Comparing the Guinta / Shea-Porter methodologies.

How current House Representative Carol Shea-Porter (D, NH-01) handles somebody who wants to talk about a solution to the health care problem.


(Via Now Hampshire)

Contempt, mockery, and taking the side of a smirking SEIU goon.

How challenger Frank Guinta (R) handles somebody who wants to talk about a solution to the health care problem.


(Via Hot Air)

Respect, politeness, and taking the side of the citizens of New Hampshire’s First District.

I know which method I’d prefer. How about you?

Moe Lane

PS: Frank Guinta for Congress.

Crossposted to RedState.

Release the Scottish Lockerbie Letters!

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: when I first read Gateway Pundit’s post that the Obama administration was in contact in June with the Scottish government over the Lockerbie bomber, I ended up shrugging.  The Boston Globe’s article suggested that AG Eric Holder was arguing against letting Abdel Baset al-Megrahi go, after all – which was what you’d want the American government to do.  And unless we wanted to start a war with Great Britain, or wreck relations with them utterly, there was a sharp upper limit to what the American government could do to stop the release.  Absent actual evidence that we helped facilitate the release, it’s not something to club the administration over.

On the other hand: if we didn’t help facilitate the release, then why are we putting a freeze on releasing our correspondence with the Scottish government?

The Scottish government told FOX News Tuesday that the U.S. government refuses to allow them to release details of any communication between Scotland and the U.S. over al-Megrahi’s release.

A source with the Scottish government, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the demand was made in a letter sent Tuesday from U.S. Embassy Chief of Mission Richard LeBaron.

This is a serious question: we already have at least one Senator countering (via AmSpec) with a threat of sanctions against Great Britain on this matter.  It’d be kind of helpful to be able to prove that the British & Scottish weren’t doing it because we told them privately that it was all right if they did.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Obama hates the media and wants them all to die in a fire.

Failing that, he’ll just have Organizing for America use them as a fundraising foil.

Yes. Foil. Greg Sargent:

This has to be the Obama camp’s most direct and premeditated shot at the media yet: His outside political operation just blasted an email to supporters directly faulting the press for falling down on the job of debunking health care “lies.”

The email from Organizing for America, which was forwarded by a reader, is obviously not addressed to the media and explicitly focuses blames on the press for the traction that reform foes have gained. Hitting the media riles the base, and the email also asks for donations to fund OFA, because “stepping in where the media fails is a daunting challenge.”

(Copy of email here)

Glenn Reynolds (H/T) thinks this is the current administration running through the arc of the last administration’s second term at double speed: I think that it’s a natural result of the Democrats going out and finding a left-wing duplicate not of George W Bush, but of their flawed and partisan perception of George W Bush. The two views are probably not incompatible, of course. It’s also kind of funny to see Sargent’s self-consciously understated disapproval; reading between the lines, he’s as affronted as a cat being served kibble instead of tuna – but his own comments section is highly sympathetic to the ‘right-wing media’ fundraising ploy, so he can’t show it too plainly…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Obama retreats from fight on ‘public option.’

I wonder what else he’s planning to give up?

Aides to President Barack Obama are putting the final touches on a new strategy to help Democrats recover from a brutal August recess by specifying what Obama wants to see in a compromise health care deal and directly confronting other trouble spots, West Wing officials tell POLITICO.

Obama is considering detailing his health-care demands in a major speech as soon as next week, when Congress returns from the August recess. And although House leaders have said their members will demand the inclusion of a public insurance option, Obama has no plans to insist on it himself, the officials said.

“We’re entering a new season,” senior adviser David Axelrod said in a telephone interview. “It’s time to synthesize and harmonize these strands and get this done. We’re confident that we can do that. But obviously it is a different phase. We’re going to approach it in a different way. The president is going to be very active.”

(H/T: Drudge) I look forward to seeing whatever plan the President’s committee of aides put together for him to push on Congress, of course. It’ll almost certainly be a platitudinous, amorphous piece of stitched-together fluff that will satisfy nobody and lecture everyone on the planet – at least, based on past experience – but at least we’ll finally have gotten the White House to actually think about and discuss what changes in health care policy the executive branch would like to see. Letting the liberal Democratic leadership in Congress do it for the President was a serious error: it’s about time that he puts his personal stamp on an actual, ‘official’ plan. In other words: it’s nice that the administration is finally taking health care reform seriously, and we look forward to seeing its tentative plan.

After we hack out all the bits of said plan that are just stupid, of course.  And make sure that various concessions are made.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

I give it a 8 for style, 6 for execution.

I take two points off the style for the profanity: a little is fine, but after the fourth bleeped-out word you’re being derivative. As for execution… the hoe was a nice touch, but if you hit a camera with one I expect to see pieces fly.

What? No, I didn’t take points off because people didn’t get hurt. That’s just sick; you don’t want people to actually get hurt in these things. No, I took points off because she didn’t go after the second camera, too.

Spitzer considering Senate run? …No, really?

(Via Hot Air) Did you miss Eliot Spitzer?  He misses you.

heeeesback

Admittedly, that might be only because he’s possibly aiming at Senator Gillibrand:

Disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has been privately talking with friends about a possible comeback, and is considering a run for statewide office next year, several sources told The Post.

Less than 18 months after he left Albany in a prostitution scandal, Spitzer has held informal discussions in recent weeks about the possibility of making a bid for state comptroller or the US Senate seat currently held by Kirsten Gillibrand, sources said.

Continue reading Spitzer considering Senate run? …No, really?