Sure sounds like it: “One depressing aspect of American politics is the susceptibility of the political and media establishment to charlatans.”

Alas, but no, that line has little to do with the content of the post.  He lambasts Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin for his detailed plan to cut spending and taxes — and thus deal with two of Americans’ biggest concerns, the ever-growing national debt and the lately-stagnant employment rate.

So, Krugman goes after a man with a plan while having being dewy-eyed for a man with a few slogans.  Paul Krugman was one among many in the media establishment who showed himself quite susceptible to the manifest charms and empty rhetoric of a certain Senator from Illinois. And now he has the cheek to call a serious and thoughtful Republican Congressman a charlatan?

Hey, Paul (Krugman), it wasn’t conservatives who bought a bill of goods from a man who promised to heal the nation and fix the economy and ended up taking rhetorical stances which divided us even further while enacting economic policies which kept us in the economic doldrums.

Bruce just sent me a link to this video of two fetching young Tea Party patriots.

Seems that even at their young age, they’ve experienced the same sorts of prejudice we have. And while they’ve been warmly welcomed at Tea Parties by their freedom-loving conservative peers, they’ve been “socially ostracized” by their equality-loving gay peers.

Gotta love this political ad–if just for the closing lines:

Via: Battle ’10.

In one of the better back-and-forths we have had in a comment thread to our various posts, my Williams classmate Phil Holmes considers Katie Couric’s bias, then makes an interesting point:

. . . if Biden and Palin were both to be interviewed on Fox News, I think you’d see the same difference in treatment (i.e., Fox would gun for Biden much more than they would gun for Palin)

Now, I don’t know how familiar Phil is with FoxNews as it features a variety of anchors, reporters and commentators — who have a great variety of opinions; they are not interchangeable one with the other.  Bill O’Reilly has posed tought questions to Republicans and Democrats alike as have Chris Wallace, Bret Baier and Brit Hume.

Sean Hannity, however, is a different story.  During the 2008 campaign, I watched his interview with John McCain’s running mate, Sarah Palin and saw him toss softball after softball at the accomplished then-Alaska Governor.  He showed her almost exactly the same deference Couric showed to Barack Obama’s running mate, the gaffe-prone then-Delaware Senator.

The difference?  Sean Hannity does not put himself forward as an impartial purveyor of news.  Katie Couric does.

Hannity even wrote a book making clear his agenda: Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda.

Loved how the Fiorina campaign reported Mrs. Boxer’s tour of the state she represents in Washington:

Despite this, Barbara Boxer continues to parade around the state trumpeting the ‘success’ of the stimulus and champion more doomed spending and big-government bailouts for which taxpayers will have to foot the bill. It’s clear that, after more than three decades in politics, Barbara Boxer has lost touch with the real world and how it works. She isn’t interested in what truly drives job growth and economic strength – only what drives the government growth and special interest greed that powers her career and her friends in Washington.

Emphasis added.

I see a small, well-dressed woman walking down an nearly-empty street, followed by a fancy flout with a loud-speakieer blaring that the storefronts really aren’t empty and that those “For Lease” and “Available” signs we see all over Los Angeles, well, just don’t mean a thing.

Hey, Ma’am, I got a question for you:  if the “stimulus” really is creating jobs in California, how come unemployment here is near record highs — and has gone up not down since you voted for the several hundred billion dollar boondoggle?

In a most excellent column today in the Denver Post, David Harsanyi offers a pleasant image of America where government removed itself from the business of marriage:

Imagine if government had no interest in the definition of marriage. Individuals could commit to each other, head to the local priest or rabbi or shaman — or no one at all — and enter into contractual agreements, call their blissful union whatever they felt it should be called and go about the business of their lives.

As with those of us who imagine that blissfual day when the state ends its “war on drugs”, it ain’t gonna happen.

He also addresses Judge Walker’s silly notion that ”‘moral disapproval alone’ was behind this plot to define marriage as a union between a one man and one woman.”

That jurist reaches his conclusion not based on facts, but based on his narrow-minded impression of the opponents of same-sex marriage.*  If the judge were right, the Gallup surveys on those who find homosexuality “morally wrong” would align perfectly with those who oppose gay marriage.  But, in May, Gallup found that 43% of Americans found gay or lesbian relations “morally wrong” while finding that 53% opposed gay marriage. (more…)

Well, one thing you can say for Christina Romer, the president’s soon-to-be former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers: she ain’t Lloyd Bridges:

She picked the right day to quit her job. Despite the Administration’s doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to special interests and state governments, the unemployment rate hasn’t budged holding flat at 9.5%:

A hot summer that’s gripped much of the U.S. has been accompanied by a stone-cold job market. That trend held fast last month as the economy added just 71,000 private sector jobs, after excluding the loss of temporary U.S. Census and other government jobs, the U.S. Labor Department announced Friday. Overall, the economy shed 131,000 jobs in July.

The dark blue line is what she said what the unemployment rate would be if the stimulus were passed.  The shaded red area is this difference between Administration projection and economic reality.

Chart via GatewayPundit.

UPDATE: Tim Cavanaugh on her work before and after Obama:

As an economist, Romer did an excellent job [pdf] of establishing that New Deal stimulus failed to end or seriously mitigate the Great Depression. As an Obama team player (and poignantly, a sunny supporter of the then-senator’s campaign), she made a 180-degree turn toward pro-stimulus hocus pocus.

Via Instapundit.

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, GOProud, the only national organization representing gay conservatives and their allies, announced that conservative author Ann Coulter is headlining their first annual Homocon – a party to celebrate gay conservatives.

“The gay left has done their best to take all the fun out of politics, with their endless list of boycotts and protests. Homocon is going to be our annual effort to counter the ‘no fun police’ on the left,” said Christopher Barron, Chairman of the Board of GOProud. “I can’t think of any conservative more fun to headline our inaugural party then the self-professed ‘right-wing Judy Garland’ – Ann Coulter.”

Ann Coulter is the author of seven New York Times bestsellers —Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America (January 2009); If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans (October, 2007); Godless: The Church of Liberalism (June 2006); How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)(October, 2004); Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism (June 2003); Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right (June 2002); and High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton (August 1998).

Homocon 2010 will take place in New York City on the evening of Saturday September 25th. VIP Sponsorships are available for $2500 and general admission tickets go on sale August 20th. To purchase tickets or for more information: www.goproud.org.

“I can promise you, Homocon 2010 will be a hell of a lot more fun than chaining yourself to the White House fence,” concluded Barron.

More details are coming soon! Please contact Jimmy LaSalvia at jlasalvia@goproud.org for information about sponsorship opportunities.

General reception tickets ($250) go on sale August 20th. Visit www.goproud.org for more information.

©2010 GOProud | 426 C Street NE | Washington DC | 20002 | (202) 543-1003 | www.goproud.org

Something struck me yesterday when I came across the latest Gallup poll on gay marriage.  See if the same thing strikes you:

You might see it if you contrast that poll with the latest Pew poll on support for same-sex civil unions:

You see it now? (more…)