‘Democrats have sown the wind and could reap the windbag’

Favorite politics-as-politics line of the day, from Kevin Williamson:

Democrats have sown the wind and could reap the windbag — or a Texas tornado

Kevin Williamson sometimes sounds about as sweet as a boiling bucket of bile, but other times—OK, oftentimes—the man has a way with words.  He has other great lines in this piece alone.

Admitting Too Much? Obama and Israel

In light of Obama’s well-known* anti-Israel record (saying that Israel “doesn’t know what its best interests are”, calling Netanyahu a “coward”,  giving free tanks and fighter jets to the Muslim Brotherhood president of Egypt who thinks the people of Israel are “bloodsuckers” and “the descendants of apes and pigs” for whom Egyptian children should be “breastfed hatred”, etc., etc.), some wonder why he’s even bothering to visit Israel now.  NPR, no Republican mouthpiece, practically admits that it’s just a cynical ploy to ingratiate himself with Israelis so that he can better sell them an unfavorable peace agreement with those who would destroy them:

‘They Said It! White House Official Says Obama’s GOP Outreach Is A “Joke”’

Via the Republican Party, “Senior White House Official Says Obama’s GOP Outreach Is ‘A Joke’ And ‘Wasting’ Time”:  Ron Fournier at National Journal writes,

He is dining with Republicans after advisers openly mocked suggestions that he do so. He is visiting Capitol Hill after telling aides that such a gesture was beneath him and the dignity of his office. . . .

Obama’s sudden burst of public outreach coincides with a drop in his approval ratings . . . . This raises the uncomfortable question: Is this schmooze-a-thon a legitimate act of humility and leadership or a cynical public display?

News Flash: Sequester Not the End of the World

First, the Obama administration and the liberal news media tried to tell us that cutting a small fraction of the federal budget for this year (a. k. a. “the sequester”) would inflict unspeakable misery on America.  Then they said, No, wait, never mind, you probably won’t even notice it!

Now that the much-anticipated day has arrived, Jim Geraghty has a hilarious round-up of satirical conservative reactions.  More under #OnTheSceneSequesterReport.

State of the Union 2013: Not Great

Even the liberals (and they were clearly liberals) at Politico, in their live video response after the speech, said most of it was a real “snoozer”.

If you missed the State of the Union address last night (script, video), basically the president said that he sees the millions of people and private-sector entities in America as so many finger puppets, but that fortunately, as the guy who runs the government, he thinks he has millions of fingers.

Skip the State of the Union.  Just watch Marco Rubio’s response (text), which was very good (except for the parts that weren’t):

All Partisan Scorched Earth, All the Time

In the Washington Examiner, Conn Carroll has a good line:

It is going to be all partisan scorched earth all the time, again, for four more years.

Obama will have changed Washington. But for the worse.

Read the whole thing.  Further excerpts:

Liberals, including Obama, love to cite Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s, R-Ky., line that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” They claim it proves that Republicans were never willing to work with Obama from day one. But McConnell did not utter that line until October 2010, 22 months after Emanuel said, “F[   ] ’em.” Republicans were willing to work with Obama. He just wouldn’t let them.

For Top Liberals, Reality Still Optional

Larry Kudlow discusses the current “negotiations” in Congress about raising taxes and/or cutting spending:

Even the Washington Post is criticizing Obama for failing to deliver a specific plan regarding entitlement and non-entitlement spending cuts.

(Links added.)

(Don’t take my word for it—follow the links and read all about it!)

Update (November 29th, 2012):  Jim Geraghty also gets a good line in:

. . . I’m not sure Obama really understands negotiating.

Ads: America Less Safe under Obama, Sherrod Brown Responsible for Obamacare and Unemployment

Here are some ads you may or may not have heard recently.  I heard this on the radio today:

‘If Obama ordered the military to “secure our personnel,” where is the order?’

Former Assistant Secretary of Defense Bing West discusses the Benghazi story, which continues to develop.

If General Dempsey had concluded that the U.S. military should do nothing, he would have reported his decision not to act back to his commander-in-chief before the latter went to bed to rest up for his campaign trip to Las Vegas the next day. After all, the ambassador was still missing. And brave Tyrone Woods was to die in a mortar attack five hours later. President Obama would naturally be more than a bit interested in why the military and the CIA did nothing after he explicitly ordered them “to make sure we are securing our personnel.”

