Sen. Grassley on Pres. Obama: He *means* well.

Which, as I’ve mentioned before, is probably the nastiest thing in English that you can say about a person.  Senator Grassley offered this superficially nice observation the other day:

“I think that he is a good person, and good-intentioned,” Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a radio interview. “But I believe he didn’t serve in government long enough to understand really how things work.”

“Remember, he was in the Senate four years, but effectively only two years because he spent two years where he was hardly ever here at all — he was campaigning for president,” Grassley said. “He really does not have an understanding of how Congress operates.”

…and, judging from the intemperate reaction from the Hill’s comments section, I’d say that he hit the target pretty dead on. There’s something darkly humorous about watching a group of people whose House leaders are all between seventy and eighty exhibit rank ageism…

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

This is not the Red State / Blue State divide, in pure form.

It’s what Rasmussen calls the Political Class / Mainstream America divide, in pure form. Via the Corner:

I don’t know if I can adequately describe the total disconnect that takes place here between the guy who gives away AK-47s (which, by the way, are by law going to be strictly semi-automatic weapons) with every truck purchase and the woman who simply cannot comprehend why the guy is giving away AK-47s with every truck purchase. Or why he visibly doesn’t give a tinker’s dam about the fact that she’s surprised that his store motto includes a direct reference to God. Or why the Jesus reference didn’t work. It was supposed to work, right?

But it isn’t a Republican thing. My (Democratic, union president) dad would have gotten the point immediately. He wouldn’t have bought a truck from the guy – as far as I can tell, two years in Korea (starting with Inchon, and going rapidly downhill from there) left him with a profound indifference to owning a gun ever again – and he probably would have mocked him a little… but he’d have understood where the guy was coming from.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Notorious Israel-hating Medal of Freedom recipient ‘not fully vetted’ by White House

Gee, you think?

Do you feel better for reading this?  Well, I certainly feel better for reading this:

A source has now indicated that she was not fully vetted, but that the White House feels that backing down at this point would make things worse.

See Israel Matzav for more.  Much more (this too, of course).  In other words, it turns out that apparently the reason why Mary Robinson – the woman responsible for the infamous Durban Let’s-Go-After-The-Jews Conference that we pulled out of, in sheer elemental revulsion – was signed off on for a Medal of Freedom was because nobody thought to do a thorough job at researching her history.  Presumably they were all busy doing… whatever it is that the White House staff does when they get to work every morning.  I can tell you one thing: I’m morally certain that whatever it is that they do do all day does not involve living in fear of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.  There wouldn’t be quite so many mistakes like these made, if they did.  Anyway, there’s something almost comforting in knowing that the traditional stereotype of the post-Cold War Democrat – which is, of course, that he or she is the Platonic Ideal of an ignoramus when it comes to foreign affairs – is one thing that this slapdash administration apparently does not Hope to Change.

I say “almost.”  I live here, remember?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Benign conspiracy theory watch: Martian monoliths.

At least, I can’t think off the top of my head why there should be anything particularly worrisome about people believing that there’s a large monolith on Mars.  Oh, sure, you could link it up to something vile – but by itself it’s pretty harmless.  There’s a monolith-shaped object on Mars.

Right there.

Standing tall, and… monolith-y.

Not falling over, or anything like that.

See what I mean?  If you want it to be about the Templars or the Jews, you sort of have to port it in.

(Via @allahpundit)

Moe Lane

PS: The Martian Enigmas: A Closer Look: The Face, Pyramids, and Other Unusual Objects on Mars Second Edition.  Only because there’s a Second Edition.

Dorwin Award*: Larry Sabato.

Watch this PJTV interview (via Instapundit), if you would.  The stuff on the Senate is very interesting – established wisdom this far out is that we’re looking at an incremental shift – but even more interesting is the fact that, when the issue came up about whether or not the GOP would take back the House in 2010, Dr. Sabato did everything except actually make a statement, one way or the other.  He’s careful to note that seats will probably be gained by the Republicans, but nothing more specific.

The ostensible reason is that it’s all based on Presidential approval ratings – which Dr. Sabato could at least extrapolate from, based on where the President is now.  Which he was unwilling to do: either because he doesn’t think that it’d result in a meaningful answer… or it’ll result in a meanignful answer that possibly may not be all that wonderful news for the current party in power.  Either way, no new real semantic content there.

Moe Lane

*Classical reference. See also here.  And, upon looking around, here as well.

Crossposted to RedState.

DNC to Blue Dogs: Sauve qui peut.

At this point, you’re probably wondering what the heck the DNC was thinking with running this ‘mob’ nonsense.

After all, it seems relatively harsh – not to mention, stupid – to categorize anywhere from 45% (adult votes, CNN) (H/T) to 52% (registered voters, Quinnipiac) (H/T) of the population who have problems with either the entire policy, or the way that the Democrats are presenting it, as a “mob.”  Mobs break things.  These folks are just ticked off voters – and judging from the age levels we’re seeing in the pictures and videos, they’re ticked-off older voters.  That demographic turns out for elections, and the Democrats are openly calling them names.  What gives?

What gives is that a lot of those ticked-off voters live in districts that do not normally concern Democratic strategists.  It’s one thing to have a town hall erupt in vigorous dissent in all of those swing districts; entirely another one to have it happen in areas that matter. With “matter” being defined as “have an impact on the Democratic leadership’s individual races.”  Those areas need to be shored up, and while demonizing one’s opponents doesn’t help you with moderate voters it’s an excellent way to reinforce your appeal to partisan Democrats.  As for the Blue Dogs… well, the Democrats do have got a really big padding in the House.  What does Nancy Pelosi care if she only has a, say, ten vote majority?  She still has the gavel and the title, doesn’t she? So let the ‘conservative’ Democrats eat cake.

Which was, by the way, the stuff that was left over when you baked bread: you rolled it up and shoved it on the baking pan so that the loaves didn’t get dislodged.  The metaphor actually works better that way, in fact.

Moe Lane

PS: Alternatively, you can listen to the critique of Senator Barbara Boxer, who thinks that… I’m not sure what she thinks, but it apparently involves clothing choices.  And Ronald Reagan!  And Al Gore!

I understand that the NRSC had some choice words in response; I look forward to reading them in full.

Crossposted to RedState.

Quote of the Day, Jim Geraghty / BOOMSTICK edition.

From his Twitter:

It seems some lawmakers believe a “listening tour” begins with them saying, “alright, rabble, now shut up and listen.“

The most depressing part? They’re being depressingly stodgy about it, too. This would have been so much cooler:

Boomstick

(Army of Darkness)

Ach, well, it’s not like anybody ever accused the Democratic party of being particularly creative anyway.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

A self-indulgent personal blog post. Oreos are involved.

So my wife tells me as she’s leaving that she has pulled a William Carlos Williams and had the last of the Oreos*.  Which is fine; she’s getting to the end of her second trimester.  Pregnant women get first dibs on the Oreos**.

So I’m in the kitchen getting myself a cup of coffee, and I pick up the container of Oreos and shake it, knowing full well that there aren’t any cookies in there, but you have to check – and damned if a cookie didn’t slide down the internal sleeve to serve as my demented American version of biscotti.

No further message; if I try to make this into something more profound people will throw rocks at my door, I’m sure of it.

Moe Lane

*Disturbingly, Amazon had a link for “Used and new” Oreos.

**It’s in the Constitution, actually.