts are stubborn things, as Ronald Reagan used to say. The fact is that it energized our party. It gave us a very much-needed impetus, and Sarah Palin’s popularity continues very strongly to this day. And the hysterical attacks from the liberal left are ample indication of the threat that she poses to the liberal left and especially the feminist, radical-left movement in this country.”

McCain said he recently spoke to Palin to congratulate her on her new gig as a Fox News political analyst.

“And she’ll be coming to Arizona, I’m sure,” he said.

Some have questioned why Palin, Rush, et al haven’t been seen anywhere near the Brown campaign. I love them both, but Scott chose his Republican friends wisely. Only John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, among all national Republicans, have cut spots or made appearances. Both play well here.

I can take the odd bits of gristle, offal, and hair in my links—but this?

As the stomach turns:

Mr. McCAIN. Could I ask my friend about the situation as it exists right now? Right now, no Member on this side has any idea as to the specifics of the proposal the majority leader, I understand, has sent to OMB for some kind of scoring. Is that the way we want to do business, that a proposal that will be presented to the Senate sometime next week and voted on immediately–that is what we are told–is that the way to do business in a bipartisan fashion? Should we not at least be informed as to what the proposal is the Senate majority leader is going to propose to the entire Senate within a couple days? Shouldn’t we even know what it is?

Mr. DURBIN. I would say to the Senator from Arizona, I am in the dark almost as much as he is, and I am in the leadership. The reason is, because the Congressional Budget Office, which scores the managers’ amendment, the so-called compromise, has told us, once you publicly start debating it, we will publicly release it. We want to basically see whether it works, whether it works to continue to reduce the deficit, whether it works to continue to reduce the growth in health care costs.

We had a caucus after this was submitted to the Congressional Budget Office, where Senator Reid and other Senators who were involved in it basically stood and said: We are sorry, we can’t tell you in detail what was involved. But you will learn, everyone will learn, it will be as public information as this bill currently is on the Internet. But the Congressional Budget Office has tied our hands at this point putting it forward. Basically, what I know is what you know, having read press accounts of what may be included.

…

Mr. McCAIN. I admit these are unusual times. But isn’t that a very unusual process, that here we are discussing one-sixth of the gross national product; the bill before us has been a product of almost a year of sausage-making. Yet here we are at a position on December 12, with a proposal that none of us, except, I understand, one person, the majority leader, knows what the final parameters are, much less informing the American people. I don’t get it.

Mr. DURBIN. I think the Senator is correct, saying most of us know the fundamentals, but we do not know the important details behind this. What I am saying is, this is not the choice of the majority leader. It is the choice of the Congressional Budget Office. We may find that something that was sent over there doesn’t work at all, doesn’t fly. They may say this is not going to work, start over. So we have to reserve the right to do that, and I think that is why we are waiting for the Congressional Budget Office scoring, as they call it, to make sure it hits the levels we want, in terms of deficit reduction and reducing the cost of health care.
It is frustrating on your side. It is frustrating here. But I am hoping, in a matter of hours, maybe days, we will receive the CBO report.

Winston Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. I wonder if today he’d like to shorten that statement by eight words.

The Senate dems just voted to retain 500 billion of cuts to medicare

I sometimes wonder if Seniors have lost their glasses. How is it that they are not protesting outside the Capitol? Is the fine print too small to read? Or perhaps NPR isn’t reporting it? And AARP is whispering soothing words into their hearing aids, I suppose.

The U.S. Senate on Thursday rejected an attempt by Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) to strip Medicare spending cuts from health-care overhaul legislation and effectively scuttle the bill in its current form.

The health-care bill currently contains hundreds of billions of dollars in reductions to Medicare payments to privately run Medicare plans and some health- care providers, as well as through an independent commission that would be empowered to reduce Medicare spending. McCain’s amendment would have sent the bill back to committee with instructions to remove the cuts.

The amendment was rejected by a 58-42 vote.

McCain cast the bill’s Medicare provisions as an attack on senior citizens.

“These cuts would harm seniors who have paid into the program and expect it to be there to help them with their health care,” McCain said.

Republicans cited a proposed $118 billion reduction in payments to privately run Medicare plans, known as Medicare Advantage, as a particularly painful measure for seniors. Insurers that run the plans would be subject to a new competitive bidding system.