A Very Unscientific Survey: Romney Ahead among Independents in Ohio

Out of the last 25 people I’ve called (who answered the phone and were willing to take a survey), 56% are likely to vote for Romney, only 12% for Obama.  12% said they were still undecided; 16% declined to answer.  (The remaining one respondent said that politicians are awful and he won’t be voting for either of them.)

Other conservatives working in the trenches report similar results (warning: language).

Four Questions about President Obama

(This entry has been researched and written by request.)

1 — Are you better off today than when President Obama took office?

Most Americans aren’t.  Officially, according to the U. S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate was 7.6% in January 2009, when President Obama took office, and 7.8% last month.  (National Conference of State Legislatures, “Unemployment Drops to 7.8 Percent in September 2012”, October 5th, 2012.)  It’s even worse than that—the official unemployment rate doesn’t count all the people who have given up on finding work (they are said to have “dropped out of the labor force”).  As has been pointed out, “if the same share of people were participating in the work force today as on the day the president got elected, our unemployment rate would be around 11 percent.”  Even the New York Times admits that that’s true.  (New York Times, “Fact-Check: An 11 Percent Unemployment Rate?” Catherine Rampell, October 5th, 2012.)

The Human Cost

Americans for Prosperity has a new ad out:

Gallup: Romney Won Debate 72-20

Last week I related that, according to a CNN poll, 67% of people who watched the debate last Wednesday thought Romney won, while only 25% thought Obama won.  Today Gallup reports an even bigger Romney win:

Those who viewed the debate overwhelmingly believe Romney did a better job than Obama, 72% to 20%. Republicans were nearly unanimous in judging Romney the winner. But even Democrats rated Romney as doing a better job than Obama, 49% to 39%.

(Emphasis added.)

As with the CNN poll, I can say again with this one:  Not to put too fine a point on it, Romney did better than anyone else ever:

Obama Voted to Perpetuate Modern-day Infant Exposure

The Susan B. Anthony List and the Women Speak Out PAC have an ad about infanticide that apparently will air during tonight’s presidential debate:

Crossroads Generation: Is It Everything You Hoped? Plus: In His Own Words, Again

Via Red State, a new ad from Crossroads Generation suggests that it’s time to move on:

Did Obama Administration Really ‘Repeal’ or ‘Gut’ Welfare Reform?

Did the Obama administration really “repeal” or “gut” welfare reform?  A lot of people are arguing about it lately.

The short answer appears to be Yes, with qualifications.

Even at Slate, no right-wing rag, David Weigel writes,

Has the HHS “gutted” welfare reform?

It’s at least cracked open the door for the people who might gut it. . . .

. . . The only non-“gutting” theory I can come up gives HHS rather a lot of credit.

He links to Mickey Kaus (who he says “owns this beat”; whom Newsbusters describes as a “[p]ro-welfare reform Democratic journalist”), who writes,

Still Didn’t Build That; Chick-fil-A

I know I already mentioned the Tumblr blog Didn’t build that .com, but this one made me laugh out loud:

‘You Didn’t Build That’

As you’ve no doubt heard, President Obama said recently, “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.”  (Previously linked on this blog, John Kass and Mark Steyn comment.)

It’s turning into a whole big thing.  Via Disrupt the Narrative, I give you a site that was too funny not to pass on:  Didn’t build that .com.

Via that site, an opinion piece at Townhall.com has a good line:

Well, two can play at that game. If you’re one of the millions of Americans counted as part of the eight percent unemployed, you didn’t get there on your own. Somebody else made that happen. And he’s running for reelection.

“He certainly carries it forward from one dam speech to another.”

Mark Steyn, as usual, is must-read material:

So, in his “you didn’t build that” speech, he invoked, yet again, the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge.  “When we invested in the Hoover Dam or the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Internet, sending a man to the moon — all those things benefited everybody. And so that’s the vision that I want to carry forward.”

Recommended

A few interesting readings I’ve run across recently:

1.

Via Rush Limbaugh, John Kass responds to President Obama’s recent comments with a tribute to his hard-working father, and the rest of his family, who ran a small business.

(President Obama said last Friday, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.”  That’s not taken out of context; on the contrary, in context, it sounds even worse.  Don’t take my word for it; read as much of the context as you’d like.)

2.

Project Veritas, run by James O’Keefe, appears to have caught union bosses on video agreeing to help get government money (that’s your money) to pay people to dig holes and fill them back in: