Ireland Vs. Greece (And Obama's America)

This is an excellent observation at Politico:

...if the Obama economic team really believes budget deficits provide “fiscal stimulus” to an economy, why aren’t they advising Greece to run bigger budget deficits?

Though Greek deficits and debts have dominated the news lately, Ireland’s fiscal crisis was widely considered at least as dangerous to the euro late last year. Ireland is in the worst trouble of all the eurozone countries, the International Monetary Fund then reported. Ireland’s budget deficit was as large as that of Greece in 2008, and the Irish economy had shrunk 9 percent in 2009.

But we don’t hear much about Ireland today. Why not? Because that country successfully repeated what it had done so boldly in the late 1980s — slash spending on payrolls and benefits, subsidies and transfer payments.

Here's how they did it:

Ireland’s public service salaries, for example, were reduced last year by 5 percent to 15 percent. Unlike Portugal, Ireland did not adopt damaging tax increases. Unlike Greece, which is getting ever deeper in debt to its neighbors by begging for a bailout, Ireland is now lending 1.3 billion euros to Greece.

On the other hand...

The Greek national debt amounts to 125 percent of the economy’s annual gross domestic product, compared with 60 percent for U.S. debt.

Were spending to keep rising as it has during the Bush-Obama years, however, the U.S. debt could easily exceed 90 percent of GDP by 2020. At that level, the idea of the U.S. facing a crisis of Greek proportions is no joke.

So, how do we follow in the footsteps of Ireland? It's simple, really (emphasis mine):

That requires making the correct choices sooner rather than later. From the experience of other countries — including Ireland — we know that means getting spending under control, not raising tax rates.

In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard economists Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna examined how 21 leading economies addressed government spending and taxes from 1970 to 2007. When it came to cutting budget deficits, they found that “fiscal adjustments, those based upon spending cuts and no tax increases, are more likely to reduce deficits and debt over GDP ratios than those based upon tax increases. In addition, adjustments on the spending side rather than on the tax side are less likely to create recessions.”

Successful deficit reduction plans — ones that cut the deficit without hurting economic growth — are “completely based on spending cuts accompanied by modest tax cuts,” the authors found. Spending was cut by about 2 percent of GDP, with entitlement reductions accounting for half that.

Ireland, for example, first became a “Celtic tiger” by slashing government spending 6.9 percent from 1987 to 1989. Those spending cuts facilitated the celebrated 12.5 percent tax on corporate profits, plus substantial cuts in rates for personal income taxes, payroll taxes and consumption taxes.

The Irish economy suddenly switched from a 0.2 percent rate of economic growth in the early 1980s to annual real GDP growth of 7.2 percent from 1989 to 2001. It slowed only slightly, to 5.3 percent, from 2002 to 2007. With GDP nearly doubling each decade, the ratio of Ireland’s government debt to GDP dropped from 125 percent of to 25 percent by 2007.

If that's not a roaring economy, I don't know what is!

But what happened in 2008 when the global economy tanked? They hung fast to what brought them out of the hole:

In 2008-09, however, Ireland suffered one of the world’s worst housing and banking crises. But the government nonetheless avoided “fiscal stimulus” schemes. Instead, it cut spending by more than 6 percent.

One important result was to preserve the government’s credit rating. The European Central Bank reports that the yield on 10-year Irish government bonds was 4.76 percent in April, compared with yields for Greece of 7.83 percent — and close to 15 percent at times.

Unlike Greece, the Irish economy is showing encouraging signs of recovery. Manufacturing increased strongly in March and April, and consumer confidence and retail sales are also up.

Bottom line: the Irish formula of spending cuts and tax cuts worked. Every time. Even in the toughest of situations. Unlike everyone else, who spent so much that drunken sailors got envious, and who are still trying to limp their way to anything resembling a genuine recovery. Ireland has the correct answer figured out, and it has nothing to do with their famed luck...just intelligence guided by experience, and willpower to stick to it when it really counts.

Do we?

Not while Barack Obama and the spending-addicts in Congress remain in charge.

There's my two cents.

Cap-N-Trade Tax Update ***UPDATE***

So, the last of the pillars of the radical Leftist takeover -- the energy sector -- is now under assault, with a vote coming in the Senate before too long. We'll get to that in a moment. First, let's recap some of the most wonderful tenets of the enviro-wacko movement that is pushing this energy takeover.

These lovable folks are the very same ones who endorse the enforcement of limits to the number of children any family can have, too. What happens if you accidentally get pregnant with more? Well, don't think too hard about that.

Naturally, Green High Priest Al Gore is so concerned about the rising waters due to the melting ice caps due to *ahem* man-made global warming that he just dropped $9 million on a new vacation home...overlooking the ocean, of course. Never mind the fact that only 1/3 of U.S. meteorologists actually believe that humanity is the cause of global warming. You're also supposed to ignore the fact that this planet is not, in fact, running out of oil, which provides cheap, reliable, and safe energy to everyone. But for those of us who lack a personal fortune with 7 or more digits, the costs of energy legislation like this will be crippling.

Interestingly, one of the primary alternatives to this horrible use of oil is wind power. Aside from the rather obvious fact that the wind doesn't always blow everywhere, people live close to windmills always seem to find them objectionable. Shucks, that's too bad.

The bottom line is that the environmentalist movement has been exposed as a bunch of suckers who've been taken in by a hoax and a lie, and simply refuse to acknowledge reality in their quest to serve their self-appointed cause. In fact, it won't be long until they declare food to be hazardous to your health. Oh wait...they've already done that.

But let's address the current legislation, whether the latest cap-n-tax bill or the EPA regulations being kicked around (they both do essentially the same thing in the end). As with everything these radical Leftists are doing, beware...all is not as it seems. It's a full-blown legislative Trojan horse, in fact:

The basis of the EPA’s regulatory efforts is the agency’s finding that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant” that supposedly “endangers” us by causing global warming. Once the EPA made this unprecedented and unsupported endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act, it put the enormous regulatory machinery of the federal government in gear to generate rules regulating CO2, rules that will damage every aspect of the U.S. economy. Thankfully, substantive legal challenges to the endangerment finding and the rules the EPA is generating have been filed.

One rule the agency has already issued, something known as the tailoring rule, seems, at first glance, different than its economy-stifling kin. The tailoring rule was supposedly designed to exempt smaller CO2 emitters from the new regulations until 2016. While the Clean Air Act itself states that pollutant emissions of 250 tons or more must be regulated, EPA’s tailoring regulation simply contradicts the law, stating that for now the agency will only regulate CO2 sources emitting 50,000 tons or more.

How, you may ask, can a federal agency just overturn a law by regulation? Good question. The reality is that the EPA is well aware that the tailoring regulation contradicts black-letter law; consequently, it knows legal challenges have high prospects for success. So why would an agency like the EPA that has no trouble flexing its regulatory muscles exempt tens of thousands of potential regulatory targets with such a rule? Quite simply, in addition to recognizing the regulation’s tenuous legal grounds, the EPA realizes that as the number of individuals aware of the pending regulatory burden grows, the stronger the backlash against its CO2 rules will be. Crafty bureaucrats also know that the biggest hurdle they now face is beginning the process of regulating CO2 — striking out against our national economy from the regulatory beachhead of the EPA’s very questionable endangerment finding.

The reality is that with or without the tailoring exemption, the Clean Air Act is already festooned with complex and expansive regulatory mechanisms. The EPA’s extension of its grip to CO2 will be another unparalleled regulatory bonanza for this government agency. Once done — like virtually every other federal regulatory effort — the scope of the agency’s CO2 powers will only continue to expand. While a small business, family farm, or ranch might escape the EPA’s direct regulatory burden and a particular permitting process with the tailoring rule (perhaps only temporarily), they will still suffer from this unlawful aggregation of power by a federal agency. At the end of the day, the enormous economic costs of job losses, reduced GDP, and dramatically higher energy prices from the impact of the EPA’s rules will punish all of us.

In fact, if you look objectively at the numbers, it's not only going to drastically increase costs of just about every good or service in the country, it's a proven job-killer. And, amazingly enough, as with all of these massive, unread, undebated, constructed-in-secret, freedom-destroying bills we've seen in the past year and a half, it's also a thinly disguised payoff to liberal Democrat special interests.

Another way to put it would be that it's an egregious power grab, but there's a chance to stop it:

The Senate will vote Thursday on Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski's S.J. Res. 26, which would forestall the EPA's efforts to give itself authority to impose sweeping new regulations on greenhouse gases. U.S. code lays out Congress's power to review new rules promulgated by federal agencies to enforce existing laws. Congress can overturn these rules by issuing a "joint resolution of disapproval."

In the Senate, such resolutions are privileged and thus not subject to filibuster. S.J. Res. 26 already has 41 cosponsors, including three Democrats. A fourth, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W.V.) is heavily leaning toward supporting the measure. But even if the resolution gathers enough additional Democratic votes to pass and makes it to the president's desk, the Obama administration announced today that it will likely face a veto.

This latest wrinkle adds a level of boldness to the Executive's blatant attempt to circumvent separation of powers and legislate from the White House. Even if administration can't goad enough Democrats in Congress to yield their constitutional authority to the EPA; even if they cannot pass a version of Kerry-Lieberman, the White House will have its cap-and-trade. One way or another.

Of course, even if that resolution succeeds, the battle is not completely over:

We also shouldn't forget that the Democrats don't need Kerry-Lieberman to get the grab-bag of green subsidies and the new conservation mandates they want. The editors make the case today that the Democrats really don't need Kerry-Lieberman at all: They can pass the Bingaman bill — which contains all the new subsidies and mandates, but lacks cap-and-trade — and just let the EPA do the dirty work of rationing carbon. This is looking increasingly like their default strategy.

And things will be miserable along the way...by design. Remember:

And, keeping in mind the fact that well over half of our nation's energy comes from coal:

The bottom line is that the radical Leftists in charge of the government right now will stop at nothing to gain control over every possible aspect of the nation in order to control as many people as possible. They don't care how badly they damage this nation, how much havoc they wreak, or how miserable they make life for peons like you and me during their greedy quest for power.

The only thing that will truly stop them is to force them out of the positions of authority that will allow them to dictate policy this way. Start by placing a call to your Senators today.

There's my two cents.


Related Reading:
Stopping the EPA's CO2 regulations
Window dressing cap-and-trade won't make the costs go away
Subsidized green jobs still destroy jobs elsewhere


***UPDATE***
The Senate voted Murkowski's bill down, 53-47. Some analysis to keep in mind:

Don’t cry too hard over the vote. For one thing, there was zero chance of it passing the House (although watching purple-district Democrats agonize over whether to vote for it would have been fun) and The One would have vetoed it even if it had. For another thing, consider this a trial run on the viability of cap-and-trade. If Reid can’t get 60 to agree that, yes indeed, carbon is very dangerous, he’s not getting 60 for a much broader regulatory regime like C&T. Nor, given the latest polling from Nevada, will he want to even try. Exit quotation from Dan Foster: “I don’t want to hear a liberal bemoan executive supremacy ever again. This is Congress abdicating its own authority because the Democrats know they can’t get the votes to pass cap-and-trade.”

Unfortunately, this allows the EPA to declare things like dirt and air to be deadly to your existence. Good luck with the coming cost increases...

Documented Proof That The Left Is A Bunch Of Economic Dunces

Veronique de Rugy reports and comments on a WSJ column by Dan Klein:

Which Political Party Understands Economics Best?

That's the question asked by George Mason University's Dan Klein in the Wall Street Journal this morning.

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country — liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Klein's results come from a survey of 4,835 respondents (all American adults) in which he asked them to answer eight survey questions about basic economics and then asked about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

Read the details here. It's quite amazing. Notice that libertarians rocked this test:

The survey also asked about party affiliation. Those responding Democratic averaged 4.59 incorrect answers. Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect.

The WSJ piece is based on research that Klein did a few months ago with his co-author, Columbia University psychologist Zeljka Buturovic. Among other things, they show that thinking like an economist is not correlated to going to college. They also find that it is the highest among those self-identifying as "conservative" and "libertarian," and descends through "moderate," "liberal," and "progressive." Other variables include party affiliation, religious participation, union membership, NASCAR fandom, and Walmart patronage. Their results were originally published here.

I reported on some of Klein's research here and here.

This doesn't really do anything but put concrete numbers to what we already anecdotally knew: liberals suck at economics.  Just look at history every time liberal run the show.  They've expanded government (thus taking away individual freedoms) in monstrous leaps, hammered the private sector, penalized success and prosperity through high taxation, and pulled just about every poor economic rabbit that exists out of their hat.

I don't think it's any coincidence, either, that it is liberals who tend to take sides on issues based purely on feelings rather than how things work in the world.  It's why I think they suck at just about every other policy area, too.  Illegal immigration?  They want to feel good about giving illegals a better life (never mind all the horrendous expenses, crime, health risks, or security problems).  Welfare?  They want to ease people's suffering and difficulty (never mind how much taxpayer money it costs, and how self-destructive a permanent entitlement mindset is).  War on Terror?  They think we just need to understand why those poor Muslims from those hot and dirty desert countries are so mad at us (never mind the fact that Islam itself repeatedly demands they kill or subjugate all non-Muslims).  Universal health care?  They want everyone to have everything they could ever wish for because anything less is unfair (never mind the realities of cost, supply and demand, research and development, or just how unfair their notion of 'fairness' is).

See how it works?  For liberals, it's never about the real world, but rather about how they feel about the real world.  It never ceases to amaze me how liberals never seem to think forward to their professed utopia.  What if they actually get what they want?  Will they actually be thrilled if America digresses into a pseudo-European nation that is only marginally prosperous, has a smothering level of taxation, little growth or innovation, no military to speak of, and a stagnant job market?  Those are the end results of the policies they're advocating (we can see most of them real-time in present day Europe), so is that what they genuinely want?  But no, they don't think that far ahead.  For liberals, there is nothing other than the feelings of the moment, and that means politically correct 'fairness', warm fuzzies, puppies, rainbows, and unicorns.

And now we have the numbers to prove it.

There's my two cents.

Who's Got Clout Again?

Remember how Barack Obama has endorsed four major state or national candidates (governorships in New Jersey and Virginia, Senatorial races in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania) over the past few months, thus dooming them to defeat?  In fact, it's gotten so bad that numerous other politicians have started *ahem* declining the President's endorsement and visits.  Well, I just thought you should know:

Some of Sarah Palin's riskiest endorsements scored major victories Tuesday for the former Alaska governor, showing off her power in Republican primaries. 

Palin had four primary endorsements in play – Carly Fiorina, Nikki Haley, Terry Branstad and Cecile Bledsoe – and three won or moved on to a runoff.

Mm-hmmm...

There's my two cents.

Seriously, You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

It just writes itself:

President Obama continues to take political cynicism to new heights, or new lows, with his now-habitual use of student graduation ceremonies to preach political pieties that he casually ignores.

A month ago, the president told University of Michigan graduates to embrace "a basic level of civility in our public debate." This from a president who is a master of division, as he demonstrated that very same week when he sleazed Republican senator Mitch McConnell as "cynical and deceptive" for claiming the administration's financial-regulation bill would allow more bailouts "when he knows that it would do just the opposite."

Yesterday, Obama was at it again at another southeast Michigan school. In a speech to Kalamazoo High School graduates, the president advised the Class of '10 not to "make excuses. Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well. When you screw up…it's the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame. We see it every day out in Washington, with folks calling each other names and making all sorts of accusations on TV."

The Senate GOP agreed, helpfully pointing out a few applicable headlines from recent months:

ON AMERICA'S CHALLENGES

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "When I Showed Up After Inauguration, They Had Left A Big Mess On The Floor.  So I Got A Mop, And I Started Cleaning Up Their Mess." (President Obama, Remarks, Norfolk, VA, 10/27/09)

ON THE ECONOMY

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "By Any Measure, My Administration Inherited A Fiscal Disaster." (President Obama, Remarks, 3/4/09)

ON DEFICITS

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Now, If We Had Taken Office In Ordinary Times, I Would Have Liked Nothing More Than To Start Bringing Down The Deficit. But We Took Office Amid A Crisis." (President Obama, State Of The Union Address, 1/27/10)

ON THE ADMINISTRATION'S BUDGET

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "My Budget Does Not Attempt To Solve Every Problem Or Address Every Issue.  It Reflects The Stark Reality Of What We've Inherited – A Trillion Dollar Deficit, A Financial Crisis, And A Costly Recession." (President Obama, Remarks To A Joint Session Of Congress, 2/24/09)

ON DEMOCRAT ELECTORAL LOSSES

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Here's My Assessment Of Not Just The Vote In Massachusetts, But The Mood Around The Country… People Are Angry And They Are Frustrated. Not Just Because Of What's Happened In The Last Year Or Two Years, But What's Happened Over The Last Eight Years." ("Exclusive: President Obama Says Voter Anger, Frustration Key to Republican Victory in Massachusetts Senate," ABC News, 1/20/10)

ON THE OIL SPILL

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "When Interior Secretary Ken Salazar Took Office, For Example, He Found A Minerals And Management Services Agency That Had Been Plagued By Corruption For Years ..." (President Obama, Remarks, 6/1/10)

 OBAMA: "The Habit [At MMS], Predating My Administration, Was You Just Automatically Gave The Environmental Waiver." (President Obama, Remarks, 5/27/10)

ON HIS ADMINISTRATION'S ECONOMIC ACTIONS

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "We Had To Act Fast.  And Unfortunately We Didn't Have All The Tools That We Needed To Act Fast Because You Had A Previous Congress And A Previous Administration That Had Left A $1.3 Trillion Deficit Wrapped Up In A Bow That Turned Surpluses Into Deficits As A Consequence Of A Whole Host Of Irresponsible Policies." (President Obama, Remarks, 5/26/10)

