It Don't Just Spin, It Whirrs

Mitt Romney's people attack Newt Gingrich for flip-flopping and supporting a health care mandate and being unelectable. As you suspect, my issue with this strategy is not that it's wrong, it's that its unimaginative. Can't you guys look beyond your own little worlds and find something to accuse each other of that you haven't been accused of yourself? Please? 


All I'm expecting out of this race is entertainment, and you're not giving it up.

Yok Yok!

Reince Priebus, making a little joke about the 17 people who died last month off the coast of Tuscany.



Refresh my memory -- what's the definition of sociopath?

Treaties! Hunh! What Are They Good For? Absolutely Nothin'!

Fiscal conservative hero Newt Gingrich's plan to build an All-American Colony on the moon.



There are a few problems with this plan. Among them - it will be awfully hard to pay for this moonbase without raising taxes. Putting money into researching new ideas (instead of "technologies that are 50 years old") well, that's what got Obama in trouble with this Solyndra thing. And if we turn most of the development over to private enterprise, the moonbase won't be American - it'll belong to Richard Branson.

But maybe the most interesting flaw in Gingrich's extremely well-though-out plan is this - we have a treaty with the Soviets and the British forbidding the claiming of space for national interests. We can build there, but we can't declare it a state.

Far Left Liberal Website Calls For Moderation

Wonkette isn't all that far left liberal, or at least they're willing to throw a liberal under the bus if there's a good laugh in it. And today, they turned their special branded sarcasm to a recently published study.

Hey look! It’s that time of year again, and the semi-annual release of some or another study claiming that conservatives are stupid has finally landed on liberal doorsteps across America. Perfect timing, really! Since, you know, the one thing the country needs right now more than just about anything else is yet another excuse to avoid the hard work of looking at those we disagree with as equal partners in a national conversation, people who we must engage with and convince—and, oh, maybe as a result challenge ourselves to check our work and, you know, make better arguments! But hey, now we can all let ourselves off the hook and just deride them as all a bunch of idiots who aren’t even worth talking to in the first place. Thank you, science! Yes, this is quite obviously how we will move forward together as a nation. (It was the dramatic improvement in the quality of the national discourse evidenced after the last two dozen times a study like this was published that gives us so much faith.)

I'm with these guys. Demonizing the opposing party by calling them sub-human (or in the case of Pat Robertson, literal demons) does not lead to solutions. Now and then, it leads to genocide. We all want a better country and our only difference is how best to achieve it. And there is no rational reason to assume the brains are distributed differently on either side.

RETREAT! RETREAT!

I'm interested to see this editorial by Joe Trippi on the FoxNews website. It's pretty obvious advice but we're at the point where the base may not allow the change in strategy. Trippi keys off the reaction to the SOTU speech.

Sadly, and not surprisingly, reaction in the Capitol was one sided to even the most agreeable statements. Speaker John Boehner couldn't even get to his feet in agreement when Obama said that "everyone gets a fair shot, everyone pays their fair share, and everyone plays by the rules." And Republicans mystifyingly didn't rise in applause when Obama basically agreed with one of the pillars of their political strategy in saying, "it's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: no bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts."

...Some may not have liked seeing the president fire such a salvo on an opponent in such a setting. But that's politics.

And that's the way things are in Washington with just 286 days until the general election. With Romney and Newt Gingrich brawling in primary states, the president did an effective job of setting himself apart from that type of politics. Can he be brought down? Not likely if the GOP demonstrates the stoic and blind opposition we saw Tuesday night.

Look, I'm not trying to minimize damage to Republicans. If I thought anyone read my opinions, let alone agreed with 'em, I'd have kept quiet about this. But honestly how many of their own ideas can the Republicans call socialism before they lose a generation of voters? Not many more, I'm betting.

Incidentally, about Boehner: I didn't watch the whole speech but I hear that the only time he appeared to smile was when he said he had the great honor of introducing the President of the United States. What the hell kind of messaging is that? Pro-Obama, anti-fairness? Good luck in November, amigos.

State Of The Union

Didn't watch, past the first half hour. I wasn't going to watch that, but I had time to kill.

SOTU adresses are pure unvarnished campaign speeches, nothing else. There is no point in watching them. Where they are useful is seeing how the talking point polled, because if all those little calls to action turn out to be popular, but go unheeded by the lawmakers, then the lawmakers are screwed. So rather than watch the speech, watch the polling.

Quote Of The Day: Tryin' Too Hard Edition

"I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that’s the America millions of Americans believe in. That’s the America I love.”

-Mitt Romney's stump speech, hat tip to Mark Steyn of all people

Just Throwin' It Out There

Dr. Keith Ablow wrote this in the opinion section of FoxNews.com.

1) Three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him.

2) Two of these women felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married.

3 ) One of them felt this way even though Mr. Gingrich was already married for the second time, was not exactly her equal in the looks department and had a wife (Marianne) who wanted to make his life without her as painful as possible.

Conclusion: When three women want to sign on for life with a man who is now running for president, I worry more about whether we’ll be clamoring for a third Gingrich term, not whether we’ll want to let him go after one.

You cannot run from the awesome charisma of the Newt. Don't try to fight it. And quit being so hung up on this "moral values" crap. By the way:

Dr. Keith Ablow is a psychiatrist and member of the Fox News Medical A-Team. Dr. Ablow can be reached at info@keithablow.com. His team of Life Coaches can be reached at lifecoach@keithablow.com.