Democrats contend that the Medicare Advantage plans are overpaid by the federal government and are therefore able to offer their enrollees fringe benefits that aren’t included in the traditional “fee-for-service” Medicare plan administered by the government. The leading seniors’ group, AARP, said in a statement that the McCain amendment would “do nothing to improve Medicare benefits and essentially stop health reform in its tracks.”

Wild and crazy prediction: Five years from now, when these cuts kick in, we’re going to have some pissed-off seniors. I’ll be one of them.

- Aggie

Inconvenient truths about the economic meltdown

I appreciate the position President Obama is in with regard to Iran: say too much, and risk being accused of meddling and tampering by the mullahs; say too little and risk being on the wrong side of history:

Senator John McCain said today that the United States needs to be on the “right side of history” in responding to the disputed Iranian elections and ensuing protests.

…

“America’s position in the world is one of moral leadership,” the senator said. “It’s not about what takes place in the streets of Iran. It is about what takes place in America’s conscience.”

…

“America has a moral obligation” to provide moral and other forms of support, he said.

…

“The fact is, America has been and will be the beacon of hope and freedom,” McCain said. “We are on their side as they seek freedom,” he said of the protestors.

You can’t tell me that a president with the best teleprompter money can buy can’t speak more forcefully about America’s inbred sympathy with those who seek freedom. Hell, even President Bush could do that.

But the smartest, cleanest, most articulate president ACORN and Soros could buy can’t do any better than this:

“The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching,” Obama said in a statement yesterday. “We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people.”

Maybe it’s better if you set it to music:

Allons enfants de la patrie,
We call on the Iranian government to
Stop all violent and unjust actions
Against its own people.

Maybe not.

But there is one subject that does stir the president:

You know, the legislation I’m signing today represents change that’s been decades in the making. Since at least the middle of the last century, we’ve known about the harmful and often deadly effects of tobacco products.

…

Each day, 1,000 young people under the age of 18 become new, regular, daily smokers. And almost 90 percent of all smokers began at or before their 18th birthday.

I know — I was one of these teenagers, and so I know how difficult it can be to break this habit when it’s been with you for a long time.

Smoking is often called a dirty habit. So we can scratch “smart” and “clean” from the list of his attributes.

As for articulate, even lies can be articulate. Smoking already has been regulated for decades—with success. Far fewer people smoke today than 20 or 30 years ago. And through taxes government makes a lot more money per pack than Big Tobacco does.

And would His Articulateness care to explain this?

The future of menthol cigarettes, smoked by 12 million Americans and 75 percent of African American smokers, could be the next flashpoint in a decades-long campaign against smoking in the United States.

…

The bill outlawed flavorings like chocolate, cherry and cloves that can attract young people to start smoking — but excluded menthol, by far the most popular flavoring accounting for around 27 percent of the cigarette market.

So little black kids can still get hooked on butts, and that’s okay with this president?

Whatever. You voted for him.

He may not have been a great candidate, but would have been a much better President

Obama got to work from day one by ordering a halt to prosecutions of Guantanamo Bay prisoners, followed by an order to close the detention facility within a year and ban torture. But McCain told King he thinks the new president may have been hasty in the decision and should have taken the time to consider everything associated with closing the camp before forcing himself into a timetable.

“I think that it’s a wise move,” McCain said about closing Guantanamo Bay. “But I also think that we should have addressed this whole issue completely, because it did not address the issue of those who we have in custody and can’t — and no country will take them back. We should have addressed the issue of those who we know would pose a threat to the United States, but we don’t have sufficient evidence to move forward.” Video Watch McCain talk about the problem with closing Guantanamo Bay »

McCain said instead of closing Guantanamo Bay outright, he would have first continued the military commissions, which “after years of delay and obfuscation” were finally moving toward trials.

“So, the easy part, in all due respect, is to say we’re going to close Guantanamo,” McCain said. “Then I think I would have said where they were going to be taken. Because you’re going to run into a NIMBY [not in my backyard] problem here in the United States of America.”

Ya’ Think?

- Aggie

Barack Obama raised over $600 million dollars from foreign sources, Disney characters, and outright credit card fraud, while John McCain could barely sell enough brownies to cover his antacid costs—and Sarah Palin can only wash so many cars.

But guess who gets audited???

Oh, my sides! Almighty, you’re one twisted sumbitch:

Why would they want to audit Obama? The biggest fundraising operation in political history, infused with hundreds of millions of dollars from contributors whose names the campaign refuses to reveal, dependent upon a donation mechanism whose security measures were suspiciously and inexplicably disabled, and accused by reputable publications of having looked the other way at fraudulent donations that would have been detected immediately with cursory oversight.

