Two of my favorite pundits, Glenn Reynolds and Michael Barone, frequently excerpt and link Walter Russell Mead’s commentary at the American Interest.  Mead, a Democrat who voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but who supported the Iraq War in 2003, offers trenchant analysis of politics and social trends and frequent criticism of his party and its ideological associates (i.e., liberals).

Given his insight, Mead ranks (along with such conservative “wise men” as Barone, Victor Davis Hanson and Charles Krauthammer) as one of the few pundits regularly offering sage commentary on the news of day, often spotting trends before others notice them.  In his post which Glenn linked today, Mead contends that the “driving force in the country remains a deep unhappiness with the status quo and with both parties, but ten months out from the election, this mood looks as if it will hurt Democrats more than Republicans.”

The entire piece is well worth your time (as are most of Mead’s posts), but one passage struck out to me, perhaps because his views reflect my own on Obama’s recent uptick in the opinion polls:

The serial rise and fall of ultimately unsatisfactory GOP candidates makes the incumbent look better by contrast even as the candidates field-tested attack ad themes the Democrats can turn to next fall.  President Obama’s numbers are up a bit even as short-lived GOP favorites crash and burn.  Throw in the House payroll tax kerfluffle, and the GOP sometimes looks as if it is trying to drive voters away.

One wonders how the polls will shift when the focus turns back to the incumbent. It sometimes seems Obama’s poll numbers tend to drift upward when he does not dominate the news cycle.

How will he fare when the various Republican candidates stop savaging each other and concentrate their fire on his policy failures and the anemic state of the economic recovery?

UPDATE:  Seems Hanson shares my view that the president’s poll numbers drift upwards when he is not in front of the cameras, hectoring us:

President Obama went into a deep slumber in December. When he woke up this January, he found himself back even in the polls, with neither a press conference nor another overhyped presidential televised address to be heard. Sleep, quiet, and solitude — all that appears wiser than campaigning, visibility, and speaking, both for Obama and Americans. In short, the president has really hit on something: an Obama going into a Rip Van Winkle somnolent state might just mean waking up again as president.

. . . .

The more he kept out of the news and kept quiet, the more his negative and positive ratings went back in sync, until they are today about even, a radical shift in just about a month — and as a result of doing absolutely nothing. Do Americans sort of like Barack Obama the more that they do not see or hear much of him — at least while they hear too much of the Republicans ripping each other apart?

Via Instapundit.  Read the whole thing.

Patrick Forrest may have come up short in his race for Virginia Senate, but in an Alexandria-based district far more favorable to his political party, Democrat Adam Ebbin won by a comfortable margin.  I knew — and liked — Adam back in my Northern Virginia days.  He is very liberal and extremely partisan, but is a generally nice guy.  He was always civil when we locked horns (as we did on numerous occasions).

And when the then-chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Tom Davis spoke to the Log Cabin Republican Club of Northern Virginia (while I served as the club’s president), that Democratic partisan showed up.  He braved a crowd of Republicans and listened politely when the Republican Congressman spoke, even asking a question, as I recall, and doing so in a civil tone and manner.

With Adam’s election as well as the election in successive congressional cycles of two openly gay Democrats, Colorado’s Jared Polis and Rhode Island’s David Cicilline, to the U.S. House, there’s no need for gays to keep covering for Barney Frank, the arrogant and mean-spirited Democrats from Massachusetts, unwilling to answer for his conflict of interest with a government-sponsored enterprise which he regularly defended and which now sucks cash from the federal treasury.

Polis, while very liberal, like Ebbin, appears to be a very stand-up guy.

In short, Barney is no longer the only gay man in elective office.  Unlike Ebbin, he is not the kind of man to whom others can look up; Barney is just not a good role model.  More than that, he’s an outright embarrassment. (more…)

Well, the current Governor of New York once did serve in the cabinet of the immediate past Democratic President of the United States. But, unlike the Democratic incumbent, he does seem to understand the legacy of the former, the most legacy-obsessed chief executive. He appears to recognize that the shibboleths of his party’s left-wing won’t help win the hearts of the American people.

He’s not buying into the class warfare rhetoric of Barack Obama or the president’s intellectual allies in #Occupy Wall Street. “You are kidding yourself,” the New York Democrat said, “if you think you can be one of the highest-taxed states in the nation, have a reputation for being anti-business — and have a rosy economic future.”

Via Instapundit.  Seems this Democrat learned well from his former boss.  His party’s path to victory cannot be on terms which worked in the early parts of the last century.  You can’t treat business as the enemy; the corollary to that notion being that free enterprise is the engine which drives our economy.

Seems this man may succeed where his father failed.

Ed Driscoll, however, thinks Andrew Cuomo Is Kidding Himself (h/t to Insta for this as well).

The likelihood that I would back Rick Perry for the Republican presidential nomination has been waning since he accused the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of “treasonous” behavior for “printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history”.  Even after his commentary caused a media firestorm, he stood by those comments.

Now, I agree with the Texas governor that it is “treacherous” for the Federal Reserve to print more money at the present time as that would fuel inflation and thus further retard any real economic recovery.  Yet, Bernanke’s action is hardly treason; he’s not trying to betray his country, he’s trying to help it. The policy may be wrong-headed, but the policy-maker does not intend to harm the country.  And isn’t intent necessary to commit treason?

A man who aspires to national leadership does not so fault the motives of public servants — or his ideological adversaries.

That said, I believe the mainstream media have blown the story of the stone with the offensive word (that Perry and his family painted over) way out of proportion.  On Monday, John King devoted a segment of his eponymous CNN program to the “invented scandal”.  Fortunately, he included Donna Brazile in the discussion (let’s hope we see more of her*).  This sharp lady also seems to offer a smart and sensible commentary.

This Democratic strategist who happens to be African-American brought some sense to the discussion:

I’ve known Rick Perry when he was a Democrat. So I believe I can say this with credibility that he’s not a racist. So I don’t think that’s the issue.

The issue is the insensitivity of having that word written on a rock, and not doing something about it, and according to him they did something about it.

Now let’s go beyond that and stop dealing with what I call race in a very superficial way. It’s more of a distraction. It’s more annoying when you discuss it, especially when you discuss it in political company. So I think we need to move on.

Governor Perry will have to say that for himself. I can tell you that he is, at least from my knowledge of him back in the 1980s, he’s a decent person.

While some in the Democratic Party — and their allies in the mainstream media — have been grandstanding the issue, at least one Democratic partisan dismisses this story.  Why must they dwell on stories like this?

Oh, yeah, because their favored candidate has polling numbers like these.

* (more…)

Leon Panetta has always conducted himself with dignity on the public stage. And in this exchange with Brian Williams, he comes off as a pretty stand-up guy, not milking the dispatch of Bin Laden to partisan ends and giving credit to the immediate past president and his team for their efforts in tracking down the Saudi-born terrorist.

In this video, he indicates that our intelligence officials gained some information that would later help us track down the hide-out of the Al-Qaeda leader through, um, well, “enhanced interrogation techniques“.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

VIdeo via Gateway Pundit.

When asked, Doug Powers reports, “whether or not advanced interrogation techniques helped get Bin Laden,” Attorney General Eric Holder “said he didn’t know.”  You’d think an official of an administration which has been most critical* of such polices would have given an unequivocal response (in the negative) if they hadn’t helped.

Of all the Democrats the president could have tapped to take over from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Panetta seems the best choice. He acknowledges truths at odds with his party’s anti-Republican talking points and acknowledges the accomplishments of Republicans as well as the merits of their policies.

RELATED:  Ed Driscoll alerts us to this observation in Investor’s Business Daily, “If President Bush had not invaded Iraq, President Obama likely would not have found Osama bin Laden. The al-Qaida operative who fingered bin Laden’s courier was caught in Iraq helping terrorists in 2004″.  Ed’s initial roundup on the death of Mr. Bin Laden also has a plethora of pithy points and interesting links.

ALSO RELATED AND WELL WORTH YOUR TIME:  Michael Barone contends that to get bin Laden, Obama relied on policies he decried.

*UPDATE:  Peter Wehner reports: “After all, Barack Obama was a fierce critic of EITs [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] during and after the 2008 campaign.“

I’m on the west coast on business and last night at about 8pm Pacific time, I was getting frantic texts from home: “Obama will be giving a major national security speech from the solemnness of The White House at 10:30pm. Very weird, especially for this President who prefers cheering audiences as much as his TelePrompTer.