In case you need marriage counseling.

Hadn't Reagan Been President for a Whole Term by 1984?

I'll be honest -- I'm only posting this because I think Santorum is an easier opponent than Romney or Gingrich, but I gotta admire the cinematography also.

Follow The Oil

Federalism rears its magnificent head today in the form of a veto -- President Obama is said to be ready to announce he will veto the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, because he is forced to decide now in order for the payroll tax entension to go through. The pipe is being rerouted and as of today, no one can say where the pipe will be.

So there are two things now that the Republicans are willing to throw under the bus for the sake of their oil company buddies. The first was a payroll tax extension - normally they wouldn't even consider blocking a tax cut but they used the occasion to force Obama to agree to this oil pipeline, and once he did the bill went through. Now they are also up in arms because the President isn't FORCING STATES TO ALLOW CONTRUCTION of a pipelene across them.

If only there was a way to get oil from Canada across the states without using a pipeline! This will destroy our economy.

A Dream Come True

Yes I know that Obama has low approval ratings, but it looks like he'll either be running against Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum in November. These are dream opponents.

If nothing else it appears that the Tea Party isn't pulling the strings of the RNC any more.

Quote of the Day, JUST LIKE I WAS TELLING YOU Edition

We need contrasts, not just a paler shade of what we have.”

-- Rick Santorum, speaking about Mitt O'Bromney

Quote Of The Day

"And with regards to their ads, I haven’t seen them… But let me tell you this, the ad I saw said that you’d been forced out of the speakership. That was correct." 

--  Mitt Romney

This Will Only Help the Birthers

That "anyone but Obama" thing has gotten a little more interesting this morning with news that Mitt Romney won the Iowa caucus. Mind you, just barely - he literally beat Santorum by eight votes. I'm still rooting for Santorum, because he smart! He win debate with Obummer! But Romney at least failed to get the Iowa beatdown that one might have expected, begging the question, what's the difference between Romney and Obama? They've both spearheaded a government-based health-care system (actually the same one!) they're both much too centrist for anyone's liking. Arguably neither one is a real Christian though they both are Christian.

Usually at this point in the narrative I'd call attention to Mitt Romney's more agreeable racial features, but it's clear what really turns off Republicans about Obama more than Romney - Romney hasn't secretly travelled to Mars.

Two former participants in the CIA’s Mars visitation program of the early 1980’s have confirmed that U.S. President Barack H. Obama was enrolled in their Mars training class in 1980 and was among the young Americans from the program who they later encountered on the Martian surface after reaching Mars via “jump room.”

Their astonishing revelations provide a new dimension to the controversy surrounding President Obama’s background and pose the possibility that it is an elaborate ruse to conceal Obama’s participation as a young man in the U.S. secret space program.

The ability to tranport to a different planet! It's not fair! The founding fathers didn't want one man to have that much power, because it's just one step away from time travel, which Obama employed to fake the evidence surrounding his "birth". In fact, the founding fathers had specifically mentioned it in the constitution, but it is mysteriously NOT THERE NOW.

Once can easily imagine a scenario where Obama went back in time and replace qualified Republican candidates with unappealing buffoons.

Quote Of The Day - Probable Front Runner Edition

"I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money"

 -Rick Santorum, who knows there are no white folk on welfare.

Quote Of The Day, Pulling A Boehner Edition

"Why not do the right thing for the American people, even though it’s not exactly what we want."

-John Boehner

Betcha Didn't Know C-Span Doesn't Control the Feed

The Speaker of the House does!

Merry Christmas, Mr. Obama ***Updated***

"Has this place become so dysfunctional that even when people agree to things we can't do it?"

-President Obama, concerning this.

I'm not sure if Fox News is covering this, but what it amounts to is the Congressional Republicans have decided to dig in their heels and not extend a payroll tax cut. I know, weird right? Just as unemployment drops again they seem to think the best thing for the country is to raise taxes on the middle class. Maybe they are upset because there hasn't also been an even bigger tax cut for the rich. Maybe they somehow think that the country will blame Obama for the failure, even though he's all over the news saying please extend this and John Boehner is all over the news saying, no, no, forget it.

It's not just me pointing out this looks bad for Republicans. The Wall Street Journal, for example.

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play. Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter...

Anyone outside of the liberal mainstream media think the same way? Karl Rove. Of course to be fair, Rove did more than anyone to ensure that a Democrat won the 2008 election. Don't trust him!

***Update*** The House finally voted on the bill a few hours after I wrote this, apparently on the assurances by President Obama that he wouldn't veto it with the provision to approve the Keystone Oil Pipeline included. What this means to me (yes this is spin) is that Republicans are willing to raise taxes and even throw their own poll numbers into the toilet as long as they can serve Conoco. Conoco is a harsh mistress!

Chugging Up the First Hill

Since it's increasingly obvious that Ron Paul is going to be the Republican nominee -- God forbid it would be some guy who is polling well among moderates -- here is a handy guide to the conservative platform for the next eight years.

Further Evidence That Fox Doesn't Want Romney

They're going so far as to talk smack about invading Iran if Romney says he's for it.

To be fair to poppa bear, I don't know what his thinking has been on the subject in the past. Maybe this is perfectly consistant. Anybody wanna help me out here?