It is not that, as Andrew Bolt notes, that the process has been so flawed to date that it’s fair to use the phrase “spivs and chiselers” without exaggerating. Very Commonwealth-y, but not exaggerating.

It is not that, as Gawker’s Owen Thomas notes, that it’s now come out that new chief vetter Gregory Craig’s wife herself apparently hasn’t been paying her business taxes, to the point where there’s now allegedly an investigation going on about that.

(Both links H/T Glenn Reynolds)

It is not even that the first reaction that everybody had – including you! Admit it – to hearing that Gov. Sebelius got the nod for HHS Secretary was “Hm. I wonder whether she’s paid her taxes.”

Nope. The funny part is that this process isn’t going to stop for months.

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(Via Hot Air Headlines) This is in the context of mentioning President Obama’s recent military speech, and in the context of discussing the fairly obvious – to people with functioning neural tissue, at least – points that the President is coasting on Bush’s successful surge strategy; and that our failure to actually have an ambassador to Iraq at the moment is, put simply, dumb. With that out of the way, Brose went on to ask the President to at least note the victories of the previous administration. Brose did not also ask for a magical elixir that would cure cancer, warts, and the galloping staggers, although I’m not sure why. He didn’t stand that much less of chance of getting it (bolding mine):

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Here’s the thing: I’ve met Michael Barone. I know that he’s smart. Frighteningly so, in fact. And I know that he pays attention to details, in ways that usually startle the living life out of people who aren’t used to it. In other words, this is an aware guy that we’re talking about.

So why the surprise, here?

All of which brings to mind the report of a conservative blogger who watched George W. Bush’s 2005 inaugural speech with a group of liberals. Every time Bush called for spreading freedom and democracy around the world, the crowd guffawed and groaned and jeered. For them, evidently, Bush was a figure of fun, and his calls for democracy and human rights laughable. The same people who decried his supposed authoritarian rule at home had nothing but contempt for his call for freedom and democracy abroad.

Beneath this stated contempt is, I think, something in the nature of secret guilt. Or rather, anger at the notion that Bush had stolen the issues of human rights and democracy from the liberals.

The desire to oppose the Iraq war root and branch, to denounce every aspect of it, imposed a duty to dismiss as laughable Bush’s stated objective — set out eloquently before the decision to take military action as well as after it — of advancing democracy in the Middle East. A duty to side with those, like the National Intelligence Council nominee, who have long held that governance in the style of Saudi Arabia or Syria is the best that can be hoped for in that region, and the best for all concerned. A duty to dismiss with contempt, or simply to ignore, the rather remarkable strides of the Iraqis themselves made after enduring decades of brutal tyranny.

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You may have remembered that Ms. Daly had been placed by the Obama White House last month in its counsel office, despite the fact that she has no actual legal credentials. It was widely assumed – justifiably, in my opinion – that this was due to the fact that she’s quite the political sheet-sniffer, which was apparently what the administration thought that it needed right now.

Apparently the DNC needs her more:

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Instapundit linked to an article about the Tea Parties, and the tech that they’re using:

Anti-stimulus tea parties light up Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and social media

In the latest example of how user-produced media can capture so-called “massively-shared” events in a way mainstream media can’t, a wave of images, blog posts and videos from a nationwide protest has been washing across the Web. The protests, dubbed “tea parties” by participants, were held Friday in several U.S. cities including Portland and Washington, D.C. as a response to what demonstrators see as unfettered spending and encroaching government as represented by President Obama’s economic recovery plans.

[snip]

Though even a year ago it would’ve been a slow and difficult process to chronicle a widely scattered protest such as this, the online community is now mastering the art of high-speed media sharing, a trend that can unite geographically disparate communities via the Web. Much of the sharing is now facilitated by the fast-growing messaging site Twitter, where today the keyword “teaparty” was one of the most frequently used terms. Users sent out a flurry of updates about attendance, links to photos on Flickr and Photobucket, and videos on YouTube and other sites.

The protests appeared to be rather small and did not attract much coverage in the mainstream new media. But interested observers had a remote window into the activities taking place in cities such as Tulsa, Okla., Austin, Texas, Nashville, Chicago, Lansing, Mich., Houston, Hartford, Conn., and Los Angeles, where a group that gathered this morning on the Santa Monica pier. (This blog reports that, as a part of that action, former “Saturday Night Live” actor Victoria Jackson read the definition of “socialism”).

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Glenn Reynolds has two very large links (here and here [the latter being the main page; the link's goofed up for some reason]). See also Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, the Repurblican, Gateway Pundit, GayPatriot, Riehl World View, Ace of Spades, and a whole bunch of others for details. The biggest one was in St Louis, with about a thousand on hand; I’m going to guess that they probably broke ten thousand nationwide. Not bad for a movement two weeks old, and made up of a bunch of people who all work for a living.

At least, it’s not bad today. Clearly, now that we’re starting to understand the operating principles, the next wave of these are going to have to kick it up a notch…

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…was a parody after all. For those who don’t remember, DABA was Dating a Banker Anonymous, which purported to be the blog of a bunch of women who were having to deal with the horrors of being involved with men who suddenly weren’t rich. I mentioned it here and here, which is one reason why I’m bringing it up again now; there may be somebody who cares enough to appreciate the correction.

The other reason?
Aretha, of course.

Hey, I put up Donna Summer the last time. Fair’s fair.

Moe Lane

PS: Just in case she ever reads this: madam, my wife loved your hat.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

He’s already filed to run for the House seat on the Republican side. Charles is a Honolulu City Councilman, Army Reserve officer, and law professor; plugged into Facebook and MySpace; decently sound on the issues; and is apparently already endorsed by Gov. Lingle and the Hawaii GOP (H/T: BackyardConservative). Cook currently ranks it as D+7; but both Bush and Lingle did well in the district.

And, most importantly, fairly solid speculation has it that current incumbent Neil Abercrombie will be running for Governor next year. Even if he doesn’t get the nomination for that, Abercrombie’s focus will be elsewhere, and Djou’s actually doing well in fundraising so far. So keep an eye on this race; and if you’re a Republican from Hawaii, I suggest that you think about helping out with either time or money.

Because every Congressional race counts.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

Get over it, and stop with the one-handed typing on this story. Contra your increasingly wild-eyed protestations to the contrary, this story started with your pet failed sportscaster babbling about Bobby Jindal being 75 miles from New Orleans, mostly because he’s just smart enough to read what people like you put in front of him, and too dumb to read a map. And now that enough people from the Louisiana that’s in Reality Non-Unicorn have shown up to point this out, you’re trying to base your increasingly shaky case on a post that Ben Smith just keeps having to clarify and clarify and clarify. He’s at the stage where the Jindal people literally calling BS on this story, which puts us right back to the fact that this says nothing about Bobby Jindal, and everything about your inability to get past skin color.

Oh, and before you tell me that you don’t believe Jindal’s aides, shall we listen to the late Sheriff Lee himself? This is from when he endorsed Bobby for Governor: unlike you, he saw the content of the man’s character rather than the color of his skin.

God save me from the racism of the Online Left.  God save us all, in fact.

Moe Lane

PS: Thank you for confirming that you’re afraid of him. The smart thing would have been to just let the speech go.

PPS: I have to ask: is there sexing involved with this? Did they promise that you could wear the moose head during your session? – Because I have to say, you’re showing all the signs of being a person who has five hundred slightly different drawings of Sarah Palin being punched in the face saved on your hard drive.

NO. REALLY.