And then came the words I had longed to hear for nearly 10 years: Osama bin Laden is dead.

I began to cry as I thought of the thousands incinerated, slaughtered, and fell to their deaths on Sept. 11, 2001.

My heart goes to the family of our close friend — Joe Ferguson — who died when Flight 77 slammed into the side of the Pentagon that bright blue September morning. I hope they will have some sense of closure. The War isn’t over, but the AQ Commander In Chief has been defeated in battle.

My hearty thanks goes to our intelligence and defense communities. A big thanks to President Obama, CIA Director Panetta and SecDef Robert Gates for what appears to be a rare coordinated intel/military ops that worked flawlessly.

Finally, nothing can express my grief and sadness toward the families of 9/11 victims and to those families who gave our nation their sons and daughters in the first round of the Global War on Islamic Terror.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!!!

In 1984, the then-incumbent governor of New York’s father catapulted into the liberal limelight with his passionate speech denouncing Reaganism at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in New York.  Now, his son, the current incumbent delivers an address embracing the ideas the Gipper once promulgated on the national stage:

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo called for “a fundamental realignment” of state government on Wednesday, saying New York needs to rethink the services it provides and face up to its overspending problem before it is too late.

“We need radical reform, we need a new approach, we need a new perspective,” said Mr. Cuomo, who was giving his first State of the State address. “And we need it now.” . . . .

The new governor mentioned the word “tax” or “taxes” 21 times, mostly to denounce them and promise to lower them. “What made New York the Empire State was not a large government complex,” he said. “It was a vibrant private sector that was creating great jobs in the state of New York.”

The proposals laid out by Mr. Cuomo — including reducing the number of agencies, authorities and departments by 20 percent and capping the annual growth of state government to the rate of inflation — set up a clash with the more liberal Democrats who control the State Assembly.

Kudos to the younger Cuomo for standing up to his party’s establishment and embracing the ideas which helped make his state great — and which animated the GOP (at least in its ideal form) for the past three decades.

Let’s hope he succeeds in his endeavors to reduce the size of his state’s government and increase the freedom of its entrepreneurs.

UPDATE:  This Cuomo guy is sounding a lot like his colleague across the Hudson:

In the past, notes E. J. McMahon, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute’s Empire Center for New York State Policy, governors who tried to cut the state’s health-care system were attacked with hard-hitting ads like one that portrayed a woman running down the street with a sick kid in her arms, only to find the emergency room locked. “‘Tell Governor Pataki not to kill Grandma,’” McMahon intones dryly. “And the ads work! Pataki caved after passing a few tough budgets.” Cuomo himself has described the process thusly: “The governor announces the budget; unions come together, put $10 million in a bank account, run television ads against the governor. The governor’s popularity drops; the governor’s knees weaken; the governor falls to one knee, collapses, makes a deal.”

Via Instapundit.  Doe hope Cuomo’s Democratic colleague in another big, blue state understand the game the unions play.

Just a second ago on Megyn’s show, that’s what the Michigan Democrat just said.

No, unfortunately, he wasn’t literally talking about the vote on the Stalinization of Health Care Bill of 2010 itself.

What he was talking about was all the vote-counting of his “Stupak Dozen”, those pro-Life Democrats who voted for the House version of the bill last November, but have threatened to flip to a “no” if their demands that taxpayer-funded abortion provisions be stripped from the legislation are not met.

Megyn had asked him about reports that some had been peeled away (something I’d not heard anyway) already, and he replied that, basically (I’m paraphrasing) all the reports of who the Dozen actually are are incorrect. He said, “I keep my list with me”, and that the reports he’s hearing about who they are and who is wavering are “not even close.”

You suppose that lady with all the Botox is posturing? Bluffing? Here’s hoping Rep. Stupak and whomever is on his list hang tough and hang together.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from TML)

As yet another example that while Democrats in today’s Washington may be out of the loop on any number of issues, at least they do get it in when it comes to repealing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT).

Our pal James Kirchick reports that Joe Lieberman will become the “chief sponsor” of legislation to repeal DADT:

Next week, the Connecticut senator will announce that he’s taking the lead on repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the 1993 law that prohibits gay people from serving openly in the armed forces. Since implementation of the statute nearly 20 years ago, the military has discharged some 14,000 qualified men and women, many of them serving in critical jobs like Arabic and Persian translation.

