‘Regime,’ is it?

Slapdash, or scaredy-cat?  Does it matter?

The lack of self-respect in the Obama administration astounds me, sometimes.  From the (probably-now abortive) pushback on the call to shut down repatriating AQ terrorists to Yemen:

“I am aware of a lot of people pointing back at the way the transfers were handled under the Bush administration that apparently they have some concerns about that,” said the official, who had not seen the senators’ letter. “I didn’t hear many of those concerns at the time, but there were obviously hundreds and hundreds of detainees that were transferred under the old regime.”

The official hadn’t also seen Sen. Feinstein’s (D) own shared concern about said repatriation, which as Ed Morrissey notes is a serious problem for the drive to close Gitmo.  But never mind that, right now: what gives with all the unforced errors?  I mean, if this was an unintentional attempt to give offense, it’s pretty sloppy thinking; and if it was intentional, well, way to go with putting words in the administration’s mouth there, Sparky.  A true progressive would have had the elementary courage to put his or her Bush Derangement Syndrome on the record.

Well, either way I can’t say that I’m surprised.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

So, Maureen: if Obama is like Bush, and Obama is like Spock…

…does that mean that Bush was like Spock*?

Before he left for vacation, Obama tried to shed his Spock mien and juice up the empathy quotient on jobs. But in his usual inspiring/listless cycle, he once more appeared chilly in his response to the chilling episode on Flight 253, issuing bulletins through his press secretary and hitting the links. At least you have to seem concerned.

[snip]

In his detached way, Spock was letting us know that our besieged starship was not speeding into a safer new future, and that we still have to be scared.

Heck of a job, Barry.

I’d like to note for the record that Maureen Dowd could have cut the rest of her article and just published that.  Then again, she’d have missed out on all the reflexive Bush-bashing, convenient overlooking of the fact that the GOP is the minority party these days, and general complaining. Of course, if Dowd did she might have to face the fact that her basic message now about the God Who Failed is the same one that the Right was making last year…

Moe Lane

PS: That being said: that implied crack about the President’s ears is a little mean-spirited, Maureen.  Yes, yes, of course you weren’t talking about that.

Crossposted to RedState.

Continue reading So, Maureen: if Obama is like Bush, and Obama is like Spock…

The Mighty Scarlet Iowahawk Jumpsuit post.

So I was catching up on my Iowahawk reading, and was laughing at this post on the Mighty Scarlet Iowahawk Jumpsuit. In a perhaps unguarded moment, I mentioned to my wife how I couldn’t decide whether Iowahawk wanted the jumpsuit that his girlfriend got him, or whether this was an escalating War of Silly Presents situation. She replied:

It could be something in the middle. For example, he was ranting about jumpsuits for a week and a half…

– not that I speak from experience or anything –

…and she decided to buy him one because he’s so obsessed with them.

I have the vague, undefinable feeling that I somehow lost that particular one.  Which is odd, because I wasn’t even aware that I was playing.

Moe Lane

PS: And now she’s quietly embroidering.  Like a ninja.

Reihan Salam’s unfortunate use of the word ‘unfortunately.’

(H/T: Hot Air Headlines) This post was originally a whole lot ruder – but when you demolish a persona like this with one Freudian slip, jumping on it seems almost like gilding the lily.

But if the threat of terrorism really does become a major issue in the midterms, it will reinforce another trend that doesn’t bode well for Democrats. President Obama has never done well with working-class white voters, and Republicans expect to make gains in districts where they represent an above-average share of the electorate. But as Ron Brownstein recently noted in the National Journal —citing the work of Democratic pollster Geoff Garin—college-educated whites, a key Obama constituency, seem to be souring on the president. Many of these middle and upper-middle-class voters are growing skeptical of the president’s economic agenda, fearing that it will mean bigger tax hikes than they saw coming during last year’s campaign. Michael Petrilli of the conservative Hoover Institution has argued that the GOP needs to win over “Whole Foods Republicans,” who can’t stand the culture war but who fret about the exploding national debt. What better way to draw these voters into a bigger tent than to promise a smarter, tougher, more effective approach to keeping frequent fliers safe and secure?

