President fully entangled in 9/11 Mosque affair.

There’s been a good deal of discussion over whether the President should have gotten involved with the conflict over whether to build a mosque in Ground Zero*.  Certainly the President himself has had second thoughts about that: his strong statement on Friday was followed up by a predictable backtrack on Saturday, and the anonymous sniping from his own administration officials over that was likewise inevitable.  But what probably should not be a point of contention is that the issue is getting in the President’s way on other things.

For example, remember the Gulf? – Because the President wishes that you had.  Unfortunately for him, President Obama’s comments last weekend completely fouled his later attempts to tout the Gulf for tourism**.

It was meant to be a quick family trip to the Gulf Coast to show that local beaches are safe for swimming and that the Obamas can vacation as humbly as the next family.

But President Obama’s visit was overshadowed by his foray into the dispute over the mosque planned near the former World Trade Center site, once again drowning out what was supposed to be a sharp, focused message.

Like it or not, but the country wants to talk about the mosque thing.  And they’re not happy about it – to the point where the President can’t count on majority support for this from his own party.  You know, that sounds familiar: I wonder if Barack Obama remembers the Dubai Ports matter?  I further wonder if he realizes that he’s currently in the middle of the equivalent to that unhappy time in American domestic politics.

Moe Lane Continue reading President fully entangled in 9/11 Mosque affair.

Book of the Week: World War Z.

I’m going with World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War mostly because I’m re-reading for some reason; I’m not entirely certain why. It’s certainly worth re-reading, but there was no particular triggering event that caused me to take it off the shelf. Odd.

But I’ve not forgotten The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression.

#rsrh Skeletons in Rangel *primary* challenger’s closet?

I say ‘primary’ because the likely Republican candidate – Rev. Michel Faulkner – in NY-15 does not, to the best of my knowledge, has a DUI arrest and two rape accusations hanging over him.  This would make him different from, say, Adam Clayton Powell IV, who is the likely primary challenger (H/T: Instapundit) to Rep. Charlie Rangel; and before anyone complains, it will readily be conceded that Powell was convicted of a lesser charge on the DUI situation.  It will even be readily conceded that the then 41-year old Powell claimed that the two sexual encounters (one of which was with his 19-year old intern) were consensual, and that neither woman (including the one with his 19-year old intern) followed through with pressing rape charges.

Again, I readily concede this.  Sure.  Adam Powell IV only drives almost drunk and gets permission before he schtupps his barely-legal employees.  No worries there, right? Continue reading #rsrh Skeletons in Rangel *primary* challenger’s closet?

#rsrh Whatever happened to the Coffee Party?

…So wonders Le-gal In-sur-rec-tion.  I believe that the answer is the same as what happens to any cargo cult organization designed to fake a genuinely populist sentiment fails (as they usually do): it withers and dies, and then vultures pick at the corpse.

Besides, this new Eff Tea group is really much more suitable for the Online Left: no need for a movement, anything resembling actual participation, or even a more elaborate message.  Just buy the T-shirt and m0ve, as they say, on.

#rsrh Schrodinger’s Greene (D CAND, SC-SEN)

(Via Hot Air Headlines) The Huffington Post is highly upset (but hiding it fairly well) that Sen John Cornyn of the NRSC is happily using the awkwardness that is the Alvin Greene candidacy for pushback against the Left’s peculiar notion that the Democratic party is somehow the mainstream one of the two in American politics.  Normally, I wouldn’t care overmuch for how much this upsets the HuffPo; but it’s funny to see a website so discombobulated that it can’t even keep track of its own argument.  To wit:

And yet, the unemployed veteran — who never did any formal campaigning — has been the most covered candidate of any running for office this cycle.

[snip]

And to the extent that voters are not aware of how odd both he and his campaign truly are, the impression can be left that it is a high-profile Democrat (not some mysterious eccentric) whose skeletons are being dragged out of the closet.

Bolding mine, in both places.  It’s one or the other, HuffPo.  You can’t complain about Alvin Greene being the subject of massive media attention and then pretend that the voters aren’t then going to be aware of the… unique nature… of who Sen Cornyn’s talking about.  OK, fine, you can, but it just won’t work.