Nice to have a man well-regarded by the military at the forefront of this effort.

In the Senate, the Golden State is represented by two Jewish women, both Democrats, each originally serving jurisdictions in the Bay Area, but with entirely different temperaments.   Our senior Senator, Dianne Feinstein, shows respect for her more conservative colleagues and has worked with them to see 26 of the bills she has introduced (since first her first election in November 1992) enacted into law.  You can imagine her taking criticism, civilly offered from a constituent, without questioning his motives.

Our junior Senator, on the other hand, Barbara Boxer berates her ideological adversaries and has seen a total of three of the bills she introduced become law.  And she took office only two months after her colleague (Feinstein was elected to fill the remainder of the Senate seat Pete Wilson abandoned when he was elected Governor in 1990 and was sworn in soon after she ousted appointed incumbent John Seymour).

Mrs. Feinstein joins her Indiana and Virginia colleagues in reading the tea leaves in the wake of the Massachusetts special Senate election; she understands “the situation has changed dramatically“:

You see anger. People are worried. And when they’re worried they don’t want to take on a broad new responsibility, [like health reform] . . . .

I think we do go slower on health care. People do not understand it. it is so big it is beyond their comprehension. . . . (more…)

An AP article today serves as a reminder of anecdotes many of us have heard (and others experienced) of friends, family members and acquaintances taking pay cuts in order to keep their jobs:

It’s one of the bleak realities of the economic recovery: Even as more employers are starting to hire, the new jobs typically pay less than the ones that were lost.

So, it’s not just our already employed friends working for less money, it’s also the newly employed.

But, while private sector employers are slashing pay checks, it remains boom time for government employees, even in cash-strapped states like California.  On the last state of the year just concluded, a state judge in the Golden State

. . . ruled that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had abused his discretion in ordering furloughs of state workers, dealing a blow to the administration’s efforts to cope with the state’s ongoing fiscal crisis.

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch said the administration must halt the furloughs for workers represented by three unions, including Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents 95,000 state employees.

The Governor had ordered “most state employees to take three days off a month without pay as the state faced a massive budget deficit.”  Even a former Democratic Speaker of the California Assembly finds that “80 percent” of the state’s budget deficits is “due to employee costs.“  And, as George Will notes today, it’s not just the cost of current employees:

It took years for servile liberalism to turn the state into what [William] Voegeli calls a “unionocracy,” run by and for unionized public employees, such as public safety employees who can retire at 50 and receive 90 percent of the final year’s pay for life.

A first step toward righting the budget woes of the Golden State would be for the legislature to do for state employees what private sector employees have done for theirs:  slash salaries.  And while our legislators are at it, they should slash pensions for public sector retirees as well and prevent able-bodied retirees from receiving their pensions until they’re 65 (or 70).

Last night, when I tracked down the Gallup poll showing increasing number of conservatives favoring repealing the ban on gays serving openly in the military, I saw in the margin a link to poll finding a Majority of Americans Continue[s] to Oppose Gay Marriage. This in line with Pew’s recent findings.

Indeed, while the number supporting state recognition of same-sex civil unions has steadily increased over the past six years, the number opposing gay marriage has remained relatively constant, hovering between 55 and 59 percent (it’s nowat 57).

So, while the President expressed a commitment to repeal both the military’s Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell (DADT) policy as well as the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in his speech Saturday night to the Human Rights Campaign, the smarter move politically might be to put the latter on the back burner and concentrate on repealing the former.

That’s why I commended the Administration for reaching out to Senator Lieberman.  He can help frame this as a national security issue, making it more difficult for the military from reacting as they did when, in 1993, Clinton first introduced the idea of lifting the ban.  The Democrat announced the move with Barney Frank, a longtime foe of a robust military, standing by his side.  And many in the military saw this as a move to enlist them in a social experiment crafted by legislators they did not trust.

That President Obama’s team has been working with the Connecticut Senator suggests the incumbent is aware of his predecessor’s mistakes and wishes to avoid them.  With ever larger majorities supporting repeal, the time is ripe for action.  But, he shouldn’t dither and should come forward with a time framer move forward on the issue or his promises will be for naught.