But I want to take issue with what I assume, perhaps incorrectly, to be yoiur citation of the conventional wisdom about the 6/4 [or Tiananmen] incident. I find the dominant view in China about this very plausible, i.e. that the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities was the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud, rather than — as would have been both wise and efficacious — to intervene with force when all other measures had failed to restore domestic tranquility to Beijing and other major urban centers in China. In this optic, the Politburo’s response to the mob scene at “Tian’anmen” stands as a monument to overly cautious behavior on the part of the leadership, not as an example of rash action.

Via Doubleplusundead, who I think is as appalled as I am. Freeman goes on to slam the Bonus Army of 1932 and endorse Hoover’s suppression of it, which is certainly an… interesting position for a Democratic politician to take.  Although not as interesting as calling the deliberate murder of almost a thousand civilians as the “dilatory tactics of appeasement.”  Where does President Obama keep finding these people?

Moe Lane

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

They’re apparently loving it, in fact.

K Street rebounds as many firms sign clients at fast pace

K Street’s economy appears to be on the rebound as a number of firms are reporting a sharp increase in new clients, a trend lobbyists attributed to the new president’s far-reaching agenda.

The combination of a deepening recession and the distraction of the 2008 campaign, which kept Congress out of session for much of the latter half of last year, were blamed for pushing lobbying revenues down in 2008.

Since Nov. 4, however, several top firms have signed new clients at a pace exceeding the growth periods that followed previous election cycles. Lobbyists credited the recently passed stimulus package and anticipated policy fights touching on the energy, healthcare and financial-services sectors for the uptick.

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Like Gateway Pundit, I didn’t think Bobby Jindal’s speech was bad*, but this DC Examiner article by Byron York is still of interest:

“A Major Doctrinal Shift for Republicans”

I just got off the phone with a very plugged-in Republican strategist who told me that Republican reaction to President Obama’s speech, which the party will roll out in the next few days, will mark the beginning of a new GOP approach to opposing the president’s initiatives. (No, Bobby Jindal’s ineffective response was not part of that new approach — everyone seems a little embarrassed about that.) The Republican leadership in the House has concluded that in the stimulus debate, the GOP succeeded in dominating a number of news cycles but failed to score any points on actual policy. That, the leaders believe, has got to change.

“You’re seeing a major doctrinal shift in how Republicans are going to focus all these debates,” the strategist told me. “The key is to focus on winning the issue as opposed to winning the political moment. If you win the issue, people will think you are ready to govern.”

[snip]

Just a few weeks ago, House Republicans cheered and high-fived each other for unanimously opposing the stimulus. Now, having realized they won the soundbite contest but lost the war, they don’t want to talk about it. That is a major shift indeed.

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I have two thoughts on this story (sort of H/T Instapundit*)

Holder Hints at Ending DEA Raids on Medical Marijuana

Attorney General Holder was speaking at a press conference Wednesday about Operation XCellerator, a crackdown on Mexican drug cartels, when a reporter asked him about the DEA’s stance on the raids. The reporter mentioned some raids that occurred right after the inauguration but before Holder’s confirmation, then he asked Holder if he would continue the raids policy under his tenure.

Holder joked, “What the president said during the campaign, you will be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement.” After a bit of laughter, he repeated, “What he said during the campaign is now American policy.”

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People vs. Foranyic. Some keywords:

Bicycle.
Axe.
Methamphetamine.
Stygian darkness.

It really is very well written; clear, concise, grammatical, and with a certain lively wit that suggests that the author took the time and effort that the subject matter demanded. I have no idea who J. Bedsworth is, but I still like the cut of his or her jib. And I also like jdub of Ace of Spades HQ for showing it to me.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

Note plural.

Mistake #1: picking an Attorney General and administration spokesman who doesn’t even know current firearms law.

Eric Holder was on today announcing that the Obama administration was going to bring back the “assault weapons” ban. As Purple Avenger of Ace of Spades notes, this is the same guy who called for making armor piercing bullets (“cop-killers”) illegal…

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(Via Protein Wisdom)

There are two things about Michael Totten that make his account of Chris Hitchens versus the Syrian Nazis of interest:

1. He’s an on-site reporter for that region for several years now, with a well-deserved reputation of being a straight shooter who reports what he sees as well as what he’s told;
2. He was actually there.