Aside from that, I mean, why would they want to audit him?

The punchline? It’s because he’s rolling in dough that they’re less inclined to check him out.

Obama is expected to escape that level of scrutiny mostly because he declined an $84 million public grant for his campaign that automatically triggers an audit and because the sheer volume of cash he raised and spent minimizes the significance of his errors. Another factor: The FEC, which would have to vote to launch an audit, is prone to deadlocking on issues that inordinately impact one party or the other – like approving a messy and high-profile probe of a sitting president.

Barack Obama is so overdrawn at the karma bank, his eventual fall may leave a huge crater and kill off large land mammals.

Because it will make him feel really good about himself—and that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

John McCain unveiled a new attack on Barack Obama, criticizing his comment that his victory in Iowa’s caucuses last winter had “vindicated” his faith in the American people.

…

“My faith in the American people was vindicated and what you started here in Iowa swept the nation,” Obama said.

Me, I think I’ll vote for the guy who served his nation longer under North Vietnamese torture than Obama has enjoyed arugula salads in the US Senate commissary.

What is it with Democrats and pretentious leafy green vegetables anyway? Anybody remember Dukakis and Belgian endive? Anybody remember Dukakis at all? Oh, and I like arugula, by the way, and grow it in my own garden.

But back to the Assumption election: John McCain begs to differ:

“My country has never had to prove anything to me, my friends,” McCain said while campaigning in the Washington suburbs in northern Virginia. “I’ve always had faith in it and I’ve been humbled and honored to serve it.

I haven’t been able to articulate this before, but it seems to me that the unspoken slogan of the Obama campaign is “He completes us.” For too many of you people (I’m talking to America now), he had you at hello. (Both lines from Jerry Maguire, if you couldn’t place them.) You stopped listening, stopped thinking.

Which is where we come in.

If he were running for Roman emperor, I’d say sure, go ahead, Barackus Obamacus is your man (deification will follow shortly)—vero possumus. He’s got the motto, the imperial seal, even the temple columns all ready to go.

And that’s not all he’s got:

“But I know this, Colorado, the time for change has come. We have a righteous wind at our back.”

I could make a juvenile comment about the “righteous wind” coming from the frijoles and arugula enchiladas on the campaign bus, but who else talks this way? I said deification would come later—but it may already have happened.

Now that I have your attention.

It kind of has a nice ring to it:

Right now, it’s only on Drudge, and … well, it’s Zogby. Still, it’s going in the direction we all believed the race was heading:

ZOGBY SATURDAY: Republican John McCain has pulled back within the margin of error… McCain outpolled Obama 48% to 47% in Friday, one day, polling. He is beginning to cut into Obama’s lead among independents, is now leading among blue collar voters, has strengthened his lead among investors and among men, and is walloping Obama among NASCAR voters.

What are we to make of polls that can’t even come close to identifying a clear trend. Is Obama up by ten or down by one?

My guess is that there are isolated pockets of voters who are strongly committed to either ticket—Obama inspires one side, Palin the other—and the results are dependent on which pockets the pollsters hit, and how deeply into them they reach. But if McCain is making gains among independents, and if his (or Palin’s) supporters really commit to him, the Zogby number just might be believable—and sustainable on election day. (The state-by-state polls are not, however, following this same trend—at least not yet.)

I read somewhere that McCain plans to outspend Obama over the last weekend, in pursuit of the theory that undecideds don’t decide until the last 72 hours. Let it be so.

I’ve been looking at the polls showing Barack Obama’s lead shrinking daily (Rasmussen has it at 3%)—but haven’t seen a similar move in the state-by-state polls. I admit that may because I didn’t want to look any closer at the carnage—but today I did.

In poll after poll, the Rasmussen tally (which samples the highest number and boasts the lowest margin of error) shows McCain within four points: in Colorado, in Virginia, in Florida, in Ohio, in Nevada, in New Hampshire. All states where Obama is declared the leader, and all states where McCain needs to win—and most states which Bush won twice—just four points. And if McCain does win them, and if he wins the other states even more closely contested as well as the states where he leads, he will have 278 electoral votes: victory.

Now, you can object all you want—McCain is trailing in all those contests, you remind us—but ask yourself this: a week ago did you expect it to be this close?