Sadly, No!

Instaputz catches Rich Lowry in flagrant defapo:

That’ll teach Ana Marie Cox to shut up about assfucking.

Anyway, Instaputz reports (I’m not gonna watch) that Lowry was denouncing Markos Moulitsas as an extremist. That’s rich, Lowry!

Glenn Reynolds, The Washington so-called Examiner:
Glenn Reynolds: Nashville Shows Tea Party Is America’s Third Great Awakening

• Taco Bell Chihuahua: Deliciousness of Gordita Supreme Liberates America to Think Outside Bun.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

Shorter John Yoo
The Weekly Standard
“Getting it Backwards: Obama Misunderstands his Constitutional Role”

• Great Presidents don’t bother with domestic issues; great Presidents exercise their prerogative to blow shit up and have people tortured all over the world. Barack Obama is not a great President.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

MOAR: Sez Yoo:

When Thomas Jefferson entered office 210 years ago, Chief Justice John Marshall warned that Jefferson would “embody himself in the House of Representatives.” This would “increase his personal power,” Marshall predicted, but it would lead to the “weakening of the office of the President.” The chief justice meant that his political rival (and distant cousin) would gain power by joining forces with his party’s legislative majorities. But the combination would realize the Framers’ fear that Congress would come to dominate the executive branch.

Funny, I was just reading a bit on Marshall’s opinion of his cousin last night. “The Democrats are divided into speculative theorists and absolute terrorists. With the latter I am disposed to class Mr. Jefferson.” Many things never change; one is the fear and loathing of the reactionary (Marshall, Yoo) for the perceived left-radical (Jefferson, Obama), another is that perceived left-radicals are never all that radical except to further rightwing interests. Witness, Obama’s extension of most of Bush’s programs and Jefferson’s corrupt when not illegal Western policies.

Anyway, since Yoo constantly invokes the Framers, they reserved for Congress alone the most powerful responsibility over foreign policy: the right to declare war — a fact Yoo omits to mention but then he and people like him have done much to usurp that power for the Executive branch.

Jacob Weisberg, who is apparently working overtime to give Sarah Palin a lifetime’s worth of material for examples of liberal elitism, lashes out at the American public:

In trying to explain why our political paralysis seems to have gotten so much worse over the past year, analysts have rounded up a plausible collection of reasons including: President Obama’s tactical missteps, the obstinacy of congressional Republicans, rising partisanship in Washington, the blustering idiocracy of the cable-news stations, and the Senate filibuster, which has devolved into a super-majority threshold for any important legislation. These are all large factors, to be sure, but that list neglects what may be the biggest culprit in our current predicament: the childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.

Anybody who says you can’t have it both ways clearly hasn’t been spending much time reading opinion polls lately. One year ago, 59 percent of the American public liked the stimulus plan, according to Gallup. A few months later, with the economy still deeply mired in recession, a majority of the same size said Obama was spending too much money on it. There’s nothing wrong with changing your mind, of course, but opinion polls over the last year reflect something altogether more troubling: a country that simultaneously demands and rejects action on unemployment, deficits, health care, climate change, and a whole host of other major problems. Sixty percent of Americans want stricter regulations of financial institutions. But nearly the same proportion says we’re suffering from too much regulation on business. That kind of illogic—or, if you prefer, susceptibility to rhetorical manipulation—is what locks the status quo in place.

Weisberg is, of course, a man of superior judgment. That’s why he helped Bob Rubin write a self-serving autobiography informing us of Rubin’s measured method of probabilistic decision making that gave him exception wisdom in both the business and the political world. And look at how well that’s turned out for him!

Now, I’ve been known to fume and rant about the fickleness of the American voter. They basically want you to balance the budget while cutting taxes and keeping the military, Medicare and Social Security fully funded. That’s, like, insane and so forth and also impossible.

So, OK, the typical American voter won’t ever win awards for deep understanding of policy issues. But I also don’t think Americans are particularly ideological in the sense that most of them either read the Nation or the National Review. Rather, they vote based on a key metric that I like to call the “Is This Guy’s Shit Working for Me?” quotient.

Put it to you like this: FDR was economically farther to the left than just about any president in American history — hell, can you imagine what Glenn Beck would do if Obama ordered the confiscation of all privately held gold as FDR did?

And yet, the American voters elected him to a record four terms as their president. Why? Because his shit was working for them. He took steps through the Works Progress Administration and other initiatives to significantly lower the nation’s horrendous employment situation. He set up Social Security to help ease older workers into retirement to make room for younger workers. The Wagner Act helped make organizing unions easier, which in turn helped people negotiate for better wages.

