The Consortium

At the Trough

With apologies to Mr. Orwell, I paraphrase his ending to Animal Farm:

"The creatures outside looked from pig to (Senator), and from (Senator) to pig, and from pig to (Senator) again;  but already it was impossible to say which was which."

McCain (already declining in the polls) will never be able to wash the stink of the Grand Compromise off of him.  Good riddance.

BORU

Why we're pissed

Powerline blog makes a good case as to why there is such an uproar against the Bush administration vis a vis the Kyl-McCain-Kennedy Amnesty and Border-Enforcement-without-Credibility Act of 2007.

One point they make for which Bush truly owes conservatives an explanation is:

"I feel frustrated that the White House failed, in my view, to push this hard for initiatives I favor, or when it came to defending itself on Iraq."

If Bush put the effort into Iraq that he and his minions are putting into belittling and insulting the base of his own party on immigration, the GOP wouldn't have suffered such great losses in 2006. 

BORU

McCain 2008?

I have a terrible confession to make.  I am starting to lean toward supporting John McCain. This growing admiration for the Senator from Arizona is not a sudden revelation.  Rather, it is this gnawing feeling that he might be a good man for the job.  This is an embarrassing admission considering the loathing contempt I had for his politics as recently as last year.  However, now that the media has turned on him, I have grown to respect Mr. McCain.  Maybe this is a case of the enemy of my enemy becoming my friend, but I cannot shake this startling admiration.  Please keep this to yourselves and don’t judge me too harshly. Now, if we can just get past McCain-Feingold, we'll have a winner.

-Matthew

p.s. I came within a hair's-breadth of contributing to his campaign until I realized that my paycheck doesn't come in until next Tuesday.

VETO!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this $124 Billion pork-laden abomination coming out of the House right now is perhaps the worst piece of legislation I have ever seen.  Not only does it shamefully call for defeat in Iraq at a time when we are seeing success, but it buys this cowardly goal with pork.  It is sickening and deserves to be vetoed.  I understand that the military needs its funding, but it cannot be permitted to go through like this.  My question, and I don't know how to answer it, is can the President veto this filth or will his hands be tied?

The Gore Doctrine

The Earth's on Fire! The Earth's on Fire!  Big Al shrieked his unsubstantiated warnings before both a House and a Senate committee yesterday (and while wearing a striped shirt w/ a patterned tie;  where's Naomi Wolf?  I thought the gays were on the liberal side - they couldn't help Big Al get dressed for his big show???).  According to Gore this is a huge emergency and we must declare preemptive war on fossil fuels.  But what if he is basing these assumptions on faulty - or worse yet trumped up - intelligence?  What if Big Al is misleading us into an unnecessary war against oil, and coal, and methane, oh my? 

There are skeptics to this preemptive war strategy.  A French former global warming bandwagoneer has jumped ship (to mix an already murky metaphor) and now contends that maybe the Sun's increase in temperature has led to the very very slight increase in the Earth's temperature.  He supports his assumption with the silly fact that Mars (about the size of Earth but lacking man's fossil fuel usage) has experienced a similar warming.  Should we perhaps listen to the French(man) and postpone this preemptive war on fossil fuels and its potentially disastrous economic and social costs?  Shouldn't we let the UN have more time to send inspectors to Mars?

Will we turn a deaf ear to patriotic criticism (cuz it's patriotic to critique our supposed leaders, right?) and be lead into a preemptive war by an egomaniac and a compliant press? 

BORU

Shocking News from the Captain Obvious File

Kathleen Blanco will NOT run for reelection as Governor of Louisiana!  Also, this just in the sun WILL rise in the East tomorrow!

Go Bobby Jindal!

The NPR and then a flurry of blogs/"news" organizations acted as though this were some sort of Earth shattering announcement.  "Ummm, no monotone host, "Blanco said, "I will not be entering the race to win an election that I stand absolutely no chance of winning."

Today, however, I have a feeling a big announcement is in the air somewhere.........yup, I can just feel it.

BORU 

A Sad, Sad Day for America

SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI:

Republican Congressional Candidates' Feeling Foley Fire

The furor created by the disgusting actions of Rep. Foley in Florida are already starting to trickle down to the individual races across the country.  Despite the fact that Congressional Candidates across the country have no connection whatsoever to Rep. Foley's foibles, Democrats are trying to take advantage of the situation.

In the 8th Congressional District of Wisconsin (Green Bay, Appleton, etc.), for example, Democratic candidate Steve Kagen, has issued a Press Release attempting to tie his opponent, Assembly Speaker John Gard to the scandal.  In his  statement, Mr. Kagen, M.D. calls on Gard to return PAC money obtained from Majority Leader Boehnert and Speaker Hastert because "they admitted they knew of improper e-mails".  This charge against Messrs. Boehnert and Hastert is specious to say the least, and the attempt to tie PAC money received from them to the Foley scandal is a lesson in flawed logic.  Mr. Kagen's efforts represents politics at its dirtiest.

The press release issued by Mr. Kagen is an example of Democrat overreaching.  Like every other supposed bombshell dropped on Republicans over the past four years, the Democrats will overreach on this one as well.  When a campaign issues a press release making a connection as flimsy as that advanced by the Kagen campaign, I believe people see through the politics.  Notwithstanding Democrats' efforts to tie this campaign to Foley, the Congressional races will be decided on issues of local concern.  Besides, if I were a Democratic Congressional candidate, I would be careful considering the fact that the other shoe could drop on the Democrats at any second (remember Gerry Studds?). 

-Matthew

Clinton's Meltdown

The internet and 24 hour news channels are abuzz over President Clinton's meltdown on Fox News Sunday yesterday.  (See Lorie Byrd's roundup for example.) I, like Mr. Wallace, was dumbfounded by the thin skin exhibited by Mr. Clinton as well as his repeated invasion of Mr. Wallace's personal space by pounding on Mr. Wallace's lap. (Wouldn't be the first invasion of personal space for Mr. Clinton, of course.) Anyway, there was one phrase in his outburst that really took me by surprise.  During his tirade, Clinton said that he had "contracts" out on bin Laden while he was President.  Does that mean that they hired bounty hunters to chase down old UBL?  It sounds more like Clinton was acting as a mafia boss calling out secret hits rather than acting as the President.  Why would you need to contract out to kill bin Laden when you have the CIA and special forces at your disposal?  Maybe, I am reading that small point all wrong, but it made me wonder.

-Matthew

UPDATE: Newsbusters.org has the transcript with the curious statement:

CLINTON: What did I do? I worked hard to try and kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him.

Pessimism on the Left

For maybe the first time since I've heard of him, I think that Markos is on to something here.  The first quote is from Huffington and what follows is Kos' comment:

Democrats have decided that the way to win in November is -- I kid you not -- to make the economy the central issue of the campaign....

See, that's why I don't think we're going to win back the House or Senate. Because you can always trust Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Kos' pessimism about the Democrats is an encouraging sign.  Then again, his ability to predict a general election race is far short of exemplary.  What is he, 0 for 17?

-Matthew