ON AMERICA'S STANDING ABROAD

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "Well, First Of All, During The Campaign I Did Not Say That Some Of That Loss Of Authority Was Inevitable. I Said It Was Traced To Very Specific Decisions That The Previous Administration Had Made That I Believed Had Lowered Our Standing In The World. And That Wasn't Simply My Opinion; That Was, It Turns Out, The Opinion Of Many People Around The World. I would like to think that with my election and the early decisions that we've made, that you're starting to see some restoration of America's standing in the world.  And although, as you know, I always mistrust polls, international polls seem to indicate that you're seeing people more hopeful about America's leadership." (President Obama, Press Conference, 4/2/09)

ON AMERICAN HEALTH CARE ABUSES

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "And By The Way, I Don't Recall Any Of These Republicans Trying To Do Anything About Insurance Companies' Abuses During All The Years They Were In Charge." (President Obama, Remarks At St. Charles High School, St. Charles, MO, 3/10/10)

ON GUANTANAMO
PRESIDENT OBAMA: "The Problem Of What To Do With Guantanamo Detainees Was Not Caused By My Decision To Close The Facility; The Problem Exists Because Of The Decision To Open Guantanamo In The First Place." (President Obama, Remarks On National Security, National Archives, Washington, D.C., 5/21/09)

Hot Air posts some video here if you want to see it, along with this commentary:

Stirring words, my friends, from a guy who, by Charles Krauthammer's account, had already blamed Bush by October last year for "the economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti-Americanism abroad — everything but swine flu." In fact, it was only three weeks ago that Politico reported the Democrats' midterm campaign macro-strategy will be to run against — ta da — George Bush.

Ah yes, sometimes it just writes itself...

There's my two cents.

Oil Spill Wisdom

http://townhall.com/cartoons/cartoonist/MichaelRamirez

Democrat Or Communist? I Can't Tell...

I'm so glad The Daily Caller put this out before I wrap up this blog, because it's pretty much the bottom line on the current state of the Democrat party:

Comrades flocked to New York City two weeks ago for the 29th national convention of the Communist Party USA. While reviewing materials from the event, we had a sudden sense of déjà vu: the feeling that we had heard these talking points before. Maybe you have as well — they're espoused, in near identical form, by the president and his fellow Democrats. Take the quiz below, and try to determine which quotes were uttered by Democratic leadership, and which are excerpts from the communists' recent convention.

The point isn't that Obama's a communist (though it's amusing to watch Sam Webb, chairman of the CPUSA, deny such a charge while arguing with Glenn Beck about the redistribution of marshmallow peeps). It's useful, though, to compare the substance of Democratic and communist rhetoric, which differs mainly in degree. You may conclude — especially if you lean left — that the Communist Party USA is more moderate and mainstream than you thought. Or something.

———————————–
TAKE THE QUIZ — Which quotes come from Democrats, and which from CPUSA?
(scroll down for answers)

1. "This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many."

2. "Rebuilding the social infrastructure will generate 11 million jobs. At least 3 million could be at work within 6 months — if the funds were available from Congress."

3. "Moving toward a productive green economy must be based on federal financing and a national industrial policy."

4. "Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy — where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending."

5. "For nearly half a century the nation's working people embraced and took comfort in the American dream — a dream whose promissory note read that if you work hard and do the right things, a good and secure life is attainable. I wouldn't say that dream is dead, but more and more people have less and less hope that it is within reach. Forces beyond their control have snatched it from them."

6. "While some have prospered beyond imagination in this global economy, middle-class Americans — as well as those working hard to become middle class — are seeing the American dream slip further and further away."

7. "Recent victories in Congress such as passage of Health Care Reform legislation with not a single Republican yes vote exposes the Republicans as the 'Party of NO.'"

8. "Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role that you'll play in writing the next great chapter in the American story."

9. "The Tea Party was birthed by media extremists and racist elements to break up the unity of 2008. They were able to change the debate and peel off some Democratic votes, but they were not able to stop the legislation."

10. "I think the American people have to make a judgment about the obstructionism of the Republican senators."

11. "Only majority movements can skin the rightwing cat, the neoliberal dog, and the globalizing rat."

Before presenting the answers, I think it's worth a moment's reflection on the fact that, as someone who has followed politics closely on a daily basis for several years, I can't tell which of these statements were made by genuine Commies and which were made by Democrats.  Can you?  I knew only one and guessed correctly on three others.

Answers:

1. Obama said this during a speech in Berlin on July 24, 2008. Presumably, Europe's democratic socialists responded with a hearty, "Jawohl!"

2. Excerpted from the Communist Party USA's "21st Century Jobs Program," which aims to create 22 million jobs through direct government spending of $1 trillion per year on public services, including a five-year plan for rebuilding infrastructure. Communists advocating a five-year plan — what could possibly go wrong?

3. Excerpted from the Communist Party USA's "21st Century Jobs Program," although with Obama's focus on government subsidy for green jobs and weatherization, we don't blame you if you got this one wrong.

4. Obama said this on Jan. 8, 2009 while advocating for what would eventually become the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus, or the Democrats' belated Valentine's Day gift to themselves.

5. Excerpted from remarks made by CPUSA Chairman Sam Webb at the recent national convention. Mr. Webb would have us know that while the American dream is fading, the Soviet dream remains as strong as ever.

6. Candidate Obama said this in November, 2008. Who could have known then that the biggest group prospering "beyond imagination" in 2010 would be government workers, who accounted for 95 percent of the job growth in May.

7. Excerpted from the resolution "All hands on deck for the 2010 midterm elections," adopted at the recent CPUSA convention. It's unclear how many hands the party has to call, but it does have over 3,000 Facebook fans.

8. Candidate Obama said this in a 2008 commencement address to Wesleyan University. No doubt the college's economics faculty appreciated hearing the self-interest of Adam Smith's invisible hand described as a "poverty of ambition."

9. Joelle Fishman, chair of the CPUSA's Political Action Commission, made this remark during a speech titled "2010 elections — unity can win" at the recent national convention. The biggest question we have for Ms. Fishman is whether stumping for Democrats makes her a CINO — Communist In Name Only.

10. Pelosi said this in an interview with Rachel Maddow. It's easy to yell "obstructionism" when you're in power, but it requires more cajones to accuse concerned citizens of carrying swastikas. Pelosi did that too.