In other words, he decided that the best course of action during the Depression was to directly help people. Obama and his team of economic wizards so far have settled for a strategy of doing just enough to ensure the economy doesn’t collapse and nothing else. To put it politely, most people are correctly concluding that this shit isn’t working for them. 10% unemployment and a whopping 16% U6 are catastrophically high numbers that are causing immense psychological damage to millions of families across the country. The American people may not be policy wonks, but they know when they’re getting the shaft.

UPDATE: Here’s some classic stuff from Rubin, sounding just like Lord Weisberg:

[T]he economic problems that he did acknowledge were blamed on just about everyone but the major U.S. financial players.

Rubin said part of the problem is that we need a “more educated electorate” to hold politicians accountable. Without that, the U.S. won’t be able to overcome long-term economic challenges, like the troubles surrounding social security and budget deficits, or the new problems created by globalization.

Actually, what we need are more educated elites who know how to run a company without crashing it into the ground.

ABOVE: Troy Nelson(?) (left); improved American Thinker
Logo (left and right).

Shorter Troy Nelson, The American “Thinker”
The Super Bowl – It’s All About the “Sympathy” Vote

• Barry’s statement that he is rooting for the Saints is further proof that he is a socialist who wants to confiscate white wealth and give it to black “victims.” Me, I’m rooting for the white team. And, no matter how much the Superbowl broadcast begs for money for Haiti, I’m not giving a nickel to those “victims” either.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

A reader draws our attention to Mark Steyn’s fondness for the writings of Mark Steyn. No sense in quoting all the quotes, but awareness of all internet traditions requires that you read the whole thing.

Shorter Robert Wright
The New York Times
“The Internet vs. Obama”

• Talk about lobbyists! The internet, which is a rancorous aggregate of special interest groups, loudmouth rabble, and permanently outraged idiots, has basically destroyed the President’s ability to govern. By the way, I host a site called bloggingheads.tv where tepid, Village-approved near-liberals reasonably debate troglodyte reactionaries with an aim of reaching consensus, which is how the internet ought to be.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

So a Republican caller just dialed into NPR and asked, “Why are the Democrats complaining about Republican obstructionism when they control the White House, the House and have 59 senate votes?”

I spontaneously shouted out at my radio:

I’m not sure if it helped anything. But it sure felt good.

Perhaps the worst music video ever made.

HAZMAT disclaimer: “Starring Pat Boone, Directed by Roger L. Simon”. Cliff May gives it a thumbs up.

I watched it all the way through. My retinas are bleeding, and I just know my DNA has already begun to mutate. Tell my girlfriend I love her. Goodbye, Sadly, No.

Was Paul Kirk planning a one-man coup for a Senate seat? Thank goodness BigGovernment’s SusanAnne Hiller was on the case!

Senator Paul Kirk Must Resign His Seat This Morning
by SusanAnne Hiller

Reporting yesterday on Big Government, I reiterated the fact that interim Senator Paul Kirk should have resigned his Senate seat after the election.

Should have resigned his Senate seat. Got it.

However, Kirk certainly has no option but to vacate the MA Senate seat once Brown’s election is certified–all based on Massachusetts state law and Senate rules.

Certainly no option but to vacate the seat. Just so we’re clear. Loopholes? Not a one.

In following-up the story it is being reported by The Hill that Senator-elect Brown will be sworn in about 5PM Thursday, February 4th. …

In learning this information, I wanted to confirm when Senator Kirk was going to resign his interim Senate seat. Staff at Kirk’s office said that he would step down once Brown was sworn in.

OMFG! Constitutional crisis!

The MA law is very clear and Scott Brown will have met the requirements necessary; therefore, Kirk must step down as the senator from Massachusetts tomorrow morning, the moment Brown’s election is certified.

Don’t be coy with us, SusanAnneJoAnneMaryAnn — are you saying that Kirk has to step down from the Senate seat when Scott Brown is cleared to step into it? Because we didn’t get it the first 15 times you said it.

Brown complied with the MA law, won the election, qualified, and has a certified election. All he is asking, at this point, is to rightly and legally take his seat as the Senator from Massachusetts of which Kirk must vacate immediately on the morning of February 4th.

Alas, this never happened, the Eastern Seaboard fell into the ocean, our beloved country was extinguished by an enormous fireball and the terrorists won. DAMN YOU, KIRK!