So, gay groups should focus on moving repeal, indeed, making this issue their priority, given that the chances of success are high.  And to increase those chances, they need end their suspicion of conservatives and build partnerships with those on the right side of the political aisle who have shifted their views on the ban in recent years. (more…)

Well, maybe the White House is finally taking the first steps toward repealing Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell.  According to the Advocate,

Shortly after President Barack Obama pledged Saturday to end “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the Administration’s highest-ranking LGBT official said the White House is speaking with certain senators about strategies for repealing the policy — specifically Sen. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“On ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ this administration is talking directly to the Hill — we are in direct discussions with Senator Lieberman,” John Berry, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, told The Advocate.

A spokesman for Senator Lieberman confirmed that the senator had been speaking to the White House about the bill.  “Senator Lieberman has had discussions with representatives of the Administration and others on the best way to reverse this policy, which he has opposed since it was first proposed in 1993,” said Marshall Wittmann, Lieberman’s press secretary.

Smart move to work with Lieberman.  Given the Connecticut Senator’s long-time support for a robust military, it’s makes a lot of sense to have him lead the effort to repeal this counterproductive measure.  More perhaps than any other member of the Democratic caucus, Lieberman enjoys the respect of the military and Republicans.  He can better frame repeal not as a gay rights’ issue but as a military issue, that the ban reduces the pool of recruits from which our armed services can draw.

That the Administration is in talk with Lieberman suggests a real commitment to repealing the ban.  It would be better if they had a timetable, to prompt more expeditious action.  With a solid majority even of conservatives favoring repeal, the time to act is now. (more…)

My junior Senator may dismiss her constituents’ concerns with great regularity, but my state’s senior Senator, despite her liberal inclination, has almost always shown respect for her ideological adversaries.

And now, instead of marching in lockstep with her party’s leadership, Dianne Feinstein shows that she’s been listening to her constituents, expressing skepticism about her party’s proposed health care overhaul:

I just find that if you’re going to remake a sixth of the American economy, it’s very difficult at this time of great economic angst. . . .

There is real concern over debt and deficits, and whether this bill will create additional entitlements.

This is not to say Senator Feinstein opposes all of then rovisions of the various Democrat health care bills (indeed she supports many), but only to show that she understands that the cost of this programs concerns her, especially during the difficult economic times.

It’s too bad more Democrats have not acknowledged some of the concerns of Obamacare opponents as has Mrs. Feinstein.  She honors our state by her civility and by the respect she shows for those not on the same page with her politically.  And indeed, often incorporates their ideas into her program.

Via Don Surber who observes:

[Feinstein] is actually with Republicans in wanting to open up insurance. Currently, states control health insurance. Under the Interstate Commerce Clause, Congress could indeed open insurance competition across state lines.

Despite Democratic descriptions of those protesting the President’s health care as a “mob,” protesters on the whole have conducted themselves in a civil manner.  And despite conservative criticism of Democratic Representatives (and Senators) of painting their critics with a broad brush (as some have done), a good number of Democrats, like the late Jim Hunter, have shown great respect for their political adversaries.

And I’m pleased to report that one such Democrat, Connecticut’s Chris Murphy is a graduate of America’s finest liberal arts’ college.  Although “mobbed” by angry constituents at a supermarket in his district, this good man was unfazed and stood up for citizens’ rights to speak out:

Murphy said it didn’t matter to him whether those attending were part of a coordinated effort or just on their own.

“Any time I’m talking to my constituents in an unfiltered way I consider it productive,” he said in a phone interview afterward.

Murphy acknowledged that a few angry voices dominated the gathering, at least initially. But he said that didn’t bother him. “Was that out of a Norman Rockwell town meeting painting? No. But there are big issues being discussed in Washington … and people have a right to be concerned, even angry about it.”

It’s too bad my representatives in Washington haven’t shown such understanding for their critics’ concerns.  (Heck, they don’t even seem to be open to meeting with us.)  Still, we should act as if all our representatives were as open to our concerns as Murphy has been.

When we protest, we must make our concerns known, but not drown out elected officials (and their representatives) when they are trying to speak.  Allahpundit offers this advice:

If all they’re going to do is scream, they belong outside. Disrupting the event itself when people are trying to listen is a jackass thing to do, and totally counterproductive in terms of handing the left material with which to tar the GOP. (more…)

In the 1990s when I lived in Arlington, Virginia and served on that county’s Republican committee, I would regularly attend meetings of the Democratic-controlled County Board and express my concerns about their tax increases and meddlesome policies.  On occasion, I would talk to the vaious Board members in person.