Considering that the GOP presided over the Homeland Security mess for seven long years, Democrats have a decent counterattack. Unfortunately, Republicans will do their best to run candidates in swing districts who are untainted by the Bush years.

Bolding mine – and ye gods and little fishes, but that was one seriously unforced error there.  I mean, you tell me how to read that as anything except a fervent wish for conservative Republican candidates to lose the next election cycle.

Moe Lane

I keep reading the name of this wine as ‘Crisco*.’

Fifteen years ago, this paragraph might have actually convinced me to go out and buy some of this stuff.

In 1991, Cisco’s tendency to cause a temporary form of inebriated insanity led the Federal Trade Commission to require its bottlers to print a warning on the label (above right).  The FTC also forced them to drop their marketing slogan, “Takes You by Surprise,” even though it was entirely accurate.  Read the FTC’s full investigation on their own web page at this link.  Since those days, Cisco is harder to find outside the slums, although the FTC’s demonizing of the drink only bolstered its reputation for getting people trashed.  Anyone who overlooks the warning and confuses this with a casual wine cooler is going to get more than they bargained for.  Cisco will make a new man out of you.  And he wants some too.

This is why I am not really upset that I am not fifteen years younger.  I’m going to need every brain cell left that I’ve got.

Moe Lane

*Apparently the only thing not in it.

Hey, Pete Stark’s (D) under an ethics investigation!

You know Pete: he’s that crazy Democrat who goes around threatening to throw journalists out the window when he doesn’t like the questions.  He’s also that crazy Democrat who’ll take over for Charlie Rangel at Ways & Means if Rangel ever has to answer for his ethics violations, which is probably not the least reason why the Democrats haven’t thrown Rangel out of a metaphorical window of his own.  Anyway, Pete’s getting investigated:  the Washington Times is guessing tax evasion, real estate where-does-he-actually-live edition.

Yes.  You’re all shocked that a Democratic politician wasn’t paying his taxes.

This got reported back in March, mind you.  And they’re getting around to checking it out now.  But no doubt the federal government will be much quicker about having that suspicious dark spot in your next X-ray properly assessed.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Saw Sherlock Holmes.

And to answer Ken Hite’s last question: it was a perfectly good movie that hit a lot of of his – and my – buttons on the way past.  I liked it; Guy Ritchie took Sherlock Holmes seriously, and contra Ken (slightly) I thought Jude Law was better than Russell Crowe would have been.  Setting looked very believable, local tech level ditto, Downey/Law’s interaction with each other very good, and they managed to make this current film without using too many elements that will be needed for the next film.

So go ahead and see it in matinee, and definitely see it when it hits DVD.

If at first you don’t succeed…

(Via Instapundit) There’s a lot of meat in this post about How The System Worked, but what struck/disquieted me was this almost-casual observation:

Al Qaeda seems to have a lot of respect for US border security screening.  That’s why it is trying to commit terrorist attacks on US soil without actually entering the US.  Since border measures were strengthened after 9/11, al Qaeda has tried three separate plots using the same basic technique — get on a transatlantic flight and blow it up before it lands and before the terrorists are put through our border screening process.  Every plot has failed.  But if this doesn’t remind you of the successive World Trade Center attacks, you’re not paying attention.  They’ve got a schtick, and they’re going to keep using it until it works.

You ever hear what the IRA once told the British? “We only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky all the time.” That’s how terrorists think: stop them nineteen times and they’ll keep coming back for a twentieth bite at the apple.  That doesn’t mean that they can’t be deterred or suppressed; but you can’t do either by waiting for them to commit a crime and then arrest them all.  You do either by finding them and killing everybody who doesn’t surrender, and by detaining the ones who do so that you can interrogate them and get more intelligence about their compatriots still remaining alive and at liberty.

We don’t let cops do that in this country.  We don’t want cops to be able to do that in this country.  Given the way that the Left has indirectly encouraged this country’s growing acceptance of torture, one wonders why they seem so determined to also encourage the American people to think that it’s necessary to let cops be able to do that.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.