11. Democratic leaders (cough Joe Biden cough) have said some pretty absurd things, but nothing quite this bizarre. This quote is excerpted from remarks made by CPUSA Chairman Sam Webb at the recent national convention.

Isn't the plain fact that there is so little difference the big story here?  This is really all that needs to be said about today's Democrat party.  For all you Democrat voters out there, is this the kind of leadership you want?  Your party leadership is what it is, whether you understand who they are or not, and it's up to you to either accept it or clean house.  Just as the Rep base has the choice of re-electing big government, compromise-neutered hypocrites or a new batch of stalwart conservatives this November, you have the option of choosing who your leaders should be.

I heard someone on the radio the other day talking about the big difference between the Obama administration and the Clinton administration.  He said that while they believed largely the same things on an ideological level, the Clinton gang was merely a group of liberal Democrats.  They still acknowledged realities like tax cuts and balanced budgets being good for the economy, and they still followed along with what voters largely demanded of them.  The Obama gang, however, has a completely different make-up.  They're not liberal Democrats, they're radical Leftists with a hardcore agenda of anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism.  That's why they've plunged headlong into measure after measure that the American people have thoroughly rejected.  They're betting the farm -- and the Democrat party itself, in a way -- on the fact that they get enough of their agenda implemented in the first two years of Obama's first term that, even if they lose the next several elections, they'll have entrenched so much anti-capitalism and anti-Americanism that the nation will be permanently altered.

The question is: will the American people, and the representatives they elect (regardless of party) allow that to happen?  A small slice of the answer rests with you.

There's my two cents.

On Executive Experience

Byron York has a really interesting piece at the Washington Examiner on Barack Obama's utter lack of experience, and how that lack has translated into outright failure in office.  Excerpt:

In mid-February 2008, fresh from winning a bunch of Super Tuesday primaries, Barack Obama granted an interview to "60 Minutes" correspondent Steve Croft. "When you sit down and you look at [your] resume," Croft said to Obama, "there's no executive experience, and in fact, correct if I'm wrong, the only thing that you've actually run was the Harvard Law Review."

"Well, I've run my Senate office, and I've run this campaign," Obama said.

Seven months later, after receiving the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama talked with CNN's Anderson Cooper. At the time, the news was dominated by Hurricane Gustav, which was headed toward New Orleans and threatening to become a Katrina-like disaster. "Some of your Republican critics have said you don't have the experience to handle a situation like this," Cooper said to Obama. "They in fact have said that Governor Palin has more executive experience. ..."

"Governor Palin's town of Wasilla has, I think, 50 employees," Obama answered. "We have got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million a year. You know, we have a budget of about three times that just for the month. So, I think that our ability to manage large systems and to execute, I think, has been made clear over the last couple of years."

Obama ignored Palin's experience as governor of Alaska, which was considerably bigger than the Obama campaign. But his point was clear: If you're worried about my lack of my executive experience, look at my campaign. Running a first-rate campaign, Obama and his supporters argued, showed that Obama could run the federal government, even at its most testing moments. He could set goals, demand accountability, and, perhaps most importantly, bend the sprawling federal bureaucracy to his will.

Fast forward to 2010. The oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing out of control. The Obama administration is at first slow to see the seriousness of the accident. Then, as the crisis becomes clear, the federal bureaucracy becomes entangled in itself trying to deal with the problem. "At least a dozen federal agencies have taken part in the spill response," the New York Times reports, "making decision-making slow, conflicted and confused, as they sought to apply numerous federal statutes."

In short, the bureaucracy hasn't played nice with Obama at all, and he has yet to take a decisive leadership role in anything (besides undermining the foundations of America).  York suggests that future candidates will probably think twice about citing their campaigns as quality experience.

On an oddly related note, Hot Air pokes fun at Obama for one of his latest verbal stumbles, which I think really helps illustrate another way in which Obama's inexperience has manifested itself:

On June 6, 2010, most of the media commemorated the 66th anniversary of D-Day, the largest amphibious military in operation that began the liberation of a continent … well, half a continent, anyway; the Eastern bloc would have to wait another 45 years for BW-Day (Berlin Wall Day). Jim Hoft notes that President Obama didn't bother joining the rest of the country in remembering the massive sacrifice on Omaha Beach, among others, not even with a White House blog post, choosing instead to attend a splashy party instead that will get aired on ABC over the July 4th weekend.

But it took this classless moment from Bishop [Desmond] Tutu to make it a perfect OOTD entry:

"Security is not something that comes from the barrel of a gun."

The thousands of Allied casualties on D-Day can attest that sometimes it takes the barrel of a gun to end tyranny and provide security for free people. Maybe if Obama had bothered to involve himself in his nation's history, he could have reminded Tutu of that fact.

But nah, he's good to go with that stellar community organizing and campaign experience.

There's my two cents.

Playing Politics With Oil Damage?

Seems awfully suspicious, anyway:

Glenn Reynolds reminds me of this paragraph by Allahpundit in response to the news that the President has been aware of the true magnitude of the BP spill all along:

The real disgrace here is why, if he really did know right away that this was the oil equivalent of an asteroid strike, he didn’t scramble some sort of all-hands-on-deck emergency operation to protect the coastline. Remember, Jindal reportedly requested five million feet of hard boom back on May 2, long after Obama (according to Wolffe) knew about the magnitude of the disaster. By May 24, not even 800,000 feet had arrived. What happened?

So, seeing as it’s been clear all along to the White House that we had an ecological disaster on our hands: why did the President not act in a timely fashion to try to keep the oil off of the beaches in the five Gulf of Mexico states?

State	Governor	Party	Election Year?	Note
Alabama	Bob Riley	Republican	Yes	Open race
Florida	Charlie Crist	Independent	Yes	Former GOP
Louisiana	Bobby Jindal	Republican	No	GOP leader
Mississippi	Haley Barbour	Republican	No	RGA head
Texas	Rick Perry	Republican	Yes	Re-election

Gee, I don’t have the slightest idea.

But hey, Barack Obama really cares about those states, and about the environment.

There's my two cents.

Dems Make Good Use Of Recess To Meet With Hide From Constituents

You would think that they would, you know, want to understand the thoughts and feelings of the people they represent so that they could, you know, represent them.  Right?  Wrong:

When opposition to ObamaCare reached a fever pitch last summer, a number of Democrats in Congress went home to angry constituents — or at least those who had enough guts to hold town-hall events.  Many Democrats simply chose not to hold them at all, or to hold staged "virtual" town halls in conference calls.  Now with ObamaCare behind them and a tough midterm election approaching, one might expect these incumbents to reconnect with their constituents, but the New York Times reports that even more of them have gone into hiding:

The sentiment that fueled the rage during those Congressional forums is still alive in the electorate. But the opportunities for voters to openly express their displeasure, or angrily vent as video cameras roll, have been harder to come by in this election year.

If the time-honored tradition of the political meeting is not quite dead, it seems to be teetering closer to extinction. Of the 255 Democrats who make up the majority in the House, only a handful held town-hall-style forums as legislators spent last week at home in their districts.

It was no scheduling accident.

With images of overheated, finger-waving crowds still seared into their minds from the discontent of last August, many Democrats heeded the advice of party leaders and tried to avoid unscripted question-and-answer sessions. The recommendations were clear: hold events in controlled settings — a bank or credit union, for example — or tour local businesses or participate in community service projects.

And to reach thousands of constituents at a time, without the worry of being snared in an angry confrontation with voters, more lawmakers are also taking part in a fast-growing trend: the telephone town meeting, where chances are remote that a testy exchange will wind up on YouTube.

Nancy Pelosi assured America that we would love ObamaCare as soon as it became law.  Why then are Democrats putting themselves on milk cartons in their districts during recesses?   If ObamaCare is such a great deal, wouldn't these supporters be rushing to hold open forums to accept the love and gratitude of their constituents?

I find Hot Air's conclusion very interesting:

For a bunch of class warriors, the majority party sure seems intent on setting themselves up as an American nobility.  They want to exercise their power without having to account for themselves to the people they rule who send them to represent their interests, as if mixing with commoners has become somehow beneath them.  The "commoners" need to send them a big reminder in November about who works for whom in the American political system...

Distributed monarchy, anyone?

Seriously, though, it's just more proof (as if we needed more) that these Dems know they've been voting and governing contrary to the will of their constituents.  Therefore, they know that those constituents are seethingly angry at them.  The icing on the cake is that, more often than not, those constituents were actually far more knowledgeable on the bills and issues than the elected representatives, so not only do these Dems have to endure all this anger, but they end up looking like total idiots to boot.  Is it any wonder they'd rather just avoid these situations?

Still, the danger here is one of precedent - are we going to allow our elected leaders to escape responsibility for misbehavior and misrepresentation?  If so, then all this angst will have been worth it.  It's up to you, me, and 310 million of our closest friends to vote them into retirement to prove that theory wrong.

One last note - did you catch how the Democrat leadership actually recommended they avoid their constituencies?  The radical Leftists in charge are deliberately trying to separate the pesky obligations of actual representation from their ability to wield political power in whatever way they choose.  Is anyone else disturbed by this?

There's my two cents.

Do Liberals Even Stop To Listen To Themselves?

Three stories to illustrate the heading...

Story #1: Johnson County Community College tries to find way to send illegal immigrants to conference

Johnson County Community College's president said Friday that officials were looking for a way to send seven students — including two illegal immigrants — to the National Council of La Raza conference in San Antonio.

"We're open to any solutions they may want to bring forward as far as discussing them," said Terry Calaway.

The original plan called for the students — members of Latinos United Now and Always, or LUNA — to fly to the July conference. But the students rejected that idea by the college because two of them were undocumented and might not be able to get through security.

So the students wanted to drive. But that would violate a college policy that prohibits sanctioned trips by car for students, faculty or college officials if the destination is more than 500 miles away. Calaway said this is a policy imposed on everyone, including college trustees.

When they were told they could not drive, the group issued a news release accusing the college of discrimination against the two students "based on lack of documentation and on national origin."

Okay, so what we have here are some students that have admitted they're here illegally, and instead of carting them off to their home country as the law dictates, this community college is working overtime to figure out how they can still send them to a conference held by a rabid anti-American open borders activist group!  One can perhaps understand how these students feel so entitled, given that this college allowed them to enroll despite their illegal status (with in-state tuition, no less).

Story #2: Nashunal speling b protestd bi iddee-uts

It's hard to imagine why anyone would protest a spelling bee, but the Scripps National Spelling Bee in Washington DC was indeed targeted by protesters who advocate the simplification of American spelling. One of the signs carried  by a picketer wearing a black and yellow bee costume said "enough is enuf".

Hm, a spelling bee that is too hard because hard words have to be spelled correctly?  STOP THE PRESSES!!!  Women and minorities hardest hit!  It's George W. Bush's fault!  Halliburton!

Good lord.

Story #3: How dare they 'lawyer up' when we sue them!

What happens when a former, self-professed Constitutional scholar wants to sound tough? They tend to forget about the Constitution. Barack Obama recently had the Department of Justice announce a criminal investigation into BP's activities in the Deepwater Horizon. When the subject of the criminal investigation took the prudent step of ensuring legal representation, the former lecturer on Constitutional law publicly scolded BP for "lawyering up":

According to the pool report, BP and Coast Guard officials whose job it is to handle claims "are stationed with each parish president in Louisiana, and [Obama] wants the same arrangement for county governments in all the affected states."

At that point, the pool report says Obama "lit into BP" because he wants to — Obama's words — "make sure that BP is not lawyering up essentially."

Just two days ago, Attorney General Eric Holder traveled to Louisiana to announce that the Justice Department has begun criminal and civil investigations into the oil spill. As a result of that investigation, BP and other companies could be charged with violating a variety of environmental laws, as well as other crimes. Holder pledged to prosecute any offenders "to the fullest extent of the law." The prosecution could result in enormous penalties and losses for BP beyond what has already occurred because of the spill. And now the president himself goes after BP for "lawyering up." The company certainly has huge obligations as a result of its actions in this matter. But surely the constitutional-law-professor-in-chief would concede their right to a legal defense.