So read the whole thing. It will be unsurprising to anyone reading this that Totten’s account is nothing like the rather fevered speculation that Ace referenced here, and that Dan Collins reaction-lampooned here: it has all the messiness that one associates with a true account. Hitchens got offended by a fascist symbol enough to deface; the fascists got offended by his defacing it, and showed up in enough numbers to let them attack a few middle-aged men until one of their targets could get a taxi to take them away.  No Hollywood heroics, just a confrontation where the good guys were in a bad tactical position, and they took some lumps because of it.  The good news? Totten learned the right lesson from this: don’t waste time reasoning with fascists. Have your own backup on speed dial, instead.

Yes, that advice scales up.

Moe Lane

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

(Followup to this post)

The bad news, of course, is that majority party Democrats are adamant against having any investigation into whether there are links between campaign contributions and earmarks in bills – which is very interesting, given that they control Congress, and thus can presumably make sure that the proceedings are fair…

The House voted Wednesday to kill a resolution calling for an ethics investigation into potential quid pro quo between lobbyist campaign donations and lawmakers.

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., sponsored the proposal that would have forced the House Ethics Committee to launch a probe into ties between the source and timing of campaign contributions by lobbyists and subsequent legislator requests for special projects or earmarks.

While open-ended, Flake’s resolution was a direct response to the ongoing federal investigation into the PMA Group, a lobbying company accused of making fraudulent donations to lawmakers using names of people who did not exist.

The firm, which has contributed millions to politicians in the last decade, has close ties to senior Democratic appropriators including Reps. John Murtha D-Pa., and Pete Visclosky,D-Ind. The FBI raided PMA’s headquarters in November and is investigating the group’s founder and president, Paul Magliochetti, a former Murtha aide.

Ah. That might be the problem, right there.

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(Via Patterico) Not at all likely, but definitely funny:

Murdoch on the prowl for print sales

NEW YORK — Rupert Murdoch’s counterintuitive quest to invest in print media helped drive away longtime lieutenant Peter Chernin.

And now that Chernin can’t intercede, does Murdoch want to follow News Corp.’s $5 billion buyout of Dow Jones by gobbling up the struggling New York Times Co.?

The answer appears to be yes, as impossible as present economic conditions make it for most deals of any kind to get done.

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As in, Obama needs to stay on his side of the line drawn by it:

Byrd: Obama in power grab

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), the longest-serving Democratic senator, is criticizing President Obama’s appointment of White House “czars” to oversee federal policy, saying these executive positions amount to a power grab by the executive branch.

In a letter to Obama on Wednesday, Byrd complained about Obama’s decision to create White House offices on health reform, urban affairs policy, and energy and climate change. Byrd said such positions “can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

While it’s rare for Byrd to criticize a president in his own party, Byrd is a stern constitutional scholar who has always stood up for the legislative branch in its role in checking the power of the White House.

Not to mention a former Klansman, but the netroots have never cared about that before; why should they start now?

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As you know, it’s in response to the PMA meltdown/outrage (see here for some background posts):

Rep. Flake targets earmarks amidst PMA controversy
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), the House’s most vocal critic of pork barrel spending, is trying to shake the ethics committee into action on the link between earmarks and campaign contributors.

Flake has seized on the public corruption investigation of PMA Group, a once-powerful lobbying force that has disintegrated in the wake of an FBI probe into fraudulent campaign donations to numerous members of Congress.

In the past 24 hours, Flake has highlighted earmarks in the omnibus appropriations bill for PMA clients, written a scathing op-ed to The New York Times about Congress’s pay-to-play practices and offered a privileged resolution on the House floor that would force the House ethics panel to scrutinize the connection between earmarks and campaign cash and report back to the full body in two months.

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