Once when I ran into Democratic Board Member James B. “Jim” Hunter, III walking through the hallway on his way to the meeting.  I approached him and in a rather confrontational manner, urged him to vote against the meals tax increase which he and his colleagues on the all-Democratic Board were considering.  Given the manner of my approach, I was stunned (and humbled) by his courteous response.  He showed more respect for me than I did for him, looking right at me, listening (without interrupting) to my spiel, then thanking me for expressing my opinion.  He reached his hand out to shake mine.

I would never again approach that good man in a confrontational manner.

In subsequent years, as I remained active in the Arlington County Republican Committee and various civic organizations (I was a member of the Arlington County Commission for the Arts) I got to know him better, still asking him tough questions but with the same courtesy he had showed me.  (He taught me a lesson, that good man did.)

Once when he spoke to the Arlington Gay and Lesbian Alliance, he responded to my question as he always did, with respect.  He thanked me for speaking out, then addressed my concerns.  (I thanked him for his civil response.)  After the public portion of the meeting, we chatted amicably during the sorical hour, with him placing his left hand on my back and shaking my extended right hand with his and said,  “Dan, we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

Other Republicans reported a similar reaction when they met with that good man to discuss their differences with the Board.

When he died, enough members of the County Republican Committee attended his funeral to make a quorum.

Obviously Barack Obama Democrats have not learned from their late partisan from the one part of Virginia which was briefly part of the District of Columbia.  Instead of trashing Republicans who raise their concerns with elected officials as tools of special interest or of maleficent corporations and dismissing our concerns, they should show us the same respect Jim Hunter showed to his political opponents. (more…)

I was not in-country when Jared Polis, the gay heir to Blue Mountain Arts, a greeting-card company created by his mother and netting him tons of money to use to seed his own entrepreneurial aspirations (and he’s a Democrat?!), was elected to represent Colorado’s ultra-Leftist 2d District (which includes Boulder). As such, I was pretty ho-hum to learn another gay Democrat had been elected to Congress, let alone from that district.

But when he wrote an Op-Ed piece for the Wall Street Journal coming out against the auto bailouts in favor of liberty-minded cuts in taxes, in blatant defiance of spendthrift Democrats running the House (before he even got there!), I sat up and took notice. While his voting record has been pretty lock-step Leftist (he voted for the pork stimulus and the cap-and-trade bills), he has recently taken another bold step in defense of sound and responsible fiscal policy and (natch, therefore) against his party’s leadership.

Thursday, Polis led a group of 22 Democrats in the House in a letter to Speaker Pelosi, admonishing her, that, among other things, “[i]f our nation is going to lift itself out of recession, small businesses will once again need to lead the way.”

The entire letter (save for the sops to the notion that this ridiculous healthcare Stalinization bill “could not come at a better time”) reads like it could have come from the Club for Growth or Heritage Foundation. It even gives passing reference to the pending expiration of Bush’s tax cuts. (One wonders if perhaps Jared will be so bold as to call for a halt to that?)

I recommend you read the whole thing. It makes the case that Republicans who oppose the surtax have been making since it reared its ugly head. Perhaps coming from members of her own party, Pelosi will listen.

Then again…

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

UPDATE (from Dan):  Sorry, Nick, not ready to call the guy a hero.  So, what if he writes a letter?  Obama promised to go line-by-line through the federal budget, rooting out waste, then to give us a “net spending cut.”  Not seeing that, are we?  Until he puts his money where his mouth is and breaks with his party on key votes, ending that, as you put it, “lock-step Leftist” voting recrod, I’ll see him as just another grandstanding Democratic politician, mouthing the words they know their constituents want to hear while spending our money like drunken sailors and regulating like self-righteous busybodies who “know,” due to their superior education, knowledge and innate wisdom what’s best for all of us.

In the past few weeks I have gained a lot of respect for a number of left-wing gay bloggers, many of whom I have faulted in the past.   To be sure, a number of them (notably Towleroad) have distinguished themselves in the past by reporting on the plight of our fellows suffering under repressive regimes, even Islamofascistic ones.  Lately though they, many of whom at the very outset of the 2008 campaign were cheerleaders for Barack Obama, have shown they’re not shills for a Democratic Administration, even a very liberal one, beloved by the groups with whom gay activists normally break bread.

This is not to excuse their over-the-top criticism of Republicans and conservatives (even us from time to time), but to acknowledge their integrity on gay issues.  Unlike some prominent gay activists, they put their gay advocacy ahead of their allegiance to the Democratic Party. Also unlike those lickspittle activists, many of them don’t get paid to advocate for gay causes. They do so often on their own dime — and always under their own steam.

Some of these gay bloggers have joined with conservative bloggers in condemning the atrocities of the Iranian mullahs and expressing solidarity with the people suffering under this tyranny, a regime particularly brutal to people like us. Many have been unsparing in their criticism of the incumbent Democratic President of the United States for failing to fulfill the campaign promises he made to our community.

Earlier this week, Bruce alerted me to a post on a blog which describes itself as offering “left-leaning unconventional wisdom.” To be sure, these folks never drank the Obama Kool-Aid, their website, the Widdeshins, “founded by bloggers who were orphaned by the hostile takeover of the Democratic Party in 2008 under the mantra of ‘Hope’ and ‘Change’ by decidedly non-liberal forces.”

Upset at the President’s refusal to “use his authority to halt the discharge of gay and lesbian service members until they could legislatively repeal DADT,” blogger garychapelhill said the Democrat was telling gay to f*** off. (more…)

When one blogger caught the unhappy Barney Frank lying about his record and trying to “to re-write history with respect to the role he played in helping enable the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae,” I wrote:

In the past, he could get away with it because the media watchdogs, ever eager to pounce at the slightest Republican indiscretion, gave Democrats a pass whenever they misrepresented their own record. . . . It seems that Barney is living in a pre-YouTube world where . . . the MSM would be little likely to dig around into [a Democrat's] past statements to corroborate or contradict his present claims.

Seems the woman the Massachusetts Democrat helped elected as House Speaker has not realized how new media have transformed the political landscape.  She seemed entirely unprepared for anyone to challenge her recollections of her past actions and knowledge.

Simply put, she thought she could get away with misrepresenting the record probably because she assumed the MSM was behind the real goal–”getting” George W. Bush and his “minions.”

Perhaps, she assumed the Administration, equally eager (in her mind) to undermine its Republican predecessors, would back her up on this.   (more…)

Mea culpa for having taken so long to post this. I’m sure you’re all dying to see how the Shameful Six fared this week at the trough.

Well, the vote on the actual embarrassment budget was technically a voice-vote, so nobody would formally have to go “on record” as having voted for it (ah, the integrity of our elected representatives, matched only by the president who found time to hold a ceremony for the ladies on the same day but ducked away out of sight to put pen to paper to use your tax dollars, but I digress…).

The real vote was on cloture to move the question in the first place. If a Senator wanted to stop this piggish legislation, this is where he’d have done it. And did our half-dozen redeem themselves?

Sen Richard Shelby (R-Alabama): Yea
Sen Kit Bond (R-Missouri): Yea
Sen Thad Cochran (R-Mississippi): Yea
Sen Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): Yea
Sen James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma): Nay
Sen Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky): Nay

Senators Shelby, Bond, Cochran, and Murkowski should be ashamed of themselves. If they’re not, their constituents should contact them to let them know how ashamed they are of them.

Oh, but there’s more! Even other embarrassing “Republican” Senators voted for this monster:

Sen Lamar Alexander (Tennessee) (contact here)
Sen Olympia Snowe (Maine) (contact here) (
Sen Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania) (contact here)
Sen Roger Wicker (Mississippi) (contact here)

Fear not, budget hawks! We have the following Democrats on our side (all voting Nay):
Sen Evan Bayh (Indiana)
Sen Russ Feingold (Wisconsin)
Sen Claire McCaskill (Missouri)

Just think…a couple more Decent Democrats, and we could have had a victory for responsible government. These three deserve our thanks and should be commended for going against Harry Reid and President Obama and their shameful and irresponsible use of our money. The eight “Republicans” who voted Yea should find other work.

Who needs a drink?

-Nick (Colorado Patriot) from HQ