Well, only if the Constitutional-Lecturer-in-Chief knew what he was talking about then. This is one of the reasons that people questioned the timing of the announcement by Holder and the DoJ. There is plenty of room later for criminal probes, but right now the US needs BP focused on stopping the spill. We don't need BP "lawyering up," but that was the completely predictable result of Obama's attempt to deflect criticism of his handling of the oil spill.

So, do liberals bother to stop and listen to themselves on things like this?  I'm not sure if I like 'yes' or 'no' better as an answer.  Either way, it's obvious that these people are hysterically funny to watch...unless they're actually running things that matter.  You know, like the country...

There's my two cents.

Subverting Transparency Again

Hot Air pegs yet another example of blatant two-facedness on the part of the Obama administration:

The old paradigm: Supreme Court nominees being "extra forthcoming" when it comes to disclosures "in the absence of any judicial record" on the nominee's part.

The new paradigm: Executive privilege, baby!

Jonathan Strong reports for The Daily Caller that the White House may block some Clinton-era memos from Elena Kagan, and others might get dumped on the Senate Judiciary Committee the day before the confirmation hearings start:

In a carefully worded letter to top Judiciary Committee Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Obama administration says it might withhold some of the memos Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wrote when she served in the Clinton White House.

The letter says Obama "does not intend" to assert executive privilege to block the release of the documents but neither does it foreclose the possibility. It says Obama is consulting with a representative of President Clinton to determine which documents to block.

"President Obama does not intend to assert executive privilege over any of the documents requested by the [Judiciary] Committee," the June 1 letter from White House counsel Bob Bauer says. "Of course, President Clinton also has an interest in these records, and his representative is reviewing them now."

That has piqued Sen. Jeff Sessions' curiosity.  Why has the White House put Bill Clinton in the loop at all?  He's no longer the executive; the decision on executive privilege lies solely with the current President. In fact, as Strong notes, Obama's own executive order from last year made that explicitly clear.  Does the Obama administration intend to allow George W. Bush the same latitude in future cases, say, on reviews of war policy?

It's not the only part of the explanation that has the ranking Republican scratching his head, either:

Bauer's letter says there are two reasons: First, the documents might be requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the general public and, second, to prevent "classified national security information or personal privacy information" from being released, just like in the cases of the nominations of Justices John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor.

Republicans say the first rationale – regarding FOIA requests — is bizarre because, as the letter says, the Judiciary Committee's request is privileged, unlike a FOIA request. In other words, while Clinton can block the release of documents requested under FOIA, he can't block documents requested by the committee, so the relevance of FOIA is a mystery.

Bauer's letter says Clinton's review of the documents "will not prevent the Archives from producing these documents to the Committee in advance of June 28" – the day of Kagan's first hearing before the Judiciary Committee.

Republicans say that Bauer's language means Obama could release hundreds of thousands of pages of documents as late as June 27, the day before the hearing but still "in advance" of it.

If the White House executes some massive document dump on June 27th, there will be no time to review Kagan's work in the Clinton administration before the confirmation hearing starts.  That's not the act of an administration that supports transparency and professional review.  It's the act of an administration that thinks it has something to hide.

The Obama administration has redefined transparency into something akin to being open and honest only about certain select topics which we feel make us look good.  Or, put another way: we'll be the most transparent, open, and honest administration in history...except for the times when we won't.

I don't think there can be much doubt about this anymore.  Anyone who thinks otherwise has their head stuck firmly in either a deep, dark crevice or a deep, thick barrel of Kool-Aid.

I look forward to what I'm absolutely certain will be a campaign season full of brilliant, cutting campaign videos made up of nothing but back-to-back clips of Barack Obama and/or his liberal Democrat hacks in Congress promising one thing and delivering another.  This should be fun!

There's my two cents.

Climate Change Truth Goes To Congress...Hopefully

Oh, this is too cool:

As has been reported here regularly, global warming alarmists have been losing to their opponents on the facts, on their credibility, in the public's eyes. Now there's the possibility they could actually lose a Congressional seat to a climate realist, and that really scares them.

Dr. Art Robinson, co-founder of the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine and director of the Global Warming Petition Project which has collected the signatures of more than 31,000 scientists who dissent from climate catastrophism, is the Republican nominee to challenge Rep. Peter DeFazio in Oregon's 4th District. The prospect of a Robinson victory in this year of Tea Party momentum has the state's official climatologist (and data-fudger) Philip Mote in a tizzy, as he expressed in an email from his Oregon State University account to a listserv of other academics and students. The Oregon Politico reports:

Mote began the e-mail by acknowledging that Art Robinson was chosen during last week's Republican primary race to run against incumbent Democrat Congressman Peter DeFazio, who represents the Eugene area. Robinson gained fame with his work on the Oregon Petition Project, a list of scientists worldwide who disagree with the premise that climate change is caused by humans.

"A robinson [sic] victory would put us in the tragic ranks of our climate colleagues at University of Oklahoma (Senator 'global warming is a hoax' Inhofe) and Univ of Alaska (Rep. 'scientists have their opinion, I have mine' Young)," wrote Mote.

ICECAP explains a bit of Mote's history, which fits nicely with the Climategate narrative:

Phil Mote...published a cherry picked data analysis allegedly linking western snowpack to global warming....Mote's paper while state climatologist for Washington State was published readily by the sadly advocacy driven [American Meteorological Society]. The much more qualified Oregon state climatologist he subsequently replaced, George Taylor, and the Assistant Washington State Climatologist Mark Albright (who Mote stripped of his title for questioning Mote's hypothesis) -- and even UWA warmist Professor Cliff Mass -- published papers that showed by analyzing the entire record you see no trend but a cyclical change related clearly to the [Pacific Decadal Oscillation]. See how with the recent change to the negative PDO, heavy snow has returned to the Pacific Northwest. Given the imminent return to La Nina and forecast for deepening of the negative PDO stage, another wild winter with deep snowpack is likely.

Mote apparently received a wrist-slap from OSU, as he wrote a later email to the listserv to apologize and calling the original one "a mistake."

How is it so many of these activist climate scientists are so gaffe-prone?

