Great. Now the WH is stealing her *jokes*, too. #rsrh

They ain’t laughing with you, Sparky.

Gibbs.  Boychik.  When she did it, it was funny.

hi-mom

A quick response and a clever counter-taunt to the sexual attacks made on her by your side’s cheer-leading squad.  Makes it clear that said attacks will not be taken seriously without a word even being spoken. The Netroots hate not being taken seriously, so that works.

But when you (belatedly) do it?

Obama

You just look like a dweeb.  One who can’t even write your own material.

No wonder the press room groaned.

Moe Lane

John Brennan’s a little… touchy for his position, no? #rsrh

I was looking for fodder for a couple of light and fluffy posts, but I probably shouldn’t let this pass by without comment.

In an oped in USA Today, John Brennan — Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism — responds to critics of the Obama administration’s counterterrorism policies by saying “Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda.”

The title of the op-ed is “We need no lectures” – which, given the fact that this administration rather stupidly read a foreign terrorist his Miranda rights, and has been trying to wiggle out of the consequences of it ever since, is self-evidently not true – is ably enough pushed back on here and here by AoSHQ, so I’ll just repeat something that I’ve written before.  The oddity of the current administration is that it’s as if the Democrats went out and found somebody who was just like what they thought George W Bush was – only, in this case?

It’s all true.

Weird.

Moe Lane

Carol Shea-Porter (D, NH) in trouble.

There’s a lot of good news in this WMUR Granite State poll (as of this moment, we’re looking at retaining Gregg’s seat, and picking up both House seats), but Shea-Porter’s numbers are the most immediately interesting. 35/40 approval/disapproval (the worst she’s ever had); and she loses to all four hypothetical candidates:

In a race between Shea Porter and her best known challenger, Frank Guinta, 43% of likely 1st CD voters say they would vote for Guinta, 33% would vote for Shea Porter, 2% prefer some other candidate, and 22% are undecided.

In a matchup with Rich Ashooh, 36% of likely 1st CD voters say they would vote for Ashooh, 33% would vote for Shea Porter, 3% prefer some other candidate, and 28% are undecided.

In a matchup with Bob Bestani, 36% of likely 1st CD voters say they would vote for Bestani, 33% would vote for Shea Porter, 2% prefer some other candidate, and 30% are undecided.

And in a matchup with Sean Mahoney, 39% of likely 1st CD voters say they would vote for Mahoney, 32% would vote for Shea Porter, 1% prefer some other candidate, and 28% are undecided.

“Shea Porter does not break 40% against any of her challengers a sign that she faces an extremely difficult challenge to keep her seat,” said [Andrew Smith, Director of the UNH Survey Center].

Continue reading Carol Shea-Porter (D, NH) in trouble.

The GOP/White House ‘discussion’ on health care, simplified.

I’m going to sum this entire thing up, because the sooner we move past this the happier everybody’s going to be.

  • Republican Party* (in the person of House Republican Leader John Boehner & House Republican Whip Eric Cantor): Mr. President, you claim that you want bipartisan health care talks.  Do you have the moral courage to commit to junking this existing unpopular, hyper-partisan health care bill and start over from scratch, with a further commitment for transparency and against reconciliation?
  • White House** (in the person of Press Secretary Robert Gibbs): No.

And I think that should end it right there: Republican Members of the House of Representatives don’t debate press secretaries, either.

Moe Lane

*H/T: FireDogLake (I know, I know, but there was nothing offensive about this specific post).

**H/T: Hot Air Headlines.

Crossposted to RedState.

Health care rationing bill gets nuked from orbit.

It’s the only way to be sure.

OK, let’s walk through this.  Mind you, I’ve already declared this bill dead anyway.

With me so far?  Well, here are the two problems that the Democrats are now facing:

  • If the final version of the bill does not include the Stupak Amendment, Cao will not vote for it (and neither will Stupak), thus making the final vote 217-216 against and the bill not passing.  If the final version of the bill does include the Stupak Amendment, then every Democratic Senator is going to inundated with screaming progressives.  How could they resolve this?  By junking the Stupak amendment and making a vulnerable Democrat flip-flop on his previous vote.  In a year when it’s a bad idea to be a Democratic incumbent anyway.
  • The other problem is Abercrombie.  As Philip Klein and Ed Morrissey both noted, he’s supposed to be out the door at the end of the month in order to run for Governor of Hawaii.  He had also promised to stick around to get health care rationing passed.  The conditions of the special election to replace him – not to mention, the problems in delaying his formal gubernatorial run – are sufficiently complicated that breaking his word on the latter will probably cause him less problems in the long term.  So, after February 28th, that puts the regular vote down to 217-215 for, and 217-215 against if Stupak is not passed.  In that case, the Democrats need to flip two vulnerable Democrats (if the vote’s a tie, they lose).

Shorter Moe Lane: eight years of karma just caught up with the Democratic party, and it’s charging interest.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Tap-dancing.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to learn how: never got around to it.

That’s from Tap, and it’s 20 years old, depressingly. I remember seeing Sammy Davis Jr a few years before his death at a video awards show for something or other: they had just seen some younger folks perform, and it was his turn. The camera panned back, he looked down at his feet – and shouted down at them “WE’RE GONNA DANCE NOW!”  And damned if he didn’t.

That’s it.  I needed a break, and this will do.

Moe Lane