Unfair?  Since when did the Huffington Post care about fairness?  As I like to say: Karma.  It’s what’s for dinner.

Moe Lane

Mason-Dixon: Rubio ahead, if Meek’s in.

OK, I’m no Lord [Pollington] [oops!], but let’s unpack the Mason-Dixon poll for FL-SEN – which is bad news for Charlie Crist, and seriously bad news for the Democratic party of Florida that everybody expects Crist to join, just as soon as he can manage.  Below are the three major match-ups:

  • If the race is Marco Rubio for the GOP, Kendrick Meek for the Democrats, and Crist as the ‘independent,’ then the result is Rubio 38 / Crist 33 / Meek 18.
  • If the race is Rubio for the GOP, Jeff Greene for the Democrats, and Crist as the ‘independent,’ the result is Crist 39/ Rubio 38 / Greene 12.
  • In the primary, Meek leads Greene 40 / 26.

By the way: this represents a serious loss of support for Crist from Mason-Dixon.  Back in May Crist and Rubio’s numbers from that pollster were more or less flipped. Continue reading Mason-Dixon: Rubio ahead, if Meek’s in.

Democratic 2012 Massachusetts strategy: Kennedy.

Kennedy Kennedy Kennedy.  They’re trying to recruit Victoria Kennedy (Ted Kennedy’s widow) for the seat for 2012.  They actually tried to get her to run in 2010, but she refused – and she’s supposedly refusing now, but apparently the possible challengers to Scott Brown have already been collectively weighed by the state party, and found wanting. So there seems to be no better options for Massachusetts Democrats right now, which is as funny as it is unsurprising.

Now, the objective merits of a Victoria Kennedy candidacy can be argued – if you believe this Boston Globe puff piece, both she and her husband only used boats because walking on water takes too long to get anywhere – outside of the context of Massachusetts politics… in much the same way that a Jeb Bush 2012 Presidential candidacy can be objectively argued outside of the context of national politics.  Subjectively, however… this will hardly sound disinterested, but I can’t imagine that Massachusetts Democratic politicians are honestly enjoying the prospect of the ‘Kennedy seat’ surviving.  Scott Brown’s win earlier this year was the first time a Senate seat for MA changed hands in over a quarter of a century: does that state really lack for ambitious politicians who are tired of waiting for their chance*?

Moe Lane Continue reading Democratic 2012 Massachusetts strategy: Kennedy.

Barney Frank no longer hiding contempt for activist base.

So Rep. Barney Frank (D, MA) has told off progressives: he insists that they must only attempt to mount primary challenges to ‘conservative’ Democrats in districts where the Democrats have a lock on the seat anyway. If they don’t, well, apparently the response then is to suffer – or perhaps move: Rep. Frank didn’t say so, but it seems a logical enough alternative.  No, really, that’s what he said… while couching it in terms of going out in November and voting for the Democrats that they hate anyway:

“I said don’t defeat conservative Democrats in November . . . the place to do that is in the primary,” Frank said Friday in an interview. But Frank added his caveat that such a primary challenge should only come in districts where a more liberal candidate would win in November.

Now, putting aside the fact that this effectively restricts liberals to their current urban reservations ghettos enclaves (a seat with a ‘conservative’ Democrat in it is pretty much the definition of ‘at risk’ these days, and they won’t get less risky because of a successful primary challenge from the Left), the amazing thing about this statement is not that a Democratic, supposedly liberal politician is making it, or not even that he’s making it in public.  It’s that Rep. Frank felt perfectly comfortable telling that to the faces of a bunch of progressive activists.  It is fascinating to witness the sheer contempt that the Democratic party has towards its own base; for contrast, imagine what would happen if a conservative politician went to CPAC or the RedState Gathering to tell the activists found there that they must only primary challenge moderate Republican incumbents in districts where the GOP was going to win anyway.  Let me put it this way: the response would involve the words “rip,” “head,” “defecate,” and “neck.*” Continue reading Barney Frank no longer hiding contempt for activist base.