Update 12:18 p.m.: My friend Todd Myers at the Washington Policy Center calls attention to another instance two years ago, when Mote had to recant incorrect testimony he gave to the state legislature.

I can hardly think of a better way to inject some desperately needed truth about climate change into Congress!  If Robinson can pull this off, I'll be a very, very happy man.

There's my two cents.

Class Still Exists...In Some Places

I'm not much of a baseball fan.  Never have been, never will be.  For one thing, I find the game boring.  It also drives me nuts how these guys go on the injured reserve list for 15 days because of a sore pinky toe while pulling down $50 million a year.  Excuse me?  If you're being paid that much money to perform at a professional level, I think you can gut through the *ahem* pain.

Nevertheless, this week saw a moment in baseball that is something we should all acknowledge as the epitome of class:

Last night Armando Galarraga did everything perfect in a baseball game between Detroit and Cleveland. Nine innings, "twenty-seven outs", no runs, no hits, and no walks. The only problem was umpire Jim Joyce missed the call on the last out. To be honest, the call was close, but I've seen closer calls made correctly. Joyce, a veteran umpire just simply made the wrong call, and what should have been the third perfect game (this season), finished with a 3-0 Detroit victory and a "one hit" shout-out. 

While sportswriters and the news media will tell the story of the one that got away, and all the reasons why more instant re-play should be instituted into the game, I think the real story is about how both professionals handled the "event". To the enormous credit of both the umpire and player, it was the class and sportsmanship that followed after the game that should be remembered. 

Rarely does a veteran umpire personally apologize to a player for his errors. Jim Joyce took his "mistake" to a higher level by letting Galarraga know just how sorry he was:

 Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski said Joyce asked to speak with Galarraga. Denied the first perfect game in Tigers history, Galarraga appreciated the gesture."You don't see an umpire after the game come out and say, 'Hey, let me tell you I'm sorry,' " Galarraga said. "He felt really bad. He didn't even shower." 

 Joyce went on to make this statement to the sportswriters:

 "It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [stuff] out of it," Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires' locker room. "I just cost that kid a perfect game."  "I thought he beat the throw. I was convinced he beat the throw, until I saw the replay," he said after the Tigers' 3-0 win.  "I don't blame them a bit for anything that was said," Joyce said. "I would've said it myself if I had been Galarraga. I would've been the first person in my face, and he never said a word to me."

 Sports Illustrated writer Tom Verducci also recognized the level of class between these two: 

It was a classy move by Joyce, who also apologized to Galarraga personally. The pitcher told a Venezuelan reporter that Joyce was crying when he offered him his apology. 

"He really feel bad. He probably feel more bad than me," Galarraga told Fox Sports Detroit. "Nobody's perfect, everybody's human. I understand. I give a lot of credit to the guy saying, 'Hey, I need to talk to you because I really say I'm sorry.' That don't happen. You don't see an umpire after the game say 'I'm sorry.'" 

In a game where you will rarely see a veteran umpire cry—let alone apologize, both Joyce and Galarraga showed the kind of class that would make one proud to call this America's Greatest Pastime.  Isn't is sad that this lesson can't be passed on to our government leaders who also sometimes make bad calls?

It's nice to see this kind of class displayed anywhere.  Major, major kudos to both of these guys!

Now, if only we could get the Left to act and speak with this kind of class...

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

No, seriously, if they could even display some class even occasionally...

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Okay, okay, sorry.  Wishful thinking.

Unfortunately, our elected politicians have also revealed their complete lack of class through this incident:

Michigan politicians are practically falling over themselves trying to make sure Wednesday night's effort by Tigers' pitcher Armando Galarraga be recognized as a perfect game.

...

After Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm issued a proclamation declaring Galarraga's effort a perfect game, U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, Michigan Democrat, weighed in, urging Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig to invoke his authority to do what is the best interests of the game and declare this one perfect.

Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. John Dingell, Dearborn Democrat, said he will introduce a resolution in Congress calling on MLB to overturn the call on the field that spoiled the perfect game on the last out in the 9th against the Cleveland Indians.

*sigh*

Aside from the rather obvious idiocy of dealing with something like this rather than any of the actual crises going on in the nation and world today, there's also the question of just why these morons feel the need to stick the government's hand into the situation and force the outcome that they feel is correct based on nothing more than their own momentary whims.  Boy, is this illustrative of how they approach everything, or what?

*sigh*

There's my two cents.

Obama White House: Bribery Central

Whoa! If only the media wasn't hooked up to a hope-n-change Kool-Aid IV on this one! Of course, this is such a big (and obvious) deal that it may become an issue anyway:

U.S. Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff acknowledged tonight that he discussed three possible jobs with the deputy chief of staff of the Obama administration — all contingent upon a decision by Romanoff not to challenge U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet.

Romanoff said none of the jobs was formally offered, but said the only reason they were discussed with Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina was if Romanoff stayed out of the Senate race.

“Mr. Messina also suggested three positions that might be available to me were I not pursuing the Senate race,” Romanoff wrote in a statement. “He added that he could not guarantee my appointment to any of these positions. At no time was I promised a job, nor did I request Mr. Messina’s assistance in obtaining one.”

Hot Air poses the obvious question:

Is Messina guilty of a crime for having made this kinda sorta offer, even without any formal “promise”? Let’s see:

Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

I think we can get this one to the jury! Seriously, though, I don’t want Messina charged, partly because he was obviously acting at Rahm Emanuel’s behest (no deputy COS would be authorized to bribe a senate candidate on his own initiative, I assume) and partly because I’m sure this really is D.C. business as usual for both parties.

The point here is to illustrate not that this behavior is unusual, but to illustrate that it is depressingly normal. And, it also happens to be precisely the sort of thing that Obama campaigned on, promising to do the opposite! Just because both sides likely engage in this doesn't make it right, and the American people shouldn't tolerate it from either side.

Of course, this also serves to bring even more pressure and visibility onto the whole Sestak bribery situation. How will the White House spin this? Even in cases where the strictly legal minutiae end up working out, sometimes the public perception is so firmly fixed that a politician will be crushed under its weight alone (remember what killed George Allen's presidential run before it even began?). This may be one of those times. Keep watching.

There's my two cents.